Time to Murder and Create (4 page)

I thought of Estrellita Rivera with a bullet in her eye. I don't know if anything showed in my face.

"Stacy's situation--her culpability, if you want to call if that--stemmed not from the accident but from her response after the fact. She didn't stop. If she had stopped, it would not have helped the boy at all.

He was killed instantly."

"Did she know that?"

He closed his eyes for a moment. "I don't know," he said. "Is that pertinent?"

"Probably not."

"The accident... if she had stopped as she should have done, I'm sure she would have been exonerated.

The boy rode his tricycle right off the curb in front of her."

"I understand she was on drugs at the time."

"If you want to call marijuana a drug."

"It doesn't matter what we call it, does it? Maybe she could have avoided the accident if she hadn't been stoned. Or maybe she would have had the judgment to stop once she hit the kid. Not that it matters any more. She was high, and she did hit the boy, and she didn't stop the car, and you managed to buy her off."

"Was I wrong to do that, Scudder?"

"How do I know?"

"Do you have children?" I hesitated, then nodded. "What would you have done?"

I thought about my sons. They weren't old enough to drive yet. Were they old enough to smoke marijuana? It was possible. And what would I do in Henry Prager's place?

"Whatever I had to do," I said. "To get them off."

"Of course. Any father would."

"It must have cost you a lot of money."

"More than I could afford. But I couldn't have afforded not to, you see."

I picked up my silver dollar and looked at it. The date was 1878. It was a good deal older than I was, and had held up a lot better.

"I thought it was over," he said. "It was a nightmare, but I managed to straighten everything out. The people I dealt with, they realized that Stacy was not a criminal. She was a good girl from a good family who went through a difficult period in life. That's not uncommon, you know. They recognized that there was no reason to ruin a second life because a horrible accident had taken one life. And the experience--it's awful to say this, but it helped Stacy. She grew as a result of it.

She matured. She stopped using drugs, of course. And her life took on more purpose."

"What's she doing now?"

"She's in graduate school atColumbia . Psychology. She plans to work with mentally retarded children."

"She's what, twenty-one?"

"Twenty-two last month. She was nineteen at the time of the accident."

"I suppose she has an apartment here in town?"

"That's correct. Why?"

"No reason. She turned out all right, then."

"All my children turned out well, Scudder. Stacy had a difficult year or two, that's all." His eyes sharpened their focus suddenly. "And how long do I have to pay for that one mistake? That's what I'd like to know."

"I'm sure you would."

"Well?"

"How deep did Jablon have the hook in you?"

"I don't understand."

"What were you paying him?"

"I thought he was your associate."

"It was a loose association. How much?"

He hesitated, then shrugged. "The first time he came I gave him five thousand dollars. He gave the impression that one payment would be the end of it."

"It never is."

"So I understand. Then he came back a while later. He told me he needed more money. We finally put things on a business basis. So much a month."

"How much?"

"Two thousand dollars a month."

"You could afford that."

"Not all that easily." He managed a small smile. "I was hoping I could find a way to deduct it, you know.

Charge it to the business in some fashion."

"Did you find a way?"

"No. Why are you asking all this? Trying to determine just how much you can squeeze out of me?"

"No."

"This whole conversation," he said suddenly. "There's something wrong with it. You don't seem like a blackmailer."

"How so?"

"I don't know. That man was a weasel, he was calculating, slimy. You're calculating, but in a different way."

"It takes all kinds."

He stood up. "I won't go on paying indefinitely," he said. "I can't live with a sword hanging over me.

Damn it, I shouldn't have to."

"We'll work something out."

"I don't want my daughter's life ruined. But I won't be bled to death."

I picked up the silver dollar and put it in my pocket. I couldn't make myself believe he had killed the Spinner, but at the same time I couldn't positively rule him out, and I was getting sick of the role I was playing. I pushed my chair back and got to my feet.

"Well?"

"I'll be in touch," I said.

"How much is it going to cost me?"

"I don't know."

"I'll pay you what I paid him. I won't pay any more than that."

"And how long will you pay me? Forever?"

"I don't understand."

"Maybe I can figure out something that'll make us both happy," I said. "I'll let you know when I do."

"If you mean a single large payment, how could I trust you?"

"That's one of the things that has to be worked out," I said. "You'll hear from me."

I had arranged to meet Beverly Ethridge in the bar at the Hotel Pierre at seven o'clock. From Prager's office I walked to another bar, one on Madison Avenue. It turned out to be a hangout for advertising people, and the noise level was high and the tension unsettling. I had some bourbon and left.

On my way upFifth Avenue , I stopped atSt. Thomas 's and slipped into a pew. I discovered churches not long after I left the force and moved away from Anita and the boys. I don't know what it is about them, exactly. They are about the only place inNew York where a person has room to think, but I'm not sure that's their sole attraction for me. It seems logical to assume that there's some sort of personal quest involved, although I've no real idea what it might be. I don't pray. I don't think I believe in anything.

But they are perfect places to sit and think things out. I sat inSt. Thomas 's and thought about Henry Prager for a while. The thoughts didn't lead anywhere in particular. If he'd had a more expressive and less guarded face, I might have learned something one way or the other. He had done nothing to give himself away, but if he had been clever enough to nail the Spinner when the Spinner was already on guard, he'd be clever enough to give damned little away to me.

I had trouble seeing him as a murderer. At the same time, I had trouble seeing him as a blackmail victim.

