Masters Of Noir Vol I Part 16

All right, but if he hadn't, who had and why?

After a while I got up from the chair. There was no use going to bed. Tired as I was, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. I washed my hands and face and left the hotel.

He lived in a couple of small rooms on the second floor of a small frame house on a street of small houses. The light showing in two of his windows was the only light in the block, so I knew he was still up. Even if he had been sleeping, that wouldn't have stopped me any more than it had this morning when I had visited Holly Laird.

There were two doors and two vestibules off the open porch. The one on the right had his name over the bell. I was about to press it when the door at the top of the stairs opened. He closed the door and started down, and then by the light of the dim night-bulb he saw me in the vestibule.

His jaw hung slack. I said, "I want-" That was all I could get out. He turned and scurried back up the stairs.

I dashed after him. I reached the door as it slammed in my face. He had no time to lock it. I plunged into the apartment and found that he'd turned the lights off.

It wasn't totally dark. The night-light from the stairs showed shadowy ma.s.ses of furniture. But showed no movement. I stood inside the door, peering, listening, hearing only my own breath, while my hand groped for the switch which would be beside the door.

I felt it and snapped it and there was light. I stood at one end of a living room. He wasn't in it, but Celia Ambler was.

That first look at her told me she was dead and how she had died. She lay sprawled on the floor, and her eyes were open and staring and her tongue showed.

Ahead of me there were two closed doors. He would be behind one of them, cowering, scared stiff. The only thing I had to worry about was that he would try to escape through the window. I started across the room. When I reached the dead woman, I paused to bend over her, to touch her. The marks of the fingers that had strangled her showed on her tan throat. She was still a little warm, which meant that it had happened a short time ago.

I straightened up and one of the two doors opened, and he stepped into the room. George Hoge. His pinched face looked like a skeleton's in which two glowing coals had been put in for eye sockets. He had a rifle.

"Don't make a move for your gun," he said.

I should have had my gun in my hand. I should have remembered that it was always a mistake to under-estimate anybody, especially a killer.

I glanced at the dead woman. "A knife for her husband and your hands for her," I said. "A rifle for me. You like variety."

"I should have killed you in the parking field."

"Sure," I said. "Kill and keep killing. But where did it get you? It didn't get you Celia."

"No." Hoge s.h.i.+vered. "How did you guess?"

"Don't know if I did. Not all of it, anyway. I got the idea you were the one slugged me tonight. If not Burnett, who then? Well, this afternoon Celia Ambler had kissed me on her terrace. Out in the open where anybody could see. You'd left, but maybe you were still hanging around. Spying from around the side of the house. Maybe spying on her, or maybe wanting to hear what a cop would have to say about her husband's murder."

"In other words, you knew nothing," he said.

"Not too much," I said. "I'd gotten myself on the wrong track all day. Then a little while ago I thought there had to be another track. I'd learned the kind of dame Celia Ambler was. I'd noticed the way you looked at her this afternoon. I'd been slugged right after you'd seen me in the theater. I came here to talk to you about it." I looked at the dead woman. "And now I know."

"I'm going to kill you," Hoge said.

I shrugged. "Your other killings didn't do you any good. You figured if you knocked off John Ambler you'd have his wife to yourself. She would come up here now and then to this place of yours and have a time with you, but didn't suspect you were merely one more guy on her string. Right?"

His rifle wavered. "Tonight she told me. We had a fight because I saw her kissing you. Then she told me there had been others. She was laughing at me."

"Did she know you'd killed her husband?"

"No. I told her. I said I'd killed for her, and now she-" He choked on his own voice. "She looked at me with-with utter horror. She started to run out. She was going to the police. I had to stop her. I took her by the throat. I-I-"

He pa.s.sed his hand over his face. I'd been waiting for something like that. I lunged at him.

It was easy. I had the rifle barrel knocked aside before he knew what was happening. I tore it from his hand and scaled it across the room and had my arm back to drive my fist into his face.

I didn't hit him. I'd done enough hitting for one day.

When I entered the hospital room next morning, Holly Laird was sitting beside his bed. Most of Burnett's face was bandaged.

"I want to tell you how sorry I am," I said.

They didn't say anything.

"I've been suspended from the force," I went on. "There will be a departmental trial. Maybe because I brought the killer in last night they'll go easy on me. Maybe not. I guess I don't care much either way."

She put her hand on his arm. They remained silent.

"I had to come here and explain," I said. "You kids are in love. I was in love too-once. And you look like Martha. Your hair especially. I had to hurt Martha, hurt Martha when I was hurting you, and hurt the guy who loved you because-" I stopped. "It sounds mixed up, but it isn't. Not that I'm trying to make any excuses for myself, but if you two could understand ... " I stopped, because I could see that I wasn't going to get an answer. Things had gone too far for a few words to fix things. Neither Holly Laird nor Burnett said anything. I could see their hate and feel it. I had to do something to make things right, but there was nothing to do.

