Mostly Murder

by Fredric Brown

  Was Kathy crazy to leave them there, after what I’d used such a thing for? Had it even been one of these very razors? I could, of course, have had three of them, but—No, I remembered, there were only two, a matched pair.

  In the sanitarium I’d used an electric razor, naturally. All of them there did, even ones there for less deadly reasons than mine. And I was going to keep on using one. I’d take these and drop them down the incinerator, right now. If my wife was foolhardy enough to leave those things in a madman’s room, I wasn’t. How could I be sure I’d never go off the beam again?

  My hand shook a little as I picked them up and closed the mirrored door. I’d take them right now and get rid of them. I went out of the bathroom and was crossing my own room, out in the middle of it, when there was a soft tap on the door—the connecting door from Kathy’s room. “Johnny—” her voice said.

  I thrust the razors out of sight into my coat pocket, and answered—I don’t remember exactly what. My heart seemed to be in my throat, blocking my voice. And the door opened and Kathy came in—came in like the wind in a headlong rush that brought her into my arms. And with her face buried in my shoulder.

  “Johnny, Johnny,” she was saying, “I’m so glad you’re back.”

  Then we kissed, and it lasted a long time, that kiss. But it didn’t do anything to me. If I’d been in love with Kathy once, I’d have to start all over again, now. Oh, it was nice kissing her, as it would be nice kissing any beautiful woman. It wouldn’t be hard to fall again. But so much easier and better, I thought, if I could push away all of the fog, if I could remember.

  “I’m glad to be back, Kathy,” I said.

  Her arms tightened about me almost convulsively. There was a big lounge chair next to the Capehart. I picked her up bodily, since she didn’t want to let go of me, and crossed to the chair. I sat in it with her on my lap. After a minute she straightened up and her eyes met mine, questioningly.

  The question was, “Do you love me, Johnny?” But I couldn’t meet it just then. I’d pretend, of course, when I got my bearings, and after a while my memory would come the rest of the way back—or I’d manage to love her again, instead. But just then, I ducked the question and her eyes.

  Instead, I looked at her throat and saw the scar. It wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. It was a thin, long line that wouldn’t have been visible much over a yard away.

  “Plastic surgery, Johnny,” she said. “It can do wonders. Another year and it won’t show at all. It—it doesn’t matter.” Then, as though to forestall my saying anything more about it, she said quickly, “I gave away your saxophones, Johnny. I—I figured you wouldn’t want them around. The doctors say you’ll never be able to—to play again.”

  I nodded. I said, “I guess it’s best not to have them around.”

  “It’s going to be so wonderful, Johnny. Maybe you’ll hate me for saying it, but I’m—almost—glad. You know that was what came between us, your band and your playing. And it won’t now, will it? You won’t want to try another band—just directing and not playing—or anything foolish like that, will you, Johnny?”

  “No, Kathy,” I said.

  Nothing, I thought, would mean anything without playing. I’d been trying to forget that. I closed my eyes and tried, for a moment, not to think.

  “It’ll be so wonderful, Johnny. You can do all the things I wanted you to do, and that you wouldn’t. We can travel, spend our winters in Florida, and entertain. We can live on the Riviera part of the time, and we can ski in the Tyrol and play the wheels at Monte Carlo and—and everything I’ve wanted to do, Johnny.”

  “It’s nice to have a few million,” I said. She pulled back a little and looked at me. “Johnny, you’re not going to start that again, are you? Oh, Johnny, you can’t—now.”

  No, I thought, I can’t. Heaven knows why she wants him to be one, but little Johnny Dettman is a kept man, now a rich girl’s darling. He can’t make money the only way he knows how now. He couldn’t even hold a job as a bus boy or dig ditches. But he’ll learn to balance teacups on his knee and smile at dowagers. He’ll have to. It was coming back to me now, that endless argument.

  But the argument was over now. There wasn’t any longer anything to argue about.

  “Kiss me, Johnny,” Kathy said, and when I had, she said, “Let’s have some music, huh? And maybe a dance—you haven’t forgotten how to dance, have you, Johnny?”

