The 1st Deadly Sin

by Lawrence Sanders

  “Okay.”

  “And your wife?”

  “Fine. What’s on your mind?”

  “I’d like to talk to you. Now. It’s not about the sales checks. I know you’re working away at them. It’s something else. If I can find a cab, I could be at your place in half an hour.”

  “Sure. Come ahead. I’ve got something great to show you.”

  “Oh? I’ll be right down.”

  Evelyn Case met him at the door. She was flushed, happy, and looked about 15 years old, in faded jeans, torn sneakers, one of her husband’s shirts tied about her waist. Unexpectedly, she went up on her toes to kiss his cheek.

  “Well!” he said. “I thank you.”

  “We’re working on the sales checks, Captain,” she said breathlessly. “Both of us. Every night. And Cal taught me what the stock numbers mean. And sometimes I come home during my lunch hour and help him.”

  “Good,” he smiled, patting her shoulder. “That’s fine. And you look just great.”

  “Wait till you see Cal!”

  The apartment was brighter now, and smelled reasonably clean. The windows of Case’s bedroom were washed, there were fresh paper drapes, a pot of ivy on his cart, a new rag rug on the floor.

  But the cartons of Outside Life sales checks were everywhere, stacked high against walls in the hallway, living room, bedroom. Delaney had to thread his way through, walking sideways in a few places, sidling through the open bedroom doorway from which, he noted, the window shade had been removed.

  “Hi,” Calvin Case called, gesturing around. “How do you like this?”

  He was waving at an incredible contraption, a framework of two-inch iron pipe that surrounded his bed and hung over it, like the bare bones of a canopy. And there were steel cables, weights, handles, pulleys, gadgets.

  Delaney stared in astonishment. “What the hell is it?” he asked.

  Case laughed pleased at his wonderment.

  “Sol Appel gave it to me. He came up to see me. The next day a guy showed up to take measurements. A few days later three guys showed up with the whole thing and just bolted it together. It’s a gym. So I can exercise from the waist up. Look at this…”

  He reached up with both hands, grabbed a trapeze that hung from wire cables. He pulled his body off the bed. The clean sheet dropped away to his waist. His naked torso was still flaccid, soft muscles trembling with his effort. He let go, let himself fall back onto the bed.

  “That’s all,” he gasped. “So far. But strength is coming back. Muscle tone. I can feel it. Now look at this…”

  Two handles hung above his head. They were attached to steel cables that ran over pulleys on the crossbar above him. The cables ran down over the length of the bed, across pulleys on the lower crossbar, and then down. They were attached to stainless steel weights.

  “See?” Case said, and demonstrated by pulling the handles down to his chest alternately: right, left, right, left. “I’m only raising the one-pound weights now,” he admitted. “But you can add up to five pounds on each cable.”

  “And when he started he couldn’t even raise the one-pound weights,” Evelyn Case said eagerly to Captain Delaney. “Next week we’re going to two-pound weights.”

  “And look at this,” Case said, showing what appeared to be a giant steel hairpin hanging from his pipe cage. “It’s for your grip. For biceps and pectorals.”

  He grasped the hairpin in both hands and tried to squeeze the two arms together, his face reddening. He barely moved them.

  “That’s fine,” Delaney said. “Just fine.”

  “The best thing is this,” Case said, and showed how a steel arm was hinged to swing out sideways from the gym. “I talked to the guys who put this thing together. They’re from some physical therapy outfit that specializes in stuff like this. Well, they sell a wheelchair with a commode built into it. I mean, you sit on a kind of a potty seat. You wheel yourself around, and when you’ve got to shit, you shit. But Jesus Christ, you’re mobile. I’m too heavy for Ev to lift me into a chair like that, but when I get my strength back, I’ll be able to move this bar out and swing onto that potty chair by myself, and swing back into bed whenever I want to. I know I’ll be able to do it. My arms and shoulders were always good. I’ve hung from my hands lots of times, and then pulled myself up.”

