“Then the girl talked,” Terrell said bitterly. “And we had them cold. But you squealed to Cellars again, and now she’s gone. Where?” Terrell caught him by the lapels of his expensive suit and shook him with all of his strength. “Where is she? What have they done with her?”
“I don’t know... I don’t know.”
Terrell let him go and Karsh turned away and sat down slowly and wearily on the side of the bed. His face had gone slack, and he was breathing with a definite physical effort, like a man in pain. “I needed money, I always needed money.” The travesty of a smile twisted his lips. “The plea of the absconding bank teller, the defense of a kid who snatches a purse. You’d think I could come up with something more original. A treatise on the pleasures of morality, or the need for more thieving bastards in a world gone boring itself to death with uplift.” He sighed and a little shudder went through his body. “Gambling, alimony, that little fop of mine outside — they suck money out of me every minute of the day and night. My salary covers Jenny, and most of my bar bills. And not much else. Cellars offered to chip in a few years back. At first it was simple; a gambling story played down, a picture of a girl friend stuck in the paper. Little things. Kill a divorce story, ease up on some character in trouble with the tax people — favors I could do with a pencil or a telephone call. But I got in too deep. I couldn’t pay him back. It wasn’t simply money, there wasn’t much of that actually. Ike was afraid I might invest in blue chips or hit the books for a bundle and get clear of him. Take this apartment building. It’s owned by a combine headed by Cellars. I never get a bill. I ask for it and the manager says sure, right away. Only it never comes. Bookkeeping snafu. Next month without fail, Mr. Karsh. And next month never comes. I trade in a car at Cellars’ agency. The salesman says, ‘You’re really doing us a favor, Mr. Karsh. Your old car is perfect, and these new ones are dogs. So what say we trade even?’ He boxed me in on all sides, making things easy, making it impossible for me to break clear.” Karsh shook his head wearily. “Didn’t you ever spot it? Half the city room tumbled years ago. You know the way I bounced guys before the Guild came in? Sent city editors off to Paris, or back on police? I had to; they’d get too close to what I was doing, or they’d be sick of killing stories they knew we should print.” Karsh stared up at Terrell, his eyes pleading for understanding. “Then the Caldwell story broke, and you stumbled on the fix, and Cellars expected me to keep you quiet. If it was just my job at stake I might have told him to go to hell. I don’t know. But it was your life, Sam. Cellars wanted to kill you. I convinced him it would be smarter to kill the story. So we played you for a fool. Everything you dug up went back to Cellars — and nothing went into the paper. But you’re alive, remember that,
“Where’s the girl now?” Terrell said.
“I don’t know. I swear it.” Karsh got slowly to his feet and moistened his dry lips. “Is she important to you?”
“What difference does that make?” Terrell turned away from the pain in Karsh’s face, and rubbed the back of his hand roughly over his mouth. “She’s important to herself. She’s a hundred-pound girl who got in trouble with hoodlums because she was willing to tell the truth.” He turned sharply back on Karsh. “What the hell is your philosophy? That she doesn’t matter? That she’s like a marker in a game? Like Paddy Coglan and Eden Myles? Inanimate objects pushed here and there by the important people?”
“She won’t be hurt, Sam. She’ll be all right.”
“Is Paddy Coglan all right?”
“He shot himself.”
“Coglan was murdered,” Terrell said. “By the hoodlums who killed Eden Myles. And you fingered him. You told Cellars he was ready to talk. And Cellars had him killed. Didn’t your partner tell you he was arranging an execution?”
Karsh was swaying from side to side like a drunk. “No, that’s not true.”
“You killed him. Do you want the girl’s death on your conscience too? Where is she?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know.”
Terrell turned to the door. He didn’t know where to go or what to do, but he wanted desperately to get away from here — away from this waste and shame, away from the guilt in Karsh’s face.
“Wait, Sam, wait. Please.”
Terrell looked back and saw the tears trembling in Karsh’s eyes. But nothing could touch him any more. The pity and sadness was gone, arid there was nothing left but anger.
Karsh touched his arm tentatively and Terrell said, “Take your hands off me.”
