The Crossroads (22 page)

The bald man had hung up. “What’s this? Police you say. What’s a trouble?”

“Want to talk to Brodey.”

The bald man looked at the identification. “City police?
Walterburg? What I got to do with Walterburg? Brodey is busy working.”

Sharry said, “We can take him in with us, or we can talk to him here. This way it doesn’t take as long.”

The bald man shrugged violently. “So talk to him!” He turned toward Brodey. “Yesterday doctors. Today cops. I dock you for both times, understand?”

Brodey was wiping his hands on a towel. “What’s this all about?”

Sharry looked around. Half the diner was taken up by the counter. At the far end were small booths on both sides of the narrow center aisle. Nobody was in the booth section. “Bring a couple of coffees down to the end booth, Brodey,” he said, and walked down to the end. He sat down on one side of the booth. Gold remained standing. Brodey arrived with the coffee. He put it on the table.

“Sit down,” Bill Sharry said, gesturing toward the opposite bench. Brodey hesitated and sat down. He slid over. Lew Gold sat beside him.

“Can you give me some idea what’s going on? Or is there some rule about it?” Brodey asked.

Sharry put sugar and cream in his coffee, stirred it. “Guess you can’t knock down as much here as when you were stealing Drovek money, eh, Mark?”

Brodey made a slow ceremony of lighting a cigarette, stroking the match slowly, inspecting the glowing end after taking the first drag. “I don’t want to sound like a wise guy, Captain. If it took all this time for Drovek to decide to put the law on me, it would be hard proving it now. If I did knock down a little, which I’m not saying I did. And if he did want to try it, it wouldn’t be Walterburg police, would it? So this is something else. But I don’t have any idea what it could be. I’m as clean as anybody you ever talked to.”

“Funny job for a bartender.”

“I’ve been a lot of things. Short-order cook. Meat cutter. Waiter.”

“But the union says you’ve been a bartender eight years. Five years with Drovek. It pays better than this.”

“So we talk about my career, if that’s what you want.
I got no reference from the Droveks. The word got around. You know.”

“So now you could be up north in a resort area, lining up a bartending job for the summer, in a resort. They don’t check that close. You still got the union card. That’s all they want to look at.”

“Are you worrying about me? I don’t like the north. I get asthma. I stay right here until maybe November or December, and then I’m moving down to Miami. That’s okay with you?”

“You read the paper?”

“Sure, Captain. What is it I should be … Oh! Would it be that bank thing? Papa Drovek and Pete’s wife and the gas station guy, Lawrenz? Is that what’s on your mind?”

“How well do you know Glenn Lawrenz?”

Brodey took a long time stubbing his cigarette out thoroughly and neatly. “I know the woman better. But my knowing them doesn’t mean a thing.”

“Let’s try Lawrenz first.”

“He went to work there maybe seven months ago. That place, it’s supposed to be one big happy family. That’s so you won’t notice the screwing you’re getting. I met him. He’s all punk. I figured he was looking for some kind of angle. I didn’t know he had such big ideas.”

“Run around with him at all?”

“No. I saw him on the job. That’s all.”

“Now let’s try Sylvia.”

“A while after Pete married her and brought her back, she took to coming into the Starlight Club for a couple of quick knocks before dinner. I’m going to level with you fellas. I don’t think I’ve busted any laws. I don’t think the family thought much of her coming in and sitting at the bar. But, hell, she was bored and lonesome. Pete didn’t give her enough time and attention. I went out of my way to be nice to her. I felt sort of sorry for the kid. And she was one of the family. You know. It couldn’t hurt anything, being nice to her. We’d kid around a little. She seemed to like me. Maybe I could have tried to find out just how much she liked me. But that would have been
stupid. So, I got bounced out of there. A few weeks later I landed this job. Not long after that she came in here one night when I was on alone. She was a little tight. Pete was out of town. She’d heard from somebody where I was, and came down to tell me she thought I got a raw deal.” He paused and looked troubled and embarrassed. “Look at it from my point of view. I felt I got a raw deal, after five years working for those people. She was tight. She liked me. And you got to admit she’s stacked. Gus was due back any minute to cash up and close the place. So I told her where to wait for me. The Ace Cabins, just up the road. I rent the last one up the hill by the month. When she said she would, I gave her my key. I thought she’d change her mind, go home. But when I got to the cabin, she was there all right. I don’t imagine either of you two guys would back off when stuff like that falls in your lap. I felt like it served the Droveks right I should give her a little bounce. She came back for more a few times, afternoons when I was off. Then I guess she got mixed up with Lawrenz, because she didn’t come back any more. I can see now that’s why you fellas are here, because somebody saw her turning in at the Ace Cabins, or saw her car parked by my cabin.” He sighed. “I was glad when it ended, actually. Maybe I’m the old-fashioned type or something. It spoils it a little for me when it’s some guy’s wife.”

