Willis hesitated. Had Meyer sent the message? Was it signed? If he said "Yes," would that be the end of it, and would Sullivan make the connection? If he said "No," would Sullivan investigate further, check to see which cops manned the 87th.
And would Meyer .
"You with me?" Sullivan asked.
"What? Oh, yes."
"Answer him!" Virginia whispered.
"We sometimes get a lousy counection," Sullivan said, "I thought maybe we'd got cut off."
"No, I'm still here," Willis said.
"Yeah. Well, how about it Any Meyer there?"
"Yes. We have a Meyer."
"Second grade?"
"Yes."
"That's funny," Sullivan said.
"This kid said the note was signed by a second grade named Meyer. That's funny, all right."
"Yes," Willis said.
"And you got a Meyer up there, huh?"
"Yes."
"Boy, that sure is funny," Sullivan said.
"Well, no harm in checking, huh? What?
For God sake's, Riley, can't you see I'm on the phone? I gotta go, Willis. Take it easy, huh? Nice talking to you."
And he hung up.
Willis put the phone back into the cradle.
Virginia Dodge put down her receiver, picked up the bottle of nitro and slowly walked to where Meyer Meyer was sitting at the desk near the window.
She did not say a word.
She put the bottle down on the desk before him and then she brought her arm across her body and swung the gun in a backhanded swipe which ripped open Meyer's lip. Meyer put up his hands to cover his face, and again the gun came across, again, again, numbing his wrists, forcing his hands down until there was only the vicious metal swiping at his eyes and his bald head and his nose and his mouth.
Virginia's eyes were bright and hard.
Viciously, cruelly, brutally, she kept the pistol going like a whipsaw until, bleeding and dazed, Meyer Meyer collapsed, on the desk top, almost overturning the bottle of nitroglycerin.
She picked up the bottle and looked at Meyer coldly.
Then she walked back to her own desk.
"I hated the old bastard, and I'm glad he's dead"
Alan Scott said.
He seemed to have lost all the shocked timidity with which he'd greeted Carella yesterday. They stood in the gun room of the old house, on the main floor, a room lined with heads and horns. A particularly vicious looking tiger head hung on the wall behind Alan, and the expression on his face now-as contrasted to his paleness yesterday-seemed to match that of the tiger.
"That's a pretty strong admission to make, Mr. Scott," Carella said.
"Is it? He was a vicious mean bastard.
He's ruined more men with his Scott Industries, Inc." than I can count on both hands. Was I supposed to have loved him?
Did you ever grow up with a tycoon?"
"No," Carella said.
"I grew up with an Italian immigrant who was a baker."
"You haven't missed anything, believe me. The old bastard's power wasn't quite absolute, but he had enough to make him almost absolutely corrupt. As far as I'm concerned, he was a big chancre dripping corruption. My father. Dear old dad. A murdering son of a bitch."
"You seemed pretty upset by his death yesterday."
"Only by the facts of death. Death is always shocking. But there was no love for him, believe me."
"Did you hate him enough to kill him, Mr. Scott?"
"Yes. Enough to kill him. But I didn't.
Not that I probably wouldn't have sooner or later. But I didn't do this job. And that's why I'm willing to level with you. I'll be damned if I'm going to get involved in something I had nothing to do with. You do suspect murder, don't you?
That's why you're hanging around so long, isn't it?"
"Well ..
"Come on, Mr. Carella, let's play it straight with each other. You know the old bastard was killed."
"I know nothing for sure," Carella said.
"He was found in a locked room, Mr. Scott.
In all truth, it looks pretty much like suicide."
"Sure. But we know it isn't, don't we?
There are a lot of clever people in this rotten family who can do tricks that'd make Houdini look sick. Don't let the locked room throw you. If somebody wanted him dead badly enough, that person would find a way of doing it. And making it look like suicide."
"Who, for example?"
"Me, for example," Alan said.
"If I'd ever decided to really kill him, I'd work it out, don't worry. Somebody just beat me to it, that's all" "Who?" Carella said.
"You want suspects? We've got a whole family full of them."
"Mark?"
"Sure. Why not Mark? He's been pushed around by the old bastard all his life. He hasn't said a word against him since the time he was fourteen. All that hatred building up inside while he smiled on the outside. And the latest slap in the face, sending Mark to that New Jersey rattrap where-when he finishes his cheap on-the job-training- he goes into the firm at the magnificent salary of fifteen thousand dollars a year. For the boss's son! Why, the old bastard pays his file clerks more."
"You're exaggerating," Carella said.
"All right, I'm exaggerating. But don't think Mark liked what the old bastard was doing to him. He didn't like it one damn bit. And David had his own reasons for killing dear father."
"Like what?"
"Like lovely Christine."
"What are you saying, Mr. Scott?"
