The Far Side of the Dollar

Chapter 27

BASTIAN PICKED UP his evidence case and shut it with a click. He walked out without a sign to either of us. He was treating Hillman as if he no longer existed. He was treating me in such a way that I could stay with Hillman.

Hillman watched him from the entrance to the library until he was safely across the reception hall and out the front door. Then he came back into the room. Instead of returning to the table where I was, he went to the wall of photographs where the squadron on the flight deck hung in green deep-sea light.

“What goes on around here?” he said. “Somebody took down Dick’s picture.”

“I did, for identification purposes.”

I got it out of my pocket. Hillman came and took it away from me. The glass was smudged by lingers, and he rubbed it with the sleeve of his jacket.

“You had no right to take it. What are you trying to do to Dick, anyway?”

“Get at the truth about him.”

“There is no mysterious truth about him. He’s a perfectly nice ordinary kid.”

“I hope so.”

“Look here,” he said, “you’ve accomplished what I hired you to do. Don’t think I’m ungrateful – I’m planning to give you a substantial bonus. But I didn’t hire you to investigate those murders.”

“And I don’t get the bonus unless I stop?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

He spread his hands on the table and leaned above me, heavy-faced and powerful. “Just how do you get to talk to your betters the way you’ve been talking to me?”

“By my betters you mean people with more money?”

“Roughly, yes.”

“I’ll tell you, Mr. Hillman. I rather like you. I’m trying to talk straight to you because somebody has to. You’re headed on a collision course with the law. If you stay on it, you’re going to get hurt.”

His face stiffened and his eyes narrowed. He didn’t like to be told anything. He liked to do the telling.

“I could buy and sell Bastian.”

“You can’t if he’s not for sale. You know damn well he isn’t.”

He straightened, raising his head out of the light into the greenish shadow. His face resembled old bronze, except that it was working. After a time he said: “What do you think I ought to do?”

“Start telling the truth.”

“Dammit, you imply I haven’t been.”

“I’m doing more than imply it, Mr. Hillman.”

He turned on me with his fists clenched, ready to hit me. I remained sitting. He walked away and came back. Without whisky, he was getting very jumpy.

“I suppose you think I killed them.”

“I’m not doing any speculating. I am morally certain you bought that knife from Botkin.”

“How can you be certain?”

“I’ve talked to the man.”

“Who authorized you to? I’m not paying you to gather evidence against me.”

I said, rather wearily: “Couldn’t we forget about your wonderful money for a while, and just sit here and talk like a couple of human beings? A couple of human beings in a bind?”

He considered this. Eventually he said: “You’re not in a bind. I am.”

“Tell me about it. Unless you actually did commit those murders. In which case you should tell your lawyer and nobody else.”

“I didn’t. I almost wish I had.”

He sat down across from me, slumping forward a little, with his arms resting on the tabletop. “I admit I bought the knife. I don’t intend to admit it to anyone else. Botkin will have to be persuaded to change his story.”

“How?”

“He can’t make anything out of that store of his. I ought to know, my father owned one like it in South Boston. I can give Botkin enough money to retire to Mexico.”

I was a bit appalled, not so much by the suggestion of crude subornation – I’d often heard it before – as by the fact that Hillman was making it. In the decades since he commanded a squadron at Midway, he must have bumped down quite a few moral steps.

I said: “You better forget about that approach, Mr. Hillman. It’s part of the collision course with the law I was talking about. And you’ll end up sunk.”

“I’m sunk now,” he said in an even voice.

He laid his head down on his arms. His hair spilled forward like a broken white sheaf. I could see the naked pink circle on the crown which was ordinarily hidden. It was like a tonsure of mortality.

“What did you do with the knife?” I said to him. “Did you give it to Dick Leandro?”

“No.”

Spreading his hands on the tablecloth, he pushed himself upright. His moist palms slipped and squeaked on the polished surface. “I wish I had.”

“Was Tom the one you gave it to?”

He groaned. “I not only gave it to him. I told Botkin I was buying the bloody thing as a gift for him. Bastian must be aware of that, but he’s holding it back.”

“Bastian would,” I said. “It still doesn’t follow that Tom used it on his father and mother. He certainly had no reason to kill his mother.”

“He doesn’t need a rational motive. You don’t know Tom.”

“You keep telling me that. At the same time you keep refusing to fill in the picture.”

“It’s a fairly ugly picture.”

“Something was said tonight about a homicidal attack.”

“I didn’t mean to let that slip out.”

“Who attacked whom and why?”

