The Comedy is Finished

by Donald E. Westlake

  Some toughness in his tone startled her, and she looked at him more closely. “What did you do to him?”

  She’s still a liberal, Mike reminded himself; we get Koo Davis back by fair play only. “Believe it or not,” he said, “the only time I touched him was when I shook his hand.”

  “Just so Koo’s all right,” she said. Meaning fair play was no longer an issue?

  “He isn’t all right yet,” Mike told her. “We still have to get him away from those people.” And he stepped deeper into the trailer.

  The furnishings were a grab-bag of bits and pieces; some folding chairs of various styles, a couple of folding-leg card tables, one sturdy wooden table and a couple of small battered gray-metal desks. At one of these sat Jock Cayzer; approaching him, Mike said, “Is our phone line in?”

  “Let’s see.” Jock lifted the receiver of the phone which was the only thing on the surface of his desk, listened, and shook his head. “Not a thing.” Cradling the receiver again, he called toward the other end of the people-filled trailer, “How much longer on the phone?”

  “One minute!” The person who answered was a big bearish young man with shoulder-length blond hair and shaggy blond beard. He was dressed in work pants, a yellow T-shirt and a large tool-filled workbelt around his waist, and he was kneeling on the floor at the far end of the trailer, a screwdriver in one hand and a telephone receiver in the other. “Just checking with the operator,” he called, waved the screwdriver, and went back to work.

  Mike said, “I’m assuming that place has a phone and we know the number.”

  “It does,” Jock assured him, “and we do.”

  “Good.” Then Mike added, “According to Merville, they killed our inside girl.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Jock said. “We didn’t do her any favor.”

  Lynsey had followed Mike, and now she said, with new worry, “If they’ve already killed once, they don’t have anything to lose anymore.”

  “These people started killing years ago,” Mike told her, and went over to the wooden table, which was filled with an untidy Rube Goldberg assembly of electronic parts and wiring. Half of it comprised a two-way police radio, at which an operator sat, receiving occasional messages from elements at the perimeter of the siege area. The rest was the recording equipment, being fussed over by their regular technician from the Burbank office. Mike said to him, “You ready to tape phone conversations?”

  “I think so.” The technician looked harried, very unlike his normal calm self; he apparently didn’t like being transported out of his comfortable home environment. “I won’t know for sure,” he said, “until they get the phone working.”

  “They say that’ll be just a minute.”

  “They always say that,” the technician said.

  The radio operator said, “Sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “An L.A. Sheriff’s car on the beach just reported. The word’s got around, and the offshore is filling up with small boats.”

  “Boats! Are they looking to get killed?”

  “I guess they’re just looking, sir.”

  Mike pointed to the array of radio equipment. “Can you get the Coast Guard on that thing?”

  “I believe so, yes, sir.”

  “Get onto them, explain the situation, and tell them we’d appreciate their cooperation clearing that area. And if they feel like sinking a couple of those stupid bastards out there, we leave them to their own initiative.”

  The radio operator grinned. “Yes, sir.”

  “Try your phone now!” cried the young man from the far end of the trailer.

  Mike watched as Jock picked up the phone and listened. “Sounds good,” Jock called.

  “Terrific.” Mike said to the technician, “You set?”

  “I need to hear a conversation.”

  “Right. Jock? Dial the weather or something.”

  Jock waved an okay, dialed the number, and the technician fiddled with his dials and switches. Suddenly a female voice filled the trailer: “—perature seventy-eight degrees, humidity—”

  The technician hit another switch, and nodded in embattled satisfaction. “Set,” he said.

  “Good.”

  Mike crossed to the other desk, sat down, and drew its telephone close. As he did so, Lynsey, standing in front of the desk, said, “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  Mike looked at her, not knowing what on earth she was talking about. “Huh?”

  “Telling me they started killing years ago. Why should that make me feel better?”

  “Oh. Because it isn’t new to them,” Mike told her. “They’re less likely to panic, because they’ve already known for years the consequences of getting caught.”

