It was Joyce.
“You weren’t supposed to call,” I said. “We aren’t supposed to get in touch with each other.”
“I know.”
“So what’s it all about?”
“I have to see you, Wizard. There are some things I have to talk about with you.”
“Go ahead.”
“Not on the phone. In person.”
“I don’t like it,” I said. “It’s no good if people see us together, find out we’re spending any time with each other. We’re not airtight, you know. All they have to do is start checking me and the fat’s in every fire in town.”
“You mean your background?” Joyce said.
“To hell with my background. Give that clerk at the Glade two looks at me and he’ll recognize me as Milani. We’re safe as long as they don’t check us. That’s all.”
“I know,” Joyce said. “But there’s nothing suspicious about a man’s good friend coming to see his wife in her hour of need. Sy and Harold were over yesterday. It would look even worse if you don’t come, you know. As though we were staying apart for a reason.”
That made strong sense. I straightened up my clothes and combed my hair. I hurried the Ford over to her house and parked in front. She opened the door before I could hit the bell. I started to say something but she motioned me inside, shut the door. She didn’t look good. Her face was drawn and her eyes were a little bloodshot, as though she had been drinking or as though she hadn’t slept much lately.
“Why, Bill,” she said. “It’s—nice of you to come. Can I get you anything to drink?”
There was a girl curled up in an armchair in front the television set. She was reading a book and ignoring the set. She glanced up at us and smiled.
“You’ve met Jenny,” Joyce said, “haven’t you?”
“I don’t believe I have.”
Joyce introduced me to the girl. Jenny was about seventeen, dark-haired and pretty. She had Murray’s features but they were softer on the female model.
“Daddy used to talk about you all the time, Mr. Maynard,” she said. “Gee, isn’t it awful?”
“It certainly is.”
She stood up from the chair, shaking her head bitterly. “Somebody must have framed Daddy,” she said. “Don’t you think so?”
“I guess so,” I said.
Her face clouded. “Because he couldn’t have—couldn’t have—killed somebody—”
She stopped talking. Her eyes closed, blinked, opened. She forced a smile to her lips, then shrugged her narrow shoulders. “I’ll let you and Joyce talk, Mr. Maynard. It’s been very nice meeting you.”
We stood there, silent, while she dejectedly quit the room. Her bedroom door closed with a bang. Joyce was shaking now and her eyes kept darting around aimlessly. I put a hand on her shoulder to steady her and she sagged against me, limp as a eunuch. I caught her, made her sit down.
“There’s a bottle of scotch in the bar,” she said, pointing. “I need some.”
“Ice?”
“Just scotch in a glass.”
I poured scotch into a glass and took it over to her. Joyce drank off half of it and put the glass down on the coffee table. I gave her a cigarette, lit it for her. She took two drags. Then she had some more of the scotch.
I said, “What’s it all about?”
“He’s coming home, Bill.”
“Murray?”
“Yes.”
“But—”
“His lawyer, Nester, was over here a few hours ago,” she said. “He was very pleased with himself. He managed to make a deal with the district attorney. The charge is being reduced to second-degree murder and Murray will be out on bail by Monday morning.”
“He’s copping a plea?”
“Not exactly. Murray will plead guilty by reason of temporary insanity. There will still be a trial. Nester thinks he can win it.”
I lit a cigarette. “I don’t understand,” I said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know.”
“Because he can’t plead guilty, damn it! He can’t tell what tax fraud he’s guilty of and he can’t explain what he did with Milani’s body. I don’t get it at all.”
“That’s why I’m worried, Wizard.”
She started to say something else, then stopped short. A door opened somewhere in the rear of the house. We listened to footsteps, and Jenny stepped into the room. She looked as though she had been crying, but she had herself under control now. She had changed to a black skirt and sweater and she had a book under her arm.
“I was thinking of going out for a little while,” she said. “You don’t mind, do you, Joyce?”
Joyce said she didn’t mind. The girl said goodbye to us and left. I thought how hard it must have been on her. Her circle would be giving her a rough time now. And everything would be just wild confusion, a parade of frightening events that could make no sense at all to her.
“Wizard? I don’t think he’s going to plead guilty.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know Murray,” she said. “I think he went along with Nester because he wanted to get out of jail. Murray can’t expect to get by with a plea without answering a lot of questions that he can’t answer. I think he’s got something planned.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. He might want to leave the country. He’s not young, you know. Even if he got off with a few years in jail, that would be too much for him. I don’t think he’d be willing to settle for even a short prison sentence.”
“Where would he go?”
“South America, probably. You can buy citizenship down there if you have the money. And he could raise the money in a day. He could get out of jail on Monday and catch a plane Tuesday.”
She knew him better than I did. Maybe she was right. Maybe he would run like that, make a quick dash for freedom. It didn’t seem too logical to me, didn’t seem in character with what I knew of Murray. And yet he was in a bind—maybe running was the only way open.
“Suppose he does that,” Joyce said. “Where does that leave me?”
“Sitting pretty.”
“Why?”
“Because when you divorce a fugitive you get every cent he has.”
She shook her head impatiently. “You don’t understand. He’ll want me to go with him, me and the girls. I don’t want to spend my life with him in Brazil.”
“You might like Brazil, Joyce.”
“Damn it—”
“Easy,” I said. “It’s no problem. You tell him to go by himself. He travels faster who travels alone, that old bit. You can always join him later. They can’t hold you, you know. Once he’s out of the country, you just forget about joining him. It’s that simple.”
She didn’t answer me. There was something on her mind that struck deeper than her husband’s possible plans for leaving the country. I sat down next to her, took hold of her shoulder.
“All right,” I said. “Tell me what it’s all about.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Give, Joyce.”
“He’s having me followed,” she said.
The rest of it was blurted out. Men had been following her, she was sure; men had been watching the house