"I'm sorry," I said again. I went out. Suddenly, I was sick.

AS I LIE DEAD by FLETCHER FLORA

I rolled over in the hot sand and sat up. Down the artificial beach about fifty yards, the old man was coming toward us with a bright towel trailing from one hand. He was wearing swimming trunks, and with every step he took, his big belly bounced like a balloon tied up short on the end of a stick. Dropping the towel on the sand, he turned and waded into the water.

"The old man's taking a swim," I said.

Beside me on the beach, Cousin Cindy grunted. She was stretched out flat on her belly with her head cradled on her arms and her long golden legs spread in a narrow V. Her white lastex trunks curved up high over the swell of her body, and the ends of her bra.s.siere lay unattached on the sand. When she s.h.i.+fted position, raising herself a little on her elbows, my reaction was not cousinly. Not cousinly at all.

"Hook me in back," she said.

I reached over and brought the loose ends of her bra.s.siere together below her shoulder blades, letting my fingers wander off lightly down the b.u.t.tons of her spine. She sat up, folding the golden legs Indian style and shaking sand from the ends of her golden hair. She was gold all over in the various shades that gold can take. Even her brown eyes, behind dark gla.s.s in white harlequin frames, were flecked with gold.

Out in the lake, Grandfather was swimming toward the raft that was a small brown square on the blue surface of the water. He was swimming breast stroke, as many old men swim, and the water bulged out ahead of him in smooth, sweeping undulations.

"The old man's strong as a bull," I said.

Cindy didn't answer. She just handed me a bottle with a white label and a white cap and some brown lotion inside. I unscrewed the cap and poured some of the lotion on her shoulders and back, rubbing it in gently with my fingers until it had disappeared and her skin was like golden satin to my touch.

Looking over her shoulder, past the soft sheen of her hair and out across the glittering blue lake, I saw that Grandfather had reached the raft. He was sitting on the far side, his back to us, legs dangling in the water. He'd made it out there in good time. For an old man, d.a.m.n good time. He was strong, in spite of his fat belly. It didn't look like he was ever going to die.

"It's hot," Cindy said, her voice slow and sleepy like the purring of a kitten, "but it's not as hot as it gets in Acapulco. You ever been in Acapulco, Tony? It's beautiful there. The harbor is almost land-locked, with mountains all around, and the s.h.i.+ps come right up against the sh.o.r.e."

I didn't say anything. My hands moved across her shoulders and down along the soft swells of flat muscle that padded the blades. The perfumes of her hair and the lotion were a strange, exotic blend in my nostrils. Out on the raft, Grandfather still sat with his legs in the water.

"I was there for two weeks once," Cindy said. "In Acapulco, I mean. I went with a man from Los Angeles who wanted me to wear red flowers in my hair. He was very romantic, but he was also very fat, and the palms of his hands were always damp. It would be better in Acapulco with you, Tony. Much better."

My hands reversed direction, moving up again into her hair, cupping it between palms as water is cupped. The raft, out on the lake, rose and dipped on a slight swell. Grandfather rode it easily, still resting.

"He just sits," I said bitterly. "He'll be sitting forever."

Her head fell back slowly until it was resting on my shoulder, and her golden hair was hanging down my back, and I could look down along the slim arch of her throat into the small valley of shadow under the white band she wore. Behind dark gla.s.s, her lids lowered, and she looked dreamily through slits into the brash blue of the sky.

"Acapulco, Tony. You and me and Acapulco. It's hot and beautiful there by the harbor in a ring of mountains, but it wouldn't be good unless you and I were hot and beautiful, too. It wouldn't be good if we were too old, Tony."

"He's strong as a bull," I said. "He'll live forever."

A s.h.i.+ver rippled her flesh, and the tip of her pink tongue slipped out and around her oiled lips.

"It's a nice day, Tony. A hot, dreamy day with a blue sky and white clouds drifting. If I were old and ugly, I'd like to die on a day like this."

She remained quiet a minute longer, lying against me with her hair splas.h.i.+ng down my back, and then she slipped away, rising in the hot sand.

"I want a drink," she said. "A long, long drink with lots of ice and a sprig of mint. You coming, Tony?"

I stood up too, and we stood looking at each other across the sand of the artificial beach that had cost Grandfather a small fortune.

"I'll be up in a little," I said. "I think I'll swim out to the raft and back."

Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose high against the restraint of the white band and descended slowly on a long whisper of air. She wet her lips again. "I'll have your drink waiting," she said.

