The Brass Rainbow

26

The parking lot of the big brown house was full of cars and empty of people. I saw Deirdre Fallon’s red Fiat. I didn’t see Walter Radford’s Jaguar. The lot was dark and swept by the wind. A mist of dry snow blew like drifting sand across the open lot from mounds at the edges.

When I parked and got out, the scouring wind made sounds that played tricks with my nerves. I was a long way from my own backyard. Costa’s silver Bentley was parked in its private space around the corner from the front entrance. I went inside.

The rooms were all going full blast, the elegant marks losing their money as fast as in any garage-floor crap game, if with more comfort and gentility. I stayed far in the background, my duffle coat on my arm. I did not see Walter or Deirdre Fallon. I chewed my lip for a time, then headed for the telephone booth inside the front door. I put on my coat and slid into the booth.

Costa’s office number would be private, but the club should have a listed number. It did. I dialed and watched through the glass as a houseman ambled to a wall telephone. I asked for Costa. I saw the houseman hesitate. I gave my name and said it was urgent. He told me to wait. I watched him press a button, and my line went on hold. He pressed another button, and almost stood at attention as he spoke into the phone. He nodded, and my line went off hold.

“Hello, baby, what’s up?” Costa’s easy voice said.

“I want to talk to you.”

“You know where to find me.”

“No, somewhere a little more public. I’m at the railroad station. Just drive up slow; I’ll see you.”

There was a silence. When his voice came back on the line, it could have sliced steel. “You putting me on, Fortune?”

“You better come,” I said. “Come right now, and come alone.”

I hung up. In the booth I sat down where I could see both the front door and the curtained entrance to Costa’s office. He had to come, if only to call my bluff. He appeared in less than two minutes, wearing a sleek black Chesterfield and an angry scowl. His coat bulged. He stopped to talk to the houseman. He was alone. I didn’t see Strega anywhere. I was a two-bit private eye, and a cripple, and I had counted on his pride. He strode out the front door. I slipped from the booth and followed him.

Outside, I saw him just turning the corner toward the Bentley. I slipped to the corner and peered around. The Bentley was only some twenty feet away. I waited until he had the door open and was sliding behind the wheel. Then I sprinted the twenty feet.

He was so busy he didn’t see me until I was leaning in the window, my old pistol in my hand. His black eyes looked up at me, and then he grinned. He curled a lip at my gun.

“Where’d you pick up the musket, baby?”

“I keep it around for courage,” I said. “Keep your hands on the wheel, and face front until I’m in the back.”

I slid into the back seat. His sleek black hair shined in the faint light reflected from the snow. He was watching me in the rear-view mirror, all his teeth flashing in the smile.

“You need courage, baby?” he asked in his easy voice.

“Someone is acting like I do,” I said.

“The Radford thing?”

“Yes. Where are they, Costa? Walter Radford and Miss Fallon?”

“Why would I know, baby?”

“I think you know.”

Costa moved. I pushed the pistol at him, but not too close. He put both his hands out in front of him.

“I like to see who I talk to, Fortune,” he said. “My hands are open. My coat’s buttoned. You got me alone. I’m turning.”

He turned until he could rest his hands on the back of the front seat. He leaned against the door, his dark eyes on me. I sat back far out of range. A Bentley is a big, roomy car.

“You think I killed old Jonathan after all, baby?” he said.

“No, Walter Radford killed his uncle.”

“So what’s the pitch?”

“Walter didn’t kill Paul Baron or the other two.”

“What other two?”

“Leo Zar, and a girl named Carla Devine.”

Even in the reflected light I saw his black eyes take on a hard sheen like well-polished ebony. He whistled through his teeth. I waited. Outside in the wind-swept parking lot no one appeared and nothing moved.

Costa said, “You think you know something, baby?”

“I know that after Walter killed Jonathan, Paul Baron came to his ‘rescue’ and set up a frame on Sammy Weiss. That gave Baron a real hold on Walter, with the murder knife as security. Or Baron thought it did. Mrs. Radford outfoxed him. She made a deal with his partner. So Baron got shot, and the other two were killed because they knew too much about the frame-up.”

“Baron had a partner? You mean all along?”

“It’s all that makes sense. Only someone Baron really trusted could have both killed him and set the second frame-up on Weiss. Someone who knew everything Baron was doing.”

“Who, baby?”

“Deirdre Fallon,” I said. “It has to be. She probably conned Walter into getting Baron to cover Jonathan’s murder in the first place. She was there; she got the idea.”

“I knew there was something about that one. It figures, yeh. She’s smooth; she’s been around. She didn’t figure with Walter.”

“No, she didn’t figure until the small blackmail turned into a big squeeze. Then Mrs. Radford bought off the big squeeze. The payoff was Walter himself. He was rich now, and he wanted Deirdre. All Deirdre had to do was get Baron out of the picture.”

“You think Walter knew?”

“No, but maybe he’s guessed by now.”

Costa rubbed his jaw. “Did she have to kill Baron? That’s taking a hell of a risk even for all Walter would have.”

“She had to,” I said, “but she didn’t kill him. Not alone. She set him up and got a sucker to do the dirty work for her.”

“A sucker?” His black eyes were down to points.

