Briarpatch (32 page)
“Well?” Dill said.
“No problem,” Jake Spivey said.
An almost ebullient Jake Spivey changed his mind about having a drink. Dill went into the kitchen and poked around until he found Anna Maude Singe's limited liquor supply. He poured two glasses of vodka on the rocks and carried them back into the living room. He handed one of the glasses to the seated Spivey and said, “Let's hear it.”
Spivey took a big gulp of the drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, shook his head andâsmiling all the whileâsaid, “You just sit back and let me handle this, Pick.”
“Trust you.” Dill didn't make it a question.
Spivey nodded. “Trust me.”
“I don't trust anybody, Jake.”
“Must be lonesome,” Spivey said and started to say something else, but broke off at the sound of the knock at the living-room door. Dill looked at his watch. It was exactly 10 P.M. Spivey rose and said, “Why don't you let old Clyde in?”
Dill went to the door and opened it. Standing in the corridor, wearing a slight bemused smile, an oyster-white raincoat, a matching rain hat, and carrying a wet umbrella, was Clyde Brattle. Dill
thought Brattle resembled some long-vanished Roman consul more than ever. Perhaps it was the way he wore the raincoat draped carelessly over his shoulders. Few men could wear a coat like that and not look silly. Dill didn't think Brattle looked at all silly. If anything, he looked a bit like some patrician forced by fate to the moneylenders and determined to make the best of it.
thought Brattle resembled some long-vanished Roman consul more than ever. Perhaps it was the way he wore the raincoat draped carelessly over his shoulders. Few men could wear a coat like that and not look silly. Dill didn't think Brattle looked at all silly. If anything, he looked a bit like some patrician forced by fate to the moneylenders and determined to make the best of it.
“Come in,” Dill said.
Brattle came into the room then, and just as he entered, Spivey stepped from behind the open door and jammed an automatic pistol into the small of Brattle's back. Brattle smiled and stopped. “Well, Jake, how nice to hear from you again.”
“Over there next to that pretty picture, Clyde,” Spivey said.
Brattle glanced around. “The Parrish, you mean?”
“The one with the two fags.”
“I think they're girls, actually,” Brattle said, moved to the wall, and leaned against it with both hands, the umbrella still clasped in his right one.
“Take the coat and the hat and the umbrella, Pick,” Spivey said. “Slow and careful. When you've got 'em, put 'em all in the closet over there.” Dill did as instructed, returned to Spivey's side, and asked, “Now what?”
“Now pat him down real good. Ankles, crotch, everywhere. We might even make him open his mouth and take a look in there.”
Brattle shook his head and sighed. “Sometimes you're such a boor, Jake.”
“Bad manners make for a long life, Clyde.”
“An aphorism, by God. Well, almost anyway.”
Dill found the small Walther automatic when his search reached Brattle's waist. The pistol was in a leather holster clipped to the waistband of Brattle's beltless trousers. He'd never wear a belt, Dill thought, as he examined the weapon. Braces, perhaps, with a three-piece suit, but never a belt.
“I'll take that,” Spivey said. Dill handed him the Walther. Spivey dropped it into his left jacket pocket.
“You can straighten up and turn around now, Clyde,” Spivey said. “Take a chair. That one over there looks comfortable. Pick here'll even get you a drink. I know there's vodka, but I don't know what else he's got.”
“Vodka will do nicely,” Brattle said as he straightened, moved over to the armchair, and sat down. Spivey resumed his seat on the couch. He put his own automatic down on the coffee table next to the Sony tape player. Dill noticed the automatic was a .38 Colt.
“On the rocks?” Dill asked Brattle.
Brattle smiled. “Perfect.”
As he poured the drink in the kitchen, Dill could hear no voices coming from the living room. When he came back with Brattle's drink, he thought the silence seemed like that between two old, old friends who long ago had exhausted all topics of mutual interest and whose only bond now was a numbing familiarity.
