And then a bunch of hired muscle from Detroit or Chicago or Vegas got on a plane to Cleveland and beat your father to death and flew back on the next plane. You couldn’t pin something like that to Zucker in a hundred years. All you can do is take a gun and shoot a hole in his head.”
“That’s not such a bad idea, is it?”
I didn’t answer her.
“No,” she said finally. “You’re wrong, Ed. Why is he scared of me? Why can’t he just ignore me? He had this lawyer offer you ten thousand dollars? If he’s in the clear, why am I worth that kind of money to him?”
“You must have him scared.”
She swung a small fist into the palm of her other hand. A startling gesture from a girl, especially a feminine one like her. “You are goddamned right. I’ve got him scared,” she said. “I’ve got the son of a bitch turning green. And there has to be evidence, Ed. Klugsman had evidence.”
“Unless he was conning you.”
“Then why did they kill him?”
She was right. Abe Zucker was in enough trouble to work up a sweat, enough to make him spray Canarsie with machine-gun slugs and paper Manhattan with ten-grand rewards. It didn’t quite mesh yet. Something was wrong somewhere, something didn’t ring true. But for the time being she was right and I had to ride with her.
I drew on my pipe. “What do you know about Klugsman?”
“Nothing but his name. And that he’s dead.”
“You never met him?”
“No.”
“You know where he lives?”
She shook her head. “He called me on the phone, Ed. He said his name was Milton Klugsman and he told me he had the information I needed. He said he could prove who killed my father. He didn’t give his address or his phone number or anything.”
“The phone. Is it in your name?”
“No, it’s in the name of the people I’m subletting from.”
“Then how did he reach you?”
“I have no idea.”
We kept running into walls and up blind alleys. I wondered if she was lying to me. So far she’d fed me enough nonsense to earn her a Pathological Liar Merit Badge, but the latest version had a plausible ring to it.
“Somebody knew you were in town. Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Phillip Carr showed me a picture of you. Any idea where he got it?”
“None.”
“It was a head-and-shoulder shot, Rhona. You had your hair swept back and you were smiling, but not too broadly.”
Her face clouded. “That…sounds like a picture Dad carried in his wallet. They could have stolen it when they killed him.” She bit her lip. “But that doesn’t make sense, does it?”
It didn’t. I poked at my memory, brushed the snapshot away, and brought a different picture into focus. A face I’d seen a day ago in Canarsie. I described Klugsman as well as I could, told her how tall he was and what kind of a face he had and what clothes he was wearing. The description rang no bells for her.
I stood up, leaned over to knock the dottle from my pipe, and walked over to her. “We have to start with Klugsman,” I said. “Klugsman may have had some evidence. Without it we’re nowhere. I can try getting a line on him. Maybe I can find out who he was, where he lived, and who his friends were. If he had anything around the house, it’s probably gone by now. But maybe he’s got a friend or a relative who knows something. It’s worth a try.”
“You’re going now?”
She seemed sad about it. She was standing just a few feet from me, her hands at her sides, her shoulders back, her breasts in sharp relief against the front of her dress. Her mouth was pouting a little and her eyes were unhappy. I looked at her and didn’t want to go anywhere. I wanted to stay awhile.
“I’d better get going,” I said.
“Wait a few minutes, Ed.”
The voice was soft as a pillow. Her eyes were moist. She took a short step toward me, stopped. I put out my hands and caught her shoulders and she pressed against me, hard.
“Ed—”
I kissed her. Her mouth tasted of Rob Roys and cigarettes and she put her arms around me and clung to me like a morning glory on a wire fence. Her body was on fire. I kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her throat.
“I’m all alone,” she said. “All alone and afraid. Stay with me, Ed.”
“Sure,” I said, leading her into the bedroom, decorated