The girl wrenched free of her mother's hand. "Oh, yes," she said,
"that's how it was with the policeman too. With everybody. Don't pick
on the poor cripple. Haven't you been enough of a jinx to him? Don't
you see, that's exactly what he thinks! That's why he killed Bruce!"
An inner door opened, and a man entered the room. He was thirty
years old, with a strong burly frame turning a little fat. He was
good-looking in a dark heavy-lipped way, his hair black and curly, his
eyes a restless rusty brown, nose snubbed and jaw underslung. He wore
tight black trousers with a silver stripe, a cummerbund, a white silk
shirt open halfway down his chest; he carried a cased guitar under one
arm.
"Oh," he said. "I thought somebody'd come. Hello, Doc."
"Hello, Guido," said Kintyre, not getting up. He had nothing personally
against Bruce's older brother, who had been quite a charming devil
the few casual times they met. However--"_He who does not choose the
path of good, chooses to take the path of evil_," said Machiavelli's
_Discourses_: and Guido had been an anchor around more necks than one.
"Don't get in a bind, kitten," he said to his sister. "I could hear you
making with the grand opera a mile upwind."
She whirled about on him, shaking, and said: "You could let him get
cold before you went back to that club to sing your dirty little songs."
"My girl, you speak the purest B.S., as Bruce would have been the
first to tell you." Guido smiled, took out a cigarette one-handed and
stuck it in his mouth. "I was out of town the whole weekend, just when
the cats go real crazy. If I don't make with it tonight, the man will
ignite me, and what good would that do Bruce?" He flipped out a book of
matches, opened it and struck one, all with the same expert hand.
Corinna's gaze went from face to face, and a beaten look crept into it.
"Nobody cares," she whispered. "Just nobody cares."
She sat down. Lombardi twisted his fingers, looking wretched; Maria
folded herself stiffly into a chair; Guido leaned on the doorjamb and
blew smoke.
Kintyre felt, obscurely, that it depended on him to ease the girl. He
said: "Please, Miss Lombardi. We don't mean that. But what can we do?
We'd only get in the way of the police."
"I know, I know." She got it out between her teeth, while she looked
at the floor. "Let George do it. Isn't that the motto of this whole
civilization? Someday George isn't going to be around to do it, and
we'll have gotten too flabby to help ourselves."
It paralleled some of his own thinking so closely that he was startled.
But he said, "Well, you can't declare a vendetta, can you?"
"Oh, be quiet!" She looked up at him with a smoldering under her brows.
"Of course I don't mean that. But I know who must have done it, and
I know he'll have some kind of story, and no one will look past that
story, because he seems like such a pathetic case. And he isn't! I know
Gene and Peter Michaelis. They got what was coming to them!"
"Too much!" roared Lombardi. "Now you be still!" She ignored him. Her
eyes would not release Kintyre's.
"Well?" she said after a moment.
He wondered if it was only her misery which clawed at him, or if she
was always such a harpy. He said with great care: "Well, in theory any
of us could be guilty. I might have done it because Bruce was--going
around with a girl I used to know. Or Guido here--jealousy? A quarrel?
I assume we have merely his word he was out of town on Saturday and
Sunday. Shall we also ask the police to check every minute of his
weekend?"
The man in the doorway flushed. "Dig that," he said slowly. "So you're
going to--"
"Nothing of the sort," rapped Kintyre. "I was trying to show how a
private suspicion is no grounds for--"
Guido took a long drag on his cigarette, snuffed it in a horrible
souvenir ashtray, and left without a word. They heard his footfalls go
down the stairs.
"I am _so_ sorry, Mister Professor," faltered Lombardi.
"_Niente affatto, signor._" Kintyre stood up. "All of you are worn
out." He essayed a smile at Corinna. "You were echoing some of my own
principles. We pessimists ought to stick together."
She did not even turn her face toward him. But her profile was one he
could imagine on Nike of Samothrace, the Victory which strides in the
wind.
"I've always thought principles should be acted on," she told him
sullenly.
"Corinna!" said Maria. Her daughter paid no attention.
Kintyre took his leave in a confusion of apologies. When he stood alone
on the dusky street, he whistled. That had been no fun.
But now it was over with. He could let things cool down for a week
or so, then deliver Bruce's possessions, and say farewell with an
insincere promise to "look you up soon, when I get the chance." And
there would be an end of that.
But he had thought for a heartbeat she was Morna come home to him.
His fingers were wooden, hunting for a cigarette; he dropped the pack
on the sidewalk before getting one out. He could feel the first onset
of the horror, moving up along the channels of his brain.
Sometimes, he thought with a remnant of coolness, sometimes distraction
could head off the trouble. If he could get involved in something
outside himself, and yet important to himself, so that his whole
attention was engaged, the horror might retreat.
