The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction

“But just pulling a trick a couple years ago wouldn’t have thrown her if she was so nuts about him,” Slabbe interrupted.

The black eyes studied him. “You’re quite right. A woman in his past would have done it, though – I thought. Bill told me openly and frankly that he had already been married and not divorced when I encouraged him to love Ione. I told him not to tell her. I was wrong there, but my child was coming to life again and I wouldn’t risk anything that might change her. And then as she loved Bill more and more and believed that she was the only one he had ever loved, it became even more dangerous, to my way of thinking, to tell her that another woman had been first in his life.”

“To your way of thinking,” Slabbe said. “You put that in yourself. You see you were wrong there, too. She knows now that Teel was married to Ruby. She took it, didn’t she? She didn’t crack.”

The old lady bowed her head.

Slabbe said: “You can’t keep your kid from getting bumped, lady. Everybody gets bumped. Most everybody takes it, too. They stand on their feet. They gotta. It’s not your way of thinking that counts for them, it’s their own way. Believe different and look what happens. Rather than let John Nola give your kid a bump, you killed him.”

“In cold blood,” Serena Yates said.

“Drink your coffee,” Slabbe murmured. “You’ll have to make a statement when Lieutenant Carlin gets here. Let me go over it with you.”

He sandpapered his jawline, sighed. He said: “John Nola meant to expose Teel. He hired Jake George. Jake got a line on Teel, an old black market rap hanging over him. Nola may have been pig-headed, like you say, but he knew a mere criminal charge that maybe wouldn’t even stick wouldn’t be enough to make Ione throw Teel down. He told Jake to dig some more, look for a woman in Teel’s past. Jake heard of a wife, but couldn’t trace her. He went to Max Lorenz to see if Lorenz knew where she was. Lorenz did and would tell for a price. That was John Nola’s scheme: put Teel’s wife up against him in front of Ione.”

“And break her heart,” Serena Yates said harshly.

“It didn’t break,” Slabbe said simply.

“Thank God. That’s why telling you the truth is good, at last. You’ll see that Ione and Bill had no part of it and let them alone.”

Slabbe said: “Your chauffeur was nuts about you. He killed for you.”

“I caught him burgling our house when he was only sixteen years old and gave him a job. I killed John Nola, though, and Ruby Reed, too. I wouldn’t have let Alan touch Jake George if I’d guessed what would happen.”

Slabbe shrugged. “Hurst knew a little about how cops operate. He knew you can’t just wet your toes in a murder deal, you gotta jump in feet first. He took a Brody on telling us as much of the truth as possible, hoping we’d check just so far and be satisfied, not tie Ruby Reed in with Teel. But I knew she had to fit somewhere the second she showed that she knew Max Lorenz, at Fudge Burke’s. The telegram Lorenz sent her from the airport showed they were definitely connected. He told her to meet him here to make money, but didn’t tell her the score because she, as the wife, would have been in the driver’s seat. It was just coincidence that she picked up Prentice at Fudge Burke’s. Maybe not. She was the type to go for the rich pups and Prentice hangs out at Fudge’s. So long as they both were in the place at the same time, they were bound to get together. It was one between the eyes for Bill Teel when he walked in there today and spotted her.”

“It was – what do you say? – a bad break.” The old lady’s lips were tight. “If Prentice hadn’t met her, and she hadn’t seen Bill, she would have given up waiting for Max Lorenz after a few days and probably never have returned to Treverton.”

“Loves and hates, women and breaks,” Slabbe murmured. “Did you try to buy her?”

“Of course.”

“And her price?”

“Prentice.”

Slabbe sighed. “It would be, wouldn’t it? She’d keep mum about Teel if you helped her to marry Prentice.”

Serena Yates’ black eyes were icy. “I knew her type. We never could have been sure of her – and Prentice wouldn’t have had her, anyhow.”

“She had to go,” Slabbe agreed. “No time like the present, either. When she walked out the door with Teel, you slipped out another door and shot her. You’re not so good with a gun. You pinked Teel.”

“I am good with a gun. I meant to wound him to divert suspicion from him,” the old lady said calmly.

“And when you claimed you’d seen a man who limped run over the lawn, he had no choice but to back you up. He wasn’t in it, no – only up to his gizzard. How did he know you’d killed Nola? Was he there when you did it?”

The white head shook slowly. “I called him Monday to try to bargain with Lorenz. I overheard John and Lorenz in the study Monday afternoon. I called Bill at once, told him to catch Lorenz when Lorenz left the house and promise to pay him more not to produce Ruby than John was paying him to do it. Bill was outside when Lorenz left. He was in the car with him, drove to the airport with him. But Lorenz hated Bill because Bill hadn’t been apprehended in the black market thing. He laughed at Bill and wrote that telegram to Ruby right in front of him, bragged that Ruby was already here in town and would go straight to Nola the minute she received the telegram. Bill phoned back to the house to me when Lorenz boarded the plane. Bill saw the plane crack up from the phone booth and blurted out what had happened.”