  “That sounds great,” Delaney said admiringly. “But don’t overdo it. I mean, take it easy at first. Build your strength up gradually.”

  “Oh sure. I know how to do it. We ordered one of those chairs, but it won’t be delivered for a couple of weeks. By that time I hope I’ll be able to flip myself in and out of bed with no sweat. The chair’s got a brake you can set so it won’t roll away from you while you’re getting into it. You realize what that means, Delaney? I’ll be able to sit up at that desk while I’m going through the sales checks. That’ll help.”

  “It surely will,” the Captain smiled. “How you doing with the booze?”

  “Okay. I haven’t stopped, but I’ve cut down—haven’t I, hon?”

  “Oh yes,” his wife nodded happily. “I know because I’m only buying about half the bottles I did before.”

  The two men laughed, and then she laughed. “Incidentally,” Case said, “the sales checks are going a lot faster than I expected.”

  “Oh? Why is that?”

  “I hadn’t realized how much of Outdoor Life’s business was in fishing and hunting gear, tennis, golf, even croquet and badminton and stuff like that. About seventy-five percent, I’d guess. So I can just take a quick glance, at the sales slip and toss it aside if it has nothing to do with mountaineering.”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear that. Can I talk to you a few minutes? Not about the sales checks. Something else. Do you feel up to it?”

  “Oh sure. I feel great. Hon, pull up a chair for the Captain.”

  “I’ll get it,” Delaney told her, and brought the straight-backed desk chair over to the bedside and sat where he could watch Case’s face.

  “A drink, Captain?”

  “All right. Thank you. With water.”

  “Hon?”

  She went out into the kitchen. The two men sat in silence a few moments.

  “What’s it all about?” Case asked finally.

  “Mountain climbers.”

  Later, in his own study, Captain Delaney took out his list, “The Suspect,” and began to add what Calvin Case had told him about mountain climbers while it was still fresh in his mind. He extrapolated on what Case had said, based on his own instinct, experience, and knowledge of why men acted the way they did.

  Under “Physical” he added items about ranginess, reach, strength of arms and shoulders, size of chest, resistance to panic. It was true Case had said mountain climbers come “in all shapes and sizes,” but he had qualified that later, and Delaney was willing to go with the percentages.

  Under “Psychological” he had a lot to write: love of the outdoors, risk as an addiction, a disciplined mind, no obvious suicide compulsion, total egotism, pushing to—what was it Case had said?—the “edge of life,” with nothing between you and death but your own strength and wit. Then, finally, a deeply religious feeling, becoming one with the universe—“one with everything.” And compared to that, everything else was “just mush.”

  Under “Additional Notes” he listed “Probably moderate drinker” and “No drugs” and “Sex relations probably after murder but not before.”

  He read and reread the list, looking for something he might have forgotten. He couldn’t find anything. “The Suspect” was coming out of the gloom, looming. Delaney was beginning to get a handle on the man, grabbing what he was, what he wanted, why he had to do what he did. He was still a shadow, smoke, but there was an outline to him now. He began to exist, on paper and in Delaney’s mind. The Captain had a rough mental image of the man’s physical appearance, and he was just beginning to guess what was going on in the fool’s mind. “The poor, sad shit,” Delaney said aloud, then shook his head angri
ly, wondering why he should feel any sympathy at all for this villain.

  He was still at it, close to 1:00 a.m., when the desk phone rang. He let it ring three times, knowing—knowing—what the call was, and dreading it. Finally he picked up the receiver.

  “Yes?” he asked cautiously.

  “Captain Delaney?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dorfman. Another one.”

  Delaney took a deep breath, then opened his mouth wide, tilted his head back, stared at the ceiling, took another deep breath.

  “Captain? Are you there?”

  “Yes. Where was it?”

  “On Seventy-fifth Street. Between Second and Third.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Identified?”

  “Yes. His shield was missing but he still had his service revolver.”

  “What?”

  “He was one of Broughton’s decoys.”

