The Collection

by Fredric Brown

  He laughed. "Also you're the highest-handed buccaneer who ever hit me for a role. What makes you think he might be home?"

  "Maybe he isn't. A nickel finds out. I've got one. I'd you phoned him, though, Adrian. I know the guy only slightly."

  Carr sighed and slid out of the booth. "I'll phone him," he said. "God knows why I let you bulldoze me like this, Wayne. Maybe you've got me a little scared of you."

  "Just so it gets results," I told him.

  He stood there. He asked, "What's that smear on your coat just under the lapel?"

  "Blood," I said. "I tried to sponge it off when I washed up in the subway station. It wouldn't all come out."

  He stood there looking down at me for what must have been ten seconds. Then he grunted, "Third act, huh?"

  "Is there blood in the third act? I don't remember."

  "There will be. I'm going to tell Taggert to put some in. It's a nice touch."

  I said, "I've known nicer. But it's always effective."

  As he turned to walk toward the phone, I asked, making it very casual, "Are you going to phone Taggert or the police?"

  He glared at me and I grinned at him. Then without a word he turned and walked to the phone booth at the back of the bar.

  I sat there and sweated, wondering which call he was going to make.

  He came back and I knew by his face that it was all right. Adrian Carr is two-thirds ham, yes, but he can't act. If he'd called the police, if he'd really believed me at last, it would have stuck out all over him.

  He said, "Taggert's home and going to be there. He was working on the third act. Said to come over any time."

  "Good," I said. "Want to go right away?"

  "Let's have one more drink. I said we'd be there around one, and he said fine, he'd have the rewrite on that third-act curtain ready to show me. So we'll give him time to finish it."

  I glanced at my watch; it was five minutes after twelve.

  "If I'm going over there," he said, "there's something I might as well take--some scene sketches I got today from Brachman. He's going to design the settings for us. Taggert will want to see them."

  "Nobody in the business works as closely with a playwright as you do. You give him a real break, don't you?"

  He shrugged. "Why not? Particularly in this case. Taggert isn't just a writer; he's directed and acted and knows the stage inside out. Besides, in a way he's got more to lose than I have."

  "How?"

  "If the play flops I'm out a piece of change; but I've got more. But Taggert's broke and in a hole; the one chance out of ten of this play's going over is his one chance out of ten of making a comeback. He's had two flops in a row--and he isn't prolific."

  "He gets his advance, anyway."

  "He's had it and it's gone; he was in the hole more than that. After me for more, but I'm not a philanthropist. You want to wait here while I go the couple of blocks home and get those sketches? I'll bring my car around, too; this is a bad neighborhood to catch taxis in."

  "Okay," I said. I didn't want him to get suspicious again and think I was sticking close to him to keep him from calling copper. Give him every opportunity, and he'd figure it was all right not to.

  He took the last sip of his martini and slid out of the booth. He put on his top hat and tapped it down with a resonant thump. He said, "Exit, throwing his cape about his shoulders," and exited, throwing his cape about his shoulders.

  The bartender came over to collect Carr's empty glass. He asked, "Another for you?" and I shook my head.

  He stood there looking down at me and I wished for that moment that I'd gone with Adrian. Then, almost reluctantly, he walked away and went behind the bar.

  I kept thinking what a damned fool I was, wondering whether it was worth it, what I was going through.

  There were easier ways. There was Adrian Carr's two hundred dollars--and almost a hundred of my own in my pocket--and the open road and a job in a hamburger stand somewhere in Oklahoma or Oregon. Never again, of course, to act.

  And there was the gun in my pocket. But that was too easy.

  I heard the heavy footsteps of the bartender walking toward the back, toward the juke box. I heard the snick of the slide as a slug went into the machine. I heard the soft whir of the mechanism starting, the needle hitting the groove.

  He'd said, "Say, there's one good record on there, though. Trumpet solo and blue as they come. Sleepy Time Gal."

  It was.

