“Go to hell!” He turned away from me. At the door, he warned me that the Better Business Bureau was going to hear about me. Then he damn near broke the glass in the door slamming it.
Ten O’Clock was mulling things over, but I guess she just had a longer fuse. “I’m going to talk to my congressman about you,” she said as she got up to leave. “People with your attitude shouldn’t be allowed to do business!”
It doesn’t do to have folks upset with you, but I couldn’t afford to keep Morton waiting. Morton was the attorney for Joel Ekleberg, and was looking for someone to carry out some investigative work for his client. I wanted the case and I wasn’t about to risk it for a couple of nickel and dime jobs.
For those of you who have been out of town or in a coma for the last six weeks, Joel Ekleberg is an investment banker currently being held for the strangulation murders of his wife and a female friend. What has made this such a whiz-bang deal in the papers is the gossip linking the late Mrs. Ekleberg to several state politicians. No matter how it resolves itself, it looks like quite a story, one the Examiner would be thankful to get.
I joined Morton in the office. Morton’s a square-jawed, smug little bastard. His old man bought him a law partnership when he was thirty-five and that only made him all the more smug. He asked what the commotion was about.
“Just giving some folks a lesson on American business.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“The little guy gets screwed every time.”
He smirked at that, then took out a cigar, bit off the end and clamped it in his mouth. “If I hire you, you’re going to write this case up for your paper, right?” he asked, lighting the cigar with a solid gold lighter the shape of a Ferrari.
“I’m planning to.”
“You’ve got yourself a job, then.”
For the next ten minutes he gave me a rundown of the facts and a list of what he wanted me to do. When he was done, I asked him what he thought.
“About what?”
“Did your client do it?”
“I dunno, maybe.” He scowled. “How the hell am I supposed to know? Just make sure you get my name spelled right. And work my phone number in, okay?”
We shook hands, and he reminded me again about getting his name spelled right. I made a mental note to forget the ‘t’ from his last name. Somehow it seemed more appropriate.
I would have liked to have handled the Ekleberg case myself, but with all the problems dragging on me, that just didn’t seem possible. I made a few phone calls, found that Jimmy Tobbler was available, and hired him to handle it.
With having skipped breakfast, my stomach was feeling as dried out as a prune pit. I was about to head out for some lunch when the phone rang.
It was Mary, but it also wasn’t, if you get me. At least, it wasn’t the little gal who had idolized me before. She was all business, and talked to me as if we had never laid eyes on each other. She not only wanted to know my progress, but also wanted a written report on everything I had done and everything I was planning to do. My heart dropped when she asked for that. She had lost faith in me quicker than anyone could have reasonably expected.
At this point, it would seem if I had any sense, I’d tell Mary about Rose, right? Well, there was only one small problem. And it wasn’t the way it would hit Rose. I mean, she was an adult and if she couldn’t accept the consequences of her actions that was just too bad. And Mary? I guess it would be a shame for her to feel badly towards me. I wouldn’t like it, but that still wouldn’t be any reason to be tripping all over myself. At least not if that was all there was to it. And of course it wasn’t.
* * * * *
Walt Murphy should’ve died the way I already explained. It should’ve happened that way because that’s how everyone believes it happened- my loyal readers, the police, the newspapers. Everyone, except maybe Rose. That version also makes a hell of a lot more sense than what really happened.
It’s kind of funny, but I still don’t understand why I did what I did. At least not entirely. Then again, I don’t spend much time thinking about it. It doesn’t do me any good and it’s much better for me to think about it the other way.
But the real way-Jesus! With that crazy bastard telling me how he knows his wife is cheating on him. And me sitting there wanting to puke my stomach out. I mean, the guy knows his wife is playing around and he doesn’t care. The son of a bitch just wants to make her stop. Thinking if I take pictures of her in the act he can use them to make her stop.
Listening to him was just so damn funny, so damn sad. I wanted to laugh, to reach out and strike his stupid idiotic face. I tried not to do anything. I tried to sit there and smile and nod my head. But I couldn’t. Before I knew it, the sickness was taking me over, suffocating me in a red haze of fury. When the sickness does that, there’s really nothing to do but let it happen. I took my gun from the desk drawer and pointed it at him and waited and . . . .
He did grab the gun away from me. That part was true; we fought over the gun. He was smaller than me and soft-looking and it didn’t look like I would have much trouble getting my gun back from him. I guess I knew a struggle wasn’t going to help him much, but it was sure going to help me.
Who would have believed me if there wasn’t any evidence of a struggle? And the bruises he gave me really didn’t matter for anything except they helped convince the cops that the way I explained it was the way it had to have been, as crazy as it sounded, because nothing else made a damn bit of sense.
At first the cops didn’t want to believe me. They kept asking questions, the same ones again and again. The one they were stuck on was why the coroner said that over an hour elapsed between the stomach and head wounds.
It was a pretty good question. If the shots were fired while we were fighting over the gun both wounds would’ve happened at about the same time. There wasn’t much I could say except that a mistake must have been made.
They didn’t like my answer. They’d probably still be grilling me if the coroner hadn’t admitted that there was a chance he was wrong. When there was this much blood, it can be difficult to narrow down exact times, he conceded. Murphy’s death could’ve happened the way I explained it.
Real smart guy, but he should have stuck with his gut feelings. He was right, a hundred percent right. Although I don’t think that much time could have elapsed, no more than half an hour. At least I don’t think so.
What I do know is when I shot him in the belly and he collapsed on the floor and started begging me for help, well it was all just so funny, so sad, so goddamn pointless that it made me start thinking of other things. I forgot he was there. That probably sounds nuts, a guy bleeding to death because I gutted him and then me forgetting all about him. But that’s what happened.
I remember sitting at my desk, pouring a couple of drinks (no more than a third of a bottle), and trying to clear my head. All the time with the poor bastard right there, blubbering for help. God knows what he must have thought of me.
When I did notice him it shocked me. I can blame my gray hair on that. How was I going to explain this? And then I realized how the shooting had to turn out. The way it was going to become, for if he was dead, why wouldn’t it be that way?
I got up and blew the top of his head off.
I was lucky. No one heard the first shot, the one to the belly. Otherwise the police would have been called long before I called them, and well, you know how all this turned out.
So you see why I couldn’t afford to let Mary meet with Rose. She might just end up guessing the truth and I couldn’t take that chance. Even if it was only a one in a thousand chance, how could I risk it?
Anyway, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Mary would figure out what happened. Maybe she would have her doubts at first, but as soon as she saw me, she would know the truth. She’d see right into me. It somehow didn’t seem right to have to live dreading a thing like that. I just didn’t see how I could.
* * * * *
I sat back and gave the matter some thought. When I was through thinking, I called Jerry Bry and told him
