Margie

by Howard Fast

  To the credit of Lieutenant Rothschild, before he asked another question he picked up the telephone and called downtown. They put him through to the Police Commissioner, to whom he said tersely, “I think I got a lead on the kid, the coat, and the bracelet. The Dravinian Oil Company—Dravinian International, I believe. Park Avenue and Fifty-fourth Street. Shall I take it alone, or do you want to meet me there?”

  Comaday said that he would meet the lieutenant there, and Rothschild said to Fenton, “Come along now. I want to hear the whole story, including any other educated guesses you might have. We’re going downtown to Park Avenue.”

  From the persecuted, Fenton Compton had suddenly become the guide, from the despised, the esteemed. As he stood up in the oversized police jacket, he took on new dignity. Another might have demanded pants, a shirt, an overcoat. Not Fenton; he was both a Compton and a runner. Head up, he followed Rothschild, who was shouting for Sergeant Kelly.

  The twilight of late fall was already upon them as the police car hurtled downtown, its siren screaming, and Fenton was completing his story of how, from the more or less obvious facts of one undersized designer cousin and one oversized salesman, he had worked out the various steps and positions that the drama encompassed. Sergeant Kelly and Lieutenant Rothschild listened in openmouthed wonder. So nicely did they fall under the spell of Fenton and his inexhaustible store of knowledge that for once Lieutenant Rothschild laid aside his cynical, questioning disbelief and agreed that the only likely place Margie could be at was the Dravinian Oil Company.

  Kelly, however, asked hesitatingly for a second choice; and Fenton was about to say that Macbain and Margie might still be at Sardi’s, totally entranced with each other, when he realized what an anticlimax that would be.

  “I don’t think we need a second choice,” he replied with simple dignity.

  At that moment they drew up in front of the Park Avenue building, and the three of them tumbled out of the police car. So parochial is New York in its local attitudes that Fenton, in his bare legs and tiny running trunks under the policeman’s jacket, immediately drew the attention of everyone within eyesight, and a crowd formed on the spot. What was a direct and understandable piece of the local culture on Sixty-fifth Street between Lexington Avenue and Fifth Avenue became freakish and exciting on Fifty-fourth Street and Park Avenue. Lieutenant Rothschild, walking with the direct authority of a city plain-clothes cop, pushed through into the lobby, Fenton behind him, Kelly in the rear. Inside, Comaday was waiting with a plain-clothes man from downtown and with the District Attorney, Larry Cohen. Sergeant Kelly, being the only one in uniform, spread his arms, cleared the way, and led the group into the elevator. Comaday, who could not take his eyes off Fenton’s skinny, hairy legs, finally jabbed a finger at Rothschild and spread his hands questioningly.

  “A runner,” Rothschild said tersely.

  “Does he run at night?”

  “He’s the head of the Compton Foundation,” Rothschild answered reasonably.

  “Oh?”

  “That’s it,” Rothschild said.

  An outsider tried to enter the car with them, but Kelly pushed him back.

  “It’s the twenty-second floor,” Cohen said, determined to make some small contribution to the hunt. He had promised to take Comaday to dinner with the Governor, and Comaday had laid aside his dislike of all things Republican to such an extent that he would not let Cohen out of his sight.

  “There’s no twenty-two on here,” Comaday said. “It stops at nineteen.”

  “Impossible.”

  Fenton, who was jogging in place to keep his circulation up, explained that they were in a local elevator. They wanted an express. Meanwhile the doors had closed, and they went up to the sixth floor, where three young ladies crowded in past Sergeant Kelly’s outstretched arms. Once in, they could not take their eyes off Fenton’s legs, which were going like an old but usable piston-type steam engine. Starting and stopping, they continued up to the nineteenth and then down from there.

  “Is he a cop?” one of the girls finally asked Kelly, nodding at Fenton.

  “Stupid,” said the second girl. “Do cops go around naked?”

  “Do I know? What am I—some kind of authority on cops? It’s bad enough to have them fill up every elevator in the building.”

  But the third one said never a word, only continued to stare at Fenton’s skinny legs.