  I was set for it, but again something twisted inside me. I couldn't take it, not tonight. The trumpet wasn't a solo at all; it was a trumpet plus Lola's voice, singing inside my head. Once on our honeymoon singing it to me and switching the words a little, running in a little patter: "Sleepy time gal--you don't like me to be one, do you, darling? Maybe some day I'll fool you and stop turning night into day. I'll learn to cook and to sew; what's more, you'll love me, I know . . ."

  Only she never had, and now she never would.

  And all of a sudden the hell of a chance I was taking just didn't matter any more at all, and I didn't want to hear any more of it. I couldn't take any more of it. I stood up and walked--I kept myself from running--back to that juke box. I wanted to smash my fist through the glass and jerk the needle out of that groove, but I didn't let myself do that, either. I merely jerked the cord that pulled the plug out of the wall.

  Then there was sudden silence, a silence you could almost hear, and the bright varicolored lights quit drifting across the glassed-in bottom half of the juke box and it stood there, dark and silent and dead, as though I'd killed it. Except that this time somebody could put the plug back into the wall and it would come to life again. They should make people that way. People should come with cords and plugs.

  But now I'd done it. I hadn't liked the way that bartender had looked at me before; what was he thinking now?

  I took a deep breath before I turned around, and I strolled up to the bar as casually as I could.

  "Sorry as hell," I told him. "My nerves are on edge tonight. I should have asked you to turn that off, but all of a sudden I just couldn't take any more of it and--well, I took the quickest way before I started screaming."

  I knew it wasn't going to sell. If he'd looked angry, if he'd glowered at me, then it would have been all right. But his face was quiet and watchful; not even surprise showed on it.

  I sat on one of the bar stools. I made another try. I said, "Guess I can use another martini. Will you make me one?"

  He came down behind the bar and stood opposite me.

  He said, "Mister, I used to be a cop. I was on the force eight years before I bought me this tavern."

  I said, "Yes?" with what I tried to make sound like polite disinterest. It was still his move.

  "Yeah," he said. "Look, that gag about your killing your wife. You said you shot her?"

  "I strangled her with a knife," I told him. "What's the matter with your sense of humor, Mike? Don't you know all actors are a little crazy?"

  "A little crazy I don't mind. All Irishmen are a little crazy. But a psycho--you've been making like a psycho, mister. You damn well could have killed someone tonight. I don't like it."

  I leaned my elbows on the bar. I felt the pitch of my voice trying to rise and I fought it down. I said, "Mike, get this straight before you make a fool of yourself. Adrian Carr's got a role open for a murderer. He thought I couldn't handle the part. I've been putting on an act for him and I've got him sold. Ask him when he gets back. And how's about that martini? I can stand one now."

  "You were putting on an act then--or are you now?"

  I said, "Mike, I'd walk the hell out on you if it wasn't that Adrian's coming back here to pick me up. But if you don't like my company I can wait for him out front."

  "Murder's nothing to joke about."

  I let my voice get a little angry. I said, "Nobody was joking about it. Can't you get it through your head I was acting a part? Is an actor joking about murder when he plays the part of a murderer on stage--or
at a tryout for the part? Maybe you think it wasn't good taste; is that it?"

  He looked a little puzzled; I had him on the defensive now. He said, "You weren't acting for Mr. Carr when you jerked that juke box plug."

  "I told you my nerves were on edge. I apologize for touching your damn juke box. Now let's settle it one way or the other--do I get a drink or do I wait for Adrian outside?"

  He wasn't quite sold, but I'd talked the sharp edge off his suspicion. He reached for the gin bottle and the jigger. He put them on the bar and then put ice in the mixer glass. He put a jigger of gin and brought up the bottle of vermouth. But he moved slowly, still thinking it out.

  He put the drink in front of me and leaned on the bar, watching me as I took the first sip. He'd filled the glass fairly full but I managed to drink without slopping any out, keeping my hand steady.

  I was starting to say something foolish about the weather; I had my mouth open to say it when I saw his face change.

  He said, "What's that stain on your coat?"