“Tom threatened Elaine with a loaded gun. He wasn’t kidding, either.”

“Was this the Sunday-morning episode you’ve been suppressing?”

He nodded. “I think the accident must have affected his mind. When I got home from the judge’s house, he had her in his room. He was holding my revolver with the muzzle against her head” Hillman pressed his fingertip into his temple – and he had her down on her knees, begging for mercy. Literally begging. I didn’t know whether he was going to give me the gun, either. For a minute he held it on me. I half expected him to shoot me.”

I could feel the hairs prickling at the nape of my neck. It was an ugly picture, all right. What was worse, it was a classic one: the schizophrenic execution killer.

“Did he say anything when you took the gun?”

“Not a word. He handed it over in a rather formal way. He acted like a kind of automaton. He didn’t seem to realize what he’d done, or tried to do.”

“Had he said anything to your wife?”

“Yes. He said he would kill her if she didn’t leave him alone. She’d simply gone to his room to offer him some food, and he went into this silent white rage of his.”

“He had a lot of things on his mind,” I said, “and he’d been up all night. He told me something about it. You might say it was the crucial night of his young life. He met his real father for the first time” – Hillman grimaced – “which must have been a fairly shattering experience. You might say he was lost between two worlds, and blaming you and your wife for not preparing him. You should have, you know. You had no right to cheat him of the facts, whether you liked them or not. When the facts finally hit him, it was more than he could handle. He deliberately turned the car over that morning.”

“You mean he attempted suicide?” Hillman said.

“He made a stab at it. I think it was more a signal that his life was out of control. He didn’t let go of the steering wheel, and he wasn’t badly hurt. Nobody got hurt in the gun incident, either.”

“You’ve got to take it seriously, though. He was in dead earnest.”

“Maybe. I’m not trying to brush it off. Have you talked it over with a psychiatrist?”

“I have not. There are certain things you don’t let out of the family.”

“That depends on the family.”

“Look,” he said, “I was afraid they wouldn’t admit him to the school if they knew he was that violent.”

“Would that have been such a tragedy?”

“I had to do something with him. I don’t know what I’m going to do with him now.”

He bowed his disheveled head.

“You need better advice than I can give you, legal and psychiatric.”

“You’re assuming he killed those two people.”

“Not necessarily. Why don’t you ask Dr. Weintraub to recommend somebody?”

Hillman jerked himself upright. “That old woman?”

“I understood he was an old friend of yours, and he knows something about psychiatry.”

“Weinie has a worm’s-eye knowledge, I suppose.” His voice rasped with contempt. “He had a nervous breakdown after Midway. We had to send him stateside to recuperate, while men were dying. While men were dying,” Hillman repeated. Then he seemed to surround himself with silence.

He sat in a listening attitude. I waited. His angry face became smooth and his voice changed with it. “Jesus, that was a day. We lost more than half of our TBD’s. The Zekes took them like sitting ducks. I couldn’t bring them back. I don’t blame Weinie for breaking down, so many men died on him.”

His voice was hushed. His eyes were distant. He didn’t even seem aware of my presence. His mind was over the edge of the world where his men had died, and he had died more than a little.

“The hell of it is,” he was saying, “I love Tom. We haven’t been close for years, and he’s been hard to handle. But he’s my son, and I love him.”

“I’m sure you do. But maybe you want more than Tom can give you. He can’t give you back your dead pilots.”

Hillman didn’t understand me. He seemed bewildered. His gray eyes were clouded.

“What did you say?”

“Perhaps you were expecting too much from the boy.”

“In what way?”

“Forget it,” I said.

Hillman was hurt. “You think I expect too much? I’ve been getting damn little. And look what I’m willing to give him.”

He spread his arms again, to embrace the house and everything he owned. “Why, he can have every nickel I possess for his defense. We’ll get him off and go to another country to live.”

“You’re away ahead of yourself, Mr. Hillman. He hasn’t been charged with anything yet.”

“He will be.”

His voice sounded both fatalistic and defiant.

“Maybe. Let’s consider the possibilities. The only evidence against him is the knife, and that’s pretty dubious if you think about it. He didn’t take it with him, surely, when you put him in Laguna Perdida.”

“He may have. I didn’t search him.”

“I’m willing to bet they did.”

Hillman narrowed his eyes until they were just a glitter between the folded lids. “You’re right, Archer. He didn’t have the knife when he left the house. I remember seeing it afterwards, that same day.”

“Where was it?”

“In his room, in one of the chests of drawers.”

