by Steve Fisher
15
“HE SAYS WHAT?”
“That he’s going to arrest you for murder. He must be full of hops.”
“Is his name Ed Cornell?”
“He didn’t say.”
It’s Cornell all right. He’s completed his case. It must be a pretty thing. And he’ll put you in the gas chamber! Don’t fret about that. He’s been after you for a long time. You can scream until your lungs rot. It won’t do any good now.
“What did he look like?”
“Kind of white around the gills. Red hair, I think. He wears a derby.”
It hit me all at once. I was so scared I couldn’t stand up. I found a box. My hands were shaking. I was hollow. I was so scared that I was sick. My teeth began aching, the way they ached that night. All of my teeth ached and hurt my mouth. I thought it was funny my teeth always ached when I was scared. I didn’t have any other coherent thought. I was empty like a sack is empty.
The scene was going on. There was Robin Ray in an astronaut suit. There was Hurd Evans sitting on his stool. Lanny Craig was drunk and sleeping. Cornell couldn’t get into the sound stage while the camera was in motion. He’d have to wait out there until the red flag stopped wagging. There was a side door.
I knew there was this side door. But I couldn’t move. Now the scene ended. If Cornell had come in with handcuffs I still wouldn’t have been able to move. I was trying to get my breath. My hands groped in my pocket for a cigarette. Where were those damned cigarettes?
I remembered things: “I have an effigy of you in the gas chamber … .” And: “Some of them scream… .”
But I’m innocent, I tell you I’m innocent! Does it mean nothing to you that I’m innocent?
“No, it means nothing to me,” he’d say, “because I don’t believe you.”
I had the cigarette now. I mashed it between my fingers before I could get it into my mouth. I threw it down on the floor. I looked at it and rubbed the sole of my shoe over it.
Then I was on my feet. I didn’t know how I was able to stand up. I felt as though I had been in a hospital for six weeks, and this was the first time I had walked. There was a ringing in my ears. Merry Christmas, people would say. You’re a cooked goose. We’re very sorry for you.
Wasn’t it too bad about him, though? This they would say afterward. He was such a nice chap. Didn’t look like a murderer, did he? I was at the trial. They had a beautiful case. A really beautiful case. The prosecution was brilliant. He’s in the death house now. They say he’s writing letters to everyone he knows. He writes fine letters but they won’t do him any good. He’s going to die on Wednesday. I see by the papers—
I was at the side door. My hands shook so that I could scarcely throw back the bolts. Then I had the door open and fresh air was sucking into the sound stage. I got outside. I didn’t wait to close the door. I wanted to run. But you can’t run on such wobbly legs. Run where? Where in the hell would I run?
Why should I run? I’m innocent! He can’t do this to me! Who in the hell does he think he is that he can do this to me? I’ll go back and laugh in his face. He can’t prove a thing. Theories, maybe. What’s a goddam theory? I’m not scared. I’ll face him. You damn well know I’ll face him!
But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t take the chance. It was my life at stake. You don’t gamble with your life when you have odds like these. Let’s be realistic. Nobody wants to die.
I was in the studio street. I was watching for Cornell. A strange, stolid calm was settling over me like a block of ice. If I caught sight of him I could bolt. I kept walking. I was conscious of my footsteps. Each step was taking me a little nearer to freedom. Each step was taking me a little farther from death.
The darkness had come. It was black and lovely. The little studio lights were on. I could hear film being ground through in a projection room. It was only five-thirty Dark winter evening. The secretaries were streaming out of buildings and going toward the main gate.
They’d go home. Go on dates. They’d eat their dinners. They’d complain about headaches. They’d study shorthand, go to movies.
