Kill Fee (24 page)

Lots of goodies. Eberhart had the names of five mem
bers
of the Pardee Club who'd known Pluto; surely one of them knew something that could be helpful. Also, he'd have another go at Mr. Rasmussen, after the old man had had a little time to recover from the shock. And there were those two antique firearms dealers to be checked.

Eberhart decided he needed help. Unfortunately, that meant a face-to-face with Ansbacher. Those little conferences with the Captain always left him feeling like a fool, no matter how well he'd done his work. In instant contrast, Eberhart heard in his mind Lieutenant Murtaugh's chronic but good-natured grumbling about Eberhart's handwriting; it was true you didn't appreciate what you had until you lost it.

Eberhart missed working with Murtaugh. But he'd go on being all willing cooperation and smiling sincerity as far as Ansbacher was concerned. Because the man could destroy you. And would, if he didn't like the way you combed your hair.

What the fuck kind of stinking system was it when a good man like Lieutenant Murtaugh could be falsely accused and kicked out and humiliated—and a high-ranking son of a bitch like Ansbacher just went on surviving and surviving and surviving?

Leon Walsh pressed the palms of his hands against his burning eyeballs. His neck ached, his shoulders ached, his back ached. But he felt that special kind of
good
that came only once a month. After all these years he still got a kick out of putting another issue to bed. The proofreading was done, the corrected dummy was on its way back to the printer's.

A knock at the door, shave and a haircut.
"Entrez,"
Walsh sang out.

The
door opened two feet and Andy Gill slipped in. Andy was the fiction editor, Fran Caffrey's replacement; a thin, pale young man, quiet and unobtrusive. "Do you have a minute, Mr. Walsh?''

That was one thing Walsh liked about young Andy Gill; he was respectful and well-mannered. Fran Caffrey would have just barged in and started talking. Walsh nodded, and Andy closed the door behind him.

"I called the printer," the young man said. "They have the dummy—it arrived all right."

"That wasn't necessary, Andy. They have to sign for it."

"I know, I just wanted to be sure. It's all locked up now, isn't it? Nothing can be changed?"

"You know it can't. A Martian invasion couldn't make
that
issue. What's this all about, Andy?"

"May I sit down?" he asked, sitting down. "It's about a story in that issue—the one written by your friend Vincent Yates. 'Whipping Boy'?"

In spite of his good feeling, Walsh tensed. "Whipping Boy" was the new title for the rewritten version of his old story "Talking of Michelangelo"—and Vincent Yates was his new pseudonym. "What about it?"

"It's a lovely story, Mr. Walsh. I'm glad we printed it."

Walsh relaxed. "So am I."

"Your friend Mr. Yates has a lot of talent. Will we be getting more of his stories, do you think?"

"Oh, I'm sure we will."

Andy Gill nodded. "Did I ever tell you I've read every single issue of
Summit
magazine? Right from the very first one, when you were still publishing in New Jersey. Did I ever tell you that?"

The tense feeling came creeping back, and Walsh knew
this
time it wasn't going to go away. He swallowed and spoke slowly. "No, I don't think you did."

"There's a story in the sixth issue that's awfully interesting. It's called 'Talking of Michelangelo'—remember that one?"

Walsh stared at him without answering.

"It's an incredible coincidence," Andy went on, "but 'Whipping Boy' had so many things about it that reminded me of 'Talking of Michelangelo' that I went back and read it again. The older story, I mean."

No. Not now. No.

The young fiction editor pulled a small spiral notebook from a hip pocket and opened it. " 'Whipping Boy' is set in Berlin while the action of 'Talking of Michelangelo' takes place in Paris, but they have the same themes and basically the same plot. And the characters of both stories have a great deal in common."

