Time to Murder and Create

"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."



Chapter 5



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 up Fifth Avenue, I stopped at St. 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 in New 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 in St. 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 midtown Manhattan. 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.



Chapter 6



The cocktail lounge in the Pierre 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.



"Okay," she said.



I looked at her.



"You'd better lay it out for me, Mr. Scudder." The well-bred voice now, and the face returning to its earlier planes. "I gather this is going to cost me something."



"A man has to eat, Mrs. Ethridge."



She smiled suddenly, whether spontaneously or not. Her whole face brightened with it. "I think you really ought to call me Beverly," she said. "It strikes me as odd to be addressed formally by a man who's seen me with a cock in my mouth. And what do they call you-Matt?"



"Generally."



"Put a price on it, Matt. What's it going to cost?"



"I'm not greedy."



"I bet you tell that to all the girls. How greedy aren't you?"



"I'll settle for the same arrangement you had with Spinner. What's good enough for him is good enough for me."



She nodded thoughfully, a trace of a smile playing on her lips. She put the tip of one dainty finger to her mouth and gnawed it.



"Interesting."



"Oh?"



"The Spinner didn't tell you much. We didn't have an arrangement."



"Oh?"



"We were trying to work one out. I didn't want him to nickel me to death a week at a time. I did give him some money. I suppose it came to a total of five thousand dollars over the past six months."



"Not very much."



"I also went to bed with him. I would have preferred giving him more money and less sex, but I don't have much money of my own. My husband is a rich man, but that's not the same thing, you see, and I don't have very much money."



"But you've got a lot of sex."



She licked her lip in a very obvious way. That didn't make it any less provocative. "I didn't think you noticed," she said.



"I noticed."



"I'm glad."



I had some of my coffee. I looked around the room. Everybody was poised and well dressed, and I felt out of place. I was wearing my best suit, and I looked like a cop in his best suit. The woman across from me had made pornographic movies, prostituted herself, worked a confidence game. And she was completely at ease here, while I knew I looked out of place.



I said, "I think I'd rather have money, Mrs. Ethridge."



" Beverly."



" Beverly," I agreed.



"Or Bev, if you prefer. I'm very good, you know."



"I'm sure you are."



"I'm told I combine a professional's skill and an amateur's zeal."



"And I'm sure you do."



"After all, you've seen photographic proof."