The Knave of Hearts

by Dell Shannon

  "Well, maybe. It isn’t always so obvious. To everybody—I don’t count you and your invisible radar."

  "O.K. Just file that to remember. Julie wasn’t interested in him because of that, he doesn’t seem to have got very far with her—until, of course, he picked her up in his car—if he did—and assaulted and killed her—if he did. But nine months later or so, he’d acquired a little more sophistication. Just a little more—because I don’t think he’d have had to be an accomplished gigolo to strike Mary Ellen Wood as ‘smooth. She was comparing him to boys her own age, boys who use a lot of slang, make it a point of honor never to dress up much, boys who are used to informal manners and a little uncertain about any other kind. A somewhat older man who, maybe, had been raised with rather old-fashioned standards of manners—and don’t you find that in small towns, Art?—a man who, shades of Mrs. Andrews, had the kind of job in where he wore a suit, a white shirt, a tie—he’d impress Mary Ellen, as a contrast to the boys she knew in slacks and sport shirts, their loutish humor. Don’t you think? I can see that. And then look at Celestine Teitel, so soon after. She was thirty, and she was an educated woman but—don’t we gather?—not a very sophisticated one. A teacher, and she was enough like Miss Evelyn Reeder that they were friends and shared an apartment. I mark Celestine as one of those shy, serious women, much younger than her age when it came to anything to do with that old devil sex—you know the kind. Maybe raised strictly. She wouldn’t be much of a judge of male sophistication, and what she’d notice and admire in a man would be lack of brashness, crudeness as she’d have called it—somebody with quiet manners, polite to a lady—what was it Edith Wood said?—courtly. Somebody like the charming Mark Hamilton she met that day at that record shop. You hear the word ‘charming,’ it conjures up visions of sophistication, but it wouldn’t necessarily have meant that to Celestine."

  Hackett lit another cigarette. "You’re always so good at this kind of thing, I admit. And it is Sunday morning—we can’t be expected to work at full speed all the time."

  No interrumpir, I’m deducing, which is hard work .... Six months later, Piper. And there was a woman who must have been out and about a little anyway, had a moderate degree of—sorry to overwork it, but it’s really the only word—sophistication. True, I think some of the attraction she may have felt for him, the reason she might have unhesitatingly gone with him somewhere, just might have been—mmh—maternal. A university graduate, a trained legal secretary—twenty-eight and without a man. Permanent. Not at all bad-looking, but she had one of those determined-looking noses, you know, and a chin. Like Sally Haines. A little bossy in a nice way? Nevertheless, between the time Romeo acted so inept with Julie and seventeen or eighteen months later when he met Jane Piper, he’d taken on a little polish. Can we say, city polish? Inevitably, from rubbing elbows with sophisticated city people at his job, in the course of ordinary life. A little more polish than he’d had when he came here—about three years ago—from some inland country place."

  "All of which is very nice deducing," nodded Hackett. "And you know as well as me that not one word of it might be true. Say it’s our boy all the way through, count Anderson in. O.K. Julie had knocked around some—she wasn’t used to really nice boys with genteel manners. Maybe that one was a little less self-confident than he’d show normally because he did know Julie’s reputation and he’d never had anything to do with a bad girl like that—"

  "Look, boy, he was at least twenty-nine, not sixteen."

  "Kinsey to the contrary, you still find them. And the rest of your pipe dream is just based on the different way he impressed these girls, so they each said something different about him. The little they did say. I mean, it isn’t as if you had Julie saying he was a country boy with straws in his hair, and McCandless saying you couldn’t tell him from the latest Parisian movie actor."

