A Kiss Before Dying

by Ira Levin

  ‘I haven’t been asking questions,’ Kingship protested.

  Marion turned her back. ‘I thought you changed,’ she said. ‘I really did. I thought you liked Bud. I thought you liked me. But you can’t—’

  ‘Marion—’

  ‘No, not if you’re doing this. The apartment, the job – and all along this has been going on.’

  ‘Nothing is going on, Marion. I swear—’

  ‘Nothing? I’ll tell you exactly what’s going on.’ She faced him again. ‘You think I don’t know you? He was “involved” with Dorothy – is he supposed to be the one who got her in trouble? And he was “involved” with Ellen, and now he’s “involved” with me–all for the money, all for your precious money. That’s what’s going on– in your mind!’ She thrust the year-book into his hands.

  ‘You’ve got it wrong, Miss Kingship,’ Gant said. ‘That’s what’s going on in my mind, not your father’s.’

  ‘See?’ Kingship said. ‘He came to me of his own accord.’

  Marion stared at Gant. ‘Just who are you? What makes this your business?’

  ‘I knew Ellen.’

  ‘So I understand,’ she snapped. ‘Do you know Bud?’

  ‘I’ve never had the pleasure.’

  ‘Then will you please explain to me what you’re doing here, making accusations against him behind his back!’

  ‘It’s quite a story—’

  ‘You’ve said enough, Gant,’ Kingship interrupted.

  Marion said, ‘Are you jealous of Bud? Is that it? Because Ellen preferred him to you?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Gant said drily. ‘I’m consumed with jealousy.’

  ‘And have you heard of the slander laws?’ she demanded.

  Kingship edged towards the door, signalling Gant with his eyes. ‘Yes,’ Marion said, ‘you’d better go.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she said as Gant opened the door. ‘Is this going to stop?’

  Kingship said, ‘There’s nothing to stop, Marion.’

  ‘Whoever’s behind it’ – she looked at Gant – ‘it’s got to stop. We never talked about school. Why should we, with Ellen? It just never came up.’

  ‘All right, Marion,’ Kingship said, ‘all right.’ He followed Gant into the hall and turned to pull the door closed.

  ‘It’s got to stop,’ she said.

  ‘All right,’ he hesitated, and his voice dropped. ‘You’re still coming tonight aren’t you, Marion?’

  Her lips clenched. She thought for a moment. ‘Because I don’t want to hurt Bud’s mother’s feelings,’ she said finally. Kingship closed the door.

  They went to a drugstore on Lexington Avenue, where Gant ordered coffee and cherry pie and Kingship, a glass of milk.

  ‘So far, so good,’ Gant said.

  Kingship was gazing at a paper napkin he held. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘At least we know where we stand. He didn’t tell her about Stoddard. That makes it practically certain that—’

  ‘You heard Marion,’ Kingship said. ‘They don’t talk about school because of Ellen.’

  Gant regarded him with slightly lifted eyebrows. ‘Come on,’ he said slowly, ‘that may satisfy her; she’s in love with him. But for a man not to tell his fiancée where he went to college—’

  ‘It isn’t as if he lied to her,’ Kingship protested.

  Sardonically Gant said, ‘They just didn’t talk about school.’

  ‘Considering the circumstances, I think that’s understandable.’

  ‘Sure. The circumstances being that he was mixed up with Dorothy.’

  ‘That’s an assumption you have no right to make.’

  Gant stirred his coffee slowly and sipped it. He added more cream and stirred it again. ‘You’re afraid of her, aren’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Of Marion? Don’t be ridiculous.’ Kingship set his glass of milk down firmly. ‘A man is innocent until he’s proved guilty.’

  ‘Then we’ve got to find proof, haven’t we?’

  ‘You see? You’re assuming he’s a fortune hunter before you’ve started.’

  ‘I’m assuming a hell of a lot more than that,’ Gant said, lifting a forkful of pie to his mouth. When he had swallowed it he said, ‘What are you going to do?’

  Kingship was looking at the napkin again. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You’re going to let them get married?’

