The Devil's Only Friend by Mitchell Bartoy Page A

wondered. Is it possible that he can get into my safety box at the bank? I didn’t walk fast, but I had gone a good ten yards or more before he gulped in enough air to call after me.
    â€œIt’s that witch Estelle Hardiman! She aims to ruin me!”
    It was the only name he might have mentioned to stop me. It brought up a flash of anger in me, and I walked back so quickly that the old man involuntarily raised an arm to shield himself.
    â€œShe blames me for what happened to her husband. Of course she can’t prove anything!”
    â€œI’m glad she’s after you and not me,” I said.
    â€œBut she’s hell-bent—forgive me—on looking into things! I’m convinced that she’s been pressing this investigation, this grand jury now. She’s connected to everything here in the city, and she’ll hound me to my grave.”
    â€œKeep your voice down,” I said.
    Lloyd had worked himself up enough to make sweat come out over his withered lip, seeping down to soak the neatly trimmed, silky whiskers.
    â€œI’m finished. I’m finished. In itself this is fair enough. For my part in the whole sordid affair, for the aid we gave in the early days to those vile men—however little I knew of it—I must accept culpability.”
    â€œSo you’ll spill your guts to the jury. Just tell them everything, then.”
    His face puckered and his eyes could not keep from searching about the big pool room.
    â€œIt’s not for me,” he insisted again. “My son … my grandchildren … the city, how it’s grown…”
    â€œSo you’ll just save the guilt for another day.”
    He became more measured. “I’ll settle my account before the Lord like any other man,” he said.
    â€œAs long as you can weasel out of the noose for the time being.”
    â€œSurely, Mr. Caudill, you are aware that your own involvement is far more direct than mine will ever be shown to be.”
    â€œSo that’s it.”
    â€œI’m not threatening you. I’ve asked for your help. You have an exasperating way of goading me into discomfort! I’m too old for this nonsense! I’m certainly willing to cast you to the wolves in order to protect my own interests. The war, these Germans, the Japanese are insane! They’ll fight to their very last man! The work mustn’t be disrupted!”
    â€œSettle down, will you? If you kick off now, they’ll pin it on me.”
    â€œMake light of death now, Mr. Caudill. Soon enough you’ll confront your own mortality.”
    â€œNot so soon as you, I think.”
    Lloyd’s chin drooped and his eyes traced a long crack in the floor tile before drifting out of focus. I watched him, but not too keenly. Maybe his old brain was dredging through some old memory, a time when horses snorted and pulled their carts through the dirt roads of Detroit, when he had been a young and hungry man.
    â€œA young woman was killed and dumped inside the compound of one of our plants in Cleveland,” he said finally, pursing his mouth.
    â€œThat’s a case for the Cleveland dicks, isn’t it?”
    â€œIt would be, yes, certainly. They’ve been gracious enough to allow an investigation discreet enough to deflect attention from the company. But now there’s been another murder—a woman in Indiana.”
    â€œWhat am I supposed to do about any of that?”
    â€œYou see that it’s all a part of a plan—a single murder, why, in a time of war, especially, a random act of violence might not prove so difficult to manage. But you see that they’ve crossed state lines, now. They’ve made it a federal case! That Hoover has been dogging me for years, and now, with war production so crucial—”
    â€œWhy would anyone think the two murders were related? Other than where they were found?”
    He looked blankly at me. “The facts of the