At least he’d had the excuse of war, of the things war changedin a man. He’d killed other men face-to-face, close enough to smell the sweatand blood and fear over the sulfur of billowing black-powder smoke. Killingwith a sword, that’s personal. He’dfaced a choice of kill or die. That would tend to change the way a man lookedat personal enemies.
He’d probably laugh at forgery. I knew he’d laugh at the puny wretches who carried his name in thisgeneration, who squabbled over his legacy.
Forgery.
Ice ran down my spine. I swallowed more whisky.
“’Tain’t what a man don’t know that hurts him; it’s what heknows for certain that just ain’t so!”
Everyone knew youcouldn’t forge “signatures” — the magical kind. I’d based a whole police careeron that gospel truth, engraved on stone tablets from the Mount Sinai of forensicmagic. I’d helped send Maggie to jail because I knew she had to be guilty.
In the face of everything else I knew.
Most people tolerated magic because they believed insignatures. If witches or wizards used magic to commit a crime, that signaturewould bring them to justice. People tolerated magicians because of that. Even though we just brought order andrepeatability to “miracles,” most people still hated and feared us.
Forgery.
What would happen if people lost that tiny bit of trust? Ifpeople thought a witch or wizard could work evil and escape detection? Whatwould wizards and witches like Kratz do if they could throw suspicion ontoothers? Kratz proved that we can be devils instead of angels.
We live on tolerance. Thintolerance. I’ve tried to show you that, from the other side of the fence.
I gulped more whisky, didn’t even taste it that time. I don’twant to glorify alcohol or other drugs, but sometimes they break down walls inyour brain, inhibitions, allow you to make connections you’d never believe whensober. And sometimes those connections still make sense after the hangover.
Most times they don’t.
Throw out the signatures. What remained? I still didn’t have ahandle on the base crimes, the couriers and Reverend Fred. I had an idea on thewhy and what, never had been a problem with the when and where, but without asignature the “who” stayed coy, a face in shadows. No key there.
But the second pattern, the parts that didn’t fit Kratz as Iremembered him? What person had reason to hate Nef Cash, reason true orinvented or psychotic pathology? What person wouldn’t have needed to tail me, when I drove up to meet with Malcolm Ridge?
I swigged another gulp or two of old whisky. My hand shook.
Who could have come into my apartment without leaving a trace?Or without leaving a trace that I’d notice?
And skipping back through the years, if we were throwingsignatures to the winds. Who had reason to hate Maggie Driscoll? To frame Maggie Driscoll?
I forced my bulk out of the chair, using the table as a prop,and grabbed both my crutches. Then I thought better of it and left one, keepingthe other hand free. Like Cash, I’d learned to shoot with either hand. Hell, I’dbeen the one who taught her that, taught her why. Get tangled in a gunfight, you might already be wounded, notbe able to use your dominant hand or eye. Or you might want to shoot from theother side of a good solid brick corner without showing your body.
Just like you carried two guns, in case you lost one or itjammed. If you had a choice, you wouldn’t rely on Cash’s little .22 automatic.Or my .38 five-shot Smith, for that matter, but by all that’s holy, they beatthe hell out of bare fists. Never bring a knife to a gunfight.
I crutched my way down the hall, I’d like to say my awkwardmoves and bumping progress just said I hadn’t learned to move on one leg yet.Truth was, I was drunk. I don’t know if it was just the whisky, or that and amix of exhaustion and pain and worry about Cash, or my brain whirling withconnections and the shock at where they led. I’m sure you figured it out weeksago, chapters ago, but I never claimed to be smart.
And I wasn’t acting smart then. This is the idiot part Ipromised you.
Down the hall, I punched the elevator button and waited,listening to the grumble and whine of the old machinery, the clatter of theheavy electrical relays in the hoist room just overhead. Damned thing tookforever. Then it arrived and wheezed open and I fumbled and thumped my way inand punched the button for Sandy’s floor.
Yeah, Sandy. It turned obvious as all hell once I tossed outthe forged signatures. I still didn’t know allof the plot, why she’d killed the couriers and Reverend Fred, how she’d foundout about them, what the what was allabout. But Sandy wouldn’t have had to tail me up to Podunk Hollow. She’d knownwhere and when and who for days before I went.
Sandy, who had thrown a fit the first time I came in smellingof Cash, who’d gone totally ballistic when I spent the night with that . . .that “nigger.” Sandy, who’d droppedoff a sub sandwich for my lunch and took the opportunity to go through myjacket and find the note that led her around all our false walls and hiddendoors to Cash.
Sandy, who hadn’t wanted to kill me. Who put a bomb four times as big under Nef’s cruiser.
I had a key. Too damn many women gave me keys to theirapartments. I can see you shaking your head in disbelief, the old fat baldingsex-god just doesn’t work for you. It didn’t make sense to me, either, but I’vealready given you Cash’s word on the matter. And apparently Sandy was willingto kill Cash, to frame Maggie