  “Does he have to run?” Comaday asked Rothschild.

  “He’s a runner. So he runs.”

  They got back to the lobby and drove like a football wedge across to the express-elevator section. The one that was waiting had a number of people in it, including one mild-mannered old woman.

  “Out. Police business.” Sergeant Kelly said.

  They began to move toward the door of the elevator, but the mild-mannered old lady stationed herself in front of them, barring their entrance, and demanded of Sergeant Kelly, “I suppose if it was your own mother, you would drag her out by the scruff of her neck?”

  “Lady,” Sergeant Kelly said, “I am not dragging you out by the scruff of your neck. We are in a hurry, and this is police business and maybe a matter of life and death—”

  “And let me tell you, young man, that courtesy is also a matter of life and death, and my own sister, Mary, had the misfortune to marry a policeman—”

  What had happened to Mary they never knew, for the doors to the elevator closed and it departed. Commissioner Comaday commandeered the next elevator himself and guarded the doors while the party entered, the lieutenant, Kelly, Fenton, the detective from downtown, Cohen, and finally Comaday himself. The doors closed, and Rothschild punched the twenty-two button savagely.

  They stood grimly in silence while the elevator rose. Then suddenly it stopped. According to the panel of lights above them, the elevator was not on the twenty-second floor. It was not on any floor. So far as they could see, it was wedged securely between the eleventh and twelfth floor, since a little bit of the eleven light and a little bit of the twelve light flickered briefly. Then eleven and twelve stopped flickering, and the lights in the elevator went out.

  CHAPTER 10

  In which it is no longer against the field.

  HER EYES narrowed warily, Margie backed away from General Cadium Alexander and said to him pointedly, “I certainly have no reason to expect anything else from you, but even as a joke, that is not anything to say to a lady.”

  The chauffeur took up a position in front of the outside doors to the office; the two pinstripers formed a human dragnet; and General Alexander began to reach a boiling point as he fumbled with the silencer. Finally he ceased in his efforts, looked up, and glared at Margie.

  “I am not joking, young lady!”

  “Let me have a try at that silencer,” Macbain said.

  “This is no moment to put a gun into your hands,” said the General. “I know that you’re a beastly little swine, but even such as you have turned on the hand that feeds them.”

  “She’s my ticket to the electric chair as well as yours. So try to be decently polite.”

  “You mean,” Margie said to Macbain, “that you are going to co-operate with him? In murdering me? It’s absolutely the most illegal thing I ever heard of in my life.”

  “You don’t really need the silencer,” Macbain said. “This place will absorb the sound.”

  “I think I’ll let them wring her neck,” the General said, nodding at the pinstripes.

  “I might as well tell you that nobody is going to wring my neck,” Margie said. “And as for you, I have news for you,” she told Macbain. “You are the most disappointing man I ever met. But both of you had better realize where you are. You are in New York City, and everything you are going to do is simply out of the question.”

  Alexander motioned to pinstripe one and pinstripe two, directing both of them, like oversized hunting dogs, in upon Margie.

  “Oh, come now,” Macbain said, “you’re not going to wring her neck—I mean, you
’re not going to have those two brutes kill her?”

  Margie ran to the other end of the room. The chauffeur moved to intercept her.

  “Stay where you are, stupid!” the General shouted at the chauffeur. And to Macbain, “You have queer scruples.”

  Margie leaped up on top of a desk.

  “Well, I mean, she’s not a chicken, is she? I mean, you can’t just wring her neck.”

  The two pinstripes closed in on Margie now. She slipped off one of her shoes and flung it at pinstripe one. His movements were phlegmatic and the shoe caught him over his nose. He roared with pain and anger, and Macbain cried:

  “Good shot!”

  “Don’t be so bloody damn sporting,” said the General, trying once more to get his silencer in place on his pistol.

  The pinstripes closed in. Margie let fly with the other shoe but caught only a shoulder, and it was obvious that the nerve endings in the pinstripe shoulders were rather primitive. Margie leaped off on the other side of the desk, and as pinstripe two lunged at her, she tipped an adding machine into his path and he fell headlong.

