The Throat

'Sure I was right,' he said. 'If I hadn't been so screwed up, I would have been paying more attention.' He shook his head and groaned again. 'Here's what happened. Someone parked about a block away from us and waited. They must have been surprised when I got out of the car—maybe they even thought I spotted them. That's why they started their car. They saw me go into the bar. When I didn't come right out with a pack of cigarettes or something, they went to the Mercedes and—and did what they did. So if I hadn't hit her—if I hadn't been so stupid I had to leave her alone—'

He clamped his eyes shut and pressed his lips together in a tight line. I waited for him to get back in control of himself. 'There had to be two of them, because—'

'Because one drove her car here before they took her to the St. Alwyn.'

Sudden anger made me shout. 'Why didn't you tell me the truth when I first got here? All this subterfuge! Didn't you realize how it would look if the police found the car?'

Ransom stayed calm. 'Well, they didn't find it, did they?' He drank again and swished the vodka around in his mouth. 'After you left town, I was going to drive it to Chicago and leave it on the street with the keys in it. A present for the hoodlums. Then it wouldn't matter if the police found it.'

He registered my impatience. 'Look, I know it was a dumb scheme. I was scared, and I panicked. But forget about me for a second. Writzmann had to be one of the men in the car. That's why he hung around the hospital. He was waiting to see if April was going to wake up.'

'All right, but that makes twice you lied to me,' I said.

'Tim, I didn't think I could ever tell anyone what really happened. I was wrong. I'm apologizing. Just listen to me. There was another guy in that car, the cop you were talking about. And he must be the one who killed Writzmann.'

'Yes,' I said. 'He met him in the Green Woman.' John nodded slowly, as if this was utterly new and fascinating.

'Go on,' he said.

'Writzmann probably asked for the meeting. His father called him up and said, Billy, I want you to keep your thugs away from me.'

'Didn't I tell you we'd get something moving?' John said. 'It worked like a charm.'

'Is this really the kind of thing you had in mind?'

'I don't mind the bad guys bumping each other off. That's fine by me. Go on.'

'Writzmann said that two people had come to his father's house asking about Elvee Holdings. That was all he had to say. The cop had to cut his connections to everything that would lead us to him. I don't know what he did. Probably he waited for Writzmann to turn his back and clubbed him with the butt of his gun. He dragged him to that chair, tied him up, and cut him to pieces. That's what he likes.'

'Then he left him there overnight,' John said. 'He knew we were in for a hell of a storm, so yesterday morning he put him in the trunk of his car, waited until it started to really come down, and dumped him in front of the Idle Hour. Nobody'd be on the streets, and it was dark anyhow. It's beautiful. He's got his third Blue Rose victim, and nobody can tie him to Writzmann. He killed Grant Hoffman and my wife and his own stooge, and he's completely in the clear.'

'Except that we know he's a cop. And we know he's the son of Bob Bandolier.'

'How do we know the part about his being a cop?'

'The names given for the other two directors of Elvee Holdings were Leon Casement and Andrew Belinski. Casement was Bob Bandolier's middle name, and about ten years ago, the head of the homicide division in Millhaven was a guy named Andy Belin. Belin's mother was Polish, and the other detectives called him Belinski.' I tried to smile at him, but the smile didn't turn out right. 'I suppose that's station house humor.'

'Wow,' John said. He looked at me admiringly. 'You're good.'

'Fontaine told me,' I said. 'I'm not so sure I should have asked.'

'Goddamn,' John said. He sat up straight and leveled his entire arm at me. 'Fontaine took his father's statements out of the Blue Rose file before he gave them to you. He ordered you to stay away from the Sunchanas, and when that didn't work, he hauled you all the way out to his father's grave. See? he said. Bob Bandolier is dead and buried. Forget this crap and go home. Right?'

'Basically. But he couldn't have taken Writzmann's body to the Idle Hour. I was with him when it started to rain.'

'Think of how the man works,' John said. 'He had one stooge, right? Now he's got another one. He paid somebody to dump the body. It's perfect. You're his alibi.'

It wouldn't even have to be money, I thought. Information would be better than money.

'So what do we do?' John asked. 'We can hardly go to the police. They love Fontaine down there at Armory Place. He's Millhaven's favorite detective—he's Dick Tracy, for God's sake!'

'Maybe we can get him out in the open,' I said. 'Maybe we can even get him to put himself out in the open.'

'How do we do that?'

'I told you that Fee Bandolier has been slipping into his father's old house in the middle of the night about once every two weeks. The woman who lives next door catches glimpses of him. She promised to call me the next time she saw him.'

'To hell with that. Let's break into the place.'

I groaned. 'I'm too tired and sore to play cowboy.'

'Think about it. If it isn't Fontaine, it's some other guy at Armory Place. Maybe there are family pictures in the house. Maybe there's, I don't know, something with his name on it. Why did he keep the house? He's keeping something in there.'

'Something was always in there,' I said. 'His childhood. I'm going to bed, John.' My muscles complained when I stood up.

He put his empty glass on the table and touched the bandage on the side of his head. Then he leaned back into the chair. For a second, we both listened to the rain beat against the windows.

I turned away to go toward the stairs. Gravity pulled at every cell in my body. All I wanted in the world was to get into bed.

'Tim,' he said.

I turned around slowly. He was getting up, and he fixed me with his eyes. 'You're a real friend.'

'I must be,' I said.

'We'll see this thing through together, won't we?'

'Sure,' I said.

He came toward me. 'From now on, I promise, there'll be nothing but the truth. I should have—'

'It's okay,' I said. 'Just don't try to kill me anymore.'

He moved up close and put his arms around me. His head pressed against mine. He hugged me tight into his padded chest —it was like being hugged by a mattress. 'I love you, man. Side by side, all right?'

'De Opresso Libri,'I said, and patted him on the back.

'There it is.' He slammed his fist into my shoulder and gripped me tighter. 'Tomorrow we start fresh.'

'Yeah,' I said, and went upstairs.

I undressed and got into bed with The Nag Hammadi Library. John Ransom was moving around in his bedroom, now and then bumping against the furniture. The hard, steady rain pounded the window and rattled against the side of the house. By the light of the bedside lamp, I opened the book to 'The Thunder, Perfect Mind,' and read:

For what is inside of you is what is outside of you,

and the one who fashions you on the outside is the

one who shaped the inside of you. And what you