Walsh put his head back and closed his still-burning eyes as Andy Gill's featureless young voice droned on, comparing the two stories point by point. Walsh succumbed to a flood of self-pity; good God, couldn't he get away with
anything?
Probably the best line to take with young Gill was to pretend to be shocked, horrified, outraged by the plagiarism—and to swear loudly and convincingly that that was the last word by Vincent Yates
Summit
magazine would ever publish, by golly.

But Andy Gill wasn't finished. "Here's the part that's causing me trouble. 'Talking of Michelangelo' was written by J. J. Kellerman. You've published six of Kellerman's stories altogether, Mr. Walsh—I went through and counted them. 'The Man from Porlock' was the last one. But in your, ah, court hearing, and I surely am sorry about that, that you had to go through all that, I mean—
but
at your hearing they said
you
wrote 'The Man from Porlock.' Isn't that right? That's how that police lieutenant, ah, figured things out, wasn't it?"

Walsh kept his eyes closed, not wanting to look at that accusing young face.

"So if you wrote 'The Man from Porlock' then you're J. J. Kellerman. And since you're Kellerman, that means you also wrote 'Talking of Michelangelo'—isn't that true? Then if 'Whipping Boy' is just a new version of 'Talking of Michelangelo' you must also be Vincent Yates."

Walsh forced himself to open his eyes. "What are you talking about, Andy? You know Vincent Yates is a friend of mine." Something more was needed; he snorted as if disgusted. "Some friend!"

Andy shook his head. "I know you
told
me Vincent Yates was a friend . . . but it just doesn't make sense, Mr. Walsh. You're too good an editor not to recognize a plagiarized version of one of your own stories. There isn't any Vincent Yates, is there?"

Walsh looked at him wonderingly, not knowing what to say. "Well." He cleared his throat. "I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to worry, Mr. Walsh," Andy Gill hastened to assure him. "I haven't said a word to anybody. And I don't think you have to worry about the rest of the staff. None of them were with you in New Jersey, were they? And if they haven't gone back and read the old issues already, they're not likely to now, are they? You really don't have a thing to worry about. I promise you, I'm not going to say anything about it."

It was going to work out?
"I don't know what to say," Walsh repeated.

Andy
Gill smiled broadly, making himself look boyish. "You don't have to thank me, Mr. Walsh. I know you're an honorable man at heart. You'll take care of me."

The temperature dropped. "What?"

"I said I know you'll take care of me. Working with fiction is fun, and I appreciate your giving me the chance. But I really would rather work with the whole magazine, not just the fiction."

"Oh, is that all?" Walsh asked sarcastically, at last understanding he was being blackmailed. "Would publisher be good enough for you?"

"Nothing so grand as that," Andy said modestly. "An associate editorship would suit me fine."

Walsh gaped. "Associate . . . I don't have enough budget to take on another associate editor!"

The young man's face clouded. "I'm sorry to hear that. I hate to think of one of those older people being turned out to make room for me—but if you don't have the money, you don't have the money. That's the way it goes."

Walsh couldn't believe what he was hearing. Whatever happened to the quiet, unobtrusive, respectful young man he'd hired to take Fran Caffrey's place? Even Fran would never have pulled a stunt like this. "Uriah Heep," he said bitterly.

Andy Gill blinked his eyes, looked hurt. "I'm sorry you feel that way."

I'm sorry you feel that way
—the same thing young Hartley Dunlop had said to him, that day at UltraMedia when Walsh had come within a gnat's eyelash of losing
Summit.
Pull the rug out from under a guy and then say,
I'm sorry you feel that way,
when he yells. The young, conscienceless punks. They took whatever they wanted,
and
anyone who got in the way had better look out. Walsh wondered if he was destined to spend the rest of his life being one-upped by men half his age.

"Go away," Walsh said softly. "I don't want to talk to you right now."

"Yes, sir, I understand," Associate Editor Andy Gill said courteously and left the office.

Walsh leaned his head back and closed his eyes again.
Pluto, Pluto
—
where are you now?

