Enough Rope

by Lawrence Block

  “Jim? Shall I put through a voucher or do you want ‘A Stitch in Crime’ back?”

  “What would I do with it? No, I’ll take the nickel a word, Warren.”

  “If there was a way I could make it more—”

  “I understand.”

  “You guys should have got yourselves a union years ago. Give you a little collective muscle. Or you could try writing something else. We’re in a squeeze, you know, and if we were forced to pay more for material we’d probably have to fold the magazine altogether. But there are other fields where the pay is better.”

  “I’ve been doing this for twenty years, Warren. It’s all I know. My God, I’ve got a reputation in the field, I’ve got an established name—”

  “Sure. That’s why I’m always happy to have you in the magazine. As long as I do the editing, Jimbo, and as long as you grind out the copy, I’ll be glad to buy your yarns.”

  “At a nickel a word.”

  “Well—”

  “Nothing personal, Warren. I’m just a little bitter. That’s all.”

  “Hey, think nothing of it.” Jukes got to his feet, came around from behind his desk. “So you got something off your chest, and we cleared the air a little. Now you know where you stand. Now you can go on home and knock off something sensational and get it to me, and if it’s up to your usual professional standard you’ll have another check coming your way. That’s the way to double the old income, you know. Just double the old production.”

  “Good idea,” Trevathan said.

  “Of course it is. And maybe you can try something for another market while you’re at it. It’s not too late to branch out, Jim. God knows I don’t want to lose you, but if you’re having trouble getting by on what we can pay you, well—”

  “It’s a thought,” Trevathan said.

  Five cents a word.

  Trevathan sat at his battered Underwood and stared at a blank sheet of paper. The paper had gone up a dollar a ream in the past year, and he could swear they’d cheapened the quality in the process. Everything cost more, he thought, except his own well-chosen words. They were still trading steadily at a nickel apiece.

  Not too late to branch out, Jukes had told him. But that was a sight easier to say than to do. He’d tried writing for other kinds of markets, but detective stories were the only kind he’d ever had any luck with. His mind didn’t seem to produce viable fictional ideas in other areas. When he’d tried writing longer works, novels, he’d always gotten hopelessly bogged down. He was a short-story writer, recognized and frequently anthologized, and he was prolific enough to keep himself alive that way, but—

  But he was sick of living marginally, sick of grinding out story after story. And heartily sick of going through life on a nickel a word.

  What would a decent word rate be?

  Well, if they paid him twenty-five cents a word, then he’d at least be keeping pace with the price of a candy bar. Of course after twenty years you wanted to do a little better than stay even. Say they paid him a dollar a word. There were writers who earned that much. Hell, there were writers who earned a good deal more than that, writers whose books wound up on best-seller lists, writers who got six-figure prices for screenplays, writers who wrote themselves rich.

  One thousand dollars a word.

  The phrase popped into his mind, stunning in its simplicity, and before he was aware of it his fingers had typed the words on the page before him. He sat and looked at it, then worked the carriage return lever and typed the phrase again.

  One thousand dollars a word.

  He studied what he had typed, his mind racing on ahead, playing with ideas, shaking itself loose from its usual stereotyped thought patterns. Well, why not? Why shouldn’t he earn a thousand dollars a word? Why not branch out into a new field?

  Why not?

  He took the sheet from the typewriter, crumpled it into a ball, pegged it in the general direction of the wastebasket. He rolled a new sheet in its place and sat looking at its blankness, waiting, thinking. Finally, word by halting word, he began to type.

  Trevathan rarely rewrote his short stories. At a nickel a word he could not afford to. Furthermore, he had acquired a facility over the years which enabled him to turn out acceptable copy in first draft. Now, however, he was trying something altogether new and different, and so he felt the need to take his time getting it precisely right. Time and again he yanked false starts from the typewriter, crumpled them, hurled them at the wastebasket.

  Until finally he had something he liked.

  He read it through for the fourth or fifth time, then took it from the typewriter and read it again. It did the job, he decided. It was concise and clear and very much to the point.

  He reached for the phone. When he’d gotten through to Jukes he said, “Warren? I’ve decided to take your advice.”

  “Wrote another story for us? Glad to hear it.”

  “No,” he said, “another piece of advice you gave me. I’m branching out in a new direction.”

  “Well, I think that’s terrific,” Jukes said. “I really mean it. Getting to work on something big? A novel?”

  “No, a short piece.”

  “But in a more remunerative area?”

  “Definitely. I’m expecting to net a thousand dollars a word for what I’m doing this afternoon.”

  “A thousand—” Warren Jukes let out a laugh, making a sound similar to the yelp of a startled terrier. “Well, I don’t know what you’re up to, Jim, but let me wish you the best of luck with it. I’ll tell you one thing. I’m damned glad you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

  Trevathan looked again at what he’d written. “I’ve got a gun. Please fill this paper sack with thirty thousand dollars in used tens and twenties and fifties or I’ll be forced to blow your stupid head off.”

  “Oh, I’ve still got my sense of humor,” he said. “Know what I’m going to do, Warren? I’m going to laugh all the way to the bank.”

