The Long Wait (6 page)

I could feel the sweat start over my eyes and run down my cheeks. I got so goddamn mad at myself for thinking that I could be wrong that I balled up my fist and slammed it against the side of the metal bin until the place echoed with a dull booming and my knuckles were a mess of torn skin.

I sat down until the mad passed and only the doubt was left. Then I cursed that and everything about Lyncastle I could think of. When I got done swearing to myself I yanked out a couple of the sheets again and opened them to a feature section that sported a two-column spread by a writer named Alan Logan. I jotted his name down in my memory and tucked the papers back.

Of all the people who had anything to say about Robert Minnow or me, he was the only one who didn't convict me before the trial. The rest had me drawn and quartered
in absentium.
I went back upstairs and outside where I could smoke. standing on the steps trying to think. I was so damn deep in thought that the
chunk
I heard didn't make an impression until I noticed the two kids looking at the wall behind me. I turned around to see what they were looking at, saw it and went flat on my face on the concrete just as there was another
chunk.

On the wall right behind my back was a quarter-sized dimple plated with the remains of a soft-nosed lead bullet and if I had been standing up the last one would have gone right through my intestines.

If I had rolled the kids probably would have followed me, so I got up on my feet and ran like hell. I tore around the back of the building, shoved the gate open and angled off into an alley that led to the street.

Now the fun was beginning. This was more like it. Guys who were better at tailing somebody than the cops. Guys with silenced rifles who didn't give a damn about kids standing around their target. Now I didn't have any doubt any more.

I made a quick circuit of the block until I reached the corner where I could see the library. Opposite the building the street was lined with private residences and it was a sure bet that I wasn't being potted at from there. They wouldn't have missed if they were that close.

But behind the private homes on the other side of the block was a solid string of apartment houses with nice flat roofs that were perfect gun platforms and anybody at all could get to the top if they wanted to badly enough. There wasn't a bit of sense looking for them. They had plenty of time to get away, and a gun could be broken in half and carried on the street wrapped up in a mighty innocent-looking package.

Out of plain curiosity I crossed the street, walked the one block and turned in at the first apartment. It was a five-story affair like the rest with a self-service elevator. I took it to the top, got out and walked up the short flight of stairs to the roof. That's how easy it was.

A guy was bending over fastening a television antenna to the chimney and gave me a “howdy” and a nod when he saw me coming. I said, “Anybody been up here the last few minutes, Mac?”

He dropped his wrench and stretched his legs. “Umm, no, not that I know of. Think there might've been somebody down a couple places or so. Heard a door slam.”

“Okay. Thanks.” He went back to work and I stepped over the barrier between the buildings.

You could see the library from nearly every roof top, but you could command it properly from only two if you wanted a good background for a target standing on the steps.

The first one I looked at was where the guy had been.

He was smart, too. There weren't any empty shell cases around, no scratches on the parapet where a careless guy would have propped a gun, no trinkets that might have fallen from the pockets of a gunman shooting prone, no nothing. I'd even bet the bastard threw his clothes away to get rid of any dust traces he could have picked up.

Yeah, he was smart, all right, but not smart enough to rub out the marks his toes and elbows had left. They made four cute little hollows in the gravel of the roof and when I stretched out on top of them with my own toes in the impressions he made my elbows came out about eight inches above his.

Junior was a shortie. A guy about five-six. And he was going to be a hell of a lot shorter when I caught up with him.

I used the same entrance he had used and didn't meet a soul going out. I walked to the corner and back up to the main drag without getting shot at either.

It was ten after ten and I used up another half hour buying myself a second jacket. Next to the store where I got the jacket was a pawnshop that had a nice selection of guns displayed in the window and I would have picked one up right there if it weren't for the sign that said a certificate was required for purchase of any hand gun.

Two doors down was a cigar store with a telephone plaque on the front. The old lady behind the counter changed a buck into silver for me and I picked up the
Lyncastle News
number from the directory.

A voice said hello and I asked for Alan Logan. There was a rapid series of clicks then, “Hello, Logan speaking.”

I said, “Logan, you tied up right now?”

“Who is this?”

“Never mind who it is. I want to speak to you.”

“What's on your mind, feller?”

“Something that might make a good story. An attempted murder.”

That was all the answer he needed. “I'm not busy. Why?”

“Pick out a nice place where I can meet you. No people, understand?”

“You mean no cops, don't you?”

“They're included.”

“There's a bar on Riverside,” he said. “It's called the Scioto Trail and its probably just opening up. The owner's a friend of mine and we can talk in the back room.”

“Okay. Say in a half hour?”

“Good enough.”

I stuck the receiver back in the cradle and went over to the counter. The old lady told me where Riverside was, but I wasn't about to walk any three miles to get there. I called a cab and had a soda until the cab beeped outside for me.

The guy said, “Where to?”

“Know where the Scioto Trail is on Riverside?”

“Sure, but they ain't open yet, bud.”

“I'll wait for it to open.” The driver shrugged and crawled out into the traffic.

The Scioto Trail was a big white frame building that had started life as a private home, lived until the river made a bed in its back yard, then made a quick switch into a gin mill whose owner stuck a dock out from the back porch to pick up the yacht club trade. The parking lot was empty and except for the kid on the gasoline barge that was swinging at anchor near the dock, the place seemed deserted.

I paid off the cabbie and walked around the building to the veranda. A new Chevvy was crowding the back of the building behind a Buick sedan, so the place wasn't too deserted after all. I rapped on the door a few times, heard heavy feet pounding across the floor inside and a tall skinny guy with a crooked nose pulled the door open and said, “Yeah?”

