The First Golden Age of Mystery & Crime MEGAPACK

by Fletcher Flora

  But wouldn’t she have taken steps to exclude him legally from inheritance? Wouldn’t she have seen to it, in the end, that he could never touch that beautiful million? This, of course, was ridiculous. He smiled dreamily into the thin blue smoke of his cigarette, thinking what any competent psychiatrist would do to a contention like that. A shattered woman committing suicide in the intensity of neurotic anguish simply doesn’t take time to tie up loose ends. If she was capable of that she would never commit suicide at all. No. She would do it as it would be assumed that Wanda had done it, quickly and blindly and without rational thought.

  Having been open to this point, the strategy would be, of course, to continue that way. No reason at all, for example, why he shouldn’t see Carol. As a matter of fact, it would strengthen his position as a man who had not tried to dissemble and had nothing to hide.

  Passing to Carol, his thoughts lost their cool quality of detachment. They acquired, as they always did when she was their subject, heat and a certain wildness, reverting now to the remembrance of past instances in his relationship with her, and now pressing forward hotly to the anticipation of more to come. Carol, beautiful and hard and calculating. Carol, his kind of woman, stone and fire, remembered and anticipated in a hundred positions and places. In the soft and scented and designed clusk of a dozen fancy lounges with a thin stem of brittle glass between her scarlet-tipped fingers and her lips glistening from the touch of a martini or a daiquiri or a Pink Lady or whatever it happened to be at that particular time. In sand and sun with her golden-brown body barely broken by flimsy scraps. In other places when it was broken by nothing whatever.

  At this moment she would be in bed, still asleep, her heavy pale hair shining on the pillow, her exciting body shadowed slightly by a haze of sheer nylon. Her lips would be parted, just barely parted, with bright enamel just visible between them, and the shadows of lashes that were real would be cast below closed lids. The imagery of her lying there like that was so strong in his mind, so real and so prescient, that he forgot completely, for a while, the image of the other woman who was still a pertinent factor in his life, the one sitting by the tub with her arm dangling in red water. The one who also slept, but differently and more deeply.

  He sat in the room for perhaps thirty minutes, and then he went out and caught a cab, and within another thirty minutes he was ringing the bell of the door behind which was the reality of his imagery. It took her a long time to open the door, verifying the validity of his thoughts of her asleep, and when she finally came, she had pulled over the haze of nylon a second haze that did a little, but not much, to diminish transparency. He went in, and she closed the door behind him, and they met and fused in a spontaneous generation of heat that was a kind of emotional combustion. Her lips were restless and hungry, her hands and body aggressive in conquest.

  After a while, hunger somewhat abated, she said, “Did you do it, Charles?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s done.”

  “She’s dead?”

  “Certainly. You can’t bleed freely very long and not die.”

  “Was it hard?”

  “No. It was simple. Very easy. It went just the way I planned it.” He went over to a table and helped himself to a cigarette from a silver box. He made no motion to light the cigarette but stood revolving it slowly between the fingers of his two hands. “The hard part is coming up. It’ll take guts, darling.”

  She followed him to the table and took the cigarette from him. She carried it to her lips between index and middle fingers and waited with the cigarette still between the fingers until he had picked up the lighter that matched the box and furnished flame. She exhaled smoke in a long plume, and her lips curled around the cigarette in a quiet little smile that suggested some kind of amusing esoteric knowledge.

  “Don’t worry about my guts,” she said.

  He took one of her hands and held it palm up, stroking the palm slowly and softly. “Are you sure? Are you quite positive you can take it? Her supposed suicide will create a hell of a stink. We’ll be torn to shreds. You know the things that will be said. Lots of people will call us a pair of murderers. Morally, that is.”

  “Morally?” She lifted shoulders to indicate what she thought of morally. “What about legally?”

  “Legally we’re safe enough. They can’t substantiate anything by suicide. I doubt if they’ll even seriously consider anything but that.”

  “What about the money?”

  “It’s all right, I tell you. The only thing that’s left is to carry the thing through. If you play it wrong, if you say the wrong things or break down the least little bit, we’re sunk. If we give them nothing more than they have now, they can never definitely establish anything against us even if someone gets an idea or two.”

  She turned away from him and crossed to the windows. Against the light, the double haze of nylon was nearly dissolved. He stood behind her, watching her, the pulses in his temples and throat throbbing suddenly and painfully like a trio of malignancies. She looked out into the bright light and spoke to him over her shoulder.

  “Look, darling. You talk about my guts. You talk about my breaking down. I thought you knew me better than that. I thought you knew me as well as I’ve ever been known by anyone on earth. I guess I was mistaken, though, and so I’d better set you right. To look at me now you might not realize it, but I was one of seven kids. My old man was a leery bum, and my old lady was a whining slattern. I’ve eaten so damn much bread and potatoes just to fill my belly that I never want to see a potato or a loaf of bread again. I’ve worn cast-off clothes that weren’t fit to wear wfhen they were new, and I’ve had rags against my skin that were so damn rough they gave me gall. I got me a philosophy early in life, darling, and there isn’t anything in it, not one damn thing except what happens in bed, that you aren’t supposed to pay income tax on.”

