Guy Prentice stiffened, his face flaming.
“I love Lucille—she’s my own child—”
“Sure, she is, Prentice,” I said. “But so is Trudy. Helen’s kid. Your lovely Helen. While we’re on the subject, Prentice, I don’t care for the way you handle your womenfolk. And you can have your five hundred bucks back anytime.”
The door handle clicked. Helen Tucker’s smile was regal and cold.
“I would have had everything I’d ever wanted,” she said suddenly, looking at me. “If you hadn’t come along. I should have helped them finish you off. But you’d already spoiled it with that clever umbrella and I had to change my plans a little.”
“Thanks for that anyway,” I said, thinking about how John Smith had been shot down like a dog by the dame that had hired him. It’s a helluva way to have your neck saved, if you know what I mean.
She stopped and looked at me in a funny way.
“Why not? It doesn’t matter now. Why or how it all started. I came in and Paula was there. I had some business in Guy’s desk. And she told me about the coming baby. That’s when I first learned about it really. I lost my head. Paula spoiling everything all over again. I felt I would never be able to bring Trudy back into her rightful place in my world—in Guy’s world.” She caught her breath in a hard, fierce sob.
“She started to laugh and said Guy would be supporting another man’s child. And suddenly Guy’s gun that was always in the desk was in my hand. Even while I shot her I kept thinking I could blame Lucille for all of it. That’s why I peppered the walls and the furniture knowing that no one would ever believe a child could hit the same target twice. Why did I come back to the apartment you’re asking yourselves? I thought of some more clues to leave for the police. Clues that would point the finger right at Lucille—”
Her eyes tried to tell me something else, but the organizer in her got the better of her. The career girl, the dame that got things done, that pressed buttons, straightened her out. She backed out the door slowly. She was leaving me with something to wonder about the rest of my life. She was leaving Guy Prentice archly contemptuous of her. She was leaving Wally Wilder with that crushed hurt look that a guy gets when he finds out that the virgin he’s going to marry had been had by every guy on the block.
Only Lucille was being left with nothing. Helen Tucker was like the myth about the Sandman that parents use to get frisky youngsters to go to sleep. She was growing out of it.
But fast. With a squeal of triumph, something clicked in Lucille’s hand by the bed and the lights in the room went out. The place got darker faster than the government makes money.
Hard on its heels, like a reflex action, the .22 in Helen Tucker’s hand spat spitefully and the room lit up briefly.
And Lucille cried out in pain.
THIRTY
You can never tell about the sequence of events when the first shot goes off. It’s like a war. Preparations, rolling up the supplies, your line is all set, a cannon roars, the action begins and then bang—it’s every man for himself.
This was something like that. Helen Tucker’s .22 had barked once and then the door had slammed behind her. And bedlam really reigned.
Somebody cursed, somebody moaned, somebody fumbled for the light switch. Prentice and Wilder were yelling their heads off. I forgot about my gun, whipped the door back and took off after Helen Tucker. I had to get to her before the cops did. I tried not to think about the way Lucille had cried out in the darkness. But at least somebody was with her.
I was too late. Gunfire, it was the .22 again, racketed around from somewhere near the stage and more people were running and shouting at the top of their lungs. Then more gunfire. I’d know the slams and bangs of Police Specials anywhere. Hadley and his crew had arrived. I knew the sight of a dame running with a gun was all the cops would need to start shooting. Policemen are funny that way. Especially when the dame is shooting her way out.
I got to stage left just in time. Helen Tucker was racing across the footlights like a beautiful bat. The curtain behind her shuddered as bullets slapped into it.
I cupped my hands to my mouth. She was bouncing down off the platform stage right, taking the circular staircase up to the balcony level.
“Tucker!” I bellowed. “Stop! You haven’t got a chance!”
She whirled briefly, flung a look at me, shook her blonde head, kept on going. I ran out onto the stage.
Cops were pouring down the center aisle. I spotted Hadley and Sanderson, James T., picking their way between the rows of padded seats.
“Stay back, Hadley,” I barked. “Let me take her. Without the fireworks.”
“You crazy, Noon?” He yelled it across the lights at me. “She’s armed.”
I didn’t wait for any more. I vaulted the balcony rail closest to me, swung up the stairs to head her off. I stopped and listened. The click of her high heels faded away in a definite direction. It sounded like she was heading for the roof. I forgot all about my throbbing leg and limped after her. My knee felt like it was taking six lessons from Madame La Zonga and every one of them was a pounding samba.
The roof was tar and small pebbles.
