Hard Case Crime: The Vengeful Virgin (10 page)

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” I said. “Ever. Okay?”

“Yes. I won’t think about it.” She didn’t speak for a time. I could hear her breathing. Then her voice came across the line, touched with desperation, a kind of dry whisper. “I’m going to work on him, Jack,” she said. “I’m going to work on him right now. I can’t stand it any longer.”

By the time the next afternoon crept across the face of the clock, I was in pretty bad shape. I needed a drink. I was afraid to start hitting the bottle. It would be too easy to lose count and go all the way. I chainsmoked cigarettes. I wandered around the store in a fog, trying to keep out of things because I knew I might foul up somewhere. Luckily, I had the place set up so I could come and go freely, acting as a general overseer. Louis Sneed and Pete Stallsworth were good repair men, or I would have been in a fix. I had a middle-aged blonde, a Mrs. Noxton, on the front desk, handling the phone, doing file work, and so forth. All she ever thought about was getting off work and hitting her favorite cocktail lounge to sop up Martinis. She was a wise one, but she could mind her own business, and that’s what counted. It was why she’d been here as long as she had.

All sorts of things came to mind. The big thing was I began to know we should have had some set time, place, or way, to contact each other. It was all right for her. She was there, on the spot. She knew what was going on. I had no idea how things were. It was like hanging by your upper lip to a high diving board over an empty swimming pool.

The later it got, the worse it got.

For all I knew, Miraglia was out there now, closing Victor’s eyes, and nodding sadly. With Shirley pulling the weep act. I wondered if she could weep. I wondered if she would weep.

Maybe she would just rear back and scream with laughter.

I knew I had to stop thinking. I couldn’t. I would get to thinking of Victor gasping for air, and I would breathe deeply. It was as if I couldn’t get enough air myself.

I tried concentrating on the money. What it could do, what it could buy. It just didn’t cut through the mood. It was so much money, I’d never be able to grasp the reality until I could actually grasp the money in my hand.

To top it off, we had a busy day at the store. They poured in and out all day, looking at TV sets, inspecting a couple of tired old short-wave receivers I’d blurbed as perfect for tracking satellites, listening to hi-fi systems, stereo tape recorders, and the like. I talked to them. My mind wandered. I couldn’t get anything straight.

Finally I went off into a corner behind a screen backing a display of phonographs, and sat in a chair, smoking. I kept thinking about Shirley. I kept trying not to wonder how it would turn out. A hopeless way to think, like Tolstoy saying to go in a corner and try not to think about a white bear. Christ. How to flip.

After a while it was time to eat something again, so I walked down to the drugstore and fooled around with a ham sandwich and a glass of milk. It was dark outside. Neons glowed in the streets. Cars hissed up and down on their way to parties, maybe, good times, or just home to the one-eyed monster, and the evening paper.

I started up the street toward the store, still thinking about Shirley. It hit me. Maybe it had been there all the time. I’d been trying to ignore it. Anyway, my mind was like pancake batter. I’d been worrying about Shirley going soft. It was me we had to worry about—because what was really in the back of my mind was the feeling that we had rushed into this too fast. Why force it? We knew how we felt about each other. What we had. We knew it would last. Money would do that.

So why not just let it coast along? Let Victor die the way he would die, in time. We could stand it, couldn’t we?

I had to see her.

If I talked with her, she’d think the same. He could eventually wind up in the hospital, and Shirley and I could see each other all we wanted. It would be on the up and up. He’d croak natural, and everything would be perfect. Except we would have to wait.

Maybe she’d been thinking this way, too. Just scared to say anything, because we’d gone too far. At least, we could talk it over. I could sound her out and see.

It was a kind of relief. So it would take longer. Maybe not. So what? We wouldn’t have worries riding us.

I found myself running up the alley. I slowed to a walk, went over and took one of the trucks, and headed across town. I had no excuse to see her. Suddenly I realized I didn’t need an excuse. It was all aboveboard; a strange feeling.

Nearing her place, I felt better. I began to whistle and sing, driving through the dark streets under streetlights. The tensions vanished.

I sang. Just anything. I let it rip out across the night. It made me feel better than ever.

