Songs in the Key of Death

by William Bankier

  “Slow down. Pull off over there, between the lights. Here.”

  Dolan switched off and sat, trembling, sweating ice-water. “If you want me to stay away from Carmen, you’ve got it. I was just with my wife—we’re planning on getting back together.”

  “It’s Carmen staying away from you. She’ll never do it, no matter what I tell her. She’s a bad little girl. It’s vital that I prevent her having her own way. The kid is spoiled rotten.” Alvin leaned forward. “Now look at this. I want you to see something.” He held the knife blade in front of Dolan’s face. The thick fist, the muscular wrist formed an unbreakable grip that trembled slightly. The blade itself gleamed—at least seven inches long, a streak of oil on the honed edge. “If you yell. If you run. If you do anything but as I say, this goes into your gut and I turn it.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Dolan whimpered.”Jesus.”

  “Get out of the car. Slowly.”

  Hopkins was out and waiting for him on the pavement, took his arm as he slammed the door and led the old ballplayer away from the light and down a pathway smelling of ripe earth. Furtive movement occurred at intervals in the shadows. “This is where the Gays hang out,” Alvin said. “We’re not alone.”

  They came to a silent clearing. Dolan could make out the surroundings, could see the shape of Alvin Hopkins as he was forced around to face him. “You’ll be robbed and stabbed a lot. They have these crazy killings here all the time. But you’ve behaved, so I’m not going to hurt you. This blade is razor-sharp. I’ll cut your throat—you won’t even feel it. Then I’ll do the rest. Believe me, it won’t hurt.”

  Casey Dolan found the desperate courage to raise his voice “Not going to hurt me?” he screamed. “Bloody hell, you’re killing me!”

  Alvin moved swiftly, turned Dolan, lifted his chin, and swung the knife. And he was right about that important thing—Dolan didn’t even feel it.

  Six months passed, during which Carmen Hopkins stayed late every night at the radio station. She told her brother she was writing a novel. He didn’t believe her, he thought she was messing around with Dolan’s replacement. But try as he would, however often he popped in unexpectedly, he always found her at the old typewriter, knocking hell out of the keys.

  Then it was finished and she began coming home after work, eating whatever he put in front of her, then watching television until signoff. It was agreeable in a way, a nice routine which Alvin appreciated. But she was putting on weight and had stopped doing anything with her hair, which gave him an uneasy feeling. In fact, by the end of the year she was looking more like a fat sloven than his sexy little sister.

  “You should take a look at yourself in the mirror,” he said to her one evening.

  “You should burn in hell,” was her calm response.

  The letter from Toronto came one Saturday morning while Carmen was still in bed. She received little mail, but whatever arrived with her name on it, Alvin opened and read. This one was first-class, typewritten envelope, a company name in the corner—Tandem Publishing Ltd. The letter was brief. It said:

  “Dear Miss Hopkins:

  Thank you for letting us see your novel, Hey, Don’t You Remember? It needs a bit of tightening but it is a powerful work and we would like to publish it. Is it autobiographical? The character of the psychopathic brother, Al, is particularly well drawn, while the doomed love affair between the young girl and the broadcaster is poignant, to say the least.

  Can you come to Toronto and talk to us? I’ll look forward to an early reply—”

  Holding letter and envelope in one hand, Alvin shuffled across the room in his broken slippers, drew back the curtain, and went through into the musty cave where Carmen lay asleep on her cot. She was breathing slowly, a hand resting below her chin, wrinkled thumb not far from her open mouth. When it used to be his job to watch her as a child, Alvin had repeatedly dragged the wet thumb free, trying to break her of the habit. Another failure.

  Now he had a new problem. His little sister was going to become a published author. She would be rich and famous and a guest on TV chat shows, where she would discuss the background of her book. Or not. It was up to him and he would have to make up his mind soon.

  Counting her shallow breaths, eyeing the pillow on the floor beside the cot, Alvin smiled with deep affection. “Carmen, Carmen,” he said softly, “What in the world am I going to do with you?”