“Someone who wanted her, Costa. Maybe a share in the loot, but mostly for her, I figure.” My hand sweated on the pistol.

“You think I’m dumb enough to kill for a woman, baby?”

“I gave up trying to figure what men will do for a woman a long time ago. There was an arranged frame-up on hand, maybe it looked foolproof,” I said. “Where is she, Costa? Where’s Walter?”

“I ain’t seen them, baby. They’re not around here.”

“Her car’s here.”

“Here?” he said. “That Fiat?”

“In your lot over there.”

“Damn, baby, you’re ahead of me. I didn’t see her tonight.”

“She’ll cross you,” I said. “She’ll get someone to kill you, or do it herself. She’s in too deep. Baron and Leo Zar were both armed. They’ll never prove Carla on anyone. You can take a plea. Manslaughter, or even self-defense.”

His voice was all the way down to bare bone. “You take big chances for a cripple, baby.”

I leaned. “Earlier tonight you said you didn’t know Carla Devine. But when we were all up on Sixty-third Street Deirdre made sure you knew that Leo Zar and I were looking for Carla. I wondered why she said that out loud at the time. A few hours later, Carla Devine was dead. Then I knew. Deirdre was tipping you that Carla had to be silenced before Leo or I got to her.”

“If she was tipping someone, baby, it wasn’t…” He stopped. The hard shine went out of his eyes. I saw something like a quick fear in his eyes. He said, “Jesus!”

I said, “Strega. Where is he?”

He shook his head. “Around. He’s supposed to be around.”

“Where was he Wednesday night?”

“His night off,” Costa said. He said it as if it hurt his mouth. “I ain’t seen him around so much tonight. Listen, Fortune, you’ve got it all wrong. Strega wouldn’t…”

“Where would he be with her, Costa?”

He watched me. Then he said, “Let’s go.”

He went first out of the Bentley. I followed. He went around the house. He made no attempt to get his gun, call out, or try any other tricks. As we reached the open grounds behind the house, he began to walk faster. I saw another house some hundred yards away across the wooded backyard.

“Where we live,” Costa said. “Both of us. I got the top.”

It was a small, two-story house. The path that led to it through the woods was almost untouched. A snow-packed dirt road curved to it from the highway. Costa began to run as we came near the house. He was pulling at his pistol now.

“Something’s wrong!” Costa said.

The front door of the house was open. There was faint light somewhere to the rear. Costa ran through the open door, and I was right behind him. Inside, stairs led up from a narrow hallway. Costa ran past the stairs to the rear where another door was open, and light showed in the room behind the door.

The room was a bedroom. The bed was a tangle of sheets and blankets. A bottle and two partly filled glasses stood on a bureau. Two chairs were knocked over. The window near the bed was broken, and glass lay all over the floor under it. A woman’s black dress hung on a chair. A pair of woman’s knee boots lay on the floor. The stink of gunpowder hung in the air.

Strega sat on the floor with his back against the bed. He wore only a black silk Japanese kimono. It was torn, bloody. Blood was pooled on the floor. There was a pistol in Strega’s right hand. His eyes were open, his face was chalk-white, and his blond hair was dark and matted with sweat. Costa dropped to his knees in front of Strega. The handsome gambler kneeled in the pool of blood. He didn’t notice.

“Strega! Kid! Baby!”

“He’s dead, Costa,” I said.

Costa didn’t seem to hear me. He was massaging Strega’s limp hand. I looked around. The story was easy to see. The low and muted light, the bottle and glasses, the rumpled bed, and Strega’s kimono told it all. The window told the end of it. Someone had shot through the closed window. It was no more than ten feet from where Strega sat. One shot had smashed a mirror. Three had hit Strega.

Costa stood and went to the telephone. The knees of his trousers were sticky with blood. Costa picked up the receiver and stopped.

“He’s dead, Costa,” I said.

Costa didn’t answer. He stood with the receiver in his hand. I went to the window. There was blood in the snow, and a trail of trampled snow led to the dirt road at the side of the house.

Costa said, “He never could handle women. Funny, a big guy like Strega. The women, they always ruined him.”

I went and picked the pistol out of Strega’s dead hand. It was a long-barreled. 38. It had just been fired. It showed the marks where a silencer had been fitted.

“A sucker for women,” Costa said. And he began to cry.

I began to search the room. I wrapped the. 38 in one of Strega’s T-shirts and put it into my coat pocket. I searched some more, and finally found the knife, the kris, hidden under some shirts. It was wrapped carefully in tissue. There was a. 45 caliber automatic with it. The. 45 had been fired recently. I wrapped the. 45 in a T-shirt, too, and put it in my pocket. The pocket sagged. I put the kris in my inside jacket pocket.

Costa was kneeling in front of the dead man again. Big tears poured down his dark, handsome face. I left him, and the house, and walked through the woods to my car. I saw that the red Fiat was still parked in the lot.

As I drove from the lot, a police cruiser passed me on its way in. It had North Chester markings. They were not going to worry about technicalities like town lines when they had a favor to do for Mrs. Radford. They were after me, but they would find Strega and Costa sooner or later.

I drove as fast as a one-armed man can drive with control.