“Nobody reported seeing her car there, Mark,” Sharry said.

“What? Then what’s the deal? Where do I fit into this thing? I can’t think of any other reason why you’d come near me.”

“I guess she told Lawrenz about you.”

It looked as though Brodey had stopped breathing. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Maybe Lawrenz didn’t like the idea of you taking a few hacks at her.”

“You fellas are talking way over my head.”

“When Lawrenz rented the box, he used your name.”

Brodey had taken a fresh cigarette out. He hadn’t lighted it. He rubbed his thumb and first two fingers together,
splitting the paper, dribbling tobacco on the table top. He seemed to be looking over Sharry’s left shoulder, so intently that Sharry felt an impulse to turn around and look out the window behind him.

“The son of a bitch,” Brodey said softly.

“It certainly means you and Lawrenz weren’t partners in this deal,” Sharry said. “Unless he was crossing you.”

“Partners!” Brodey said contemptuously. “I wouldn’t pick that punk to help me steal apples off a pushcart.”

“It looks like he did pretty good, so far.”

Brodey suddenly seemed considerably more relaxed. “Until you catch up with them. Let me tell you one thing. Just about everybody had that little girl figured for stupid. I don’t think so. I think that little brain of hers was ticking all the time. She didn’t advertise it. I don’t think Lawrenz could have dreamed a thing like this up. The way I look at it, she was the brains and he was the muscle. Is the old man dead yet?”

“No. He’s going to pull through.”

“Glad to hear it. He seemed to me like a nice old guy, somehow.”

Gold spoke for the first time. “What was this about a doctor yesterday?”

“I took time off to see a doctor.”

“Give me his name,” Gold said.

“What the hell for?” Brodey said angrily. “Why are you on my back? I didn’t have anything to do with what you’re working on.”

“What’s the doctor’s name?”

“Okay, okay,” Brodey said, lowering his voice slightly and glancing toward the counter. “That’s the only way I could get that meathead to let me off. There wasn’t any doctor.”

“Where were you?” Gold asked gently.

Brodey again took his time lighting his cigarette. “I had something lined up. Yesterday was the first good chance. It has to be in the daytime on account of her husband.”

“I thought you didn’t go for the married stuff.”

Brodey grinned in a wolfish way. “Sometimes it’s so good you can’t help yourself.”

“Who is she?”

“Listen, I’ve levelled with you fellas all the way. I don’t want to get her jammed up. She’s pretty timid and scary. You know. Let’s leave it this way. If you guys actually have to have her name, okay, you come back and I’ll give it to you. But you take it awful easy when you check me out with her. Okay?”

Gold glanced at Sharry and then said, “Okay. If we have to have it, we’ll come back on you. Mind if we take a look at that cabin of yours?”

“Hell, no,” Brodey said. He reached into his pants pocket under the apron, took out his keys and handed them to Gold. “It’s this little brass one. You’ll drop them back off here?”

“Sure. Thanks for your co-operation, Brodey.”

“Glad to do what I can. Hope you catch up with that pair quick. It’s a pretty rotten thing, bashing an old guy like that.”

Sharry and Gold went through the cabin with the casual, thorough skill of good training and long practice. They were an effective team, the best in Walterburg, possibly the best in the state. Bill Sharry had a logical, consecutive pattern of mind. Lew Gold’s intellectual equipment was more devious, intricate, intuitive. And they were both vastly stubborn.

“Huh!” Gold said. Sharry immediately turned from the inspection of a drawer and went to where Gold knelt in front of the closet, an open suitcase in front of him.

“What you got?”

“Stick your nose in that corner.”