He didn't know it, and it was hardly time for me to tell him, but he should have told Spinner to take his dirt and shove it. So much money gets spread around to brush so many crimes under various rugs that no one really had anything resembling a hold on him. His daughter had committed a crime a couple of years ago. A really tough prosecutor might have gone for vehicular homicide, but more likely the charge would have been involuntary manslaughter and the sentence would have been suspended. Given those facts, there was really nothing much that could happen to her or to him this long after the fact. There might be a touch of scandal involved, but not enough to ruin either his business or his daughter's life.

So on the surface he had little motive for paying Spinner off, and less for killing him. Unless there was more to it than I knew about.

Three of them, Prager and Ethridge and Huysendahl, and they had all been paying silence money to Spinner until one of them decided to make the silence permanent. All I had to do was find out which was which.

And I really didn't want to.

For a couple of reasons. One of the best was that there was no way I could have as good a shot at the killer as the police could. All I had to do was dump Spinner's envelope on the desk of a good Homicide cop and let him play it out. The department's determination of time of death would be a lot more accurate than the vague estimate Koehler had given me. They could check alibis. They could put the three possibles through intensive interrogation, which all by itself would almost certainly be enough to open it all up.

There was just one thing wrong with that: The killer would wind up in slam, but the other two would come out with dirty faces. I came very close to passing it on to the cops anyway, figuring that none of the three had spotless faces to begin with. A hit-and-run killer, a hooker and con artist, a particularly nasty pervert--Spinner, with his personal code of ethics, had felt that he owed those innocent of his murder the silence they had purchased. But they had bought nothing from me, and I didn't owe them a thing.

The police would always be an option. If I never got a handle on things, they would remain as a last resort. But in the meantime I was going to make a try, and so I had made an appointment with Beverly Ethridge, I had dropped in on Henry Prager, and I would see Theodore Huysendahl sometime the next day. One way or another, they would all find out I was Spinner's heir and that the hook he'd had in them was in as deep as ever.

A group of tourists passed in the aisle, pointing out things to each other about the elaborate stone carvings above the high altar. I waited until they went by, sat for another minute or two, then got to my feet. On my way out I examined the offering boxes at the doors. You had your choice of furthering church work, overseas missions, or homeless children. I put three of Spinner's thirty hundred-dollar bills

in the slot for homeless children.

There are certain things I do without knowing why. Tithing is one of them.

A tenth of whatever I earn goes to whatever church I happen to visit after I've received the money. The Catholics get most of my business, not because I'm partial to them but because their churches are more apt to be open at odd times.

St. Thomas's is Episcopal. A plaque in front says they keep it open all week long so that passers-by will have a refuge from the turmoil of midtownManhattan .

I suppose the donations from tourists cover their overhead. Well, they now had a quick three hundred toward the light bill, courtesy of a dead blackmailer.

I went outside and headed uptown. It was time to let a lady know who was taking Spinner Jablon's place. Once they all knew, I would be able to take it easy. I could just sit back and relax, waiting for Spinner's killer to try killing me.

The cocktail lounge in thePierre is illuminated by small candles set in deep blue bowls, one to a table.

The tables are small and well separated from one another, round white tables with two or three blue velvet chairs at each. I stood blinking my eyes in the darkness and looking for a woman in a white pants suit. There were four or five unescorted women in the room, none of them wearing a pants suit. I looked instead for Beverly Ethridge, and found her at a table along the far wall. She was wearing a navy sheath and a string of pearls.

I gave my coat to the checkroom attendant and walked directly to her table.

If she watched my approach, she did so out of the corner of her eye. Her head never turned in my direction. I sat down in the chair across from her, and only then did she meet my eyes. "I am expecting someone," she said, and her eyes slipped away, dismissing me.

"I'm Matthew Scudder," I said.

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"You're pretty good," I said. "I like your white pants suit, it becomes you.

You wanted to see if I could recognize you so that you would know whether I had the pictures or not. I suppose that's clever, but why not just ask me to bring one along?"

Her eyes returned, and we took a few minutes to look at each other. It was the same face I'd seen in the pictures, but it was hard to believe it was the same woman. I don't know that she looked all that much older, but she did look a great deal more mature. More than that, there was an air of poise and sophistication that was quite incompatible with the girl in those pictures and on those arrest sheets.

The face was aristocratic and the voice said good schools and good breeding.

Then she said, "A fucking cop," and her face and voice turned on the words and all the good breeding vanished. "How did you come up with it, anyway?"

I shrugged. I started to say something, but a waiter was on his way over. I ordered bourbon and a cup of coffee. She nodded at him to bring her another of what she was drinking. I don't know what it was. It had a lot of fruit in it.

When he was gone I said, "The Spinner had to leave town for a while. He wanted me to keep the business going in his absence."

"Sure."

"Sometimes things happen that way."

"Sure. You collared him and he threw me to you as his own ticket out. He had to get himself picked up by a crooked cop."

"Would you be better off with an honest one?"

She put one hand to her hair. It was straight and blonde, and styled in what I think they call a Sassoon cut. It had been considerably longer in the pictures, but the same color. Maybe the color was natural.

"An honest one? Where would I find one?"

"They tell me there's a couple around."

"Yeah, working traffic."

"Anyway, I'm not a cop. Just crooked." Her eyebrows went up. "I left the force a few years back."

"Then I don't get it. How do you wind up with the stuff?"

Either she was honestly puzzled or she knew Spinner was dead and she was very good indeed. That was the whole problem. I was playing poker with three strangers and I couldn't even get them all around the same table.

The waiter came around with the drinks. I sipped a little bourbon, drank a half inch of coffee, poured the rest of the bourbon into the cup. It's a great way to get drunk without getting tired.