After the First Death (11 page)

I dropped my voice a notch and asked for Mr. MacEwan. This didn’t work. There was a fractional pause, then, “Alex? Alex?”

“Is Doug there, Kay?”

Her voice went shrill. “You have to leave us alone, Alex! You have to leave us out of it you can’t come here, you can’t keep calling us! It was years ago! Years ago—”

“Kay, I just—”

It means nothing now, can’t you understand? It’s over and done with, we’ve forgotten all about it—”

Then the phone was taken from her, and there was some off-stage banter which I did not catch, and then Doug said my name.

What I said was, “I think Kay’s secretly in love with me.”

“She’s a little shaky. Alex. That’s all.”

“Sure.”

“We all are, really. What’s up?”

“I have to know Gwen’s sister’s address.”

“Huh?”

“I said—”

“No, I heard you. Hell, I don’t know it I only met her—what? Twice? Three times?”

“I don’t care if you saw her on television, Doug.”

“Huh?”

I made myself take a breath and hold it for a few seconds. Then I said, “You can find out for me. You can make one or two calls and get the information for me. I’m up to my neck in legwork, I can’t move around, I can’t even call people and ask them the answers to simple questions. You can call Gwen, I’ll give you her number—”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Listen a minute. You’ll call her or you can have Kay call her, and all you have to do is ask her how to get in touch with Linda, her sister Linda. I don’t know her last name now, she gets divorced every two years or so, but Gwen will know. Call now, and I’ll buzz you back in half an hour and take the relay.”

“Do you know what you’re asking me to do?”

He had me stretched so tight that, if plucked, I would have played high C. I opened my mouth to yell at him, and realized that that wouldn’t accomplish much, and realized at about the same time that I could no longer talk reasonably. So I broke the connection and went outside.

I walked around the block and called him again from a drugstore phone. This time he answered it himself. I said, “I hung up because I didn’t want to shout at you. I’m asking you to do something which no one will know about and which will not get you involved at all. I’ve been going through hell for half a week with too much to do and no room to move around in. All I want is a name and an address and a phone number. I can’t call Gwen. You can, or Kay can. Make up some story, you want to invite her to a party, you know a guy who wants to meet her, anything. But if you don’t make the goddamned phone call I’m going to call the police and tell them that I saw Alexander Penn going into your apartment, and then see how much sleep you and Kay get tonight.”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“Just try me, you stupid son of a bitch.”

He thought it over. Then he said, “Well, I can’t guarantee anything.”

“I can.”

“Huh? Oh. Well, I’ll make the call, I’ll see what I can find out. It’s Linda, isn’t it?”

“Bight.”

“You have Gwen’s number?”

I gave it to him.

“Should I call you back?”

“I’ll call you. Half an hour.”

I rang him back thirty minutes later, to the minute. He told me what I wanted to know. He was lucky. If he hadn’t had it, I’d have set the police on him. I honestly would have done it. It would have accomplished nothing, it would have hurt me more than it would have helped, but I was in a black and hateful mood, and when you don’t know who your enemies are you have to hate your friends. Any port in a storm.

12

L
INDA TILLOU HAMMILL PLIMPTON CRANE HAD A NEW NAME
, a new phone number, and lived in a new city, the three of which combined to make it highly unlikely that I could have found her on my own. She had been recently divorced from Plimpton when last I’d heard of her, and I now learned from Gwen via Kay and Doug that she had since married and divorced Crane, in whose Larchmont home she presently lived with Hammill’s son and Plimpton’s daughter.

The Larchmont train leaves from Grand Central and passes through the Hundred Twenty-fifth Street station en route to the Westchester suburbs. I weighed the relative perils of boarding at Grand Central, where cops habitually lie in wait for arriving and departing fugitives, or to be wildly conspicuous as one white face in the black sea of Harlem. Grand Central, moreover, was close enough to walk to, which gave it a decided edge. I did so, and drank coffee until they called a Larchmont train, and boarded it, and bought a ticket from the conductor.

