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“He insulted you, didn’t he, Max? He called you a conniving Jew, didn’t he?”

“Look, Norman …”

“Is that what made you want to murder him?”

“I didn’t murder him.”

“But you had a motive. You needed money because of that failed Franklin Mint deal.”

He said nothing.

I pressed on. “You and Merissa talked several times about getting rid of him. You discussed drugging his whiskey, getting him disabled and throwing him overboard while sailing on the Albatross.”

He still didn’t respond except to look at me with his eyes like pieces of polished turquoise.

“Merissa never could keep a secret, could she?”

“Listen …:

“You talked about shooting Heinie with the very revolver he waved in your face, shooting him and making it look like a suicide.”

He sat there pale, the swell gone out of his shoulders. I had touched a nerve and for a moment I thought I had my man. Until he smiled and shook his head. “Merissa has a habit of voicing her fantasies aloud and then attributing them to the person she is talking to. Not only that, but she has a rich imagination. I’m surprised she didn’t tell Diantha about ‘our’ scheme to find Heinie’s hidden gold, which she tells me he buried somewhere under his lawn, and escape on his boat and spend the rest of our lives sailing around the world.”

I had to smile. “Do you sail?”

“Yeah. My idea of sailing is the Queen Mary. The one that’s docked.”

I believed him if only for the implicit self-disgust he betrayed about his weakness for the crass, lovely, scatterbrained Merissa. And perhaps because he had, if only by silence, indulged her fantasies.

But I still had a trump card and played it. “You met with Heinie just around the time he was murdered.”

“I told you, Merissa makes up things …”

“True. She told Di that. But I also met with Heinie the night he was murdered, and he told me he was on his way to see you.” I spoke with enough vehemence to cover my lie. I could tell I had struck home.

“You don’t have any proof.”

“I’m not saying you murdered him, Max. But if I’m going to clear myself, I need to know everything that happened that night between the time I saw him and the time he was shot.”

He turned his head and glanced away, a tic a lot of contemporary actors use. But I could tell he was thinking about what to tell me. He said, “If you tell the police what I’m about to tell you, I’ll deny it.”

“Fair enough.”

“I did see Heinie that night.”

“At what time?”

“Ten. A little after.”

“But he was …”

“Yeah, he was dead. The fact is, we were supposed to meet at the Café Club for a drink. But I blew him off. I knew it would be more of the same, and I was tired of his bullshit, his whining, his threats. I went to the club and had a drink. The waitress can verify this much. About ten minutes before he was to show, I left. I had a … date. I was taking a shortcut through the parking lot of the Center for Criminal Justice when I heard what sounded like a loud bang.”

He paused as though having second thoughts about telling me any of this.

“Anyway, I’m no hero. I kept out of sight for … I don’t know, five minutes. Then I got curious. I stayed in the shadows. I made my way over. I recognized Heinie’s Jag. I also noticed someone, a man of medium to small size, walking away from the car in a hurry.”

“You couldn’t tell who it was?”

“Not a chance. The lighting gives out at the edge of the lot, and it was a dark night.”

“So what did you do?”

“I went over to the car. I carry one of those little pinch lights. I looked through the window. I could tell he was dead. But I reached in anyway and took his pulse. Nothing. I wiped any prints I might have left, and walked away from it.”

“Why didn’t you tell this to the police?”

“What? And become a suspect? Police question coin dealer in murder of coin collector. No thanks.”

I had no choice but to believe him. Or pretend to. I stood up to go. “I’ll keep this to myself, Max. At least for now.”

“I’d appreciate that.” He shook my hand. “You know, Norman, you wouldn’t make a bad cop.”

10

Upon waking this morning, I felt that my whole being had become a hyperdelicate