by P. N. Elrod
“Fleming.”
“I’m still here.”
“I understand what you’re doing. If I write my letters against you, you send these in to the papers. Move and countermove, we neutralize each other.”
“Sounds about right. But I’m not interested in neutralizing, Gurley Hilbert. Only winning.”
Flash of annoyance. He really didn’t like that moniker. “Then what? What do you want?”
“You know. A written confession. I think Mrs. Gladwell may have mentioned it to you.”
“Impossible.” He laughed, and it sounded sincere. “Even were I to write such a thing, it would be useless to you because of the means you used to obtain it. Our system of law forbids confessions obtained under duress.”
“I’m impressed. You’re dredging up the law? After what you did?”
“The law is to keep the accused from the hands of the mob. I’ll use it to the limit, use whatever means necessary to save myself.”
“Ain’t no saving for you here, bo. Consider this room to be an independent country that never heard of the Constitution.”
“You’re bluffing. That sense of honor you have won’t allow you to carry this charade too far, else you’d have killed me instead.”
“That could still happen. The others in this place will sooner or later get tired of bringing you food and carrying away your crap. Wouldn’t take much to just forget to come down here. After a couple of days with no water, you won’t have enough spit to shout for help. No one’s around to hear you, anyway.” I could see I was hammering home a few dark thoughts that had already occurred to him. “Maybe the whole point of this is literally an eye-for-eye. We keep you on ice here for two weeks, same as you did for Sarah. Then at the end of it we drop you into a cesspit. There’s a prospect to keep you warm. You better hope you are thoroughly dead before we do it.”
He shook his head, smiling like he was back in charge again. “No, you won’t go that far.”
Good. He was starting to repeat himself. That meant he was short on thinking and long on fear.
“You want my confession because you still have respect for the justice system. If you were as bloody-minded as you’re pretending to be, it wouldn’t matter. You’d kill me.”
“Don’t think I won’t. But if I don’t have to, if the state can do it for me, then I’m glad to step aside and let them through.”
“What do you mean? Kidnapping isn’t a capital offense.”
I paused work on the phonograph, straightened, and paced over to him. He sat up a bit more, unsuccessfully hiding his alarm. “Up.”
He cautiously stood, bracing, maybe thinking I’d slug him one. That would have felt good to me, but I abstained this time. He flinched when I picked up his cot and carried it out of reach.
“What are—?” He almost visibly bit his tongue trying to shut down his curiosity.
Next I removed his roll of toilet paper and the chamber pot, which was fastidiously covered with a towel. I carried them, carefully leaving them on the floor well outside the room. Except for his clothes, they were the last throwable things Dugan might have used to damage the phonograph and records. Escott and Vivian shot me interested looks, but I didn’t break stride, just winked in passing.
When I returned, Dugan had his back to the wall, very vulnerable. He didn’t know why I had removed his few comforts, but there must have been some bad thoughts going through his head about now. I could smell fear flowing off him like sweat. It was about damn time.
From my pocket I pulled out the news clipping about the bodies found at his former hideout. Giving it over, I waited until he’d read enough. “I can’t remember . . . Does Indiana have a death penalty or not?”
He let the clipping drop, shaking his head, seeming to relax. “There’s no proof who did this. Certainly none that could ever involve me. They might have been killed by the other men.”
“I’m sure I can ask Vinzer and the rest what they remember about it. And you know I will get the truth out of them. My guess is they’ll be more than happy to sell you out to save their own hides—and for that I won’t have to talk to them at all. The cops can get it from them.”
“Then what—?”
“Concentrate, Gurley, you’re showing sloppy in the brain department. The confession. We want your confession just to keep things tidy. I don’t like loose ends. You disappearing and leaving behind a statement of guilt is better than you just disappearing.”
“Oh, that threat should make me eager to do as you want. The longer I resist, the longer I live.”
“That’s right. You get to live right here. Just as you are.” I waited a moment. “For as long as it takes.”