The ride was pleasantly uneventful. Someone had abandoned a copy of the
World Journal,
and I hid behind it all the way to Larchmont. No one took undue notice of me. There was a gas station a block from the Larchmont terminal. A skinny kid there put down a copy of
Road and Track
long enough to tell me how to find Merrimack Drive. It took me about fifteen minutes to walk to her house.

A ranch house, red brick with white clapboard trim, set far back on a wide and deep lot, with a couple of postwar oak trees in front. The garage door was closed and there was no car parked in the driveway or at the curb. I checked the garage. A green MGB nestled among a sprawl of kids’ toys. The obvious car for a suburban mother of two. Linda had not changed.

Either she was home alone or she was out with someone, in which case there would be a babysitter watching her young. It was somewhere between ten-thirty and eleven—I had never gotten around to replacing my purloined watch. I lit a cigarette, smoked part of it, put it out, and went to the front door and rang the bell.

There was a peephole in the door. I put my hand over it. I heard someone open the peephole for an unsuccessful reconnaisance, then Linda’s voice asking who it was.

“Bela Lugosi,” I said.

It was the sort of reply usually forthcoming from the sort of morons she was friendly with. The lock turned and the door opened and I got a foot in it, and she said, “You must be some kind of a—” and saw my face. Her eyes cracked and she said, “You son of a bitch,” and tried to slam the door. I put a shoulder into it. It flew open. She backed away, trembling, and I kicked the door shut behind me.

She was on the tall side, taller than Gwen, but as thin and angular as a stiletto. Her hair was cut short and dyed black, then tipped silver. She had large brown eyes punctuated by tiny pupils.

“What are you doing here?”

“I have to talk to you.”

“Did you bring your knife, killer?” She laughed like glass breaking. “Are you going to kill me?”

“No.”

“What on earth do you want from me?”

“Information.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I’m not.” She was backing away toward the door, and I moved around her to the left to leave her no place to ran. “I didn’t kill that girl I didn’t kill either of them.”

“I only heard about the one Sunday. Did you kill another one since?”

“I never killed anybody. Not five years ago and not now.” She started to say she didn’t believe me, then shut her mouth again and played Humor The Lunatic.

“I’m being framed,” I said.

“Tell me more.”

“Somebody set me up the first time around. It worked so well I even believed it myself. Then I got out. You know about that.”

“So?”

“So they worked the frame again.”

“Who did?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

The fear was leaving her now. Her eyes met mine, cold, brittle. There was an odd light in them. I wondered if she had been drinking.

“Do you expect me to believe all this?”

“I don’t honestly give a damn what you believe. I just want some answers to some questions.”

“Like what?”

“Russell Stone.”

“Gwen’s husband.”

That’s right”

“What about him? You want to kill him?”

“No.”

“He’s not much. He’s a stiff. Very proper, very much the company man, the Protestant ethic, that whole bag.” Laughter. “Goodlooking, but I bet he’s a drag in the hay. I threw a pass at him on their last trip east. He wasn’t having any. I don’t think he approves of his sister-in-law.”

“When did Gwen meet him?”

“I don’t know. You’re giving me a headache, killer. You want a drink?”

“No.”

“Oh, that’s right You don’t drink, do you?”

“I—”

“You don’t drink and you don’t kill girls. You just get framed by evildoers, is that right?”

I drew a breath. “You ought to humor me,” I said. “Get nasty with me and I might take after you with a knife.”

“I’ve decided I’m safe with you, killer.”

“Why?”

“I’m not a whore.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

“I never sell it I only give it away.”

“That’s all it’s worth.”

The eyes flashed. “Go easy, killer. I’m bitchier than you, you’ll come out second best.”

“I didn’t come here to fight Linda.”

“I know. You want in-for-ma-tion.”

“That’s right.”

“What I want” she said, “is a drink. Just a small one, because I am nicely up on bennies and too much would blunt the edge. Sure you don’t want one?”

“Positive.” I wanted one desperately.

“Then I drink alone.” I followed her into the kitchen. She poured Scotch into a water tumbler. “Get me some ice, will you? Right behind you.”

I turned toward the refrigerator, then heard her move. She was making a grab for the wall phone. She had the receiver off the hook and her finger in the “O” hole. I hit her open-handed across the face. She reeled away, and I pulled the phone out of the wall.