In front of her house. I parked by the curb. There were no lights that I could see. I started for the porch, then thought maybe she would be in her room. I decided to take the path around back and surprise her.

I started along the stepping stones that led along the side of the house. Bright white light fell in a broad swath out on the yard. It came from Victor’s bedroom window.

I looked in. It was only a quick glance, in passing. I was in a hurry to get out back. I paused by the open window. The way he looked, I knew something was wrong.

Victor was propped up in the bed, on one arm, leaning toward the bedroom doorway, his head cocked, listening. He looked sick, and weak as hell. His skin was an ugly gray color. I heard the way he breathed. It was ghastly.

I stood there a moment. My heart rocked. He dropped back flat on the bed, mouth open, making gasping sounds, and stared up at the TV set. The set was on with the sound off. A musical production was on the screen; dancing girls and prancing boys. Big glass chandeliers flew through the air across an enormous stage set.

Victor Spondell reached to the bed table, and flipped on the intercom unit. He listened. Voices burst loudly through the speaker, carrying to me through the open window.

Shirley and Mayda Lamphier.

“For goodness’ sake, Mayda,” Shirley said. “You must be crazy to think such a thing.”

Mayda Lamphier’s voice was strained. There was a quality of awed and hesitant fright in her tone. “I thought I
was
crazy,” she said. “Shirley—” Her voice was shaded with pleading. “I know, believe me, I know what you’ve been going through. Anybody would flip, taking care of that old geezer. But, not this, Shirley.”

She ceased talking. Neither of them spoke. I couldn’t move from where I stood. I wanted to move, but something held me there. I knew what it was. It was doom.

Shirley spoke. Her voice was level now, and deadly.

“How did you ever form such a conclusion?”

“Oh, Shirl!”

“How, Mayda?”

“The telephone,” Mayda Lamphier said. “We’re on a party line, remember?” She paused, then went on. “I shouldn’t have. I’ve been lonely, I guess—that must account for it. I was going to make a call, last night around twelve. I picked up the receiver and you were talking to that Ruxton character. I heard everything you said, Shirl—everything. It was obvious, only I still couldn’t believe it. I watched you through the window—how you spoke to that old man.”

Shirley was cool now. “What are you going to do?”

“I thought you were just maybe on the make for this Ruxton. But, not this—not doing—killing—” Her voice rose. “Murdering that old man! Shirl, I’m trying to help you. That Ruxton’s nothing but a cheap bum. Can’t you see that?” She ceased, then, “I shouldn’t’ve waited....”

There was a pause. Nobody spoke. My heart was like a bass drum, slamming inside my chest. Victor Spondell was half up in bed again, straining. His eyes were wild. If Mayda told Shirley about what we’d done, what then?

They didn’t speak. I knew then. The intercom had quit, just as I’d planned it to quit. Victor reached for it. He struck it with his hand, eyes glaring toward the bedroom door, mouth gaping.

I turned and ran along the walk toward the front of the house.

I ran straight into Grace.

I smashed into her before I could stop. I don’t know. I was pretty close to insanity at that moment. Maybe it was like being shot in the heart. I couldn’t even speak. She had on a white dress and I smelled the gin. I thrust her away, and there was a kind of screaming inside me.

“I followed you, Jack.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I followed you. You don’t think I’d really leave town, the way you’ve been treating me? You don’t really think that, do you? I knew you had another woman, Jack—seeing her. I knew that’s what it was. I wasn’t good enough, was I? So I’ve been following you. She lives right here, doesn’t she? She married? She sneaking out to meet you? Don’t try to kid me, Jack. I know.”

I didn’t know what to do with her. I had to get rid of her. Everything was wild and off-kilter. Time counted. She was just drunk enough to be belligerent. Grace could be belligerent. I turned her around on the walk.

“You find your car,” I said, “and get out of here. Fast. You’re not fouling me up.”

“Fouling you up?” She gave a short bitter laugh. “You’ve got a woman here. You think I don’t know?”

I kept my voice down. “You’re wrong, Grace. I had a service call at the shop. I left the store ten minutes ago. They’re having TV trouble here.”

“What were you doing, staring in that window?”

“I wasn’t staring in any window, Grace. You’re drunk and you’re not fouling me up. Move,” I said.