  “I see,” she said, surprised. “I see what you mean.”

  “Now do you feel better?”

  “Not really. I won’t feel good till this is all over and Koo is safe.” Then she added, “May I sit by you?”

  “Of course. Drag over a chair.”

  She did, bringing one of the lightweight metal folding chairs and placing it at the side of the desk. Meantime, Mike asked Jock for the beach house phone number, and dialed it as Jock read it off. Lynsey sat down and Mike nodded at her, listening to the phone’s ring-sound in his ear.

  She said, “What if they don’t answer?”

  He held up a finger, meaning he didn’t want to talk right now. He was counting the rings: five, six, seven...“We’ll wait for them,” he said. Eight, nine...

  In the middle of the fourteenth ring, someone picked up at the other end, but at first didn’t speak. Mike waited, hearing the faint sound of breathing, and finally he said, “Hello?”

  It was a woman’s voice: “Wrong number.”

  “Peter Dinely, please,” Mike said.

  There was a sharp intake of breath, then silence. Would she hang up? No; she said, “Who is this?”

  “Michael Wiskiel, of the Federal Bur—”

  “Hold on. Hold on a minute.”

  “Sure.”

  He heard the receiver clatter onto a hard surface. Looking at Lynsey’s expectant face, he pressed the phone hard against his ear, trying to hear what was going on in that room at the other end, but heard nothing until the new clatter of somebody picking the receiver up again. A wary voice said, “Yes?”

  “Peter Dinely?”

  “Where did you get that name?” The voice sounded like the one on the final tape, but less harsh; the same voice without the rage. Which answered the question about the tape’s authenticity, now that it no longer mattered.

  “Ginger Merville told me,” Mike said.

  Surprisingly, the man at the other end laughed. “Poor Ginger,” he said, but not as though he actually sympathized. “Did he come to you or did you go out and grab him?”

  “We grabbed him.”

  “So he couldn’t even make a deal. I imagine he’s very upset.”

  “I imagine you all are,” Mike said, trying to sound as though he cared. “Merville told us Koo Davis is still alive.”

  “Oh, did he?”

  The voice now seemed to imply that Merville was wrong.

  Mike looked away from Lynsey’s eyes. “You’re in a lot of trouble, Dinely,” he said, “but you could stop now before you make things worse.”

  “Are you stupid, or do you think I’m stupid?”

  “Neither,” Mike said. It was obviously necessary to stroke this fellow’s ego a bit, and Mike was more than willing. He was willing to do whatever was needed to get Koo Davis back, safe and sound. “You’re smart,” he told Dinely, “you’ve proved that the last few days, but there’s just too many of us. It didn’t matter how smart you were, you couldn’t pull this off and get away with it.”

  “But we have gotten away with it, so far.” Dinely’s air of self-confidence was almost convincing; almost. “And we’ll go on getting away with it,” he said, with just a bit too much bravado. “I take it you want Davis back.”

  “A
live.”

  “Of course. We’ll make a deal.”

  Mike closed his eyes and pressed his lips together, knowing what was coming. The clear route to the airport, the plane waiting, Dinely’s promise to release Davis once he was aboard the plane. Mike would agree, of course, because once the gang was out of the house and in motion there would be a thousand different ways to stop them. But without endangering Koo Davis even further? Very aware of Lynsey’s presence, but keeping his eyes shut, Mike said, “Let’s hear it.”

  “We have our own car,” Dinely began. “The green Impala in the carport.”

  “Yes.”

  And Dinely went on to outline exactly what Mike had expected. The Coast Highway was also California State Highway 1, which south of here at Santa Monica went inland, along Lincoln Boulevard, down to Los Angeles International Airport; that was the route they would take, and the plane that was to be waiting for them should be equipped for flying over water. Davis would be released at the airport. Sure.

  “It’ll take a while to set up,” Mike said.