He yanked smoke into his lungs, blew it forth, tossed the cigarette to
the paving and stamped on it. Then he went into the grocery. There was
a public phone on the wall, he leafed through the directory until he
found the name.
_Michaelis Peter C._
5
He didn't call ahead, but drove on down. When he parked and got out, he
saw Coit Tower whitely lit above him, on the steep art-colony heights
of Telegraph Hill. Not many blocks away was Fisherman's Wharf, a lot of
tourist pits and a few authentic restaurants. But here he stood in a
pocket of slum, before a rotting rattrap tenement. A single street lamp
a block away cast a purulent light at its own foot. Elsewhere the night
flowed. He heard the nearby rattle of a switch engine, pushing freight
cars over iron; a battered cat slunk past him; otherwise he was alone.
He walked across to the house with forced briskness, struck a match and
hunted through several grimy scrawls on mailboxes before Michaelis'
name came to him. Number 8.
The main entrance was unlocked. The hall, dusty in threadbare
carpeting, held dim electric bulbs. He heard noises through some of the
doors, and smelled stale cooking. A glance told him Number 8 must be
upstairs. He climbed, only now starting to wonder just how he planned
to do his errand.
Or what his errand was, if it came to that.
Bruce had never spoken much to him of Gene Michaelis. They had been
children together on the waterfront. Bruce was a year younger,
doubtless a quiet bookish sort, teacher's pet, even then--but
apparently unaffected by it, so that he was not disliked. Still, he
must have been lonely. And Gene was a rough-and-tumble fisherman's
son. Nevertheless, one of those odd fierce boy-friendships had existed
between them. Bruce had probably dominated it, without either of them
realizing the fact.
In time they drifted apart. Gene had left high school at sixteen, Bruce
had said, after some whoopdedo involving a girl; he had tramped since
then, dock walloper, fry cook, bouncer, salesman--he found it easy to
lie about his age. Now and then he revisited the Bay Area. His return
from Navy service had been last summer, when Kintyre was still in
Europe; Kintyre had never actually met him. Gene had looked up Bruce in
Berkeley, and through Bruce renewed an acquaintance with Corinna, and
after that Gene had moved over to San Francisco.
Number 8. Kintyre heard television bray through the thin panels. He
looked at his watch. Past ten o'clock. _Oh, hell, let's play by ear._
He knocked.
Feet shuffled inside. The door opened. Kintyre looked slightly upward,
into a lined heavy face with a thick hook nose and small black eyes and
a gray bristle of hair. The man had shoulders like a Mack truck, and
there wasn't much of a belly on him yet. He wore faded work clothes.
The smell of cheap wine was thick around him.
"What do you want?" he said.
"Mr. Michaelis? My name's Kintyre. I'd like to talk to you for a few
minutes."
"We're not buying any, and if you're from the finance company you
can--" Michaelis completed the suggestion.
"Neither," said Kintyre mildly. "Call me a sort of ambassador."
Puzzled, Michaelis stood aside. Kintyre walked into a one-room
apartment with a curtained-off cooking area. A wall bed was opened out,
unmade. There were a few chairs, a table with a half-empty gallon of
red ink on it, a television set, a tobacco haze, much dust and many old
newspapers on the floor.
Gene Michaelis occupied a decaying armchair. He was a young,
black-haired version of his father, and would have been rather handsome
if he smiled. He wore flannel pajamas which had not been washed for
some time. His legs stuck rigidly out before him, ending in shoes
whose heels rested on the floor. Two canes leaned within reach. He was
smoking, drinking wine, and watching the screen; he did not stop when
Kintyre entered.
"I'm sorry the place is such a mess," said Peter Michaelis. He spoke
fast, with an alcoholic slur. "It's kind of hard. My wife's dead, and
my son has to live with me and he can't do nothing. When I get home
from looking for work, all day looking for a job, I'm too tired to
clean up." He made vague dusting motions over a chair. "Siddown. Drink?"
"No, thanks." Kintyre lowered himself. "I came--"
"I was already down in the world when this happened last year," said
Michaelis. "I owned my own boat once. Yes, I did. The _Ruthie M_. But
then she got sunk, and there wasn't enough insurance to get another,
and well, I ended up as a deckhand again. Me, who'd owned my own boat."
He sat and blinked muzzily at his guest.
"I'm sorry to hear that. But--"
"Then my wife died. Then my son come back from the Navy, and got
himself hurt real bad. Both legs gone, above the knees. It took all the
money I had to pay the doctors. I quit work to take care of my son. He
was in a bad way. When he got so he could look after himself a little,
I went looking for my job back, only I didn't get it. And since then I
haven't found nothing."
"Well," said Kintyre, "there's the welfare, and rehabilitation--"
Gene turned around and said a short obscenity.
"That's what they'll do for you," he added. "They found me a job
basket weaving. _Basket weaving!_ Kee-rist, I was a gunner's mate in
the Navy. Basket weaving!"
