by Jim Nisbet
“So Feyn needed money. He wasn’t a blackmailer, although when they get things untangled it’s going to look that way. He just hit you for the money he thought he would need to get Herbert to some place quiet and out of the way, where he could play his cello in his own little cello-land, and wear calico dresses if he wanted to, and be of no harm to anybody. Since it was you that was causing all the angst Feyn saw no reason why you shouldn’t foot the bill. He’d washed his hands of you, but you’d forced your way back into his life. Your presence was a threat to his other charge, the only one he had left, and Herbert was a threat to you. So why not spend a little money and make everybody happy? What’s it for, anyway?”
While he was talking, Windrow let his eyes roam around the room. He’d searched everywhere and hadn’t found what he was looking for, but he felt sure that it was in the apartment somewhere. He kicked idly at the clothes and open boxes of records and bookkeeping materials on the floor at his feet.
“When did you first get the idea for the frame, Sammy?”
Driscoll eyed him coldly.
“It was just an ideal state, at first, wasn’t it. If only there were some way to just get rid of Feyn and Trimble, all your troubles would be over. You could just merrily go on torturing women to death, exploring every nuance, every sensation, every avenue, every possibility of pain and pleasure and death. You would surpass Trimble and Feyn in your knowledge and skill. The men who introduced you to these unknown thrills would become mere dilletantes. Your teachers would become your students—if they stayed alive to witness it.
“I think it must have first occurred to you when you were in Trimble’s apartment, the night he disappeared. You put a smudge of Virginia Sarapath’s blood on his door. Inside his apartment. Just that one touch should have been enough. But you know what, Sammy? I think that was a whim. I don’t think you cared whether Herbert got framed or not. It was the money that pushed you over the edge. For Herbert Trimble it was torture and death. But for you, money. When Feyn asked you for five thousand bucks, you saw red. When he endorsed that check from you, he signed his death warrant.”
Windrow paced to the kitchen and then back to the middle of the room. He had his arms folded around him, and hoped that Driscoll hadn’t noticed his slight limp. At one point his vision blurred, just a touch, and he hesitated in his speech. He looked at Driscoll. The big, revealing eyes were on him. They missed nothing. They remembered the pain this man had caused them and recognized the danger he represented. The tongue flicked out over the big lips, looking for the taste of revenge. The eyes wanted satisfaction. But they would never know it.
Strange, this big, silent man. Windrow wondered how in the world Trimble and Feyn had ever taken him into their confidence. How had Honey Trimble or Virginia Sarapath allowed themselves to be shackled to a wall by this big, dangerous, silent man?
Driscoll had his feet under him now, and his hands away from his injuries. Windrow doubted whether the gun on the counter, had he it in his hand, would stop Driscoll from springing at him, from trying desperately to retrieve his freedom from the brink of disaster. Driscoll had gotten away with it. For two months he’d thought himself safely away from all harm. The two men who threatened him were dead. One had been accidentally gunned down by the police. The other, Feyn, Driscoll had trailed to Sparks and taken care of with his own hands.
“You were outside Feyn’s house that night, weren’t you, Driscoll. You were ready to kill them both. I fouled up that plan, but the police fouled me up. They spotted me at Honey Trimble’s house and followed me to Feyn’s house. I was looking for that white picture book. When I didn’t find it I knew that’s why Herbert and Feyn had been there the day after Virginia’s murder. They had to have that book to protect themselves from you, and it would be just as well if the police never saw it, too. The cops had searched the joint but they didn’t know what to look for. Herbert, in his insane scheme, had shown me what to look for. The white photo album. You see, Driscoll, how Herbert Trimble winds up being the architect of your fate. He showed me what I needed to put myself on your trail. You’re a gourmet of sensations, Sammy. How do you think Herbert would feel now, seeing us here, cozy like this?”
Windrow eyed the gun on the kitchen counter, about ten feet from where he stood. The light in the room, coming from an overhead fixture, seemed to him to brighten, then dim again. Since he’d crashed the door, pain had begun to haunt his lower chest where the bullet from his own gun had entered it and punctured his lung. He’d been on his feet for two hours, a longer time than he’d spent out of bed in two months.
Then he remembered the little table, in front of Driscoll’s chair.
“The book was in Feyn’s basement that night, Sammy. I took it there. Feyn left with it and the cops never found it.”
The big man watched him with the eyes of an incensed animal. Windrow took one step to his right toward the kitchenette and turned back.
“Open that drawer in front of you, Driscoll.”
Driscoll’s eyes blinked. He didn’t move.
“Come on, Sam. Maybe then it’ll all be over.”
Driscoll’s lower jaw sawed back and forth under his front teeth. He pulled the drawer halfway open, not taking his eyes from Windrow.
Windrow saw what he was trying to do with the eyes. He was surprised that Driscoll thought it would work on him. He let his own gaze drop to the half-opened drawer. He saw there a corner of a thick, white, leatherette book. So Driscoll hadn’t been able to bring himself to throw it away.
“So you had to keep it, Sammy. And the four extra pages”—Windrow let his gaze slide back up to Driscoll’s eyes—“did you put them back in, just so? In their proper order? Except of course, you’ll be missing the two shots you had to leave behind in Reno.” Windrow nodded. “It must have been a tough decision, choosing to abandon those two choice pix, after all the trouble everybody had gone to over them, not least of which was contributed by the subjects themselves …” But something changed in Driscoll’s eyes. Windrow dropped his gaze to the drawer again and he saw why. After having exposed the white album Driscoll had begun to slowly pull the drawer further open, and the handgrip of a large pistol had come into view. It would be a revolver, Windrow thought. Driscoll’s other hand was stealing imperceptibly along his naked knee. The hand had about fifteen inches to go.
Windrow’s eyes jumped back to Driscoll’s and he recognized the light in them now. It was the gleam of the anticipation of triumph you might expect to see in the eye of the gladiator towering over a broken and downed opponent. The expression contained, too, a queer look. It seemed to ask permission of Windrow to make the move that might end his life.
It was a long way to the little automatic on the countertop. Windrow didn’t even know if the thing would fire, whether he could get to it in time, or how it would shoot.
He didn’t turn around to measure the distance or to fix the location of the piece. He had that information.
Go ahead, his eyes said to the other pair of eyes in the room. Go for it.
Driscoll went for it.
