talking.
'Think about it, Tobias. You're being loyal to a dead man who could have cared less about you. You're just an employee.' That was one of those moments, when I immediately wanted to retract my words-a nanosecond of realization that I had gone too far. The gun roared. I flinched and felt the bullet slap me in the right side. My legs turned to rubber and I dropped on my face.
'Now for that fucking baby, it was all that baby! I say we leave it-dead-for the bastards. They killed Richie! A life for a life.' I could just see from my position, Tobias had turned his gun back on the baby. 'Just because of that god-damned baby!' I made a vain attempt to grab my gun. It was under me. He fired, then his eyes flashed wide. Van Reydner stood between him and the bassinet. A star of red, the same color as her hair had appeared between her breasts-a death mark. A tiny trickle of blood ran toward her navel. She looked down, genuinely surprised.
'Jan!' Tobias took a step forward, pain crossed his features then he leveled the gun at the bassinet.
'God, I'm…' Van Reydner dropped to one knee, still balanced against the bed. 'I'm…'
I grabbed my gun and shot from the floor. I even had time to brace my arms and take a breath. I squeezed three into Tobias' head and kicked his body down with a couple of bullets to the chest. What was left of him fell twitching in the doorway. I stuffed a fist into the hole in my side, and grunting against the pain, struggled to my feet. My head swam, but I lurched over to Van Reydner. As she fell her robe had fallen open. She was arranged beautifully over the bed. Her hair had formed a fiery halo. The baby was crying. I looked at Van Reydner again. She could have looked like that for eternity, like an angel. She could have had anything she wanted, if only she hadn't wanted it so soon. But she got greedy. Her last words I'm sure were going to be: 'I'm dead.' The universal capitulation of the human race: I'm dead, free from trouble. I'm dead, free from worry. I'm dead, no more pain. But her troubles had just begun. Now she could spend her days watching her natural beauty wilt, desiccate, whither, then she could spend her eternity as a corpse, ugly, hag-like. Human law, no, Van Reydner. Justice with an ironic twist that only our warped creator could appreciate. The fact that she was a beautiful woman without scruples put her in this room. The fact that she was a woman made her take a bullet for the baby. Again, I resisted the urge to vomit. The baby had stopped crying and was watching me. It tried to smile. I was glad mine was painted on, because I didn't have one in me.
I suddenly lost my nerve. I couldn't play with the baby's life on a hunch. A hunch wasn't a hundred per cent. And the little kid laughing at me deserved a hundred per cent. I faked a grin at him, and got close. I saw there was a soother beside it. I stuck it into the slushy part of its face, then hushed it, and closed the bassinet. I had to get him back to his mother. If my hunch proved right, law was on the way. But they might not be bringing justice. I knew the only justice I was going to hand out in this case was when I handed this baby back to its mother.
I hurried painfully out of the room, stepping over Tobias' wriggling corpse, then ran down the stairs and out of the mansion. I stumbled while crossing the courtyard-almost passed out, then climbed slowly to my feet and staggered to the car. I was soon on the highway back to Greasetown. I opened the case. A breeze pulled at the baby's dark hair and it giggled.
Chapter 66
An Authority squad car was parked outside the building as we drove up. I got out of the Chrysler, and poked my head back in the window.
'Plenty of sauerkraut on the fishdogs, Elmo. And get a mickey of CC too, and some cigarettes.' I had already ordered a tall bottle, and in a festive mood, decided to replace the emergency bottle I kept in the back of my chair. I also wanted Elmo out of the office for a while, so I could think. It was four-thirty in the morning-late-but I was expecting a visitor.
