was in trouble for something he didn’t do, and I figured if I got the person who really did it—”
“But I’m not that person, Marilyn.”
“Then who is?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I, and—” She broke off abruptly and looked at the gun in her hand as if wondering how it had gotten there. “It’s loaded,” she said.
“I figured it was.”
“I almost shot you. I wanted to. As if shooting you would solve everything for Rabbit.”
“It would have solved everything for me. But not in a positive way.”
“Yeah. Look, I—”
Knock knock knock!
No question who was knocking this time. I cautioned Marilyn with a finger to my lips, then approached her and put those same lips inches from her gold teardrop earring. “Cops,” I whispered. I pointed to the bathroom door and she didn’t waste time asking questions. She scooted for the bathroom, gun in hand, and she was just closing the door as my latest unannounced guest repeated his knocking.
I asked who it was. “It’s who you thought it was, Bern. Open the door, huh?”
I unlocked my locks and admitted Ray Kirschmann. He was wearing the same suit he’d worn yesterday and now it was wet, which didn’t improve the fit any. “Rain,” he said heavily, and removed his hat, holding it so that all the water which had collected in the brim could spill onto my floor.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Huh?”
“I’ve had this problem with the floorboards drying out. I was hoping somebody’d come along and water them. What you could do sometime, Ray, is you could call first.”
“I did. Line was busy.”
“Funny. I wasn’t on the phone.” Maybe he’d tried while someone else was ringing. “What brings you?”
“The goodness of my heart,” he said. “These days I been doin’ you nothin’ but favors. Drivin’ you to your store twice. And stoppin’ in tonight to let you know you’re in the clear on the Colcannon job. They already got one of the guys who did it.”
“Oh?”
He nodded. “Guy named George Margate. Young guy, but he’s got a pretty good sheet on him already. Two, three busts for B and E. Never roughed anybody up before, but you know the young ones. They’re not what you’d call stable. Maybe his partner was a rough piece of work, or maybe they had drugs in ’em. We found a Baggie full of marijuana in his refrigerator.”
“The killer weed.”
“Yeah. The marijuana’s not what hangs him. It’s what else we found at his place. He’s been livin’ in two rooms on Tenth Avenue in the Forties, maybe a block and a half from the tenement he grew up in. Hell’s Kitchen, except you’re supposed to call it Clinton now so’s people’ll forget it’s a slum. We tossed his two rooms and he’s got half of Colcannon’s house packed away there. Silver, Jesus, he had a whole service for twelve in sterling plus all of these bowls and platters. Worth a fortune.”
“I remember when it was hardly worth stealing,” I said nostalgically. “Then it went from a dollar twenty-nine an ounce to forty dollars an ounce. I remember when gold was less than that.”
“Yeah. Found some furs, too. Floor-length ranch mink, marten jacket, something else I don’t remember. Straight off the list we had from Colcannon, right down to the furriers’ labels. All told, we found better’n half of what Colcannon reported as missin’, plus some stuff he never listed, because who’s got a complete inventory of everythin’ right at his fingertips? We figure they split the loot down the middle and the other half’s at the partner’s place, unless they fenced it already.”
“Who’s the partner?”
“We don’t know yet. He’ll tell us when he dopes out that it’s the only way he’s gonna pull short time, but right now he’s James Cagney in every prison movie you ever saw.”
“How did you get on to him, Ray?”
“Usual way. Somebody snitched. Maybe he was braggin’ in the bars, or just lookin’ good and showin’ a lot of money, and somebody took two an’ two an’ put ’em together. Neighborhood he lives in, every third person on the street is a snitch, and the Colcannon job was close to home. What was it, a mile away? Mile and a half?”
I nodded. “Well,” I said, “thanks for dropping by to tell me, Ray. I appreciate it.”
“Actually,” he said, “it’s like the other day. I mostly came by to use your bathroom.”
“It’s out of order.”
“Oh yeah?” He went on walking toward the door. “Sometimes these things fix themselves, you know? Or maybe I can