Summitt

Chapter Thirty-Two

Selby phoned Shana from the lobby of the Franklin Hotel in Philadelphia.

His daughter’s voice was subdued... Brett had called to tell her that she seemed to be coming down with a heavy cold and might not be in court tomorrow. “She sounded sort of strange,” Shana said, “but she told me it would be okay if one of the other deputies took over—”

“Was she home when she told you that?”

“No, she was at her office. But she seemed okay today. Super, in fact. When are you coming home?”

“I expected to be back before this.” Selby looked at his watch; it was after eight. The Cadles had been out that afternoon but had checked into their room a few minutes ago. “I’ll be home in a couple of hours.”

“Well, everything’s fine here. Mrs. Cranston and Davey are watching TV, and I’ve been looking up Switzerland in the map book. I found a town called Beaurive near Lausanne, it has hotels right near the ski lifts. I’m going to write for brochures and holiday rates. I’ll write a letter in French and have Miss Calder check it out so I don’t say something about putting ski wax on the plume of my aunt. I’ll ask Miss Culpepper to make me a checklist of books from the library.”

If the fantasy of white slopes, Christmas lights and chocolate in a Swiss village could help distract Shana, Selby thought, so much the better... she still had Davic’s cross-examination to face. But as if sensing her father’s thoughts, Shana’s voice became shaded. “I want to talk to Kelly tomorrow,” she said, “there’s something I’ve got to tell her.”

“A couple of aspirin and a night’s sleep can work wonders, honey.”

“Well, I’d better talk to you anyway. Will you wake me when you get home?”

“Sure thing.”

“No matter how late?”

“No matter. It’s a late date...”

After the hanging up, Selby dialed Sergeant Wilger at the Division in East Chester.

“Can you talk?”

“Go ahead.”

“What’s up with Brett?”

“I wish to hell I knew. She’s in a meeting with the DA and Slocum. A secretary they sent out for coffee leaked that they’re moving to get her off the Thomson case. Slocum for sure, and Lamb is leaning that way. The private muscle from New York, Davic’s investigators, have come up with something that apparently gives the defense the opportunity to file a motion to disqualify.”

“Any idea what?”

“No... where are you?”

“Philadelphia. I spent part of the afternoon talking to Petey Komoto at Hell for Leather. You sure we can talk?”

“Who knows? They could have a wire up my ass. But go ahead. You told Komoto you were a cop, is that it, Harry? Used a police badge from a crackerjack box?”

“I didn’t need to. Petey spotted you the other night. He described you as a thin nervous guy with glasses parked across from his spot. Made you for a cop and figured you were interested in Thomson and Taggart because you split when they did. So Petey Komoto decided his operation was under surveillance and I was part of it. I let him assume whatever the hell he wanted. It seems Thomson and Taggart rented a film called Knots and Lashes, a four-reeler about a modern cruise ship. Lady pirates in boots and bikinis board her. Nautical fun and games, seamen walking the plank, cat-o’-nine-tails. But Thomson didn’t screen Knots and Lashes. He had another can of him. Komoto heard Thomson tell Taggart he’d put it together from a master print.”

“You got this for contributing to Petey’s favorite charity?”

“Yes, it’s called the Komoto Foundation. Two hundred in cash. But Komoto didn’t see any of Thomson’s him—”

“Hold it, I got a party on another line. Where can I call you?”

“You better not. I’m at the Franklin but I’m about to pay a social call on the Cadle brothers. They’re registered here as Ed and John Nelson.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Wilger’s voice became angry. “You don’t know what you’re into. This isn’t amateur night. That prick Taggart testifies tomorrow, and Goldie Boy. Davic will put Shana through the wringer. What good will you do if you’re in a body cast? Sit tight, Harry. I’m off duty in two hours. I can be in Philly—”

“I’ll be all right.” Selby hung up and walked down a flight of steps to the men’s room. He checked his duffel coat with the attendant and splashed water on his face and smoothed down his hair, which looked copper-tinted in the fluorescent lighting. He dried his face and hands and adjusted his tie and absently touched the white scar on his cheekbone.

