The man was indeed very tall and very thin. Here in his stifling room he wore a heavy quilted bathrobe. He smiled cordially at Fran and said, “Come in. I must confess I was wondering whether Mr. Darrow would tell you about my visit.”
“This is Mr. Curran,” Fran said levelly. “Steve’s gone to … bed; but he didn’t think I should wander the Sacramento streets alone at night.”
“I’m disappointed,” the thin man smiled. “I thought you’d brought a flattering protection against me. Well, what’s Steve’s latest?” Fran leaned against the wall. Only the depth to which her fingers hit into her handbag revealed any discomposure. “He just wonders if maybe you’d reconsider. You know Steve—” (she managed a laugh) “always the optimist.”
“My dear Miss Michaels.” The thin man’s tones were slightly pedantic. “I explained carefully to Mr. Darrow that his idea was absurd. Frankly, we—and you understand, I am sure, whom I mean by we—we do not care in the least whether Mr. Darrow decides to endorse the results of our own projected Constitutional Convention or not. This notion of using this caucus to build up a demand for a—if I may use the word within quotation marks—for a ‘progressive’ constitution, and then having Mr. Darrow switch over to endorsing as acceptable our more conservative version is arrant nonsense. Mr. Darrow is through in California politics, as I told him. His endorsement would mean nothing. He is, if I may be pardoned the colloquialism, ‘a dead duck.’ And you, my dear young lady, can do nothing more than repeat to him what I have already told him.”
Fran was white and silent as they rode down in the elevator. When they hit the street, Curran muttered, “I don’t get it. Was he framing a doublecross? A sell-out? Get all these people here to back him up with demands and then walk out and be a big-shot on the other side? Is that what it means?
“What it means,” said Fran limply, “is that now Steve Darrow is really dead.” She touched the swell of her left breast. “Here.”
Lieutenant Liebermann was waiting in Fran’s room.
“Lieutenant …” she began.
“I’m not sure,” he broke in. “The Inspector wasn’t too articulate by the time he finished. But I think it’s ex-Lieutenant.”
“I’m sorry,” she said dully. “It wasn’t worth it.”
“Don’t be sorry. I can only call ’em the way I see ’em; and I saw—I can still see you in the clear on this. So I’ve spent the last hour checking on the other caucus people. Any of a dozen had the time and opportunity; some probably had motive—there’s especially a bunch in 616 which wouldn’t seem to mind stepping into Darrow’s shoes as leaders. But unless you’ve found some explanation for the facts …”
Fran was a zombie as she set her hat and purse on the dresser and felt her way to a chair. “I’ve found a motive,” she said. “A motive for everybody … including me. Steve was trying to sell out. He’d cooked up a deal with the other side. But they didn’t want him. He wasn’t even big enough to be an important traitor. They told him so. He was through. And that makes a motive for …”
“… for Steve,” Liebermann finished. “Which we proved couldn’t possibly have happened.”
“I don’t care so much now,” Fran went on. “It isn’t important any more. What’s it like in Tehachapi? A woman’s prison might be a relief after hotel rooms. When you’re in politics, everything happens in hotel rooms. Only it’s the same room all the time. They keep moving it around the country ahead of you. There’s always the frilly lamp and the bad picture and the … and the Bible … and the spread that doesn’t match and the built-in bottle-opener and—” She paused and sat up straight.
“Idea?” Liebermann asked.
“Look,” she said. “This has to be straight. You say Steve was … killed right in front of the cabinet, and the cabinet was open like he’d tried to get something to stop the bleeding. That’s silly; he’d grab a towel, wouldn’t he, and try to hold it while he got to the phone?”
“Not necessarily, with the killer right there.”
“Well anyway: Was the cabinet opened before or after he got … cut?”
Liebermann paused and visualized the prints. “Damn!” he exclaimed. “Before. It must’ve been. The blood was all inside. But that doesn’t make—”
Fran was wholly alert now. “What was in the cabinet?”
“Stuff. Tooth powder, comb, shaving things—If you’re thinking of a loose blade lying around, it won’t work. No blade in the razor—only some new ones in unopened wrappings.”