  “For heaven’s sake,” Margie shouted, “these apes are in earnest!”

  “You can’t let this go on,” Macbain said.

  “Don’t be an ass. You didn’t mind having her shot.”

  “That’s one thing. This is something else.”

  What she lacked in weight and breadth Margie made up for in nimbleness. She crossed two desks and swung herself up onto a set of filing cabinets, which—considering that she still wore the mink coat—was no mean feat. As she stood up on the cabinets various forces closed in upon her—the two pinstripes, the General, and Macbain—and Margie screamed. It was no small scream. Margie did not waste herself in small screams; it was a full-blooded, wild, harrowing scream, and it coincided with the appearance of Hy Golden and Alan Compton at the double doors of Dravinian International.

  Both Compton and Golden were fired into action by that scream, and they plunged into the offices and into the chauffeur guarding the door. Pledged as he was to violence, the chauffeur reacted immediately and grasped Alan Compton around the neck, raising him from the floor and beginning the process of choking him to death. Hy Golden had a more complex and somewhat slower reaction to violence. He punched the chauffeur in the stomach, not hard—it took extreme provocation for him to punch hard—but rather as an admonition, as if to say in his simple, honest manner:

  “Margie is in danger and she needs me and you are blocking the way.”

  The chauffeur doubled over, still clinging to Compton. Golden picked up the chauffeur, and Compton came with him.

  “Let go!” Golden said to Compton.

  “He’s holding me,” Compton gurgled.

  Margie screamed again.

  Golden squeezed the chauffeur, who groaned and let go of Compton, who dropped to the floor with a hoarse, croaking yell of pain.

  Margie stopped screaming and stared at the encounter at the doorway. Pinstripe one and two, oblivious to everything but the fact that their victim was trapped, closed in upon the filing cabinet.

  The General turned, gave up all attempts with the silencer, and aimed at Hy Golden. For want of any other recourse, Hy Golden threw the chauffeur at the General. The General dodged and the chauffeur struck pinstripe two squarely across the back, turning his crouch into a leap that sent him flying, headfirst, into one of the cabinets. Pinstripe one reached for Margie’s foot, and she stamped on his hand.

  The General fired at Hy Golden and missed.

  Alan Compton then threw a typewriter at the General. It fell eleven feet short.

  The General fired at Alan Compton and missed.

  “You idiot,” Macbain yelled, “didn’t you ever shoot a pistol before?”

  Pinstripe two and the chauffeur were crawling on the floor now, pinstripe two shaking his head from side to side and moaning. Hy Golden started for the General. The General ran in the opposite direction replying to Macbain:

  “I’m just a lousy shot. Is it my fault I’m just a lousy shot?”

  “Let him get close enough so that you can’t miss!” Macbain shouted.

  Compton picked up a telephone book and threw it at Macbain. His aim and range were better now, but Macbain dodged and the telephone book struck pinstripe one across the back of the neck. It angered him to the point of explosion, and shouting wildly in Dravinian, he picked up the phone book and began to tear it into shreds.

  In dodging the phone book, Macbain had come too close to Golden, who picked him up as the nearest and handiest thing to throw at the General. The General turned, his pistol only inches from Macbain.

  “Not me, you idiot!” Macbain screamed.

  Pinstripe one was clawing across the top of the cabinets for Margie’s feet. Compton launched himself and landed piggyback on pinstripe one. Pinstripe two and the chauffeur were rising unsteadily.

  Hy Golden threw Macbain at the General. The General’s pistol went off, and pinstripe two yelled in agony; and the General, his head whacked soundly against the floor, went to sleep. Macbain dazedly looked for the gun. Pinstripe two had lost the lobe of his ear and was yelling and covering himself with blood, and the chauffeur, swaying, looked about for the task he was pledged to do. He staggered toward Macbain, who in self-defense raised the pistol. The chauffeur roared and leaped toward Macbain—who got in just one shot.

