Kill Fee (15 page)

"But Leon overrode your decision. Why? What does he think is so great about it?"

Fran lifted her shoulders, let them drop. "No idea. I asked him, but he couldn't give me any real reason for wanting to print it. He just said he thought Kellerman's was a talent worth nurturing. I said 'What talent?'—and that ended the conversation for that day."

"Maybe this Kellerman is a personal friend he's trying to help."

"I wondered about that." She took a swallow of her drink. "But I don't think so. You see, Nick, Leon doesn't have a lot of. friends. Not outside the magazine. The people he's close to, well, he talks about them. But he's never so much as mentioned this Kellerman."

"Well, then, some kind of power play going on at
Summit?"
Pluto suggested innocently. "Maybe Leon felt the need to assert his authority over you?"

She shot him a hard look. "Odd you should say that. I'd just about decided that's what was behind it. Leon and I went round and round about the Kellerman story—until we got to the point where I just felt I had to resign." She smiled wryly. "Hell of a way to get rid of your fiction editor, isn't it?"

He made a noncommittal sound. "Where are you working now, Fran?"

"I'm at the
New Yorker.
I don't have the status there I had at
Summit,
but there's room for advancement." She finished her drink. "Here I've been nattering on about myself all this time—what about you?"

"I'm a management consultant," Pluto said. "Not nearly as interesting as what you do."

She laughed, the tension draining out of her face.
"
That's what people always say when they don't want you to ask questions." She looked at her watch. "I've got to go. Well, Nick, it was nice talking to you."

"Same here, Fran." He watched her go, feeling slightly relieved. Better that she go on thinking Leon Walsh published "The Man from Porlock" as a move against her in what was obviously a long-running clash of wills. Not that she was likely to start asking embarrassing questions now, not after she'd left
Summit.
There must have been a lot of tension between Walsh and his fiction editor for Fran to tell tales out of school like that. It was a common enough reaction to conflict, though; a combatant felt the need to talk, and it was easier (and safer) to pour it all out on a stranger. Pluto got a lot of his information that way. He ordered another drink.

Fran had called Leon Walsh an asshole, and in Pluto's opinion she was being generous. What on earth had possessed the man? He was acting like a heart-on-his-sleeve, gut-spilling adolescent. He probably wore a T-shirt that said
Love Me.
Perhaps Walsh should be punished for his impropriety—the same way Roscoe Malucci had been punished.

No: this was not the time to make such a decision. "The Man from Porlock" had disturbed Pluto; he was still upset about it. He came to understand
how
upset only when he realized that in his talk with Fran, he'd completely forgotten to put on his English accent.

CHAPTER

9

Leila Hudson's office was almost as messy as her ex-husband's. Sergeant Eberhart wasn't exactly sure what a television production manager did, but from the evidence of Leila Hudson's office it took a lot of paper to do it. The office was small and cramped, but it did have a window. One wall was covered with title graphics, another held a series of sketches of living room settings.

Leila saw him looking at the sketches and said, "You have a measly fifteen-by-twenty-foot space to work with, a budget that keeps shrinking with each new memo from the accounting office, and instructions to create the interior of a Rockefeller-type mansion. What would
you
do?"

He laughed. "Hire a wizard."

"I wish I could," she sighed. "My designer hates me. There's a chair under that pile of transparencies if you want to sit down."

Eberhart made himself a seat. "How long have you been doing this kind of work?"

"
About eight years," she said. "I've been with this production company only two, though."

"I've got to ask you a question."

She nodded. "Didn't think you were here to make small talk."

"Has Leon Walsh asked you for money lately?"

She leaned back in her chair and gave him a long look. "Why do you want to know?"

That means yes.
"We have reason to think he needed a large sum of money recently. He was borrowing heavily from the banks, but he wasn't able to get all he needed."

"How much did he need altogether?"

"We think a hundred thousand."

Her eyebrows rose, settled back down. "What did he need the money for?"

Eberhart answered the question with another. "Did you let him have some money, Ms Hudson?"

"So you don't want to tell me." She picked up a ruler and played with it. "Sergeant, is Leon in trouble with the law?"

"He hasn't been charged with anything."

She slammed down the ruler. "Damn it, stop giving me evasive answers." She stood up angrily and walked around her desk to face him. "You don't tell me anything but I'm supposed to tell you whatever you want to know! Sergeant, I don't like your rules. I don't want to help you build some sort of case against Leon."

"Look, I know you want to protect him—"

She shook her head vigorously. "No, I don't—not any more. Leon's on his own. But I don't like not knowing what's going on. What has he done?"

Eberhart gave a big audible sigh. "Since we're still in the process of gathering evidence, you know I can't answer that. Ms Hudson—sit down, please."

"
I don't want to sit down."

"Will you just sit down? Please?''

Her mouth twitched in amusement. "And if I obey, then you'll reward me by telling me what I want to know? You like that game, do you, Sergeant?"

Eberhart tried to look stern but ended up grinning at her. He liked Leila Hudson. She was a good ten years older than he was, but he found himself attracted in a way that just might interfere with the business at hand. "I guess I can tell you this much. We've traced Walsh's borrowing pretty far—we've got him down for seventy-five thousand. All we want to know is whether he got the last twenty-five from you. It would just complete the picture, you see. You wouldn't be telling us anything new."

She looked depressed. "He's done something he shouldn't have, hasn't he?"

What the hell.
"I'm afraid so. I
think
so. Did you let him have the money?"

She nodded reluctantly.

"How much?"

"You named it—twenty-five thousand. On the button." Leila walked to the window and stared out without seeing anything. "I can't say I'm surprised. I knew something was dreadfully wrong."