“Any big things—tall enough to fill a shelf?”
“Big lotion bottle—something expensive.”
Fran half-smiled. “I gave it to him for Christmas … Blood on it?”
“Yes.”
Fran rose. “O.K.” She moved toward the bathroom. “Come in here. You too, Mr. Curran. You see, I remembered something. One of the things that are in this one hotel room that follows me every place. Inside the cabinet” (she opened its door) “—a slot for used razor blades.”
Liebermann stood there staring at it. For a minute he forgot the woman beside him and was bathed in the pure beauty of the one-word solution of a perfect case. He hardly knew he was talking aloud as he said, “He did it himself, with the door open. Then quick he pops the razor blade down the slot, shoves the lotion bottle in front of it, then slumps down … A honey … !”
He awoke as Curran muttered, “But why? So he was washed up, so he takes the quick way out. But why all the fancy business?”
“Because he had to go out big. Because he was a headline boy. Suicide’s a confession of failure; but a mysterious weaponless murder when the public thinks he’s staging a comeback—” He broke off sharply. Maybe this honest evaluation of Darrow was a little callous in front of—
But Fran was no longer listening. She was thinking: “He never loved me. Or he couldn’t have … done this without coming to me first. I was waiting for him, waiting for him to redeem the eternal hotel room; and he went away by himself. When he told me he loved me, it was simply the easiest and most politic way out of a difficult situation. He was always good at ways out…” She felt ghostly teeth graze the lobe of her ear, and she shuddered.
In 504 the press received the news with relative warmth. RED LEADER SUICIDE IN FLOP DOUBLE-CROSS was good enough, especially followed With LEADERLESS CAUCUS COLLAPSES.
“You can’t ever prove it, Lieutenant,” the Inspector grumbled.
“I’ll admit that, sir. But we can prove it had to be either the Michaels woman or suicide—and with this suicide theory the worst lawyer in the world could get her off. The open cabinet door alone could do it. And now that we’ve checked it, there’s blood on the edge of that blade-slot.”
The Inspector grunted. “Look, Liebermann, about all that stuff I said earlier—you know me, boy—a hot head and a warm heart—”
“Sure,” said Lieutenant Liebermann.
“It’s crazy!” said Peggy in room 616. “Even Steve couldn’t have thought he’d get away with anything as raw as that!”
“The thing,” said Dr. Lackland, “is what we do now.”
Tony Packard began slowly—and soberly, in both meanings of the word. “What we do is not to let this movement fall flat on its face. Whatever Darrow’s motives were, the idea of this caucus is sound; and there are sound people here to carry it out. Now what’s got to be done in these panels tomorrow …”
In room 221, Mrs. Varden groaned and sat up. “I declare, I never want to sleep in a hotel again! All this hustle and bustle all night long … !”
“There, Mother!” Mr. Varden’s voice was soothing. “We’ve got to get all our sleep or we’ll be no good to anybody tomorrow. We’ve got a responsibility.” His hand easily found the sleep-invoking spot on her back.
In room 732 Fran Michaels lay alone in her best nightgown. Even after two Nembutals, her thoughts still kept circling—no longer about love and death, but in conscious flight from those twin terrors.
The essential thing tomorrow was
a new, unscheduled keynote speech—something that would erase all the disillusionment of a lost leader and bring the caucus back once more to a purposive drive. There must be a man to do it—somebody at once sensible and personable—here for a wild half-sleeping moment she thought of calling Lieutenant Liebermann and asking what his political convictions were.
The ideas she could easily furnish; but somebody had to sell them. Now who was that young man she’d noticed yesterday? A lawyer from the North—she’d heard him once make an excellent public appearance in the anti-crossfiling campaign. Packard, that was it. Tony Packard. He was young, he was terribly new to politics, she’d heard that he drank too much … But he had something in his person to sell, and with the proper guidance …
Fran lifted the phone and left a call for early morning. Then abruptly she found herself in a heavy dreamless lonely sleep.
