Murder in Black Letter
Copyright© 2025 by Poul Anderson
Chapter 15
Yamamura and Guido had come out first. Guido’s legs seemed to go fluid; only the arm around his waist held him up.
“Jimmy,” he bleated.
Kintyre’s hand swung backward in an arc, shoving Corinna behind him. He said aloud—very loudly, “What the devil do you want?”
“Quiet, there,” said the man called Jimmy. “This thing has a silencer on it.” He waved the gun. “I want to see Lombardi.”
“It isn’t nothing, Jimmy,” chattered Guido. “Before God, Jimmy, they’re just friends of mine!”
“Yeh. You can tell us all about it. The rest of you stand back against the door. Come on, Guido. I got a car waiting.”
Yamamura eased his burden to the ground. Guido huddled on hands and knees, retching. “He’ll never make it,” said the detective. “He’s scared spitless.”
“I just want to talk with him,” said Jimmy. “I was supposed to see him here tonight, only they said he’d gone upstairs. I figured if it was just for a nap or something, he’d be down again to finish his act and I’d catch him later. Only if he wanted to skip out this way instead, it would be soon and he might not come back. I didn’t want to miss him, so I figured I’d wait here a while.”
It was not meant as an explanation. It was an indictment, nailed word by word on the man who tried to stand up.
“Well,” said Yamamura, “let me help him.”
Jimmy laughed under his hat. “I’m not that simple-minded. Stay put.” With shrillness: “Come on, Guido. Or do you want to get drilled right here and now?”
Guido began to drag himself forward, as if a bullet had already smashed his spine. The sound of it, and of his breath going in and out an open mouth, and the nearby clamor of automobiles filled with meek taxpayers, was all that Kintyre could hear.
He wondered if he could let Guido be taken from him, by the same instrument which had taken Bruce, and call himself male. Two or three jumps should reach Jimmy. But Jimmy was no amateur, he wouldn’t miss if he shot. But there were many cases on record of men being hit once, twice, being filled with lead, and still coming on. But Guido wasn’t worth anybody’s time. But Guido was brother to Bruce and Corinna, therefore worth a great deal of time. But a possible forty years?
But a deeper shadow filled the open end of the brick gut. It ran forward in total silence, light touched its glassy uplifted club and its flowing hair.
As the bottle came down on Jimmy’s head, Kintyre started to move. Yamamura beat him to it, arriving a second after Jimmy lurched forward from the impact on his skull. The sound had been a shattering; Kintyre heard the tinkles that followed the blow. Yamamura knocked the gun from Jimmy’s hand with an edge-on palm, seized his lapel, and applied a scissor strangle.
Jimmy fell, as if the bones had been sucked from him. Corinna swayed over his form, still holding the broken beer bottle. Almost, she fell too. Kintyre caught her.
She held him closely, shuddering. It was not necessary, he thought beneath his own pulse. She fought herself, and grew worn down thereby. Her physical output had been negligible. Clearly she had slipped back through the door, unobserved (that was the chance she took, but chance had a way of favoring those who acted boldly). Picking up an empty bottle on the way, tucking it inconspicuously under an arm, she had gone out past the bar, out the main door (doubtless noticed, maybe wondered about, but not stopped and soon forgotten) and around the building. Then she took off her shoes and ran up behind Jimmy and hit him.
That was all. There was no reason to grow exhausted. But God damn all smug judokas, hadn’t she earned the right?
“You clopped him a good one,” said Yamamura, squatting to look. “It’s as well he had a hat on. A cut scalp could get very messy. Congratulations.”
“Did you say there was a cop in the bar?” asked Kintyre.
“Beyond doubt,” said Yamamura. “Or we can phone, of course. Only I’m carrying a parcel of smoke, and the neighborhood will be searched quite thoroughly if our friend here mentions it.” He sat on his heels, chin in hand, for what seemed like a long time. Jimmy moaned, but did not stir.
“Bob,” asked Yamamura finally, “do you know anyone living on this side who’s mixed up in the affair?”
“Just Guido, if we rule out the Michaelises.”
“So the big chief—and his next victim—are probably in the Eastbay. If another murder is to be forestalled, I wonder if we ought to spend time here chatting with a lot of well intentioned policemen who will first have to be convinced the Michaelises are innocent and this wasn’t a simple stick-up. Especially when the papers will tell the big chief exactly what’s happened. Or, even if they can be made to keep quiet, Jimmy will fail to report in; the gang will try to check for him in the San Francisco pokey, first of all; so we could do some trail-covering of our own.”
“You mean to take this character to Berkeley, then? Isn’t that pretty irregular? You don’t want to jeopardize your license.”
“It’s as irregular as a German verb, and the police are going to be annoyed. But I do think we can flange up enough excuses to get by with it. Of course, the Berkeley force will call up the San Francisco force immediately, but that’ll go on a higher level, chief to chief I imagine; we can explain the need for secrecy, as much secrecy as the law allows, and—Hell, Bob, let’s stop mincing words. What we need is time to construct a story that’ll cover Guido. And you.”
Kintyre felt how the stone-rigid body he held began to come alive again. “Blessings,” he murmured.
“We’ll go to your place first, and then decide what’s next.”
“Can you finagle Jimmy across the bridge?”
“Him and Guido both,” grinned Yamamura. “Which will leave you a clear field when you take the lady home.”
“I’m coming,” said Corinna. She pulled herself away from Kintyre, gently.
“You are not,” he answered. Seeing in the dirty gray half-light how her face grew mutinous, he went on: “There are enough complications already. What could you do over there, except be one more element we have to explain away—or one more target for the gang? At present, only Jimmy knows you have any concern with this business, and he’ll get no chance to talk of it.”
She thought on his words for a little. Then: “Yes. You’re right. But don’t drive me all the way. A taxi will—”
“Shut up!” he laughed, shakily, and took her arm.
They had to wait, guarding a half-conscious prisoner, while Yamamura went after his car. Guido sat on the pavement, knees drawn up under his chin. After a while he took out a cigarette and lit it.
Corinna leaned over him. “Go with them,” she said. “They’re the only real friends you’ve got.”
“Besides you, sis,” he muttered. Then, barking a sort of laugh: “Next week, East Lynne.”
She sighed, like an old woman, and stood back again.
Yamamura returned and bound Jimmy’s wrists with Jimmy’s tie. He and Kintyre frogmarched their captive to the Volkswagen and put him in back on the floor. Yamamura secured his ankles with his belt. “Toss me your house key, Bob, I’ll see you there. Hop in, Guido. Cheerio.”
Kintyre and Corinna walked hand in hand back toward his own car. They stopped to pick up her shoes. “I’m afraid you ruined your stockings,” he said inanely.
“You don’t have to talk,” she said. “I don’t need it.”
He was grateful for that. The silence in which they drove home (she did not lean against him, but she sat close by) was somehow like—memory groped—like Bruce’s music which Margery had played for him a few centuries ago. He wondered if she had heard it yet.
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