Black Is the Fashion for Dying

by Jonathan Latimer

  “Don’t want … doctor.”

  “We’ve got to call somebody.”

  The faint smile, at once quizzical and deprecatory, curled Graves’ lips again. “All dead …”

  “Must be someone, Ash.”

  “Only two …” Under the glazed blue eyes the lips trembled painfully. “Brother. Died this morning. In London. Leukemia. And Caresse …” Graves paused, swallowed convulsively. “Had it coming … but sorry.”

  “Did you kill her?”

  Graves shook his head. On the bed, propped up by pillows, the terrycloth robe wound about him like a toga, he resembled a Roman senator.

  “Do you know who did?” Gordon asked.

  Graves didn’t seem to hear him. “Strange creature.” His eyes closed, his voice grew indistinct. “Love or hate. Don’t know which.” He went on slowly, as though he were falling asleep. “Never got over … first feeling. Twenty … twenty-five years ago. Still see her … as then. Never so beautiful … an ivory goddess.”

  He lay still, his face blank, and then spoke again, but Blake caught only a few words: “All these years … loved … her.” Then, except for a dripping of water in the bathroom, there was silence.

  Finally Gordon touched Graves’ arm, said, “You still on tap?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to see Caresse’s killer caught?”

  “Nothing … to me.”

  “It is to Lisa Carson.”

  “Ahri … in picture?”

  “The police are holding her.”

  “She didn’t … kill.”

  “That’s what Blake here thinks.”

  Opening, Graves’ eyes focused fuzzily on Blake. “Writer fellow?”

  “Lisa is his ivory goddess.”

  If this made any impression Graves’ face, the red color dwindling to pink splotches on his cheeks, didn’t show it. He looked at Blake thoughtfully. “Start of picture … went with Caresse.”

  “She didn’t like me,” Blake said.

  “No. Only liked one writer. Funny thing. Poet. Funny name. Pixley. Edgar Allan Pixley.” Graves’ voice was growing indistinct again. “Coughed life away. Loved him. Tended him. Buried him.”

  His voice trailed off. From the shower came the monotonous drip-drip of water. Gordon eyed the worn face, forehead, eyelids, puffy jowls lemon-yellow now, said softly, “Brandy. Nembutal. God knows what else.” He eyed Blake. “Any ideas?”

  “No.”

  Gordon touched Graves’ shoulder again. “You can’t help us?”

  “Help … how?”

  “Find the killer.”

  “Edgar Allan Pixley.”

  “You said he was dead.”

  “Think … might be key.”

  “Why?”

  “Something Caresse told me … last night.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Said legacy from Pixley … kept her options picked up.”

  To Blake, listening from the foot of the bed, the mumbled words added up to nothing. He wondered if he had missed something. Apparently Gordon felt the same way.

  “What did she mean by that?” he asked.

  “Was talking … about magic ledgers.”

  “Magic ledgers?”

  Graves nodded drowsily. “Magic ledgers … filled with Pixley’s magic words. Told me … after Fabro left house.”

  “Fabro was at her house last night?”

  “Heard them. Talking.”

  Excitement sharpened Gordon’s voice. “What were they talking about?”

  “Option.” Graves took a long sighing breath. “Picked up by magic ledgers. Legacy from Pixley. Suggest … try find.”

  “But how?”

  “Bedroom.”

  “Caresse’s bedroom?”

  “Yes.” Graves sighed, turned his face away, closed his eyes.

  “Tired. Wish … sleep.”

  “All right. Sleep.” Gordon studied him dubiously. “But no more foolishness, Ash.”

  “All finished.”

  “You promise?”

  Deep, regular breathing made Graves’ chest rise and fall. All finished was apparently right. Gordon went into the bathroom, came out with the Colt automatic. “Just in case,” he said, putting it in his coat pocket.

  “You forgot the brandy.”

  “So I did.” Gordon got the brandy bottle, the dark glass still filmed with water from the shower. “Drink first, and then we’ll call somebody.”