I was on the sidewalk, headed toward the main gate. The secretaries had formed a little queue and were punching out. You could hear the bell on the time dock. The girls were chatting, and going out the gate in pairs, or in threes. Cars were waiting out in front for some of them, clogging the street. Guys in Fords, or old Chevrolets. These were the great writers and actors of tomorrow, these guys, who let their wives support them until the Big Day came. Only for almost all of them the Big Day would never come. They’d never even make their first dime. But it was all right because the married secretary went on for years imagining she had a Rock Hudson or a Mort Sahl in her home, and she could be smug as hell, and life would be worth living. This was the way of Hollywood. Up your sleeve or in your shoe you had a dream.
I suddenly hated them all. I felt detached, and it seemed to me that this picture was sordid. The glamour … and the greed for glamour. The petty hatreds, and the broken hearts, and the bums that hung on, the bums that cluttered up the cafés just outside the gate. Once they’d been extras, and while they were on the set, if they could so much as mooch a cigarette from a director, they’d spend the next six weeks off the lot writing notes and sending them in. “Listen, pal, old pal, I need two bucks. Will you send your old pal out two bucks?”
I walked right through the main gate. Nobody stopped me. Cornell must have been somewhere on the lot. I crossed the street. There they were, the midgets and the hunchbacks; the Hawalians and Filipinos, the white females who couldn’t even pass as extras, all hoping to run into somebody now at five-thirty, hoping to buttonhole somebody who could promise them a job. Behind me secretaries were getting into cars. Others were walking on up the street. I was safe! I was lost in this crowd. The winter darkness was good to me.
But I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have any plans. My car was in a parking lot on the corner, but I didn’t dare take it. It would be too easy to spot. The special body, the blue upholstery, the shiny spotlight. There was a cab on the corner. I moved toward it. Somebody yelled at me. My heart froze.
But it was another writer.
“Can I take you anywhere?”
“No, thanks.”
“What about having a drink?”
“I just had one.”
I had to move in between the cars in the parking lot. I had to pretend that I was going to get my car out. I didn’t know if this guy was watching. But when I turned around he was gone. I began threading my way out through the parked cars. The attendant spotted me.
“Hi, ya! Want your bus?”
“I’m going back to the studio for something,” I said.
He’d have to move the cars in front to get mine out and he was happy that I didn’t want it now.
“Okay.”
“I’ll be back later,” I said.
I stood on the corner for a minute. I waited until the parking attendant was busy. Then I slipped into a cab. I gave the driver the name of my hotel and slumped down in the seat. The cab pulled out into the avenue. It was thick with cars. Half of them were studio people who might spot me. I stayed down in the seat. The cab got stuck in the traffic and the driver kept honking the horn.
“You can’t get anywhere this time of night,” he said.
“No.”
“They ought to do something about it.”
“Yeah.”
My heart was going like a hammer. I was fumbling around for another cigarette. I’d try and get this one between my lips before I broke it to pieces. My fingers were shaking. Now the cab began to move. I heard the purr of tires, and we were weaving in and out between cars.
I got the cigarette lit and the smoke drifted between my teeth. Christ, how they ache! Maybe it was because I was chattering. Was I chattering? I’d have to get hold of myself. I’d get nowhere with my nerves like this. They’d nab me in an hour.
Cornell would have the alarm out. If he had his evidence it would
all be official now. The cat and mouse game was over.
We were on Vine. I didn’t know how long we had been riding. The cab was going fast. It’d be sweet if we ran into somebody. I could see that happening, and crime reporters harking back to that old, old cliché about the irony of life. Fate took a hand tonight as—
But we hit no one and I was watching signal lights change from red to green, and the people that swarmed the streets, and those big, fat, open air markets. I saw the Christmas tinsel, and the big sign that said Five More Shopping Days! Sure, so what the hell! I threw out my cigarette and leaned forward. The cab was pulling up. I fumbled with a dollar bill, and got it into the driver’s hand. Then he reached back and opened the door. On the Coast, the cab doors are fixed so you can’t open them from inside. They aren’t opene4 until the fare is paid.
It’s so lovely here!
