Hard Case Crime: The Vengeful Virgin (6 page)

We were going to kill Victor Spondell for his money, and that’s how it was going to be.

I went downstairs and had Veronica Lewis, a babe I knew, run a quick check on Victor Spondell’s bankroll. It would be okay, because I was doing a big job for him. Everything Shirley Angela had said was true. I didn’t get the exact figure, but I wasn’t worried if it came to a split.

It wasn’t dark yet. We were in the back yard, and she was helping me figure placement for a couple of speakers out there. I carried a folding ruler, and kept measuring tree trunks and the side of the house, craning my neck around to make it look good, in case anybody happened to see us.

I said, “You can’t stay out here long. You better keep running back into the house, so you can check on him. Isn’t that what you’d do normally?”

“Yes.”

“Did the doctor have anything to say when you got back?”

“He told me Victor should be in the hospital.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek.

She said, “He didn’t speak to Victor about it, though. Because it riles him up. I told them I’d been shopping. I stopped on the way home and bought a lot of stuff; I just grabbed everything in sight.”

“Good. But we can’t be seen together again, away from this place—not once.”

“All right.”

“You do everything just as you’d normally do it,” I said. “Try to imagine me as exactly what I am—a TV serviceman, who’s installing two television sets and an intercom system in your home. Try and remember that.”

“All right, Jack.”

“One thing we’ve got to be absolutely certain of. If he has one of his attacks, will he positively die if he doesn’t get oxygen?”

She stared at me. She didn’t speak.

“What’s the matter?” I said.

“It just struck me for a minute—what we’re doing.”

“Listen,” I said. “You go soft on this and it’s all off. Got that? If either one of us goes soft, we’ve got to quit.”

She nodded. “I’ll be all right.”

“See that you are. Make damned sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay. Would he die if he didn’t get oxygen?”

“Yes. It might take a little time, but he’ll die. He’ll suffocate, choke to death. Excitement hastens it. Then when he can’t get air, he gets scared. If nobody helps him, he’ll choke to death. That is, if his heart doesn’t go first.”

“He’s in a hell of a shape, isn’t he.”

She didn’t say anything. I went to the rear of the house, brought back a ladder, and leaned it against the pine tree. I climbed up three rungs and made it look as if I were inspecting the tree trunk.

I said, “Does the doc give him anything to keep his nerves steady?”

“Yes. He takes nerve pills regularly. And he takes some other stuff to help prevent the forming of mucous. He takes nitroglycerin pills for his heart pains, and the doctor gives him shots to help dehydrate him, so liquid won’t form.”

“God. Why does he want to live, anyway?”

“He has spells when he’s quite well,” she said. “He feels good. He thinks eventually all of this will pass and he’ll feel fine again. He was always an energetic man. He won’t believe he’s done for.”

“How often do these attacks occur?”

“You never know. He’s gone as long as three months without any trouble at all. Excitement helps bring them on.”

I hadn’t figured on waiting any length of time like that. Get it over with was my idea. Waiting that long, I would be in as bad shape as she was.

“But,” she said, “sometimes he’s had as many as four attacks in one week. And the intervals are getting shorter. That’s why all the talk about getting him to a hospital, where they could put him in an oxygen tent and administer to him better.’

I came down the ladder, picked the ladder up, and carried it over to a coconut palm by the seawall. I was perspiring and it wasn’t from carrying the ladder. She tagged along.

“You better run in and make a check,” I said. “Come back as soon as you can.”

“How are we going to do it, Jack?”

“I want your ideas, first.” I cleared my throat. “Shirley—it’ll never happen—but suppose after it’s done, we get split up somehow. Say, if we have to. Do I have your word we’ll divide the money?”

“You have my word.” Her lips were a little tense. She turned and headed for the house. I’d had to say that. I watched the way she stuck out in back, with high heels on. She still wore the fawn-colored dress. That walk of hers could drive a man nuts.

I put the ladder against the palm, stared at the Gulf, and lit a cigarette. Then I started up the ladder with the ruler, and it hit me how we would do this thing.

I stood there hanging to the ladder. It was going to be taking one hell of a sweet chance. A single slip, the measliest mistake, the wiggle of an eyebrow at the wrong time, and I was personally as good as strapped into the frying chair.

My palms were wet. But there it was. The one way. The right way. I still wanted to hear what she might have to say, but I knew beforehand that nothing she could ever come up with would be as simple and clear-cut and perfect as what had struck me.

I stood there in a land of trance, till I’d gone over every angle, and the hot coal of the cigarette began to burn my lips. I spat it out.

“Mr. Ruxton?”

I hadn’t heard her come across the lawn. I wondered why in hell she was calling me “Mr. Ruxton,” and turned on the ladder. She stood there, smiling up at me. A medium-sized guy carrying a small black bag stood beside her.

“Mr. Ruxton,” she said. “This is Doctor Miraglia, Mr. Spondell’s doctor. I told him what I was having done, and he thinks it’s an excellent idea.”

I came down the ladder, taking long quiet breaths, trying to get a good look at him. He had a polite little smile and a clean, well-scrubbed look. He wore gray slacks and a white shirt. His face was round and earnest looking, and rimless glasses rode a little low on a pug nose. He had thick black hair. He was maybe forty. I shook his hand.

He nodded in a very polite way and said, “I believe this is a fine idea Shirley has, Mr. Ruxton. It hadn’t occurred to me. But since our tough old boy won’t go to a hospital, this will give Shirley a little more freedom around the place.”

“It should make things easier,” I said.