(circa 1950)
The Statement of Jerry Malloy
“Sure I can tell you all about it.” The voice was high and shrill. “I was there, see? I can give you the whole thing. Only kill that spot! A light like that a trained seal shouldn’t work under.” The blank staring eyes blinked rapidly.
The captain of detectives started to surge from his chair, but the police psychiatrist laid a pacifying hand on his arm. “Let him tell it this way. We’ll learn what we need.”
The captain barked, and the overhead glare dimmed to a bearable brightness.
“That’s better. I want to help you, see? I want to make a statement. Then you’ll understand about Gene, and about Stella and me and everything. You got a guy ready to make with the pothooks? Okay, here goes. Command performance by Jerry Malloy—”
That’s my name. I guess that goes first in the statement. Jerry Malloy. Only the statement’s mostly about Eugene Dakin, and you got to understand about Gene. It’s really on account of his family, see? There’s his father that played second leads with Sothern and then had his own Shakespeare company. There’s his brother that got in on the ground floor of radio and makes with the comments and knows from everything. There’s all the rest of ’em being one kind of big shot or another, and then there’s baby brother Gene off in a corner, giving the little hello to the company and emptying the ash trays.
Until he meets up with me. Right away we click, like that. We’re a team. I’m everything he isn’t. I’ve got all the things he needs even if I am a sawed-off runt—which I’d like to know why we don’t think of a yuk like that “sawed-off” when we’ve still got the act. I’m a born talker-backer, see? I don’t give a damn for anybody or anything. I talk the way the clucks out front wish they had the guts to talk, and sweet, quiet little Gene is God’s dream of a straight man.
So we’re a team, and all of a sudden Gene wakes up in the big time. We’re a team, and it isn’t just part of the act. I listen to Gene and I talk to him. Sure I rib him some and slip him the old needle, but I treat him like he is somebody for the first time in his life. We sit up all night sometimes after a show, just kicking stuff around and cutting ourselves a slice of happiness. It’s a good life, and the moolah that’s rolling in is only a part of it. We’re seeing the country, kicking around from night spot to night spot—Jerry and Gene in Jests and Jollity—and whether we’re in Grand Rapids or Kokomo, we’re us, see?
Then in Cincinnati comes in Stella. Any of you guys catch the act? Then you know the spot where the gals in the line come on and I make with the eyes and the cracks. Well, in Cincy there’s this kid at the end of the line. She’s stacked like the best of ’em; but her make-up’s on kind of funny like she isn’t used to it, and her eyes have got a softness in them you don’t see in night spots. So I’m giving with the Malloy malarkey when all of a sudden I stop and say, “Hey! What am I saying? You ain’t my meat, baby. Gene’s the joe for you. Ain’t that right, Gene?” And Gene turns red like they slipped a gelatin over the spot; but that night I don’t sit up talking with him on account of he’s taking this kid out to supper—to apologize, he says yet.
So we play four weeks in Cincinnati and when we leave there there’s three of us, see? This Stella’s a pretty sweet kid, I think at first like a damned jerk. She’s been to a finishing school and stuff only her family goes broke and she isn’t trained for anything so her legs get her a job when the finishing won’t. It looks like she likes me on account of I introduced them, you might say. I don’t get to go to the wedding but I say the right things to her when they come back to the hotel and for two days that’s all I see of Gene except when we’re on.
Then two nights later he sits up and yatatas to me all night about what a honey of girl this Stella is. He gives her a build-up like Romeo would’ve thought twice before he’d say it about Juliet.
“You tell the kid any of this stuff?” I ask him. “Must make her feel pretty proud.”
“I don’t know, Jerry,” he says. “Somehow when I’m with her I can’t make it come out like this. But I know she understands—”
“Better let me talk to her,” I suggest. And I play it for a laugh, only I think both of us are thinking about it from then on.