I got out and crossed the sidewalk to the hotel. The lobby was crowded. But it suddenly struck me what a fool I was! The cops would expect me to come back here. They’d have someone waiting just in case I eluded Ed Cornell. I glanced around. I wanted to make a break back out the door. I saw a flabby-faced guy leaning against the partition between the elevators; he was twirling a key ring.
Yet I didn’t know him. He was a cop but I had never seen him before. No doubt he had a description of me. But those police descriptions are like a jigsaw puzzle. He’d have to put it all together. And right now he wasn’t even looking my way.
I needed money. I had less than twenty dollars in my wallet. I moved to a writing desk, sat down, and scribbled a check. When I was finished, the cop between the elevators was still there. I got up and walked across to the grilled window marked Cashier.
“I wonder if I could get a little cash?”
A girl wearing horn-rimmed glasses looked at me. I took my credit card out of my wallet and dropped it there beside the check. I was trying to smile. But I was so pale I must have looked sick.
“Oh, yes.” She read my name. She reached for the cash drawer, and then she glanced at my name again. When her eyes came up they looked funny under the panes of her glasses.
“Just a minute,” she said.
“Sure.”
She left her cubicle and moved toward the desk. I turned on my heel and started in the direction of the revolving door. My heart was going so fast I couldn’t breathe.
The cops had tipped off the hotel! They would probably notify the big sap at the elevators. But I wasn’t having any. No thanks, sister! I pushed through the doors. I arrived out on the sidewalk in a cold sweat. People were moving about me. I started for the corner. Then I made a run for a cab. I got in and slammed the door.
The driver turned around and stared at me.
If I don’t give him an address he’ll think it’s fishy. If I just say “drive” he’ll think I’m running from somebody.
I gave him the address of Jill’s apartment. I didn’t know why. I wasn’t even thinking now. I sat back, and tried to pretend I was a human being. The cab angled out of its place by the curb. I watched the sidewalk. I saw the big detective blustering through the crowd toward the cornet Sweat dripped off my face.
The cab crawled into a space in the stopped traffic, waiting for the signal. We were parallel with the corner. We had traveled at the same speed the cop was walking. He stood at the corner now, looking around. He wasn’t three feet from me! His hands were on his hips and his coat was thrown back. I could see the.45 in his gun holster. He had been chewing gum and he took the wad out of his mouth and flicked it to the gutter.
He glanced toward the cab just as we started up. We shot across the street, the driver trying to beat the other cars in the traffic line-up, grinding hell out of the gears. I looked through the back window. The cop was crossing the street. He hadn’t seen me! There were a lot of Christmas lights and a mob of people.
We careened into a right turn and rolled around the bend, up to Franklin.
For a single moment I had the uncanny feeling that I had lived this scene before. And then it came to me, and I escaped out of time.
I was in my own car, on my way to see Vicky. Vicky and I would go on a date and we’d have a fine evening. We’d argue about where we were going to have dinner, because we could never decide. There must have been a thousand places but we could never pick one romantic enough, and we’d drive and drive until our stomachs ached with terrible emptiness, and then we’d end up in some shabby café on Vermont. There’d be candlelight, and second-rate people, and champagne cocktails for only one twenty-five. But the steaks would be delicious, cooked just right, and Vicky would laugh, the way she used to laugh.
Vicky, who killed you? Who in the name of God could want to kill you? We were never meant for the tabloids, baby.
The cab stopped in front of the apartment. I had the right change out and dropped it into the driver’s hand. He opened the door for me. I crossed the little walk, and into the apartment foyer out of habit. There was a boy on the switchboard, and no one else around.
The switchboard kid plugged in Jill’s phone and announced me.
“She says come right up.”
“Is there anyone else there? Any man, I mean?”
“No,” he said. “At least I didn’t see anyone.” I could take a chance! I had to see her!
I couldn’t go away without that. I went up the stairs three at a time, and then down the hall. I knocked at the door.
Ed Cornell opened it.
