“Later on I showed the drawing to Lansky and told him it was prima facie evidence that it had probably been Goldstein who murdered Max Reles. And Lansky agreed. He agreed because he wanted to agree, because any other result would have been bad for business. More importantly, it left me in the clear. So. There it is. You can relax. It certainly wasn’t your daughter that killed him. It was me.”

“I don’t know how I could ever have suspected her,” said Noreen. “What kind of mother am I?”

“Don’t even think about it.” I smiled wryly. “As a matter of fact, when she saw the murder weapon at the penthouse, she recognized it straightaway and later on she told me she thought it might have been you who killed Max. It was all I could do to convince her that the gun was a common one in Cuba. Even though it isn’t. That’s the first Russian weapon I’ve ever seen in Cuba. Of course, I could have told her the truth, but when she announced that she was going back to America, I couldn’t see the point. I mean, if I’d told her that, I might have had to tell her everything else. I mean, that’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Her to leave Havana, and go to college?”

“And that’s why you killed him,” she said.

I nodded. “You were quite right. You couldn’t let her stay with a man like that. He was going to take her somewhere they could smoke opium, and God only knows what else. I killed him because of what she might have become if she’d actually married him.”

“And because of what Fredo told you when you went to his office in the Bacardi Building.”

“He told you about that?”

“On the way to the hospital. That’s why you helped him, isn’t it? Because he told you that Dinah is your daughter.”

“I was waiting to hear you say it, Noreen. And now you have, I guess I can mention it. Is it true?”

“It’s a little late to be asking that, isn’t it? In view of what happened to Max.”

“I could say much the same thing to you, Noreen. Is it true?”