Brass Rainbow by Michael Collins

like a man turned into a rhinoceros. I hauled out my heavy revolver.
    â€œStop it, Sammy!”
    Weiss couldn’t hear, or didn’t want to, and deep down in his cunning little brain he knew I wouldn’t shoot. He came at me with both hands flailing. I swung the gun and got him on the shoulder. He grunted. I slashed at him again and got his left hand. It must have jammed his thumb. He howled and sat down on the floor and sucked at his thumb like a giant baby. The deep Levantine eyes looked up at me with unbelieving sorrow: I was ruining him, killing him.
    â€œYou wouldn’t last two hours, Sammy,” I said as gently as I could. “I’m the only friend you’ve got now.”
    â€œSome friend! Some friend!” His voice was like a hurt child.
    I squatted and looked into his face. “Listen to me, Sammy. Baron is dead. He set you up for a frame on the Radford murder, and now he can’t be made to admit it and clear you. I think he killed Radford himself, but maybe I’ll never prove it now.”
    He listened, but I’m not sure he heard. His face was that of an animal caught in a forest fire, and there was only one thing on his mind: escape. Run, run, even if it was into a river or over a cliff. But I had to reach him.
    â€œTell me exactly what happened here last night, Sammy.”
    He blinked, thought, and the effort seemed to bring him out of his trance a little. “I told you, Danny. I came up, we had a drink, he gave me my money, and I went out to that hideout.”
    â€œWho drove you out? Leo Zar?”
    â€œLeo wasn’t here; he never come up. I grabbed a cab out front. There’s a stand outside the club.”
    â€œYou took a taxi all the way out to Jamaica Bay?”
    â€œSure, why not? I had the dough.”
    I sighed. “Anyone else see you go in or come out?”
    â€œA drunk was giving one of the tenants a hard time in the front hall when I come out.”
    I just looked at him. He was all the way out of his panic now. In a way I wished he wasn’t. It would hurt more.
    â€œBaron’s been dead around twenty-four hours, Sammy. Since just about when you were here last night. Did you kill him, Sammy? Did you spot the frame? Did he try to hold you to turn you in? Did you know he killed Radford, so he tried to kill you to shut you up before he called the cops and handed them a dead fugitive?”
    He scrambled up. “I didn’t kill no one! I never had no gun my whole life. I can’t hardly shoot a gun.”
    It was impossible to tell if he was lying or not. Fear was deep in Weiss, but so was cunning. If he had killed both Radford and Baron, he would have talked and acted the same way.
    â€œNo one will believe the bet, Sammy,” I said. “No one could, and there was no bet. They’ll believe you got the money from Radford or from Baron, they won’t care which. You killed Radford for the money, or Baron killed him for the money. They won’t care about that, either. They’ll be sure one of you killed Radford, and they’ll close the books, because Baron’s dead and they’ll nail you for his killing.”
    He shrank away. “No, I swear!”
    â€œYou were seen leaving here just about when Baron died. A cab driver gets one call a year that takes him to a place like Jamaica Bay, so he’ll remember you good. Everyone knows Baron was looking for you. You have the money. I’ll give you odds no one saw Baron alive after you left, if he was.”
    Sammy stared at me, and suddenly there were tears in his cow eyes. Big, hopeless tears like a crying hippo, only it wasn’t funny. I was thinking of what I could say to help him, when a great, wide smile spread over his face among the tears as suddenly as the tears themselves had started.
    â€œThe girl! Carla! She was here when I left! It’s okay, it’s okay, Danny. Find that girl. Carla. She’ll tell you.”
    I watched him.