Nothing to Lose But My Life (17 page)

So I stopped hating, and that was good. I stopped hating and really began thinking. And I got the answers to a lot of things I hadn’t been able to see before.

But I still lacked the answer to one question: Who had killed Hoop and why?

I hadn’t gone far from the car, just to one of the picnic benches. Now I returned to it, walking slowly, feeling the pain from my wound. I put my head back, not wanting to look at Tanya.

“Don’t be foolish, Lowry,” she said softly. “I can see how you think Nikke changed. Most people do. But you don’t any more, do you?”

“Not any more,” I said. I turned my head and I got the full impact of those green eyes. “You should have told me sooner.”

“I didn’t dare,” she said. “I wanted to get you a long ways away—Mexico—before I did. But you’re so damned stubborn. Look at it from Nikke’s point of view. You came back and you were dangerous to him. But you’d have been more dangerous if you’d known the truth—and believed it.”

I understood. “That’s right,” I admitted. “Once I believed it, I’d have gone gunning for the Syndicate—to help Nikke and to pay them back for Jen, for everything. I can see why Nikke was afraid. That would have stirred up the hornet’s nest he had sacrificed so much to avoid. That’s why he really wanted me out of town—for all our protection.”

“That’s the way Nikke saw it,” she said. She smiled at me. “And he was right.”

“Yes. Only now it doesn’t matter. Now if I can’t do something, it’s finished anyway—for you.”

Tanya sighed and put out a hand and touched my hair. I caught her wrist and pulled her hand down and kissed it. “I’ve seen it Nikke’s way,” I said. “Now you see it mine.” I made my voice flat, with no room for argument. “I’m going back. I told you I had some thinking to do. Well, I’ve done it. Those dossiers of mine have a lot of information in them that applies to others besides Nikke and Hoop. If I can get a few answers out of you, I’ll know what to do and how to do it.”

Tanya knew when she was licked. “I’ll tell you all I can,” she agreed. “I’ll help all I can, Lowry.”

I said, “I won’t get you and Nikke into any more trouble than you’re already in, Tanya. Just remember that it’s my neck too.”

Tanya moved away. Now I could think better. “What do you want to know, Lowry?”

“First, why did you put those photos in Hoop’s safe?”

“I didn’t know he was dead at the time and I was trying to help him.” The way she explained it was: Conklin had a file of photographs, copies of the two I’d seen as well as others just as damning, and of affidavits, police reports from the country where Bill Mace had been killed, that sort of evidence. Every now and then Tanya or Nikke would receive a little envelope with a report or a picture in it. That was Conklin’s way of reminding them who was top man. Tanya disliked Hoop but she saw in him a chance for salvation. He was rebelling against the Syndicate. She hoped to give him more ammunition, and hoped too he would use it with discretion.

“I planted the pictures that way,” she explained, “because I didn’t dare come out and tell him directly. If things backfired, I didn’t want to get Nikke or myself in trouble. I had to keep us out of it.”

I said, “Just how pushy was Hoop getting toward the end?”

“Very,” she said. “That was why Charles was trying to force me into marrying him right away. He knew how much the Colonel thought of me and he thought the Colonel would quiet down if it would help protect my name.”

I was puzzled. “But what did he have to fight the Syndicate with?”

“Information,” Tanya said. “Once he decided to break free of them, he started collecting little bits and pieces of information. I know once when he got drunk and I helped him home he let something slip. It didn’t make much sense at the time but later it did. He said something to the effect that he had the weapon he wanted and he was ready for the next step.”

“And that?”

“And that,” Tanya said, “was what I couldn’t get out of him. I tried—don’t think I didn’t—but he was too drunk, really, and he passed out on me. All he did was mutter ‘Sofia,’ and smile and wobble his head.”

“What the devil did Sofia have to do with it?”

“I don’t imagine anything,” Tanya admitted. “But you know a drunk’s mind. It goes off in all directions. Of course, there was the rumor that Sofia picked him up after she found out he and Enid were sleeping together.”

I sat up and grunted as the pain of the sudden movement took my breath away. When I had recovered, I said, “Enid and Hoop?”

