Ladyfingers

by Shepard Rifkin

  "Where are your shoes?"

  He wanted to change the topic. It could be he was bored with my poor wit.

  "I ran them to shreds to save bus fare. Doc, I hope you told her she shouldn't go around biting people."

  "You aren't funny."

  I knew I wasn't funny. But I was getting him annoyed. People who are annoyed frequently get mad, and mad people make mistakes. I would like a mistake.

  "Well, Doc, I thought you'd know. You know everything."

  He didn't care for that. He said, "I know a lot. I knew as soon as you came over the canal."

  "Aw, cut it out, Doc."

  It was obvious he didn't like to be called Doc.

  "As soon as you crossed the canal you interrupted my electric eye."

  "Bullshit."

  "It's attached to a tree on each side of the road."

  That's what comes of being a city boy. I come from an area where no man bugs anything except his own apartment."

  "I sat at the top of the stairs in the basement," he said, "and I watched you open the window. You really did it very cleverly. I watched you go back and forth to the garage from this window. I was lost in admiration. I sat down again. It was better than being in a theater. You really worked it very cleverly, with the oil and the hedge shears. And digging into the wood to make a good fulcrum. How many years have you been a detective?"

  "Six."

  "Six." He brought the tips of his right fingers together. "And to think of all that expertise going pffft!" He exploded his fingertips outward.

  I agreed with him.

  "There's no point in making things worse for yourself," I said. "Why not just give yourself up?"

  "That's what detectives call the sympathetic approach, isn't it? And if that doesn't work, and it won't, you will shift to the tough one, right?"

  I had to admit he was right.

  "I think I would have made a very good detective," he said. "It's really very easy."

  "Yep."

  "Really. I would have made a good detective. Want proof?"

  "Prove it."

  "All right. I've been waiting for you to tell me that you've got the place surrounded. Then I'm supposed to fall on my face shrieking for mercy. Then I untie you, you handcuff me, you free the lady on the bed, and then triumphantly announce that -you've fooled me and that you're all alone. I mutter in rage, you take me back to New York, give interviews to the press and make tomorrow's early bird edition of the Daily News-with a front-page photograph. Right?"

  The only thing wrong with that was that since the mutilating occurred in Pennsylvania, I'd have to get Pennsylvania's permission to take him. He'd have to be booked in New Hope first. But this, I would be the first to admit, was quibbling.

  I said nothing.

  "Well, then why didn't you make the announcement? I'll tell you why not. You're smart enough to know that if you did make it, I'd think you were an idiot. You'd rather have my good opinion than be thought an idiot.

  "Item: Only one car came in. You know I know that.

  "Item: The bridge is so far away from my house that it would be natural for all you police to take that road. It's just not reasonable for another group to come up by launch on the river side, or cross the canal by rowboat.

  "Item: Detectives don't come in one by one to a hostile area. No general would commit troops piecemeal where they could be picked off one by one. You'd come bursting in with all you had. With maybe one or two men covering the rear and sides.

  "Item: You've been in my house thirty-five minutes. If you had been working with other cops you'd have told them to break down the door if you didn't come out within, say, ten or fifteen minutes. And I've been watching you very carefully for the last five minutes. You show not the slightest sign that you're expecting anyone to come, not the slightest shift of your eyes or your head. And you're not that good an actor."

  The son of a bitch.

  "How's that for detective logic?"

  He could make detective 1st grade in one year.

  For a moment I thought of pulling the you're-surrounded-give-up bit anyway. But if I knew Henley he might just decide there was a faint chance I would be telling the truth. He would slip out as quietly as an Apache. I had seen him move in his apartment. He would slip through the underbrush without a sound and stalk the Maserati. And if she were still sitting in it-no. I had to find another way.

  "To go back to your pretty stupid remark that there's no use in making it worse for myself, consider this: how can I spend more than one life sentence?"

  This guy asked the most reasonable questions.

  "How, indeed?" I said. "So let's try this one: you'll never get away with it."

