Ryder said without preamble: ‘Where’s Fatso?’
‘Suffering from the vapours, I’m glad to say. At home with a bad headache.’
‘Shouldn’t be surprised. Very hard thing, the butt of a ‘thirty-eight. Maybe I hit him harder than I thought. Enjoyed it at the time, though. Twenty minutes from now he’s going to feel a hell of a sight more fragile. Thanks. I’m off.’
‘Wait a minute, wait a minute. You clobbered Donahure. Tell me.’
Briefly and impatiently, Ryder told him. Parker was suitably impressed.
‘Ten thousand bucks. Two Russian rifles. And this dossier you have on him. You have the goods on him all right – our ex-Chief of Police. But look, John, there’s a limit to how far you can go on taking the law into your own hands.’
‘There’s no limit.’ Ryder put his hand on Parker’s. ‘Dave, they’ve got Peggy.’
There was a momentary incomprehension then Parker’s eyes went very cold. Peggy had first sat on his knees at the age of four and had sat there at regular intervals ever since, always with the mischievously disconcerting habit of putting her elbow on his shoulder, her chin on her palm and peering at him from a distance of six inches. Fourteen years later, dark, lovely and mischievous as ever, it was a habit she had still not abandoned, especially on those occasions when she wanted to wheedle something from Ryder, labouring under the misapprehension that this made her father jealous. Parker said nothing. His eyes said it for him.
Ryder said: ‘San Diego. During the night. They gunned down the two FBI men who were looking after her.’
Parker stood up: ‘I’m coming with you.’
‘No. You’re still an officer of the law. You’ll see what I’m going to do with Fatso and you’ll have to arrest me.’
‘I’ve just come all over blind.’
‘Please, Dave. I may be breaking the law but I’m still on the side of the law and I need at least one person inside the law I can trust. There’s only you.’
‘Okay. But if any harm comes to her or Susan I’m out of a job.’
‘You’ll be welcome in the ranks of the unemployed.’
They left. As the door swung to behind them a lean Mexican youth with a straggling moustache that reached his chin rose from the next booth, inserted his nickel and dialled. For a full minute the phone rang at the other end without reply. The youth tried again with the same result. He fumbled in his pockets, went to the counter, changed a bill for loose change, returned and tried another number. Twice he tried, twice he failed, and his mounting frustration, as he kept glancing at his watch, was obvious; on the third time he was lucky. He started to speak in low, hurried, urgent Spanish.
There was a certain lack of aesthetic appeal about the way in which Chief of Police Donahure had arranged his sleeping form. Fully clothed, he lay face down on a couch, his left hand on the floor clutching a half-full glass of bourbon, his hair in disarray and his cheeks glistening with what could have been perspiration but was, in fact, water steadily dripping down from the now melting ice-bag that Donahure had strategically placed on the back of his head. It was to be assumed that the loud snoring was caused not by the large lump that undoubtedly lay concealed beneath the ice-bag but from the bourbon, for a man does not recover consciousness from a blow, inform the office that he’s sorry but he won’t be in today and then relapse into unconsciousness. Ryder laid down the polythene folder he was carrying, removed Donahure’s Colt and prodded him far from gently with its muzzle.
Donahure groaned, stirred, displaced the ice-bag in turning his head and managed to open one eye. His original reaction must have been that he was going down a long, dark tunnel. Wher the realization gradually dawned upon his befuddled brain that it was not a tunnel but the barrel of his own .45 his Cyclopean gaze travelled above and beyond the barrel until Ryder’s face swam into focus. Two things happened: both eyes opened wide and his complexion changed from its normal puce to an even more unpleasant shade of dirty grey.
Ryder said: ‘Sit up.’
Donahure remained where he was. His jowls were actually quivering. Then he screamed in agony as Ryder grabbed his hair and jerked him into the vertical. Clearly, no small amount of that hair had been attached to the bruised bump on his head. A sudden scalp pain predictably produces an effect on the corneal ducts and Donahure was no exception: his eyes were swimming like bloodshot gold-fish in peculiarly murky water.
Ryder said: ‘You know how to conduct a cross-examination. Fatso?’
‘Yes.’ He sounded as if he was being garrotted.
‘No you don’t. I’m going to show you. Not in any textbook, and I’m afraid you’ll never have an opportunity to use it. But, by the comparison, the cross-examination you’ll get in the accused’s box in court will seem almost pleasant. Who’s your paymaster, Donahure?’
‘What in God’s name –’ He broke off with a shout of pain and clapped his hands to his face. He reached finger and thumb inside his mouth, removed a displaced tooth and dropped it on the floor. His left cheek was cut both inside and out and blood was trickling down his chin: Ryder had laid the barrel of Donahure’s Colt against his face with a heavy hand. Ryder transferred the Colt to his left hand.
‘Who’s your paymaster, Donahure?’
‘What in the hell –’ Another shout and another hiatus in the conversation while Donahure attended to the right hand side of his face. The blood was now flowing freely from his mouth and dripping on to his shirt-front. Ryder transferred the revolver back to his right hand.
