The Green-Eyed Monster

by Patrick Quentin

  “You never knew his name, of course?”

  “Gosh, no, not Maureen. Maureen telling you anything? But whoever he was, that wasn’t any old family friend. A good-looking kid like that? Couldn’t have been a day over twenty-four-five.”

  Andrew could feel his pulses quivering. “You mean you actually saw him?”

  “Sure I saw him, Mr. Jordan. Must have been two, three months ago. It was Gloria’s electric iron. Gee, the way that girl mishandles her appliances. Everything, every goshdarn thing in that apartment of hers is busted. And I had a real important date and I simply had to press my dress and the iron was busted again and I figured, what the heck, I’ve got a perfectly good iron of my own at home. Who did Maureen think she was, kicking me out of my own apartment, not even letting me take anything with me? Boy, was I mad, mad at Gloria and the iron and particularly at Maureen. I still had my key so I took a cab uptown. I just let myself in and there she was in the living room with this boy. She didn’t introduce him, of course, she was far too cagey. But there they were, sitting on my studio couch together, with their legs tucked under them, drinking Rob Roys.”

  Rob Roys. At the exact moment when everything seemed miraculously to be resolving itself, Andrew felt the old chill of panic.

  “What did he look like, this man?”

  “Well, I told you. About twenty-four-five, good-looking, blond. Come to think of it he looked very much like you. Could have been your twin almost, but younger and the hair was kind of lighter. God, was Maureen mad at me busting in. She dragged me into the bedroom and got the iron, but she bawled me out real good and made me give up the key right there and then. She never said anything about the boy, of course, and when I went back through the living room on my way out, he was just sitting there on the couch, paying no attention to me, sipping his Rob Roy and folding a piece of paper into a paper dart.”

  Andrew knew that if he didn’t get out of that bar immediately he would collapse. He called the waiter and paid the check. He got up.

  Mary Cross exclaimed, “Gosh, Mr. Jordan, what is it? What’s the matter?”

  He started for the swinging door. He could hear the tap of her spike heels starting after him. He hurried out into the street and began to walk aimlessly.

  If this had come earlier, before the exhausting ordeal of the day had undermined him, he might have been able to control himself. But now he was completely yielded up to the rage and humiliation which roared in him like flames in a burning building.

  Maureen and Ned. Every detail of this most monstrous of betrayals was clear to him. Maureen marrying him for the money, Maureen finding out that the money was going to Ned, Maureen trying to get the will changed, Maureen failing and—and turning to Ned.

  A sudden dizziness engulfed him. He stopped dead. There was a street light beside him. He leaned against it, the sweat pouring down his forehead. Maureen and Ned—lovers; Ned broke; Maureen and Ned working out how to get Mrs. Pryde’s jewels in a hurry; Maureen pregnant with Ned’s child; Maureen on the verge of triumph with the right son and the jewels; and then Ned meeting Rosemary, the homely little millionaire’s daughter; Ned with his chance for the really big financial time; Ned trying to discard Maureen, Maureen wild with fury and vindictiveness.

  The gun—the struggle—the shots—

  He felt a hand on his arm. He looked up dazedly. A man’s face was hovering in front of him.

  “Say, mister, you sick or something?”

  “No, thanks. I’m all right.”

  The face hovering for a moment and then disappearing.

  He let go of the street light and started walking again. He came to a bar. The raucous music from its juke box was blaring out into the street. A telephone. Call Ned. Go to Ned. Kill Ned.

  He pushed his way through the crowd at the bar. They seemed to melt on either side of him, giving him free passage. There was a phone booth. He went into it and dialed Ned’s number. His hair was soaking wet with sweat. He brushed his hand across his face. The phone went on ringing. There was no answer.

  He went out into the street again. A taxi was passing. He hailed it, got in and slumped back against the upholstery.

  “Okay, mister. Where to?”

  Where? He gave his home address.

  When he let himself into the apartment, the phone was ringing. He went to answer it.

