The Witness Read online

  Fat Man rubbed his wet hands on his rounded knees and smiled. “Something important?”

  “Were you told to come to me about this?” he asked, ignoring the question put to him.

  “Man said, ask around. So I thought of you first. No one told ask—where—just around.”

  “You’ve asked,” the cold small voice told him. Old Darrell was gone, as suddenly as he had appeared. He was gone and the old statue, hard and inhuman, was there again and Fat Man was wary once more.

  “Seems this man wants this Eddie Champion. Real bad. Bad enough to make some hard talk.”

  “You’ve delivered your message.”

  The Royal Leader was on his feet and Fat Man rose, towering above him, looking down upon the crown of the box hat. He could have lifted his two huge arms and enfolded the small twig body and crushed the life from it, but the Royal Leader floated past him and the door in the wall opened as he approached it without changing his pace, and Fat Man knew that there were small holes in the walls and that cold, wary eyes were watching his every move.

  He waited, calculating the time, which seemed endless in the coldness of the room. Silently a man appeared and motioned to him and he was led from the room of the Royal Leader, through a series of small rooms, onto an elevator, which he entered alone. He pushed the button marked “L” for lobby. He walked through the lobby of the building without admiring the shining cleanness of the marble floors and walls and kept going until he was through the door, which was opened for him by a dark-suited young Negro who was not a doorman.

  Fat Man inhaled the heavy night air and wondered what was so important about somebody named Eddie Champion and somebody named Rafe Wheeler who had a bullet in his skull.

  The Royal Leader sat behind his huge glass desk and closed his eyes for a moment. He needed glasses; he must remember to make an appointment with an ophthalmologist and see about contact lenses. He put his cold fingers lightly over each lid and massaged gently. Then he slid his hands flatly on the surface of the desk. That fat mass of human flesh—something like Tomlin sooner or later could ruin things. He still served a useful purpose, but just how long or how successfully he would continue to serve a useful purpose was the question.

  No, that wasn’t the question at all. He would have had Fat Man Tomlin disposed of many years ago if it had been that simple. The real question was how to safely get rid of Tomlin and get his hands on the collection of facts and evidence which Tomlin had carefully collected through the long years of their association.

  Darrell’s fingers twitched on the smooth glass surface, leaving damp imprints. He pressed one hand over the other tightly, filled with anger at his own mistake. He had equated Tomlin’s grossness with stupidity, but Tomlin Carver was not a stupid man. Not in the matter of survival, at any rate. His mentality could never have conceived of anything as complicated as the Secret Nation, but he was smart enough to have figured out the operation and to realize that at a certain point—two years ago—he was no longer needed.

  “You are no longer useful.” That was what Darrell had told him.

  Tomlin, fat and sweating, aware of what happened to individuals so designated by the Royal Leader, had shaken his head ponderously and his voice was a hoarse thick whisper. “I got papers, Darrell, with names and places and numbers. I got all I need to send you to hell and you got no way of finding out where I got my papers, but I got ’em Darrell. When I die, brother, you die.”

  Fat Man Tomlin was the living evidence of Darrell’s greatest mistake. He would never again underestimate those around him.

  What bothered him now was that the police had gone to Fat Man with a question about his people; that was bad. The small dark eyes moved slowly from side to side, straining at the exercise. So Rafe Wheeler was dead. In the hotel room. Of a bullet wound. And Eddie Champion had said he lost Rafe at the construction site. He had only one reason to lie: He had killed Rafe. That wasn’t even important. What was important was that Eddie Champion had a gun. That couldn’t be permitted.

  The Royal Leader stabbed the button beneath his desk with the tip of his slipper. There was a soft, deferential tap and he slid his toe to another button and there was a buzzing sound, followed by the click of a lock being released. His sister, huge, powerful, strong, came forward, alertly waiting for him to speak.

  “Eddie Champion. I’m afraid we made a mistake with him.”

  Instead of the single sure nod, his sister’s eyes widened and he felt a wave of sickness grinding inside his stomach.