After brushing his jacket, the attendant knelt and took several dextrous swipes with a towel at Selby’s L.L. Bean dark brown country shoes. A black man with pleasant eyes, the attendant thanked Selby for his tip and assured him he’d keep an eye on the duffel coat. Selby told him he’d be back in about an hour.

He took a self-service elevator to the fifth floor and knocked on the “Nelsons’ ” door. The man who opened it wore dark slacks and a gray sports shirt. His black hair was cut so short his scalp showed through it. His wrists were almost as thick as his forearms, and his shoulders filled out the shirt without a wrinkle. Life or poor digestion or something had made a pessimist of him, Selby decided. Cadle’s flat, hard eyes looked hostile out of sheer habit.

Selby’s name generated neither interest nor recognition.

“Okay, so you’re Harry Selby. What d’you want?”

His body partially blocked the door, but behind him Selby saw a TV set and a table with bottles, glasses and a cardboard icebucket. A man’s legs sprawled out in view on the bed.

“I’m looking for one of the Cadle brothers,” Selby said. “Aron or Ben.”

“Wrong room, sport.” The man started to close the door.

Selby checked it with his hand. “You’re registered as Nek son, but you’re one of the Cadle boys. Aron or Ben, one or the other.”

The eyes changed, became watchful. “Where’d you get the name Nelson?”

“That’s not important. Are you Ben or Aron?”

“Tell me about Nelson. Nothing else, sport.”

“Aron, who the hell is that?”

The voice came from the man on the bed. His thick bare legs were furred with reddish hair. He wore white socks.

“Well, if you’re Aron, I guess that must be Ben,” Selby said.

The hairy legs swung off the bed, the wide feet in dirty white socks came down on the floor. “Who’s the clown, Aron?”

Ben Cadle was the younger of the brothers, shorter than Aron but thicker through the arms and shoulders. His body was solid with heavy bone and muscle. He wore jockey shorts and a white T-shirt. His hair was a flaming red, red as paprika. It lay flat over his broad head like a skullcap.

“Look, Selby,” Aron Cadle said, “I think you’re confused about something. You look like good people, so come in and tell us about the Nelsons, okay?”

Selby said fine. An air-conditioner hummed in a window. The room’s meaty smell was sharpened by the tang of whiskey. Selby turned his back to the TV set. “I want to know who’s paying you. I’ve got a message for whoever it is, and I want you to deliver it.”

Aron Cadle put a hand on his brother’s arm, closed the door. “We can’t tell you that, pal,” he said. “There are rules about it.” Moving away from the door, Aron stood so that he and his brother faced Selby. “We can’t tell you about our clients. They pay us for privacy, for discretion. We wouldn’t be any good to them if we didn’t live up to those rules. But you’re not bound by ’em, sport, so you can tell us how you found out we’d registered here.”

“Look, we can settle this thing without the hard-nosed stuff,” Selby said. “I’m trying to find out about the pressure on a trial my daughter’s involved in. She’s fourteen and she was raped. You maybe have heard about it. You’ve made some calls to the deputy DA handling the case. Let’s start with that.”

They shifted their positions until they stood on either side of him. Aron Cadle said mildly, “No, Selby, we got to start back at square one. I’m gonna be frank now. I don’t have any idea in the whole world what you’re talking about. Ben and me are licensed private investigators with out-of-state permits for guns, surveillance equipment, police-band radios. What we do is by the book and strictly legal. We haven’t bothered your DA pal with phone calls.”

“And you didn’t try to run her down — her name is Dorcas Brett — in the black Lincoln you drive?”

“What’s that name again?”

“Brett, Dorcas Brett.”

“Funny kind of name, Dorcas. Never heard that one before. Ben, you know anybody by that name?”

“Dorcas? No way.”

“Selby, you are confused,” Aron said. “We drive a Volvo, not a Lincoln. You got no reason to be bugging me and my brother. Which leaves the Nelson business.”

“That’s the important thing, right?”

“Yes, it’s a matter of security. We went to a lot of trouble to check in here without anybody knowing. But somebody found out and told you. So who was it, sport?”