  ‘I couldn’t stop them even if I wanted to. They’re both over twenty-one, aren’t they?’

  ‘You could hire detectives. There are four days yet. They might find something.’

  ‘Might,’ Kingship said. ‘If there’s anything to find. Or Bud might get wind of it and tell Marion.’

  Gant smiled. ‘I thought I was being ridiculous about you and Marion.’

  Kingship sighed. ‘Let me tell you something,’ he said, not looking at Gant. ‘I had a wife and three daughters. Two daughters were taken from me. My wife I pushed away myself. Maybe I pushed one of the daughters too. So now I have only one daughter. I’m fifty-seven years old and I have one daughter and some men I play golf and talk business with. That’s all.’

  After a moment Kingship turned to Gant, his face set rigidly. ‘What about you?’ he demanded. ‘What is your real interest in this affair? Maybe you just enjoy chattering about your analytical brain and showing people what a clever fellow you are. You didn’t have to go through that whole rigmarole, you know. In my office, about Ellen’s letter. You could have just put the book on my desk and said, “Bud Corliss went to Stoddard.” Maybe you just like to show off.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Gant said lightly. ‘Also maybe I think he might have killed your daughters and I’ve got this quixotic notion that murderers should be punished.’

  Kingship finished his milk. ‘I think you’d better just go back to Yonkers and enjoy your vacation.’

  ‘White Plains.’ Gant scraped together the syrupy remains of the pie with the side of his fork. ‘Do you have ulcers?’ he asked, glancing at the empty milk glass.

  Kingship nodded.

  Gant leaned back on his stool and surveyed the man beside him. ‘And about thirty pounds overweight, I’d say.’ He put the red-clotted fork in his mouth and drew it out clean. ‘I should estimate that Bud has you figured for ten more years, tops. Or maybe he’ll get impatient in three or four years and try to hurry you on.’

  Kingship got off his stool. He pulled a dollar from a money-clipped roll and put it on the counter. ‘Goodbye, Mr Gant,’ he said, and strode away.

  The counterman came over and took the dollar. ‘Anything else?’ he asked.

  Gant shook his head.

  He caught the 5.19 for White Plains.

  NINE

  In writing to his mother, Bud had made only the most vague allusions to Kingship’s money. Once or twice he had mentioned Kingship Copper, but never with any clarifying phrases, and he was certain that she, whose poverty-formed conception of wealth was as hazy and inexact as a pubert’s visions of orgies, had not the slightest real comprehension of the luxuriance of living into which the presidency of such a corporation could be translated. He had looked forward eagerly, therefore, to the moment when he could introduce her to Marion and her father, and to the surrounding magnificence of Kingship’s duplex apartment, knowing that in light of the coming marriage her awe-widened eyes would regard each inlaid table and glittering chandelier as evidence, not of Kingship’s capabilities, but of his own.

  The evening, however, was a disappointment.

  Not that his mother’s reaction was anything less than he had anticipated; with mouth partially opened and teeth lightly touching her lower lip, she drew in her breath with soft sibilance, as though seeing not one but a series of miracles; the formally attired servant – a butler! – the velvety depth of the carpets, the wallpaper that wasn’t paper at all but intricately textured cloth, the leather-bound books, the golden clock, the silver tray from which the butler served champagne – champagne! – in crystal goblets. Vocally, she restrained her
admiration to a gently-smiling, ‘Lovely, lovely,’ accompanied by a slight nodding of the stiff newly-waved grey hair, giving the impression that such surroundings were by no means completely alien to her – but when her eyes met Bud’s as the toast was drunk, the bursting pride she felt leaped out to him like a thrown kiss, while one work-roughened hand surreptitiously marvelled at the cloth of the couch on which she sat.

  No, his mother’s reaction was warming and wonderful. What made the evening a disappointment was the fact that Marion and Leo had apparently had an argument; Marion spoke to her father only when appearances made it inescapable. And furthermore, the argument must have been about him, since Leo addressed him with hesitant unfocused eyes, while Marion was determinedly, defiantly effusive, clinging to him and calling him ‘dear’ and ‘darling’, which she had never done before when others were present. The first faint worry began to sting him like a pebble in his shoe.

