Marilyn K - The House Next Door

by Lionel White

  There was a new man behind the desk in the lobby but he ignored me as I P®ssec^ through. Outside were a couple of dozen cars, most of which proba-

  У belonged to the crowd that had come in for dinner. The cars which be-

  longed to the transients were around in the carports behind the individual suites, where I wished that Marilyn had had the sense to leave mine.

  Battle’s old station wagon was parked at an angle two or three slots down from the entrance. He’d left his door open and as I passed, I gave it a shove, slamming it shut. As I did I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and I looked up.

  The long black Imperial limousine was parked next to it and leaning against the front fender was a short, broad-shouldered man with a broken nose and wearing a Brooks Brothers suit. The tip-off was the shoes. They were Harlem yellow. He had "racket” written all over him.

  He was watching me casually but missing nothing. No special interest; he was the kind who watched everything. I saw that the plates on the Imperial were New York. Broken-nose would be either Binge or Hymie.

  She had left the keys in the Pontiac and I hit the starter button. The motor turned over and nothing happened. I goosed the gas pedal a couple of times and tried again. I guess I must have been nervous. I managed to flood the engine. I tried twice more and still nothing happened.

  I swore. The battery was a little old and I was afraid of drawing too much juice so I just waited for a minute or so.

  The joker who had been leaning against the Imperial walked over. He shook his head a little sadly. “Flooded her,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “You gotta be careful with these old heaps,” he said. "You flood 'em and they’re hell. When you try again, keep your gas pedal all the way down to the floor.”

  I said thanks and I put the gas pedal on the floor, which I knew all along I should do. I pushed the starter and the engine caught.

  “You should trade that iron in,” Broken-nose said. “I see you are from New York.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “Been down to Florida? You got a nice tan.”

  He was leaning against the door and the only way I could get rid of him was to either take off and leave him hanging on air, or answer him. I answered him, without enthusiasm.

  “Nope—Baltimore,” I said. “I got a sun lamp.”

  He nodded, thought about it for a second or two and decided there wasn’t anything more to say and took his arm off the door and went back to lean on the fender of the black Imperial. I pulled out of the parking spot, circled the motel and drew up behind the suite where Marilyn K. was waiting. She opened the back door the moment I knocked.

  Cut off that overhead light, ” I said, “ and then just stand here and see that

  no one comes by. I’ll go in and get him.”

  I She nodded and switched the light as I stepped into the living room of the suite.

  He was exactly where I had left him. Lying flat on his back. There was only one thing different. The area between his little pig eyes and the line where the wiry red crew-cut began was no longer convex. It was concave. And the short, tortured gasps were no longer coming from his barracuda mouth. His chest wasn’t slowly rising and falling.

  I leaned over him quickly, but it wasn’t necessary to listen to his heart or feel his pulse. He was dead. He had to be dead. No man could live with his entire forehead bashed in.

  There was surprisingly little blood.

  I didn’t touch him. Instead I stood up and slowly went toward the door where Marilyn stood looking out. I took her gently by the arm and pulled her into the room, closing the door after her.

  “You’d better hurry,” she said. “Hurry and get him into the car.”

  “Why did you do it?” I tried hard to keep the anger out of my voice.

  “You are hurting my arm, Sam,” she said. “Why did I do what?”

  “Why did you kill him?”

  She looked up at me, wide-eyed.

  "Kill him? Kill who?”

  “Don’t be cute, kitten,” I said. “I asked you a question. Why did you kill him? Why did you beat that deputy’s head in with the tire iron as soon as I left the room.”

  “Oh Sam,” she said. “I didn’t kill him. Of course I hit him. I had to. The minute you left to get the car he came to. I guess he was just acting all along. Anyway, he reared up and started for me.”

  “He was tied,” I said, coldly.

  “Of course he was tied. But he got up and he’s a big man. He started for me and he was between me and the door. And so I reached for the tire iron and I had to hit him again.”

  “You hit him again all right,” I said through clenched teeth. “I thoughtyou said you knew how to do it—that one of Mister Marcus’ boys had taught you.”

  Don’t be mean to me, Sam,” she said. “I didn’t have time to do anything but just swing. Otherwise he would have been on top of me. Anyway, he probably isn t really dead. He’s probablyjust—”

  He s dead, ” I said bitterly.

  Well then, you should certainly hurry and get him out of here. And don't ook at me like that, Sam. I told you it was an accident. Self-defense. Anyway, it so ves one problem. When you call the state police and they find him, you

  Won’t have to worry about what he will say. ”

  I didn’t answer her. I was afraid that if I did, I'd lose my temper completely.

  Wordlessly I went back and got my arms under his shoulders. I didn’t try to lift him, but just dragged him along the floor. The tire iron was lying where it had fallen and I kicked it out of my way, suddenly sick to my stomach.

  She held the door open for me and then circled and opened the trunk of the Pontiac. It was a job getting him in and closing the Ed. I was sweating when I went back inside. I didn’t say anything, but just went over and poured a water glass fuU of Scotch and took it without a chaser.

