Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 853 & 854, September/October 2012
- Автор: Макдермид Вэл, Манфредо Лу
- Год: 2012
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 853 & 854, September/October 2012». Краткое содержание книги:
The doorman landed our taxi, and we headed off at the usual breakneck pace. Today, it seemed justified. We had plans to make, as Harry had said. That is, he and the other responsible adults did. That Harry had been referring to a group that didn’t include me when he’d used the second person plural was brought home to me when he asked if I wanted to be dropped at Penn Station or the Port Authority Building.
I selected the train station, and we careered along in silence for a time. I didn’t blame Harry for excluding me. I’d had some close calls during my years as an amateur sleuth. I couldn’t enter a barn or a liquor store without thinking of two especially close ones. Luckily, I hardly ever entered a barn. But for the most part, my cases didn’t involve shootouts or blood feuds. So I wouldn’t contribute much in a strategy session with a SWAT team. And I was consoled by the certainty that the police would dump Harry as quickly as he had dumped me.
A block from the station, Harry broke the silence. “The toughest part of this may be keeping Mary away from the funeral.”
“You’re still thinking about a bomb?”
“Bombs, bullets, water balloons. I don’t care what this Burnon uses. I don’t want Mary within a mile of him. I don’t want to risk her life.”
That might have been a dig at me and my past performance as a guardian of Mary — she’d been tied up with me in that long-ago barn — but I didn’t care. I liked hearing that Harry was concerned for her safety. Ever since I’d danced with Mary at the reception and she’d asked about Harry’s happiness, I’d been worried. And I’d been looking for an opening for a conversation with Harry that I really didn’t want to have. Now, it seemed, I didn’t have to have it.
A moment later, as we pulled up in front of Penn Station, Harry yanked that deep-pile misconception out from under me.
“Here’s the thing about a rut, Owen. You only live in one in the first place because the world outside it frightens you. The last thing you want is for anything to change.”
8.
I had time on my hands when I stepped from the train in Elizabeth, where I rented rooms. I’d gotten the morning off by switching with someone on the second shift, which was still hours away. So I walked the hills of the old city. It had been badly served by the twentieth century, had in fact become an apt symbol for modern life, squeezed as it was on all sides and sliced through the middle by super highways. But it wasn’t a bad place for a walk, in daylight at least.
I fell into thinking about Crevier’s world, comparing his Spartan apartment to the busy streets around me. His empire was cleaner than downtown Elizabeth and certainly safer, but it was very much less alive. I could understand his desire to return to his native village, perhaps to watch the comings and goings from a table in the café, if it had one, on the central square, if there was one.
From there I moved to wondering how Crevier had spent his years of exile. Not buttoned up in his tower, surely. Not completely. De Gaulle and his successors didn’t have that long a reach. And if he’d never ventured out, Crevier would never have met the Le Clares and become a favorite of Kit’s. If he got out at all, New York would have been a comfortable place for his exile. A prison, perhaps, but one with a very nice exercise yard, complete with restaurants, theaters, and museums. I’d known people who’d passed much harsher sentences on themselves. In fact, I’d done it myself, once upon a time.
That led me to wonder whether, should Burnon be captured and Crevier returned alive to his village, the old man would be content with his choice. Would he miss the bright lights when he was sitting beside some trout stream, waiting for a bite?
Regretted choices were a regular feature of my contemplations, not surprisingly, given the odd course my own life had taken. But that day the subject seemed especially pressing, and not just because of Crevier. I was also worried about Harry, the man who had brought me the Crevier case and then bumped me from it. In fact, one of the reasons I was thinking about the Frenchman now — pointless though it was since my demotion to spectator — was to avoid thinking of Harry’s assessment of his marriage: You only live in a rut in the first place because the world outside it frightens you.
That paraphrasing came to my mind against my will, and I tried to force it out again by returning to the subject of Anton Crevier. The transition was easy to make, so much so that I was almost able to fool myself into believing Harry had been referring to the old soldier’s life and not his own when he’d spoken of ruts.
The coincidence brought me up short in the middle of Broad Street. I recovered just as the light changed and managed to reach the far curb in one piece. There I checked through my reasoning before setting off again at a run. I started for my apartment and then spotted a much nearer alternative: a supermarket where I’d once stocked shelves. Inside its door, between the mechanical bronco and the gumball machines, was a pay phone. I used it to place a somewhat breathless and very collect call.
9.
The Derivals and the Le Clares got a nice day for the joint funeral, for whatever solace that was to them. The church where Kit and Emile had been married was pressed into service again, and was even more tightly packed. Or so I judged from the crowd that streamed past my sentry post. That crowd included Harry and Mary — who hadn’t been talked out of attending — and Beth Wolfe. I didn’t escort her today, preferring for some reason to stand apart from the proceedings.
I also stayed well away from the police, who were there in force, though discreet. The headquarters of my stakeout was a little three-sided park across the street from the church. From there, I saw Anton Crevier arrive at the last possible moment, pushed by Tritt, whose head never stopped turning on its stork’s neck. Crevier didn’t scan the crowd once, but he didn’t slump in his chair either. He sat as upright as his damaged body would permit, looking straight before him. As far as I could tell from my vantage point, none of the other stragglers so much as met the old man’s gaze.
After the service, the process was reversed, Crevier and his bodyguard leaving a little after the main crowd and drawing no special attention. Tritt seemed to grow edgier as they neared the limousine that had carried them out from the city. Crevier, in contrast, sagged visibly, like a man who’d tired of waiting for his firing squad to come off break. The process of loading him into the car forced Tritt to lower his guard. Still, no one approached them.
I joined the waiting Ohlmans and Beth for the short ride to the cemetery and then deserted them again, climbing a hill from which I could just hear the words of the graveside service. When it was over, the mourners drifted away, leaving, finally, only two men, one in a wheelchair. I walked down the hill to them.
“Our plan has failed, Mr. Keane,” Crevier said. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his jowly face. “My penance is not over yet, it seems.”
Harry joined us, accompanied by two men. I would have tagged them as policemen even if I hadn’t been in on the day’s proceedings.
“I’m sorry,” Harry said to the old man. “We’ll have to think of something else. Owen has an idea.”
“Yes?” Crevier said, fixing me with his black eyes.
Tritt was also watching me intently. I reached into the side pocket of my suit coat, a bit of stage business designed to hold their attention a moment longer. As my hand came out empty, the two policemen grabbed Tritt, one on either arm.
“What is this?” Crevier demanded, struggling to turn in his chair.
By then, Tritt had been relieved of a slim black automatic. When they led him off, his head was bowed almost to his chest.