‘Who’s your paymaster, Donahure?’
‘LeWinter.’ A strangely gurgling sound: he must have been swallowing blood. Ryder regarded him without compassion.
Donahure gurgled again. The ensuing croak was unintelligible.
‘For looking the other way?’
A nod. There was no hate in Donahure’s face, just plain fear.
‘For destroying evidence against guilty parties, faking evidence against innocent parties?’ Another nod. ‘How much did you make, Donahure? Over the years, I mean. Blackmail on the side of course?
‘I don’t know.’
Ryder lifted his gun again.
‘Twenty thousand, maybe thirty.’ Once more he screamed. His nose had gone the same way as Raminoff’s.
Ryder said: ‘I won’t say I’m not enjoying this any more than you are, because I am. I’m more than prepared to keep this up for hours yet. Not that you’ll last more than twenty minutes and we don’t want your face smashed into such a bloody pulp that you can’t talk. Before it comes to that I’ll start breaking your fingers one by one.’ Ryder meant it and the abject terror on what was left of Donahure’s face showed that he knew Ryder meant it. ‘How much?’
‘I don’t know.’ He cowered behind raised hands. ‘I don’t know how much. Hundreds.’
‘Of thousands?’ A nod. Ryder picked up the polythene folder and extracted the folder, which he showed to Donahure. ‘Total of just over five hundred and fifty thousand dollars in seven banks under seven different names. That would be about right.’ Another nod. Ryder returned the papers to the polythene folder. If this represented only Donahure’s rake-off, how much did LeWinter have safe and sound in Zurich?
‘The last pay-off. Ten thousand dollars. What was that for?’ Donahure was now so befuddled with pain and fright that it never occurred to him to ask how Ryder knew about it.
‘Cops.’
‘Bribes to do what?’
‘Cut all the public phones between here and Ferguson’s house. Cut Ferguson’s phone. Wreck, his police band radio. Clear the roads.’
‘Clear the roads? No patrols on the hi-jack van’s escape route?’
Donahure nodded. He obviously felt this easier than talking.
‘Jesus. You are a sweet bunch. I’ll have their names later. Who gave you those Russian rifles?’
‘Rifles?’ A frown appeared in the negligible clearance between Donahure’s hairline and eyebrows, sure indication that at least part of his mind was wor
king again. ‘You took them. And the money. You –’ He touched the back of his head.
‘I asked a question. Who gave you the rifles?’
‘I don’t know.’ Donahure raised defensive hands just as Ryder lifted his gun. ‘Smash my face to pieces and I still don’t know. Found them in the house when I came back one night. Voice over the phone said I was to keep them.’ Ryder believed him.
‘This voice have a name?’
‘No.’ Ryder believed that also. No intelligent man would be crazy enough to give his name to a man like Donahure.
‘This the voice that told you to tap LeWinter’s phone?’
‘How in God’s name –’ Donahure broke off not because of another blow or impending blow but because, swallowing blood from both mouth and nose, he was beginning to have some difficulty with his breathing. Finally he coughed and spoke in a gasp. ‘Yes.’
‘Name Morro mean anything to you?’
‘Morro? Morro who?’
‘Never mind.’ If Donahure didn’t know the name of Morro’s intermediary he most certainly didn’t know Morro.
Jeff had first tried the Redox in Bay Street, the unsavoury bar-restaurant where his father had had his rendezvous with Dunne. No one answering to either of their descriptions had been there, or, if they had, no one was saying.
From there he went to the FBI office. He’d expected to find Delage there, and did. He also found Dunne, who clearly hadn’t been to bed. He looked at Jeff in surprise. ‘So soon. What’s up?’
‘My father been here?’
‘No. Why?’
‘When we got home he said he was going to bed. He didn’t. He left after two or three minutes. I followed him, don’t know why, I had the feeling he was going to meet someone, that he was stepping into danger. Lost him at the lights.’
‘Worry about the other guy.’ Dunne hesitated. ‘Some news for you and your father, not all that good. Both shot FBI men were under heavy sedation during the night, but one’s clear now. He says that the first person shot last night was neither him nor his partner but Peggy. She got it through the left shoulder.’
‘No!’
‘I’m afraid so, boy. I know this agent well. He doesn’t make mistakes.’
‘But – but – if she’s wounded, I mean medical attention, hospital, she must have –’
‘Sorry, Jeff. That’s all we know. The kidnappers took her away, remember.’
Jeff made to speak, turned and ran from the office. He went to Delmino’s, the station officers’ favourite hang-out. Yes, Sergeants Ryder and Parker had been there. No, the barman didn’t know where they had gone.
Jeff drove the short distance to the station house. Parker was there along with Sergeant Dickson. Jeff said: ‘Seen my father?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘You know where he is?’
‘Yes. Again why?’
‘Just tell me!’
‘I’m not rightly sure I should.’ He looked at Jeff, saw the urgency and intensity and was not to know it was because of the news Jeff had just heard. He said reluctantly: ‘He’s at Chief Donahure’s. But I’m not sure –’ He stopped. Jeff had already gone. Parker looked at Dickson and shrugged.