  Silently, in the Dead of Night

  Originally published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, January 1984.

  THE TELEPHONE RANG ON THE BEDSIDE TABLE AND JARRED Birtles awake. He picked it up and listened.

  “Norman?”

  “What time is it?” The dryness in his mouth was not unpleasant. He had taken just the right amount of whisky but not enough sleep.

  “Almost eight. I thought you’d be up.”

  “I don’t go in till one. Charlie opens the place today.” He stared at the window and the grey autumn light. “It’s as if I’m still delivering the mail.”

  “I’m sorry.” But she didn’t sound sorry. She sounded as bright as her lacquered hair. Birtles could imagine Anitra Colahan dressed and groomed as for a tango competition, earrings sparkling, short skirt flaring over several crinolines. “I missed you last night,” she said. “I thought you were coming over.”

  “We had trouble balancing the cash after we closed. And then Charlie offered me a lift home.” Only partly a lie. The cash had been a problem but he ended up taking a cab from the rank outside Wimbledon Station.

  “I would have driven you home.”

  “I don’t want you on the roads at that time of night.” What Birtles really didn’t want was to be stuck in the death seat speeding along London streets after midnight. Anitra had taken the driving test three times before passing. Her style at the wheel was risky and spectacular, much like her performance on the dance floor.

  “Can you come by the studio tonight?” she asked. “I have something to tell you. Something nice.”

  “O.K. I finish at six.”

  “Lovely. We can go to the Taj. It’s good news, Norman.”

  Birtles checked the bathroom window-ledge but found no note. When Barbie wanted to be called in the morning, she would leave a page from her notebook pinned under the talcum-powder tin and the breezy words, the erratic left-handed scrawl always gave Birtles a lift. The absence of a note probably meant his daughter would be sleeping till noon. Which meant he wouldn’t see her before he went to the poolroom. One more day gone from the diminishing week before she took off for Canada.

  Birtles went downstairs and along the hall toward the kitchen, passing Barbie’s bedroom on the way. The door was open. What he saw stopped him cold. The room was empty, the backpack gone, her makeup, brush, and comb vanished from the dresser. The bed was in disarray but that was normal—he couldn’t tell if she had slept here last night.

  Perhaps she’d left a note somewhere in the room. Birtles looked around but found no message among the clutter of pop-music magazines, soft-drink tins, overloaded ashtrays, and the accumulation of discarded clothing.

  There was a coffee mug on the bedside table. Birtles picked it up carefully—sometimes they were half full of murky liquid. This one was dry but there was a crumpled envelope tucked inside it.

  He unfolded the envelope, found it unaddressed. Some greenish-brown grains of leaf fell into the palm of his hand. They looked like something from one of his spice jars. Printed in the corner of the envelope was: Hotel Candide, Inverness Avenue, London W2.

  Carrying his discovery into the kitchen, Birtles put the kettle on, made toast, made coffee, ate and drank standing while he tried to handle his feelings. The sight of Barbie’s room deserted had shaken him. He was not looking forward to her going away. When his wife died six years ago, he had kept going, for Barbie’s sake. Part of him had wanted to convert what little he had into cash and head off to some hot country where his main duty would have been to keep himself drunk.

  Instead, he had becom
e a meal-maker and housekeeper. Well, it was an achievement, something to be proud of, and Barbie’s confident character was the result. His example had taught her how to soldier on. Now, apparently, she had packed up her possessions in her old kit bag and hit the long, long trail. Without even saying goodbye.

  No, that wasn’t possible. Barbie with her curly head and the sweet baby face and her silent understanding of what he was going through in losing her would never do a moonlight flit. Fear hit Birtles in the stomach like a draught of acid. Something had happened to her. She was in trouble.

  It was early to ring Jeremy but Birtles couldn’t wait. The boy came on the phone coughing like a veteran. “Sorry to disturb you but I was wondering if you saw Barbie last night.”

  “We didn’t, Mr. Birtles. The band was playing at the Ploughman. If she’d been in, I’d have known about it.”