  Golden, meanwhile, possessing none of the niceties of the manly art of self-defense, and knowing nothing of karate or any other proper technique of mayhem, stuck to the one method that appeared to have inbuilt qualities of success. He embraced pinstripe one from the front and lifted him into the air. Since Compton was attached piggyback to the back of pinstripe one, he went into the air, too, and pleaded, “Let me down, you big ape!”

  The chauffeur, with a bullet through his chest, was apparently dead when he landed upon Macbain—but with such impact that Macbain surrendered consciousness at the same time.

  “Let go of him!” Hy Golden said.

  Once again Compton plopped to earth. Pinstripe one was hammering at Hy Golden’s head, and to lessen the annoyance of this Golden raised him up at arm’s length—holding him there while he searched for some target. The only motion came from pinstripe two, who was bewailing his lost ear lobe. Golden threw pinstripe one at pinstripe two—and then there was silence, except for the weeping of Margie. She had finally burst into tears.

  Compton got to his feet, looked around him, and said to Golden, “You jerk—just look at it. You’ve practically killed five people.”

  “Waah—don’t you yell at him,” Margie wailed through her tears.

  “Don’t cry, Margie,” Hy Golden said. “I didn’t mean it. So help me, I didn’t mean it. I even pulled my punch when I hit the chauffeur. He was the only one I hit. I am always careful not to hit people hard.”

  “I’m not crying because of that,” Margie sobbed.

  “Couldn’t you stop crying now that we found you?” Compton asked. “You just can’t imagine what we’ve been through—just trying to find you, Margie.”

  “It’s been peachy for me,” Margie wept. “Nothing at all happened to me—oh no, just nothing, only they were going to wring my neck.”

  “It’s going to be all right now,” Hy Golden said, helping her down off the filing cabinets. “You can relax now, Margie.”

  “As long as I am here, I got the situation under control,” said Compton.

  Golden patted her hand. He would have liked to have taken her in his arms, but it seemed that the appropriate moment for that had somehow slipped by.

  “First thing is to get organized,” Compton said cheerfully. He bent his neck tentatively. “Would I be talking like this if my neck were broken?”

  “How can you think about your neck being broken,” Margie asked him, “when this is practically like a battlefield, with dead bodies everywhere you look?”

  “Still, it’s my one neck. They can’t be dead. All Hy did was to throw them at each
other.”

  “I can’t bear to hit people,” Golden explained again.

  “How about my neck?”

  “Well, you wouldn’t be talking if your neck was broken. Would he be talking if his neck were broken, Margie?”

  “Well, I should think you’d call an ambulance or something. They may have threatened to kill me, but how do you think I feel with their bodies all over the place?”

  “I can’t stand the sight of blood,” said Hy Golden. “I’ve always been that way since I was a kid. I remember once my grandmother broke a bottle of ketchup and I became hysterical.”

  “I like sensitive people,” Margie told him. “You are very sensitive.”

  “You don’t think it’s just a sign of weakness?”

  “I certainly do not.”

  “For crying out loud, is that all you two have to talk about? Come over here and help me. I think this one in the chauffeur’s uniform is dead. He doesn’t seem to have a pulse or anything. Do you know how to tell if someone’s dead or alive, Hy?”

  “Me!” Golden exclaimed in horror. “Are you out of your mind? The only time I ever saw a dead person was when my grandmother died.”

  “The same one as with the ketchup?”

  “That’s right. But it’s no laughing matter. I was very fond of her.”

  “All right. You were very fond of her. But these two in the pinstripes are beginning to move.”

  “You’d better put the gun away,” Golden said, pushing it toward Compton with his toe.

  “Not me. I’m not touching that gun. Don’t you have any brains at all? You pick up that gun and you’re practically in the electric chair.”

  Pinstripe one groaned.

  “Hit him or something,” Compton said.

  “Hit him? What do you think I am, an executioner?”

  “Well, you were acting like one a few minutes ago.”

  “Please stop arguing,” Margie said, attempting to dry her tears and preserve her eye make-up. “The thing to do is to tie them up. That’s the reason that girls can’t afford to cry these days. Look what it does to your eye make-up.”