The Best That Ever Did It

by Ed Lacy

  “You dummy, she heard you call me Marty!”

  “So what? That was a slip on my part but you got me rattled, barging in like... Cool off, Marty, our luck's been riding high all these months and...”

  “Has it? Remember this one?” Pearson took a neatly folded but hastily torn part of a newspaper out of his pocket, flung it on the bed. Lund walked over and raised the shade, read the paper, while Pearson saw a heel of a whiskey pint on the dresser, finished it with a single gulp. Sam sat on the bed, his face going pale, as he looked up from the short news item and said softly, “Damn! Damn! Of all the miserable breaks! How could we possibly foresee a thing like this, the dumb jerk winning the money?”

  “We couldn't,” Martin said. “One of those things, a break we have to meet.”

  “Throw me that pack of butts on the dresser. What do we do now, chuck the whole deal?”

  Pearson, who had been studying the empty pint bottle, put it down and threw the cigarettes at his partner, watched as Lund lit one and began puffing on it nervously. After an awkward silence Lund asked again, “Now what—we chuck the deal?”

  “We can't chuck it. Once they start investigating, in time everything will point to us. And I don't see why we should give up anything. There's another out, if we act quickly. Before this guy gets his passport application in.”

  “I don't get it.”

  “Yes you do, you know exactly what I'm talking about, Sam.”

  Lund jumped off the bed and said fiercely, “If you're talking about what I think you are—forget it. For Christsakes, that's murder!”

  Pearson nodded. “Yes, that's what it will most certainly be.

  I've tried to rationalize it, call it other names. It's plain murder.”

  “Marty, talk sense! We've pulled a lot of... of... angles, but I never thought of myself, of us, as real criminals. My God, Marty, we can't murder a man!”

  “Don't talk so loudly. I don't see what choice we have. These things build up, grow. A petty crime, then a bigger one, and finally the big leagues—the biggest of them all. We have a ...”

  “No! I don't even want to discuss that!”

  “Sam, you've had a big night, you don't understand our situation. We never thought of ourselves as criminals because a criminal is one who gets caught, just as a murderer is one convicted of killing. We've been very good, the perfect... criminals, and we still will be the...”

  “Damn it, Marty, stop talking! I won't go for murder and that's final!”

  “Cut the acting and keep your voice down. And listen to me. Sam, besides our boat tickets we have a little over two hundred bucks left. If we try to ditch the whole business, we're flat broke. Also, as I tried to tell you, if we let him go through with his trip, our game is exposed whether we chuck it or not, and we'll never know when they'll catch up with us—even in Europe. Once he makes out that application, we're finished. I don't have to remind you that we've broken several Federal laws, that the least we'll get is five to ten years. Is that what you want, to be broke and running the rest of our lives? To finally end up in the pen?”

  Sam stood up, staring at the wall and seemingly so deep in thought he didn't answer.

  Martin pointed to a lipstick smear on the pillow. “You want to be sleeping with cheap whores in a stinking room or sunning yourself at Juan-les-Pins with Gabby? Would you rather be hustling for small change here as a handy man/ or a famous actor with your own motion-picture company?”

  “Don't paint no pictures for me—you know damn well what I want. But murder—no!”

  “These aren't pictures, Sam, these are facts.” Martin pointed around the room. “It's a fact that a flea bag like this, or worse, will be your home from now on—if you can afford a room. It's also a fact we can still wake up at ten and have a swim and a big breakfast and before it gets too hot, ride over to Nice or Cape Ferrat or San Remo. You always liked San Remo the best. Sam, the main fact is this: we have over forty thousand dollars waiting for us if we continue to use our heads.”

  “Think we'll be the richest jokers to ever sit in the electric chair!”

  Martin smiled bitterly. “Your stupid jokes. Sam, killing was never a part of our plans, and we're not a couple of goons, we won't be caught.”

  Sam crushed his cigarette against the wall. “We have been smart, the best ever. But using a gun is where we start being dumb.”

  “Killing is a last resort, but can you think of any other way? We could try robbing him of the money, but that might not work, and it's too risky.”

  “And murder isn't?” Sam snapped.

  “Look, Sam, the police are efficient because most killings fit one of several patterns. But this—be no motive anybody but us could possibly know about and... Look, I once read where some police authority said the perfect murder would have to be an insane act where a man suddenly shoots a total stranger on the street—no motive, no connection, no possible clues. That's the first thing came to me when I read the paper—we're shooting a stranger.”

  “He saw us—you—before,” Sam said, lighting another cigarette. “Marty, there's things a man can do and can't do. I can't go through with a murder. That's all!”

  “Merely saying 'That's all' doesn't solve anything for us. I'll do the actual trigger pulling, if that will make you feel any better. Yes, he saw us. He spoke to me once, a casual conversation in a bar some three months ago—and I was using a phony name. Who can remember that except him, and he'll be dead? For all practical purposes we're walking up to a total stranger and shooting him without rhyme or reason. Unless we're nabbed at the scene of the killing—and that we'll work out carefully, of course—the police will have to be lucky, downright stupid fumbling lucky, to even get on our trail.”