  She jumped up from my lap and went to the record album cabinet.

  “Some of mine, will you, Kathy?” I asked. I thought, I might as well get used to it now, all at once. So I won’t feel again, ever, as I had when I’d almost put my fist through that juke box window. “Of course, Johnny.”

  She took them from one of the albums, half A dozen of them, and put them on the Capehart. The first one started, and it was a silly gay tune we’d once waxed—“Chickery chick, cha la, cha la…” And she came back, holding out her hands to me to get up and dance, and I did, and I still knew how to dance.

  And we danced over to the French doors that led to the balcony and opened them, and out onto the marble floor of the little railed balcony, into the cool darkness of the evening, with a full moon riding high in the sky overhead.

  Chickery chick— a nice tune, if a silly tune. No vocal, of course. We’d never gone for them. Not gut-bucket stuff, either, but smooth rhythm, with a beat. And a high-riding alto sax, smooth as silk.

  And I was remembering the argument. It had been one, a vicious one. Musician versus playboy as my career. I was remembering Kathy now, and suddenly tried not to. Maybe it would be better to forget all that bitterness, the quarreling and the overwork and everything that led up to the blankness of the breakdown.

  But our feet moved smoothly on the marble. Kathy danced well. And the record ended.

  “It’s going to be wonderful, Johnny,” she whispered, “having you all to myself…You’re mine now, Johnny.”

  “Yes,” I said. I thought, I’ve got to be. The second record started, and was a contrast. A number as blue as Mood Indigo, and dirtier. St. James Infirmary, as waxed by Johnny Marlin and his orchestra. And I remembered the hot day in the studio when we’d waxed it. Again no vocal, but as we started dancing again, the words ran through my mind with the liquid gold of the alto sax I’d once played.

  “I went down to St. James Infirmary…Saw my baby there…Stretched on a long white table…So sweet, so cold, so—”

  I jerked away from her, ran inside and shut off the phonograph. I caught sight of my face in the mirror over the dresser as I passed. It was white as a corpse’s face. I went back to the balcony. Kathy still stood there—she hadn’t moved.

  “Johnny, what—?”

  “That tune,” I said. “Those words. I remember, Kathy. I remember that night. I didn’t do it.”

  I felt weak. I leaned back against the wall behind me. Kathy came closer.

  “Johnny—what do you mean?”

  “I remember,” I said. “I walked in, and you were lying there—with blood all over your throat and your dress—when I came in the room. I don’t remember after that—but that’s what must have knocked me off my base, after everything else. That’s when I went crazy, not before.”

  “Johnny—you’re wrong—” The weakness was gone now. I stood straighter. “Your brother,” I said. “He hated you because you ran his life, like you wanted to run mine, because you had the money he thought should be his, and you doled it out to him and ran him. Sure, he hated you. I remember him now. Kathy, I remember. That was about the time he got past liquor and was playing with dope. Heroin, wasn’t it? And that night he must have come in, sky-high and murderous, before I did. And tried to kill you, and must have thought he did, and run. It must have been just before I came in.”

  “Johnny, please-you’re wrong—”

  “You came to, after I keeled over,” I said. “It—it sounds incredible, Kathy, but it had to be that way. And, Kathy, that cold mind of yours saw a way to get everything it wa
nted. To protect your brother, and to get me, the way you wanted me. It was perfect, Kathy. Fix me so I’d never play again, and at the same time put me in a spot where I’d be tied to you forever because I’d think I tried to kill you.”

  I said, “You get your way, don’t you, Kathy? At any cost. But you didn’t want me to die. I’ll bet you had those tourniquets ready before you slashed my wrists.”

  She was beautiful, standing there in the moonlight. She stood there tall and straight, and she came the step between us and put her soft arms around me.

  “I don’t see, though,” I said, “how you could have known I wouldn’t remember what really—Wait, I can see how you thought that. I had a drink or two on the way home. You smelled the liquor on me and thought I’d come home drunk, dead drunk. And I always drew a blank when I got drunk. That night I wasn’t but the shock and the breakdown did even more to me. Damn you, Kathy.”

