Imperfect Strangers

by Stuart Woods

  He got to the park early, picked a bench and pretended to read his paper. He did not want to look despondent should he be seen by someone he knew. He sat there, running his situation over and over in his mind. He had made up his mind not to keep this appointment. He had been sure that, whatever happened between him and Joan, he could, somehow, make it right, or, at least, acceptable. Then he began to think about something else.

  "Good afternoon," a voice said, and he jumped. "Don't look at me; just concentrate on your paper. We can hear each other very well."

  Sandy resisted the temptation to turn and look at Peter Martindale. Instead, he folded his paper back to expose the crossword puzzle, took out his pen, and pretended to do it. Surreptitiously, he glanced around to see who might be within earshot. The park was by no means deserted, but the benches on either side of them were empty.

  "You got here first," Peter said. "May I take that to mean that you are eager to get on with this?"

  "You may," Sandy replied.

  "You were pretty drunk on the airplane; do you remember what we discussed?"

  "I do. We discussed removing the errors in Strangers on a Train."

  "Yes, we did. Now we have to face what that means; it means that you and I are contemplating each committing a murder on a stranger. Do you think you can actually do that?"

  "All I have to do is pretend she's my wife," Sandy said. "What about you? Can you pull this off?"

  "Oh, yes," Peter said. "I can absolutely pull it off. I'll need your help, though, in planning it."

  "And I yours," Sandy replied.

  "Of course. All we have to do is pretend that we are murdering our own wives, then have the other step in and do it."

  "That's about right, I'd say."

  "Have you ever killed anyone, Sandy?"

  "No, but I believe I can do it, especially if it's a stranger."

  "We each have to do it without getting caught."

  "Of course," Sandy replied. "That's understood. I don't believe either of us is interested in getting caught."

  "Our best defense, even if suspected, is that we are completely unacquainted with our victims. And with each other. That last point is extremely important. We must never be seen in the same place again; we'll have to communicate through other means."

  "What means?"

  "I had in mind public telephones. You pick a couple of telephones in New York and memorize the numbers. I'll do the same in San Francisco. If either of us wants to contact the other, he calls from a public telephone, asks for, say, Bart, and is told by the other he has the wrong number. Two hours after the call, he goes to the appropriate pay telephone and waits to be called there. Mind you, even on public phones, we have to be circumspect. You can never tell when someone might accidentally be cross-connected."

  "That sounds a good plan. Who goes first?"

  "I don't think we need flip a coin," Peter said. "If you're ready to proceed, well, I'm already in New York. If you can plan something the next few days, I'll stay on and do the deed."

  "How about Saturday night?"

  "The day after tomorrow? Ideal, but what's the plan?"

  "She and I are attending a charity ball that night. We've done this a hundred times, and it's always the same; we leave the apartment at eight and take the elevator to the ground floor of our building. She stays in the elevator, continuing to the basement, while I ask the doorman to get a cab for us."

  "Why would she go to the basement?"

  "Each apartment in the building has a storage room in the basement. I keep some out-of-season clothes and some wine in ours, and she keeps her furs there because it's cool, and her major jewelry is kept in a safe in the storeroom."

  "It's always the same?"

  "Always, for an event like this one. She won't need a fur at this time of year, of course, but she will certainly want her diamond necklace, and that's always kept in the safe. The insurance company insists, and we're not covered if it's stolen from the apartment."

  "Very good, I like it," Peter replied. "How do I get into the basement?"

  "I had extra keys made an hour ago," Sandy said. "One to the outside door, and one to the storage room. I'll pass them to you before we part company." He gave Peter the address of the building.

  "That's up near the Metropolitan Museum, isn't it?"

  "Right. On the side street, there's a flight of stairs leading down to the basement door. A black, wrought-iron railing conceals the stairs from the street. Every evening around six, the janitor brings out the trash from the building and stacks it in the gutter nearby. Often, he doesn't close the door properly, so you may not even need the key. He's always finished by six-thirty, because he wants to get home for dinner. Watch the stairs for him and the block for foot traffic; sometime between six-thirty and seven-thirty, let yourself into the building. Our storage room is the one nearest the door, on the right. Let yourself into the storage room and wait there for her. I'll leave the rest to you, but when it's done, don't linger; get the hell out of there, and don't let yourself be seen on the street. That's all there is to it."

  "Let me see," Peter said, and he went over the whole thing aloud again. "Why would the janitor be putting out rubbish on a ' Saturday night? Surely the city doesn't collect on a Saturday."

  "We have a private service, and they pick up seven days a week. The basement doesn't have enough room to store the trash for more than twenty-four hours."

  "Good. Do you want me to get the keys back to you?"

  "No, dispose of them immediately in a way that they can't possibly be found. They could tie you and me to the event."

  "Of course. How about San Francisco Bay?"

  "How about the East River? Don't hang on to them a minute longer than you need to. And be sure you don't leave any trace of yourself-fingerprints, fibers, anything."

  "Right. When I'm back in San Francisco, should I call you at your office to leave the phone numbers?"