Helen Tucker was leaning against the curved parapet, breathing heavily. Her high heels had dug into the gummy surface of the roof. Her trim figure was trembling. She was spent like a tired runner. Her softly bobbed blonde hair stirred faintly in the cold evening breeze. Behind her the lights of the city twinkled like so many stars.
She jumped when the door fell back against its base. The .22 in her hand came up, centered on my chest, wavered. Her eyes blazed resolutely and the mouth that I had loved kissing twisted in a harsh, unfeminine line.
I walked toward her slowly.
“Stand back, Ed,” she hissed. She was right. She did have a sibilant S. I’d never noticed it before.
I kept on walking.
“How different things can be, Tucker. We could have come up here to just sit and hold hands.”
“Stand back, Ed. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Footsteps pounded below us somewhere. Even through the thick tar beneath our feet, you could hear the running sound of them.
“It’s no good, Helen.” I stopped walking. “You played the cards the way you wanted. But the game has been changed. It’s all over. Better luck next time.”
She sneered. A sneer looked wrong on her face.
“Yes, I did, didn’t I?” she murmured. A funny tender look welled up in her eyes. “I let myself go. Over a guy who hasn’t got time for love.”
“Me?”
“You.”
“Don’t kid me, Helen. They’ll put you away for what you’ve done. Maybe even burn you for it. Don’t leave me with lousy memories.”
She flung her head back, threw the .22 down at my feet. It skidded. Something defiant worked in her eyes.
“Is that all it is, Ed? Lousy memories?”
It was more than that. She knew it. I knew it. We both knew it. She was in my arms, crying like a baby. The door behind us swung open, there was a rush of voices that suddenly halted like a switch was thrown. I held her in my arms. I felt something run down my cheeks, something tighten in my chest. Her head slumped against my cheek.
I don’t know how long we stayed like that.
Hadley’s voice said quietly in my ear. “Okay, boy. We’ll take her.”
They did. I watched them walk her off, through the door and down the stairs. Our eyes met just once again before she disappeared around the turn of the lower landing. She smiled. I smiled back. Ever see dead people smile?
I stayed on the roof a long time, smoking one cigarette after another. I watched the stars.
I wondered if they ever get half as lonely as people do sometimes.
THIRTY-ONE
I got downstairs moving like a blind man. I was pretty damn surprised to find that I’d been crying.
I pushed into the dressing room. The one with the big star on it. The small group that was huddled ove
r the couch turned. Everyone gaped at me. Wally Wilder, Hadley, Sanderson and a couple of plain-clothes men. I didn’t have to ask where Guy Prentice was. Out front, of course. The show must go on.
Nobody said anything. They just looked at my face and shut up. I couldn’t have looked very pretty.
They spread apart for me, and the little girl lying on the couch rose to a sitting position and proudly waved a freshly bandaged forearm at me.
“Oh, look, Mister Noon! I was shot. Really shot. And do you wanta know something, I can’t feel it at all—”
“That’s fine, kitten,” I said, sitting down next to her and taking her small hands in mine. They were warm and damp with excitement. Her big round eyes popped in her face.
“Mister Noon, where’s Helen? I don’t really hate her. Not any more. Now that my daddy and I are together again.”
I stared at her, thinking hard about how wonderful it is to be a kid and to forgive and forget because after all today is so much fun and there’s always tomorrow and yesterday didn’t count anyway. Something poked at my eyes from behind and I sniffed.
“Where’s Miss Tucker?” she asked again, putting a title on it this time.
“She’s gone away, Lucille. But I’ll write and tell her what you said. About forgiving her I mean. I think she’ll be glad to hear that. Especially from you.”
Kids. “Why did she go away, Mister Noon?”
I smiled at her, as tired and as dead and as disgusted as I was.
“Someday when you’re old enough, ask your daddy to buy you a book to read. It’s called Crime and Punishment. I think the Russian man that wrote it might be able to tell you much better than I could.”
The prospect of something new was a big thrill. She clapped her ten-year-old hands excitedly.
“Goodie! What’s the Russian man’s name?”
I stared around the room at the rest of them. I grinned. The little people can make you feel better. Even when the world has gone smash.
“Dostoyevsky,” I answered.
The Small Lucille giggled.
“Dusty Yevsky,” she said after me.
I laughed and suddenly remembered something. I dug into my pockets, found some coins.
“Along those lines, young lady, here’s your one dollar and ninety-eight cents back.” I counted it out, placed it all in her small fingers. “Daddy’s five hundred will be quite enough to cover all my expenses.”
Lucille smiled. “All right. Maybe I can save up to buy the book myself.”
I patted her cheek.
“That’s my girl,” I said.
Violence in Velvet Page 16