  I awaited his response with interest. One thing was sure with Henley-nothing he said bored me.

  "Let's consider that statement intelligently," he said. He lifted her left hand and slid a small rubber sheet under it. He picked up the scalpel and examined it to see if it was sharp enough.

  Although she was drugged I saw a faint mist of terror come over her eyes. He picked up a syringe, held it point upwards, an&squirted a test jet.

  "First," he began, "the corpus delicti. The body of the evidence. There are two of you to be gotten rid of. That makes it the corpora delicti-do you know Latin?"

  I had studied it for four years in the misguided days when I was going to be a lawyer.

  "Who's he?" I said.

  He chose to disregard my poor dialogue.

  "So, how do I get rid of you?"

  "You put us in a bathtub and pour acid or something like that over us."

  "It'll take too long. On the way to New York I will make a small detour to the Great Swamp."

  That made me unhappy. The Great Swamp of New Jersey is just that-a great swamp, five miles long by five miles wide. It's only twenty miles in a straight line from lower Manhattan. Very few people live in it. There is only one paved road crossing it. It has all kinds of bird and animal life. It has plenty of rattlers and copperheads as an extra bonus. People had always used it as sanctuary. During the Revolution deserters had hidden out there. On a clear day you could see the towers of Manhattan from the middle of the swamp. I didn't like the way the conversation was going.

  "There are places in the swamp very close to the road," Henley said. "A couple of cement blocks wired to each one of you. Several deep slashes into the stomach walls to prevent gas from forming and ballooning you to the surface. Who could ever find you?"

  Not bad.

  "Love will find a way," I said.

  "I have to prepare tomorrow's mail," he said. He picked up her hand and unwrapped the bandages. Both stumps had a flap neatly tucked and stitched. He injected the base of the second finger and looked at his watch.

  "How are you going to get rid of my car?" I asked.

  "There's an abandoned quarry a mile away. People like to push old cars over the edge to watch the splash. The quarry is about two hundred feet deep. When I've finished with my work here I'll just take a little drive and then a farewell walk along the American countryside. It will be the last walk I shall ever take in America, so I will enjoy it. Deep breaths of the night-blooming flowers, fresh hay, honeysuckle vines blooming on the old fences. I think I'll enjoy it."

  I had an idea, but it would require his absence from the room. I would have to rely on the Duchess' esprit to get her out of the situation I was about to cook up. I was sorry to risk her, but it was the only way.

  "How do you get my car to the quarry?" I asked, amused. He caught the amused tone, and he didn't like it.

  "Are you serious?"

  "It's a Maserati."

  "Well?"

  "If you've never raced you couldn't get it around the first curve."

  Guys who owned TR's fancied themselves great drivers.

  "Don't be ridiculous."

  I knew nothing about racing. I started making things up.

  "You know where reverse is in a Maserati racing car? You'll spend twenty minutes looking for it
and you still won't find it." I chuckled with an infuriating, superior tone.

  "It might take you twenty minutes to find it."

  It was griping him.

  "And it doesn't have power steering," I went on. "You'll have to use muscle to put her around a curve. And no syncromesh transmission, either, Doc. You'll have to double-clutch. I bet you don't know how to do that. No hydromatic. You'll find this is a car you'll have to work at. It's not a foam-rubber job made for the tired housewife. By the time you get her a quarter of a mile from here-if you manage to find reverse gear to turn her around, that is-you'll be spraying broken gears all over the road. Then you'll have to abandon her and walk back."

  "I can drive it."

  "Yeah. Sure."

  I sneered. I put everything I had into that sneer. I smiled in a superior, contemptuous way. I lifted my eyebrows.

  "A Maserati," he said angrily, "is a mechanical device. You get inside it. You sit down. You turn certain knobs and levers. You push others. The car moves ahead, backwards. It stops. It goes. It's as simple as that."

  "Yeah. Sure."

  " 'Yeah. Sure.' Your conversation is limited."

