Marilyn K - The House Next Door

by Lionel White

  “How are you, Suzy Kelley?” I said.

  She held out her hand like a man. A strong, firm grip. She sat down in the seat I had gotten out of. She came right to the point.

  “I know that you didn’t kill my sister, Mr. Russell,” shesaid. “I know, because I talked with her over the telephone five minutes after you left the motel. My car broke down and I called her.”

  “I am glad you know,” I said.

  “But someone killed her, Mr. Russell. I always knew she was going to be killed someday. I had told her as much, right from the beginning when she started taking up with those gangsters. I knew it must happen. I loved my sister, Mr. Russell.”

  “I loved her, too,” I said. “After my fashion.”

  She wasn’t listening to me. She went right on talking. “I know why they killed her. She told me, indirectly, when we talked on the telephone. She was killed because she took the money. The money you took away from the motel when you left. She told me about that also. This afternoon a man found me. A Mr. Leopold. He says it was really his money. He knows I don’t have it and he knows you do. He wants that money.”

  “Mr. Leopold will never get that money,” I said. “I rather suspect Mr. Leopold killed your sister because of that money. Tell me, Suzy, why did you come here?”

  She looked into my face. She was like Marilyn but then again she wasn’t. She had a hardness, but it was of a different kind. She was a girl who would never ask anyone to help her. Would never have to.

  “I will be frank with you, Mr. Russell,” shesaid. “I came to get the money. There is nothing I can do for you or I would do it. But you can do something for me. You can see that I get that money. Marilyn paid with her life for it and I mean to see that her life wasn’t wasted. ”

  “Marilyn is dead,” I said.

  “Yes, Marilyn is dead. But I am alive. I want to say something to you. I always loved Marilyn but she really thought I was a fool and I think, perhaps, she may even have hated me. I understood what would happen to her some day and now it has happened. She paid with her life for a suitcase full of cash. Her life is not going to be spent in vain.”

  “You want the money,” I said, “and I want to get out of here.”

  Again she stared at me.

  “I can’t help you, Mr. Russell. You know that. And you know the money can’t help you. They will never let you keep it. They wouldn’t let Marilyn and they won’t let you. But if I get the money, I might be able to help you. They have already talked with me. They know all about me. They have always known about me. The money will only be safe when it is in my hands. ”

  “Marilyn said you were a strong person,” I said.

  “I am a strong person, Mr. Russell. And I know what I am talking about.”

  “So you want the money?”

  “Yes.”

  I stood up and tossed the cigarette butt on the floor. “You can have the money,” I said. “There is only one little thing.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I am the only person in this world who will be able to get it for you. I can’t do it while I am in this jailhouse. ”

  “You could tell me where—”

  “I have told you that you can have the money. I will give you my solemn word. But you must do something for me. If you agree, then I will do the thing

  which you want me to do for you.”

  "And what must I do for you?”

  I walked over to the door and held my ear against it. I could hear no one. I came back and I faced her. I spoke as low as I could.

  “You must come back within an hour. You must bring a loaded gun in your handbag. You can say you are going out to get me something to eat. They won’t suspect anything. And you must have a fast car downstairs on the street.”

  If I had expected to shock her, I was disappointed.

  “You want me to do this? To commit a criminal act?”

  “You want the money?”

  She didn’t say anything so I went on talking.

  “A fast car,” I said. “And you must be with me when I leave. Itisachance, but less than the chance you are taking with our Mr. Leopold. Now tell me, what is the setup here? How many people are around? Where is this place located? Where is the nearest main road? How far are we from Route 301?”

  I am making it sound a lot easier than it really was. She was hard and determined and direct, but she was also very difficult to convince. She knew a hundred reasons why my plan wouldn’t work. But I had the final convincer. I knew where the money was and I wasn’t going to tell her, or anyone else. Not until I was out of jail.

  But I was going to keep my word. I was going to give her the money.

  And as I talked to her I learned one thing.

  This girl Suzy was, in her own subdued and mousy, conventional fashion, a lot tougher than her sister had been. She was retiring and probably unimaginative and naive. But she had the toughness that only comes with complete determination. With a one-track, undeviating mentality...

  The break itself was easier than I had hoped for. Almost undramatic in its simplicity.

  She was back within less than an hour. How she managed to get the gun I will never know, but she got it. Anyone can buy a gun in Maryland. The car was no problem. She merely took the rented car she had driven down from New York to a garage. Said she wanted to have certain repairs made, a partial engine overhaul, and borrowed a car to use while they worked on her own. It was a Merc and it was fast.

  I didn’t stick the gun under the turnkey’s chin when he came to let her out on her second visit. I slapped him on the side of the head with it and pulled him into the room and tied him up and gagged him. We ran into a cleaning Woman on the way out, and I tied her up. We had to pass the room off the main lobby where a half dozen men, probably deputies and hangers on, were sitting shooting the breeze, but they never even saw us. I figured we would have

  a good half-hour before the alarm was out.

  She had thought of something which even I had missed up on. She had a county map.