“Logan here?”

“He's here. You the guy he's waiting for?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on in. He's in the back.”

He slammed the door shut and pointed to a door at the end of the bar and went back to swabbing down the floor. The door took me through a narrow hall with the washrooms opening off it and led to a square hall with a bandstand and dance floor. Tables were scattered around liberally and for the people who wanted a little privacy there were booths in an alcove that jutted out from one wall.

That's where I found Logan.

He sure as hell didn't look like any reporter. One ear was cauliflowered, his nose was flat and scar tissue showed over both eyes. He was bunched over a paper doing the crossword puzzle and looked like his shoulders were going to pop right out of his coat.

I shoved my hands in my pockets and came along the wall without him hearing me until I crowded the booth where he was sitting. I wasn't even taking a little bit of a chance. The guy could be a pug, but if he was he wouldn't be making any passes from a sitting-down position.

“Logan?”

His face wrinkled up at the edges. It went flat in surprise and wrinkled up all over again showing short, squared-off teeth under lips that were a thin red line.

“I'll be damned. I'll be good and goddamned!”

“Maybe. You got a driver's license or something?”

He didn't get it right away. He crinkled his eyes thinking about it then threw his wallet on the table. It opened to a flap that showed his license and a card certifying that he was a member of the Newspaperman's Guild.

So I sat down.

He was another guy I fascinated. He couldn't take his eyes off me a second. He stared until words came to him and squeezed out in amazement. “Johnny McBride. I'll be damned.”

“You already said that.”

“When I heard about it I couldn't believe it. I thought Lindsey was out of his head. I was sure of it when I found out what happened up there in Headquarters.” His fingers were hanging on to the edge of the table like he was trying to break off a piece.

“Nobody seems very glad to see me,” I said.

Those lips went back and I saw the teeth again. “No, they wouldn't be.”

I could make faces too. I made him a good one. “Somebody tried to knock me off a little while ago. Right in front of the library.”

“That the story you wanted to tell me?”

I shrugged. “That was just a gimmick to get you here. First you're going to tell me something, then if I like it I'll tell you.”

You'd think I'd smacked him right between those narrow eyes of his. “You son of a bitch, it's too bad they missed!” he rasped.

I grinned at him. “You don't like me either, right?”

“Right.”

“For a guy who doesn't like me you did a nice job of going easy on me in that column of yours. Everybody else crucified me.”

“You know damn well why I went easy. I'd just as soon see you swing as look at you. The next time I'll take you apart piece by piece.” He half stood behind the table and sneered at me.

“Sit down and shut up,” I said. “I'm getting tired of all the crap I've been handed since I got here. Nobody's taking me apart especially you. Tucker tried it and Lindsey tried it. They didn't do so good.”

Logan started to smile, a loose nasty smile and he sat down. His hands weren't hanging onto the table any longer. They were there in front of him and everything in his eyes said he was getting ready to take me as soon as he found out what it was all about.

I said, “Tell me about myself, Logan. Make like you didn't know me and was telling somebody all about it. Tell me about the bank job and how Bob Minnow was killed.”

“Then what will you tell me, Johnny?”

“Something you won't expect to hear.”

Logan was going to say something and changed his mind. He gave me a studied glance and shook his head slightly. “It's going over my head, way over. I've heard some screwy things before, but this takes the cake.”

“Don't worrry about it, just tell me.”

His hand went out absently for a cigarette and he stuck it in his mouth. “Okay, you're Johnny McBride. You were born in Lyncastle, went to school here and started working in the bank after two years away at college. You went into the army, saw a lot of action and came home a big hero. At least all your medals said you were a big hero.”

I stopped him there. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Don't play dumb. You're the only one who knows the answer to that. Maybe you were a big hero overseas. If you were then something happened that changed you plenty. So you came home and went to work in the bank.” His fingers curled around the cigarette and bent it. “And you found yourself a girl. It didn't make any difference whose girl she was. You played up that hero stuff and she went for it.”

“Who?”

Logan's eyes were a pale, watery blue watching me steadily; eyes hazy with a venom that had never ceased being deadly. “Vera West. A lovely, wonderful girl with hair like new honey. A girl too damn good for somebody like you.”

I laughed insolently, a laugh that cut him right in half. “I took her right out of your arms, didn't I?”

“Goddamn you!” He was getting ready and I didn't move.

His teeth came together in a crazy attempt to control himself and he had to hiss to speak. “Yeah, Vera went for you. She went overboard like an idiot and let you ruin her life. She was so much in love that even after you used her like a dirty rag she stayed that way. That's why I went easy on you. I didn't want her hurt any worse!”

“I'm a bad boy. What else?”

“You're going to be a dead boy, Johnny.”

“What else? How'd I use her?”

He had to push himself back on the bench. “You know, I figured that out before the cops did. Because Vera was Havis Gardiner's secretary she had access to a lot of private stuff you as a teller couldn't reach. You did real well making her hand over those books without arousing her suspicions. You did a beautiful job of juggling those accounts, too. It's too bad you were on vacation at the time the state auditor dropped in. They caught you up in a hurry then, didn't they? It went into Minnow's lap and he started a search for you and never found you because you found him first. You were so jerky that you blamed it on him and put a bullet in him!”

“And Vera?” I asked him.

“That's something I want to hear from you, Johnny. I want to know why a girl as lovely as Vera went to the dogs with herself until she wound up slutting around with a heel like Lenny Servo. I want to know why she became nothing but a beautiful drunken bum who could make Servo look good even at her worst.”