"How—from his manner, from something he said? What did he say?"

She made a visible effort to pull herself together. "Leon played an unbelievably shabby trick to get me to lend him the money. Don't ask me about it—I'm not going to tell you. But it was the sort of thing a man does only when he's reached the end of his rope. If he's a man like Leon, that is. It really was underhanded, Sergeant. But I decided to give him the money he needed
to
get out of this scrape he was in, whatever it was—and then I'd have nothing more to do with him. Ever."

"Can you do that?" Eberhart was surprised. "Just walk away after all this time?"

Her face brightened a little. "Oh, yes! I can do that. I feel no more obligation to Leon Walsh—I've done all that can reasonably be expected. More."

Sergeant Eberhart felt a surge of high spirits. "No regrets?"

"Thousands," she laughed. "But none about saying good-bye to Leon. Why am I telling you this?"

Because you've sensed my interest.
"I have one of those faces. Just let me ask one more thing.
Is
it a loan? Or is it going to end up being a gift?"

"No, it's a loan," Leila said. "He's already paid back twenty-five hundred of it. Leon's not a deadbeat, thank goodness. He really does try to do the right thing. It's just that it's usually more than he can manage."

"How's that?"

She left the window and absently perched on the edge of the desk, trying to find the best way to put it. "You see, Leon does only one thing in life well, but he does it far better than most other people do
their
things. He's a damned good editor—one of the best, when he's given a free rein. His own editorial writing is a bit pedestrian, but he has a way of putting his finger on what's good or bad in other people's writing that's downright uncanny. He never misses. Do you read much fiction, Sergeant?"

"Afraid I don't."

She nodded, expecting that answer. "Well, if you did, you'd be impressed by the number of established writers who got their start in
Summit.
Did you know Leon has had four novels dedicated to him?
In gratitude,
they all said. As long as he's shut up in that office editing his
manuscripts
and putting the next issue together, he functions beautifully."

Eberhart understood. "But once he comes out of that office—"

"Yes. He gets rattled easily, and he ends up making guesses when he should be making decisions. Leon is . . . well, he's just filled with heroic aspirations—but he always manages to slip on a banana peel on the way into battle. He's simply not equipped to handle the normal conflicts we all have. So if he should come up against some really desperate situation—Sergeant, don't make me beg.
What has Leon done?"

Eberhart stood up, replaced the transparencies on the chair—stalling for time.
"If
he's done anything, you'll know in a day or two. I'll call you myself. But I can't tell you now. Besides—we might be wrong, you know."

"But you're not wrong, are you?"

"I don't think so."

Unexpectedly she smiled at him. "I'm putting you on the spot, aren't I? And you know something? Doesn't bother me a bit! You ought to tell me
something."

He returned her smile. "I wish I could."

Leila saw him to the door, a matter of about four steps. Just as he was leaving, Eberhart turned to her and said, "Have you read this month's issue of
Summit?"

She looked vaguely around the paper-laden office. "I have a copy here somewhere. I haven't gotten to it yet."

"Story in there you might find interesting. It's called 'The Man from Porlock.' "

It took her a second, but then she caught on he'd told her something important. She touched his sleeve lightly. "Thank you, Sergeant."

Eberhart nodded and left.

Captain
Ansbacher watched the machine to make sure the cup dropped down before the ersatz coffee started squirting itself down the drain. Double "whitener", no sugar.
Plop
—ah.

" 'Lo, Captain."

He should have known the voice, but Ansbacher had to turn around and look: Sergeant Hanowitz. Ansbacher frowned. Hanowitz was one of those men who always looked as if they had a hangover even when they didn't. Bleary eyes, gray skin. Ansbacher grunted a greeting, wondering what the little toady wanted this time.

Hanowitz put his money in the machine and punched the button for chicken broth. "That stuff gives me dyspepsia," he said, pointing a thumb toward the cup in Ansbacher's hand. "How are things going with the Parminter investigation?"

Ansbacher kept his face expressionless. "You have a special interest in the Parminter case?"

"No, just wondering, that's all. Making any progress?"

"Talk to Grogan. He's in charge."

"Haven't seen him around for a while. Real funny how Parminter stole those plans. Wonder if he'd been doing that all along."

Ansbacher didn't say anything, knowing Hanowitz would get to the point without any help from him. The man was about as subtle as a heart attack.

"Some of the guys are thinking Parminter and the Sutton Construction Company must have had something going for a long time—they did a helluva lot of business with the city. But me, I think it's just talk. I don't believe any of those stories going round."

Ansbacher understood he was supposed to say
What stories?
—but he was damned if he'd take his cues from this little weasel. "Good for you," he said tonelessly.

Hanowitz
looked uncomfortable; he wasn't getting the response he was fishing for. He took a big swallow of chicken broth and burned his tongue.

"First time I've ever known that stuff to be hot," Ansbacher smiled as Hanowitz dashed for the water fountain. The Captain finished his coffee and headed back toward his office.

Footsteps, hurrying to catch up. "Hoo, my tongue hurts." Hanowitz sucked in air. "Those stories we were talking about—I think they're just so much sour grapes myself. Murtaugh got sore because you pulled him off the Parminter investigation, that's all."

"Murtaugh?" Ansbacher said before he thought, and was annoyed to see the corners of Hanowitz's mouth twitch.

"Yeah, he doesn't really have anything. He's just mad. He's even asking around about cases you pulled him off years ago—Christ, what a sorehead." Sergeant Hanowitz was almost smiling now; he had Captain Ansbacher's complete attention. "I think it's kinda sneaky myself. Goin' behind your back like that, I mean. But it'll all fizzle out once Murtaugh cools down. Irish temper, I guess."