Murder in Black Letter, Poul William Anderson [best ebook reader ubuntu TXT] 📗

never spoken much to him of Gene Michaelis. They had been children together on the waterfront. Bruce was a year younger, doubtless a quiet bookish sort, teacher's pet, even then—but apparently unaffected by it, so that he was not disliked. Still, he must have been lonely. And Gene was a rough-and-tumble fisherman's son. Nevertheless, one of those odd fierce boy-friendships had existed between them. Bruce had probably dominated it, without either of them realizing the fact.

In time they drifted apart. Gene had left high school at sixteen, Bruce had said, after some whoopdedo involving a girl; he had tramped since then, dock walloper, fry cook, bouncer, salesman—he found it easy to lie about his age. Now and then he revisited the Bay Area. His return from Navy service had been last summer, when Kintyre was still in Europe; Kintyre had never actually met him. Gene had looked up Bruce in Berkeley, and through Bruce renewed an acquaintance with Corinna, and after that Gene had moved over to San Francisco.

Number 8. Kintyre heard television bray through the thin panels. He looked at his watch. Past ten o'clock. Oh, hell, let's play by ear. He knocked.

Feet shuffled inside. The door opened. Kintyre looked slightly upward, into a lined heavy face with a thick hook nose and small black eyes and a gray bristle of hair. The man had shoulders like a Mack truck, and there wasn't much of a belly on him yet. He wore faded work clothes. The smell of cheap wine was thick around him.

"What do you want?" he said.

"Mr. Michaelis? My name's Kintyre. I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes."

"We're not buying any, and if you're from the finance company you can—" Michaelis completed the suggestion.

"Neither," said Kintyre mildly. "Call me a sort of ambassador."

Puzzled, Michaelis stood aside. Kintyre walked into a one-room apartment with a curtained-off cooking area. A wall bed was opened out, unmade. There were a few chairs, a table with a half-empty gallon of red ink on it, a television set, a tobacco haze, much dust and many old newspapers on the floor.

Gene Michaelis occupied a decaying armchair. He was a young, black-haired version of his father, and would have been rather handsome if he smiled. He wore flannel pajamas which had not been washed for some time. His legs stuck rigidly out before him, ending in shoes whose heels rested on the floor. Two canes leaned within reach. He was smoking, drinking wine, and watching the screen; he did not stop when Kintyre entered.

"I'm sorry the place is such a mess," said Peter Michaelis. He spoke fast, with an alcoholic slur. "It's kind of hard. My wife's dead, and my son has to live with me and he can't do nothing. When I get home from looking for work, all day looking for a job, I'm too tired to clean up." He made vague dusting motions over a chair. "Siddown. Drink?"

"No, thanks." Kintyre lowered himself. "I came—"

"I was already down in the world when this happened last year," said Michaelis. "I owned my own boat once. Yes, I did. The Ruthie M. But then she got sunk, and there wasn't enough insurance to get another, and well, I ended up as a deckhand again. Me, who'd owned my own boat." He sat and blinked muzzily at his guest.

"I'm sorry to hear that. But—"

"Then my wife died. Then my son come back from the Navy, and got himself hurt real bad. Both legs gone, above the knees. It took all the money I had to pay the doctors. I quit work to take care of my son. He was in a bad way. When he got so he could look after himself a little, I went looking for my job back, only I didn't get it. And since then I haven't found nothing."

"Well," said Kintyre, "there's the welfare, and rehabilitation—"

Gene turned around and said a short obscenity.

"That's what they'll do for you," he added. "They found me a job basket weaving. Basket weaving! Kee-rist, I was a gunner's mate in the Navy. Basket weaving!"

"I'm a Navy man myself," ventured Kintyre. "Or was, after Pearl Harbor. Destroyers."

"What rank were you? A brown-nosing officer, I'll bet."

"Well—"

"A brass hat. Kee-rist." Gene Michaelis turned back to his television.

"I'm sorry," muttered his father. "It's not so easy for him, you know. He was as strong and lively a young fellow as you could hope to see. God, six months ago! Now what's he got to do all day?"

"I'm not offended," said Kintyre. I would, in fact, be inclined to take offense only at a system of so-called education which has so little discipline left in it that its victims are unable to do more than watch this monkey show when the evil days have come. But that is not of immediate relevance.

"What did you come for?" Peter Michaelis lifted his bull head and his voice crested: "You know of a job?" He sagged back again. "No. No, you wouldn't."

"I'm afraid not," said Kintyre. "I came as—I came to help you in another way." Maledetto! How much like Norman Vincent Peale is one man allowed to sound? But I can't think of anything else.

"Yes?" Michaelis sat erect; even Gene twisted half around.

"You know the Lombardi family, of course."

"Do we know them?" spat Michaelis. "I wish to hell we didn't!"

"Have you heard that the son, Bruce, is dead?"

"Uh-huh," said Gene. He turned down the sound of his program and added with a certain pleasure: "Looks like there's some justice in the world after all."

"Now, wait," began Kintyre.

Gene turned more fully to face the visitor. His eyes narrowed. "What have you got to do with them?" he asked.

"I knew Bruce. I thought—"

"Sure. You thought he was God's little bare-bottomed baby angel. I know. Everybody does. It took a long time to get down past all those layers of holy grease on him. I did."