Brattle raised his glass to his lips, sipped almost delicately, lowered it, and said, “Well, the rain was certainly welcome, wasn't it?”
“Clyde,” Spivey said.
Brattle turned his head fractionally to look at Spivey. “Yes?”
“We're gonna do a deal here tonight, you and me, but first I want you to listen to something.”
“Something interesting?”
“I think so,” Spivey said, and pushed the tape recorder's play button. Dill watched Brattle listenâjust as he had watched Spivey. At first, a slight brief frown crossed Brattle's face, but then it vanished and his expression relaxed as though he had just identified and was listening to a piece of music, perhaps a sonata, certainly an old favorite, that he had last heard long ago. Brattle leaned his
head back against the chair. He closed his eyes. He smiled slightly. He listened to every word.
head back against the chair. He closed his eyes. He smiled slightly. He listened to every word.
When it was over, Brattle opened his eyes, looked at Dill, and asked, “Your work?”
“Yes.”
“Ingenious.” Brattle turned his gaze on Spivey. “Well, Jake, congratulations. Now let's see what kind of deal we can work out. What're you asking?”
“Couple of things,” Spivey said. “First, we're gonna have to forget all about me and what I might or might not've done during those years you and me messed around together.”
“Of course. That's obvious. What elseâmoney?”
“By God, I didn't even think of that. But no, not money. I got enough money.”
Brattle's left eyebrow moved up to form a delicate arc. “You know something, Jake? I don't believe I've ever heard anyone say that before in my life. Not and mean it anyway. But all right. I accept that. Now what is it you do want?”
“I want the name of the dumb fuck who went and killed Pick here's sister.”
Both of Brattle's eyebrows went up this time. He looked genuinely puzzled as he turned his head to inspect Dill. “Your sister?”
“Felicity Dill. Homicide detective second grade.”
“As I told you. I read about it. Then there was that large funeral. Someone killed at it. But aside from that, I'm totally ignorant.” He paused. “Sorry. But I am.”
“What you are, Clyde,” Spivey said, “is the best fucking liar who ever breathed.”
“You want somebody for it, Jake? Is that it? Do you need somebody? If so, you can have Harley. Or Sid. Or both. They didn't do it, of course, but take them with my blessing. Maybe they could
even leave a joint suicide note confessing all. You used to be fairly good at suicide notes, Jake.”
even leave a joint suicide note confessing all. You used to be fairly good at suicide notes, Jake.”
Spivey shook his head and smiled. “By God, you're something, Clyde, you really are. Now lemme tell you what I think. You sent somebody after me aboutâoh, I'd say a year and a half back. How do I know? I know just the same way you'd know if somebody came after you. You can feel it. Smell it. Sense it. Taste it almost. Whoever you sent was taking their time, not hurrying none, waiting for the perfect spot, the right moment and all that. I kind of sensed that, too. But then Pick here's sister stumbles on to it somehow, and she gets blown up in her car. So tell me who you hired to whack me out, Clyde, and I can tell Pick here who killed his sister.”
Brattle took another small delicate sip of his drink. As he lowered the glass, he shook his head regretfully. “I don't know quite what to say, Jake, other than to simply denyâ”
The hard knock at the apartment door interrupted Brattle. No one moved. Spivey and Brattle stared suspiciously at each other for a brief second and then, almost in unison, shifted their twin suspicious stares to Dill. The knock came again, although it was more than a knock this time, it was a loud pounding and over the pounding came a harsh voice that cried, “Police! Open up!”
It was Dill who went to the door and opened it. Gene Colder, the homicide captain, rushed through the door, his gun drawn. “Nobody moves!” he snapped. “Everybody freezes.”
No one moved. Colder was in a half crouch, both hands wrapped around the revolver. He wore a short rain jacket and brown gabardine slacks that Dill thought looked expensive. The rain jacket was damp and so were the slacks, but not wet. On Colder's feet were lace-up brown shoes. They were partially covered by half-rubbers. Dill couldn't remember when he had last seen someone wear rubbers in a summer rain.