  I tried to grin; I don't know how the grin looked from outside, but it didn't seem to fit quite right. I said, "Catsup. I tried to sponge it off, but didn't do such a hot job. Don't worry, Mike, it isn't blood. Not even mine."

  He said, "Look, mister, I'm just a dumb ex-cop, but I don't like the look of things. Is your wife home now?"

  "She might be. I haven't been home this evening. Are we going to start this all over again?"

  "You're in the phone book?"

  "No, it's through a switchboard. I can give you the number, but why should I? Quit acting like a dope."

  I could see it didn't go over. Maybe it was the smear on my coat, maybe it was the grin that hadn't fitted my face when I'd tried it, maybe it was just everything put together.

  Mike walked to the front end of the bar and around it. Before I realized what he was going to do, he was at the front of the tavern, turning a key in the door.

  He came back, but on my side of the bar. He said, "Stick around. I'm going to make sure. Maybe I'm making a dope out of myself, but I'd rather do that than let a psycho loose out of here."

  I made one more try. He was already walking toward the phone. I said, "This is going to cost you money, pal."

  It did stop him a second. Then he said, "No, it won't. I heard you say you did a murder. That's reasonable grounds, even if you didn't have a blood stain on you. Just sit tight."

  III

  Date With Death

  If it hadn't been for that bright idea of his of locking the door I could have walked out. I could have got away; he was twice my size but I was faster, I think. But he hadn't left me that choice.

  I did the only thing left to do. I took the revolver out of my pocket. I said, "Don't go near that phone," and pulled back the hammer. The click, which sounded almost as loud as a shot in that still room, stopped him suddenly. He turned around slowly.

  He licked his lips again. "I can make you turn around," I suggested, "and tap you with the butt of this. But I might hit too hard. I've never sapped anyone before. And I'd be afraid of hitting too easy. Any better ideas?"

  He hesitated, then said, "There's a closet off the back room. Key's on the ring."

  "Turn around and walk there, slowly."

  He did and I followed him. He stepped inside and turned around facing me, his face rigid and white. I don't think he expected to live through his experience. He thought this was the payoff.

  I closed the door, found the right key, and locked it. I called through the panel, "I'm going to stick around till Adrian gets back. It may be a long time. Don't get the idea of hammering on that door for a long time or I'll put bullets through it."

  He didn't answer and I went back to the front of the room. I unlocked the front door and sat at the bar again. I drank the rest of my martini at a single gulp. I caught sight of my face in the mirror back of the bar and realized I'd better get calmed down and straightened out before Adrian came back, or before another customer came in.

  I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths. Again I heard the far siren of a police car, but it wasn't coming this way; it died out in the distance.

  I sat there and it seemed like a very long time. It seemed as though I'd been sitting there for hours. I looked at my watch and saw that it was twelve thirty-five. Adrian had left half an hour ago. He lived only three blocks away; he should be back before this unless he had misplaced the sketches he went back to get. Or possibly he'd had to go somewhere for gasoline for his car. Or something.

  I wanted another drink, but I didn't want to chance going behind the bar. Someone might come in.

  Someone did. A man, about fiftyish, and a woman of about thirty-five in a mink stole. I glanced at them as they came in, and then pretended to pay no attention to them.

  They sat at the bar, the man two stools away from me and the woman on the other side. After a minute the man asked me, "Where's Mike?"

  I jerked my thumb vaguely toward the back. "Back there," I said.

  Maybe it was the sound of voices that gave him the idea, but he chose that moment to start thumping on the closet door. Not too loudly, and he didn't yell; I guess he was too scared for that. He was just thumping tentatively to see if he'd get any reaction.

  I slid off the stool quickly and went into the back room. I stood in front of the closet door and called out, "Are you all right, Mike?"

  The thumping quit. It was so quiet in that closet that I could hear the scrape of his clothes against the wall as he hugged one side of the closet and crouched down, hoping I'd miss if I fired shots through the wood.