  "Quite true. But I don’t know, Art, there are little nuances that build him that way to me. Coming here—from a smallish place inland—thirty to thirty-six months ago. Liking the beach. Renting a cabin, even buying one, for weekends there—but holding a job in the city. That we can say, because if he’d lived in Santa Monica—anywhere west of Beverly Hills—he wouldn’t have been at L.A.C.C. inquiring about evening classes, he’d have thought first of U.C.L.A., nearer him. If, of course, he was really there for that reason that day. He has some kind of white-collar job—take your choice, banker, merchant, clerk, salesman—"

  "Doctor, lawyer, bookkeeper, pharmacist—"

  "¡Basta, ya! The hell of a wide field, sure. He doesn’t mix very well, he’s a loner. For this reason or that. He is—or was, or said he was, interested in woodworking, in doing something with his hands as a hobby. Leads? If we had a crew of five hundred men to check ¡ya lo creo! The list of every male between twenty-five and thirty-five who crossed the California border—at a border station, and how many of the eight thousand per day coming in do?—inside three years,. Vaya, laugh. Of everybody who rents boat space in Santa Monica Bay. Go and knock on all the doors of the seven thousand beach cottages—"

  "Between Balboa and Ventura? You want to hand on this case to whoever succeeds you when you retire? And if he was once in one of them, it might not have been within a year."

  "I said if," said Mendoza irritably. "But damn it, we’ll do some work on this angle, nevertheless. Find out the days of the week for Piper and McCandless—all of them. Do I remember McCandless was on the fifth of last month?—let’s see, that was a Tuesday. There you are, and she was found inland, in Walnut Park. Just like Mary Ellen, who was killed on a Wednesday. All right, negative confirmation if nothing else. So will checking our list of possibles, let’s also find out whether they rent, own, or borrow beach places or ever have. When they came to L.A. and from where. If they have any hobbies like woodcarving—why didn’t I get on that one before?—I should have seen that—damn, I’m too tired to think straight." He massaged his temples wearily. "What kind of a list did Mrs. Andrews give you?"

  Hackett groaned. "Twenty names. There must have been more—that she admits. I’ve got them here, complete with jobs where she remembered, and a few very vague descriptions. What priority does the list get?—wait its turn at the bottom of the lists we’ve got a1ready?"

  Mendoza stood up, yanked down his cuffs, brushed his gray Homburg absently; he looked down at the little stack of file cards, Madge Parrott’s statement; and then he said softly, "Top A, boy. Get busy on it right now—haul some men off something else."

  "And why does it strike you as that important?"

  Mendoza went to the door, hat in hand. "People," he said. "It always comes back to people, doesn’t it? I’ll tell you—you ought to see it for yourself. We’ve got several lists culled from several categories. But of all the categories we’ve created to collect examples of, the Andrews list is the only one which was, you might say, prejudged for us on the basis of character. She looked at all those men, at some time, with an eagle eye, Art—and what was she looking for? For ultimate quiet respectability, sobriety, gentlemanliness, the white-collar job, the good manners. And I think—just from the few bones of him we have—our boy is one like that. So let’s track these twenty down, presto, pronto, and then prod Mrs. Andrews for some more names. Because I think there’s just a little better chance that he was once in her house than there is that he was once in Haines’ office, or in our records, or anywhere else we’re looking for him."

  "I get you," said Hackett slowly. "That might be."

  "We’ll see. I’m going home. I’ll be back about two."

  "Make it later, catch up on your sleep—you look tired."

  "I’m O.K.," said Mendoza almost angrily, pulling the door open. "I’ll see you then."

  * * *

  He went home; he had a bath and lay down in the darkened bedroom, but he didn’t sleep. A cat nap in the car, in the dawn this morning, and not much sleep on Friday night either. Something he’d never had to think about, his physical well-being: it annoyed him to have such a t
hing intrude on life now, especially now. His mind prying away obstinately at this business, refusing to be switched off, that was it; he’d lain awake on Friday night working it all over again, worrying at every angle to see if he’d missed some detail to suggest a lead, wasting futile anger on it—building up things Fitzpatrick’s paper and others had printed, until they looked like deliberate personal attacks on himself. And that wasn’t all: unbidden, the unruly mind (what had the mind to do with it?—tangible plane only, only) turning again, taking him, telling him— Until he forced it back to this in self-defense. This safer—this quieter—this bloody-handed killer less dangerous . . .

  Not only senseless but unsafe: you stopped thinking objectively about something—right then you stopped thinking effectively. But lying sleepless in the dark like that, the body tired and the mind refusing it rest, this was what happened. The magnification, the circular subjective pseudo-thinking.