  “He’s gone,” the Royal Sister said.

  “Gone? Gone? When? Where?” His voice rose to a shriek and she offered him no comfort.

  Her arms lifted in an empty gesture. “I don’t know. He said he wanted some fresh air. He wasn’t being held. Brother, you didn’t tell me he was to be held.”

  He felt limp and nauseated and powerless and it was good to hear her voice become hard and controlled and reassuring.

  “Don’t worry, brother. They will find him. And when they do?” It wasn’t really a question and she nodded when he responded, “Kill him.”

  NINETEEN:

  MARTY GINSBURG FELT THE stubble on his cheeks and chin. Though he had shaved less than three hours ago, he was already beginning to feel and look seedy. Right now, at this very minute, he should be jumping into the pool, roaring in his seallike howl that always broke up his kids. Except David, his oldest. Sometimes Marty wondered what the hell was the matter with that kid. Just because he was fifteen years old, all of a sudden his old man wasn’t funny any more. But his other three sons, ranging in age from five to eleven, still thought it was funny when he took a flying leap and entered the pool backside first, and so did all the other people up at Valley Dale Cottage Colony High-in-the-Berkshires. Marty had postponed his vacation to wind up the meter investigation, and now he was stuck with this whole Secret Nation megillah and didn’t know when he’d get a chance to cleanse his lungs with mountain air.

  There wasn’t any air of any kind in this little room. Marty loosened his tie and opened the top button of his shirt. Damn it, he didn’t even have a clean summer shirt in the apartment, and the heavy oxford cloth was strangling him. Just his luck, he had to draw one of these sweatless little college bastards who had everything about him cool as frost. The kid—he couldn’t have been more than twenty—took off his glasses and polished them carefully with a fresh handkerchief before replacing them and studying the subpoena Marty handed him. Even the subpoena looked seedy, crushed from being in Marty’s jacket pocket which was filled with candy—which was a hell of a way to stick to his diet.

  “Look, sonny,” he told the boy, “there’s the paper, so you just be a good kid and give me the list of names. It’s as hot as hell in here and worse outside, and I got about five more stops after here.”

  “I’m only the recording secretary,” the student told him. “I doubt if I have the authority to answer this subpoena. In fact, I question the legality of your attempting to appropriate membership records of our chapter of the FFA.”

  “You a law student?” Marty asked. Always there was a law student and always Marty had to come across him.

  The student stiffened and jutted out his chin as though he had been insulted.

  Marty put his hand heavily on the boy’s shoulder and moved close to him, his eyes darting about the small room as though someone might be hidden under a desk, listening. “Let me give you some advice, kiddo. You have the authority. Take the authority, know what I mean? You’re in charge here, right? Who the hell works on a Saturday? Nobody’s around, you’re top man. Look, that’s a legal document signed by a judge and everything, you know? Don’t go checking it out with anybody; you’re covered by the piece of paper.”

  The student—a tall, slender boy with neatly cropped and parted brown hair, and small dark eyes magnified by his glasses—drew back from Marty’s touch and words and regarded him with growing caution.

  Marty nudged him. “What the hell, kid, you got a
professor here knows more about law than you or me? Listen, I know more about legal law than all your book lawyers put together. This here’s a legal document and you been served, so give me your membership list, and you got that legal document to back you up.”

  As he spoke, Marty Ginsburg shifted from one foot to the other and his eyes kept sliding toward the door of the small frosted-glass and metal-partitioned office. Suddenly he reached out and snatched the document from the student’s hand.

  “On second thought, you don’t need to keep this. You been served, nice and legal-like, so I’ll hang onto it for my files and you give me my information.”

  The student removed his glasses and extended his arm stiffly. “Officer, let me have that subpoena.”

  Marty shrugged, jammed his hand into his jacket pocket and removed the wrinkled paper. “Look, it’s okay. Like if I presented this to my wife, she’d have to give me the membership of her PTA, you know? What’s the big deal?”