Colder glanced at Dill. “Back up against that wall,” he ordered.
“Want me to put my hands up?” Dill said.
“Just keep 'em in sight.” Colder looked briefly at Jake Spivey, who was still seated on the couch. “And you, fats, you just keep sitting there. Spivey, isn't it?”
Spivey nodded. “Jake Spivey.”
Still in his crouch, still holding his pistol with both hands, Colder turned his attention and his body toward Clyde Brattle. “And just who the hell are you?” he demanded.
Brattle was still seated in the chair, his legs crossed. He smiled and put down his drink. His left hand moved toward the inside breast pocket of his jacket as he said, “If you'll permit me to show you some identâ”
He stopped talking when Captain Gene Colder shot him through the forehead, just above the left eye. The impact of the round slammed Brattle back against the chair. As he started to sag, Colder shot him again, this time in the chest.
No one moved for a second or two. No one said anything. Slowly Captain Colder straightened up from his crouch and put the revolver back in its belt holster under the rain jacket. He turned to Dill. “I didn't have any choice,” he explained. “He was going for his piece.”
“Sure,” Dill said. “Absolutely.”
Spivey rose and slowly moved over to the dead Clyde Brattle. He stood looking down at him for several moments, then shook his head, and said, “Well, shit, Clyde, what'd you expect?”
He knelt down beside the body and looked from the dead Brattle to the standing Captain Colder, as if measuring distance and angle. Spivey then reached into the left-hand pocket of his jacket. He brought out the Walther automatic that had been Brattle's. He pointed the automatic at Colder and shot him an inch or so above where the short rain jacket ended.
Colder staggered back one step, then two, pressing both hands against the wound. He sank to his knees and stared down at the blood seeping through his fingers. Slowly, he lifted his head to look at the expressionless Jake Spivey. He seemed to be searching Spivey's face for an answer to an important question, but finding none, turned his head as far left as it would go and screamed a name. The name he screamed was Strucker.
Chief of Detectives John Strucker, looking neat and dry, strolled through the apartment's still-open door a second later. He had a lighted cigar in his left hand. He was dressed in a gray silk suit that Dill, for some reason, put an eight-hundred-dollar price tag on. Strucker turned, closed the door, nodded at Dill, and walked over to the still-kneeling Captain Colder.
Colder stared up at him. “Spivey ⦠it was Spivey,” he whispered.
Strucker shook his head sadly. “You know what you are, Gene? You're a fucking disgrace.”
Strucker turned, moved over to Spivey and held out his hand. Spivey put the Walther automatic in it. Strucker removed his display handkerchief and carefully wiped off the pistol.
“This was Brattle's?” he said to Spivey.
Spivey nodded.
“Was he right- or left-handed?”
“Right,” Spivey said.
The still-kneeling Colder groaned and muttered, “Goddamn you, Strucker, do something.”
“I'm fixing to,” Strucker said, sighed one of his heavier sighs, stuck the cigar between his teeth, and bent over the dead Clyde Brattle. He wrapped Brattle's right hand around the Walther and inserted Brattle's right forefinger through the trigger guard and around the trigger. He looked from the Walther automatic to the still-kneeling, staring Captain Colder. Strucker fired the automatic
with the dead man's finger and shot Captain Gene Colder through the chest, just about where the heart would be. Colder jerked back with the impact, then came forward, and fell over onto his left side. A tremor ran through his body. Then he was still.
with the dead man's finger and shot Captain Gene Colder through the chest, just about where the heart would be. Colder jerked back with the impact, then came forward, and fell over onto his left side. A tremor ran through his body. Then he was still.
Strucker took the cigar from his mouth and moved over to the body of the dead police captain. He stared down at it for a moment, knelt, and carefully lifted Colder's revolver from its holster and placed it next to the lifeless right hand. Strucker rose, turned to Dill, and said, “Satisfied?”