  In the living room Gordon took two pewter mugs from the bookcase cabinet, poured brandy into them. The musty, grape-skin odor constricted Blake’s throat, but he forced himself to swallow, hoping the liquor would still the uneasy fluttering of his stomach. Gordon drank, too, and then took the Colt automatic out of his pocket.

  “Should be a Webley,” he said, putting the pistol on a table. “Poetic justice, shoot himself with a Webley.”

  “Do you think he would have?”

  “I don’t know. Probably doesn’t know himself.” Gordon poured himself more brandy. “Confused, I’d say.”

  “I’m confused, too.”

  “Next step is to get unconfused.”

  “Step where?”

  “Caresse’s house.”

  Blake eyed Gordon uneasily. His tone of voice indicated everything was going according to plan. Evidently he felt the backward school of detection was functioning perfectly. And at that, Blake had to admit, it had probably accomplished one thing. It had probably saved Ashton Graves. He gulped down the rest of his brandy.

  “Thought of anybody to call yet?”

  Gordon nodded over his mug. “Geoff Parsons. Served with Ash in Africa. Stout fella.” He put down the mug. “Where’s the telephone?”

  “There was one in the bedroom.”

  Gordon started across the bedroom. “We’ll hang around until Parsons—”

  The sound was like a sonic boom. It rattled doors and windows. Only instead of from the sky, it came from the back bedroom. They listened, not moving, not breathing. The sonic sound was not repeated, but presently a dripping began, a plop—plop—plop of a viscid fluid on a wood floor, molasses-slow at first but picking up tempo until the plops overlapped and merged into silence.

  Richard Blake II

  From the edge of the swimming pool irregular chunks of flagstone circled over spongy dichondra to the white Mediterranean house. To the left of the house, far below, sparkled the lights of Westwood and Culver City and Inglewood, black splotches marking the uninhabited hills. Behind the pool, trees loomed against the night sky. There was no wind, but Blake, standing with Gordon at the pool’s edge, felt cool air push against the back of his neck. The air made his flesh prickle.

  Gordon started towards the house, counting the chunks of flagstone. When he got to ten he halted, bent over and lifted the flagstone at his feet. He picked up something from the exposed earth, let the flagstone fall and went on towards the house, his feet noiseless on the dichondra.

  By one of a series of sliding glass doors he halted again, thrust forward the object in his hand. There was a sound of metal striking metal. He pushed open the door, pushed past the heavy curtain back of it. Blake waited uneasily by the curtain until a light came on over what he saw was Caresse’s loggia bar. Gordon was back of the bar.

  “Brandy?” he asked

  “I don’t want anything.”

  Gordon poured brandy into two glasses, pushed one across the bar. “No good brooding.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  Gordon emptied his glass. His eyes glazed and he said, “Waaa!” Then he said, “Made up his mind.”

  “We should have stayed in the bedroom.”

  “Still would have done it.” Gordon tilted the brandy bottle over his glass. “Gas. Sleeping pills. A rope. A window.” He drank from the glass. “Six hundred and twenty-three major ways of killing yourself. And hundreds more nobody’s thought of yet.” He drank again. “Done it come hell or high water.”

  “I’m not so sure.�
��

  “Don’t think about it.”

  Easy to say, Blake reflected somberly. Don’t think about it. Only it was impossible not to. It wasn’t like Caresse’s death. That had seemed unreal, like a character being killed in a play. It hadn’t really touched him, except for the first shock. But Graves’ death was different. It was as though he’d lost somebody close to him. It was an irrational feeling, this hollow sense of loss, but there it was. Something not to think about.

  Faintly, through his not-thoughts, he heard Gordon saying, “… after we called the cops?”

  “What?”

  “You’re not worried because we didn’t wait?”

  “No. That wouldn’t have done any good.”

  “Landed us in the clink.”

  “Where we’re likely to land now.” Blake looked at Gordon’s face, flushed from the brandy. “What are we doing here? And how’d you know there was a key out there?”

  “Caresse told me.”

  “You mean you and Caresse …?”

  “No.” Gordon smiled ruefully. “Never got around to it.” He peered thoughtfully at his glass, then emptied it. “Not important, though. Important thing is to review.”

  “Review what?”