  “O.K. Sorry to wake you.”

  “Barbie hasn’t come around much the last few months. She’s saving her money.”

  “I know. I’ve had to put up with her almost every night. Like an old married couple.” Birtles kept two trays handy and produced supper regularly in front of the TV. They watched everything, not reacting much, in comforting balance there side by side in the upholstered chairs drawn round to face the screen.

  “If you see her, ask her to call home.”

  At the poolroom, only three of the nineteen tables were in use. It was too nice a day for people to be inside shooting snooker. Charlie was behind the counter serving the occasional beer or Coke, answering the phone, reading a tabloid of few words and many pictures. It was pointless for two of them to be on duty on such a quiet afternoon, so Birtles suggested Charlie take off.

  “I’ll go in a minute.” Charlie went on reading. Birtles strode back and forth, his rangy figure looming large over the counter. When he had been employed by the Post Office, before the economy cuts made him redundant, more than one customer told him they always knew when the mail was on the way, he was so easy to spot coming up the street. Now he mopped clean a spotless surface, snapped his fingers, opened and closed the refrigerator cabinet.

  “You’re giving me the creeps, Norman. Settle down.”

  Suddenly, at the end of the room where the card table was situated, a chair was kicked back, players were on their feet, arms extended across the table grabbing shirtfronts. Without a word, Birtles reached for the light panel and snapped the switch controlling the lamp over the table. He raised the counter gate and strode to the scene, head on one side, arms loose, the picture of a man with his patience exhausted. He recognized the troublemaker and faced him.

  “You! Out!” Said while pointing at the door.

  “This geezer’s won all the money and now he wants to quit.”

  “I said when I sat down I’d have to leave—”

  Birtles cut through the argument. “Walk to the door. If I have to say it again, you won’t touch many steps on the way down.”

  Back behind the counter, his hands trembled as he tried to open a box of pool chalk. The cubes went all over the counter, some on the floor. Charlie watched him. “Are you all right?”

  “A little nervous.”

  “You were awfully rough for a first offense.”

  “A little nervous today.”

  Charlie folded his paper and took the afternoon off. When he reported back at six, Birtles washed up and then walked on down the Broadway to the dance salon. He climbed more stairs and emerged in the ballroom. Anitra was on the floor with her client, taking him through the basic movements of the cha-cha. As they vamped across acres of polished hardwood, their images were reflected in a series of mirrors.

  Birtles took a chair against the wall. The client had the grace of a piano mover but Anitra managed to make him look competent. She glistened in her freshly done peach hair, her swirling skirt, those shiny tapered legs ending in blue sequined high-heeled pumps. “One and two, cha-cha-cha,” she commanded while the recording of a brassy Latin band played “Tea For Two.” She spotted Birtles and blew him a kiss.

  The client left at last after an exchange of money and a flurry of cheek-kissing. Anitra came and sat beside Birtles, kicking off her shoes and slipping into a pair that looked less like they had been built by a custom-car maker. “Bless his heart,” she said, “he’ll never be a dancer but it keeps me working.”

  “What’s your good news?” Birtles asked, putting on a smile.

  “You look tired. Are you all right?”

  “You said it was special.”

  “They’re making me manager here. That means I’ll get a regular salary in addition to the fees for my lessons.”

  “Congratulations.” She was expecting to be kissed. He leaned towards that rouged cheek, inhaled the lilac scent, kissed her. That was the trouble—she was warm and soft and if he wasn’t careful she would become a part of him and then she would leave or die and that part would be torn out without benefit of anaesthetic.

  “I think you should let me treat you to dinner,” she said.

  “Never refuse a free meal.”

  They went next door to the Taj Mahal and ordered onion bahjis, Madras curry and chapatis, and a bottle of white wine. Late in the meal, Birtles found the courage to say: “Barbie wasn’t there this morning. Her room was empty, everything gone as if she’d moved out. But she’d never do that without telling me.”

  “I knew something was the matter. When is she supposed to leave for Canada?”

  “End of next week.”

  “No note in her room? Nothing?”