  “Mr. Jordan?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Mary Cross. Mr. Jordan, are you okay?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Walking out like that. You scared me. Honest, Mr. Jordan, you scared me. And you shouldn’t have done it. I mean, the moment you’d gone, I remembered something. I remembered the whole setup. I mean, something that might help. You see, I said to her, ‘Okay, take the apartment, what can I do about it? But I don’t want just any guy in there, some guy I don’t know, slopping around, messing everything up. You’ve got to promise me this guy’s a solid, respectable citizen.’ And she said, ‘Respectable citizen? Why, he’s a millionaire.’ That’s what she said, Mr. Jordan, and maybe that’s going to help you figure it out. ‘A millionaire,’ she said, ‘one of the most prominent citizens of California.’ ”

  NINETEEN

  Andrew put down the phone. He went to a lamp and turned it on. One of the most prominent citizens of California. The phrase was repeating itself over and over in his mind. Maureen lying again? Maureen had lied to Bill Stanton about the identity of her lover. With “that sinister little giggle,” she had said to Bill Stanton: It’s Lem Pryde. Had that sinister little giggle come again when she’d said to Mary Cross: One of the most prominent citizens of California? A different masking identity each time, but always the same lover … Ned.

  The rage blazed up in him. He dialed Ned’s number again. The ringing at the other end of the wire throbbed on and on intimately, ominously, as if it were a noise inside his own ear. He glanced at his watch. Quarter to one. Where was Ned—and doing what? Had he learned or sensed that the truth had come out? Was he running away? He dropped the receiver and sat down.

  One of the most prominent citizens of California … Maureen’s first love, Mrs. Thatcher’s “happily married man.” A thought started to take shape. What if for once, just for once, Maureen had been telling the truth? Mightn’t it be possible? Mightn’t Maureen’s first love have come back into her life? Couldn’t he be in New York or, perhaps, still living in Pasadena and flying in to town whenever he got a chance, spending a few hours every now and then away from his wife in an obscure “lovenest” with the girl who at nineteen had so beglamored him? Her “first love” being lured back by Maureen once she’d milked Lem of the jewels and got everything there had been to get out of the Jordans? One of the most prominent citizens of California—a really big-time victim with whom she had felt equipped to deal once she had sharpened her claws and her wits on the Jordans?

  As the idea formed itself, he felt an improbable stirring of hope. Couldn’t it be that? Wasn’t it just conceivable that Ned had merely happened to be in the apartment with Maureen on the afternoon when Mary Cross had gone there for the iron? Maureen hadn’t introduced him as the friend for whom she’d appropriated the apartment. She’d done nothing about him at all. He’d just been sitting there, his legs tucked under him, making a paper dart.

  He knew the hope was ridiculous. Had he learned nothing from these terrible, interminable hours? Was he still as gullible as ever? Wasn’t he now doing with Ned what he had done so disastrously with Maureen—flying against the evidence, clinging on to hope just because it was essential for him to have at least one person on whom to lavish his love and trust?

  Ridiculous! But was it ridiculous? Dimly it came to him that perhaps this was the most crucial of all the moments of decision with which he had been confronted. If he abandoned faith in Ned, he gave up the one positive thing that remained in his life. Wasn’t the only way to stave off complete personal chaos to believe in the existence of the millionaire for as long as he could?

  As l
ong as he could! That didn’t have to be very long, because it would be simple to discover whether or not he could have been coming to New York. Mrs. Thatcher would know, or, if she didn’t know, she could easily find out.

  Andrew, isn’t there something you know, anything, that might point to someone else? … If we can help, call any time. It doesn’t matter how late it is.

  He went to the phone. He stood looking at it, dreading it, for he knew that once he’d picked it up he would be relinquishing forever any chance at further self-deception.

  He dialed the Thatchers’ number.

  It was Mr. Thatcher who answered. The tiny unanticipated detail of its being Mr. Thatcher rather than Mrs. Thatcher confused him. He could hear himself stammering.

  “Ned isn’t there, is he?”

  “No, I’m afraid he isn’t. Rosemary came in about an hour ago. She’s gone to bed. So has my wife. But my wife said you might call. Andrew, is there anything I can do?”

  “I’d like to come over if I may.”

  “Why, naturally. Do you want me to wake up the others?”

  Rosemary? He couldn’t face Ned’s fiancée. Not yet. He said, “Perhaps, if you’d be good enough to wake up your wife.”