  The student held the subpoena flat against the desk and smoothed it with his palm. His right hand reached out slowly and he lifted the receiver of the telephone. As he started to dial, Marty Ginsburg pressed his thumb on the button, cutting off the dial tone. His face turned toward the door, Marty spoke rapidly. “Listen, kid, you don’t got to do that. It’s legal, it’s legal.”

  The young man replaced the receiver and stepped back, regarding Marty Ginsburg with controlled but obvious indignation. His voice was surprisingly resonant. “Officer, I consider you and this—this document—highly suspect. I am going to check this out with Dean Alexander, the faculty adviser to our group, before I release any information to you.”

  Marty shrugged and pulled at his face. “Hey listen, answer me one thing first, will you? Look, if someone who isn’t a college student wanted to be a member of the FFA—you know, some civilian or something—could he? Or do you hafta be a student? Or something?”

  The question was carefully weighed and considered, then found to be harmless. “Our organization is based and led on university and college campuses throughout the city. However, our membership is open to all sincerely in tune with our aims. Our aims and goals—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Marty said. “But you people keep membership lists of non-students, too?”

  At the words “membership lists,” the student stopped speaking and warily regarded the detective. “I will be back shortly.”

  Marty sank into a gray metal chair beside the desk. “Make it quick, kid. I’m in a hurry.”

  “Yes. So it would seem.”

  Marty watched the tall figure hurry out of the office, and his eyes traced the shadowy silhouette along the smoked-glass upper half of the wall along the hallway. Facing the door, so that he could catch any trace of shadow, Marty quickly searched the top drawer, then thumbed through a small box of index cards placed on the large gray metal file cabinet. He tried the file cabinet. The second drawer seemed to be stuck; then Marty realized that he had to open the top drawer first, to release the other drawers. Deftly he ran his fingers through manila files, stopping at one identified by the words: “FFA-Manhattan.” There were approximately ten onionskin copies of the membership list. Marty carefully removed a legible copy and folded it into a small, compact square, which he slipped into his right trouser pocket. He slumped back into the chair and wondered what the owner of the slow, heavy footsteps would look like. Probably old and tired.

  Marty was wrong. Dean Alexander was young and alert with a red face and a nearly bald head fringed with pale yellow fluff that matched his heavy eyebrows. His eyes were light gray and angry, and the student stood back to allow him to enter first.

  “Now see here, Detective—” He turned to the student. “What’s his name?”

  “He said Ginsburg.”

  “Yeah, how do you do? I’m Detective Ginsburg from the DA’s squad and that document is a subpoena. There’s nothing wrong with the kid giving me your membership list. I don’t know why he went and bothered you about it—it’s legal.”

  “You seemed very anxious to have Richard hand over the list. Well, Richard has no authority to do so, nor do I. We’ll have our legal adviser go over this document and we’ll advise the District Attorney of his decision. It seems rather odd to me that you people are culling names of the members of the FFA. For what purpose, may I ask?”

  “Sure, you can ask. But you know how it goes, Mr. Dean. I just do what I’m told, you know. You could make my job easier by cooperating but”—Marty stood up, his words fading under the cold stares of the two young men—“well, I guess you got your procedures to follow, like I got mine, but it would help. So, okay. Do what you feel you got to.”

  Marty slipped his necktie from around his neck, bunched it up into a ball and stuffed it into his pocket. “Nice school you got here. Columbia is very famous, you know.”

  Marty reached out and grasped the dean’s hand and pumped it roughly, then took the student’s hand. It was damp and limp and that made Marty feel good. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Dean, and you too, Richard. You’ll make a real good mouthpiece out of this kid someday.”

  Marty walked down the cool corridor of the university building and had a terrific urge to run at top speed and give a flying leap, but instead of landing in the nice green pool, he’d end up with his ass on polished marble.

  TWENTY:

  CASEY REARDON PRESSED HIS knees against the metal seat in front of him, the way he used to when he was a kid at the Saturday matinee, but this was the first time he had ever occupied an entire theater by himself. Actually, it was a small screening room, and more luxurious than any West Side scratch house of Reardon’s boyhood. There were six rows of pinkish-beige upholstered chairs ranged across the wide room at spacious intervals. Every seat afforded a perfect view of the large screen. Reardon was uncomfortable with his knees against the metal; the distance was too great for comfort. He shifted, crossed one ankle over a knee and rested his chin over his locked hands as he intently studied the screen.

