Sudden Life Part 6

 Sudden Life Part 6

I caught the guy’s eyes. They weren’t happy.

“What’s your name?”

“John Brown.”

“Very original. Ah, Mr Romero? I have a John Brown here. He tried to kill me a few minutes ago.... Yes, a silencer. I was able to put him out of action. He has a broken arm, a bruised kidney, and a damaged knee.... Very well.”

I handed the phone to Brown. “He wants to talk to you.”

Brown listened. “Yes, sir. Philadelphia.... Yes, sir.” He listened some more, said “Yes, sir” one more time and handed the phone back to me.

“Mr McCann, kindly call the police and tell them you caught a burglar attempting a robbery. Ask the police to call an ambulance for him. Tomorrow, an attorney will appear and arrange bail and the payment of medical expenses. He will also take custody of Mr Brown’s gun. Mr Brown will be brought to Las Vegas. I will arrange to have him transferred to his employers in exchange for a suitable payment which will be used to assist the families of the deceased. I wish to thank you for your able work in detaining Mr Brown.”

“Thanks,” I said. “But the case isn’t finished.”

“I agree, and I rely on you to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. Once again, thank you, and good night.” 

Alexander McGrath had the same colouring as his sister, and the same tall, lanky build. His office was one of four located on the mezzanine above the sales floor, two on either side of a conference room. It looked and felt like a Victorian living room, with dark furniture and dark red wallpaper. There were several glass cases of curios and stuffed birds, polished to a sparkle, and pictures of horses in heavy gilt frames. The stuffed chairs looked comfortable. McGrath’s desk stood in the corner to the right of the window.  He could see both the door and the view of the town across the rear parking lot. It looked very much like the one from Ruth Doherty’s house. He was perhaps a couple of years older than me.

We shook hands, and he invited me to sit in one of the chairs. It wasn’t comfortable.

“Ruth called to tell me what you wanted,” he said. He gazed at me with controlled eyes. “This firm was founded by my four times great-grandfather Alexander Sanderson. He was a master wagon maker. His brother Jonathan ran a livery stable here, and asked him to come out to Elysium City and set up shop. He thought the two businesses would go well together, and he was right.”

McGrath paused, and turned to look out the window.

“Jonathan never married, and Alexander’s son Edwin inherited both businesses, which were passed down to his only surviving son Julius. Julius had three daughters. Anne, the eldest, married a James McGrath who bought a part interest in the business before he married my grandmother. McGrath tried his hand at building horseless carriages, but soon realised that selling such vehicles built by others was a more reliable way of continuing in business. He changed the business and its name. His son Jonathan was my father.”

He turned back to me.

“McGrath and Company and its predecessors have been respected community-minded businesses in Elysium City for six generations. Then my brother Edwin decided that a Romero franchise would make money. I didn’t agree, but he persuaded Ruth and Bernard Smithers it was legitimate and respectable, so they voted with him.”

He reached for a silver cigarette box, opened it and held it out to me’

“Please,” he said. I took one. He offered me a light and lit his own.

“I’m telling you this so you’ll know where I stand. I knew that Vern was Romero’s man, but didn’t share that knowledge with anybody else. I liked him, and respected his honesty and integrity. When Ruth fell for him, I thought she could perhaps have made a better choice socially, but not otherwise.”

He turned back to examine the view again. It hadn’t changed.

“I understand that you want to talk to the mechanic who serviced the car in which Romero’s men were killed.”

“Yes.”

“I know what that implies.”

A long pause.

“I know what the outcome of your investigation will mean for the reputation of my family and our business. But I agree with Ruth that the truth must come out.”

He reached for the phone. “Maggie, give me Stan.... Stan? I have a Mr McCann here.... He’ll be down to talk to the man who worked on the car in which those four visitors were killed.... Szegedy?” He pronounced it Seegaydie.

 “Yes, I recall he was the man. McCann can ask any questions he wants, and I want you and everybody else to give him complete and accurate answers.... Yes, I know it won’t look good, but we’ll have to ride it out. OK, thanks.”

He turned to me. I didn’t like the shame in his eyes.

“The service manager is Stan Brown. He’ll get Mike Szegedy to speak to you.”

“Thank you,” I said. “You’ve been most helpful. You realise that any new facts I discover will be communicated to Sheriff Booley?”

He nodded, and waved me out of the room.

The service department was around the back underneath the mezzanine. Three wide-open service bay doors showed three busy scenes. The customer’s entrance was to their left. Two mid-size office windows stared blankly at a patch of lawn, two picnic tables, the parking lot,  and the town beyond.

Stan Brown was fiftyish, wore dark-framed glasses and a worried look that fought with a normally friendly smile. The smile was winning, but nervous.

“Mr McCann? This is Mike Szegedy.”

A short wiry man with eyes that missed nothing and a face that gave nothing away stood next to Brown. He carried a large crescent wrench.

“Let’s go sit at one of those tables,” I said. Szegedy almost shrugged and followed me. He sat down opposite me and laid the wrench carefully between us.

“Szegedy?” I said. “That’s Hungarian, no? Did you come over in ‘54?”

“Yes,” he said. “You say my name correctly. How come?”

“Stefan Kaldy, neighbour in my apartment block, had a cousin by that name. He came over in ‘54. Kaldy, I mean, not his cousin.”