Sharry sniffed, straightened up. “Gun oil, maybe.”

“How long would it stay that strong?”

“No way to check that, Lew. The suitcase was closed. Maybe a month. Maybe a day. Maybe six months. Maybe he had a fish reel in there.”

In another fifteen minutes they were through.

“Nothing,” Sharry said. He went over and sat on the cot. Gold propped one ham on the corner of the scarred
bureau, long leg dangling. “What about him?” Sharry asked. “This was your move.”

“He’s damn bright,” Gold said. “Good control. A loner. He’s talked to cops before.”

“I felt that.”

“He was a lot more tightened up than he looked. I felt that wheels were going around in his head. He had to figure out why we’d come to him. When he got an answer that satisfied him, he took the chance of beating us to the punch, bringing up the Drovek woman. To give a frank and earnest impression. When you told him he’d guessed wrong, it shocked hell out of him. You could see that. And maybe made him sore at himself. But he was really rocked when you made that crack about Lawrenz not liking him. I wish we could have taken that further.”

“Taken it where?”

“I don’t know. If I’d known, I would have come in right there and made some kind of a play. But when he found out why we’d come to him, it seemed somehow to take him off the hook. I had that impression. As if we’d lost him somehow.”

“I know what you mean.”

“And I get the feeling of certain inconsistencies, Bill. Of all the people we’ve talked to about Sylvia Drovek, he’s the only one who seems to think she’s bright in any way.”

“So maybe he thought so. I don’t follow you.”

“Or wants us to think so. I don’t follow myself on this. It’s pretty vague.”

“What else was inconsistent?”

“His reaction to my asking the doctor’s name … a lot of loud bluster, compared to how he reacted when I asked for the key to this place. It’s instinctive to try to block people from searching your castle even when you know there’s nothing there to find.”

“He was pretty willing, at that. But look, Lew. The fact Lawrenz used Brodey’s name cancels him out of the picture, doesn’t it?”

Gold frowned. “I guess so.”

“Are those little bells of yours ringing?”

“Not so I can hear them, Loot.”

“What about it, then?”

“Let’s put him in the reserve file. We got anything that aims even remotely in his direction, let’s come back on him and strip him down to component parts.” He grinned suddenly. “Always allowing for the fact that my judgment is colored by the fact I just instinctively don’t like the little bastard.”

“I wouldn’t want to get too chummy with him myself. Let’s go drop off the keys and get back to work.”

“What do we do next, boss?”

“See how the passenger lists are coming along.”

It was three in the afternoon, after Gus left, before Mark Brodey had a chance to cover himself. He had to risk using the phone. It had to be set up in case they came back.

She answered on the fourth ring. “Hello, honey,” he said.

“Who … who is this?”

“Don’t tell me your memory is so short, Liz.”

“Mark? What do you want?” She sounded alarmed.

“I tried to phone you yesterday, baby. Three or four times, between ten-thirty and two.”

“You did? I was right here all the time. But what are you calling me for?”

“Don’t sound so unfriendly, Liz. How’s married life?”

“It’s all right.”

“Wish you were back on the job, being a cocktail waitress again?”

“Well … sometimes, I guess. But not very much. What do you want? I … I don’t want to see you again. Ever.”

“You saw me yesterday, honey.”

“What do you mean?”

“Does hubby come home for lunch?”

“No, he eats … Yes, he always comes home.”

“Don’t try to kid an old pal, Liz. I got to your house about ten-thirty and I left about two. We had a ball.”

“Mark, I don’t know what in the world …”

“Now you listen to me, Liz, and stop making bleating noises. I might have to give your name to some cops. If they check with you, you back me up. I was there. For old times’ sake or something. Ralph won’t have to know a damn thing about you backing me up.”

She had started to cry. “But here, in my own house. My baby is here …”

“You know me, Liz. You know I do what I say. If you don’t back me up, you’re going to have trouble. Ralphie is going to get a complete case history on you. And after he throws you the hell out, I’m going to find you and really work you over good. You remember the time I did work you over, don’t you?”

“Mark. Honest to God, I …”

“You do as I tell you. Maybe they won’t come near you. But if they do, you do like I say. Okay? Or do I have to come out there right now and have a little talk with you about it?”

“No. Mark. Please don’t come here.”