Mystery

“Hasek recognized me,” Tom said. “That’s why he sent for the Cornerboys. A few days before, he came to our house. He must have tracked down my grandfather—and he must have stopped at a couple of bars too, because he was smashed. Anyhow, he was shouting and throwing rocks, and my grandfather went outside to handle him. I followed him, and Hasek saw me. My grandfather ran him off, and I went back inside, and when Grand-Dad came back he went upstairs. They were all talking about it. I heard my mother screaming, Where did that man come from? What did he want? And my grandfather answered, He came from the general vicinity of 44th and Auer, if you’re interested. As for what he wants, what do you think he wants? He wants more money.”

“And you overheard, and a few days later you went out there—across the island by yourself, at ten years of age. Because you’d heard enough to think that if you went to that place, you’d be able to understand everything. And instead you were almost killed, and wound up in the hospital.”

“And that’s why everybody kept asking me what I was doing out there,” Tom said, and another level of confusion fell away from him. “Why were you at the hospital today?”

“I wanted to see for myself what you learned from Nancy Vetiver. I knew that poor Michael Mendenhall couldn’t have much more time, and I spent a couple of hours a day in the lobby—in the disguise you saw—to see what would happen when he died. And I learned that my impression of David Natchez was correct—he’s a real force for good. That he’s stayed alive all this time means that he’s also a resourceful character. Someday, Tom, we’re going to need that man—and he is going to need us.”

Von Heilitz stood up and pushed his hands into his pockets. He began pacing back and forth between his chair and the table. “Now let me ask you another one. What do you know about Wendell Hasek?”

“He was wounded once,” Tom said. “In a payroll robbery from my grandfather’s company. The robbers were shot to death, but the money was never found.”

Von Heilitz stopped pacing, and fixed his eyes on the Degas painting of a ballet dancer. He seemed to be listening very intently to the music. “And does that remind you of anything?”

Tom nodded. “It reminds me of lots of stuff. Hasselgard. The Treasury money. But what—”

Von Heilitz whipped around to face him. “Wendell Hasek, who was at Eagle Lake the summer Jeanine Thielman was murdered, came to your house looking for your grandfather. He wanted money, or so it seems. We can speculate that he felt he deserved more money for having been wounded in the payroll robbery, even though he had already been given enough to buy a house. When you turn up a short time later, he is anxious enough to send out his son, and to summon his son’s friends, to see what you’re doing there. Doesn’t that suggest that he is concealing something?” He fixed Tom with his eyes.

“Maybe he organized the robbery,” Tom said. “Maybe he was getting money from my grandfather for a deliberate injury.”

“Maybe.” Von Heilitz leaned against the back of his chair, and looked at Tom with the same excitement in his eyes. He was keeping something to himself, Tom understood: Maybe hid another possibility, one he wanted Tom to discover for himself. His next words seemed like a deliberate step away from the unspoken subject. “I want you to watch what is going on around you at Eagle Lake very carefully, and to write me whenever you see anything that strikes you. Don’t just put your letters in your grandfather’s mailbox. Give them to Joe Truehart—Minor’s son. He works for the Eagle Lake post office, and he remembers what I did for his father. But don’t let anybody see you talking to him. You can’t take any unnecessary risks.”

“All right,” Tom said. “But what kind of risks could there be?”

“Well, things are reaching a certain pitch,” von Heilitz said. “You may stir up something just by being there. At the very least, you have to expect that Jerry Hasek and his friends might recognize you. They’ll certainly recognize your name—they must have thought they killed you. If they were helping Wendell Hasek hide something seven years ago, it or its traces may still be hidden.”

“The money?”

“When I watched his house from the top floor of my place on Calle Burleigh, twice I saw a car pull up in front of Hasek’s. A man carrying a briefcase got out and was let into the house. The second time it was a different car, and a different man. Hasek went out his back door, unlocked a shed in his back garden, and came back with small packages in his hands. His visitors left, still carrying their briefcases.”

“Why did he give the money away?”

“Payoffs.” Von Heilitz raised his shoulders, as if to say: What else? “Certainly the police got some of that money, but who else did is a matter we can’t answer yet.”