“They were going together when I first came here,” Tanya said. “Not openly very often. On the surface it just looked as though he squired her around in a fatherly sort of fashion. But he was very fond of both Proctor sisters. Part of the money he held back from you and the other investors that time went to bolster their estate. He managed it for them, you know.”

I had known but only in a vague way. I thought of Enid and the gross Hoop and wondered at the adaptability of the human being. I thought of Sofia too and I snorted. “Enid I can swallow; Sofia, no.”

“No more could any of us,” Tanya said. “It wasn’t much of a rumor and it didn’t get far. It came from something Enid said one night when she was having a ‘spell.’”

I was silent a moment. There was something I had to ask Tanya, but it wasn’t the kind of question you tossed at the woman you loved—or at very many women, for that matter. But now I had to have the answer.

“Did you and Hoop ever sleep together?”

Tanya’s expression told me that she knew how hard it was for me to ask her that. She answered as if I’d asked the time of day, “No. I never slept with any man but my husband—until you, Lowry.”

I tried to hide my pleasure at hearing that. “Speaking of Enid,” I said, “what happened to her since last night?”

“I don’t know,” Tanya said, “except she isn’t at the flat. I imagine Sofia took her home or sent her to the sanitarium where she put her before.”

I needed Enid; I hoped Sofia wasn’t guarding her. But there was something more pressing on my mind. I asked, “Why should Conklin worry about losing Hoop? I doubt if he made a good Syndicate man anyway.”

“He never was a Syndicate man except to take part of the profit,” Tanya said. “But remember, he carried a lot of political and financial weight in Puerto Bello. Charles couldn’t afford to lose him.”

That was food for thought. A good front man to hide behind was the dream of every racketeer. And killing Hoop would have meant losing him.

I mulled over what I’d heard a while longer. Then I said, “How quickly can you get us back to town, Tanya?”

“As quickly as I got here.”

I lit us cigarettes and passed her one. “Let’s get started then.”

“All right, Lowry.”

I spent most of the return trip thinking. When I had some sense out of the jumble of information, I outlined what I thought to Tanya. She listened to me and nodded. “I think you’re right, Lowry. But how could you ever prove it?”

I told her that too. She didn’t like the idea but she couldn’t think of a better way to play out the hand. After that, neither one of us said anything until we were back on the Hill, moving cautiously now. At my direction, Tanya stopped at a public telephone booth.

I went in, hesitated before dialing. My first problem was Enid. If I could get a couple of answers from her, I’d be more sure of myself, and then I would really have something to go on. But first I had to find her.

I called the Conklin residence. My watch said that it was past eleven so I wasn’t surprised when Sofia Conklin herself answered rather than one of the servants. I had a handkerchief over the mouthpiece and I made my voice nasal.

“I’d like to talk to Miss Proctor, please. This is Duval at police headquarters in town.”

“At this hour? Surely it can wait until tomorrow.” Sofia’s voice was disapproving. I felt like cheering. Obviously Enid was there. I shifted gears, putting Plan Two into operation.

“One of our stool—er—informants has reported Lowry Curtis has been seen. We thought perhaps your sister could tell us where to find him.”

“Are you suggesting that my sister is acquainted with Mr. Curtis’ habits?”

Brrr!
“I’m sorry,” I said placatingly, as a cop would to a Proctor-Conklin. “We thought he might have told her something.”

“You may speak to her tomorrow, Mr. Duval.” The phone went down.

I made it back to the car as fast as my condition would permit. I was excited now, my heart racing, and I fought that lightheadedness that threatened to come back. I said to Tanya. “She’s there. Drive like hell.”

Tanya knew how to go. We got onto the gravel road that led along the edge of the timber bordering the Conklin estate and when we reached the right spot, Tanya pulled quietly into the trees, lights out, going forward until we could see the lighted windows of the house.

“Lowry …”

“This I do alone,” I said to her. I slipped to the edge of the timber and started across the lawn. There were two lights, one downstairs and one up. As I catfooted across the lawn, the upstairs light went out. A moment later I heard a powerful car motor being revved up fast. I couldn’t see the garages from where I was but I knew their location. The car was leaving from back there.

I didn’t need to see to guess what had happened. I had taken less than five minutes to get here from the telephone call but it had been too long. I was almost back to the trees when a second car took over with as much power as the first. I had taken much too long. My idea hadn’t worked; it had backfired.

