Into The Night (23 page)

A mouse-colored French poodle on leash to a young girl stopped to investigate a tree, decided against it, went on to the next. A deliveryman came along pedaling a bicycle with a built-in box for carrying groceries.

A trim-looking truck went by, the legend "U.S. Mail" on it, the lower half blue, the upper half white, a thin band, no more than a stripe, of red separating them. They should have put the red on top, she thought idly; the expression was "red, white, and blue," not "white, red, and blue." Still, she supposed, maybe they decided a red roof wouldn't look good on a truck.

Somewhere in the immediate vicinity, but out of sight, an apartment-house doorman kept blowing on his whistle, trying to conjure up a cab for his waiting tenant. There was something unutterably lonely and plaintive about the sound.

A defective "Don't Walk" sign stayed red when it should have turned green and caused a minor amount of traffic confusion down at the next crossing. Then it finally meshed and turned green, but by now all the others had turned red again.

Two nuns floated majestically along, heading a long double-file procession of small schoolchildren.

A jet coursed by overhead, turning the sky into a tom-tom, heading for some faraway romantic place. Anchorage, Tokyo, Manila.

A couple of pigeons, outmoded, flew up from a cornice defiantly, then turned around and came down on it again, their challenge ignored.

A Sanitation Department street-washing vehicle came trundling clumsily along, held its water along a stretch of curb where there were no pedestrians, then let fly target-accurate as it came abreast of a man and woman walking together. They both jumped aside and started to brush at themselves, ruefully but uncomplainingly.

A stocky workman was standing by an open manhole, with a bright orange circular guardrail ringed about it, and a red flag on a stick projecting from this, talking to someone else unseen down inside it. It made a little eddy in the otherwise smooth flow of the traffic.

In the building across the way from Madeline's hotel, but at the same floor level she was, a window washer attached his safety belt to the two brackets flanking the window, and then seated himself backward on the ledge, closed the sash down tightly across his thighs, and began to go over the pane with a wet sponge.

What a way to earn a living, Madeline thought deprecatingly. And he may even have a wife and child at home. Why shouldn't he have, just as well as everyone else?

But for every job there is in the world, no matter how unrewarding, there's always someone there to fill it. Or else the world couldn't go on.

Standing there, she decided she'd call him at noon, just before he took his lunch break.

Just as the decision crystallized in her mind, there was a knock at the door. She sighed, crossed the room, and opened the door.

It was the maid. They exchanged good-mornings, and then the maid said, "Isn't it a lovely day!"

"It certainly is," Madeline agreed. And then the thought of his death came back again. Not that it had ever been very far away. He's having nice weather to die in, she reflected.

"Aren't you going out and get some of that beautiful sunshine?" the maid wanted to know.

"I'm going out later on," Madeline told her. "I'm going out this afternoon." She wondered what the maid would think or say if she were to tell her, I'm going out to kill a man. Probably grin ephemerally as at a joke you don't understand and go right on with her work.

"You don't have to bother with that," Madeline said as the maid picked up the coffee cup to rinse it out.

"It's no trouble, let me do it," the maid said accommodatingly. "I like to leave your place spic and span." Madeline was a good tipper.

And that was the last exchange of the day between them.

The morning had gone. The morning of Herrick's last day on earth.

She looked at her wristwatch. Three and a half to twelve. She went into the bedroom once more and sat down on the bed again, now neatly made up.

The death call.

She waited two and a half minutes. Then she picked up the phone and gave the apartment hotel operator his business number. She was as calm as though she were asking for a time check or valet service.

She gave his name to a girl. Then she heard his voice. Every word it said meant it had used up one word more and had that many fewer left to use before it grew silent forever. Still, isn't that true of all of us? she thought.

"This is Madeline," she said, and smiled a little at him in greeting though he couldn't see her.

"Funny, I was thinking of you only a little while ago," he said.

"I was thinking of you too," she admitted.

"Do you believe in mental telepathy?"

"It's impossible not to," she said soberly, "when something comes up like what we're saying right now."