  Right now he should be able to sleep, God knew. About two hours Friday night and two hours this morning added up to four hours, out of thirty-six, of rest .... The cats, pleased to have him home in the middle of the day, coming up around him, purring, a restful sound—restful feel of warm sleek bodies under his hand. He did not sleep.

  There wouldn’t be anything in the medicine cabinet; he never kept drugs because he never needed them. Aspirin? About three years ago he’d had a wisdom tooth that needed filling—second time in his life he’d been to a dentist, the first being when he had the physical, when he joined the force, nineteen years back; the dentist then had said cheerfully, Never make much money on you .... He seemed to remember getting some aspirin for that wisdom tooth.

  He got up, rummaged and found it, and cautiously swallowed one tablet. It didn’t seem to do much. He was tired, God, he was tired, but he couldn’t sleep. A vague kaleidoscope whirled before his closed-eyes vision, red and black spots on the cards, stylized profiles, King-Queen-Jack, Queen-Jack-King, Jack-ace, the bad one, Serpiente, the ace of clubs, bad luck, bad luck—aces and eights, the dead man’s hand—all superstition, senseless, sure, but— Could have kept that ace as a kicker; there were the low ones, eight of diamonds, eight of spades, to fall back— But, get rid of the dead man’s hand, the bad luck .... A man who liked, or thought he might like, to make things with his hands: wood carving—Beach, the beach: north along from Balboa, the exclusive places, the expensive places there, Newport, Emerald Bay, Balboa Island, Playa del Rey, and on up—God, such a stretch of prodigal coast gold in the sun—seventy miles along the Pacific, the beaches of this metropolis, the beaches in reach of residents, who might mean any one of those seventy miles when they said beach. On up—Huntington, the harbor beaches, Sunset, Rocky Point, Palos Verdes, Redondo, Hermosa—hermosa, hermosita, my darling, my beautiful . . . El Segundo, Venice, Santa Monica, Topanga, Point Dume . . . any place, any place. Take one thing at a time, the job doesn’t look so big: he was seen along Malibu, Topanga: start there .... Get him in the trap, by God, if it took till a year from Christmas .... The trap, the trap . . .Mi hermosa, mi vida, querida, leave me alone, leave me alone, I’ve got work to do, let me sleep .... Nice quiet polite young fellow, and the devil sleeping inside him to be raised easy. Why? What did it matter?—for the lawyers .... Sure to God drive a man nuts without trying, absolutamente .... An offbeat one: not the usual thing . . . never the usual thing with her, with her .... The red and black spots dancing, the devil with horns and tail mocking, spreading the hand before him—discard and draw, you’ll never get together any other hand, boy—aces and eights for the dead man .... Go away from me, my darling, let me sleep.

  At two o’clock he got up and dressed—the silver-gray Italian silk, the austere charcoal tie with the discreet scarlet fleck, the narrow-brimmed Homburg at just the correct angle—and drove back downtown to headquarters.

  THIRTEEN

  The man who had been Edward Anthony was lying on the sway-backed studio couch which had come with the little cabin; he lay very still, staring up at the ceiling, but inside he was a maelstrom of emotion, because he had just had a very exciting new idea.

  He could hear the breakers coming in out there, just now and then, because there was also the highway traffic going past; but when the glittering-garish rows of cars thinned out for a little, then there was the sound of the low lazy surf coming in, breaking gently on the smooth beach. He liked—almost best of all the things he liked about the beach—watching the surf on a day like this. When it was gentle and slow, and beyond the white crests the sea like glass. He didn’t like it when it was rough—a gray winter day or a windy day—with the breakers like white-maned lions showing their teeth. But a day like this, he’d often sit on the sand for hours, just watching the sea come and go. It was restful. He’d never seen the sea until three years ago, and it fascinated him. Which was, of course, why he had bought the little beach house, with the money Father had left. It was, the man had said, a bargain, and he supposed it was: much more solidly built, of good stout oak timber, than any other he’d seen, these little three- and four-room places built for temporary rentals mostly, ramshackle—but this one built by someone, some old man (the agent said) to live in all year. The disadvantage to it, which the agent had talked fast to avoid mentioning, was its isolation from any other habitation, from the nearest little shopping center. That had been funny—the agent that day—because that was what he liked about the house, the way it sat alone here, away from everything. What a house looked like—his surroundings in general—meant little to him; but he liked being away from the garish beach business places, the beach cabins clustered like frightened children all together, close—crowded. When he came down on Friday nights, after work, he’d bring the few perishable items of food, just what he’d need for the weekend, and it didn’t matter about the nearest grocery being five miles off.