He went still. It was hard to tell with the obscuring beard and low lighting, but he seemed to go pale. I could hear his heart suddenly hammer loud from the shock, then subside. “That’s a bluff. You wouldn’t.”
“How do your clothes smell today, Gurley? Ripe enough for you yet? What you’re wearing is all you’ll get until it rots off your body. No fresh underwear. No clean socks. No warm blanket. No toilet. A concrete floor, bread and water. Only way you’ll ever shed that shirt is to tear it off, and you won’t get another. Ever been to a zoo when they haven’t hosed out the monkey house in a while? That’s nothing to the kind of stink that’s going to build up in here. Maybe you’ll get used to it since it’s your own, but I’ll feel sorry for the guys bringing your food. Of course out of pure self-defense they might rig a garden hose down here to spray your crap down the drain. If you’re lucky.”
“Other prisoners have been through worse. I can survive.”
“After a few days of this a regular prison will be paradise. There you can have a real shower and books to read. You like to write so much, you’ll have that as well. You can even look at the sky . . .”
He laughed. “You’re bribing me with prison?”
“Compare what you have here and now to what you could have if you cooperate. Take as long as you like to think it over. I have the time.”
“It won’t happen, Fleming. I won’t give you the satisfaction.”
“Suit yourself.”
“My confession will be worthless. I know you think it will damn me in court, but I’ll deny it. I’ll make them believe me. The system is set up with the assumption that a man is innocent until he’s proven guilty. I don’t have to say anything to get free. You have to prove it. A forced confession will not hold.”
I shrugged. “But you and I both know you’re guilty. I was there, remember ? ‘Clean like your grandmama used to’ you told your boys; then you sent the other guys outside to prepare a grave for Sarah.”
“We didn’t put her in it.”
“A fine point that won’t wash with me. You’re guilty, and I want you to tell everyone all about it. You like to write so much, here’s a chance to express yourself. Why don’t you tell the world how unfair it is that a genius like you has to resort to kidnapping to make ends meet? Or would you rather talk about the best method for conning your girlfriend out of ten grand?”
“How did you—of course, you managed to follow me out. You listened and made assumptions about my relationship with Miss Kennard.”
“Yeah, all that and more. Her, me, and your cousin Brockhurst had a sweet little powwow earlier tonight. It’ll do your heart good to know you were the focus of our talk. Did your ears do any burning? That would have been us.”
“What did you tell them? They’d never believe you.”
“I didn’t have to say much. It was you doing the convincing. And reading some of your boats. The cranes didn’t interest them, but the boats had quite an impact. I can’t wait to send this stuff in to the papers. Should make quite a story—once they make up their minds what to print first. If you’re hoping for their help in the future—”
“I can talk around that,” he waved the origami pieces to unimportance. “I can explain all of it away. They’re only notes for a novel I’m planning to write, or a collection of essays
and philosophical arguments. You only showed them the negative side, you see. I’ve not yet written the counterviewpoint yet.”
“It’d be more believable to say you were just practicing your penmanship. Forget it. No editor will help you. You’re nothing to your friends now, either. You see, I was very thorough. Have a listen, Gurley.”
I got the phonograph turntable spinning. Put on the first record. Put the needle in the record’s groove. Turned up the volume knob. At first the indistinct sounds confused him, then as the talk clarified and progressed, nudging his memory, the dawning came.
And for him it was one ugly morning.
AFTER about five minutes, I got tired of looking at his blanched face while he listened and let myself out, leaving the record to drone on and on and on.
Escott and Vivian had removed themselves from the immediate area. That may have been Escott’s idea, to keep her from hearing anything about me not easily explained. He also might have wanted to spare her hearing Dugan’s unvarnished opinions about Sarah.
We walked out of distant earshot. I checked my watch so I’d know when to go in and change records.
“Well done,” whispered Escott, as pleased as I’d ever seen him. “Very well done. That mention of the monkey house at a zoo conjured an especially vivid picture.”