Desmond Murtaugh padded down the hall in his pajamas and bare feet toward the ringing telephone. It was six o'clock in the morning and he wasn't fully awake. "What couldn't wait one more hour?" he answered the phone.

"Des? It's Ellie. Wake Jim up—it's important. Hurry, Des."

Des padded halfway back down the hall to the guest room. He woke his younger brother the same way he had awakened him when they were boys, by taking hold of his big toe and shaking his foot lightly. "Ellie's on the phone. She says it's important."

Lieutenant James Timothy Murtaugh woke up faster than his brother did; he was down at the end of the hall before Des made it back to his own bedroom. "Ellie? What's wrong?"

"Jim, something ghastly has happened. Captain Ansbacher has been shot. He's dead." The silence that followed was so long that Ellie said, "Jim?"

"I'm listening."
O Captain, my Captain.
"How did it happen?"

"I don't know, I just know he's been killed. A man from the Deputy Commissioner's office called, somebody named Turnbull. You know him?"

"
I know him."

"He wants you to come in to see him. He means right away, Jim, today. As soon as you can get a plane back to New York." Another silence. "Jim?"

"I'm on my way," he said.

CHAPTER

14

Deputy Commissioner Turnbull was on edge. He tried to hide his nervousness under an abrupt speaking manner; not his usual style, and he didn't carry it off too well.

Murtaugh wasn't inclined to help him out; he had a small case of nerves of his own to worry about. He was being reinstated; that was all he really cared about. But the departmentally regulated process of absolving him had opened a new can of worms.

"You know the charges against you have been dropped," Turnbull said shortly, in a hurry to get this part over with. "There'll be no hearing. Insufficient evidence now."

"What about Hanowitz? There's still his claim he heard me talking to Pluto."

"Funny thing about Hanowitz," Turnbull said dryly. "The minute he learned Ansbacher was dead he started having memory lapses. Like maybe he's not really sure it was
Pluto
he heard you say on the phone. And like he's not sure if it was a stakeout or a steak dinner you were
talking
about. He's mentioned a couple of times that Ansbacher had been pressuring him about it. He says he was just trying to be helpful."

"Hm. What's going to happen to him?"

"Oh, he's not getting away with it, don't worry. False accusation—that's serious stuff. If he'd stuck to his story . . . well, he still might have made trouble. But Hanowitz sounds like one of those pricks who change sides so often it gets to be a habit. His 'patron' is no longer around to back him up, so he's not going to try to put the screws on you by himself. How did a turkey like that ever make detective—that's what I'd like to know." Turnbull paused. "Lieutenant, the Commissioner wanted me to tell you that he's glad you're back. He never believed you were guilty."

It was the sort of thing police commissioners probably made a practice of saying to lowly lieutenants in need of encouragement, but it still gave Murtaugh a lift. He smiled for the first time that day.

Turnbull barked an uncomfortable laugh. "Good thing your papers were impounded after all. Sanders in Internal Affairs—you sure gave him a hell of a turn. When he came across your notes on Ansbacher, I mean. Two files of 'em! After he'd had a chance to study them he came to us and said he thought they were investigating the wrong man."

Murtaugh's eyebrows rose. "My notes convinced him?"

"Not exactly. You didn't have any hard evidence. But they made him suspicious—which ain't all that hard to do with Internal Affairs, my friend. But it was enough. They were about to open an official investigation when Ansbacher got shot." Turnbull cleared his throat. "Did he know what you were doing? Is that why he brought that trumped-up charge against you?"

"
Yes and yes. Hanowitz told him I was asking embarrassing questions."

"Hanowitz." Turnbull made a face. "The Commissioner had no idea—about Ansbacher, I mean. Not even a whisper. He really was on the take, then."

"For a long time. At least fifteen years, probably more." So his surreptitious investigation had done some good after all. It had saved his neck. "My notes on Ansbacher—what did you do with them?"

"Buried 'em. As far as everybody outside the Department is concerned, Ansbacher died a hero. Can you live with that?"