  We took back roads and fifteen minutes after we were on our way, I found an isolated phone booth. I left her in the car while I made the call.

  Sarah Cutter must have been keeping her word literally. She picked up the receiver at the first ring.

  For the second time within the last two hours I was trusting everything to my faith in someone I didn’t even know.

  “Don’t say anything until I finish speaking,” I said. “Are you alone and do you know who this is?”

  The silence lasted so long that I thought she had gone off and left the phone. Perhaps gone to call for help. I knew that when she spoke I would know. I would know if my gamble was going to work out. And at last she spoke, in a small, frightened voice.

  “I know,” she said. “And I am alone.”

  "You said you would help me,” I said. "Will you still help me? You don’t have to; there is no reason you should. But I am asking you to. Will you?”

  Again that long, tortuous silence. At last she spoke, the words very far away.

  "What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to get a room ready. That same cabin, number six. I will be there within the next twenty minutes. I don’t want to see you or check in. Ijustwant to use the room. Perhaps for several hours. And I will have a car with me. The keys will be in the car. I want you to get in it and take it somewhere. Get it out of sight. That is all I will ask of you. ”

  “That is plenty,” she said, her voice not at all far away. I thought she was going to refuse; I was almost sure then that she would. But she surprised me. She waited a long time again and then, at last, she said, “You know what you are doing?”

  “I know,” I said.

  “The room will be ready,” shesaid. “Don’t worry about the car. I’ll put it in the bam in back of the place. No one will see it there. ”

  “As long as there is a bam, I’ll take care ofit,” Isaid. “Will I be able to find it all right?”


  “There will be a light over the doors and they will be unlocked,” she said.

  I didn’t bother to thank her when I hung up. Thanks would be superfluous. You don’t just thank someone for saving your life.

  Chapter Eleven

  At ten minutes to ten, on Wednesday night, I pulled shut the door of cabin number six, Cutter’s tourist court, and turned the key in the lock. I checked to see that the shades were drawn, and then I turned on the overhead light.

  “Take a look around,” Isaid. “Get yourself oriented. You have exactly one minute and then the light goes out and it stays out.”

  Suzy stared at me.

  “What are we doing here?” she said. “You promised you would get me the money. You must keep your promise. Is the money—?”

  “Do what I tell you. Now. Look around. Get oriented. You will get the money. I have promised and I ’ll keep that promise. But we have to stay here. We have to stay here until morning.”

  Her expression changed and for a moment it was just as though I were looking again into the face of her dead sister.

  “Until morning? Alone here with you?”

  “Alone. With me,” I said. “Now quick. The light is going out.”

  She looked around and she saw the same things I saw. Two small, fairly comfortable chairs, a dresser, a washstand behind a screen, an open door leading to a tiny bathroom. A faded rug on the floor. An electric heater. A clothes tree. A large, beaten-up double bed.

  I pulled the light cord.

  “Take off your jacket and make yourself comfortable,” I said. “We have a long wait. Until daybreak.”

  She was moving around and stumbled against me and I took her arms and I could feel her grow taut. I moved her and when I came to the edge of the bed, Isaid. “Sithere.”

  I could hear her breathing heavily. I don’t know whether she was frightened or not. If she was, her next remark certainly didn’t indicate it.

  “You promised me the money,” she said. “I want it.”

  “Untildawn,” I repeated.

  “You can at least tell me.”

  I sat down next to her and I was surprised when she didn’t move.

  “Listen, Suzy,” I said. “You might just as well be patient. We are going to stay here, right here, until morning. We aren’t going to move and we aren t going to have a light and if we talk at all, we are going to whisper. And in the morning I will get you the money.”

  She hesitated several minutes and then she spoke again. ‘ ‘Just what are we going to do?”

  “Well, if you have any sense, you’ll get outof your jacket, slip off your shoes and lie back on the bed and get some rest. That’s what I am going to do.” I started to kick my shoes off.

  For several seconds she didn’t move and then she spoke in a tiny voice.

  “I have never been on a bed with a man, ” she said.

  “You’ll have your clothes on.”

  Again she didn’t say anything and finally I heard a small shoe drop to the floor. Then the second shoe. I could hear her removing the jacket.

  I didn’t stop with my shoes and jacket. I stripped down to my shorts, undershirt and socks. I lay back on the bed, moving carefully to one side. A moment later I felt the spring sag and I knew that she was beside me.

  I reached out my hand and I found hers. She didn’t take it away.

  She said, “Did you bring me here on purpose?”

  “I brought you here because this is where I had to come if I want to get the money for you. Now forget the money and forget everything else. There is absolutely nothing that I can do until morning.”

  She was silent for a long time, but she left her small hand in mine. And then at last she spoke again.

  “I have never been with a man,” she said.

  I turned on my side and I reached over and I put my arm across her breasts and I pulled her around so that she faced me. She didn’t say a word.