  “But, Johnny, don’t I win?”

  She was beautiful, smiling, leaning back to look up into my face. Yes, she’d won. So sweet, so cold, so bare. So bare her throat that in the moonlight I could see the faint scar, the dotted line. And one of my crippled hands, in my pocket, fumbled open one of the razors, brought it out of my pocket and up and across.

  Town Wanted

  ON MY WAY IN, I looked into the back room. The boys were there.

  Alderman Higgins had a pile of blue chips in front of him and was trying to keep his greasy little mug from looking sap-happy.

  Lieutenant Grange was there too. He was half tight. He had beer spots on the front of his blue uniform shirt. His hand shook when he picked up the stem.

  The alderman looked up and said, “Hi, Jimmy. How’s tricks?”

  I gave him a grin and went on upstairs. I pushed on into the boss’s office without knocking.

  He looked at me sort of queerly. “Everything go okay?”

  “They’ll find him when the lake dries up,” I told him. “We won’t be around then.”

  “You covered all the angles, Jimmy?”

  “All what angles?” I asked him. “Nobody’s going to investigate. A guy won’t pay his protection, and Annie Doesn’t Live Here Any More. Now the rest of them will lay it on the line.”

  He took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off his bald spot. You could see the guy was squeamish. That’s no way to handle things. It would be different, I figured, when I took over.

  I sat down and lighted a cigarette. “Listen,” I said, “this town is worth twice the take we’re getting. Who do we move in on next?”

  “We’re letting it ride a while, Jimmy. Things are hot.”

  I got up and started for the door.

  He said softly, “Sit down, Jimmy.”

  I didn’t, but I went back and stood in front of him.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “About the boys you’ve lined up to buck me, Jimmy. When do you think you’re going to take over?”

  I guess I’d underestimated him. You can’t run rackets and be a shlemiel.

  I sat down. “I don’t get you, boss,” I stalled.

  “Let’s settle this, Jimmy,” he said. There were beads of sweat on his bald spot again and he wiped them off. I kept my yap shut and looked at him. It was his move.

  “You’re a good guy, Jimmy,” he went on. “You’ve been a big help to me.”

  There wasn’t any malarkey in that. But he was just winding up and I sat back and waited to see what he was going to pitch.

  “But six months ago I saw it couldn’t last, Jimmy. You got big ideas. This burg isn’t large enough for you to stay in second spot. Right?”

  I waited for him to go on.

  “You think you’ve bought four of the boys. You’ve got only two. The other two leveled with me. They’re set to gum your works.”

  That was bad listening. He did know; four was right. And I didn’t know which two ratted. All right, I thought, this is showdown.

  “Go on,” I said. “I’m listening.”

  “You’re too ambitious for me, Jimmy. I was satisfied to run the slot machines and the joints. Maybe just a little on the protection societies. You want to run the town. You want to collect taxes. And your trigger finger’s too jittery, Jimmy. I don’t like killing, except when I have to.”

  “Lay off the character reading,” I told him. “You’ve called the shots. Add it up.”

  “You could kill me now, maybe. But you wouldn’t get away with it. And you’re too smart, Jimmy, to stick your neck out unless it’s going to get you something. I’m counting on that. I’m ready for you. You wouldn’t get out of here alive. If you did, you’d have to blow. And if you blow, what’s it get you?”

  I walked over to the window and looked out. He wouldn’t draw on me, I knew. Hell, why should he? He held the cards; I could see that now. He’d wised up a little too soon for me.

  “You’ve been a big help, Jimmy,” he went on. “I want to break fair with you. In the last year I’ve made more dough than I’d have made without you. I want you to leave. But I’ll give you a stake. Pick a town of your own and work it. Leave me this one.”

  I kept looking out the window. I knew why he wouldn’t bump me. There’d been too many killings; the cops were beginning to take it on the chin. The boss wanted to pull in his horns.

  And from his point of view, I could see it all right. He could even drop the protectives. The slots, the joints, the semi-legit stuff paid enough to suit him. He’d rather play safe for a small take. I’m not that way.