  He never went into the sea: he couldn’t swim and didn’t particularly want to. He simply liked to watch it, and smell it, and listen to it. It was very restful to have this place to come to, away from the city and people crowding in on him all the while.

  Because that was one of the things which annoyed and distressed him, since he’d come here. He realized quite well that it wasn’t just because he’d been brought up in a small town and that he found so many of the people he met here almost frighteningly sophisticated, holding what seemed to him immoral opinions, and—once or twice, when he’d unthinkingly expressed disapproval—laughing at his. It hadn’t been all that different back home; even among regular churchgoing people, people you’d think were righteous-minded, there had been many who had taken on too-free ways and thoughts, and laughed at Father. The thing was, here he was alone, with no solid background behind him, so to speak, and inevitably he’d learned to keep quiet, to look and sound as much as possible like anyone else here. Lip service, you might say. For one thing, the job: he wouldn’t have it long if he didn’t know how to seem ordinary, correct by their standards—or if he came out with something which most people would think odd. Back home, he hadn’t mixed much with anyone; he hadn’t needed to—there was Father, and the shop; but here he’d had to, a little at least.

  So it was nice to have this place all to himself, to come to and rest. Julie had liked it, he remembered, all but where it was. "It could be fixed up a lot nicer than our place," she'd said, "it’s a swell cabin, but gee, stuck away off like this! You’d have to have a car—and you oughta put up curtains over the back window too, but I guess a man wouldn’t notice that—" That had been just before he got hold of her, before the awful craving that he’d held down got too much for him and

  he—

  She hadn’t wanted to come, he remembered. She’d been a little short with him, not interested in him, but she had wanted a ride home from Tony’s. Not interested in seeing his place, but he’d stopped all the same and persuaded her to come inside....One like Rhoda, she’d been, not a nice girl, and he’d thought—

  But there it was.

  And the house was, he realized t
hen, a safe place, because she had screamed quite loud at first, but nobody had heard—nobody around to it hear. Nobody hearing Celestine either .... He’d liked Celestine, a nice quiet modest girl, and he wanted her to see his house—he hadn’t meant anything wrong when he asked her to stop by on her way that morning. Why, how could he have, when he told her just how to get here and all, openly? But once they were alone here together, all of a sudden— And of course, he couldn’t leave her any place nearby. Though you couldn’t be sure, perhaps, that the papers printed everything the police knew, still there hadn’t been any suggestion that anyone thought it hadn’t happened where they’d found her, up in that cove. Most of the blood had been on her clothes .... Realized then what a safe place the house was, and he’d planned it here with Jane, he’d thought perhaps here he might ask her to marry him, even so soon—But she’d got frightened; he’d said he’d drive her home and then came this way and she was alarmed—those foolish women—and it had been awkward, difficult, he’d had to stop her noise, and then when he touched her . . . Known then it had to be, and she wasn’t moving or screaming—she’d fainted—and he could drive where he wanted, somewhere quiet, and— And a Friday night, it seemed quite natural to come the rest of the way—home—afterward; only not until he was on the coast road remembering her still there in the back of the car, another awkwardness ....

  Nevertheless—the house, home—it was a violation of his secret place; he’d never let anyone inside it since.

  Julie. They had found Julie, just as he’d been afraid they would, and yet it was good that they had—for it had put this strange and exciting idea in his mind.

  He tried to think about it calmly, to examine it from every angle. For it might only be his fear for his personal safety which made him think— But every detail he could list pointed the same way. It was very strange; he could almost call it awesome.

  Could it be—that was the idea—that God did not intend him to be punished? That his crimes were not sin at all, but intended retribution, and he the instrument? He knew that many mad people conceived such an idea out of their madness. But he was quite sane, and he wasn’t ready to accept it as the truth yet, he was only balancing all the reasons that seemed to point that way.