  The engineer, at his request, had turned off the sound at the fifth or sixth showing of the brief piece of television tape so that he could concentrate on the action, but the silent figures moved exactly as before. Billy Everett, his face startled and imploring, his lips moving over unheard words. Then a quick scanning glimpse of faces around him. Then the damn camera seemed to spin and the next shot was of Billy Everett’s fallen body. Son of a bitch. The cameraman had missed the shooting.

  The engineer stopped each frame as Reardon requested but the pictures were smeary and indistinct. At one point Reardon spotted what looked like his daughter’s forehead, partially blocked by what was probably the back of Christie Opara’s head. Reardon moved his finger and the engineer adjusted some dials over his gleaming panel of equipment and the film played itself out. The guy was very cooperative and helpful and Reardon thanked him. He absently massaged the back of his stiff neck and walked down the carpeted corridor to the door marked JOHN EDWARD TELLER, NEWS DIRECTOR.

  Little John Teller really had it made, which just proves that you shouldn’t make predictions based on a guy’s performance in school. Hell, Johnnie Teller, mealymouthed and squeaky-voiced and argumentative, had grown up to be one successful boy: probably highest-paid in the graduating class. Reardon looked around the office: a Hollywood set, only all for real. Teller told him to make himself at home. Reardon poured a stiff shot of Scotch from the bar. It hit him too fast and he closed his eyes. What the hell did this guy make—sixty, seventy thousand a year?

  He glanced at the cordless square glass clock on Teller’s desk. Twelve-thirty. He wondered how Stoney was making out. His fat informant had called at noon sharp, but had no information except that Champion had dropped out of sight and that he would keep after it. Reardon smiled grimly. He wondered what pressure Stoney was exerting. He had known Stoner Martin for a long time and had never underestimated his toughness. He was working some other angles and would keep checking with the office for his message. Reardon dialed his office
number.

  “District Attorney’s Special Investigations Squad. Detective Ferranti speaking.”

  Bill Ferranti was the only guy in the squad who answered the phone properly. “Reardon here. What’s doing?”

  “Nothing new, sir. No further word from Detective Martin. The rest of us are still working on the cards and lists. No one else has called since you checked before.”

  “Any matches between FFA people and Secret Nation people?”

  There was a pause, some background conversation, then Ferranti. “We’ve got three possibles, Mr. Reardon. Marty’s checking them out.”

  “Right. Detective Opara in yet?”

  “Yes, sir. She’s been here since before eleven.”

  Reardon smiled, but his voice gave no indication that he was pleased by or aware of Ferranti’s protection of Christie. “Right. I’m on my way in. See you in a little while.”

  He depressed the button on the phone, then lifted his finger, heard the dial tone and called his home number. “Barbara, it’s me, Dad. Have you thought it all over? It’s going to be a rough experience.”

  He could see her white-faced determination as she said, “No change of mind, Dad. I feel exactly the same.”

  “Okay. Christie Opara will pick you up in a cab by seven-thirty the latest. You’re not to leave the house until she comes. That’s definite, right?”

  “Yes, Dad. I understand.”

  “Okay. See ya.”

  Reardon hung up and walked toward the bar, stopped and turned away. He needed some food. He’d been drinking too much and it was going to be a very, very long day.

  TWENTY-ONE:

  EDDIE CHAMPION LAY ON his back and felt the sun hot on his face and the stickly grass cool through the thin fabric of his white shirt. The crazy chant those creeps were singing was starting to get on his nerves. There were some pretty weird people around. Eddie thought he had seen it all, but this East Village deal was the end. It was a good scene for a quick switch job: black or white, male or female. Nobody seemed to care how you did it, or if you did it, or if you preferred not to do it. These creeps were strictly removed.