  I turned and faced him. After all, why not another town? I could do it. If I picked one that was ripe.

  “How much?” I asked him.

  He named a figure.

  And that was that.

  *

  You can see now why I’m in Miami. I figured I could use a vacation before I picked out a spot. A swell suite, overlooking the sea. Women, parties, roulette and all that. You can make a big splash here if you’re willing to blow a few grand.

  But I’m getting restless. I’d rather see it coming in.

  I know how I’ll start, when I’ve picked my town. I’ll take a tavern for a front. Then I find which politicians are on the auction block. I’ll see that the others go out. Money can swing that. Then I bring in torpedoes and start to work.

  Coin machines are the quickest dough. You pyramid that into bookie joints, sporting houses and the rest; and when you’re strong enough, the protective societies—where the merchants pay you to let them alone. That’s the big dough racket, if you’re not squeamish. It’s big dough because you don’t have to put out anything for what you take in.

  If you know the angles and work it so you don’t have to start liquidating the opposition until you’ve got control, it’s a cinch. And I know the angles.

  Plenty of towns would do, but some are easier than others. If you pick one that’s ripe, it goes quicker. If you can buy enough of the boys in office you won’t have to get the others out.

  I’m looking them over. I’m tired of loafing.

  How’s your town? I can tell if you answer me a question. Last time there was an election did you really read up both sides of things, with the idea of keeping things on the up and up? Or did you go for the guy with the biggest posters? Huh? You say you didn’t even get to the polls at all? Pal, that’s the town I’m looking for. I’ll be seeing you.

  The Greatest Poem Ever Written

  RUPERT GARDIN SAID, “Ummm.” It was the only uneloquent statement he’d made in the half-hour I’d been interviewing him. But the question I’d just asked him had been a stickler.

  I remember how he inclined his huge handsome head as though giving deep thought to what he would say next. But when he spoke, it was merely to echo part of my question. “The greatest poem ever written?”

  I narrowed it down for him. “The greatest poem written originally in English,” I said. “Let’s eliminate other languages and even translations.”

  He nodded gravely. And thought again; his eyes closed.<
br />
  I remember the awe I felt, just looking at him. I was just a cub then, and Rupert Gardin—dean of American literary critics—was my first really important interview. We sat in his hotel room, just the two of us, on a hot summer day. On the table beside him was a pitcher of iced tea, and we each held a glass. I remember the cool, smooth feel of mine.

  “The greatest poem,” he murmured.

  I remembered something I had forgotten, that he himself had published poetry. I added quickly, “Aside from your own poetry, Mr. Gardin.”

  He waved an impatient hand. “Mine? What I have written, young man, was writ in water, in blowing sand. As ephemeral as the smoke-writing of our aborigines.”

  He sighed deeply. He said, “It would be the poem by Carl Marney.”

  It was my turn to think, and it didn’t do me any good. I said, “I’m afraid I don’t know it, or him.”

  “I doubted that you would know his name, but it was fairly well-known for a while in the twenties. He was a very wealthy young man. His father had made a great fortune in real estate and had died while young Marney was in his teens, leaving several millions in trust. He was the only heir—an only child, and his mother had died while he was an infant.

  “He went to Harvard, then to Oxford—Balliol, I believe. He’d written a volume of verse—nice stuff, very sensitive, but not up to what he was to do later. More tea?”

  I nodded and held out my glass. Gardin went on talking even as he poured it. “At twenty-three, Carl Marney had everything. Youth, talent, a magnificent education, health-he was as strong as an ox—money, love, anything you can name. He had love of life, love of adventure.

  “He had the love of a woman, too, and he was mad about her. She was the daughter of an English peer; he’d met her while he was at Oxford. He was engaged to her and they were to be married the next year, when she would be twenty-one. Oh, Marney knew that the girl’s father, the earl, wanted an American fortune, but the girl really loved him and that was all that mattered. He was head over heels in love with her, and if they’d married he could have spared a million to her father and never felt it.”