“I don't know,” Dill said. “Tell me about it.”
Strucker looked at his watch. “You're gonna get the two-minute version,” he said, “because when homicide comes through that door, I'm turning Colder into a brave and dedicated cop who shot it out with the most wanted fugitive in America.” He turned to Jake Spivey. “How's that sound?”
“Just fine,” Spivey said.
Strucker turned back to Dill. “She worked for me, your sister. For me and nobody else. Six months after they brought Colder down from Kansas City, he didn't feel right. He changed. His attitude shifted. His interest wasn't the same. That's hard to explain to a civilian, but I knew he had something going. He bought a house that was just a tad too nice. His suits were a hundred dollars too expensive. He wasn't dumb enough to buy himself a Mercedes, but he did pop for an Olds Ninety-Eight. Then there was that lousy business with his wife. You heard about that.”
Dill nodded. “He committed her.”
“So it was around in there that I called Felicity in and told her what I thought and felt and what I wanted her to do about it. Well, your sister was one brilliant woman, and beautiful, and if I
wasn't so old and so happy with Dora Leeâwell, I might've gone courting myself, even if Felicity was poor as Job's turkey. But she told me that was a Dill traditionâbeing poor.”
wasn't so old and so happy with Dora Leeâwell, I might've gone courting myself, even if Felicity was poor as Job's turkey. But she told me that was a Dill traditionâbeing poor.”
“She was right,” Dill said.
“So she turned herself into a honey pot and Gene Colder fell right into it and, shit, who could blame him? I couldn't. But what I wanted to know was how much money he had, and where it was coming from, and what he was doing to earn it. It took Felicity damn near six months just to find out how much he had, and it was around seven or eight hundred thousand. He gave her the money to make the down payment on the duplex and a lot more besides, but I guess you'd already figured that out.”
“Some of it,” Dill said.
“But what your sister couldn't find out was where the money was coming from because it wasn't. I mean, Colder just had it, you understand?”
“Yes,” Dill said. “I understand.”
“And then, one day, she mentioned you and Jake Spivey to him and how you two had grown up together and all. Well, Colder couldn't hear enough about that. Then, a few months later, they were at his place, Colder's, and it was a Saturday afternoon, as I remember, and he went down to the store for some beer or something, and Felicity started snooping around. She found a ledger about so big.” Strucker's hands measured a small seven-by-nine-inch ledger. “So she read it and what she read was everything she'd told him about Jake. Not you. Just Jake. So I went calling on Jake out at the old Ace Dawson mansion.”
“It was love at first sight,” Spivey said with a grin.
“And you two figured it out, right?” Dill said. “The Kansas City connection between Colder and Clyde Brattle.”
Strucker nodded.
“How much do you think Brattle paid Colder to kill Jake?” Dill asked. “A million?”
Strucker nodded. “At least. Well, weâJake and Iâwe decided if we could just keep Jake alive, Brattle'd show up sooner or later to find out how come he wasn't getting what he paid for. And when he showed, well, I'd collar him and that sure wouldn't hurt my political future any. Jake and I'd already talked some about that.”
“And you just let Felicity dangle,” Dill said.
“Colder hadn't done anything yet,” Strucker said. “You've gotta keep that in mind.”
“And you're saying he killed Felicity when he found out what she was up to.”
Strucker nodded somberly. And after the nod came another of his long sad sighs. “We couldn't prove it though. We had no case.”
“Bullshit,” Dill said. “You could've nailed Colder for Felicity. Or for what's his name, her ex-boyfriend, Clay Corcoran. Or for poor old Harold Snow. Jesus. Harold was the real easy one. But you didn't, did you, because you were still waiting for Brattle. You guys traded my sister for Clyde Brattle.”