  Part VI

  1

  “I DIDN’T WANT him to suffer,” he said earnestly, showing her Bernard Gilbert’s ID card. “Really I didn’t.”

  “He didn’t suffer, dear,” she murmured, stroking his cheek. “He was unconscious, in a coma.”

  “But I wanted him to be happy!” Daniel Blank cried.

  “Of course,” she soothed. “I understand.”

  He had waited for Gilbert’s death before he had run to Celia, just as he had run to her after Lombard’s death. But this time was different. He felt a sense of estrangement, withdrawal. It seemed to him that he no longer needed her, her advice, her lectures. He wanted to savor in solitude what he had done. She said she understood, but of course she didn’t. How could she?

  They were naked in the dreadful room, dust everywhere, the silent house hovering about them. He thought he might be potent with her, wasn’t sure, didn’t care. It was of no importance.

  “The mistake was in coming from in front,” he said thoughtfully. “Perhaps the skull is stronger there, or the brain not as frail, but he fell back, and he lived for four days. I won’t do that again. I don’t want anyone to suffer.”

  “But you saw his eyes?” she asked softly.

  “Oh yes.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Surprise. Shock. Recognition. Realization. And then, at the final moment, something else…”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure. Acceptance, I think. And a kind of knowing calm. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Oh!” she said. “Oh yes! Finitude. That’s what we’re all looking for, isn’t it? The last word. Completion. Catholicism or Zen or Communism or Meaninglessness. Whatever. But Dan, isn’t it true we need it? We all need it, and will abase ourselves or enslave others to find it. But is it one for all of us, or one for each of us? Isn’t that the question? I think it’s one absolute for all, but I think the paths differ, and each must find his own way. Did I ever tell you what a beautiful body you have, darling?”

  As she spoke she had been touching him softly, arousing him slowly.

  “Have you shaved a little here? And here?”

  “What?” he asked vaguely, drugged by her caresses. “I don’t remember. I may have.”

  “Here you’re silk, oiled silk. I love the way your ribs and hip bones press through your skin, the deep curve from chest to waist, and then the flare of your hips. You’re so strong and hard, so soft and yielding. Look how long your arms are, and how wide your shoulders. And still, nipples like buds and your sweet, smooth ass. How dear your flesh is to me. Oh!”

  She murmured, still touching him, and almost against his will he responded and moved against her. Then he lay on his back, pulled her over atop him, spread his legs, raised his knees.

  “How lovely if you could come into me,” he whispered and, knowing, she made the movements he desired. “If you had a penis, too…Or better yet, if we both had both penis and vagina. What an improvement on God’s design! So that we both might be inside each other, simultaneously, penetrating. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

  “Oh yes,” she breathed. “Wonderful.”

  He held her weight down onto him, calling her “Darling” and “Honey” and saying, “Oh love, you feel so good,” and it seemed to him the fabric of his life, like a linen handkerchief laundered too often, was simply shredding apart. Not rotting, but pulling into individual threads; light was coming through.

  In her exertions, sweat dripped from her unshaven armpits onto his shoulders; he turned his head to lick it up, tasting salty life.

  “Will you kill someone for me?” she gasped.

  He pulled her down tighter, elevating his hips, linking his ankles around her slender back.

  “Of course not,” he told her. “That would spoil everything.”

  2

  HE GREW UP in that silent, loveless, white-tiled house and, an only child, had no sun to turn to and so turned inward, becoming contemplative, secretive even. Almost all he thought and all he felt concerned himself, his wants, fears, hates, hopes, despairs. Strangely, for a young boy, he was aware of this intense egoism and wondered if everyone else was as self-centered. It didn’t seem possible; there were boys his age who were jolly and out-going, who made friends quickly and easily, who could tease girls and laugh. But still…

  “Sometimes it seemed I might be two persons: the one I presented to my parents and the world, and the one I was, whirling in my own orbit. The outward me was the orderly, organized boy who was a good student, who collected rocks and stowed them away in compartmented trays, each specimen neatly labeled: ‘Blank, Daniel: Good boy.’