  “Not too long,” Dinely told him. “You don’t want us to get nervous here.”

  “And we need assurance,” Mike said, now opening his eyes and looking at Lynsey again, “that Koo Davis is still alive. Let me speak to him.”

  There was a brief uncomfortable silence, and then Dinely said, “That isn’t possible right now.” His voice sounded odd; Mike couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong. It wasn’t as though Dinely were lying about Davis still being alive, but almost as though Dinely were in some strange way embarrassed about something.

  Apparently Mike’s reaction was showing in his face, because Lynsey suddenly looked alarmed, instinctively reaching out, not quite grasping him by the forearm. Speaking slowly into the phone, choosing his words carefully, Mike said, “Is there some sort of problem?”

  “Davis is, uh, locked up,” Dinely said. “And it’s not—possible just this second to unlock him. Give me your phone number there.”

  “Listen,” Mike said. “Is Koo Davis alive or isn’t he?” And now Lynsey did hold his arm, her fingers a tight bony pressure.

  “Yes, he’s alive.” Dinely sounded exasperated. “Give me your phone number and I’ll call you back when he’s—available.”

  “It’s four two six,” Mike said, “nine nine seven oh. But, listen.”

  Too late. Dinely had hung up.

  36

  Peter hung up. He stood a moment, thinking, his fingertips resting lightly atop the telephone receiver. His teeth ground softly, absent-mindedly, almost tenderly, against his cheeks. Bright sunlight flattened the view of beach and ocean into a two-dimensional snapshot, simple in composition and overexposed. A few small boats bobbed far off, in the water. What would it be like to be a person on one of those boats? Peter concentrated, trying to push his mind, his particularity, out through his eyes and across the intervening space and inside the head of a person on one of those boats—that boat, right there. Feel the movement, taste the salt spray, grab the cold chrome rail, smile broadly with uncut cheeks and gaze toward shore with easy amused pity for those people mired there.

  Liz said, “It won’t work.”

  Peter looked at her with cold distaste. His army. Liz, standing near him, narrow and pinched and dead for years. And Larry over at the foot of the stairs, forehead deeply puckered with worry, mouth open like a victim of brain damage. Peter’s army. He said, “What won’t work?”

  “All that car to the airport business. They’ll mousetrap us along the way.”

  “We’ll have Davis.”

  “We don’t have him now,” she pointed out. “Mark has him, and he won’t give him back.”

  Peter’s fingertips left the telephone and moved up to touch his cheek, reassuringly. Perhaps it was only this pain that kept him going. “We’ll go talk to Mark,” he said. “Maybe he’ll listen to reason.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “We’ll shoot the lock out of the door.” In suddenly savagery, Peter said, “In any case, the first chance I get, the first chance I get, Mark dies.”

  Lynsey watched Mike’s face while he talked with the man called Dinely, and the instant he hung up the phone she said, “What are you going to do?”

  His face closed down when he looked at her. “I’m going to stop them,” he said.

  “Please, Mi—Uh, may I call you Mike?”

  He seemed surprised. There was an occasional unexpected boyishness in him that confused Lynsey. He said, “Sure. Mike. Why not?”

  “Mike,” she said, knowing it was important that communication between them remain open, knowing she was likely to be the only effective restraining influence on him, “Mike, I hate it when I see you turn off that way. You look at me and I can almost hear you saying to yourself, ‘Bleeding heart liberal.’ ”

  “Oh, well,” he said, moving his hands in awkward embarrassment, and the fact that he even blushed, faintly and briefly, confirmed that she’d been right.

  “It’s true,” she said. “And we have to get past it. For instance, you know I don’t care more about the criminals than I do about the victim; certainly not in this case.”

  His grin acknowledged the point. “Old habits die hard,” he said.

  “Yours, or mine?”

  “Both.” He nodded, heavy and thoughtful. “You’re right. I look at you and I see somebody who doesn’t want me to do the most effective job.”