  She turned suddenly and faced him. “Look at me. I’m soft, aren’t I? I’m lots of fun in the right time and place, aren’t I? Just a soft, generous girl? If you got that idea, you’re crazy. I want you all right, darling, I want you like hell, but I want you with a million bucks, and I wouldn’t have you for keeps any other way. Now forget about my guts, darling. And forget about my caring a damn what anyone thinks or says.”

  He went over to her then, and she was soft, as he had known perfectly well she was, and she wras also hard, hard as a diamond beneath the softness, and he had really known that perfectly well, too. Not that he cared. He preferred it that way. It only made him want her more, because he was, after all, just the kind of man who would want a woman like that.

  They used up an hour, and when he was ready to leave, he said, “I mentioned your name in the note. That means someone will probably be here on his way to me. When he comes, whoever he is, tell him I’m at the Ambassador, and I’ll be there waiting for him. Open trail leading nowhere, that’s the strategy, darling.”

  “When do you think they’ll find her?”

  “It’s our maid’s day off, so possibly not until morning. But it doesn’t matter. It’s all set up for them, whenever it is.”

  She touched the tip of a finger to her lips and his. “Okay. Whoever it is and whenever it is, I’ll send him on.”

  He left her with that and went back to the Ambassador, and it was about nine hours later when he heard her voice again. The next time was on the telephone, and he was just thinking about going down to the dining room for some dinner when the bell rang.

  He lifted the instrument and said hello, and she said, “He was here, darling. He just left.”

  “Already? Who found her? How did it happen?”

  “I didn’t ask. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to sound too curious about things like that.”

  “All right. I’ll wait for him here.”

  He hung up and waited, and it was only a short time before th
e desk rang up to tell him that there was a man from the police to see him. He told the desk to send the man up, and he waited the last couple of minutes in the open doorway to the hall.

  The cop was a thin, middle-aged man with shoulders stooped almost to the point of deformity, and this seemed to make his arms hang down farther than normal, which gave him, in that one respect, a rather simian appearance. He took off his hat politely and spoke with a tired voice.

  “Mr. Bruce?”

  “Yes. Are you the policeman?”

  “That’s right. Name’s Benson.”

  “Come in, please. I’ve been wondering what on earth you could want with me.”

  Benson walked into the room and turned as Charles closed the door.

  “I’m afraid it’s bad news. Your wife, Mr. Bruce. She’s dead.”

  “Dead!” Charles gave a passable impression of shock. “She was all right this morning when I left. That is, I assume she was. As a matter of fact, she was still sleeping, and I didn’t disturb her.”

  “Maybe you disturbed her a hell of a lot more than you thought, Mr. Bruce. Anyhow, she’s dead.”

  Charles ran fingers through his hair and worked his features into a simulation of concern. “See here, Mr. Benson …

  “Sergeant.”

  “All right. Sergeant. The point is. I may be somewhat responsible if Wanda’s done anything…

  “We found the note.”

  “I see. Well…

  Benson cut across his words with a gusty sigh and said with quiet bitterness, “Look, Mr. Bruce. I’m not the one to explain it to. I’m just a guy running an errand. There’s a big-shot lieutenant down at Headquarters wants to talk with you. He’s the one, so if you’ll just come along.”

  “Very well. I suppose there are certain formalities in these matters.”

  “That’s right, Mr. Bruce. Formalities.”

  It was a short ride to Headquarters. The traffic was heavy, but Benson threaded the police car through it expertly, and they were there quickly. They found the lieutenant in a small room sparsely furnished with essential items, and he was a younger man than Benson, although he ranked him, and this might have been a reason for Benson’s tired and quiet bitterness. The lieutenant’s name turned out to be Tomlinson. He had a hard square face and competent square hands, and his brain was fairly effective, too. Next to being a lieutenant, he was proudest of knowing about things like predicate nominatives and how to use them. He studied books at home.

  He introduced himself. “Thanks for coming, Mr. Bruce. I’m Lieutenant Tomlinson of Homicide.” Homicide, he said. So it had come to that so soon. After the initial shock, Charles wasn’t especially concerned, however. He imagined, thinking about it, that probably all suicides were at least perfunctorily investigated by Homicide.

  He sat down and said, “Sergeant Benson tells me my wife is dead, Lieutenant, but that’s all I know. I wish you would be kind enough to explain.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Bruce. I’ll explain some things to you, and you can explain some to me. That’s why you’re here. Your wife apparently committed suicide.”

  Charles sagged a little in his chair, doing it quite effectively. He was silent for a moment, staring at the floor, before he spoke again.

  “I was afraid of that, with the police concerned and all.”

  “Was that the only reason you were afraid of it? Because the police were concerned?”