We’re working our way across country, see, playing short stands till we hit this big date here in Hollywood. And something isn’t going too good between Gene and Stella. I don’t get to see her much, but I somehow latch onto the idea that there’s more booing than cooing in that love nest. She doesn’t like it when he spends a whole night with me just two days after they’re married. So they have words—if Gene has ever got any words to have when he isn’t with me—and so he starts spending more time with me and so they have more words and so—See how it goes? And there’s nothing I can do. I can’t kick him out, can I?
It’s in Salt Lake City he starts drinking—which is a hell of a place to start a Ray Milland career, but there’s always a bell boy. Me, I still don’t touch the stuff; but we sit up all night and he kills a fifth and comes morning I’m talking as cockeyed thick as he is. So they have words and we play the show and they have more words and he finds another fifth.
I begin to get a glimmering that Stella’s not just sore at him—she’s jealous of me and she wants to break up the act. But when we hit Hollywood here, I think everything’s going to be copacetic. We play the Top Spot out on the Strip, and we find out the Hollywood Names give with the yuks for the same kernels straight off the cob as any other bunch of clucks. And the agents start coming backstage and there’s what they call “marked interest at a major studio” and there’s a deal all set for TV and everything’s so high, wide, and hopeful that even Stella couldn’t dream of breaking up the act.
That’s what I think.
This night, the night you boys are interested in, Gene’s making up before the show and I’m just lying there when Stella comes in. My eyes are shut, see, and I guess I look like I’m out cold so she starts in talking like I wasn’t there, which is one thing I never did like about that wench.
“Gene,” she says, “this is the time to cut loose. Now you can have all these important people interested in you, you can make the break and go ahead on your own.”
“That’s absurd, Stella,” he says sensibly. “You know I’d be nothing without Jerry.”
“Nonsense!” she snorts. “Whatever appeal Jerry has is what you give him. If Jerry’s as great as they say he is, then you’re great. And I want you to prove it. I want you to be a man—one person, all by yourself—my husband that I can be proud of.”
They kick this routine back and forth a little without getting anywhere and Stella starts to leave. “You don’t love me,” she sniffles. “You’ve never loved anybody but that cocky wizened little runt.”
Gene comes over to where I am and makes like he’s waking me up. I give Stella the old eye and I say, “’Smatter, baby? Ain’tcha satisfied with your nice new husband? Maybe you better give me a try.”
She backs away sudden and Gene says, “Stella! I’d almost think you were afraid of Jerry.”
“I am,” she gulps, low and tight. “I am afraid�
��terribly afraid—for you, Gene.”
I start to make a crack only my voice kind of changes and I find myself saying, “Listen, Stella. I’ve known Gene a long time. He doesn’t find it very easy to talk. Some people it comes tough with. But take my word for it. He loves you. He loves you very much. He loves you more than anything else in the world.”
She stops dead and she says, “Except you.” It’s the first time she’s ever spoken straight at me; but now she doesn’t even look at Gene. “Except you,” she repeats, slow and steady.
“Even more than me,” I have to say. “You’re his life and his warmth and his beauty,” and I go on like that with words I never knew I had it in me to say until she bursts out sobbing and runs out of the room.
That’s the first night Gene ever starts on a fifth before we go into the act. It’s a lousy show. We lay enough eggs to bring the market down ten cents a dozen wholesale. And after the first show Gene leaves me alone in the dressing room while he goes out to rustle up some more guaranteed egg-producer in fifth bottles.
I’m lying there in the dark, see, when Stella comes in. She leaves the door part way open and there’s enough light from the corridor to shine off the blade of the knife she’s packing.
I can’t move. I’m helpless. All I can do is lie there and watch her come closer and know what she’s going to do. I can hear her mutter, “It’s the only way out,” and then kind of giggle and say, “It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,” like it was a quote from something, God knows what.
So I’m lying there and I can’t stir and she’s coming at me with the knife when all of a sudden there’s a crash of breaking glass out in the corridor, where the fire-ax hangs right outside our door.
Then there’s Gene standing in the doorway. His right hand is all over blood but it’s holding hard onto that fire-ax. Then he’s coming into the room and dripping blood over everything, only once he lashes out with that ax there’s more blood and it isn’t his.
Exeunt Murderers Page 30
