The Devil's Only Friend by Mitchell Bartoy Page B

case.”
    â€œYou’ll have to be more plain with me.”
    â€œYou haven’t said whether you’re interested in helping. For all I know,” he said, “you’re out to get me, too. Certainly you’ve not expressed a great deal of concern for my predicament.”
    I sat down and thought it over. Only a week earlier I had been all set up to go nowhere in my own time. It suited me. It wasn’t a life to be proud of, but then I had never had that anyway. I couldn’t blame Walker for dragging me in. He was only looking after his sister, naturally enough. I could have turned him away, as I had turned everyone else away. But now it looked like Lloyd had been ready to send his man James or some other drub out to drag me in anyway. I was bound to find myself muddied up in it, one way or another. I’d already made the promise to Walker, and my social calendar was empty of engagements.
    Lloyd could see how I was going over it in my mind. “I expect you’ll be asking for some cash now,” he piped.
    â€œSure,” I said, shrugging. “Throw me some dough, why don’t you?”

CHAPTER 6
    In the end I didn’t take any money from him—just as well, considering. From the Old Man’s secretary I got some papers and photos and a letter of passage with an embossed gold seal, which was supposed to get me into any of Lloyd’s plants to have a look around. I had never put any faith in paper, but I took the packet anyway.
    Evening came along before I could make my way back to my hole-in-the-wall. Since Ray Federle had more or less ruined my haven on the fire landing, I stayed in and spread out the papers from Lloyd on my little table. I guessed that Walker’s sister had been found well inside the perimeter of the Lloyd plant in Ohio; it wasn’t clear if the Lloyd security men in Cleveland had moved the body off the property to the swampy area outside the fence or if that was only a story for the papers. A few photos showed the area of the property where she had been found—what looked like a slag heap or a machinery dump toward the rear of the complex. There were no photos of the body, though, nothing showed blood, and I was glad for it. There wasn’t much in the packet of papers I couldn’t have scrounged for myself, and there wasn’t anything that could make Lloyd look bad. It was just papers. Without an idea how it all went together, no one could use the packet to make any case against Lloyd. He didn’t care anything about the women; he just wanted me to stop any more mess from happening.
    Of course I was useless as far as this went, even more useless than I had been during my brief time as a police detective. After leaving my mother’s house on Holy Saturday, I had simply shown up at Lloyd’s gate. Lloyd could not have known I would ever show up there. How had I even known that he was staying with his son there on the east side? I must have read it somewhere in the paper. Why would I even believe what was printed in the daily rags? Yet every indication was that Lloyd had been waiting for me; he had been thinking of me all along. It was possible, I knew, that Lloyd might have been stringing along any number of palookas over the years, and he had only to wait for the unluckiest to show up at his door when something messy needed to be fixed again. But there was an odd feel to it; why should Walker’s sister be involved? I had never given a specific word to anyone but Hank Chew.
    I was startled by Ray Federle’s sharp rap at my window. I could see his wide-eyed face peering in from the outer stairs, his palms pressed to the glass, a cigarette held to the side between his lips. As I lifted the window to let him in, I realized that it would be possible for anyone to enter my little room this way.
    â€œHiya,” he said.
    â€œYou could use the door.”
    â€œYeah,” he said. “I’m funny sometimes.” He