  “No. Sergeant Benson has told me that you found my note, so you must be aware of my grounds for fear. I may say in defense, however, that I never really thought she’d do it.”

  “Do what?”

  Charles let his eyebrows rise in a brief expression of cold surprise. “Why, kill herself because I left her, of course.”

  “You think she did that?”

  “It certainly seems very obvious.”

  Lieutenant Tomlinson shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so.” He kept on shaking his head, and his face seemed suddenly much older. “As a matter of fact, I don’t think she killed herself at all. I think she was killed. Possibly by you, Mr. Bruce.”

  The sudden violent constriction in his chest was a kind of pain that Charles had never known. It was as though a powerful centripetal force had closed in upon his heart, and he wanted to cry out with the pain, but nothing of what he felt showed in his face. Not the least indication of it. There was nothing in his face but icy and arrogant disdain.

  “You’re insane,” he said.

  “Perhaps.” Tomlinson turned side-wise and said, “Mr. Creely.”

  That was the first instant that Charles was aware of a fourth person in the room. The man called Creely stood up from his chair against a wall and came forward. He was about the same height as Charles but much thinner, with narrow shoulders, and he must have been twenty years older. He was dressed in a conservative gray suit that was obviously expensive, and he used the cane in his right hand, leaning upon it heavily, as if it were utilitarian. His face was deeply lined, beginning to sag a little from its frame.

  Tomlinson said, “Mr. Creely’s the one who found your wife.”

  Charles stood to face Creely. “How could that be so? I believe I know all my wife’s friends, and this man is a stranger. If she was dead in the apartment, who let him in?”

  “No one let me in, Mr. Bruce.” Creely’s voice was dry and precise. “I let myself in. With this.”

  He extended a hand, palm up, and lying in the palm was a key. Charles lifted incredulous eyes from the key to Creely’s face, and he experienced a feeling that might have been terror when he saw the steady, virulent hatred in the man’s eyes. It’s always a shock to see hatred in the eyes of a stranger.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “Don’t you?” Creely’s laugh was an arid whisper. “Surely a man like you has no difficulty in understanding the significance of a key to a lady’s apartment. I used it discreetly, Mr. Bruce. Only on those occasions—rather frequent, I must say—when you were using the one you have to another 1ady’s apartment.”

  Tomlinson cut back in, speaking slowly in a kind of cadence timed by the shaking of his head, “Your wife was apparently having an affair, Mr. Bruce, just as you were. Mr. Creely has been able to establish pretty definitely that he and your wife planned marriage. It seems she intended to tell you within a few days.” He stopped talking, but his head kept right on shaking, and after a moment his voice picked up the tempo again. “So you see, Mr. Bruce, it isn’t likely your wife would have killed herself because you’d left her. It isn’t likely she’d have cared at all.”

  That was the wholly incredible thing. The thing that had never seriously crossed his mind. That she wouldn’t care. Most of all, that she had planned to leave him—him!—for a gray, sagging, crippled specimen like Creely. And in the final phase of his destruction, with the terrible realization that the police would pin it on him since they knew Wanda was not a suicide, it was the cruel cut to his vanity that hurt him most. It actually drove him a little mad.

  It took both Tomlinson and Benson to pull him off Creely.

  POINTS SOUTH

  Originally published in Manhunt, June 1954.

  I drew an ace, and I needed it. With the pair that I already had, it established something substantial. Luck was going my way. I lifted my eyes from the cards to the face of Leo Gall, and I thought to myself again that it was like a fat olive with features. His eyes were screwed back into little puffs of skin as he examined his hand, and his pimento-red lips were pursed into the shape of a wet kiss. It was a face I didn’t like, though I pretended to like it for my health’s sake, so I slanted my line of vision off over his shoulder to the face of Hilda Hearn.

  Hilda was tired. About midnight she’d gone into the bedroom for a nap, but when she’d returned a couple of hours later, it was obv
ious that the nap had been too late and too short to do her much good. The muscles of her face had a tight, drawn look, her eyes were smudged, and her mouth was a soft scarlet smear. She slept too little and smoked too much, ate too little and drank too much, did too much of everything bad for her and too little of anything good, but tousled and smeared and worn to the bone, she was still a lovely assembly of female parts. Sprawled on the sofa with a highball in her hand, she combed free fingers through copper curls and sent me a smoke signal from smoldering eyes.

  “One grand,” Leo Gall said.

  Beside me, between me and Leo as the betting went, Hugh Lawson cursed softly and bitterly, slapping his hand into the discard. His mouth and eyes were pinched at the corners by the long strain of losing, and his fingers shook as they fumbled a cigarette out of a limp pack and carried it to his lips. I did some quick calculation and figured he must have dropped at least twenty grand. Just about what I’d contributed myself to the fat welfare of our host. I also figured Hugh could afford it about as much as I could, which was not at all. He was a slim guy with a lean, hungry face and blond hair cut very short and square on top the way a lot of college boys wear it. He’d got most of his education in pool rooms and clip joints, but he looked a hell of a lot like a college boy.