  “You going to drink that?”

  Gordon, Blake saw, was looking at his glass. He saw the brandy bottle was empty. “No,” he said. Gordon took the glass.

  “Triple play,” he said. “Pixley to Caresse to Fabro.” He rotated the glass, set the brandy to spinning. “Backward school of detection, so we start with Fabro. Why’d he keep Caresse under contract? Friendship? Loyalty?” He shook his head. “Sell out his own mother, if he ever had one.”

  “Then why?”

  “She had something on the bastard.”

  Blake felt a stir of interest. “What?”

  “Pixley’s legacy.” Gordon took a tentative sip from the glass. “Magic ledgers … filled with magic words.”

  “But that was nonsense. Graves was drunk.”

  “So am I.” Gordon drank the rest of the brandy. “But not talking nonsense.”

  Blake eyed him dubiously. “Pixley was a poet. What would poetry …?”

  “Have to find out.” Carefully, Gordon set the glass on the bar. He picked up the brandy bottle, shook it, put it down again. “Like brandy.” He came around the bar, holding to it for support. “Like bedrooms, too.” He turned to face the double doors at the far end of the loggia. “Bedroom where ledgers are.”

  Eyes fixed on the double doors, he started to walk an imaginary line between them and his feet. Halfway to the doors he halted by a small table, bent over it. Blake felt sure he was falling, but he came erect again, holding a silver-framed portrait. He squinted at the portrait, read aloud:

  “‘Let my words rise from my ashes, Caresse, to sing my love!’”

  Coming closer, Blake saw that the glass front of the frame had been shattered. Gordon removed the frame’s back, took out the photograph inside, held it out to Blake. “Edgar Allan Pixley,” he said.

  “I see.”

  “Looks like William Faulkner.”

  “Maybe it is.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Faulkner?”

  “Edgar Allan Pixley.” Gordon handed the photograph to Blake. “Keep.”

  “What for?”

  “See if writing in ledgers is same.”

  Turning, Gordon fastened his eyes on the double doors again, carefully walked the imaginary line to them. Blake followed, putting the photograph in his coat pocket. At the other end of the hallway, opposite the living room, were stairs. Gordon walked another imaginary line to them. The stairs were dark and they curved in wide half-circle. Gordon put a tentative foot on the first step, put his weight on it, slowly started upwards.

  Like mountain climbers ascending a perilous cliff, they went step by step into the gathering blackness. Below Blake could see the hallway, dimly lit by reflected light from the loggia. Above he could see nothing. Gordon edged to one side, found the wrought-iron bannister.

  “Dizzy,” he said. “You go ahead.”

  Blake hesitated, uneasily sorting out his thoughts. He had no real faith in the ledger theory. Even if there were ledgers in Caresse’s bedroom, which he doubted, he could think of no way poetry could be connected with Fabro. Still, since he had come this far, he might as well go all the way.

  He paused again on the second-floor landing. Directly across from the stairs was a rectangle of lesser darkness. The rectangle was a partially open door. He went through it, expecting to see windows, but the room was like a cave. Fumbling in his pocket for matches, he moved forward, struck something with his right knee. Something made a muffled thud on the carpet by his feet. He lit a match, saw what his knee had encountered was a glass-topped table. By his feet on a white rug were strewn cigarettes, and by them was the silver cigarette box he had knocked off the table. He swung from the table to examine the rest of the room, saw something staring at him with shiny black eyes.

  Startled, he stepped back, and the match went out.

  He waited, but nothing moved. Cautiously, he lit another match, saw that the eyes belonged to an enormous white teddy-bear propped against pillows at the head of a king-size bed. Beside the bed were white drapes, obviously drawn over windows. Lamps stood on white pearwood tables on either side of the bed. He went past the teddy-bear to the table on the right side, turned on the lamp.

  “All clear, Josh,” he called.

  He turned back to the room, and as he did so he saw a Chinese chest. Of carved teak and brass, it sat against the rear wall by a partially open door through which he could see a mirrored dressing table. He walked towards the chest, noting with surprise three burnt matches on the white rug in front of it. Puzzled, he bent over the chest, fingered the padlocked brass hasp that fastened lid to side. At his touch the hasp came loose from the side and he saw where the wood had been scarred by the bar or whatever had been used to pry the hasp free.