  Birtles took the crumpled envelope out of his pocket and put it on the table. “I found this.”

  “Hotel Candide.” Anitra studied the few grains of leaf. “Looks like something the kids smoke.”

  “I suppose so. They tell me it’s no worse than this.” He drank some wine. “I’m wondering if it’s a clue to where she might have gone. The envelope, I mean.”

  “Are you thinking of calling the police?”

  “They wouldn’t want to know. A girl Barbie’s age, they’d assume she’s gone off with friends. Especially since she’s saved up a pile of money and had a trip planned.”

  “How much has she saved?”

  “Over six hundred pounds. It was all in traveller’s checks. She was ready to go.”

  Anitra poured the grains back into the envelope. “Where do you suppose she got this?”

  “I’m not sure. There was a girl came to see her the other day but she didn’t stay long. A girl from up the hill in the village. Barbie told me her name—Lucy Feather.”

  Birtles remembered the girl’s arrival at the front door one morning a couple of days ago. Barbie was still in bed. “I’m Lucy Feather. Did Barbie tell you I’d be coming by? She has a book I’d like to borrow.”

  “Yes, she mentioned you. Come in, you may have to wake her up. It’s the door at the end of the hall.” Birtles watched the movement of her skintight jeans. She was a solid girl with hair three shades of blonde. Her tweed jacket was expensive; she was not one of the dole-queue layabouts who comprised most of Barbie’s list of friends.

  Birtles went into the kitchen. Through the wall he heard their voices but not their words. The conversation was not exactly amicable. Barbie’s final statement sounded like an invitation for Lucy Feather to get the hell out of there.

  The bedroom door slammed. Birtles hurried into the hall and accompanied the visitor to the front door. “Got it, thanks.” She waved a paperback at him—he recognized it as an in-depth report on a psychopath named Eric Merlot who had drugged and murdered a dozen young travelers in the Far East over a period of years.

  When she was gone, Birtles had rapped on Barbie’s door and put his head inside the stuffy room.

  “Everything O.K.?”

  The curly head turned on the pillow and Barbie gave Birtles that reassuring, almost patronizing smile that reminded him of his mother. Who was forty-eight and who was nineteen here? “She wants me to go to India with her instead of Ca
nada. I told her no thanks.”

  “I heard you.”

  “All right, I told her to get stuffed. I don’t get my kicks from catching dysentery.”

  “I though she was a friend.”

  “She’s crazy. Her parents threw her out of the house and she came back when they were out and set fire to her room. I can do without friends like her.”

  Anitra spooned up syrup from her dish of lychees as she listened to Birtles’ account of the Lucy Feather visit. At the end, she said: “Is it possible she persuaded Barbie to go with her after all?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Kids are impulsive. They might have got high last night and decided to head east. Maybe there was a coach leaving late, or somebody with a car. Barbie didn’t want to wake you, so she got her stuff and took off. As soon as they come to a phone, she’ll get through to you.”

  “It’s a theory. But it doesn’t sound like my daughter.” Birtles smoothed the envelope and studied the hotel address by the light of the small candle in its red globe.

  “All right,” Anitra said, “I know what’s on your mind. Come on, I’ll drive you to Inverness Avenue...”

  Thanks to some fine defensive driving by other motorists, Anitra Colahan made the trip safely. She controlled her second-hand Mini like a rally driver, shoulders up, hands locked on the wheel at the “ten minutes to two” position, and the choreography of her feet on and off the pedals was constant. Birtles braced himself, one hand on the door handle, the other flat against the dash.

  “Relax,” Anitra said. “Everything’s under control.”

  “Let me out at the traffic lights. I’ll get a taxi.”

  “All right, I’ll slow down.” She sulked for a few blocks but couldn’t contain her aggression any longer than that. Soon she was cutting in and out again, carving up the passive drivers.

  Inverness Avenue turned out to be a short street of Edwardian houses not far from Kensington Gardens. Almost without exception, the buildings had been converted into hotels. Anitra found the Candide and parked across the road.

  “What do we do now?”