  "I won't be going to the office. Call the apartment." He gave Peter the number, and then told him to call only if it was absolutely necessary. "And don't say anything unless I answer. Ask for Bart, then recite the number twice. When I come to San Francisco to keep my part of the bargain, I'll do the same. It would be better if we didn't talk at all again until I come out there."

  "I think you're right about that," Peter said. "But I want you to call me on Saturday afternoon at the Pierre and confirm our arrangements. If it's a go, just say, 'This is Bart, everything is fine'; if not, say 'This is Bart, everything is off,' then hang up. If I shouldn't be in at that moment, leave the same message with the operator. The Pierre is very good about messages."

  "All right," Sandy said. "Anything else?"

  "I think it would be good if we considered the worst. Suppose one of us is caught or suspected."

  "I won't implicate you," Sandy said. "If I'm caught, it'll be my own fault. It wouldn't go any easier for me if I incriminated you, and vice versa."

  "I agree," Peter said. "I wish we could shake hands on it, but I think we'd better just leave. You go first, and leave the keys on the bench."

  "Right; good-bye and good luck."

  "Same to you."

  Sandy eased the keys from his pocket, wiped them carefully on his coattail, and set them on the bench. He got up and walked away, tossing his newspaper into a waste bin. At the corner, he looked back. The bench was empty.

  CHAPTER 5

  Sandy left the park feeling as though he had just performed some daredevil stunt, and lived. He walked slowly up Fifth Avenue toward his apartment building, taking deep breaths, his heart pumping furiously.

  Joan deserved this for treating him as she had; she thought she could walk away from the marriage with his business in her pocket, probably to sell it to Terrell duBois, and that that would put a dagger through his heart, retribution for his unfaithfulness. But who was responsible for his being unfaithful for all these years? Who but Joan? She had been loving, then after Angus was born, she became cool, then icy,
then simply rock hard. His role in her life was to escort her to social events, a role he would play for the last time on Saturday evening.

  By the time he reached the building his heart had returned to its normal rate after a walk, and his breathing was steady. He greeted the doorman and the lobby man and took the elevator to his apartment. It was Joan's, of course, but soon it would be his.

  For two more days Sandy held his secret in his heart, feeling no doubt, anticipating the event. He felt this way until the moment he heard his son's voice on the telephone.

  "Hi, Dad, I've got a day off, believe it or not." It was Saturday, the morning of the big day. "How about some tennis?"

  "Sounds good," Sandy said automatically. "Meet me at the Racquet Club as soon as you can get there; I'll ring for a court, and we can have some lunch afterward."

  "I'm on my way."

  The voice had introduced a note of complexity to his feelings, and when he saw his son, standing in the lobby of the venerable club on Park Avenue, things got worse. Angus was taller than he, like his grandfather, and with Jock's prominent nose and receding hair. The strange science of genetics had skipped a generation, bypassing Sandy completely. For the first time Sandy thought of old Jock and what he would think of all this. Jock, the strict moralist, in his way, would be ashamed of him, he knew. They hugged and headed for the elevators.

  Sandy had given up squash after Angus had read in a medical journal of the deaths of a large number of fit, middle-aged men on squash courts who were unable to tolerate the wild bursts of cardiorespiratory action required by the frequent spurts of activity during squash. He had taken up tennis again, after an absence of fifteen years from the sport, and he enjoyed playing with his son, who, although younger, was less crafty on the court. The two were, therefore, about evenly matched.

  They changed in the locker room and walked out onto the court. The club was not crowded on a Saturday in May, the members mostly being at their country homes on Long Island or in Connecticut, and they had not had to wait for a court.

  Sandy parried his son's power game with lots of spin, drop shots, and wily ball placement, and their match was close, but Angus took him in two straight sets. Two was enough for Sandy; some of his energy had gone elsewhere.

  They sat in the grill and ate unhealthy bacon cheeseburgers, washed down with Dutch beer, and Sandy mostly listened. Angus was excited about the approaching end of his residency the following month.

  "I'm thinking about establishing a practice of my own right away," he said.

  "Wouldn't it be wiser to get some more experience with an established doctor?" Sandy asked.

  "Ordinarily, yes. But I'm thinking about a new kind of cardiology, one that starts with a group of patients my own age and concentrates on fitness and diet. I'd rather keep well people healthy than treat sick ones," he said.

  "How will you attract your first patients?" Sandy asked, interested.

  "I'll advertise in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Doctors can advertise, now, you know, and my generation is a lot more fitness-oriented than yours. My inheritance will make it possible for me to find good office space and fund the ad campaign right away, without waiting. Mom and Uncle Laddie are my trustees, and I'm sure they'll go along with the plan."

  "I'm sure they will."

  Angus suddenly looked embarrassed. "Dad, I'm sorry about the will; I don't know why Granddad treated you the way he did, after all your years with him."

  "He told me a couple of weeks ago that he was going to leave me the wine division," Sandy said. "He died before he could execute a new will, I guess."

  "That's terrible. What are you going to do?"

  "Well, I don't think I want to work for Laddie. He's a good fellow, but he's never cared anything about the wine division. If anything, it's always been something of an embarrassment for him, I think, because his brother-in-law thought of it and made it work."