  “Very well.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be right over.”

  Mr. Thatcher opened the front door for him and took him into a little study-like room on the first floor. He was wearing a maroon velvet smoking jacket. Andrew hadn’t known that people actually wore them outside of fashionable liquor ads.

  “My wife should be down any minute, Andrew. Let me get you a drink.”

  “No, thanks,” said Andrew.

  This automatic offering and accepting of drinks had threaded his evening meaninglessly, neither dulling his grief nor sharpening his wits.

  He said, “It was kind of you to warn me about the warrant.”

  “Good heavens, my boy, we’re only too anxious to help.”

  The chairs were upholstered in maroon leather. To go with Mr. Thatcher’s smoking jacket? Mr. Thatcher indicated one of them. Andrew sat down and Mr. Thatcher sat down opposite him.

  Andrew said, “I feel bad about coming here so late, but your wife asked me to get in touch with you right away if I found out anything which could point to someone else.”

  “I know she did. And have you found something? I hope so.”

  Mr. Thatcher’s quiet, authoritative persence was oddly comforting. With bitter self-mockery, Andrew wondered whether this new sense of confidence which had come to him was yet another banal Freudian legacy from his mother and her devastating success in emasculating Mr. Jordan. Mr. Thatcher—the father image?

  Mrs. Thatcher came in then. She was immaculately dressed, giving no sign whatsoever of having been rudely awakened from sleep. Both men got up.

  Mrs. Thatcher went to Andrew, holding out her hand. “Andrew, I’m so glad you’ve come. It means good news, doesn’t it?”

  Mr. Thatcher said, “He says he has found out something.”

  “Yes,” said Andrew. “I’ve found out something and you are the only people who can help me.”

  Mrs. Thatcher moved to a couch and sat down. The men sat down too.

  Andrew said, “Since I last talked to you I’ve found out a lot of things about Maureen. Some of them don’t seem to have anything directly to do with her death. But there’s one thing that almost certainly does. I’ve discovered that she had a lover. I think this lover killed her and I think I know who he is.”

  Both the Thatchers leaned very slightly forward. Mr. Thatcher had lit a small cigar. He took it out of his mouth, his forehead wrinkling with anxious concentration.

  “Do you have any proof, Andrew?”

  “I have a witness who rented them an apartment. I know they’d been meeting there. And, although it’s possible Maureen wasn’t telling the truth, she indicated who the man was.” Andrew turned to Mrs. Thatcher. “Maureen described him as a millionaire, one of California’s most prominent citizens. Mrs. Thatcher, I know this is going to be bad news for you. I know how eager you’ve both been to keep your friend out of it. But isn’t it possible that Maureen picked up with him again, that, in spite of your efforts, she had lured him back into an affair, that he’d been flying here from California to see her and—and that, well, that once again he’d got into it far, far deeper than he’d intended, that Maureen had started to blackmail him and …”

  Suddenly, as he talked, an image of Ned leaped up into the foreground of his mind. He fought to beat it down. What he was telling the Thatchers was the truth. It had to be the truth. Cling on to that and on to the Thatchers as the people who were going to save at least something for him from the wreck.

  “So you see,” he said. “I’m afraid I must ask you to tell me his name.”

  He turned to Mr. Thatcher then and, to his surprise, Mr. Thatcher’s jaw had dropped and his mouth was gaping open, giving him an improbable look of stupidity.

  “Some man from California?” he exclaimed. “You mean … you’re implying that when Maureen was living with us, there was some man who …”

  He broke off and swung around to his wife. Mrs. Thatcher was sitting with her hands folded in her lap. She was smiling a small, rueful smile.

  “I’m sorry, Andrew. I should have made myself more clear this morning. When I said I’d told nobody, I meant that to include my husband too.” She got up then and, moving to Mr. Thatcher, put her hand on his shoulder. “I do see Andrew’s point of view, James. This has got to come out now. Of course it has. Perhaps it would have been more sensible if I’d told you at the time. But … well, how can one be sure? When I sent Maureen off to New York, it wasn’t, as you thought, because she was so eager to become a model. I sent her away because I’d discovered that she’d been having an affair with Rodney.”