  Dinner, then, was dismal. With Leo and Marion at the ends of the table and his mother and he at the sides, conversation passed only around the edges; father and daughter would not talk; mother and son could not talk, for anything they had to say would be personal and exclusive-sounding before these people who were still in a sense outsiders. So Marion called him ‘darling’ and told his mother about the Sutton Terrace apartment, and his mother spoke to Leo about ‘the children’, and Leo asked him to pass the bread please, not quite looking at him.

  And he was silent, lifting each fork and spoon slowly as he selected it, so that his mother could see and do likewise; an affectionate conspiracy fallen into without words or signal, dramatizing the bond between them and forming the one enjoyable aspect of the meal – that and the smiles that passed across the table when Marion and Leo were looking down at their food, smiles prideful and loving and all the more pleasing to him because of the unsuspecting heads whose path they slipped across.

  At the end of the meal, although there was a silver lighter on the table, he lit Marion’s and his own cigarette with his matches, afterwards tapping the folder absentmindedly on the cloth until his mother had noticed the white cover on which Bud Corliss was stamped in copper leaf.

  But all along there was the pebble in his shoe.

  Later, it being Christmas Eve, they went to church and after church Bud expected to take his mother back to her hotel while Marion returned home with Leo. But Marion, to his annoyance, assumed an unfamiliar coquetry and insisted on accompanying them to the hotel, so Leo went off by himself as Bud squired the two women into a taxi. He sat between them, reciting to his mother the names of what landmarks they passed. The cab, at his direction, departed from its course so that Mrs Corliss, who had never been to New York before, might see Times Square at night.

  He left her in the lobby of her hotel, outside the elevator. ‘Are you very tired?’ he asked, and when she said she was, he seemed disappointed. ‘Don’t go to sleep right away,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you later.’ They kissed goodnight and, still holding Bud’s hand, Mrs Corliss kissed Marion happily on the cheek.

  During the taxi ride back to Leo’s, Marion was silent.

  ‘What’s the matter, darling?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, smiling unconvincingly. ‘Why?’

  He shrugged.

  He had intended to leave her at the door of the apartment, but the pebble of worry was assuming the proportions of a sharp stone; he went in with her. Kingship had already retired. They went into the living room where Bud lit cigarettes while Marion turned on the radio. They sat on the couch.

  She told him that she liked his mother very much. He said he was glad, and he could tell that his mother liked her too. They began to speak of the future, and he sensed from the stiff casualness of her voice that she was working up to something. He leaned back with his eyes half closed, one arm around her shoulders, listening as he had never listened before, weighing every pause and inflexion, fearful all the while of what it was leading up to. It couldn’t be anything important! It couldn’t be! He had slighted her somehow, forgotten something he’d promised to do, that was all. What could it be? He paused before each reply, examining his words before he spoke them, trying to determine what response they would bring, like a chess player touching pieces before making his move.

  She worked the conversation around to children. ‘Two,’ she said.

  His left hand, on his knee, pinched the crease of his trousers. He smiled. ‘Or three,’ he said. ‘Or four.’

  ‘Two,’ she said. ‘Then one can go to Columbia and one to Caldwell.’

  Caldwell. Something about Caldwell. Ellen? ‘They’ll probably both wind up at Michigan or some place,’ he said.

  ‘Or if we only have one,’ Marion went on, ‘he can go to Columbia and then transfer to Caldwell, or vice versa.’ She leaned forward, smiling, and pressed her cigarette into an ash-tray. Much more carefully than she usually put out her cigarettes, he observed. Transfer to Caldwell. Transfer to Caldwell … He waited in silence. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I really wouldn’t want him to do that’ – followed up her statement with a tenacity she never would have applied to mere idle chatter – ‘because he would lose credits. Transferring must be very involved.’

  They sat side by side, silently for a moment.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ he said.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t lose any credits.’

  ‘You didn’t transfer, did you?’ She sounded surprised.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I told you.’

  ‘No you didn’t. You never said—’

  ‘I did, honey. I’m sure I told you. I went to Stoddard University, and then to Caldwell.’