  I put my hand in back of her head and then I found her lips. I had force her mouth open. She didn’t try to stop me. Her hands were against my chest, her elbows doubled up. I leaned far over her, half covering her with my body, and the hands moved and went up under my T-shirt and around the bare flesh of my back.

  I moved my own hands then. She had taken off the j acket but she still wore the starched white shirt. There was no brassiere under it.

  Her breasts were firm and she didn’t flinch when my palms caressed them. She cried out a little when I pressed too hard and I took one hand away. I reached down and I found the snap of the tweed skirt.

  She struggled under me when I pulled it off and then she cried out and moaned as my hand explored the loveliness of her thighs and finally discovered its destiny.

  She said: "Please—oh, please!”

  I don’t know whether she meant “please don’t” or whether she just meant “please.” It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I had suddenly lost all control and I was tearing the last of her clothes off and she was clinging to me and her mouth was wide on mine. Her hands were tearing at me but her body was pressed close.

  I had to take my mouth away to breathe and she whispered something that

  I didn’t hear. I pressed harder and she cried out and said, “Don’t hurt me. please don’t hurt me.”

  And again I moved and the old beaten-up bed cracked and then rose and fell and she suddenly screamed and the arms around me tightened until I thought that she would break my ribs.

  She was her sister’s twin. She was everything that Marilyn K. had been and then a hundred things more.

  She didn’t cry out after that first scream; she lay there, her body a mound of flame, and the desire came again and again as we moved and struggled and found each other’s innermost secret places.

  It ended finally. It had to end.

  I fell back, spent and empty and exhausted and later I heard her get up and she crossed the room.

  When I finally sat upon the edge of the bed and found my cigarette lighter and looked at my watch, the time was five-thirty. I could see a tiny ribbon of light just beginning to peek through the crack behind the window shade.

  She was back on the bed beside me now and I knew that she was stark naked, lying there breathing heavily. I thought that she must be sleeping.

  I got up and put on some clothes and then I reached up and pulled the light cord and the light went on.

  She wasn’t sleeping.

  She j umped as though someone had doused her with a bucket of cold water. She was reaching wildly for the sheet.

  "Please,” she said. “Turn it off.”

  I laughed and pulled the light cord again.

  “Get dressed,” I said. “It’s time to get the money.”

  She was off the bed in a flash and she was asking questions again as she dressed.

  “Within the hour,” I said. “Now here is what you must do. Just be ready to leave. I am going out. I will be gone anywhere from ten minutes to an hour. But I will be back. And when I get back—■”

  She stopped me and I could tell by the tone of her voice that she still didn’t trust me.

  “I’ll come with you,” shesaid. “You can’t leave me here alone. You must take me.”

  “You must stay right in this room,” I said. “I am not going far. I am going into the office. There is something I have to do and I have to do it alone. I shall not be more than a hundred or two hundred feet from you.”

  “I'm coming with you.”

  I turned and took her by the arms, digging my fingers into her soft flesh.

  “Unless you do exactly as I say—to the letter—you will never see that money. Understand? Exactly as I say. You stay in this room and be quiet. I will be back within an hour. Perhaps within fifteen minutes. But you are not to move.”

  I didn’t give her a chance to argue. I dropped her arms and quickly opened the door and slipped out and quietly closed it.

  The dawn was just breaking in the east. I had the gun Suzy had brought me, in the band of my tr
ousers.

  There was a Plymouth coupe parked directly in front of the office and I could see that the lights were on inside. Miss Sarah was having an early morning visitor and I hesitated, cursing my bad luck. But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. Time was running out.

  I took a few quick steps, put my hand on the door and shoved. I stepped into the tiny office, the gun in my fist.

  For a second then, I don’t know which one of us was the most surprised, the little man who jumped to his feet and whose eyes went wide as he saw and recognized me, or myself.

  But Martin Fleming was the first one to speak.

  “Russell!” he said. “Put down that gun!”

  He started for me. I didn’t have time to say anything. I have to give him credit. I outweighed him two to one. I stood there with a loaded gun in my hand and he thought I was a triple murderer. But he kept right on coming.

  Sarah stayed frozen in the chair in which she sat.

  I didn’t want to hit him, but I had to. I didn’t use the gun, I used my left and because the wrist was still swollen and sore, I didn’t hit him hard enough to knock him out. But he landed halfway across the room on his knees.

  “Now stay there—both of you,” I said. I pointed the gun at them again.

  She looked at me. She wasn’t frightened. She knew that I wouldn’t use the gun. She knew that I knew she knew. But she played along. I could have kissed her for it.

  “Don’t be a fool, Martin,” shesaid. “Do what he says.”

  “Yes, Martin, do,” I said.

  He was looking at me with absolute hatred.

  “Do you know an attorney named Hardie?” I asked. Neither of them answered.

  “You, Fleming, quick. Do you know Hardie?”

  This time he nodded his head, his mouth a grim, tight line.

  ‘All right, get him on the phone. Sarah, look up his number.”

  He lives in Denton,” Fleming said.

  Sarah picked up the phone book and a moment later she read off the number.