"I'm a Navy man myself," ventured Kintyre. "Or was, after Pearl Harbor.
Destroyers."
"What rank were you? A brown-nosing officer, I'll bet."
"Well--"
"A brass hat. Kee-rist." Gene Michaelis turned back to his television.
"I'm sorry," muttered his father. "It's not so easy for him, you know.
He was as strong and lively a young fellow as you could hope to see.
God, six months ago! Now what's he got to do all day?"
"I'm not offended," said Kintyre. _I would, in fact, be inclined to
take offense only at a system of so-called education which has so
little discipline left in it that its victims are unable to do more
than watch this monkey show when the evil days have come. But that is
not of immediate relevance._
"What did you come for?" Peter Michaelis lifted his bull head and his
voice crested: "You know of a job?" He sagged back again. "No. No, you
wouldn't."
"I'm afraid not," said Kintyre. "I came as--I came to help you in
another way." _Maledetto! How much like Norman Vincent Peale is one man
allowed to sound? But I can't think of anything else._
"Yes?" Michaelis sat erect; even Gene twisted half around.
"You know the Lombardi family, of course."
"Do we know them?" spat Michaelis. "I wish to hell we didn't!"
"Have you heard that the son, Bruce, is dead?"
"Uh-huh," said Gene. He turned down the sound of his program and added
with a certain pleasure: "Looks like there's some justice in the world
after all."
"Now, wait," began Kintyre.
Gene turned more fully to face the visitor. His eyes narrowed. "What
have you got to do with them?" he asked.
"I knew Bruce. I thought--"
"Sure. You thought he was God's little bare-bottomed baby angel. I
know. Everybody does. It took a long time to get down past all those
layers of holy grease on him. I did."
"You know what the old man done to me?" shouted Peter Michaelis. "He
rammed me. Sent my boat to the bottom in 1945. He murdered two of my
crew. They drowned. I could of been drowned myself!"
Kintyre remembered Bruce's account. A freakish, sudden fog had been
blown down a strong wind. Such impossibilities do happen now and then.
The boats blundered together and sank. The Coast Guard inquiry found
it an act of God; Michaelis tried to sue, but the case was thrown out
of court. Then, for the sake of their sons, Peter and Angelo made a
grudging peace.
What had happened lately must have brought all the old bitterness back,
with a dozen years' interest added.
"Shut up," said Gene. He was drunk too, Kintyre saw, but cold drunk, in
control of everything except his emotions. "Shut up, Pete. It was an
accident. Why should he ruin his own business?"
"He got him a restaurant out of it," mumbled Michaelis. "What have we
got?"
"Look here," said Kintyre, not very truthfully. "I'm a neutral party. I
didn't have to come around here, and there's nothing in it for me. But
will you listen?"
"If you'll listen too," said Gene. He poured himself another glass.
"Huh. I know what the Lombardis been telling you about me. Let me tell
you about them."
Somewhere in the back of Kintyre's mind, a thin little warning whistle
blew. He grabbed the arms of his chair and hung on tight. There was no
time now to add up reasons why; he knew only that if he let Gene talk
freely about Corinna, there was going to be trouble.
"Never mind," he said coldly. "I'm not interested in that aspect. I
came here because I don't think you murdered Bruce Lombardi and the
police may think you did."
That stopped them. Peter Michaelis looked up, his face turning a
drained color. Gene puckered his lips, snapped them together, and went
blank of expression. His dark gaze did not waver from Kintyre's, and he
said quite steadily: "What are you getting at?"
"Bruce was called over to the City by someone last Saturday evening,"
said Kintyre. "His body was found Monday morning. You know very well
that if you'd called him, offering to patch up the quarrel, he'd have
come like a shot. Where were you two this weekend?"
"Why--" Peter Michaelis' voice wobbled. "I was home all day
Saturday--housework. Went out for a drink at night--church Sunday
morning, yeah, then came back for a nap. Hey, I played pinochle down in
front of the warehouse that evening with--" His words trailed off.
"Nobody glanced in, then?" asked Kintyre. "No one who could verify that
Bruce wasn't lying bound and gagged?"
"Why--I--"
"Hey!" Gene Michaelis surged to his feet. It was a single swinging
leap, propelled upward by his arms. His aluminum legs spraddled,
seeking clumsily for a foothold. Somehow he got one of his canes and
leaned on it.
"What business is it of yours, anyway?" he snarled.
_Can I tell you that I don't know?_ thought Kintyre. _Can I tell you
I'm here because a girl I'd scarcely seen before now wanted me to come?_
_Hardly._
He leaned back with strained casualness and said: "I want to make
peace between your two families. Call it a gesture toward Bruce. I
admit I liked him. And he never stopped liking you, Gene.
"If you keep on spewing hatred at the Lombardis as you have been, the
police are going to get very interested in your weekend. Where were
you?"