  She had gone in and got the bags and was carrying them with her when she came back. She was panting a Ettle and dropped them to the floor. She went back and returned a moment later with a package of money, tightly wrapped in a printed bank band.

  “Here,” shesaid. “You had better put it in his pocket after you get him out of the car. Now don’t forget.”

  I reached for the money, saying nothing, and I guess she read the expression on my face.

  “Darling,” she said. “Darling, I told you I didn’t do it on purpose.” She leaned forward on her toes and her arms went out and around my waist and she puUed herself tight against me. “Honey.”

  I guess it was then I realized for the first time that lust is even stronger than revulsion.

  The money feU from my hand to the floor and as our lips met, my own arms went around her and my hands dropped down her back and as she strained against me, they found their favorite hold. Nature had designed her buttocks exactly the right size and shape to fit into a man’s palms.

  She started to moan a Ettle and her tongue was forcing my lips apart. I didn’t care then, for the next few minutes, whether she had murdered Battle or whether she had murdered a dozen men. I didn’t care about the pain in my groin where Battle had kneed me; I didn’t care about anything on this God’s green earth but just one simple thing.

  I started to move, with her clinging to me, toward the bed.

  But she twisted suddenly and I was made aware once more of her fantastic strength. She twisted and pushed against me with her own two small hands, pulling her lips away.

  ‘No—no, not now,” she said. “Suzy will be here any minute and you have to get started.”

  I groaned.

  Suzy!” I said. “Jesus Christ!”

  Sam,” she said. “Please don’t swear.”

  I released her, staring at her.

  “Hurry now, Sam,” she urged. “And don’t forget. Mr. and Mrs. John Southern, General Delivery, Baltimore. And we’ll meet at the Washington Staffer.”

  I picked up the money as I left the room. I also picked up the ha
lf-empty bottle of Scotch.

  Chapter Seven

  Life is filled with new experiences, but this was one I could have gotten along without. Two dead men in one day is a little hard on the system at best; it makes it sort of rough, when you end up with one of them in the trunk of your car.

  I remembered the broken-down station wagon with the red spotlight still sitting parked in front of the Whispering Willows and I decided that I would get rid of my passenger at the first opportunity. I knew that station wagon would be spotted pretty quickly and that someone would be looking for him. Every second I had his body with me increased my chances of trouble.

  I found the place about a mile before I came to Cutter’s Cabins. A vacant, broken-down roadside stand and gas station which I had vaguely remembered from the morning's drive. As I approached I looked first ahead and then into the rear vision mirror to be sure no cars were coming from either direction. The road was clear. Not a car in sight.

  I cut into the curved drive which led into the gas station and pulled up beside it. I punched out my lights and swallowed the lump in my throat. Then I got out of the convertible, circled it and opened the trunk.

  Thank the Lord, it was too early for rigor mortis or I never would have gotten his body out of that small compartment. I just let it lay where it fell. I was reaching down to put the money into his trouser pocket when I saw the headlights coming.

  My first instinct was to run for the car and get going, but I realized that if I did, whoever was in the oncoming car would see me leaving the place. So I just kneeled down and waited. The twin headlights were beating up the road at about eighty miles an hour and the driver didn't slow down as he passed.

  A half minute later and I was back behind the wheel of the Pontiac. This time I didn’t take any chances on its flooding and stalling out.

  When I passed Cutter’s Cabins, I noticed the sign, Vacancies, pathetically lighted outside the small office. There were only two cars parked in front of the place, a small pickup truck and an ancient two-toned sedan.

  Sarah Cutter was having her problems in making a go of the establishment her Dad had left her when he died. But I didn’t have any extra energy to waste on considering her problems. I had plenty of problems of my own.

  I guess it was during the drive into the outskirts of Baltimore, with the wind blowing into my face from the open windows of the car, that for the first time I really began to think clearly. It was a funny thing, but while I had been with Marilyn K.—even while I had been away from her but was waiting to get back to her—it was almost as though someone had drugged me. My mind simply hadn’t functioned. It was easy enough to understand. Marilyn, in her own way, was a lot more powerful than any drug I could imagine.

  Anyway, as I say, I really started using my brain for something besides holding up the top of my cranium. Did I say I had a problem? It was an understatement.

  The first problem was the simple one. Three hundred and some odd thousand dollars in mob money, laying in a suitcase on the seat next to me. That was a problem I had to solve and solve quickly. Well, I was solving it. I was on my way to a locker at Friendship Airport in Baltimore.

  The next problem was a gentleman named Socks Leopold and his two muscle boys, looking for this suitcase full of money. I didn’t sell them short. Sooner or later they were going to know that Marilyn K. was checked into the Whispering Willows. They weren’t going to have to be geniuses to discover that she had not checked in alone. I had used a phony name, but that wasn’t going to be a bit of help. The motel had taken down my car license number and it would be simple enough to trace it to me.

  They would know that I had checked in with her.