"Come down and have lunch with me," he invited. "The whole town is playing hooky from school. A day as fine as this isn't for working in, it's for idling in."

"No," she said quickly, "I can't. I have some things I want to do this afternoon."

"Have lunch with me first, and then you can do them later," he suggested logically.

"No," she said, "but I'll tell you what I'll do."

"What?" he said eagerly.

"I'll have dinner with you tonight, if you're free."

Eagerness had become enthusiasm. "Fine," he said heartily. "That'll be just fine. Where'll we make it and where'll I meet you?"

"Have you got facilities over in your place?" she said at a sudden tangent.

"Facilities?"

"Facilities for making a meal."

"Oh, yes, sure. Why, would you rather eat up in my place?"

"Yes," she said. "I'd like that better than a restaurant. I'm just in the mood for that. The only obstacle is--"

"What?" he said worriedly.

"I can't cook worth a nickel."

He laughed in relief. "I can," he said. "Want me to, rather than have it sent in?"

"By all means," she said gaily. "That's what I'm fishing for, a home-cooked meal for once in my life."

"You've got it," he said. "Now, what would you like? Name your menu. I'll phone in the order, and it'll be all delivered and ready to go to work on by the time you arrive."

"Well," she said, looking thoughtfully along the wall, "I'm not a fancy eater, and I'm not a large one. I like plain fare."

"All right," he said. "I've got paper and pencil here. Let's start at the beginning. What do you want for a before-dinner drink?"

"Sherry," she said decidedly. "Always and only. I don't go for mixed drinks. In that, I'm with the Europeans."

"Brand?"

"Domecq. La Ina, if you have it. It's one of the driest in the world."

"I do have it," he said. "Like it myself. Next?"

"No soup, no nothin'.Just a one-course meal. I know most men are fond of red meat, and I am myself, in moderation. How about a steak?"

"You're a girl after my own heart."

"But not one of these oversized sirloins," she said quickly. "Why don't you get us each a little individual club steak? They're small and tender."

"I know a great sauce," he enthused.

"Put mushrooms into it."

"They go with it. Mushrooms and sauterne."

"No trimmings, no salad."

"Dessert?"

"No dessert. I hate sweet desserts. They're for children."

"I do too."

"Or, I'll tell you what. Roquefort on thin saltine crackers, and then black coffee laced with cognac. And that's it."

"You've got good sense in food," he complimented her. "And good taste in it."

"Thank you," she said quite matter-of-factly. Then she asked him, "What time shall I drop by?"

"Oh, anytime after five-thirty. I'm not going to start in until after you're there. Half the fun is having someone around you when you're doing it."

"All right," she said with grave politeness. "I'll be there. You can count on it."

"'Bye for now," he said.

"'Bye for now," she repeated.

She didn't smile vindictively when she'd hung up, or look grim, or anything melodramatic like that. She had a pensive, wistful look in her eyes, almost as if she felt sorry for the guy. She gave a soft sigh, underneath her breath. Then she shrugged one shoulder very slightly, as if realizing the whole thing was beyond her control.

She left the apartment at about one-thirty, and had a midday snack at the fountain in the hotel drugstore. This was only a degree less frugal than her preceding repast had been: a tomato sandwich and a malted milk.

Then she got on a bus and, avoiding the larger department stores, where the clothes had a tendency to lack individuality, sought out a small specialty shop on a side street that she had been to once or twice before.

"Something in black," she mentioned.

About the fourth one struck her interest. She went into the dressing room, put it on, and came outside again.

"You two go very well together," the brisk manager-saleswoman told her.

"I can see that," Madeline agreed. "That's why I picked it out. The only thing is this--" She put her hand over a small metallic ornament. "Can't you take it off? I don't like gewgaws on my clothes."

"Oh, but that makes it look too much like mourning," the other protested. "You're not going to a funeral."

Aren't I? thought Madeline, eying her inscrutably. Aren't I?

"It'll have to come off," she said flatly, "if you want me to take the dress."

The woman brought a small pair of scissors and severed it.