  Passport in Order

  Marcia stood up, yawned, and crushed out a cigarette in the round glass ashtray. “It’s late,” she said. “I should be getting home. How I hate to leave you!”

  “You said it was his poker night.”

  “It is, but he might call me. Sometimes, too, he loses a lot of money in a hurry and comes home early, and in a foul mood, naturally.” She sighed, turned to look at him. “I wish it didn’t have to be secretive like this—hotel rooms, motels.”

  “It can’t stay this way much longer.”

  “Why not?”

  Bruce Farr ran a hand through his wavy hair, groped for a cigarette, and lit it. “Inventory is scheduled in a month,” he said. “It won’t be ten minutes before they discover I’m into them up to the eyes. They’re a big firm, but a quarter of a million dollars worth of jewelry can’t be eased out of the vaults without someone noticing it sooner or later.”

  “Did you take that much?”

  He grinned. “That much,” he said, “a little at a time. I picked pieces no one would ever look for, but the inventory will show them gone. I made out beautifully on the sale, honey; peddled some of the goods outright and borrowed on the rest. Got a little better than a hundred thousand dollars, safely stowed away.”

  “All that money,” she said. She pursed her lips as if to whistle. “A hundred thousand—”

  “Plus change.” His smile spread and she thought how pleased he was with himself. Then he became serious. “Close to half the retail value. It went pretty well, Marcia, but we can’t sit on it. We have to get out, out of the country.”

  “I know, but I’m afraid,” Marcia said.

  “They won’t get us. Once we’re out of the country, we don’t have a thing to worry about. There are countries where you can buy yourself citizenship for a few thousand U.S. dollars, and beat extradition forever. They can’t get us.”

  She was silent for a moment. When he took her hand and asked her what was wrong, she turned away, then met his eyes. “I’m not that w
orried about the police. If you say we can get away with it, well, I believe you.”

  “Then what’s scaring you?”

  “It’s Ray,” she said, and dropped her eyes. “Ray, my sweet loving husband. He’ll find us, darling. I know he will. He’ll find us, and he won’t care whether we’re citizens of Patagonia or Cambodia or wherever we go. He won’t try to extradite us. He’ll—” her voice broke, “he’ll kill us,” she finished.

  “How can he find us? And what makes you think—”

  She was shaking her head. “You don’t know him.”

  “I don’t particularly want to. Honey—”

  “You don’t know him,” she repeated. “I do. I wish I didn’t, I wish I’d never met him. I’m one of his possessions, I belong to him, and he wouldn’t let me get away from him, not in a million years. He knows all kinds of people, terrible people. Criminals, gangsters.” She gnawed her lip. “Why do you think I never left him? Why do you think I stay with him? Because I know what would happen if I didn’t. He’d find me, one way or another, and he’d kill me, and—”

  She broke. His arms went around her and held her, comforted her.

  “I’m not giving you up,” he said, “and he won’t kill us. He won’t kill either of us.”

  “You don’t know him.” Panic rose in her voice. “He’s vicious, ruthless. He—”

  “Suppose we kill him first, Marcia?”

  He had to go over it with her a long time before she would even listen to him. They had to leave the country anyway. Neither of them was ready to spend a lifetime, or part of it, in jail. Once they were out they could stay out. So why not burn an extra bridge on the way? If Ray was really a threat to them, why not put him all the way out of the picture?

  “Besides,” he told her, “I’d like to see him dead. I really would. For months now you’ve been mine, yet you always have to go home to him.”

  “I’ll have to think about it,” she said.

  “You wouldn’t have to do a thing, baby. I’d take care of everything.”

  She nodded, got to her feet. “I never thought of—murder,” she said. “Is this how murders happen? When ordinary people get caught up over their heads? Is that how it starts?”

  “We’re not ordinary people, Marcia. We’re special. And we’re not in over our heads. It’ll work.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said. “I’ll—I’ll think about it.”

  Marcia called Bruce two days later. She said, “Do you remember what we were talking about? We don’t have a month anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ray surprised me last night. He showed me a pair of airline tickets for Paris. We’re set to fly in ten days. Our passports are still in order from last year’s trip. I couldn’t stand another trip with him, dear. I couldn’t live through it.”

  “Did you think about—”

  “Yes, but this is no time to talk about it,” she said. “I think I can get away tonight.”

  “Where and when?”

  She named a time and place. When she placed the receiver back in its cradle she was surprised that her hand did not tremble. So easy, she thought. She was deciding a man’s fate, planning the end of a man’s life, and her hand was as steady as a surgeon’s. It astonished her that questions of life and death could be so easily resolved.

  She was a few minutes late that night. Bruce was waiting for her in front of a tavern on Randolph Avenue. As she approached, he stepped forward and took her arm.

  “We can’t talk here,” he said. “I don’t think we should chance being seen together. We can drive around. My car’s across the street.”

  He took Claibourne Drive out to the east end of town. She lit a cigarette with the dashboard lighter and smoked in silence. He asked her what she had decided.

  “I tried not to think about it,” she told him. “Then last night he sprang this jaunt on me, this European tour. He’s planning on spending three weeks over there. I don’t think I could endure it.”