She balked. She pushed back against me. I figured I would fly apart, the way I felt. She turned, with her face squinched up, and cursed me. She was too loud.

“You expect me to believe that?” She said. “Damn you, Jack—you dirty liar!”

I hit her. I hit her so hard she ran sideways off across the lawn, and fell in a heap. I went over and yanked her to her feet. I hit her again. I let her have it hard. Then I turned her, with her sobbing and moaning, and bent her arm up behind her back and ran her staggering out on the lawn. Her car was parked behind the truck. It was a yellow Buick hardtop.

It had me nuts, wondering what went on in that house.

“Now,” I said. “You get in that car and get out of here. You come around me again, I’ll smash your jaw. Get going.”

She stood there with her face full of wrath.

I opened the door on the driver’s side, and flung her under the wheel and slammed the door shut.

“Go,” I said. “Fast.”

Her face was something out of a comic book. She looked crazy.

“I swear it, Grace. You come around me again, it’s a promise. Stay away from me.”

She was sobbing and talking to herself. She kept choking and trying to swallow. She wanted to say something, but she was so mad she never got it out. She started the engine, shoved the car into reverse, backed away from the truck, slammed it into low, and shot past me. She barreled down the street with the gas pedal to the floor.

I ran back to the house, down the side walk of stepping stones. Victor Spondell wasn’t in his bed. I saw him, clinging to the door jamb. He hung there like a kind of ghost in ballooning white pajamas, his hands clawing at the woodwork.

I ran around back. Shirley’s bedroom light was on. The kitchen was bright. I went up on the back porch as softly as I could.

The kitchen door was open. What I saw in there was like some crazy scene out of a movie. The bright neon kitchen light shone down on Shirley and Mayda. Shirley’s face was puffed with anger, tinged with red against that white pallor, in an effort to keep herself under control. She wasn’t doing a good job. There was little she could do. The cat was out of the bag, and running. There was sly scheming in her eyes. Desperation showed in the taut shape of her mouth. She wore the yellow housecoat I’d seen before.

“Just exactly what
do
you intend to do, then?” Shirley said. Her tone was flat. “You’d have one tough time trying to prove anything like this, Mayda.”

I hugged the porch shadows. Mayda Lamphier’s back was to me. Shirley hadn’t seen me. Mayda’s shoulders were tense under a white sweater, her hands clenched into the dark fabric of her skirt, at her hips.

“You won’t listen to me, will you,” she said.

Shirley didn’t speak. She stood by the sink. The kitchen table was between them.

What happened then, I would never forget. There was something more than horrifying about it.

“All right,” Mayda said. “I’ve tried.” She half turned toward the porch door.

Shirley’s voice rose. “Where are you going?”

Mayda turned toward her again. She didn’t speak. There must have been some readable expression in her face, because Shirley reacted sharply.

“You won’t tell anybody!” Shirley said. “You
won’t!”

“Won’t I, though...?”

Mayda turned and moved fast for the porch. I could never let her pass me. I worked on instinct now, and stepped out in front of her.

“You.” It scared her. She stopped, staring at me, her eyes wide and round. “You,” she said again.

Shirley was clawing through a kitchen drawer over by the sink. She whirled, running, the yellow housecoat billowing. She saw me.

“Jack!”

Mayda made a stab at getting past me. I grabbed her shoulders, facing her. She struggled, making hurt sounds in her throat. I shoved her back toward the kitchen, and there was a kind of savage desperation inside me.

“Let’s talk this over,” I said.

Shirley came full tilt across the kitchen. I didn’t see the knife until it arched in a vicious slant at Mayda Lamphier’s back. I tried to fling Mayda aside. I heard her grunt with pain.

“Don’t let her go!” Shirley said.

Mayda lurched free over against the kitchen wall.

“You crazy fool,” I said to Shirley.

She stared at Mayda, one hand at her mouth. Her eyes were like glass.

I thrust her out of the way and stepped toward Mayda. I was scared all the way now. I had no idea whether she’d told Shirley about what we’d done in her car, down by the bay.

Mayda Lamphier moved away from the wall, watching us. She tried to speak. Her hands both reached up behind her back. Her face was filled more with shock than pain. She broke, running for the kitchen door that led into the dinette.