Madeline paid for the dress and had it boxed.

It was now a little after three, and she still had better than two hours to kill.

She went back to the hotel, had a bellman take the dress up to her room for her, and she herself went into the hotel beauty salon. This was more for the sake of using up the excess time that she had on her hands than because she was interested in having her hair done. As a matter of fact, for a girl in her own particular age bracket, she patronized such places remarkably seldom; not more than once or twice a year.

"Can you take care of me?" she asked the girl at the desk. "I don't have an appointment."

"I have a customer who's late again for her appointment, as usual," the girl remarked resentfully. A resentment that was not, however, intended for Madeline, it was apparent. "You can have her time. If she does show up, she can just wait until after you're through. It may teach her to be more punctual after this." Then she added, no doubt as a special concession, "Would you like Mr. Leonard to take care of you?"

"No," Madeline said, unable to conceal the distaste she felt for such people. "I'd rather have a girl do my hair."

"I'll call Miss Claudia," the receptionist said.

Following an enamel-smooth redhead into a booth, Madeline wondered, as she had once or twice before, why in this particular profession the names of the personnel were always prefixed by a "miss," whereas in all others employees of equal rank simply called one another by their given names. One of the traditions of the trade, she supposed.

"What would you like to have done?" the girl asked Madeline, running a professionally appraising eye over her hairdo.

"I'm not too well up on the new styles," Madeline let her know. "I've worn my own this way since I was sixteen, but I know it must be outdated by now, because I no longer see it on anyone else, the way I used to at the start."

The girl handed her a brochure of glossy photographs. "Perhaps you may find something in there you like." She pointed one out. "We get a lot of requests for this." It looked like a beehive. It was massive, rising to a point high above the head.

"It must be a lot of trouble to keep it looking right," Madeline remarked dubiously.

"It is," the girl admitted. "But it's very dramatic."

Madeline laughed outright. "I don't think I'd care to go around with dramatic-looking hair, whatever that is."

They finally arrived at a compromise. Madeline kept her original flat downswept style, but it was modernized by being shortened to the ear tips and combed several different ways at once on top.

"Not bad," she conceded when the job had been completed.

"Not bad?" the girl almost yelped. "Why, you look marvelous. You'll be a killer tonight," she promised.

Then she faltered and stopped. "Why, what a strange smile," she said lamely. "I never saw a smile quite like that before."

She was still staring after Madeline with more than just professional interest as she walked out, knowing she'd come across something, but not knowing exactly what it was.

Madeline went up to her room and began at last the final preparations for the meeting. The death meeting. She put on the new black dress, and wondered as she did so if she would ever again be able to bring herself to wear it after tonight. Probably not. She decided she would give it to that nice maid when she came in in the morning. She pulled her valise out of the closet, unlocked it, and got out the revolver that Charlotte Bartlett had given her so long ago. Almost in another lifetime, it seemed. She checked it, not that she was an expert on firearms, in fact hardly knew the first thing about them, but simply to make sure that it was fully loaded. It couldn't fail to be, of course; it had been fully loaded when she first put it into the valise, and who had gone near it since? It was. It was a cylinder-type weapon, and as she "broke" it at the heft she could see that all six of the little bores were solidly plugged by the little brass bases of the bullets.

As for the ability to sight and hit with it--in which, again, she was completely amateur--how could she fail, at almost pointblank range? Two people together in a room, one of them motionless. Only the width of a dinner table or the length of a settee between them.

She closed it up and put it lengthwise, upside down, into the bottom of her handbag. That way her hand could reach down and bring it out in a single unbroken movement, without reversing. Also it balanced better, resting on its back with its handle up.

As she completed fastening the handbag--it was an underarm, envelope type, without a strap--a sudden surge of chilling fear coursed through her, tingling as ice water. The telephone was going. Not that she had anything to fear from it in itself; it was simply the sequence in which it had occurred, following immediately upon what she had just been doing with the gun. It felt as though the tripper were hitting her on the heart each time, instead of striking the bell.