  “Murder is out.”

  Pearson walked over and shook his partner. “Stop talking like a goddamn parrot! If we get rid of him we're safe, have money, the good life. I'm back with Therese, you're a big actor. If he lives we're bums the rest of our lives and end up serving a lot of time. Killing is our only out. As you said, we couldn't foresee this, but we're in it and getting in deeper is our only escape.”

  “But... Marty, you talk so calmly about... murder!” Sam said, pushing the smaller man away.

  “I'm not calm. I'm scared crazy, but not that frightened I've stopped thinking, can't realize what has to be done. Be simple, we come upon him alone in the street today—it has to be today —best tonight. One quick shot and we're gone before anybody finds the body. Then we keep on with the cases we have cooking. Another month or two, we leave the country.”

  “Why not leave at once after, I mean... if... we do it?”

  “Because we haven't got enough and what difference will it make? If they're on to us, they can extradite us from Europe. No, we keep on going as usual, like nothing happened. Sam, I've thought this out, racked my head till it hurts. How can they ever connect us with it? How can the police possibly stumble upon us? What can go wrong?”

  Sam looked for an ashtray, finally thumbed his cigarette out the one window. “Marty, up to now it's been like a game— the whole works: outsmarting the army, the French cops, the stuff we've been doing here. It worked smooth because we never hurt nobody, worked our own angles... but now, a deliberate cold-blooded murder, I can't go that, I just can't!”

  Pearson said coldly, “And I can't think of living without Therese. We've put in over five months on this, we already have about twenty-five grand set for sure, another fifteen thousand in the works. I'm not throwing all that over because this kid gets lucky. Get this through your dumb head—there's little risk—he himself won't have the slightest idea why we're killing him.”

  “As you said, the cops can be lucky.”

  “Luck has been riding with us, all down the line.” Pearson opened his camera bag and dropped two Lugers on the bed. “Look how lucky it was I never sold these, held on to them.”

  Sam stared at the guns, his thin lips moving. Finally he pulled himself together, asked quietly, “Threate
ning me, Marty?”

  “Killing you would be a wrong move, leave too many trails. But I want Therese so badly I considered it. Think it over, Sam. It's rough but we've been living on cream so far, can't complain. Get dressed, take a shower, take a walk and get the air... start thinking. Have a good breakfast. Think, then tell me what else we can do but kill him. Show me any other out, even a cockeyed one, and I'll be the first to take it. But you know killing is the only way. Think about it, Sam, think real hard... we have a couple of hours.”

  CHAPTER 2

  SHE HAD four very large rooms in one of these old, high-ceilinged apartment houses that never look like much on the outside. It was a front apartment overlooking the Hudson River, and full of severe modern furniture that looked uncomfortable —or maybe it was the violent colors. Everything was a patch-quilt of brash red and blinding yellows and mysterious purples. And somehow the effect didn't quite come off—it was as if she'd copied a room and overdone it. One wall was lined with books—in colorful jackets too—but they all looked too new, as if she joined every book club out and stacked the books away as they came.

  Betsy Turner was wearing a Chinese-like outfit—tight red pants and a loose yellow house coat that should have given her an exotic look, but her kid's face was an almost comical contrast. Her face reminded me of the Kewpie dolls that used to be so popular—her nose and eyes and lips took up all her face, almost seemed to be overcrowding it.

  Frankly I didn't get the play—the carefully made-up face, those tight pants showing off her strong legs, the teasing outline of firm breasts whenever the coat touched them. Either Mrs. Turner was expecting somebody after I left, or she wanted other kinds of work for her thirty a day.

  To keep my eyes off her, I said “Hello” and glanced around at the several amateurish oils on the wall—like those pre-sketched canvas deals where you fill in the colors by number. In one corner of the living room there was an easel with a half-finished painting of a river scene—and without numbers. Near it was a large TV set, and near that one of these expensive record players. I said, “Nice place here. You paint much?”

  “I play at it. I also decorated this apartment. Do you like it?”

  From the tone of her voice it seemed important to her that I liked it. “Rather unusual. Yeah, I like it,” I said. And the canvases, the books, the stacks of records—they could mean a lot of things, including loneliness. But hell, the fine ebony wood cabinet of the TV was easily a cop's salary for a month, or two, and the high-fidelity record player wasn't anything you found in a box of Cracker Jacks.... No wonder Ed Turner walked around with his hand out. And considering the short time he'd been on the force, he was a joker with a talent for letting people see his palms.

  “I made this Chinese house coat too,” she said, turning like a model for me to see it—and her. She sure packed a healthy figure. Only she still gave me this Kewpie-doll feeling—an expensive one.

  “Looks wonderful. Very becoming.”

  She smiled faintly, like a kid with a good report card. “Please sit down over there, Mr. Harris.” She pointed to a veneer bucket chair with dainty wrought-iron legs.

  I sat down on a pigskin hassock, said, “Doubt if the chair is guaranteed to hold 248 pounds.”