“Maybe we could swap stories.”

“Let’s try it that way.” Aron smiled. “We don’t want to beat it out of you. If you get your kicks getting roughed up, I’d advise you to go bust up a bar or try to punch out some cops. We’re businessmen, we don’t go in for that. But we’ve got to know how you found us. The rest is shit, Selby. The phone calls, your fourteen-year-old who got raped, the Dorcas lady, that’s all shit. You understand what I’m telling you?”

“I did some checking,” Selby said. “I found out you have an agency on Forty-fifth in Manhattan, between Fifth and Sixth. It’s called Atlas Investigation.” Selby watched their faces tighten as he told them the information he’d gotten from Victoria Kim. “You were bonded by a bank in the Bronx. The trust officer who signed the paper is your third cousin. That, by the way, is known to Mr. Touhy in the Bonding Section in Albany. Neither of you is married and you both belong to a queer health club in Queens, play racquetball on weekends. Aron’s got a girl, though, a legal secretary who works for a firm on Wall Street. It’s your turn now. What have you gents been up to? Never mind the fag health club, or the legal secretary... just the important details...”

They were not as professional as Selby had anticipated. Their reactions were blurred, splintered by a kind of frenzy.

Ben threw a looping punch at Selby’s head. It was a feint, of course, the trigger to turn Selby toward Aron. But Ben’s execution was clumsy, his grunt too theatrical. Selby stepped back and the blow missed him, as it was intended to. You were usually suckered like this in your first year up in the pros, worrying about speedy blocking backs who hit you and were gone, a distraction to make you forget what was right behind them, the pulling guards with ten-flat speed and shoulders like the fronts of trucks.

He was expecting Aron’s punch and took it on his shoulder instead of the face. But the man’s fist was only partially deflected and bounced off Selby’s forehead with painful force. With the heel of one hand, Selby rammed Aron’s jaw up and back. With his other, he hit him in the stomach.

He hit Aron as hard as he could, hoping to knock the wind out of him, but he did better than that; the punch landed in the soft triangle of the big man’s rib cage, and after one long gasp Aron coughed hoarsely and slid to the floor, hugging himself carefully with his arms.

Selby was hit from behind then by Ben, a blow that numbed his shoulder. He ducked and swung his arm in a back-handed slap that caught the redhead in the neck and tipped him back over the bed.

With surprising agility Ben lunged for the lamp table, clawing at the drawer pulls. Selby caught him and dragged him onto the floor, but the drawer came away in the redhead’s hands, spilling out a deck of playing cards, bottles of pills... and a revolver in a spring-clip holster wrapped in a webbing of black harness.

Selby knelt on Ben Cadle’s back and turned up the television. A burst of laughter exploded from the set as teenagers carried a yappy dog into an immaculate kitchen. Aron watched Selby. His face was swollen, flushed a dull crimson. He held his body cautiously, as if he were cradling a fragile package.

Selby pounded Ben’s shoulder and neck and the top of his fiery red head. It was not textbook combat; there was no room for that. Ben heaved under Selby’s weight, squirming first in one direction and then the other like a giant crab trying to dislodge a heavy net from its back.

Selby hit him wherever he could, jarring him with short punches, kneeing him in the kidneys and ribs. Holding Ben’s coarse hair, he slammed his head against the floor.

Aron watched the proceedings with a glazed indifference. The flush of color had receded from his face; he was very pale now.

Selby put a knee into Ben’s back, shoved his face into the carpet and held him until Ben’s mouth opened wide and he stopped moving.

“I want you to be quiet,” Selby told him.

Ben couldn’t close his mouth. His eyes met Selby’s and he nodded with his eyes.

Selby released him and pushed him against the wall beside his brother. Picking up the revolver, he went into the bathroom and tossed it into the toilet.

A knock sounded on the door. Selby came out of the bathroom and looked at the Cadles. Ben’s mouth was still open. His head was twisted at an awkward angle. Blood glinted on Aron’s lips.

The knocking sounded again. Selby turned down the television and opened the door, his body filling the doorway.