  “Rodney?” echoed Mr. Thatcher, his face a battleground of astonishment and bewilderment.

  “You can see how I felt,” said Mrs. Thatcher. “Poor Lavinia—it would have destroyed her if it had ever come out. I hope you forgive me. I’m not by nature, I think, a secretive wife.”

  Mr. Thatcher had risen too. His wife held her hand out to him. He took it. For a moment they seemed quite oblivious of Andrew. Then they both turned.

  Andrew said, “Rodney—who? You are going to tell me the name, aren’t you?”

  “Of course, Andrew,” said Mrs. Thatcher. “His name is Rodney Miller.”

  The name, at last. Excitement came to Andrew, lessening a fraction of his tension.

  “Then that’s it,” he said. “That solves it. She got Rodney Miller back, she got him to start flying here from California and …”

  He stopped as he saw the expression on the Thatchers’ faces. It was Mr. Thatcher who finally spoke.

  He said gently, “I’m extremely sorry, Andrew. You’ve obviously been pinning your faith on this theory and hoping it would solve your problem with the lieutenant in the morning. I was astounded to hear about Maureen and Rodney in Pasadena, although, of course, I’m perfectly prepared to accept it was true. But if Maureen implied to that witness of yours that her current lover was Rodney Miller, she was definitely lying.”

  Andrew could feel the hope shriveling inside him.

  “Yes, Andrew.” Mrs. Thatcher had moved to him. Her hand was on his arm. “I’m afraid we can be completely sure of that. Rodney Miller couldn’t possibly have been coming to New York to see Maureen regularly. Just over a year ago Rodney died.”

  Despair, a thick, clammy fog of it, started to slide through Andrew. So much for his hope. So much for Rodney Miller.

  So much, then, for Ned.

  He sat perfectly still in the chair, looking not at Mr. and Mrs. Thatcher but at the booklined shelves beyond them, waiting for the rage which would come, bringing the signal for ultimate defeat. Ned with the sun-bleached hair and the blue eyes solemn in their eagerness to express sympathy and love. Gosh, Drew, you understand … Gee, Drew, if it’d help you in any way, I’ll tell the cops ev
erything, of course I will … You’re the important one, you know that. The only thing that matters to me is you …

  Having to face this truth was more terrible to him than having to face the truth about Maureen.

  Mrs. Thatcher’s hand was still on his arm. He heard the phone on the desk ringing. Mr. Thatcher was moving to pick up the receiver.

  “Yes? … Oh, yes, she’s here, but she’s been asleep for quite some time. She … Look, your brother’s here. Perhaps you’d like to speak to him.” He cupped the receiver. “Do you want to talk to your brother, Andrew?”

  Ned …

  For one brief, mad moment, it seemed to Andrew that he couldn’t get out of the chair, that his feet had sprung soft, sensitive roots, twisting, pushing down through the carpet, roots which, if he moved, would be agonizingly torn and split. Mr. Thatcher was holding the phone out toward him. The sweat broke out on his forehead. He left Mrs. Thatcher’s side. He took the phone.

  “Drew?” Ned’s voice came through to him, hoarse, tumbling over itself with excitement. “Gosh, Drew, what a break. I’ve been trying to call. Look, it’s okay. Everything’s okay. I’ve got it. I know who killed her … Drew, are you listening?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Then, stay there at the Thatchers’. That’s the quickest way. Stay there and call Mooney. Wherever he is, at home in bed with his wife, wherever, yank him out, tell him to get right over to the Thatchers’. You hear, don’t you? It’s all right. You’re going to be all right. Just call Mooney and hang on. In about five minutes, I’ll be there.”

  He hung up. Andrew stood for a moment with the receiver in his hand. Then he put it down. His eyes moved from Mr. to Mrs. Thatcher.

  “Ned says he’s got the solution.”

  “The solution?” echoed Mrs. Thatcher. “What is it, Andrew? What’s he found out?”

  “He didn’t say. He just told me to call Lieutenant Mooney and have him come here at once because it’ll be quicker that way. Is that all right?”

  “Of course,” said Mr. Thatcher. “Of course it’s all right.”

  Andrew called the station house. The lieutenant wasn’t there, but the sergeant at the desk provided his home number.