Ryder said, almost conversationally: ‘Heard that my daughter has been kidnapped?’
‘No. I swear to God –’
‘All right. Any idea how anyone might have got hold of her address in San Diego?’
Donahure shook his head – but his eyes had flickered, just once. Ryder broke open the revolver: the hammer was lined up against an empty cylinder, one of two. He closed the gun, shoved the stubby finger of Donahure’s right hand through the trigger guard, held the Colt by barrel and butt and said: ‘On the count of three I twist both hands. One –’
‘I did, I did.’
‘How did you get it?’
‘Week or two ago. You were out for lunch and –’
‘And I’d left my address book in my drawer so you kind of naturally wrote down a few names and addresses. I really should break your finger for this. But you can’t sign a statement if I break your writing forefinger, can you?’
‘A statement?’
‘A statement?’
‘I’m not a law officer any more. It’s a citizen’s arrest. Just as legal. I arrest you, Donahure, for larceny, corruption, bribery, the acceptance of bribes – and for murder in the first degree.’
Donahure said nothing. His face, greyer than ever, had slumped between his sagging shoulders. Ryder sniffed the muzzle. ‘Fired recently.’ He broke open the gun. ‘Two bullets gone. We only carry five in a cylinder, so one’s been fired recently.’ He eased out one cartridge and scraped the tip with a nail. ‘And soft-nosed, just like the one that took off Sheriff Hartman’s head. A perfect match for this barrel, I’ll be bound.’ He knew that a match-up was impossible, but Donahure either didn’t know or was too far gone to think. ‘And you left your fingerprints on the door handle, which was a very careless thing to do.’
Donahure said dully: ‘It was the man on the phone –’
‘Save it for the judge.’
‘Freeze,’ a high-pitched voice behind Ryder said. Ryder had survived to his present age by knowing exactly the right thing to do at the right time and at the moment the right thing appeared to be to do what he was told. He froze.
‘Drop that gun.’
Ryder obediently dropped the gun, a decision which was made all the easier for him by the fact that he was holding the gun by the barrel anyway and the cylinder was hinged out.
‘Now turn round nice and slow.’ Brought up on a strict diet of B movies, Ryder reflected, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous. He turned round – nice and slow. The visitor had a black handkerchief tied below his eyes, wore a dark suit, dark shirt, white tie and, of all things, a black fedora. B movies, late 1930s.
‘Donahure ain’t going to meet no judge.’ He’d the dialogue right, too. ‘But you’re going to meet your maker. No time for prayers, mister.’
‘You drop that gun,’ said a voice from the doorway.
Obviously the masked man was considerably younger than Ryder, for he didn’t know the right thing to do. He whipped round and loosed off a snap shot at the figure in the doorway. In the circumstances it was a pretty good effort, ripping the cloth on the upper right sleeve of Jeff’s coat. Jeff’s reply was considerably more effective. The man in the mask folded in the middle like a collapsing hinge and crumpled to the floor. Ryder dropped to one knee beside him.
‘I tried for his gun-hand,’ Jeff said uncertainly. ‘Reckon I missed.’
‘You did. Didn’t miss his heart, though.’ Ryder plucked off the handkerchief mask. ‘Well. The shame of it all. Lennie the Linnet has gone riding off across the great divide.’
‘Lennie the Linnet?’ Jeff was visibly shaken.
‘Yes. Linnet. A song-bird. Well, wherever Lennie’s singing now you can take long odds that it won’t be to the accompaniment of a harp.’ Ryder glanced sideways, straightened, took the gun from Jeff’s lax hand and fired, all in seemingly slow motion. For the fifth time that night Donahure cried out in pain. The Colt he’d picked up from the floor spun across the room. Ryder said: ‘Do be quiet. You can still sign the statement. And to the charge of murder we’ll now add one of attempted murder.’
Jeff said: ‘One easy lesson, is that it?’
Ryder touched his shoulder. ‘Well, thanks, anyway.’
‘I didn’t mean to kill him.’
‘Shed no sad tears for Lennie. A heroin pusher. You followed me?’
‘Tried to. Sergeant Parker told me where you were. How did he get here?’
‘Ah, now. If you want Detective Sergeant Ryder at his brilliant best, ask him after the event. I thought our line was tapped so I phoned Parker to meet me at Delmino’s. Never occurred to me they’d put a stake-out there.’
Jeff looked at Donahure. ‘So that’s why you didn’t want me along. He ran into a truck?’
‘Self-inflicted injuries. Now
on, you’re welcome along anytime. Get a couple of towels from the bathroom. Don’t want him to bleed to death before his trial.’
Jeff hesitated: he had to tell his father and actively feared for Donahure’s life. ‘Some bad news, Dad. Peggy was shot last night.’
‘Shot?’ The lips compressed whitely. Ryder’s eyes switched to Donahure, the grip on Jeff’s gun tightened, but he was still under his iron control. He looked back at Jeff. ‘Bad?’