  And then, of course, there was a deputy sheriff named Battle, lying back at the deserted roadside stand with his head bashed in. When young Mr. Fleming learned about that he was going to remember something. He was going to remember me. He was going to remember the fight we had had at Cutter’s Cabins. He was going to remember that Battle’s car would be found in front of the Whispering Willows, where I had been registered. Because he, like Brother Leopold, would find out soon enough that I had been there. And he was going to put two and two together and come up with an answer. The answer might not necessarily be right, but that was just my own tough luck.

  There was only one single thing in this world I could think to do to change that answer. I had to get to a phone booth as soon as I possibly could and put in that anonymous call to the state police and let them know where to find Mr. Fleming’s dead deputy. Find Battle and the money from Marcus’ loot. It might just possibly work out the way Marilyn had planned it. Take the heat off of me so far as Leopold and company were concerned.

  It wouldn’t clear me when it came to Battle, but at least it would establish a motive for someone else having knocked him off. He would be found with some of the money and Fleming would soon enough learn that money was being sought by the Syndicate boys from New York.

  Yes, Marilyn had figured the answers all right. The trouble was, she had figured an extra answer and it was an answer that I didn’t like at all. No matter how Fleming worked it out, one thing was sure. The alarm would be out and I would be picked up for questioning. And where would they pick me up? Why they would pick me up while I was obviously trying to make a getaway!

  It was then that something else came back to me. Something that, because of the stress of current events, had completely escaped my memory during the last couple of hours. Something which Battle had said.

  Marcus had not been killed in the car accident. He had been murdered!

  Maybe the deputy had been lying—trying to trap me. Maybe. Certainly nothing had been said about it in the news broadcasts. But then, maybe again he hadn’t been. There was, in any case, a certain chicken farmer who had seen me when I had pulled to a stop to pick up Marilyn K.

  So suppose Marcus had been murdered, and they picked me up while I was very obviously trying to make a getaway. Well, one thing was sure. I didn’t want to be in Washington at the Statler. I didn’t want to be getting any mail at the General Delivery window in Baltimore.

  Marilyn and Sister Suzy could be counted upon to take care of that chore.

  I should have taken some comfort in the knowledge that I hadn’t killed Marcus and I hadn’t killed Battle. And if the police picked up Marilyn later on?

  I could just visualize us telling our separate stories. I could visualize us in front of twelve honest men and true—our peers. Facing a jury, me with my hands clean and my heart pure and the moral conviction that I was innocent.

  And I knew just what that jury would do. They would listen to me and they would look at Marilyn K.

  And I would be given a one-way ticket directly to the gas chamber or whatever they use to dispatch multiple murderers in the state of Maryland.

  Yes, the kid really had a head on those beautiful, desirable shoulders. Marilyn K. was something all right.

  I saw the sign saying telephone booth, one mile, and I automatically began to slow down. This is one thing I will hand Maryland; they may not have a particularly neat gas chamber or whatever it is they use, but they do have damned fine roads and they put up glass enclosed phone booths every few miles, just in case some passing tourist may feel like getting a little social.

  I was lucky. It was a booth beside a roadside picnic area and there was nothing in sight. I pulled over and stopped, got out and stepped into the booth, not closing the door completely as I didn’t want the light to go on inside. I reached into my pants pocket for a coin and had a momentary fainting spell. I went into my other pocket and I still didn’t find a coin.

  I cursed myself for a damned fool and went through the rest of my pockets. No coins.

  For a moment I almost panicked and then I remembered the glove compartment of the Pontiac. I always throw loose change into it so I’ll have a convenient nickel or dime for a parking meter. It only took me a second to find the dime and to dial the operator.

  “Let me have the
state police,” I said, when she answered. “It’s an emergency, so please hurry. There has been an accident.”

  It was probably one of the greatest understatements of my career.

  I wasn’t familiar with the road after passing over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, but I had no trouble. I found Friendship Airport and driving into it was somewhat like coming into the civilized world after a long, hard safari across the Gobi Desert. Bright lights never looked so good.

  I left my own bag in the car and didn’t even bother to lock the door. I was anxious to get the suitcase full of money into that locker.

  There were two banks of lockers in the corridor off the main lobby. One was for people who just wanted to leave something overnight and the other was for customers who needed a place for their surplus luggage for several days. These cost half a dollar but the hell with expense. I put the bag inside of the top one at the end and extracted the key.

  A pretty brunette at the American Airlines desk loaned me an envelope and several sheets of paper and a stamp machine spewed out six four-cent stamps for a quarter.

  There was a fountain pen attached to a chain on the desk supplied by Western Union for potential customers.

  I didn’t bother with a return address. But I did think about Marilyn K. while I addressed the envelope.

  I wrote it out in a nice Spencerian hand. Over in the left hand comer I added: Please hold until called for.

  I dropped it into the mailbox in the lobby and I didn't bother to check when it would be picked up. I wasn’t in any hurry to have it dehvered. The key wouldn’t rust.

  What I did next will probably convince you that I am completely insane. Maybe I was. Certainly, within the next few hours I had good enough reason to think so.

  Anyway, I left the waiting room of the airport and I went back and climbed into my car. I left the airport. I didn’t get back on 301 and head south for Washington. I didn’t drive into Baltimore proper. I didn’t head out at random for far away places.