Strucker in two quick strides was at Dill's side. He grabbed Dill by the left arm and spun him around. The chief of detectives pointed down at the floor. His face was an angry wrinkled knot. His voice a rasp. “Who's that lying down there in his own blood and piss and shit? That's Gene Colder,
Captain
Gene Colder, who was the best fucking homicide cop I ever knew. He killed your sister without leaving a trace and then preached at her funeral. He shot Clay Corcoran through the throat from thirty-six feet away with a twenty-five automatic and six hundred other cops standing around with their thumbs up their ass. He used a sawed-off on Harold Snow and then waltzed back in carrying a pint of ice
cream, took over the investigation, and planted the evidence that would prove Snow killed Felicity. You think he didn't know what he was doing? Why the fuck d'you think a guy like Clyde Brattle'd pay him a million dollars? And if Gene'd been just a little luckier tonight, he could've nailed Brattle, kept the money, and the law'd never touch him. But there he is. On the floor. Dead.”
Captain
Gene Colder, who was the best fucking homicide cop I ever knew. He killed your sister without leaving a trace and then preached at her funeral. He shot Clay Corcoran through the throat from thirty-six feet away with a twenty-five automatic and six hundred other cops standing around with their thumbs up their ass. He used a sawed-off on Harold Snow and then waltzed back in carrying a pint of ice
cream, took over the investigation, and planted the evidence that would prove Snow killed Felicity. You think he didn't know what he was doing? Why the fuck d'you think a guy like Clyde Brattle'd pay him a million dollars? And if Gene'd been just a little luckier tonight, he could've nailed Brattle, kept the money, and the law'd never touch him. But there he is. On the floor. Dead.”
Dill reached over and removed Strucker's grip. He then stepped over to the coffee table. “What if he didn't do it?” Dill asked.
Strucker glanced quickly over at Jake Spivey who seemed puzzled. “What's he getting at?” Strucker said.
“Something,” Spivey said.
“You say you can't prove he killed Felicityâor Corcoran, or even Harold Snow. So if you can't prove he killed them, he's innocent.”
“He killed them,” Strucker said. “All of them.”
“You think he did.”
“So do you, Pick,” Spivey said.
“Maybe,” Dill said, reached down, picked up the tape player, snapped out the cassette, and put it away in a pocket.
Spivey rose. “You ain't fixing to walk out the door with that tape, are you?” he said.
“It was supposed to be your briarpatch, Jake. The ultimate one. But now it's mine.” Dill looked at Strucker and then back at Jake Spivey, who reached down and picked up the .38 Colt automatic from the coffee table. “I worry about you two,” Dill said. “I worry about how high you'll rise and what you might do when you get there. And if you go far enough and high enough, then someday you might start remembering me and how I was here in this room on the night you did what you did. And then maybe you might start wondering if maybe you shouldn't do something about me. So when you start thinking like that, remember this: I've got the tape.”
Spivey shook his head sadly and brought the automatic up until it was aimed at Dill. “Pick, I can't let you go through the door with that tape.”
“What's on it?” Strucker said.
“Everything we need to keep me out of jail and make you mayor and then senator.”
“Well, now,” Strucker said.
Dill said, “I'm leaving, Jake.”
“We're just gonna have to stop you one way or other,” Spivey said, his voice sad and troubled. He looked over at Strucker.
The chief of detectives slowly shook his head. “No.”
“What d'you mean no?” Spivey said.
“If we take that tape away from him, he'll talk,” Strucker said. “About tonight. If we let him walk, he won't.” He looked at Dill. “Right?”
“Right.”
“Unless, of course,” Strucker said to Spivey, “you want to plug him and get it over with. We could fix it up somehow.”
Dill waited for Spivey to say or do something. Spivey again looked down at the automatic and again aimed it carefully at Dill. As he aimed it, an expression of genuine sorrow spread slowly across his face. Dill wondered whether he would hear the gun fire. The sorrow then left Spivey's face and regret seemed to replace it. He slowly lowered the automatic and said, “Shit, I can't do it.”
Dill turned, opened the door, and left.
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