  Hot metal grazed his head. Back of his eyes a skyrocket exploded, sent out millions of red stars. The stars flew upwards, became dancing motes of pinkish light that vanished into outer space. Something soft pressed his cheek. It was the rug. He was lying on it by the Chinese chest. He heard a distant padding sound and tried to sit up, but it was like fighting Jupiter’s gravity. He heard Gordon yell, “Got you!” and a shrill sound like a rabbit’s scream. He heard a tremendous crash, followed by a series of lesser crashes.

  Jupiter’s gravity became earth’s gravity. He got to his feet, feeling pain stab his skull, and staggered through the door to the head of the stairs. In the hallway below a figure was tugging at the front door. The door came open and the figure disappeared.

  He started down the stairs. Gordon, sprawled face down on the hall floor, pushed himself up with one arm, with the other pointed dramatically at the open door and cried, “He went thataway!”

  Outside the house, looking down at the driveway, Blake could see nothing except shrubs and crushed stone. Then, behind acacias masking the road below, he heard an engine start, heard a meshing of gears, heard pebbles and sand hiting asphalt. The car, still hidden by the acacias, plunged downhill towards the lights of Westwood. It rounded a turn with a scream of rubber. The motor noise diminished, was replaced by a tree-frog’s croak.

  In the hall Gordon was sitting up, his back propped against the bottom stair. “Got away, eh?”

  “In South America by now,” Blake said.

  “Knocked me ass over tea kettle.”

  “You get a look at him?”

  Gordon shook his head. “Wasn’t Fabro, though. Didn’t smell bad enough.”

  “You think he was after the ledgers?”

  “Got ’em,” Gordon said. “Felt ’em when I grabbed him.”

  Blake began, “That means Ashton Graves …” and broke off as a siren moaned on Sunset or some street below. Heads cocked to the open door, they listened. The siren moaned again, closer this time.

  “Only on
e chance now,” Gordon said hurriedly. “The naked blonde.”

  “The one who—”

  “Right.”

  Another siren with a deeper voice joined the first siren.

  “My apartment,” Gordon said. “On Miller Place Yvonne’ll find her.”

  “But what good will that do?”

  “Explain later.”

  The sirens, coming up fast now, sounded like angry jungle cats.

  “Back way,” Gordon said “Quick.”

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  “I can’t.”

  Blake bent over him. “Sure you can.” He reached for Gordon’s arm. Gordon knocked his hand away “Don’t touch me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Leg,” Gordon said. “God-damn thing’s broken”

  Karl Fabro

  Peering furtively around the library curtains at the driveway, white cement shimmering with a kind of ectoplasmic radiance, he experienced a feeling of time warp. As though he and the driveway and the waiting house were parts of a film seen in a darkened projection room where, when the lights came on, he would make his customary comments to the deferential faces around him and then drive home with Dawes to the pale driveway he was now watching.

  An escape fantasy, he knew. A product of his nerves. Like the watching Oscar on his office shelf. He was pulled taut, dangerously taut.

  Yet how could he help but be pulled taut? After such an evening as this bad been, coming on top of everything else. He would remember it forever. Irene another watcher, searching his face with questioning eyes whenever she thought he wasn’t looking. He could have cheerfully killed her a dozen times. And the others, too. Ed Klauber with his big voice and bigger laugh and his phony sympathy over Caresse. Dolly, drunk as usual to the point of actual paralysis. Charlie Blancard, the nanny producer. T. J.’s friend. A strip-tease homosexual who’d never quite mustered up the courage to cross the line. And that newest protégé of his. Bren? Brown? Bruin? Anyway, a radio writer from Chicago. A droll turd-kicker with a line of hayseed jokes and the cold eyes of a gangster.

  And if being penned up for hours with five people he had come to hate with an intensity that actually frightened him, and losing seven hundred and eighty-five dollars at gin to boot, wasn’t justification enough for mass homicide, there was the phone call.