  “But from my earliest boyhood—from my infancy, even—I have dreamed in my sleep, almost every night: wild, disjointed dreams of no particular meaning: silly things, happenings, people all mixed up, costumes, crazy faces, my parents and kids in school and historical and literary characters—all in a churn.

  “Then—oh, perhaps at the age of eight, but it may have been later—I began to lose myself in daytime fantasies, as turbulent and incredible as my nighttime dreams. This daydreaming had no effect on my outward life, on the image I presented to the world. I could do homework efficiently, answer up in class, label the stones I collected, kiss my parents’ cold cheeks dutifully…and be a million miles away. No, not away, but down inside myself, dreaming.

  “Gradually, almost without my being aware of it, daytime fantasies merged with nighttime dreams. How this developed, or exactly when, I cannot say. But daytime fantasies became extensions of nighttime dreams, and it happened that I would imagine a ‘plot’ that continued, day and night, for perhaps a week. And then, having been rejected in favor of a new ‘plot,’ I might come back to the old one for a day or two, simply recalling it or perhaps embellishing it with fanciful details.

  “For instance, I might imagine that I was actually not the child of my mother and father, but was a foster child placed with them for romantic reasons. My true father was, perhaps, a well-known statesman, my mother a great beauty who had sinned for love. For various reasons, whatever, they were unable to acknowledge me, and had placed me with this dull, putty-faced, childless Indian couple. But the day would come…

  “There was something else I became aware of during my early boyhood, and this may serve to illustrate my awareness of myself. Like most young boys of the same age—I was about twelve at the time—I was capable of certain acts of nastiness, even of minor crimes: wanton vandalism, meaningless violence, ‘youthful high spirits,’ etc. Where I differed from other boys of that age, I believe, was that even when caught and punished, I felt no guilt. No one could make me feel guilty. My only regret was in being caught.

  “Is it so strange that someone can live two lives? No, I honestly believe most people do. Most, of course, play the public role expected of them: they marry, work, have children, establish a home, vote, try to keep clean and reasonably law-abiding. But each—man, woman, and child—has a secret life of which they rarely speak and hardly ever display. And this secret life,
for each of us, is filled with ferocious fantasies and incredible wants and suffocating lusts. Not shameful in themselves, except as we have been taught so.

  “I remember reading something a man wrote—he was a famous author—and he said if it was definitely announced that the world would end in one hour, there would be long lines before each phone booth, with people waiting to call other people to tell them how much they loved them. I do not believe that, I believe most of us would spend the last hour mourning, ‘Why didn’t I do what I wanted to do?’

  “Because I believe each of us is a secret island (‘No man is an island’? What shit!) and even the deepest, most intense love cannot bridge the gap between individuals. Much of what we feel and dream, that we cannot speak of to others, is shameful, judged by what society says we are allowed to feel and dream. But if humans are capable of it, how can it be shameful? Rather do as our natures dictate. It may lead to heaven or it may lead to hell—what does ‘heaven’ mean or ‘hell’?—but the most terrible sin is to deny. That is inhuman.

  “When I fucked that girl in college, and later with my wife, and all those in between, I found it exciting and pleasurable, naturally. Satisfying enough to ignore the grunts, coughs, farts, belches, bad breath, blood and…and other things. But a moment later my mind would be on my collection of semi-precious stones or the programming of AMROK II. I had enjoyed masturbation as much, and began to wonder how much so-called ‘normal sex’ is really masturbation a deux. All the groans and protestations of love and ecstasy are the public face; the secret reactions are hidden from the partner. I once fucked a woman, and all the time I was thinking of—well, someone I had seen at a health club I belonged to. God knows what she was thinking of. Island lives.

  “Celia Montfort was the most intelligent woman I had ever met. Much more intelligent than I was, as a matter of fact, although I think she lacked my sensitivity and understanding. But she was complex, and I had never met a complex woman before. Or perhaps I had, but could not endure the complexity. But in Celia’s case, it attracted me, fascinated me, puzzled me—for a time.