It was pure bravado, coming from an unarmed man at gunpoint, and I had to admire it. But it also nicely masked his shift away from my question. I said, “That’s fine, Doctor. If I find the money I’ll think about it. In the meantime you haven’t told me who sent you here.”
“But I have. I can’t help it if you didn’t believe me.”
“It won’t do, Doc. If there’s two hundred and fifteen thousand of yours in that loot, maybe Madonna would be willing to see you get it back, but he’d never have admitted to you that the blackmail evidence was missing. He wants that himself.”
“I told you, it wouldn’t be any good to him. He doesn’t know the facts that Aiello knew, the facts he’d need to connect it up.”
“If that’s true, it gives you a motive to kill Aiello, doesn’t it?”
His mouth drew back in disgust. “I won’t dignify that with an answer.”
“You just threatened to kill me,” I pointed out.
“Mr. Crane, if I’d killed Aiello, I’d already have the contents of his safe in my possession, and I certainly wouldn’t have any reason to come after you.”
“Not unless you wanted me thrown off the track,” I said.
He threw up his hands. “Suit yourself. We can stand here all day and argue like this, to no point. I’ve said what I came to say. I blundered clumsily, using a gun, I admit that, but there wouldn’t be much profit in continuing this, would there? May I go?”
“As soon as you tell us who sent you here.”
He considered me; by now he was disregarding the gun, assuming I wasn’t going to use it on him unless he got violent. Finally he said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll answer that question if you’ll give me a straight answer to a question of mine.”
I remembered something Madonna had said to me a few hours ago and I used it on him, only sorry that he couldn’t appreciate the irony of it. I said, “Why should I bargain with you when I’ve got a corner on the market?”
For some reason that made him smile. Then he caught himself, straightened his face and said, “All right, I don’t suppose it matters that much. The man who spotted Mrs. Farrell in the lobby this morning was indebted to me for various favors—I had treated his wife, brought her through a serious illness, and not charged the man because I knew there would be a time when I would want him to do me a favor. Those who are ignorant of medical procedures tend to be excessively grateful to a physician who, from his own point of view, was only doing a competent job of what he’d been trained to do. This man—”
“What’s his name?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? If you want him, his name is Behrenman.”
I looked at Joanne; she nodded slightly, confirming it.
Brawley continued: “Behrenman knew I had money in Aiello’s safe, knew I had a vital interest in finding the contents of it, and felt duty-bound to me as the man who had saved his wife’s life. He telephoned me at my office and told me that Madonna felt you were the most likely person to know what had happened to the contents of the safe. Behrenman didn’t know why Madonna felt that way, but he did know that Madonna was sufficiently convinced of it to order elaborate surveillance on Mrs. Farrell to make sure the two of you didn’t seize the money and make a run for it. I assume Madonna is hanging back in the hope that you’ll lead him to the money, whereupon he’ll pounce on you. That’s none of my concern. All I want is my money. It’s a rather small proportion of the total cash contents of the safe. Frankly I hoped I could force you at gunpoint to reveal the location of the money, or at least force you to go get my share and bring it back here to me while I held Mrs. Farrell hostage. As you see, it didn’t work. I’m not very adept at that sort of thing, obviously. Another mistake to chalk up. But now I’ve told you what you wanted to know. You could return my frankness by at least telling me whether you do in fact have the money.”
I shook my head at him. Either he was a fool or he just liked to hear himself talk. I said. “Go on, Doc, get out of here.”
His face fell a bit. “What about my gun?”
“You won’t need it,” I said. “Chalk that up, too.”
I pointed the .38 at him and pointed the other hand toward the door.
He gave up. Composing himself, he walked out stiffly. He closed the door behind him softly, ceremonially, like a mortician.
I went to the window and opened the Venetian blinds and watched him walk up the pavement and turn out of sight into the arched passageway. He must have left his car around front.
Joanne spoke at my back: “Do you think he was telling the truth?”
“Part of it, anyway.”
“I could point out Ed Behrenman for you. I know him by sight. He’s probably around here somewhere.”
“No,” I said, turning back and looking at her. “He’d deny it anyway—he couldn’t afford to have it get back to Madonna from me. He might decide he had to kill you and me to keep us from telling Madonna.”
“Telling Madonna what?”
“That Behrenman spilled the beans to the doctor. That wouldn’t sit well with Madonna.”
“Well, then,” she said, “where does that leave us? What have you found out?”
“Not a hell of a lot. I had a long talk with Mike, but it didn’t seem—”
I stopped because she had gone rigid at the sound of Mike’s name. “Where is he? Is he all right?”
“He was fine the last I saw him. Stop shivering. Mike didn’t do it, I’m convinced of that.”
The sun was throwing long blades in through the Venetian slats. I looked at my watch—almost six o’clock. I waited for Joanne to go through a series of changes of facial expression and finally, when she seemed settled, I said, “You don’t love the guy enough to remarry him but you’re still fond of him and you’ve been scared to death I’d find out he was the culprit in this mess. Is that what you’re trying to make me believe?”
“Trying to—I don’t understand.”
“Sure you do,” I said. “But it isn’t good enough. Joanne, you’re letting public opinion push you around.”
“I’m what?”
I said, “I told you just now that Mike didn’t do it. You reacted. Vast relief, followed by confusion, followed by a mask. There’s only one reason I can think of why you’d be all that relieved to find out Mike wasn’t guilty. You’re relieved because it means he doesn’t have the contents of the safe. He hasn’t seen the stuff—he hasn’t seen the blackmail evidence Aiello had against you. It must be something pretty terrible to make you so anxious that Mike shouldn’t see it.”
Her only answer was a twisted smile. Behind it she looked cornered and violent. Her eyes shifted away from me and I said, “Why should you care what Mike thinks of you any more?”
“I can’t help it,” she said in a small voice. “I’m not all that self-sufficient that I don’t give a damn what people know about me.”
“Including me? Because if Mike had the stuff, I’d have found it, and I’d have known. Isn’t that it, Joanne? Answer me.”
She lowered her face slowly. Dark short hair swayed forward past her face and I couldn’t see her expression; she had turned her profile to me. She said, very soft, “Yes … yes.”
I went to her. Squatted on my heels beside her and slipped my arm in under the arm of the chair, sliding my band between her back and the back of the chair. I felt her spine beneath my fingers. I said, “You have got to trust me.”
She shook her head, still not letting me look at her face. “Not with that.”
“With all of it,” I said. “What was in the safe?”
“I can’t.”
“You’ve got to. Because you’re still holding something else out on me, and it’s connected to this. Once you’ve told me the hard part, you’ll have no more reason to hold back the rest.”
“I just can’t, Simon.”
I stood up. I still had the .38 and now I put it down beside the newspaper Brawley had left behind. I said, “Madonna gave us forty-eight hours to find the stuff and return it to him. Forty-eight hours from noon today. That leaves forty-two. I don’t have to give you chapter and verse of what happens to you and me, and Mike too I suppose, if we come up empty-handed.”