16
HE DIDN’T LOOK any different, just tired. The old derby was shoved back a little, and the white skin of his face seemed dead. He was so frail that his vest hung loose, too big for him. His eyes were dull. There was no light of victory in them, no surprise. It was as though he had expected me to show up.
“Hello,” he said.
A big, heavy-shouldered plain clothes man stepped out from around the cornet He moved up, jerked my wrists together. There was a click, and I was wearing handcuffs. I looked down at them. The big detective backed up and leaned against the wall, watching me. He made a sucking sound against his teeth, and stuck a toothpick between his lips. I glanced from him back to Ed Cornell.
“This is it, mister,” he said.
“But, listen—”
“You’re to be held without bail. I’ve arranged that. The trial will commence almost at once—quietly. The studios want no publicity. You’ll be in the death house before—”
”Listen, how—did you know—I was coming here?”
I felt as though I needed crutches to prop me up. I was too sick for argument.
“I know everything you’re going to do,” Ed Cornell said. He talked in the old way, that dry, nasal voice, the tone of which never changed. “I know you like a book, mister. There’s nothing about you I don’t know. You and Vicky Lynn.”
I was whispering. “Honest, Cornell. Honest, I didn’t kill her!”
“No—of course not!”
He started coughing. He coughed into a handkerchief. He stuck the handkerchief back in his pocket. He was a sick man. He didn’t have any strength at all.
“We may as well get moving,” he said.
“Wait a minute.”
“For what?”
I swallowed. “I’d just like to see—” I nodded toward the door. “You won’t mind?”
Ed Cornell shot the plain clothes man a look. “We’ll be out in a minute, Harris. This guy’s my baby. I’ve got to wet nurse him a little.”
He stepped back from the door then, and motioned with his head for me to go in.
When I was inside Ed Cornell closed the door and leaned against it. I came into the room with my arms in a V, the way my wrists were linked.
Jill sat limply in a big cushioned chair. Her face was deathly white, and her hair looked yellow. She wore a green dress, and green sandals. Her face came up, and her eyes searched mine. We just looked at one another. There was in her look misery and compassion and tenderness. The silence was terrible. On the street below a truck was goin
g by. Ed Cornell began to talk. He was still at the door behind me.
“It wasn’t her fault … the kid sending you up. We told him what to say when you came in.”
See, her eyes said, see, darling?
“I would have nabbed you on the studio lot,” Cornell went on, “but the cops have a deal with film executives. They don’t want any arrests on the lot, or even near it. They have trouble enough with the press. You know how it is.” He paused. “But I suppose you thought you were smart. I guess maybe you thought you were getting away with something …”
Jill was motionless, immobile, watching me. God, she’s beautiful!
“So I sent one of the messengers to say I was looking for you. If you stopped to reason … no cop about to make an arrest would announce it like that. I simply wanted to get you off the lot. You were a cinch to either come here or go to the hotel. We had you both places. I know you, mister. You wouldn’t have skipped town without—”
”Shuddup!” I said.
Jill’s eyes were watching mine. I spoke to her.
“You—you don’t believe him, do you?”
“No.”
“You believe me? You believe I’m innocent, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And I swear to you it’s true!”
“But he says—you haven’t got a chance.”
“No.” I turned on Cornell. It didn’t seem to matter so much now. “This guy’s so smart!”
I waited, and Ed Cornell watched me. I didn’t take my eyes off him. But I was talking to Jill.
“Haven’t you heard about him? He gets perfectly marvelous cases into court. Foolproof. He knows all about chains of evidence and temperamental D. A.‘s.” I sucked in my breath. The handcuffs cut into my wrists, and I could feel my pulse throbbing against the iron. “What have you got, Cornell? Tell me what you’ve got. Not theory, understand. But material proof! You haven’t got any of that, have you? You’ve just got a swell story. Fine, phony logic for the jury.”
“Do you think I’m trying to railroad you?”
“That’s exactly what I think.”