“And you left it in the drawer?”

“There was no reason not to.”

“Then anybody with access to the house could have got hold of it?”

“Yes. Unfortunately that includes Tom. He could have sneaked in after he escaped from the school.”

“It also includes Dick Leandro, who wouldn’t have had to sneak in. He’s in and out of the house all the time, isn’t he?”

“I suppose he is. That doesn’t prove anything.”

“No, but when you put it together with the fact that Dick was probably seen at the Barcelona Hotel last night, it starts you thinking about him. There’s still something missing in this case, you know. The equations don’t balance.”

“Dick isn’t your missing quantity,” he said hastily.

“You’re quite protective about Dick.”

“I’m fond of him. Why shouldn’t I be? He’s a nice boy, and I’ve been able to help him. Dammit, Archer.”

His voice deepened. “When a fellow reaches a certain age, he needs to pass on what he knows, or part of it, to a younger fellow.”

“Are you thinking of passing on some money, too?”

“We may eventually. It will depend on Elaine. She controls the main money. But I can assure you it couldn’t matter to Dick.”

“It matters to everybody. I think it matters very much to Dick. He’s a pleaser.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means. He lives by pleasing people, mainly you. Tell me this. Does Dick know about the gun incident in Tom’s room?”

“Yes. He was with me that Sunday morning. He drove me to the judge’s house and home again.”

“He gets in on a lot of things,” I said.

“That’s natural. He’s virtually a member of the family. As a matter of fact, I expected him tonight. He said he had something he wanted to talk over with me.”

He looked at his watch. “But it’s too late now. It’s past eleven o’clock.”

“Get him out here anyway, will you?”

“Not tonight. I’ve had it. I don’t want to have to pull my face together and put on a front for Dick now.”

He looked at me a little sheepishly. He had revealed himself to me, a vain man who couldn’t forget his face, a secret man who lived behind a front. He pushed his silver mane back and patted it in place.

“Tonight is all the time we have,” I said. “In the morning you can expect Bastian and the sheriff and probably the DA pounding on your door. You won’t be able to put them off by simply denying that you bought that knife. You’re going to have to explain it.”

“Do you really think Dick took it?”

“He’s a better suspect than Tom, in my opinion.”

“Very well, I’ll call him.”

He rose and went to the telephone on the desk.”

“Don’t tell him what you want him for. He might break and run.”

“Naturally I won’t.”

He dialed a number from memory, and waited. When he spoke, his voice had changed again. It was lighter and younger. “Dick? You said something to Elaine about dropping by tonight. I was wondering if I was to expect you . . . I know it’s late. I’m sorry you’re not too well. What’s the trouble? . . . I’m sorry. Look, why don’t you come out anyway, just for a minute? Tom came home tonight, isn’t that great? He’ll want to see you. And I particularly want to see you . . . Yep, it’s an order .... Fine, I’ll look for you then.”

He hung up.

“What’s the matter with him?” I asked.

“He says he doesn’t feel well.”

“Sick?”

“Depressed. But he cheered up when I told him Tom was home. He’ll be out shortly.”

“Good. In the meantime I want to talk to Tom.”

Hillman came and stood over me. His face was rather obscure in the green penumbra. “Before you talk to him again, there’s something you ought to know.”

I waited for him to go on. Finally I asked him: “Is it about Tom?”

“It has to do with both of us.”

He hesitated, his eyes intent on my face. “On second thought, I don’t think I’ll let my back hair down any further tonight.”

“You may never have another chance,” I said, “before it gets let down for you, the hard way.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Nobody knows this particular thing but me.”

“And it has to do with you and Tom?”

“That’s right. Now let’s forget it.”

He didn’t want to forget it, though. He wanted to share his secret, without taking the responsibility of speaking out. He lingered by the table, looking down at my face with his stainless steel eyes.

I thought of the feeling in Hillman’s voice when he spoke of his love for Tom. Perhaps that feeling was the element which would balance the equation.

“Is Tom your natural son?” I said.

He didn’t hesitate in answering. “Yes. He’s my own flesh and blood.”

“And you’re the only one who knows?”

“Carol knew, of course, and Mike Harley knew. He agreed to the arrangement in exchange for certain favors I was able to do him.”

“You kept him out of Portsmouth.”

“I helped to. You mustn’t imagine I was trying to mastermind some kind of plot. It all happened quite naturally. Carol came to me after Mike and his brother were arrested. She begged me to intervene on their behalf. I said I would. She was a lovely girl, and she expressed her gratitude in a natural way.”