Her face was white, with red marks from my fingers. “Superman,” she said.

“Don’t try it again.”

“Not with that phone, I won’t.” She picked up her glass. “What would happen if I threw this in your face?”

“I’d beat the crap out of you.”

“Uh-huh. Well, the hell with the ice.” She drank the straight Scotch all the way down and put the empty glass on the counter. “You hurt me, killer.”

“You had it coming.”

“I know.” She stood for a moment, thinking. “The hell with it I don’t want to get hurt any more. The killer plays too rough. I just want you to get the hell out of here. I don’t suppose it would do me much good to scream, would it?”

“None.”

“I didn’t think so. So let’s go back to the living room and sit down on the couch, and you can ask me your precious questions about Russ Stone, All-American Boy. And I will answer them and then you will go away. All right?”

“Fine.”

We went back to the living room. There was a phone there, and I ripped the cord out of the wall.

“I don’t think you trust me.”

“I don’t trust anybody.”

“That’s probably a good policy.” She settled herself on the couch, folding her long legs under her little rump. “You want a cigarette?”

“I have my own.”

We lit cigarettes. She inhaled deeply, sighed the smoke out, and shrugged. “Okay,” she said. “What do you want to know?”

“I think Gwen was having an affair with someone while we were married. Whoever it was, he’d have a good motive for framing me. The only motive I can think of. I want to know who it was.”

“You honestly think Gwen was playing around?”

Did I? A difficult question. “Yes.”

“What makes you think that?”

“It doesn’t matter. I want to know who the man was.”

“Don’t you have it mixed up? You were the cheater, lover.”

“Forget that.”

“You think my little sister—”

“Cut it out, Linda. You know all about it. Now tell me.”

She considered this. “If she were having an affair,” she said thoughtfully, “why should she tell me about it?”

“Someone would have to cover for her from time to time. She didn’t have any really close friends in town. Except you.”

“She never said anything to me.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’am?”

“Yes.”

She stretched like a cat, ground out her cigarette in an ashtray. “It wasn’t Stone,” she said. “I’ll bet on it.”

“How can you be sure?”

“He was in California. That’s where she met him.”

“He was in New York at the time.”

“He was? I didn’t know that But he wouldn’t do anything with a married woman. Not that Boy Scout.”

“Just because he turned you down doesn’t mean he couldn’t fall in love with Gwen.”

“I’ll ignore the dig, killer.” She laughed shortly. “No, not Stone. The great Stone face. No. It might mess up his career, and it wouldn’t be moral Remember, I met the clown. He’s a
type,
all right. Only with your own wife and only in the dark and only at night and only in the missionary posture. That’s what they call it in the South Seas, did you know that?”

“Yes.”

“Because only the missionaries did it like that down there. The natives liked it doggie style. Which has its points, certainly. That way you don’t miss television.”

I didn’t say anything. She flicked her tongue over her red lips, her eyes holding mine. I pretended not to hear the murmur beneath the words or see the invitation in the pin-point pupils.

“It wasn’t Stone,” she said.

“Then who?”

“Probably nobody.”

“I don’t believe it. Was it Landis?”

“Who?”

“Pete Landis. Before we were married—”

“Oh, the rabbit!” She laughed aloud. “Not a bad guess, but no chance. She had a thing with him once.”

“I knew about it.”

“Sometimes a woman has a return engagement with an old love, but not this one. Not Mr. Wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am. When his wife had a premature baby, Gwen said it stood to reason. He’s not your man, killer.”

She changed position on the couch again, moving closer to me, twisting her body deliberately. I tried to ignore her. She was not at all pretty and she looked all of her years, and yet there was something annoyingly attractive about her. The evil accessibility, the aura of sexual skill and experience. I felt a stirring in my loins that I could not wholly will away, and she looked at me and knew it.

“She was having an affair,” she said suddenly.

“She told you?”

“Not in so many words, but she was never good at hiding things from me. And I did cover for her once or twice, but that was easy enough. You never suspected a thing, did you, lamb?”