I piled in beside Tanya. “She’s gone,” I said, “and someone went after her.”

Tanya had no time to answer. I hadn’t finished talking when she was backing out onto the gravel. We headed for the highway, hesitated only long enough to let a truck and trailer go by, and then took off across the flat. Both of us knew where Enid would go. I just hoped whoever was chasing her wouldn’t, and that she could shake them.

We went up the Slope the back way, taking the same route we had come down the night before. Going up through the cut nearly tore my side apart but I hung on, teeth clenched, and took it. Tanya parked before her own garage after turning so that she was headed down, and left the motor ticking over softly. Below, a car turned and slowed before Enid’s garage. A faint glow from headlights flared up and died. The car stopped.

I wiped clammy sweat from my forehead. I just hoped I could hold onto myself long enough for this job. Otherwise we had a choice of running to Mexico or going to jail.

“I go this one alone too,” I said.

“Lowry …” She had a hand on my arm.

“If it
is
Enid and she’s all right,” I said, “three will be a crowd.”

“Do what you have to, Lowry.”

I GOT OUT
and walked into the darkness of Tanya’s flat, using her key. I went on to the back and down the service steps that led to Enid’s porch. There I stopped, spent a moment getting hold of myself, and then attacked the lock on the kitchen door. It wasn’t a difficult job and I eased the door open and stepped into blackness.

I didn’t know what I would find. The car could have been Enid’s; it could have been the one that took out after her. There was no way to tell. The flat was cold and empty-feeling, the draperies all drawn.

I stood in the middle of the kitchen floor trying to hear something over my own breathing beating in my ears. There was a footstep and then Enid’s voice, quivering with rising hysteria. “Stand still. I have a gun.”

I let out my breath gently. “It’s Lowry.”

The light came on, blinding me, showing me briefly Enid in a dressing gown over pajamas. I made a jump for the light switch and snapped us back into darkness. Enid didn’t even wait for me to turn around before she was all over me.

“Lowry, Lowry. I knew you’d come for me when I heard you on the telephone.” She giggled. “Duval! Lowry, I listened on the extension. I listened to all the calls that way because I knew you’d try to reach me.”

I held her against me; it was the least I could do. I said, “Someone else is coming for you too. Let’s get out of here.”

She was shivering; I hoped the excitement wouldn’t set her off. “It’s all right, Lowry, now that we’re together. Anyway, I dodged them.”

There was no sureness in her tone though. I opened my mouth and shut it again. A car was grinding up the Slope. Both of us were rigid, listening. The car went along just below us, passed without even slowing down. We relaxed together.

“Who followed you?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m sure I shook them.”

I was trying to urge her toward the kitchen door but she wanted only to cling to me, as if our being together made everything safe.

I said, “Let’s get out of here where we can talk. I have a lot to talk about.”

“So do I, Lowry. I’ve been thinking. I know you didn’t kill the Colonel and I want to prove it.”

I had her almost to the kitchen door and I stopped. “Prove it how?”

She wasn’t so scared or excited that she couldn’t think. She snuggled up against me. “When you’re cleared, we’ll go away, won’t we? We’ll go away together?”

“If I get cleared,” I said pointedly. I reached for the door knob but she held me back.

“Promise, Lowry?”

“Look,” I said, “we can plan later. Right now I have to know some things.”

“All right, Lowry.”

She was too docile but I took a chance, jabbing my first question at her. “How did you know that Conklin was pressing Tanya to marry Hoop?”

“I heard them arguing,” she said. “I was behind the library door that went up to the Colonel’s bedroom the night he was killed. They were in the library.”

I wasn’t too surprised. I said, a little too bluntly, “You were sleeping with him again, Enid?”

“Lowry!” She jumped away from me.

I caught her and drew her back. “Damn it, these are things I have to know. It makes no difference between us, Enid.”

She said, “No, Lowry. Honest. Not for a long time. Not since Tanya came. Sis found out then and—and stopped us.”

The poor damned kid. I asked, “Was it Charles Conklin after that?”

“I’m sorry, Lowry. But I wanted to get back at Sis and Charles was good to me. He got me this place and kept Sis from getting mad at me too much and—”