  She sat down on a banana-yellow contour couch.

  There was a moment of silence and I studied her legs, which were worth studying. She motioned toward a bottle and several glasses on a marble table with driftwood legs. “Noilly Prat, Mr. Harris?”

  “No thanks, Mrs. Turner. And what is it?” We sounded like a soap opera.

  She smiled and her lips were thick and red and girlish, and my temperature shot up. “Vermouth—French. I'm not much of a drinker, but this place has been giving me the jitters ever since Ed... died. It's a jinx apartment, and it caused our first real fight.”

  “That so?” I said politely. People who always brag how little they drink are usually in the lush class.

  “Yes, I never really enjoyed this place,” she went on. “After Ed passed the police exam, but before he was called, he was head of the shipping department and I was a steno in the front office—that's how we met. After we married we couldn't find an apartment and lived in a room for several months. Then Ed found this apartment and insisted we take it, even though the rent was more than our combined weekly salaries. I didn't mind scrimping because I wanted a place of our own, and this even had furniture—not this stuff—and we didn't have to pay anything under the table. Then I found out why it was vacant —a man had hung himself with a tie from the bathroom door.”

  Following her over-red fingernail I saw a white door off the cocoa-colored foyer. “Must have been a small man to do it with a tie,” I said brightly.

  She hesitated, not sure if I was kidding her, then decided I wasn't, said, “I didn't want the place then, it gave me the creeps. And using his furniture too. But Ed insisted. I didn't know till then how unhappy he'd been in our room, making coffee on a hot plate, using the window sill for an icebox. Oh, Ed always liked to live so big. He even hinted we'd part if I didn't take the apartment. I nearly had a fit when we moved in. Ed had to stay with me while I took a bath or I'd get to staring at the door till I saw a body swinging there. Ed said I was a baby but I couldn't help it.”

  “Able to go to the bathroom alone now?” She sat up, face flushed. “Mr. Harris! Don't get fresh!” I almost slipped off the hassock—Mrs. Turner was out of this planet—I hadn't been called “fresh” since I was in knickers. “It may look... odd, asking you to my apartment, but don't get any ideas, Mr. Harris. Nor do I like you making fun of me.”

  “Merely asked a question, Mrs. Turner,” I said, afraid I'd smile myself out of a job. “Only wondering if the place still spooks you.”

  She sort of pulled herself together, leaned back on the couch. “It was bad till... One morning several weeks after we moved in I was feeling... uh... unwell... had to stay home. Ed couldn't be with me, we'd have both lost our jobs. I was going crazy, imagining all sorts of things when a woman came to the door, said she had worked as a maid for the suicide and did I want to hire her? Of course we couldn't afford that but I was so happy to see anyone I asked her in for coffee and we talked about the dead man. When she told me he'd been a pansy, I don't know why, I was no longer afraid. Till now. With Ed a suicide everything scares me. But that's enough about me. What have you been doing, Mr. Harris?”

  “Checked with Lieutenant Swan on the details of the case. By the way, Mr. Turner ever mention a man named Brown?”

  “No. And we haven't any friends by that name, or...”

  “Have many friends?”

  She popped her eyes open like I'd jabbed her in the belly. “Why do you ask that? As a matter of fact, we didn't. I'm not the outgoing type and Ed—he liked to roam around alone, always looking for what he called suspects. As for his friends on the force, frankly I hated his being a policeman. It changed Ed. When a man makes his work hunting down other men, that's not good.”

  “I suppose cops are necessary.”

  “Mr. Harris, doctors are necessary too, but suppose a doctor limited himself to handling cancer cases all day, day after day— in time he'd probably become infected himself. A cop, always working with criminals, I think he becomes infected too. After a time the cop and the criminal blend, the hunter and the hunted become one.” Her voice, which had been full and strong, went small again as she slipped me a smile, added, “No offense, Mr. Harris. Oh, I can't keep calling you Mister Harris. I'll call you Barney and you may call me Betsy.”

  “You call me what you wish, I'll keep using Mrs. Turner,” I said, annoyed at her ”... you may call me ...” I was really annoyed because whatever there was about her that troubled me... still troubled me.

  She shrugged—a very sexy movement. “As you like. But I didn't mean to be personal when I said police work was a dirty profession.”

  “Can't offend me. I only stumbled into the... eh... profession myself. I'm an auto mechanic. My wife was in the ins
urance business and she got me a job checking on stolen cars for insurance companies. Usually the engine numbers are filed, other changes made to disguise the heap. It was my job to identify the cars, also check into phony auto accidents, and the title of private detective went with the job. I did that for five or six years and when my wife died I went into the private-eye business because of the irregular hours—gives me a chance to call for my daughter in school, be around the neighborhood.”

  “I'm sorry to hear about your wife,” she said, in the proper sad tone. “Did you raise the girl by yourself?”

  “Yes, and quite well, too.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Ruthie will be six in two months from the twenty-fifth.”

  “Barney, I don't mean to be personal, but did your wife die in childbirth?”