A bellboy stood in the corridor. He looked up at Selby and tried to peer around him, a slender youngster with a pointed face and knowing eyes.

Selby said, “I guess you heard it too.”

“Heard what, sir?”

“I’m not sure,” Selby said. “It was like somebody fell. The ceiling shook. I was going to call the desk.”

“I guess it was on the next floor then,” the bellhop said.

“Could’ve been a drunk. What’s your name?”

“Karl, sir.”

Selby took out his wallet and gave him two twenty-dollar bills. “We’ll need room service in about an hour, Karl, a bottle of bourbon. Will you take care of us?”

“You bet. Any particular brand?”

“I’ll leave that up to you, Karl. About an hour, okay? No hurry.”

“Yes, sir.”

Selby closed the door, locked it and slipped the night chain into place.

He sat on the footstool in front of the television set and watched a plump lady who chuckled indulgently at the cartoon figure of an armored knight holding a floor waxer like an upraised lance.

Loosening his tie, he took out a handkerchief and patted his forehead where Aron had hit him; the broken skin stung when sweat touched it.

“You gents have me at a disadvantage,” he said. “This is your kind of action, not mine.”

“Something else,” Ben Cadle said. “We’re expecting calls. Lorso will check in, so will Davic. If you plan to hold us here, you got real problems—”

“Let me finish. You’re the professionals, with police-band radios, guns, surveillance equipment. But there’s something else that’s more important.” He watched the blood come from Aron’s lips, crimson blisters that filled up and popped with the rhythm of his slow, heavy breathing. “What’s important is for you to realize that this fight’s over and you guys lost. All that can happen now is for you to get hurt even more—”

“Tell Dom Lorso that, you creep,” Ben Cadle said. “And Slocum and—” “You’ll find out about hurt... I promise you...”

“I think I’m wasting my time,” Selby said. “But I’ll keep trying... breathe slow, Aron. It won’t hurt so bad—”

“It’s my ribs,” Aron said, “they’re killing me...”

“I know... sit quiet, you’ll be okay for a while. One of them splintered when I hit you, maybe a couple of them. Your lungs are filling up with blood now.”

Selby took a sheaf of papers from his pocket and smoothed out the creases. “You’re drowning, Aron.” He handed Emma Green’s deposition to Ben. “Read that,” he told him. “Read it to yourself. I’ve been through it one time too many. Hold it,” he said as Ben Cadle started to crumple the deposition. “Please don’t do that. You’ve only got a few loose teeth, Ben, but if you press me...” He shrugged. “So start reading. Your brother is hurt. I know about things like that. Players do the real damage to themselves after they’re hit. Macho bullshit about getting taped up and back in the game. First time they take a lick, they’re gone for the season. Maybe for life.”

“You crazy fucker, call a hospital,” Ben said. “You gonna sit and watch Aron bleed to death?”

“Emotional reaction to injuries tend to aggravate them,” Selby said. “A team doctor told me that. Ethnic and national characteristics also play a part. Italians, for instance, you can’t keep them on the bench hurt unless you nail them there. Blacks will play hurt if it’s a close game, but not for show. That’s what the good doc told me—”

“I’m German,” Aron Cadle gasped. “So is Ben.”

Selby nodded. “Good. The Germans I played with were very sensible. Followed instructions very well. All right... Ben, talk to me. I want everything Davic knows. Don’t leave anything out.”

“Suppose I tell you to go fuck yourself—?”

“Then we’ll sit here and watch your brother drown in his own blood.”

“Jesus, tell him,” Aron said softly, his breath whistling over his blood-flaked lips.

It didn’t take Ben long. When he was through, Selby said, “Now call Mr. Davic and read Miss Green’s deposition to him. When you’re through I’ll talk to him. If he asks about me, if he wants to know, for instance, if I’m in a violent or reckless mood, I suggest you give him an honest estimate. He’s entitled to that. So are you.”

Selby picked up a pillow, put it against Aron Cadle’s chest and carefully folded the man’s thick arms around it. “Hold it close to you and breathe very slowly,” he told him. “We’ll call an ambulance after I have a word with Counselor Davic.”