  ‘Why, that’s where my sister Dorothy went, Stoddard!’

  ‘I know. Ellen told me.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you knew her.’

  ‘No. Ellen showed me her picture though, and I think I remember seeing her around. I’m sure I told you, that first day, in the museum.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. I’m positive.’

  ‘Well sure, I was at Stoddard two years. And you mean to say you didn’t—’ Marion’s lips stopped the rest of the sentence, kissing him fervidly, atoning for doubt.

  A few minutes later he looked at his watch. ‘I’d better be leaving,’ he said. ‘I want to get as much sleep as I can this week, because I have an idea I won’t be getting much sleep at all next week.’

  It only meant that Leo had somehow learned he’d been at Stoddard. There was no real danger. There wasn’t! Trouble maybe; the wedding plans might be blown up – oh Jesus! – but there was no danger, no police danger. There’s no law against going after a rich girl is there?

  But why so late? If Leo wanted to check on him, why hadn’t he done it sooner? Why today? The announcement in the Times – of course! Someone had seen it, someone who’d been at Stoddard. The son of one of Leo’s friends or someone like that. ‘My son and your future son-in-law were at Stoddard together.’ So Leo puts two and two together; Dorothy, Ellen, Marion – gold-digger. He tells Marion, and that was their argument.

  God damn, if only it had been possible to mention Stoddard at the beginning! That would have been crazy though; Leo would have suspected right off, and Marion would have listened to him then. But why did it have to come up now!

  Still, what could Leo do, with only suspicions? They must be only suspicions; the old man couldn’t know for sure that he’d known Dorothy, or else Marion wouldn’t have been so happy when he himself told her he hadn’t known her. Or could Leo have withheld part of his information from Marion? No, he would have tried to convince her, given her all the evidence he had. So Leo wasn’t certain. Could he make certain? How? The kids at Stoddard, mostly seniors now, would they remember who Dorothy had gone with? They might. But it’s Christmas! Vacation. They’re scattered all over the country. Only four days to the wedding. Leo could never talk Marion into postponing.

  All he had to do was sit tight and keep his fingers crossed. Tuesday, W
ednesday, Thursday, Friday – Saturday. If worst came to worst, so he was after the money; that was all Leo could ever prove. He couldn’t prove that Dorothy didn’t commit suicide. He couldn’t drag the Mississippi for a gun that was probably buried under twenty feet of mud.

  And if best came to best, the wedding would go off as per schedule. Then what could Leo do even if the kids at Stoddard did remember? Divorce? Annulment? Not nearly enough grounds for either, even if Marion could be persuaded to seek one, which she probably couldn’t. What then? Maybe Leo would try to buy him off …

  Now there was a thought. How much would Leo be willing to pay to free his daughter from the big bad gold-digger? Quite a lot, probably.

  But not nearly as much as Marion would have some day.

  Bread now or cake later?

  When he got back to his rooming house, he telephoned his mother.

  ‘I hope I didn’t wake you. I walked back from Marion’s.’

  ‘That’s all right, darling. Oh, Bud, she’s a lovely girl! Lovely! So sweet – I’m so happy for you!’

  ‘Thanks, Mom.’

  ‘And Mr Kingship, such a fine man! Did you notice his hands?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘So clean!’ He laughed. ‘Bud,’ her voice lowered, ‘they must be rich, very rich—’

  ‘I guess they are, Mom.’

  ‘That apartment – like a movie! My goodness—!’ He told her about the Sutton Terrace apartment – ‘Wait till you see it, Mom!’ – and about the visit to the smelter – ‘He’s taking me there Thursday. He wants me to be familiar with the whole set-up!’ – and towards the end of the conversation, she said:

  ‘Bud, whatever happened to that idea of yours?’

  ‘What idea?’

  ‘The one why you didn’t go back to school.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ he said. ‘It didn’t pan out.’

  ‘Oh—’ She was disappointed.

  ‘You know that shaving cream?’ he said. ‘Where you press the button and it comes out of the can like whipped cream?’