by Howard Fast
“What hoodlums in pinstripe shirts?” Mr. Potnik pleaded. “Margie, if you don’t talk a little sense, I promise you that I am going out of my mind. Not a little, but completely, a psychotic case instead of any petty neurosis. It is not an analyst I will need but a strait jacket. I am at the edge of it. Do you know what this place is—not M.P. Creations, but a nut house. Hy Golden and Alan Compton have disappeared completely, to rescue you, Elsie says—”
“To rescue me!” Margie exclaimed. “How on earth can they rescue me?”
“Margie, just listen to me one moment,” Macbain said. “Just listen to me one moment and try to make some sense.”
“How can I listen to you when I am trying to listen to Mr. Potnik and I can’t make any sense out of him?”
Mr. Potnik cried desperately, “Margie, what is so hard to make sense out of in what I am trying to say? Do you know what my shop is? M.P. Creations is no longer the finest creator of ensembles on Seventh Avenue. Never. Instead, it has replaced Centre Street as a meeting place for police brass and for reporters. Would you like my opinion of reporters, Margie?”
“Please, Mr. Potnik!”
“Margie!” Macbain this time. “God damn it, Margie—will you listen to me? What are you, some kind of half-wit?”
“Who is yelling at you like that?” shouted Mr. Potnik.
“How do you get mixed up with such people, Margie? You are a fine girl. I can tell from his voice that he is a bum—”
“Mr. Potnik, all I want to do is to explain to you where I am and what happened to me—”
“God damn you, don’t you understand that this changes the whole thing?”
“Mr. Potnik—”
Macbain grabbed the telephone. Margie hung onto it. Macbain slapped her. Mr. Potnik wailed, “Margie, give me your address.” Macbain slammed down on the cradle with the palm of his hand. Margie let go of the telephone and rubbed her cheek and glared at Macbain through angry, slitted eyes.
“You miserable creep,” she said, “you’re the second crumb who slapped me today. What am I—she who gets slapped or something? This just happens to be New York City. You had better not turn your back to me, because when you do, I am going to bend a desk lamp or something over your head.” There was a large, burnished-aluminum lamp on the desk. Margie gripped it and tried to raise it. It was too heavy.
“For God’s sake, Margie, don’t you understand my position? I am involved in a murder—not some small escapade, but a murder. Don’t you realize that I was in this with Alexander? Now I am involved. We’ve got to figure some way out.”
“We? What do you mean, we?”
“Well, we are in this together.”
“Are we? Those gorilla friends of yours kidnap me. They throw me around, and that ape Alexander hauls off and slaps me, and then you pull that phony prisoner act, and now you belt me—and you say we are in this together.”
Macbain’s voice dropped and the warmth went out of it. “We had better damn well be in this together.”
“Oh, I know men, don’t I?” Margie sighed. “I am probably the greatest judge of men alive in this city.”
“All right, save your sarcasm, darling. The point is that I have a piece of a murder rap right here in my pocket, and I have no intentions of going it alone or maybe setting you up as my prize witness.”
“No?”
“No, ducky. Absolutely not.”
“Oh, you begin to bore me now. What are you going to do, kill me?”
“If I have to.”
“You must be kidding. People don’t go around killing girls. Not jerks like you.”
“They don’t?”
“They certainly don’t,” Margie said emphatically. She was just beginning to shake, and she knew what would happen to her if she gave way to it. First her hands would shake and then her stomach would shake internally and then her lower jaw—and after that anything. An antidote at times was to talk very quickly and knowingly, and she suddenly became cool and rational, very cool and very rational, which meant that she was walking the edge of a precipice.
But Macbain did not know that as she told him, “For a potential murderer, you must live on stupid pills. You were seen with me in Sardi’s, and downstairs the elevator starter saw you, and God knows how many other people saw you, and you are stupid enough to talk about killing me. What would you do with my body? How would you get me out of here? What would you do with these offices? No wonder you associate yourself with creeps like Alexander and the pinstripe boys—you’d really have a time if you set out to earn an honest living.”
“All right. All right.” He spread his arms. “What would you do in my place?”
“Well, I wouldn’t go around threatening to kill people. I was just beginning to like you. That’s a weakness of mine, that I’m always affected by weak minds.”
“That’s a hell of a note. That’s a real fine thing to say to me.”
“It’s no worse than threatening to kill me, is it? I can never get over that now. No matter what happened, I couldn’t ever get out of my mind the fact that you had threatened to kill me. And it’s absolutely true what I said about weak minds. Not just stupid, but a certain kind of mentality, like retarded emotional development. Like our head salesman, Hy Golden; he’s very oversize and big and strong and a Rutgers graduate and he has an IQ of one twenty-nine, but he’s retarded.”
“Well, that’s a bit of it, isn’t it—telling me that I am retarded?”
“It doesn’t mean that I don’t like Hy Golden. As a matter of fact, I am very fond of him.”
“I couldn’t care less about your bloody damn Hy Golden!”