Not to mention odor. “You should have seen his mug when he recognized the conversation on the record. Thought he was going to choke.”
“I may go so far as to say that you actually shut him up.”
“That’ll be the day,” I said. I was feeling good about what I’d accomplished but realistic about the kind of payoff we could expect.
Vivian noticed my lack of smile. “You are not optimistic, Mr. Fleming?”
“The guy’s crazy. He’s had the wind knocked out of him, and he’s scared, but he’ll recover and get back up again. He won’t trade his freedom—such as it is down there—for a pair of fresh socks. He’ll convince himself that he can still get away with it. Even if he writes a confession like we want, he’ll deny it, say that it’s a forgery, say whatever it takes to wriggle free.”
“Will that happen?”
“No, ma’am. I was serious about sending samples of his observations on life in to the papers. It won’t convict him, but it won’t make him any friends, either. The editors will stop with the sob-sister cra—er—stuff. He’ll eventually go to jail. Those three mugs in his gang will tell the truth about him and be believed. I’m just sorry we can’t keep this out of court.”
Between Dugan’s refusal to cooperate and his immunity to my hypnotic influence, he would get a trial; there was no way of sparing Sarah from the ordeal. Escott and I planned out how to make her testimony less important in the evidence, though, and this was the best we could come up with for the time being. Turning the gang and public opinion against Dugan was part of it, along with his friends withdrawing their support of him. If I had to, I’d find a way to make a night visit to the judge, lawyers, and every man and woman on the jury. It’s a hell of a thing to have to fix a trial to make sure a guilty man was indeed found guilty.
“How much longer do you think this will take? If he’s so stubborn . . .”
“I can’t say, but I think he’ll come around soon. He thinks almost like a kid. If he talks with enough sincerity, then of course people have to believe him. He can’t imagine they would do otherwise. Once he’s convinced himself he can beat the charge, he’ll cooperate with us. I figure for him to hold out a little while longer so it looks good, then have a change of mind. He’ll want us believing he’s been broken. Maybe he will be; I don’t care. With his confession, used or not, and the witnesses against him, he’s got a snowball’s chance in Miami of squirming away from this mess.”
“But we can’t keep him from telling others about his imprisonment here.”
“No, but we will put enough sleeping pills in him to knock him out, clean him up, then Charles here can deliver him to the DA’s office before Dugan’s fully awake. He won’t know what hit him.”
Escott would be heavily disguised. I suggested he play a cop and claim that Dugan turned himself in. If a hubbub didn’t happen, Escott was to make plenty of noise to create one, then slip away unnoticed.
“In the meantime, everyone in this house gets rid of all trace of Dugan’s presence. Put back the old junk that used to be in his room in the first place, and everyone just go on with their work like normal. Even if he gets someone to come by for a look, they’ll take him for a crank, be annoyed for wasting their time. Providing your people can lie through their teeth.”
She smiled and nodded confidently, seemed reassured.
“Dust,” said Escott, glancing at our dim surroundings. “There won’t be much dust on the items or the room’s floor. Someone could notice that detail.”
Vivian agreed. “Suppose I have the whole basement cleaned up to look the same?”
He shook his head. “That would have a reverse effect. Why of all times would you do that now? Dugan would pounce on it. However, I’m not without some experience at dressing a stage scene. There’s a device that puts dust onto things. I’m sure I can find one and employ it to good effect.”
“So all we need do is wait him out?”
“Pretty much,” I said.
“I’ve an awful thought: we know he’s unbalanced. My goodness, all the ravings he made about vampires and disappearing people and who knows what convinced me of that. Suppose he convinces others?”
It was a good point. Crazy people went to nuthouses, not prison. “Let’s worry about that only if it happens.”
Escott gave me a questioning look, and I nodded. Yeah, I could get to the examining doctors, too. The ripples were getting wider and wider on this case. Maybe I should have just clobbered Dugan and the others a little too hard at that Indiana house and dumped them all in the cesspit. Life would be a lot simpler.