An hour and a half before, we had dropped Julie Hawksbridge and her baby off at her brother's. There were tears and happiness. The baby was growing the Hawksbridge nose it seemed. After a short explanation, I warned Robert in no uncertain terms to take them and get them away from Greasetown. It was pleasing to see the bored malaise of wealth melt away from Hawksbridge's face to be replaced by a great white hunter look of determination-nothing new of course: I had already seen it on his sister. It was apparent to me that Uncle Hank wasn't the only Hawksbridge with blood. A grateful kiss from the beautiful mother, and I almost collapsed. The bullet wound in my side had stopped bleeding long before, but I still felt weak. Since returning to Greasetown, I had been having a love-hate relationship with floors. I was drawn to them. I knew it would hurt to get close, but love was like that. Elmo had done another quick bandage job on me before we left the Berlinz-Tobias' gun had been a low caliber job, and the bullet had gone right through. I needed a couple of stitches; but for the time being, I would survive.
We then headed to Grey's office. By now the superintendent had taken to leaving the door unlocked. Once there, I telephoned Mrs. Cotton. After the usual angry banter with Edward the attack butler, I had her on the phone.
'Well, what have you found out?' She seemed slightly annoyed, as though life had been moving on for her, and she was beginning to find the past an unpleasant anchor.
'I know what happened to Alan, and why. It turns out that he may have been unscrupulous as hell, but he had a heart, in the end. If that means anything.'
'I'm sitting down,' she had said. 'Tell me what happened.'
It took me six cigarettes, three cups of coffee and a sandwich to explain the unpleasant life, times, business attachments and demise of Alan Cotton. I purposefully neglected the part about the baby. The kid was going to have a tough enough time trying to make it to adulthood without people like Mrs. Cotton and Edward the butler knowing about him. I knew it wasn't fair to my client, but I had already broken all the other detective rules of etiquette. Besides, she didn't have a stake in it now. Her husband was dead, I told her who killed him. I got a little creative with the story. Cotton had had a change of heart. He was killed at the Morocco while trying to get help for the Hawksbridge woman-not his baby. I told her Regenerics was a failure after all. While I talked, Elmo sat in the waiting room engrossed in the old magazines.
'Well, where do we go from here?' She had asked. Somewhere in the telling of the tale she had begun and finished crying. Her voice was hard and tired by the end. 'Is there anyone we can tell?'
'No.' I told her, 'I'm almost certain you won't hear about anyone going to jail for murder.'
She didn't like that. 'The criminals-they won't pay? What will happen to them?'
'I guess, about everyone involved has paid.' I could remember looking at my hands then, and thinking of all the horrible things they had been doing. 'Everybody paid. They're beyond justice, or, well…let's say that many of those involved will be learning to live with justice.' I thought of Van Reydner then.
'Your fee, Mr. Wildclown. You have done an excellent job.' Her voice had a sudden business tone to it.
'It's fine. A check for another week will do. It's Monday.'
'What did we agree on?'
'Very little if I remember.' I had to congratulate myself. My wit was coming back.
'I'm very grateful. I'd like to make it all worth your while. And, to be honest, I'd like to put it behind me.'
I shook my head then. She couldn't see me do it, but I shook it anyway. Mrs. Cotton wanted to buy silence, a strange commodity to truck in. But these days, money worked better than bullets.
'Three grand.' I had wanted to say five, or ten, but something inside me was repulsed by the whole idea. In fact, I wanted to wash my hands of the case as well. My magnanimity might also have come from the check in my pocket. Robert Hawksbridge had cut me one for twenty-five grand. I had to talk him down at that. The reward for Julie's return was fifty thousand, after all.
After I hung up on Mrs. Cotton, I had phoned the Gazette, and told them to give a message to Mary Redding that I would meet her at my office in half an hour.
I looked at the Authority squad car. A pair of inspectors looked at me over their magazines. They were right across the street growing nervous as I stared. I smiled, realizing I had been completely lost in reverie on the sidewalk. My eyes had glazed over, but were pointed at them. I turned and walked up the steps to my office. A sour reek was in the hall. The accountants were burning hamburger or branding cattle again.
I unlocked the door-Elmo was so efficient, he needed a raise-walked through the waiting room and into my
