After the First Death - Lawrence Block [63]
“I know.”
“You tell the Turkey where you got it, you know I’m dead.”
“We won’t tell him.”
“I’m dead anyway. You’ll put cops on me. The hell, I’m the only witness there is. I’m sitting here and I’m talking to you and my face is a mess and I’m dead.”
“Oh, you’ll live, Phillie.”
“Yeah. Live. Live, yeah.”
22
I SAID, “I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT. HE WAS MY FRIEND. I KNEW him in prison, I helped him get free. I just talked to him a couple of days ago. He wanted to help me get to Mexico. He thought he owed me a favor.”
We were at Jackie’s apartment She had cleaned my cuts with iodine, and now I looked at my battle scars and marveled at myself. I had never fought like that before. How wild I had been, how utterly I had devastated that poor little junkie.
“Jackie, was he telling the truth?”
“He must of been. He would lie, but not give us somebody like Turk Williams. He might make up a name or give us somebody small. But to pin it on Turk, it would have to be the truth.”
“You know Turk?”
“I know who he is.”
“Didn’t I tell you about him?”
“Not his name. Alex, I—”
I stood up, paced the floor. “He had no reason to frame me,” I said. “It doesn’t make any sense. Unless … well, maybe it was something like this. Suppose somebody had something on him, something that would put a lot of pressure on him. So that he had no particular choice. You see what I mean? I don’t think anyone could have hired him to frame me, but someone might have blackmailed him into it.”
“Maybe.”
“What else could it be? Unless Phillie lied—” I thought back to my conversation with Turk, ran it through my mind again. “No,” I said, positive. “Phillie wasn’t lying. I didn’t pay any attention at the time, but Turk was very interested in finding out if I had recognized the killer. He wanted to know what the arm looked like. I remember he asked if it was white or colored, and when I said I didn’t know he said something to the effect that I couldn’t even say for sure if it was a man or a woman. And he suggested that it might come to me later. He didn’t let up until I told him I was sure I would never dig up any more of it.” I took a breath. “And then he started telling me how I ought to get out of the country, at least until the air cleared. Phillie wasn’t lying. It was Turk. I’m damned if I know why, but it was him.”
“Alex—”
“But who put him up to it? That’s the question.”
She got to her feet. “Alex, I don’t see how we can go up against him. I scored off him once but I don’t even think he would remember. And he’s supposed to carry a gun all the time, you know. Somebody like Phillie is one thing, but to go up against Turk in Harlem—”
“Forget it.”
“I suppose I could pretend to make a buy from him. That’s what I thought before, but if he knows you—”
I waved the thought aside. “You’re missing the point We don’t have to get to him. The buck stops with him, he’s the one. He killed Robin, true?”
“Yes, but—”
“And we have evidence. We have a witness, although the doctors will have to put his mouth back together before he can testify. An eyewitness who saw Turk come out of that room with Robin’s blood on him. We’ve got another witness who can establish that Phillie Schapiro had my watch, which marks him on the scene at the time. The police can shake out the rest. We have all we need.”
“Then what do we do? Call the police?”
“Exactly.”
She thought this over, then began to nod slowly. “Sure,” she said. “I never thought of that, isn’t that funny? Cops, we spent so much time staying away from them, I never even thought of going to them. Not until we had it all wrapped up with a bow on it.”
“But we do.”
“Yeah,” she said, “I guess we do.”
But I didn’t call them myself, or wander on down to the nearest precinct house to turn myself in. There had been too much running and hiding of late, too much of disguises and lurking in shadows, too much of being the hunted man. Instead I used Jackie’s phone to call Warden Pillion.
“I solved it,” I told him. “I know who killed the girl I can even prove it.”
“You’re positive, Alex?”
“Yes. I want to surrender