In the distance I heard something like music. “Is that your doorbell?”
She listened. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“I’ll see to it,” said Escott, trusting my ears.
“And I.” They went upstairs.
I checked my watch. Still some while before I had to change records. Might as well see who was calling at this hour. An enterprising reporter who’d snuck over the front gate. Or noticed the back was still open.
Or—as it turned out—Anthony Brockhust and Marie Kennard.
Oh, brother.
I hung far back in shadows as Escott peered through a side window, then opened the big front door. The unlikely couple crowded close to each other on the entry, shivering in the wind. Anthony darling looked embarrassed ; Marie looked angry.
It was my fault. I’d mentioned Vivian’s name in front of them when telling Escott where he should go to ground. They knew he’d been working for her. No need to follow him, just drive over later. Marie must have gotten herself worked up and talked Anthony into a showdown. He didn’t seem too enthused, though.
“You. Escott is it?” said Brockhurst.
My partner was surprised. A rare event in itself. “What on earth are you doing here?”
Vivian bustled forward into their view. “Mr. Brockhurst? Miss Kennard?”
Marie pushed across the threshold, glaring around. I ducked back behind a marble pillar. “He’s here. You’ve got him here, haven’t you?”
“Got who?”
“Gilbert Dugan. That Fleming beast has him locked away someplace, I just know it. You tell me where he is!”
Vivian held her ground rather well. “Young woman, I will ask you to leave my home this instant.”
“Tell me where to find Fleming or where he’s hiding Gilbert, and I will.”
Brockhurst did a little wavering. “Please, Mrs. Gladwell. Just tell her what she wants, and we’ll leave.”
I will never understand how you can present absolute, unshakable proof that a man is no good, only to find the woman that loves him will completely ignore it.
“We
just want to help our friend . . . Marie is convinced that—”
Vivian seemed to get taller. “How dare you come into this house and ask for help for that monster after what he did to my little girl?”
“Lies!” Marie blazed. “He’s innocent, and you know it!”
Brockhurst made an unhappy placating gesture. “Please, Marie, you must remain calm or—”
“Mr. Brockhurst,” said Escott tiredly. “Take Miss Kennard and remove yourselves immediately. I’ve had a long and painful night, and though it would grieve me to put bloodstains all over the superb rug you’re standing on, I am not averse to doing so in a good cause.”
By God, he had his Webley out. His voice was conversational, but he was as pissed as I’d ever seen him. You could see it in his eyes.
“Charles . . . ?” Vivian was shocked. The others stood frozen.
“Brockhurst, I am an excellent shot, but a gun of this caliber makes a large and messy hole even in a noncritical area of the anatomy. I cannot guarantee that I would entirely miss an artery, in which case you would bleed to death in a very short time. Now, get out and do not come back.”
“M-Marie. Come on.” He’d gone death pale.
“Damn it, Anthony, he’s not going to shoot you!”
“I—I rather think he would.” Brockhurst grabbed her arm and dragged her out. She protested, voice rising like a siren. Vivian slammed the door shut before the peak came, bolting it, then stared at Escott.
He coolly put the gun back in his shoulder holster. “I apologize for that display, but there are certain occasions when civility is wasted. That was one of them.”
“Would you have shot him?”
He considered. “Yes, I believe I would. Not to kill, but he’d have been limping for some months and be reminded of the encounter every time it rained.”
“You’d have . . . oh, Charles.” She seemed disappointed.
I started to step forward, intending to explain some of what the real world was like outside of her high-hat society, then realized I’d badly miscalculated her reaction. She abruptly threw her arms around him and landed one whopper of a kiss square on his lips. First my jaw sagged, then dropped straight to the floor, for Escott’s arms went around her fierce and hard, and he kissed her right back. He kissed her back and kept on kissing her.