  I had him hooked. I had to play him carefully or he would slide off the hook.

  "'The car moves ahead,' eh?" I chuckled. It was a smug, quiet, amused chuckle. If he had any pride it would drive the hook deep into his throat.

  He flung the scalpel down on the tray with a clatter.

  "Careful," I said. "You'll have to sharpen it again."

  For a moment I thought he was going to stick it into me, but then he wouldn't have been able to come back and announce in triumph that he had driven my stupid car without any of the problems that I had so stupidly predicted.

  He slammed the door and clumped quickly down the stairs. Boy, was he going to show me! He was going to prove he was smart. He was going to show that he was not to be compared with anyone else.

  He turned on the light downstairs. He turned on the porch light. That should have gotten the Duchess' attention. Then I heard him unlock the front door. He would now be standing in the doorway, all lit up like the Statue of Liberty on the Fourth of July.

  If that didn't send her out of the Maserati and into the bushes with lightning speed she was no friend of mine. He would solve reverse gear quickly. Then I would have five minutes for his trip to the quarry, then twenty minutes more for his walk back.

  On the other hand, if my aristocratic friend took the ignition key with her, he'd be upstairs in about two minutes looking through my pockets for the key. If he didn't find it, he would get nasty quickly. He might even torture me to find out where I'd hidden it.

  Two minutes.

  That's my whole problem, right there. That's what comes of liking intelligent women.

  33

  AS SOON AS THE FRONT DOOR SHUT, I heaved my weight forward. The heavy chair inched forward. I heaved again. Another inch. Twelve sincere heaves brought me up to the bedside table with the scalpel on it.

  I bent down and picked up the scalpel handle in my mouth. I put the handle into her upturned palm. It slid out again.

  "Please," I said. The empty face turned slowly towards me. "Your chance to live. And mine. Please."

  The face remained impassive. I picked up the handle once more in my mouth. I set it gently into the open palm. I tried not to look at the enormously swollen stumps.

  The sweat broke out on her forehead. Slowly the fingers closed on it. The thumb bent and held it against her two remaining fingers.

  I hurled my weight sidewards and scrabbled my stockinged toes against the floor. Thank God it wasn't waxed. By lurching to the right and pushing with my toes I managed to turn the chair around. By now Henley should be rummaging in the glove compartment for the key.

  With my toes I pushed backwards until the back of my chair banged gently against the tray. She had about an inch of play in her bonds. I felt the blade slice into my palm. It was so sharp there was no pain. I hitched to the right an inch. My hands became all wet. Some of the blood soaked into my old bandage.

  Then I felt the scalpel move slowly across the rope. It felt as light as a butterfly's wing. Another stroke. Another. I pushed my hands upwards against the blade. It was very quiet. I heard my blood drip onto the rubber pad.

  I heard his steps coming across the porch. Three strokes.

  He opened the front door. He walked across the living room. He was angry. I could tell that by the firm way he was walking.

  He began to climb the stairs.

  Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. And ten did it. My hands flew apart, I had been straining them to keep uncut strands constantly present for the blade.

  I twisted around, grabbed the scalpel from her, and sliced through the rope at my ankles.

  He turned the doorknob. I stood up and started a sprint for my gun on top of the bureau next to the door.

  He opened the door. "Where's the-"

  He reacted fast. I knew he would, the son of a bitch. He knew what I was after. He half turned to reach it. I saw he would get there first. I converted my sprint for the bureau into a spoiling attack. I drove my head into his kidney. The shock of that and my weight threw him off balance. He hit the edge of the bureau. I came up fast and tried a rabbit chop at the back of his neck. This was going to be dirty all the way. He blocked it easily with a half turn to the right and a very easy straight-arm parry.

  But I had gotten him away from the bureau. I crouched and hit him in the solar plexus. He saw it coming and grunted the way a good boxer does. That tightened his diaphragm. My fist hit a sheet of solid muscle.