“By going to bed with you.”

“Yes. She gave me one night. I went to her room in the Barcelona Hotel. You should have seen her, Archer, when she took off her clothes for me. She lit up that shabby room with the brass bed–”

I cut in on his excitement: “The brass bed is still there, and so was Otto Sipe, until last night. Did Sipe know about your big night on the brass bed?”

“Sipe?”

“The hotel detective.”

“Carol said he was gone that night.”

“And you say you only went there once.”

“Only once with Carol. I spent some nights in the Barcelona later with another girl. I suppose I was trying to recapture the rapture or something. She was a willing girl, but she was no substitute for Carol.”

I got up. He saw the look on my face and backed away. “What’s the matter with you, is something wrong?”

“Susanna Drew is a friend of mine. A good friend.”

“How could I know that?” he said with his mouth lifted on one side.

“You don’t know much,” I said. “You don’t know how sick it makes me to sit here and listen to you while you dabble around in your dirty little warmed-over affairs.”

He was astonished. I was astonished myself. Angry shouting at witnesses is something reserved for second-rate prosecutors in courtrooms.

“Nobody talks to me like that,” Hillman said in a shaking voice. “Get out of my house and stay out.”

“I’ll be delighted to.”

I got as far as the front door. It was like walking through deep, clinging mud. Then Hillman spoke behind me from the far side of the reception hall.

“Look here.”

It was his favorite phrase.

I looked there. He walked toward me under the perilous chandelier. He said with his hands slightly lifted and turned outward: “I can’t go on by myself, Archer. I’m sorry if I stepped on your personal toes.”

“It’s all right.”

“No, it isn’t. Are you in love with Susanna?”

I didn’t answer him.

“In case you’re wondering,” he said, “I haven’t touched her since 1945. I ran into some trouble with that house detective, Sipe–”

I said impatiently: “I know. You knocked him down.”

“I gave him the beating of his life,” he said with a kind of naive pride. “It was the last time he tried to pry any money out of me.”

“Until this week.”

He was jolted into temporary silence. “Anyway, Susanna lost interest–”

“I don’t want to talk about Susanna.”

“That suits me.”

We had moved back into the corridor that led to the library, out of hearing of the room where Elaine was. Hillman leaned on the wall like a bystander in an alley. His posture made me realize how transient and insecure he felt in his own house.

“There are one or two things I don’t understand,” I said. “You tell me you spent one night with Carol, and yet you’re certain that you fathered her son.”

“He was born just nine months later, December the twelfth.”

“That doesn’t prove you’re his father. Pregnancies often last longer, especially first ones. Mike Harley could have fathered him before the Shore Patrol took him. Or any other man.”

“There was no other man. She was a virgin.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I am not. Her marriage to Mike Harley was never consummated. Mike was impotent, which was one reason he was willing to have the boy pass as his.”

“Why was that so necessary, Hillman? Why didn’t you take the boy and raise him yourself?”

“I did that.”

“I mean, raise him openly as your own son.”

“I couldn’t. I had other commitments. I was already married to Elaine. She’s a New Englander, a Puritan of the first water.”

“With a fortune of the first water.”

“I admit I needed her help to start my business. A man has to make choices.”

He looked up at the chandelier. Its light fell starkly on his hollow bronze face. He turned his face away from the light.

“Who told you Mike Harley was impotent?”

“Carol did, and she wasn’t lying. She was a virgin, I tell you. She did a lot of talking in the course of the night. Her whole life. She told me Mike got what sex he got by being spanked, or beaten with a strap.”

“By her?”

“Yes. She didn’t enjoy it, of course, but she did it for him willingly enough. She seemed to feel that it was less dangerous than sex, than normal sex.”

A wave of sickness went through me. It wasn’t physical. But I could smell the old man’s cow barn and hear the whining of his one-eyed dog.

“I thought you were the one who was supposed to be impotent,” I said, “or sterile.”

He glanced at me sharply. “Who have you been talking to?”

“Your wife. She did the talking.”

“And she still thinks I’m sterile?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

He turned his face away from the light again and let out a little chuckle of relief. “Maybe we can pull this out yet. I told Elaine at the time we adopted Tom that Weintraub gave me a test and found that I was sterile. I was afraid she’d catch on to the fact of my paternity.”

“You may be sterile at that.”

He didn’t know what I meant. “No. It’s Elaine who is. I didn’t need to take any test. I have Tom to prove I’m a man.”

He didn’t have Tom.