wanted to tell me about it.
“Nothing much to tell,” he said. “I was a party to a very large case of tax evasion. It involved a couple of real estate deals, and the end result was that the government got screwed out of close to two million dollars in income taxes. Milani knew about it, God knows how. He had proof. He could reach the Internal Revenue boys and make things very rough for us. What I did was out-and-out criminal, Bill. It meant a heavy fine and a jail sentence no matter how you looked at it.”
“I see.”
“So Milani tried blackmailing me,” Murray continued. “I tried to dodge him but he had me over a barrel. Finally I paid him off, sent the money over to his hotel. He was greedy. He had a perfect fish on his hook and he wasn’t going to stop with one payment. On Monday I went to see him. I was just going to argue with him, try to make him see I couldn’t afford to contribute to a private fund for the enrichment of August Milani for the rest of my life. I had no intention of killing him. It happened by itself, or at least it seemed to. We started arguing. I grabbed him by the throat. He pulled a gun on me. I took it away from him and—I shot him.”
He said all this very sincerely, very convincingly. If I hadn’t known better I would have believed him without thinking twice about it.
“The body,” I said. “What did you do with it?”
“Dragged it through the alley, stuffed it into my car and drove to the lake shore. I stuffed his clothing with rocks and lead pipe and tossed him in. I barely remember that part. I was in a fog from the moment I shot him. Everything’s very fuzzy. I meant to throw the pillowcase in with him but I forgot. So I wound up stuffing it in my own garbage can.”
“And the gun?”
“In the lake.”
I dropped my cigarette on the floor, covered it with my shoe. “Jesus,” I said. “What happens to you now?”
“I don’t know, Bill. At the worst they’ll call it manslaughter of one degree or another. With luck it will go as temporary insanity—that’s what we’re trying for. Nester’s a good man. He says we have about a sixty percent chance of getting off scot-free.”
“And the tax evasion?”
“No problem there,” he said. “I could tell the Treasury Department agents about it, but I don’t intend to. And they can’t force me, because I can always take the fifth amendment to avoid incriminating myself. Milani had information, but Milani is dead now.”
“Can they trace him?”
“Evidently not. The police have been trying, naturally. Milani probably isn’t even his right name. They can’t find any record of a man by that name and they couldn’t lift any fingerprints from the room at the Glade. The police know I was mixed up in something very crooked but they don’t have a case until they know something about it. And they’ll never find out a thing. I won’t tell them, my associates won’t tell them, and Milani can’t tell them.”
“Then you’re in pretty good shape,” I said.
“It could be a lot worse, Bill.”
“How do you feel about it?”
He stood up, paced the floor with his hands clasped behind his back. “Not so good and not so bad,” he said slowly. “I was a wreck at first. The whole concept of murder—well, it gets to you. Were you in combat?”
“No.”
“Neither was I. I was just old enough to go into a defense plant during the Second World War. Later on I did government tax work. I suppose it would be different for someone who saw combat, someone who killed men in the line of duty. But I never killed anyone before Milani, never witnessed a violent death. The idea of homicide took a little getting used to. I’m used to it now.”
“Uh-huh.”
He sighed. “It means a change in my living pattern,” he went on. “I’ve got the mark of Cain now. I don’t imagine we can go on living in this town, not very comfortably.” He smiled softly. “Maybe we’ll travel, Bill. Joyce has always wanted to travel, though she’s never pressed the point. I think she feels cramped in a town like this one. She’s used to a more sophisticated environment. I can afford to retire. Maybe we’ll try traveling until everything cools off.”
Our ten minutes were up, and with interest. The guard came back, an apologetic look on his face, and told me I’d have to be going now. I shook hands with Murray and he pumped my arm.
“It’s funny,” he said. “I couldn’t tell this to anyone else, not so easily. I feel pretty close to you, kid. You’re easy to talk to.”
The guard opened the door. I stepped out of the cell and he closed the door and locked it. I took a last look at Murray, smiled at him, said something cheerful. Then I walked with the guard along the corridor and down the stairs.
The bastard tipped. Murray tipped, he caught on, he knew. And now, cute as a palmed jack, Murray Roger was playing games of his own.
Well, what else? He had a perfect explanation, a hell of a convincing confession. He was a killer, he couldn’t get away with it, he was admitting it and taking the consequences. He had an explanation for everything, even had a way doped out to beat the tax boys and keep them from hanging an evasion rap on him. He told me this, earnest and sincere, and there was only one hang-up.
Because I damn well knew he hadn’t killed anybody and he damn well knew it. There were three possibilities—he was crazy, or he was just trying to save his neck. Or finally, he knew. And if that were the case, God alone knew what he was up to. God and Murray Rogers. I spent the rest of Saturday listening to the radio and dying to tell myself everything was clear and clean and he didn’t know a thing. I tried reaching Joyce once. The phone rang and rang and rang and I put the receiver back on the hook and gave up.
My own phone rang that night. It was Barb Lambert. What was I doing? Did I feel like coming over? I didn’t, at first. But there was calmness and softness and warmth in her voice and it reached me. I told her I would pick up a bottle and come over right away.
The liquor store around the corner sold me a fifth of Cutty Sark and I drove to Barb’s house. We spent the first half hour making a dent in the bottle and becoming comfortable. The comfort didn’t last. When I draped an arm over her shoulder I could feel her whole body go slightly tense. I took the arm away and she turned to stare at me.
“Bill—”
“Go on.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Barb said. “I—what’s happening with us, Bill?”
“What do you mean?”
She looked away for a moment or two. Then she said, “You swept me off my feet, you know. I was going along in a quiet little rut and then you came along and changed things. I started caring again. I started to feel alive. I thought you liked me.”
“Of course I like you—”
“But things are changing,” she said. She was staring at me now, eyes wide, innocent. “You’re all wrapped up in something, Bill. You don’t really seem to give a damn about me. You slept with me once. Or don’t you remember?”
“Barb—”
“But you don’t seem to remember. Don’t you want to—to sleep with me again? Wasn’t I any good?”
I didn’t answer her. I stood up, took fresh ice cubes from the silver bucket on the walnut breakfront. I put the ice in our glasses and poured some fresh scotch over the cubes. I set her glass on the coffee table in front of her. She didn’t pay any attention to it. I took a long drink and waited.
“I’m shameless,” she said. “I like you, Bill.”
There were tears welling up in the corners of her eyes but she was determined not to let go of them. She wouldn’t cry.
“Bill,” she said, “I don’t want to be—used. I want to mean something. I want you to like me and to—to love me. I want us to get married, Bill. I’m not in any hurry. But I have to feel that we’re moving toward something, not just wandering around in circles. I’m not a kid in college any more. I’m not that young. Do you see?”