  He grabbed me at the shoulders and pushed. I went backwards, completely helpless before his great strength. I ran backwards faster than Bill Robinson ever did. I smashed into the locked wooden shutters. They were held together in the middle with a little hook and eye. The impact broke the hook and the shutters flew open. The window shattered but he was at me fast as a cat, grabbing my thighs. He kept me from falling out. I did owe him that.

  He straddled my legs and grabbed my throat. He began to bend me backwards over the sill. His face was close to mine. He intended to break my back. I had about seven seconds before the lessened blood supply to the brain would cause me to black out.

  I saw his eyes. They were less than a foot from mine. It was clear that he enjoyed killing, and that he would especially enjoy killing me. I couldn't breathe and the pain of my stretching vertebrae was becoming agonizing. I remember hoping that the Duchess would have sense enough to get the hell out before he came for her. I saw red circles and red dots and I prayed that I would pass out before I heard my spine crack.

  Then a brilliant light hit my upside-down face and the most piercing blast I had ever heard filled the cool night air.

  Were these the phenomena that accompanied the entry into hell? That was my first thought.

  And then I realized that the Duchess had turned on the headlights of the Maserati and was leaning on the horn button like it had never been leaned on.

  34

  HE FROZE. THEN HE LET GO MY THROAT AND took a step backward, shielding his face against the glare. I slid to my knees and tried to swallow. The effort was painful. He started for the door, then shifted towards the bureau.

  "Give up!" I shouted. "You're surrounded!"

  But my throat had been so severely squeezed that a hoarse croak was the only sound that came out. Even I could not distinguish any recognizable sound.

  He grabbed my gun. I wanted to tell him that homicide would get him nowhere, but it would be like standing in front of a runaway bulldozer reading aloud the traffic law.

  As he turned I dove to the right, suppressing a moan at the agonizing stabbing in my back. He got off two shots. You have to be good to peg two shots at twenty feet at a moving target interested in self-preservation. The two bullets went into the plaster wall just where my head would have been if I had still been standing. I rolled fast and slid under the bed. The bedspread hung almost to the floor all the way ar
ound.

  He would have to duck all the way down to get a good look at me. My only chance would be if he came close.

  If he did come close enough to lift the bedspread he would be close enough for me to grab an ankle. If he chose to do alley-cleaning with the gun, he might miss me with the four remaining bullets. He would have to make sure.

  I heard his steps go across the room. I heard a closet door open. Then his steps came back.

  A broom handle poked under the bedspread and began to lift it up. As it rose up on the end of the broom like a curtain rising in a theater, I saw his legs five feet away. Too far for me to grab them.

  He moved closer to the bedside tray. He bent down to peer underneath. He saw me crouching with my arm ready to sweep at his ankles. His face lit up. He went on his knees. He very carefully brought up my .38.

  It was shameful to be killed with my own gun. The headlines would mention that. I could see Hanrahan reading DETECTIVE SLAIN WITH OWN GUN and grinning over his goddamn cigar. Just as I tensed myself for a last desperate charge on my stomach at my own gun, a surprised, astonished look came over his face.

  Then that look was followed by realization and then anger.

  But it was too late. He said, almost conversationally, "Oh." Then he pitched forward.

  All three inches of the scalpel blade were buried in the back of his neck. Dr. Lyons had buried it up to the handle in the most anatomically correct place.

  35

  I ROLLED OUT FROM UNDER THE BED. I STOOD up. My legs were shaking.

  She had cut the rope holding her to the bed. He was very dead.

  She was pressing her mutilated stumps against her mouth. The pressure of her fingers against the scalpel handle had opened her sutures. The blood was running down her palm and against her mouth and chin. She was making the kind of sound dogs do when they have been run over. I couldn't stand it.

  The doorbell rang. I went to the broken window and looked down. The Duchess was standing there with a jack handle.

  "Hi," she said.

  "Hi."

  She held up the jack handle and asked in a small voice, "Would you need this?"