'So I understand. Then he came back a while later. He told me he needed more money. We finally put things on a business basis. So much a month.'
'How much?'
'Two thousand dollars a month.'
'You could afford that.'
'Not all that easily.' He managed a small smile. 'I was hoping I could find a way to deduct it, you know.
Charge it to the business in some fashion.'
'Did you find a way?'
'No. Why are you asking all this? Trying to determine just how much you can squeeze out of me?'
'No.'
'This whole conversation,' he said suddenly. 'There's something wrong with it. You don't seem like a blackmailer.'
'How so?'
'I don't know. That man was a weasel, he was calculating, slimy. You're calculating, but in a different way.'
'It takes all kinds.'
He stood up. 'I won't go on paying indefinitely,' he said. 'I can't live with a sword hanging over me.
Damn it, I shouldn't have to.'
'We'll work something out.'
'I don't want my daughter's life ruined. But I won't be bled to death.'
I picked up the silver dollar and put it in my pocket. I couldn't make myself believe he had killed the Spinner, but at the same time I couldn't positively rule him out, and I was getting sick of the role I was playing. I pushed my chair back and got to my feet.
'Well?'
'I'll be in touch,' I said.
'How much is it going to cost me?'
'I don't know.'
'I'll pay you what I paid him. I won't pay any more than that.'
'And how long will you pay me? Forever?'
'I don't understand.'
'Maybe I can figure out something that'll make us both happy,' I said. 'I'll let you know when I do.'
'If you mean a single large payment, how could I trust you?'
'That's one of the things that has to be worked out,' I said. 'You'll hear from me.'
Chapter 5
I had arranged to meet Beverly Ethridge in the bar at the Hotel Pierre at seven o'clock. From Prager's office I walked to another bar, one on Madison Avenue. It turned out to be a hangout for advertising people, and the noise level was high and the tension unsettling. I had some bourbon and left.
On my way upFifth Avenue , I stopped atSt. Thomas 's and slipped into a pew. I discovered churches not long after I left the force and moved away from Anita and the boys. I don't know what it is about them, exactly. They are about the only place inNew York where a person has room to think, but I'm not sure that's their sole attraction for me. It seems logical to assume that there's some sort of personal quest involved, although I've no real idea what it might be. I don't pray. I don't think I believe in anything.
But they are perfect places to sit and think things out. I sat inSt. Thomas 's and thought about Henry Prager for a while. The thoughts didn't lead anywhere in particular. If he'd had a more expressive and less guarded face, I might have learned something one way or the other. He had done nothing to give himself away, but if he had been clever enough to nail the Spinner when the Spinner was already on guard, he'd be clever enough to give damned little away to me.
I had trouble seeing him as a murderer. At the same time, I had trouble seeing him as a blackmail victim.
He didn't know it, and it was hardly time for me to tell him, but he should have told Spinner to take his dirt and shove it. So much money gets spread around to brush so many crimes under various rugs that no one really had anything resembling a hold on him. His daughter had committed a crime a couple of years ago. A really tough prosecutor might have gone for vehicular homicide, but more likely the charge would have been involuntary manslaughter and the sentence would have been suspended. Given those facts, there was really nothing much that could happen to her or to him this long after the fact. There might be a touch of scandal involved, but not enough to ruin either his business or his daughter's life.
So on the surface he had little motive for paying Spinner off, and less for killing him. Unless there was more to it than I knew about.
Three of them, Prager and Ethridge and Huysendahl, and they had all been paying silence money to Spinner until one of them decided to make the silence permanent. All I had to do was find out which was which.
