Murder on the Rocks. Talmage Powell
or something else. Maybe Silvio’s private cache of happy dust. To a junkie a find like that would be a pearl beyond price.”
Her left thumb was tapping against the edge of the cushion jerkily. She became aware of it and glanced down but the thumb kept on tapping. “The police—do they know?”
“Not through me,” I told her. “We’re holding out on them—me and the PI who found Silvio for me. Silvio’s prints are on file—from visa applications at the Department. His body will be found, probably by tomorrow. By evening he’ll be identified.” I got up from the sofa, slowly and a little unsteadily. “That’s how much time your father has to make other plans regarding the emerald. At that, it may be an overestimate.”
“He’ll be ruined,” she said.
“He’s a diplomat,” I said. “Your father didn’t get to be an ambassador without knowing how to handle himself. There may be some tense days ahead but I wouldn’t get all distraught over what’s likely to happen to him.” I took a deep breath to steady myself. “That’s my last piece of advice, Iris, and it costs nothing. Oh, yes, there were some minor expenses. Fifty dollars to the PI for finding Silvio and then keeping his mouth shut. Mail me a check sometime. The taxi fares and the buck to the desk clerk I’ll charge off to business expenses next April.”
She looked up at me, making an effort to gather herself together. After a while she said, “There’s nothing that could persuade you to keep searching for the emerald?”
“Look,” I said earnestly, “I’m not a detective, a strong-arm boy, or even a cop. I’m just a reasonably competent counselor on Federal tax problems. If you have any next spring I’ll be glad to have your business. As for the emerald, I never heard of it. If a man’s lying dead in a doghouse in Chinatown, nobody’s told me and I don’t want to be told. Monday morning when i read about it in the papers it’ll come as a complete surprise. So in answer to, your question, the reply is nothing. Nothing at all.”
She uncoiled from the sofa and her arms reached across my shoulders. One hand bent my head forward to meet her lips and we kissed. Her lips were full and warm, tense and yet supple.
Finally she moved her head to one side and said quietly, “Nothing could persuade you? Not even this?”
I took her arms from my shoulders. “It seems a little too easy to come by. But perhaps I’m wrong.”
“You son of a—”
I shrugged. “Even if I were interested I’d want something resembling an exclusive arrangement, only your promises wouldn’t be binding. Not so long as Paul Sewall has any claim on you.”
“He hasn’t,” she said. “He has no claim at all.”
“You’ve been too long at the Fair, Iris. Get back to earth. If Rabbit Ears next door wants to play with fate, that’s his problem. I’m not planning to make it mine. For all I know, the guy who killed Silvio knows my name, or saw me, or one of his buddies did. He might take it badly that I blundered into the thing at all.”
Turning, I began to walk toward the door. The carpet nap seemed thicker than ever. I could hardly drag my shoes through it. It clung like quicksand.
Behind me she asked, “Where are you going?”
I turned, surprised, and looked back at her. “Home,” I said. “With a pint of bonded and a nembutal I ought to be able to forget all about Silvio by morning.”
One finger touched the corner of her mouth. Slowly she said, “What about me?”
“That could be a little harder.”
I turned the knob and walked down the path. At the bottom of the brick steps I turned and looked back. There was a light showing through Tracy Farnham’s Venetian blinds. I thought about knocking on his door and telling him everything was all right now and he could get back to work on the beige sofa, but the steps looked too steep and I was awfully tired.
From there I wandered over to Wisconsin, feeling the moist warm air wrap itself around my face like a steam towel, hearing the monotonous throb of air-conditioners from the houses along the street. Against the lighter sky the maple trees looked like hangman’s oaks, torpid with summer heat. Nothing was moving.
On Wisconsin I turned down toward the river past restaurants, silver shops, antique stores, and groceries that charge a fee just for looking around. As I walked I could smell money in the air and I was sorry that so little of it was mine.
At Martin’s I stopped and got into a taxi. Then I went home and got into bed. Before I fell asleep the phone began to ring but I put a pillow over it and turned out the light. If Iris Sewall wanted Tracy Farnham removed from her premises she could call the Seventh Precinct. Rugged boys and only two blocks away.
At three-fifteen the door buzzer dragged me out of bed and I staggered through the living room to a table lamp and turned it on. Then I opened the door. A man rode me back into the room, a big man in an ice cream suit, a blue polka-dot tie, and a thirty-dollar Panama hat. Stepping back, he closed the door. He had thick black eyebrows and a sullen olive skin. He came toward me with rigid, strangled steps that suggested a vise around his hips. No vise, though, just the memory of a bullet-smashed hip socket. Tip Cadena, one of Vance Bodine’s pressure boys.
In a mild voice Cadena said, “Try answering your phone, friend. It could pay off in friendship.”
“Or a sore ear.”
From his pocket he took a short nail file and began to push back the thumb cuticle. Without looking up, he said, “That was Paul Sewall calling a while back. Want to hear what he had to say?”
“Not particularly.”
“He says to lay off, friend. Off the wife.”
“He’s way off the track, friend,” I said.
“He don’t think so.”
“That worries me a lot. Any minute I’ll start shaking all over.”
“Easy, friend. I got no argument with you. Not yet. For now I’m just passing the word.” He looked up and spread his hands.
“What’s behind it?” I asked. “Or don’t you know?”
He rolled back on his heels, balancing himself. His knees gave a little and his weight went onto the balls of his feet. Kidding around like a boxer in his corner, but poised and ready. He looked strong enough to break my back with his thumbs.
His head slanted to one side. “You want to know? Well, there’s you driving her car home from the waterfront where you keep your boat, and leaving her place an hour later. Then you had to go back again tonight. So it ain’t all just rumor, friend. It ain’t no whispering campaign some old-maid neighbor dreamed up. It’s all facts.”
“The boy next door doesn’t worry him?”
“Farnham? Not lately. It’s guys like you that make him really grind his teeth: not too ugly, educated, and no question what side of the bed to sleep on.”
“The lady plays too many games for me. Tell him that.”
One arm stretched out and dropped the hand on my left shoulder. It was a big hand. The fingers began to play with the muscles of my shoulder. The pain was dull. Low pitch for now, but he could build it until I was screaming for mercy. When Cadena was a tank sergeant on Luzon he had pulled the head off a dead Jap to win a ten-cent bet.
I thought about driving my knee into his belly but he was fast and too hard. I would probably just break my kneecap.
The pain was crawling up the side of my neck, probing into my spine. I gritted my teeth and ducked out from under. He just stood there looking at me, a slow smile on his lips.
“Hurts, huh?” he said.
“It hurts and it makes me mad. Don’t underrate me, Cadena. I’m not one of the hophead spooks you slap around for laughs.”
His