I paused and saw a flicker of immediately concealed emotion on Szegedy’s face.

“His cousin was killed. They were throwing rocks at tanks. The tanks opened fire. Szegedy was hit, but Kaldy got away.”

Szegedy let out a long sigh and his face opened up. “That was my cousin, too,” he said. “Janosz. He had a fiancee, Ilona Halasz. She came to the USA with Kaldy and me and others, and we married.”

His face was wide open now. For a long minute he was alone with grief and love and memories. Then his face closed again, and he focused his wary eyes on me. He took a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket, and offered me one. I shook my head. He lit one for himself. His hands were shaking.

“I know why you are here. You want to know about that car that killed four people.”

“Yes.”

“I think about that car every night. I think how many more it would have killed if it had hit another car. I don’t sleep well. Ilona does not know what troubles me. But she knows it is mixed up with fear, so she is afraid, too.”

He dragged on his cigarette.

“I know I will go to prison. What will become of Ilona and our children?”

“I don’t know, but I think Mr McGrath will do something for them.”

“Can you guarantee that?”

I thought about Alexander’s McGrath’s shame, and Ruth Doherty’s pain.

“I can’t guarantee anything,” I said. “But Mr McGrath and Mrs Doherty are honourable people.”

“Not like Mr Edwin,” Szegedy said with a grimace. I couldn’t tell whether the contempt was for Edwin or himself or for both.

“OK, I will tell you. I put a nick in the brake line, and two nicks in the power steering lines. Mr Eddie paid me $3,000. We have two boys, one is two, the other is just born three months ago. We want to add an extension to our house to make another bedroom and a back porch. $3,000 will pay the cost.”

He dragged on his cigarette again.

“You see how easy it is to tempt a man to do evil who wants to do good for his family.”

His face was open again, bruised with the wisdom of painful self-knowledge.

“If you wish, you can take me to Mr Booley’s office right now. Or else he will find me at home. I go to tell Mr Brown I will be off for the rest of the day. Maybe longer.”

“Go home,” I said. “I think your wife needs to know what will happen. Then go to Sheriff Booley.”

Booley listened carefully while I reported my conversation with Szegedy, then he studied the invisible spot over my left shoulder again. Maybe he was waiting for it change shape. When he focused on me again, his eyes were still grey but now they showed hurt.

“OK, McCann, you go and tell Mrs Doherty and Mr Alexander what you’ve told me. Then meet me in Eddie’s office. I’ll be a while getting hold of Deputy Green and setting up some paperwork around bail for Szegedy, so you’ll have some time for the family to talk to Eddie.”

We stood up and looked at each other.

“It’s a mess, McCann. A first class mess.”

Eddie’s office was at one end of the mezzanine, and Ruth Doherty’s at the other. The plate on the door announced that she was in charge of staff and public relations. I knocked on her door, and watched while she finished making a few notes.  She looked up and tried to smile.

“Mr McCann. You look like you have some news.”

“I’m afraid it’s not good news.”

“I don’t expect good news. Alexander told me of your interviewing Mike Szegedy. So I think I know what you will tell me.”

I gave her my conversation with Szegedy verbatim.

“Poor Ilona,” she said. “Poor Mike. I suppose you want to report to Alexander as well.” 

I followed her to Alexander’s office next door, and gave him a summary version of what Szegedy had said. When I finished he swivelled to look out the window. He looked a long time.

“All right,” he said. “Ruth, I think we agree that we will take care of Ilona and the children, and that Mike will have a good lawyer. Now we’d better talk to Edwin.”

We followed him to the other end of the mezzanine. The door to Edwin’s office was open. We heard a woman’s voice.

“You promised,” she said. “You promised to take me with you.”

“Oh, shut up, Millie,” Eddie said. “I can’t take you now, I have to move fast. “I’ll send for you when I’ve got settled.”

“But Eddie you promised.”

“Well, things have changed. Change of plan. I’ll go first, then I’ll send for you. I promise.”

We walked in, and saw Edwin McGrath standing behind his desk. There was  an old-fashioned brown leather carry-all with its mouth wide open in front of him. He was feeding it bundles of cash from an open drawer. He closed the drawer, and opened the one below it. On the couch to the right of the door sat the complaining woman. She looked at us, her eyes suddenly wide and frightened.

“Eddie,” she said.

Eddie looked up.

“Oh, shit,” he said. “Why did you have come in just now?”

“I don’t think that’s your money,” Alexander said, taking a step towards him.

Eddie reached down. His hand came up holding a nickel-plated automatic.

“Stay away from me,” he said, waving the gun in our general direction.

“Eddie, don’t!” Millie cried.

“That’s right, Eddie, it would be a bad idea to fire that gun.”

Booley and Deputy Green eased into the room.

“Give me the gun, Eddie,” Booley said. His voice was soft and soothing, but his face wasn’t.

“Stay away!” Eddie shouted. “Stay back. Let me out of here!”

He snapped the carry-all shut with one hand, the gun waving like a snake sniffing the air in the other. Then the gun went off.

“Damn!” said Chet, and grabbed his left arm.

Booley moved towards Eddie, who was staring at the weapon in his hand, his expression mixing horror, fear, and surprise. He dropped the gun on the desk, and it went off again. The window above Millie shattered.