  I stood there a second as though listening to an answer and then went back into the tavern. I strolled back toward the stool I'd been sitting on.

  I said casually, "Mike drank a bit too much; I think he's being sick. If you're friends of his why don't you help yourselves and leave the money on the ledge of the register?"

  I didn't think they'd take the suggestion seriously and they didn't. The woman said, "Let's go to the place in the next block, Harvey."

  The man nodded and said, "All right, dear."

  He turned and looked at me a moment as though he wanted to ask a question. He wanted, I could guess, to ask what Mike was being sick at his stomach had to do with that thumping on a door back there, but decided not to ask. He was a mild-looking little man; he didn't want, I could see, to ask a question that just might lead to an answer he didn't like.

  I met his eyes and his dropped first. He took the woman's elbow and helped her down off the bar stool and they went out.

  I took a deep breath and went back to the closet door again. I called out, "Do that again, Mike, and it'll be the last time. Get me?"

  There wasn't any answer, and I went back to the bar. I held my hand out in front of me and it was shaking badly. I put it down flat on the bar to steady it and looked at my wrist watch. Twelve forty-five. Adrian had been gone for forty minutes.

  I thought, I'll count to a hundred slowly, and if he isn't here I'll phone his place. I turned around to face the door and started counting, as slowly as my patience would let me, probably about one count a second.

  I got to seventy-nine before the door opened and someone came in. But it wasn't Adrian Carr. It was a policeman in uniform. This is the payoff, I thought, here and now. I'm not going to shoot it out with him. If he says, "Are you Wayne Dixon?" it means he came here for me because Adrian sent him. And if he does, I'll go along quietly. It was a thousand to one shot anyway, what I had in mind doing.

  And if he says, "Where's Mike?" it'll probably mean that he met the two people who went out of here a few minutes ago and that they'd told him about that suspicious thumping on the door and the story I'd told about Mike being sick.

  He asked, "Where's Mike?"

  I jerked my thumb casually toward the back room. "Back there," I said.

  He stopped halfway between the door and the bar. "Oh," he said. "Well, tell him his brother looked in, will you, fellow? I got to make the next cal
l-box. Tell him I'll drop in again later."

  He went out, and I started to breathe normally again. When I felt able to get down off the stool without falling, I did. And I quit worrying about taking further chances. I went around behind the bar and poured myself a stiff drink of bourbon. I drank it neat and felt the warmth of it trickle from my throat downward.

  Then I went back to the phone and called Adrian Carr's number.

  The phone rang twice and Adrian's voice answered.

  "This is Wayne," I said. "What happened to you?"

  "Oh, hello, darling," he said. "Where are you?" The "darling" was enough of a tipoff; Adrian didn't talk that way. If it hadn't been, the "Where are you?" was enough too. He knew where I was.

  I asked softly into the transmitter, "Cops?"

  "Well, I'm afraid I'm going to be late, dear," he said. "Do you want to wait for me there?"

  "No," I said, urgently, "not here, Adrian. There's trouble at this end, too. But look, what the hell are you standing up for me for? Why don't you tell them the truth?"

  "A couple of hundred reasons, which I can't explain now. I'll give them to you later. You want to go on to the party, then?"

  "How long will you be tied up?" I asked him.

  "Another hour, possibly. But it's an all-night party. It'll keep. Shall I pick you up somewhere?"

  I said, "You're mad, Adrian. But there's a little all-night restaurant on Seventy-second, south side, west of the park. I'll be there. If you change your mind, send the cops for me instead."

  "Fine. 'Bye, darling."

  I put the receiver back and went over to the bar for one more stiff drink. I made plenty of noise getting it so that Mike would know I was still around and wait a while before he tried hammering again. Then I left, quietly, so he wouldn't know I was gone. I didn't want him loose yet.

  I walked over to Central Park West and north to Seventy-second Street. I took a seat on one of the benches along the edge of the park, from which I could watch the door of the restaurant I'd told Adrian about. I lighted a cigarette and tried to look as though I'd just sat down to rest a minute.