  Honesty deserves honesty. She said, “And I look at you and see somebody who’s dangerous because he thinks it’s a game.”

  “But it is a game,” he said. “It’s all moves and counter-moves; dangerous, you play it for keeps, but it’s a game.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s all right for the criminals to think it’s a game, they’re sick, that’s why they’re on the wrong side of the law. But if you think the same way, then the game becomes more important than the people. You’d sacrifice Koo to win the game.”

  “I don’t know how to answer that,” he said. “I know you’re thinking about the mistake I made—”

  “No, I wasn’t,” she said, surprised. “I mean, that’s part of it, but I wasn’t thinking about that. That didn’t give me my belief, it was just confirmation of what I already believed.”

  “Which is?”

  “All right,” she said. “Using your terms, that it’s a game. You think the point of the game is to capture or kill those people over there. And I think the point of the game is to get Koo back, alive and well.”

  “We want to do both,” he said. “Naturally.”

  “Naturally. But if you had to sacrifice one for the other, you’d kill Koo to capture the people, and I’d let the people go to save Koo. And that’s the difference between us.”

  He looked bleak. “I won’t lie to you,” he said. “You’re absolutely right.”

  Mark looked at the furniture piled up against the door. Both night-tables were there, upside down on the floor, with drawers from the built-in dressers stacked among the night-table legs. A wicker bathroom hamper, weighted with all the bottles and tubes from the medicine chest and bathroom storage shelves, lay on its side atop the drawers; beyond it, the mirror, cracked and splintered by Peter’s bullets fired through the door, reflected a crazy quilt pattern of white wicker. Above that were the reflection of Mark’s newly naked somber face and the image of Koo, frightened and exhausted, seated on the bed in the background. “The television set next,” Mark said, and moved across the room.

  Koo said, “Mark? What’s going to happen?”

  “They’re going to try and break in. We won’t let them.”

  “I mean, after that.”

  “We’ll know when we get there, Koo.”

  Mark didn’t like that question, because he not only didn’t know the answer but didn’t want to know the answer. The astonishment of having actually had a pistol fired at him by Peter had forced him to a sudden awareness of his true position, so that now he knew he was living minute by minute
, even second by second. He didn’t recognize himself anymore, and without identity he couldn’t begin to think about direction. He was like a person waking from a three-week binge to find himself in the hospital, fed and dry but charged with a variety of felonies about which he has no recollection; this moment is bearable, but any conceivable movement from here is bound to be a change for the worse.

  Various wires led from the back of the television set into the darkness of the closet. Mark traced the power-lead, treating that with respect and carefully unplugging it from the wall outlet, but the other wires—aerial, external speakers—he simply ripped loose, then carried the heavy set over to place it on top of the hamper, leaning back against the shattered mirror. Then he turned to look around the room for more barricade material, ignoring Koo’s questioning gaze.

  He had always thought of himself as separate from other human beings, isolated and alone, but he’d been wrong. Now he was estranged; in this current situation, he was the only person on the face of the Earth that both sides wanted to shoot at.

  There was nothing else to pile against the door. Either what was already there was heavy enough to do the job, or it wasn’t. Since for Mark all potential endings were bad ones, it hardly mattered whether the barricade held or not; to some extent he was doing all this merely because it was the most appropriate action under the circumstances.

  So long as he remained in this room, so long as the stalemate continued outside between Peter and the authorities, then Mark still had one lifeline, one thread tying him to the human race; this complex, absurd, contradictory, useless, incomprehensible relationship with Koo Davis. Last night, suicide had seemed the only possible choice, because that moment had been unbearable. Now, the present instant had its nourishing qualities—if he didn’t know better, he’d almost think he’d become happy—so he had lost the thirst for destruction, self or otherwise; still, when the black wave did eventually get here, as it would, he would close his eyes uncaring.

  Should he take his father with him?

  “Mark! Mark!” It was Peter’s muffled voice, followed by a knocking at the door. “Mark, can you hear me?”