"You know what the old man done to me?" shouted Peter Michaelis. "He rammed me. Sent my boat to the bottom in 1945. He murdered two of my crew. They drowned. I could of been drowned myself!"

Kintyre remembered Bruce's account. A freakish, sudden fog had been blown down a strong wind. Such impossibilities do happen now and then. The boats blundered together and sank. The Coast Guard inquiry found it an act of God; Michaelis tried to sue, but the case was thrown out of court. Then, for the sake of their sons, Peter and Angelo made a grudging peace.

What had happened lately must have brought all the old bitterness back, with a dozen years' interest added.

"Shut up," said Gene. He was drunk too, Kintyre saw, but cold drunk, in control of everything except his emotions. "Shut up, Pete. It was an accident. Why should he ruin his own business?"

"He got him a restaurant out of it," mumbled Michaelis. "What have we got?"

"Look here," said Kintyre, not very truthfully. "I'm a neutral party. I didn't have to come around here, and there's nothing in it for me. But will you listen?"

"If you'll listen too," said Gene. He poured himself another glass. "Huh. I know what the Lombardis been telling you about me. Let me tell you about them."

Somewhere in the back of Kintyre's mind, a thin little warning whistle blew. He grabbed the arms of his chair and hung on tight. There was no time now to add up reasons why; he knew only that if he let Gene talk freely about Corinna, there was going to be trouble.

"Never mind," he said coldly. "I'm not interested in that aspect. I came here because I don't think you murdered Bruce Lombardi and the police may think you did."

That stopped them. Peter Michaelis looked up, his face turning a drained color. Gene puckered his lips, snapped them together, and went blank of expression. His dark gaze did not waver from Kintyre's, and he said quite steadily: "What are you getting at?"

"Bruce was called over to the City by someone last Saturday evening," said Kintyre. "His body was found Monday morning. You know very well that if you'd called him, offering to patch up the quarrel, he'd have come like a shot. Where were you two this weekend?"

"Why—" Peter Michaelis' voice wobbled. "I was home all day Saturday—housework. Went out for a drink at night—church Sunday morning, yeah, then came back for a nap. Hey, I played pinochle down in front of the warehouse that evening with—" His words trailed off.

"Nobody glanced in, then?" asked Kintyre. "No one who could verify that Bruce wasn't lying bound and gagged?"

"Why—I—"

"Hey!" Gene Michaelis surged to his feet. It was a single swinging leap, propelled upward by his arms. His aluminum legs spraddled, seeking clumsily for a foothold. Somehow he got one of his canes and leaned on it.

"What business is it of yours, anyway?" he snarled.

Can I tell you that I don't know? thought Kintyre. Can I tell you I'm here because a girl I'd scarcely seen before now wanted me to come?

Hardly.

He leaned back with strained casualness and said: "I want to make peace between your two families. Call it a gesture toward Bruce. I admit I liked him. And he never stopped liking you, Gene.

"If you keep on spewing hatred at the Lombardis as you have been, the police are going to get very interested in your weekend. Where were you?"

Gene hunched his shoulders. "None of your God damn business."

"I take it you weren't home, then."

"No, I was not. If you want to ask any more, let's see your Junior G-man badge."

Kintyre sighed. "All right." He stood up. "I'll go. The cops won't be so obliging, if you don't cooperate with them."

He looked past Gene, to the window. It was a hole into total blackness. He wondered if that had been the last sight Bruce saw—of all this earth of majesty, a single smeared window opening on the dark.

"I didn't do it," said Gene. "We didn't." He showed his teeth. "But I say three cheers for whoever did. I'd like to get the lot of 'em here, that sister now—"

"Hold on!" The violence of his tone shivered Kintyre's skull. Afterward it was a wonder to him, how rage had leaped up.

Gene swayed for a moment. An unpleasant twisting went along his lips. Beside Kintyre, the father also rose, massive and watchful.

"So you'd like some of that too, would you?" said Gene. "You won't get it. She's only a whore inside. Outside, she's like a goddam nun. You know what we call that kind where I come from? Pri—"

"I'm going," said Kintyre harshly. "I prefer to be among men."

Unthinkingly, he had chosen the crudest cut. He saw that at once. A physical creature like Gene Michaelis, whose sexual exploits must have been his one wall against every hidden inadequacy, must now be feeling nearly unmanned.

Gene roared. His cane lifted and whistled down.

It could have been a head-smashing blow. Kintyre stepped from it and it jarred against the floor. The cane broke across. Gene rocked forward on his artificial legs, his hands reaching out for Kintyre's throat.

Kintyre planted himself passively, waiting. He didn't want to hit a cripple. Nor would fists be much use against all that bone and meat.

As Gene lunged, Kintyre slipped a few inches to one side, so the clutching arm went above his shoulder. He took it in his hands, his knee helped the great body along, and Gene Michaelis crashed into the wall.

As the cloud of plaster exploded, Kintyre saw the old man attack. Peter Michaelis was still as strong as a wild ox, and as wrathful.

Kintyre could have killed him with no trouble.

Kintyre had no wish to. Anyone could be driven berserk, given enough low-grade alcohol on top of enough wretchedness. He waited again, until the fisherman's fist came about in a round-house swing. There was time enough for a judo man to get out of the way, catch that arm, spin the opponent halfway around, and send him on his way. It would have been more