Nemesis

Darkness closed in on the cabin and two shots sounded. Larry dove across the cabin at Erlangen. He caught the man around the waist and went to the floor with him. Something hard and cold struck him twice across the forehead. Lights flashed inside his head, but he hung on.

He shifted his grip higher and caught the man about the throat. With one hand he dug for a windpipe and was rewarded by a sound of tortured gurgling. His free hand he used as a club.

He pounded that face with a fury that was like something hot and fiery inside his chest. There was the memory of his own horror and fear, the memory of a girl named Corinne, and a lot of other things behind his blows.

The figure beneath him stopped squirming eventually.

A match flared and Meyers’ voice said, “Nice going. That guy don’t look pretty.”

“How about the judge?”

“I got him,” Meyers said.

He raised the match and let its flickering light spread around the cabin.

Tonelli still lay sprawled across the desk. The judge was on the floor, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. His shirt front looked like someone had emptied a can of tomatoes on it.

“Well,” Meyers said, “that’s that. The old lady’s food will start tasting good again.”

Chapter XIII

Meyers sat across the table from Larry, noisily finishing the last of his turtle soup. Fran was in the kitchen, putting the last touches on the roast.

“Nice of you to have me up for dinner,” Meyers said. He had a napkin tucked under his collar, and his impassive gray face wore an expression of complete contentment. He finished the last of the soup with a noisy obbligato, and straightened up, smiling. “Your wife’s some cook,” he said.

“How about filling in a few details for me,” Larry said.

“About the case? Let’s wait ’till after dinner.” He sniffed appreciatively. “Smells like a roast, don’t it?”

“We’ve got time now,” Larry said. “You can enjoy your food because you’ve got all the answers. But what about me? I can’t eat until I know the whole story.”

“Never thought of that,” Meyers said. “Well, I’ll make it fast. Let’s take it from the judge’s angle. That’s the easiest way to figure it. He wanted to get rid of Velma. She’d been his mistress before he got elected to the Bench, and he wanted to shake her. He had big ideas. Politics, probably, and he didn’t want a character like Velma to come popping up and make him look bad. But she wouldn’t take the brush. She liked him, or she liked his dough. Doesn’t matter which. She wouldn’t brush. And she threatened to do a lot of talking about some of the judge’s deals unless he stops talking about shaking her. So he’s got to put her out of the way. Now. That took some doing. You don’t know Velma is the judge’s mistress. Your wife don’t, either. Millions of nice respectable people don’t know about it. But a lot of other people do. People like cops, newspapermen, bondsmen, lawyers, racketeers and hoodlums. They know about it. And if Velma gets knocked off mysteriously they’d know where to look. They look at the judge. And he’s got a past that can’t stand too much inspection.”

Meyers paused and looked anxiously toward the kitchen.

“Maybe she burned the roast,” he said.

“She didn’t burn the roast. Get on with the story.”

“Okay. So he’s got to get rid of her. And he’s got to do it so the cops have a ready made victim. You. He tells Velma he’s got a job for her. Wants her to pick up a guy and take him to a certain room. That’s all. Then he has Tonelli look for a sucker. You come in, spill your guts to the bartender about having a fight with your wife, so they decide to use you. They got Velina there, ready. Maybe she’s been waiting a week for this job. You get a Mickey, and Velma takes you home, dumps you in bed. Then Tonelli walks in, sticks a knife in her, undresses her, dumps her in beside you and walks out.

“It’s perfect. You’re it. You had a fight with your wife, you pick up this gal, take her home. You’re drunk and you kill her. Try and beat that! You wouldn’t in a million years. But it didn’t work. They wanted the cops to find you, so it would look natural. And they figured the doped drink would keep you there for hours. But it didn’t. You come to, get the hell out. And that leaves them in a sweet mess. Here’s Velma, dead as vaudeville, and no fall guy. The judge is the fall guy now. When the cops find Velma they’ll go after him. So he’s got to get rid of the body. This is how they done it. They go down there in a hearse, pay off the landlady to keep her yap shut, and bring the body down to the harbor. Last night they was going to dump Velma overboard, tied to a nice anchor, and nobody but the fish would ever know what happened.”