'Good night, Mr. Ketchum.'
He let me precede him to the car. I opened the door and put my hand inside for Cindy to take. There was nothing to say. I held my hand there, feeling cold and tired and scared.
Finally she took my hand.
'We should go home,' I said.
'Home?' she said.
'My place.'
She leaned over and kissed me. 'Home. That sounds good.'
TWENTY-FIVE
My place looked as dark as Denny's had the night I'd found him dead. I almost didn't want to leave the car. Cindy had fallen asleep with her head on my shoulder.
I raised her face gently and kissed her and then we started out into the night, her sleepy as a wakened child.
'I love you,' I said, and kissed her.
I got the apartment door open and pushed it in and stood back to let her precede me. It was then that I caught my first glimpse of Merle Wickes and the gun he was holding. It looked to be the same gun he was fondling the day before when he'd apparently been contemplating suicide.
'Clay's dead,' he said. Merle had been waiting in the dark. I found the switch and turned the overhead on.
'You mind if I put her to bed?' I said.
By this time, the sedative having taken effect, Cindy didn't seem even slightly aware of Merle's presence. I had plopped her down on the couch, where she sat now zombie-like, staring straight ahead.
Merle smiled nastily. 'You like fucking dead men's wives?'
'You like walking around without any teeth?'
Even with the gun, Merle was not a brave man in the face of real anger.
In the bedroom, I pulled back the cover, then began stripping Cindy to her underwear. I clicked on the electric blanket and pushed her fondly beneath the sheets. I stood staring at her a long moment, loving her.
Merle was pacing when I got back to the living room. He was so caught up in his thoughts he didn't hear me come up from behind him. He looked silly with his lounge-singer hairdo and the gun dangling from his slender fingers.
'Thanks for ruining my company,' I said.
I pushed him hard and he went crashing into an end table, slamming his knee hard and crying out in a high voice.
'You're on the hook for an embezzlement rap, Merle, and I'm going to make damned sure that charges are pressed.' I glared down at him, still angry. 'You can't do anything right, Merle. You can't even have a mistress. Clay was sleeping with her.' I laughed. 'You're a wimp, Merle, and I'm about to prove it.'
'What's that mean?' he said petulantly.
I walked over to him. He raised the gun as if to hold me at bay, but he did absolutely nothing when I reached down and took it from him.
'It means,' I said, 'that the police are looking for you right now. But before I call them I want to know where Kenneth Martin is.'
'Kenneth Martin? You're crazy.'
'The guard, Merle, the guard who helped Clay and Denny and Gettig steal Mrs. Amis's gems.'
Merle seemed to swell up momentarily. Cockiness shone in his eyes. He took himself out of his slouch and laughed. 'You think you've got this all figured out, don't you?'
'I've got it figured out enough that I know Kenneth Martin is killing people because they double-crossed him.'
'Kenneth Martin is dead, you moron. I saw him myself- where they buried him after they shot him.'
All I could do was stare at him. 'Then who the hell is doing the killings?'
'I don't know.'
'Bull,' I said.
'Look, if I knew, don't you think I'd tell you? There's a good chance whoever it is wants to kill me next. That's why I'm here. I'd hoped maybe you'd figured things out.' Now he was the more familiar Merle. Pleading. Wimpy.
'Get out of here, Merle,' I said.
'God,' he said, 'this is a good place to hide.' He was desperate now. 'Please. Please, Michael.'
'Get out, Merle.'
'Whoever it is, he'll kill me.'
'Maybe that'll be better than prison. That's where you're headed, Merle, and you're not tough enough to survive.'
'God, Michael, you were always a decent guy before.'
'Yeah,' I snapped, 'and look where it got me. I've been embezzled out of a business and I'm stuck in the middle of murders I had nothing to do with.'
'Please, Michael. Please let me stay.'
I raised the gun and aimed it dead center in the middle of his face. 'I wouldn't push your luck, Merle.'
All he said was, 'Maybe I'll turn myself over.'
I said nothing.
'Well,' he said, as if he were starting a sentence. But it was a sentence he never finished. He could see I didn't want to talk. He left.
An hour later I was knocking back my third bourbon, hoping to kill the anxiety enough so that I could lie back on the couch and sleep.
I turned the light out and closed my eyes and felt a sudden torpor rush through me. I felt old and used up and very, very unwise. I thought of Merle out there, running, terrified. He'd been our last best hope-the guy both Detective Bonnell and I thought could clear everything up. The guy who could lead us to Kenneth Martin.
Only Kenneth Martin was dead, killed by the three men who were themselves dead now.
The phone rang.
I sat there and stared at it as if I were a bush native and had never seen such a newfangled instrument.
Finally, maybe the tenth ring, I picked it up.
Even over the phone her weariness came through oppressively. The widow Kubek.
'Something is wrong,' she said. 'Somebody is in his room now. I'm scared.'
'Call the police,' I said.
'I can't, Mr. Ketchum. Maybe it's him. Maybe he's in trouble. I'd just be making the trouble worse if I called the police.'
I didn't want to tell her. Couldn't. That I'd leave to the good grace and long experience of the police. 'I'll be right over,' I said.
Before leaving, I checked on Cindy, then looked up Bonnell's name in the phone directory.
He hadn't been asleep, either. He sounded almost happy that I'd called him. I said I'd see him there.
TWENTY-SIX
I had no trouble breaking the speed limit. I didn't see a single patrol car in the entire eight-mile trip. Only the ghostly flash of yellow stoplights against the dawning sky.