“Of course you couldn’t,” Margie said with some small trace of satisfaction. She was more or less herself again now, recalling how often her mother had impressed upon her that a girl in a difficult situation has the initial and all-important responsibility of keeping her head. “The ability to care about anyone implies at least some degree of emotional stability. In your case, I see no signs—”
“Oh, come off that. Look at it from my point of view. Through no fault of my own I am mixed up in some stupid murder. Look, I don’t even know this Joey—what did you say his name was?”
“Montoso. And I should think that if you killed someone, you would at least know his name.”
“Killed someone! My lord, how can you say I killed someone? I never saw him.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about,” Margie said primly. “And I think I should call Mr. Potnik right back, because I can just imagine how distressed he is.”
“Oh, Margie, talk some sense. That’s exactly it. I have a lot to worry about. I don’t know exactly how American criminal law differs from ours, but I’m sure that I am an accessory after the fact or before the fact or some way. Just put yourself in my place—”
At this point Margie thought she heard something and glanced at the door. It was half open, and she couldn’t be sure whether there was a sound of movement beyond it or not.
“—that’s all I say. Try it. Put yourself in my place. Maybe I am a weak sister—well, we are what we are, and I’d be a bloody fool to pretend that I am any pillar of virtue. The fact of the matter is that I was at Cannes and lost every shilling I owned and a good many more that I did not own, and, well—Alexander staked me.”
“You mean he bought you.”
“If you wish. He bought me. If I had four ounces of guts, I would cut his throat and tell him and his whole stinking Dravinian comic opera to blow, but I don’t have the guts—”
“You certainly don’t,” said a harsh, positive voice, and General Alexander pushed the door aside. Behind him, Margie could see the pinstripe twins and the chauffeur. “You don’t have a quarter ounce of guts, you wretched little bastard. What did you do? Blow the whole thing to her?” He stood aside and motioned to the doorway. “Out of here and into the main office. It’s getting dark and I want light for what I intend to do and I don’t want any audience watching through the windows. So o
ut here—” He waved to them and pointed through the door to the big outer office.
“I like it right here,” Margie said.
“Do you, Countess? Well, I shan’t bear down on you, but we will break every bone in Buster’s body. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”
“Please, do what he says,” Macbain begged her.
“You really are a high-class hero!”
“Good heavens, what do you expect me to do? Fight the lot of them like some cowboy hero in one of your bloody Westerns?”
“It’s an idea.”
“You are the limit—you are it!” And with that he stalked past Alexander into the big office. Margie followed him more slowly, and then the General closed the door behind them. The chauffeur was experimenting with the banks of fluorescent lights, clicking switch after switch and laughing with delight as the lights flickered on.
“Enough of that!” the General shouted at him. The chauffeur snapped to attention. Then the General turned to Margie and said, “So you see, Countess, your rescue of this man is hardly worth while—”
“I blew it,” Macbain said.
“Idiot! What else does she know?”
“Just about everything, including the fact that your zombies had put a knife in this Joey Montoso. That was a smart one, wasn’t it?”
“They don’t carry Phi Beta Kappa keys, only muscle. If they have any brains, the brains are encased in muscle too. You hire muscle, you get muscle—you ought to know that, Gerald. Look at yourself. We hire a slob, we get a slob. Now I told them to go out and bring the Countess to us. They were given an order; they obeyed it. That is an old-fashioned virtue that you would hardly comprehend.”
“Quite so,” Macbain agreed.
“This Montoso stood in their way. How do you know he’s dead? There’s a Dravinian trick of putting a knife into a man’s spine so that he’s paralyzed. He may not ever walk quite as well again, but a good many recover. How do you know he’s dead?”
“He’s dead. She called her boss—from here. I suppose he got it from the fuzz. He’s dead.”
“You let her call from here?” the General roared. “You wretched donkey—you let her call from here?”
“The call was not traced and he has no idea where she is. So don’t take a stroke—”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Macbain said.
“Did you get her signature on the leases?”
“She’s not the Countess.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Just that. And if you would cool down a bit and listen to me, you might get the drift of what I am trying to tell you. I am not the only one who blew it. We all blew it with that impossible scheme of yours—you planning it and your plug-uglies carrying it out.”
Pinstripe one and pinstripe two were listening. Now they advanced threateningly on Macbain, who backed away from them, begging Alexander, “Now don’t let them beat me up. That may give you a belly full of satisfaction, but it won’t change a single pertinent fact, namely that we all blew it.”
They were on him now, and pinstripe one slapped Macbain with the back of his hand. Macbain reeled and almost fell over, and Alexander shouted, “Back, you dunces!” Then he added a few words in Dravinian and they answered in the same language. He began to curse them in Dravinian, and while Margie did not understand a word of the language, she could not help but admire its richness. Then, as suddenly as he had started, he stopped. He took a deep breath, pointed to Margie, and then in a sweeping motion across the room.
“Walk! I want to see how you walk!”
Margie shrugged and walked across the room.
“Stop!”
She stopped and stared at him thoughtfully.
“Cool as a cucumber. That’s courage, Gerald—and blood. One doesn’t learn that. It’s blood and breeding.”
“She’s too stupid to be afraid,” Macbain observed.