I watched her walk away up the beach, her legs moving from the hips with fluid ease, even in the soft sand, and after she was gone, I went down to the water and waded out into it to my waist. The water was cool on my hot skin and seemed to make everything clear and simple in my mind. Swimming with a powerful crawl, I was nearing the raft in almost no time. A few feet from it, treading water, I stopped and looked at Grandfather's motionless back. I wasn't worried about his hearing me. He'd been partially deaf for years and usually wore a little b.u.t.ton attached to a battery. After a few seconds, I sank in the water and swam under the raft.

The first time I reached for his ankle, my fingers barely brushed it, and it jerked away. Reaching again, I got my fingers locked around the ankle and lunged down with all the force I could manage in the buoyant water. He came in with a splash, and even under the water I could see his veined eyes bulging with terror as my hands closed around the sagging flesh of his throat.

He was strong. Stronger, even, than I'd thought. His hands clawed at mine, tearing at my grip, and I scissored my legs, kicking up to a higher level so that I could press my weight down upon him from above. My fingers kept digging into his throat, but he put up a h.e.l.lish thres.h.i.+ng, and when I broke water for air, it was all I could do to hold him below the surface. It was a long time before he was quiet and I could let him slip away into the green depths.

There was a fire under my ribs. My arms and legs were throbbing, heavy with the poisonous sediment of fatigue. I wanted to crawl onto the raft and collapse, but I didn't. I lay floating on my back for a minute, breathing deeply and evenly until the fire went out in my lungs, and then I rolled in the water and crawled slowly to sh.o.r.e.

On the white sand where he had dropped it, Grandfather's towel was a bright splash of color. Leaving it lying there, I crossed the beach and went up through a spa.r.s.e stand of timber to the eight room house we called the lodge.

Cindy was waiting for me on the sun porch. She had removed the dark gla.s.ses but was still wearing the two sc.r.a.ps of white lastex. In one hand was a tall gla.s.s with ice cubes floating in amber liquid and a green sprig of mint plastered to the gla.s.s above the amber. Her eyes were lighted hotly by their golden flecks. Between us, along a vibrant intangible thread of dark understanding, pa.s.sed the unspoken question and the unspoken answer.

"Tell me more about Acapulco," I said.

She set the gla.s.s with great deliberateness on a gla.s.s-topped table and moved over to me. Still with that careful deliberateness, she pa.s.sed her arms under mine and locked her hands behind my back. There was surprising strength in her. I could feel the hard, hot pressure of her body clear through to my spine. Her lips moved softly against my naked shoulder.

"Was it bad, Tony? Was it very bad?"

"No. Not bad."

"Will anyone guess?"

"I had to choke him pretty hard. There may be bruises. But it won't matter, even if they do get suspicious. It's proof that hurts. All we have to remember is that we were here together all afternoon."

"What do we do now?"

"We have a drink. We wait until dusk. Then we call the sheriff and tell him we're worried about Grandfather. We tell him the old man went swimming and hasn't returned."

"Why the sheriff?"

"I don't know. It seems like the sheriff should be the one to call."

"The will, Tony. Are you sure about the will?"

"Yes, I'm sure. It's all ours, honey. Every stick, stone, stock and penny, share and share alike."

It was only then that she began to tremble. I could feel her silken flesh s.h.i.+vering against mine all the way up and down. Her lips made a little wet spot on my shoulder. Under my fingers, the fastening of her white bra.s.siere was a recalcitrant obstacle, thwarting the relief of my primitive drive. Finally it parted, the white sc.r.a.p hanging for a moment between us and then slipping away. My hands traced the beautiful concave lines of her sides and moved with restrained, savage urgency.

Her voice was a thin, fierce whisper.

"Tony," she said. "Tony, Tony, Tony ... "

2.

Out on the lake, they were blasting for Grandfather. All day, at intervals, we'd heard the distant, m.u.f.fled detonations, and every time the hollow sound rolled up through the spa.r.s.e timber to reverberate through the rooms of the lodge, I could see the bloated body of the old man wavering in terrible suspension in the dark water.

On the sun porch, Cindy stood with her back to me, staring out across the cleared area of the yard to the standing timber. She was wearing a slim black sheath of a dress without shoulders. Beautiful in anything or nothing, in black she was most beautiful of all. She was smoking a cigarette, and when she lifted it to her lips, the smoke rose in a thin, transparent cloud to mingle with the golden haze the light made in her hair.

"It's been a long time," she said. "Almost an hour."

"What's been almost an hour?"

"Since the last explosion. They've been coming at half-hour intervals."

"Maybe they've raised him."

"Maybe."

She moved a little, lifting the cigarette to her lips again, and the sunlight slipped up her arm and over her shoulder. I went up behind her and trailed my hands down the black sheath to where it flared tautly over firm hips and then back up to her shoulders. I pulled her back against me hard, breathing her hair.

"Nervous, Cindy?"

"No. You?"

"A little. It's the waiting, I guess."

She turned to face me, her arms coming up fiercely around my neck.