The Referral Game

Tell me the truth. What was it? Gambling debts?” He raised an eye at me. “I talked to my bookie and he says that you’re in hock with half the books in town. Did Silas offer to pay those off and throw in a little extra for a foolproof scheme to rub out Edgar?”
    “If all this is true Frank, then why didn’t I let Silas kill you and Paula and then shoot him? No witnesses that way. And why didn’t he tell you I was in on it? He was going to kill you anyway, right? Riddle me that one Batman.”
    I took a long breath and answered. “Both of those points bothered me at first, but there are logical reasons for each. I’ll take the second one first. I think that you prevailed upon Silas not to tell me the truth as a favor to you. After all we had been partners, sacrificing me for the sake of the plan was enough of a contribution on your part without my finding out in my final moments that you had been in on my death. Even so he was about to blab it to me when Paula started in on him.
    “And the reason you left us alive? It’s really pretty simple when you think about it. You needed witnesses, people who could testify about what happened. With Paula and I around there was no mystery. We could tell the whole world what had happened and that you weren’t involved, except as a dutiful police officer. If four people had walked into that building and only one had came out alive, well someone might have wondered how you had drawn the long straw. They might have wondered about your role in tragedy. They might have dug into your past and your connection to the Pomeroys. A lot of embarrassing questions might have popped up. You couldn’t let that happen. Your entire plan was predicated on the police accepting the situation at face value. If someone started pulling threads the whole fabric might have come undone. But with Paula and I alive, and you running the crime scene and the investigation, you were home free.
    “Except for one detail. You know how I brood over things and you didn’t want me turning it over in my mind, trying to figure all the angles. So you gave me a distraction, someone to take my mind off the case. A person who became irritated whenever I brought it up, until I dropped it.”
    “Paula,” said Bill tonelessly, staring out a window. He wasn’t even looking at me anymore.
    “Exactly, your real partner in this scam, unbeknownst to Silas of course. Her role was to make me feel sorry for her, to make me desire her and it worked. And after Silas was dead her job was to, ‘cool the mark’, that’s what it’s called right?”
    “That’s what it’s called,” said Bill. He sounded like he was a million miles away.
    “I’ve been staking out the your house. She’s here right now isn’t she?”
    He kept staring out the window.
    “Isn’t she?” I repeated, raising my voice

Chapter 10

The Girl

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    “Y ou don’t have to yell Frank. I heard you the first time,” said a voice behind me.
    I turned and saw Paula standing at the edge of the hallway. Her hair was in place and her make-up was perfectly applied, it was in stark contrast to Bill’s disheveled appearance. She was dressed in an almost sheer nightgown. She looked absolutely stunning, but what I couldn’t take my eyes off was the revolver in her hand that was pointed at me.
    “After I met you I knew we had picked the wrong man,” she said. “I knew you’d eventually start digging. Have you ever let anything go in your entire life? I don’t think so. You’re like a dog that chews all the meat off a bone and then keeps gnawing at it. He knows there’s marrow inside.”
    She walked over to Bill and handed him the gun.
    “We knew this was a possibility when we started, didn’t we hon?” she said to Bill.
    “Yeah,” he replied. “Why did you come here Frank? You know how it’s got to end don’t you?”
    “That’s why I came. I’m just so tired.”
    He looked me up and down with sadness. “Frank if I let you walk out of here, will you promise to keep quite about-”
    “What?” Paula screamed, interrupting him. “We can’t have him walking around holding the end of a rope that’s tied around our necks.”
    “That’s quite a girl you got there,” I said to Bill. “How long this thing been going on? I know it’s been some time. You see I had a little chat with Martinez down at the club. He’s kind of sore about Paula quitting on him. He was glad to pick your photo out Bill as the man who has been seen with