  Angus nodded. "I had figured something like that. I'm planning to budget a million dollars for my practice-that will include an extensive athletic facility-and as far as I'm concerned, you can use the other four million to start a new wine company, if that's what you want."

  Sandy was unable to respond for a moment. He fought tears, and cleared his throat to make sure it was still working. "Son, that's a very kind offer, but to tell you the truth, I don't know what I want to do. I'm a bit at sea."

  Angus placed a hand on Sandy's forearm. "Just remember, I want to help. I'll make Mom and Uncle Laddie see it my way."

  Sandy raised his beer mug in a mute toast.

  "Dad, yours and Mom's marriage has always been kind of different, hasn't it?"

  "Different from what?" Sandy asked, surprised. Angus had never before mentioned such a thing.

  "Different from other people's marriages, I mean."

  "In what way?"

  "Well, I can't remember you and Mom ever showing much affection for each other, and to tell the truth, I've always enjoyed the company of both of you more when you weren't together."

  Sandy stared down at the table. "I don't know that I could explain our marriage to you, Angus," he said. "I've never even tried to explain it to myself. The fact is, we both would have been happier if we'd ended it years ago."

  "Did Granddad have anything to do with your staying together?"

  "Not directly, but of course, I worked for him, and I loved my work, and I'm not sure I could have continued there if your mother and I had parted."

  Angus nodded. "Well, I guess each of us does what he has to in order to do the thing he wants most to do."

  "That's a very sage observation from such a new physician," Sandy said.

  They both laughed, and soon Angus was on his way somewhere.

  Walking back to the apartment, Sandy's emotions were in turmoil. In a few hours, he planned to murder Angus's mother, or at least, have her murdered, and tomorrow he would have to face his son and pretend to be sad about her death.

  Sandy had never been very introspective, but now he looked inside himself and asked the hard question. Am I a murderer? Can I do it and live with myself? Can I do it and live with my son? He started to think about what life would be like without the wine division and the Fifth Avenue apartment and the house on Nantucket and the club memberships, but he stopped himself. Those things were not relevant to the kind of man he was. Could he be who he was and start being someone else tomorrow?

  "I am not a murderer," he said aloud to himself. "I am not, and I never can be." He was not particularly religious, but he felt that criminals, especially murderers, received some sort of higher justice, something beyond the courts and prisons and various methods of ending the lives of those who had killed. He stopped next to a pay phone. "I am not a murderer," he said.

  He put a quarter in the phone and got the number from information, then dropped another coin into the machine and dialed the number.

  "Hotel Pierre," a woman's voice said.

  "I'd like to speak to Mr. Peter Martindale," Sandy said.

  "One moment." A ringing ensued, then stopped. "There's no answer from that suite; would you like to leave a message?"

  "Yes," Sandy replied, "and it is most urgent that Mr. Martindale receive the message."

  "It's our practice to immediately put the message under the door of the suite and to turn on the flashing message light," she said. "Mr. Martindale is unlikely to miss it."

  "Good. Would you please tell him that Bart called," he spelled it for her, "and that the project has been canceled, everything is off."

  "I've got that," she said. "Would you like me to connect you with the concierge? Mr. Martindale would have to pass his desk, and he could also deliver the message directly."

  "Yes, thank you." Sandy repeated the message and its urgency to the concierge.

  "I'll be certain that he gets it," the concierge said. "Mr. Martindale said he was going out for only a short time, so he should have it soon."

  Sandy hung up and continued his walk towa
rd the apartment building. He felt somewhat lighter on his feet and in his heart. On Monday, he'd see a good lawyer and find out what could be done to negotiate a better settlement with Joan and Laddie. After all, he wasn't stone broke; he had what he had saved and invested, that was around a million dollars, and he had the half million from Jock. He could get started again, at least in a small way. Maybe he could find some investors. His son had already expressed a willingness to help. He walked on, reflecting on how close he had come to ruining his life, to jeopardizing his reputation and his personal freedom.

  He must have been temporarily mad, he thought, turning into the lobby. Well, he was sane now, and he would simply make the best of things.

  CHAPTER 6

  At seven forty-five Sandy knotted his black satin bow tie and slipped into his dinner jacket. He slipped the Patek-Phillipe pocket watch into his waistcoat pocket and ran the chain through its special buttonhole. Satisfied with his appearance, he left his dressing room and walked across the bedroom. Joan was on schedule, which meant she would be ready about ten minutes after he told her what time they must leave.

  He went into his study and, dabbing a light film of perspiration on his forehead, sank into a chair and picked up the telephone. He had a slightly queasy feeling in his stomach, and he wanted to make it go away He dialed the Pierre and asked for the concierge.

  "This is Mr. Bart," he said to the man. "I left a message a couple of hours ago for Mr. Peter Martindale."

  "Oh, yes sir, the urgent one. I handed it to him myself half an hour later, so you may be sure he got it."

  "Did he read it in your presence?" Sandy asked.

  "Yes, sir, he did."

  "What was his reaction?"

  "He looked, well, relieved, I suppose. He asked me to get him on an evening flight for San Francisco, and he checked out about an hour ago."