Walk a Black Wind by Michael Collins Page B

target.”
    â€œThat’s your story.”
    â€œProve it’s not true.”
    â€œYou tailed me, knocked me around.”
    â€œSure. You jumped me, you had a gun. What do I do? You asked for it, and you got it.”
    â€œWhy tail me?”
    â€œThe Crawfords asked me. You didn’t know me, and they wanted to know who hired you. They’ve got a right.”
    â€œNo one hired me, Sasser.”
    â€œThat’s your story,” he said, mimicking me.
    â€œYou were a professional fighter once?”
    â€œMe?” His eyes closed up. “Not me. Just a businessman.”
    â€œYou never fought? I can check.”
    â€œCheck,” he said. “You won’t find anything.”
    â€œNot even amateur? In the gym? Lessons?”
    â€œI got better ways to have fun.”
    I was sure he had been trained as a fighter—sometime, somewhere. It’s something a man can’t hide. Yet he seemed just as sure I couldn’t find out, as if his past was unknown. I thought about that as I looked toward the big house.
    â€œYou’re at home here it looks like,” I said.
    â€œOld friend of the family,” he said. “Business, too.”
    â€œIs the Mayor at home?”
    His whole face stiffened. “No, at some meeting. You want the Mayor? I can drive ahead and show you where.”
    â€œMrs. Crawford’ll do for now,” I said.
    He didn’t like that, me talking to Katje Crawford. “Be easy around Katje, Fortune. This is our city, my city. Don’t lean too hard while you’re nosing around without a client.”
    â€œI just want to help find who killed her daughter.”
    â€œSure,” Sasser said.
    He walked past me to his Cadillac. Mrs. Katje Crawford was in the open doorway now. We both watched Sasser drive away. Then I walked to the door.
    â€œMr. Fortune, isn’t it?” Katje Crawford said. “Come in.”
    She wore a long, flowing white robe that accentuated her drawn face and forty years. She looked older now, the strain on her handsome face, a rigidity in her athletic body. But she strode ahead of me through an elegant entry hall and across a living room like a public hall in some palace—but a lived-in room, too. Her dark blond hair swung to her stride, the hair too long for her age—a small vanity. We went out into the glassed side porch.
    â€œSit down,” she said. “Will you have a drink?”
    â€œIrish if you have it,” I said.
    She had it, and made the drink herself at a small bar in a corner. There had to be servants, but a patrician didn’t ring for the maid to make one drink for a single guest. Even the porch furnishings were rich antiques in fine taste. It was a taste that comes only from growing up with fine pieces, living with them, appreciating them. I don’t often feel like a peasant, but here I did. We’re not used to that feeling in this country because we have so little real aristocracy, and even they are becoming more “common man” these days.
    She brought my whisky. “Now. You’ll say who hired you?”
    â€œNo one did,” I said. “Is Felicia home yet?”
    â€œFelicia?”
    â€œShe came to New York to see me. She had a gun. She ran. I think she’s out to find the killer herself.”
    Her face almost collapsed. She stood and rang a bell. A maid appeared.
    â€œIs Miss Felicia home?”
    â€œNo, ma’am. She left this afternoon, with a suitcase.”
    â€œThank you, Paula.”
    The maid left. Katje Crawford’s clenched hands told me that she wanted to ask a hundred more questions of the maid, but one didn’t ask private questions of a maid. When she sat again, the lines of her face had deepened into dark slashes. She sat very still for a minute or more, spoke to herself:
    â€œHow many daughters must I lose?”
    There was no answer to that. She didn’t expect one. She listened to her own