“Oh, you foul, wretched little jerk!” Margie exclaimed. “I was so nice to you! Let me just tell you this. I had the opportunity once to learn karate. Alan Compton’s sister teaches it for girls; they’re a very unusual family, the Comptons. Well, I didn’t. I said it was not very ladylike and I just did not like the notion of hitting people. I suppose I still don’t, but let me assure you that if I had learned karate, I would take you apart now. Oh, I would teach you some manners, you miserable little fraud. I would—”
The General shot a few words at her in Dravinian.
“I don’t even speak French,” Margie said.
“She’s not the Countess,” Macbain told Alexander.
“She could be. I’m not sure that the Countess knows any Dravinian.”
“What did you say to her?”
“Something foul enough to elicit a response—and then, I don’t know. She’s as cold as ice and apparently a consummate actress. That comes with the Hutsingers. They say that the family had its origin in part from a group of strolling actors who were taken to the heart and, I suppose, to the loins of the first Count Hutsinger.”
“You will go on with this farce. I tell you she is not the Countess Danya. Look at her. We’ve both seen pictures of the Countess—”
“It’s the Hutsinger face,” the General said, clinging to his position.
“But is it the Countess’ face?”
“All right. If she isn’t the Countess, who is she?”
“Her name is Margie Beck. She is a model for some kind of couturier shop called M.P. Creations, and she picked up that mink coat somewhere this morning, so she may have her own patch of larceny across her spotless white arse.”
He tried to dodge, but Margie was quicker than he was, and her stinging slap landed nicely on his left cheek. “There!” He started toward her, but Alexander pulled him back.
“It evens things, doesn’t it? And the next is yours, you big ape,” she told Alexander.
“I think she’s the Countess.” the General said. “You don’t get that kind of spirit in a commoner.”
“She is not the Countess. I told you that her name is Margie Beck.”
“Is that right?” the General asked Margie.
“Of course it is. I told you before that I was not a countess.”
“Do you have any identification? A driver’s license?”
“I have the best identification in the world—my Social Security card,” Margie said, opening her purse and digging into its contents. “Here we are, so I hope you are finally convinced that I am just who I say I am. I did tell you that I was not any countess, and look at all the mess you have made—only because you would not listen to me.”
She handed the General her Social Security card, and he stared at it thoughtfully. Then he handed it to Macbain, who looked at it and nodded. He gave it back to Margie.
“Still, it would take very little skill to forge one of those,” Alexander speculated, still clinging to his notion.
“Why?”
“You know—anticipate a situation.”
“She has no crystal ball. Why should she anticipate a situation? Why should she do herself up with this kind of impossible, detailed cover identity? Why can’t you accept the fact that this girl is Margie Beck?”
“Well—you know—”
“Hard to admit that you’re as much of a boob as I am, right? Then look at her purse. That’s black plastic—two quid at Macy’s. Look at the clip in her hair—a bob will buy you a better one. And the shoes—”
That was more than Margie could stand. “The shoes,” she snapped, “are from Pappagallo’s. Maybe the girls you go around with wear better shoes, but these cost me eighteen dollars, and they’re good enough for me, and maybe your Countess pays more, but I will still take Pappagallo’s. At least the girls who walk around in Pappagallo’s shoes work for a living.”
“She’s not the Countess.” The General sighed.
“I told you.”
“We have been fools, dunces, idiots.”
“Well—at least we a
re all in this together,” Macbain sympathized.
“Oh, that we are, Gerald. Don’t ever think differently.” He reached into his jacket under his arm as he spoke, and his right hand emerged gripping an automatic pistol. From the side pocket of his jacket he took a silencer. He now attempted to fit the silencer onto the muzzle of the pistol.
“Damn things never seem to work,” the General muttered. “I mean, putting them together is such a beastly bore. It wants a degree in engineering.”
“Let me try,” Macbain offered.
“No, no, Gerald. Pistols are nasty things in indifferent hands. Now why doesn’t the bloody thing hook on?”
“Some sort of safety catch?”
“Don’t see why. One would think that if a silencer is to be of any damn use, it would attach itself in the dark.”
“You want dark, boss?” the chauffeur asked.
“Shut up and don’t be a silly ass. Do you suppose I have it backward, Gerald?”
“I never used one, but in the picture that stubby dingus goes toward the end.”
“That would seem to be the theory, wouldn’t it?”
“Try just hitting it in sharp.”
“Like this?” The general snapped the silencer down hard on the muzzle. It did not catch.
The General screwed the piece on, but the moment he stopped it came loose. He fitted it, pressed it, nursed it in gently, drove it on firmly—all to no effect.
“Sure it’s the right one?”
“Of course.”
“I mean, you could be mistaken.”
“Well, here now—” He held up the pistol. “Luger, seven-o-six, automatic. Now here’s the mark on the silencer, L seven-o-six AU—that’s it?”
“Ever used one before?”
“No, I can’t say that I did. Bought this one yesterday at Abercrombie’s. Remarkable store. Ever been to Abercrombie’s?”
“I adore the place,” Macbain said. “Has the whole feel of London about it.”
“Never can go back to London, can you?” the General asked, beginning a new, subtle attempt to attach the silencer to the gun.
“Suppose not. Unless some silly ass drops a match in the right place at Scotland Yard.”