  “So?”

  “Well, I got this wild idea. I thought about what you said, about—about killing him . . .”

  “Yes?”

  She drew a breath, let it out slowly. “I think you’re right. We have to kill him. I’d never rest if I knew he was after us. I’d wake up terrified in the middle of the night. I know I would. So would you.”

  He didn’t say anything. His eyes were on hers and he clasped her hands.

  “I guess I’m a worrier. I’d worry about the police, too. Even if we managed to do what you said, to buy our way out of extradition. The things you read, I don’t know. I’d hate to feel like a hunted animal for the rest of my life. I’d rather have the police hunting me than Ray, but even so, I don’t think I’d like it.”

  “So?”

  She lit another cigarette. “It’s probably silly,” she said. “I thought there might be a way to keep them from looking for you, and to get rid of him at the same time. Last night it occurred to me that you’re about his build. About six-one, aren’t you?”

  “Just about.”

  “That’s what I thought. You’re younger, and you’re much better looking than he is, but you’re both about the same height and weight. And I thought—Oh, this is silly!”

  “Keep going.”

  “Oh, this is the kind of crazy thing you see on television. I don’t know what kind of a mind I must have to think of it. But I thought that you could leave a note. You’d go to sleep at your house, then get up in the middle of the night and leave a long note explaining how you stole jewelry from your company and lost the money gambling and kept stealing more money and getting in deeper and deeper until there’s no way out. And that you’re doing the only thing you can do, that you’ve decided, well, to commit suicide.”

  “I thing I’m beginning to get it.”

  Her eyes lowered. “It doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

  “It sure does. You’re about as crazy as a fox. Then we kill Ray and make it appear to be me.”

  She nodded. “I thought of a way we could do it. I can’t believe it’s really me saying all of this! I thought we could do it that same night. You would come over to the house and I would let you in. We could get Ray in his sleep. Press a pillow over his face or something like that. I don’t know. Then we could load him into your car and drive somewhere and . . .”

  “And put him over a cliff.” His eyes were filled with frank admiration. “Beautiful, just beautiful.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “It couldn’t be better. They’ll have a perfect note, in my handwriting. They’ll have my car over a cliff and a burned body in it. And they’ll have a good motive for suicide. You’re a wonder, honey.”

  She managed a smile. “Then your company won’t be hunting you, will they?”

  “Not me or their money. Gambled every penny away—that’ll throw ’em a curve. I haven’t bet more than two bucks on a horse in my life. But your sweetheart of a husband will be gone, and somebody might start wondering where he is. Oh, wait a minute . . .”

  “What?”

  “This gets better the more I think about it. He’ll take my place in the car and I’ll take his on that plane to Europe. We’re the same build, his passport is in good order, and the reservations are all made. We’ll use those tickets to take the Grand Tour, except that we won’t come back. Or if we do, we’ll wind up in some other city where nobody knows us, baby. We’ll have every bridge burned the minute we cross over. When are you scheduled to take that trip?”

  She closed her eyes, thought it through. “A week from Friday,” she said. “We fly to New York in the morning, and then on to Paris the next afternoon.”

  “Perfect. You can expect company Thursday night. Slip downstairs after he goes to bed and let me into the house. I’ll have the note written. We’ll take care of him and go straight to the airport. We won’t even have to come back to the house.”

  “The money?”

  “I’ll have it wi
th me. You can do your packing Thursday so we’ll have everything ready, passports and all.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I always knew you were wonderful, Marcia. I didn’t realize you were a genius.”

  “You really think it will work?”

  He kissed her and she clung to him. He kissed her again, then grinned down at her. “I don’t see how it can miss,” he said.

  The days crawled. They couldn’t risk seeing each other until Thursday night, but Bruce assured Marcia that it wouldn’t be long.

  But it was long. Although she found herself far calmer than she had dared to expect, Marcia was still anxious, nervous about the way it might go.

  Oh, it was long, very long. Bruce called Wednesday afternoon to make final plans. They arranged a signaling system. When Ray was sleeping soundly, she would slip out of bed and go downstairs. She would dial his phone number. He would have the note written, the money stowed in the trunk of his car. As soon as she called he would drive over to her house, and she would be waiting downstairs to let him in.

  “Don’t worry about what happens then,” he said. “I’ll take care of the details.”

  That night and the following day consumed at least a month of subjective time for her. She called him, finally, at twenty minutes of three Friday morning. He answered at once.

  “I thought you weren’t going to call at all,” he said.

  “He was up late, but he’s asleep now.”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  She waited downstairs at the front door, heard his car pull to a stop, had the door open for him before he could knock. He stepped quickly inside and closed the door.

  “All set,” he said. “The note, everything.”

  “The money?”

  “It’s in the trunk, in an attaché case, packed to the brim.”

  “Fine,” she said. “It’s been fun, darling.”

  But Bruce never heard the last sentence. Just as her lips framed the words, a form moved behind him and a leather-covered sap arced downward, catching him deftly and decisively behind the right ear. He fell like a stone and never made a sound.