He looked up at the coconut palm, just to be looking someplace, then at me again, very polite. Then he turned and smiled briefly at Shirley. “I’ll be very interested to see how it works when it’s finished,” he said. His voice was mild and easygoing, gentle. He probably had a great way with the bed-patients. He looked at me, the glasses glinting a little. “Reason I wanted to meet you,” he said, “I wanted to say, be gentle with the old boy when you explain about this intercom system and how it works. He’ll probably get rambunctious, and try to order you around, and he won’t want to listen. Be gentle but stern—and make sure he knows how to operate it.”

“Sure,” I said. “Don’t you worry.”

“There won’t be any trouble, Doctor,” she said.

“Well,” he said. “I’ve got to run. Glad to have met you, Mr. Ruxton. If I have any trouble with our television, I’ll know who to call.”

“Any time. Twenty-four hour service.” I felt like a blabbermouth fool, saying that, and looked at her to see how she was doing. She was doing fine.

“He’s a rough old bird,” Miraglia said.

I didn’t speak. He nodded again, glanced at her, and they turned and walked along toward the front of the house. He was explaining something to her. She kept nodding, but I saw the stiffness of her shoulders and knew his being here had worried her.

In a few minutes she was back. “There was nothing I could do,” she said. “He showed up and I never knew he was coming back. Said he was passing by the house, so he decided to drop off a fresh supply of medicine. Then I had to tell him about you being here, and he wanted to meet you.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s perfect. Just keep acting natural. Think like I told you. Everything on the up and up.” Some of the tightness went away from around her eyes. She relaxed and gave a little sigh. “Jack,” she said, “I’ve just got to know how we’re going to do this. It keeps hanging over my head.”

“What ideas you got?”

She lowered her voice. It was coming into midtwilight now, and she looked terrific. The sun had turned into reds and purples out there over the Gulf, with long shooting lines of crimson, like wild fire up across the skies. Some of the colors got into her hair, and played along her body, accentuating the curves. I wanted to take her in my arms, and just hold her and feel the way she’d stir against me. I wanted her bad again. It was primitive and hot. Her lips were parted a little and I knew how they would be.

She said, “I can read you like a book.”

“Start wearing a barrel, then.”

“Maybe I’d better.” She moved her hip a little, and it was worse than before.

“Cut it out,” I said. “I’ll throw you on the ground.”

“Wish you would.”

I took hold of the ladder, looking up at the palm tree.

She said, “If you say the TV set on the ceiling is out, then all right. I just don’t go for this ‘no air’ idea of yours. I was thinking maybe he could take a bad fall. Something not so obvious.”

“It’s got to be obvious. That’s the angle.”

“But don’t you see? I mean—unless I broke a leg and couldn’t get to him, how would it work? It’s my job to watch him, Jack—all the time.”

“Yeah.”

“Unless we bolixed up the oxygen tanks, somehow. Maybe that would be good.”

I shook my head. “You wouldn’t last a minute. And I’m damned if you’re going to break one of those legs.”

“All right, Einstein—how, then?”

I said, “Walk toward the house. I’ll carry the ladder. I want to put a speaker on the side of the house, anyway—so I can check there. Now, listen. It’s going to be perfect.”

“It’s got to be perfect.”

“Yeah. First of all, there’s going to be a patsy—somebody with the blame on him. That’s the best way, see? Because then they won’t look any further. If they know how it happened and who actually caused it, then it’s all over. Right?”

“I don’t believe I understand, Jack.”

“The blame’s going to be on me,” I said. “It’s as simple as that.”

She stopped walking. “On you?”

We had reached the house. I stuck the ladder up and crawled up two rungs, speaking low. “I’m not taking any real chance. Unless something goes wrong. And I don’t see how anything can go wrong. It’s going to be obvious you’ve done everything you can for Victor. You’re fixing him up with television, and the house is wired so you can hear him calling no matter where you are. So what’s the obvious thing?”

She stared up at me. “I can’t hear him?”

“Right.” I came down by her again. “You don’t hear him. He’s calling weakly. I heard him call, remember. It’s faint. If you’re not damned close by, you’ll miss it. Out here, for example. So that’s how come the intercom, and he’s using the intercom. As far as anybody’s concerned, you never heard a thing. You can be standing there looking at him, for all it matters. We’ll work that out. But it’s going to be that clean.”

“I don’t understand at all, Jack,”

“I’m going to fix that unit by his bed so it goes on the blink. And it’ll be my fault.”

“But they’ll find it.”

“Certainly they’ll find it. But it’ll be fixed in such a way that it won’t be on purpose. See? Just plain carelessness on my part. A mistake. They can’t hang you for making a fool mistake, can they? Sure, they’ll raise hell, and you’ll raise hell, and there’ll be talk, but so what? He’ll be dead. Don’t worry, I can do it.”

“How?”

“First of all. I’ll put the units in, and we’ll let them go for a couple of days so he can wear the newness out of it, get used to it. He’ll be using it all the time, calling you, talking to you. It’s always that way when people first get them in their homes. Then it’ll die off. You can maybe work in a word to him, ask him to use it only if he has to. Like if he has an attack. He won’t mind, after he’s played with it for a while.”

“Will you please tell me how you’ll work it? It sounds complicated.”

“It’s perfect. Look, it’s going to be careless soldering. A condenser’s going to go bad and I’ll have to put a new one in.”

“What’s a condenser?”

“Never mind. The point is this. It’s a coupling condenser, and it’ll be soldered to the grid terminal of a tube socket. Now, when I solder it in I’m going to do a sloppy job. I’ll know it’s a sloppy job, but I’m in a hurry—I’ve got another call. So I try the intercom and it works. So I say to hell with it.”

“If it works, what good is the idea?”

“Here’s the idea. When the unit’s turned on for any length of time, the metal on the grid will expand from the heat. It’ll ground out. That means the unit won’t function. It’s that simple.”

“But if he calls me, he isn’t just going to sit there and wait for metal to expand.”

“Shirley. It will only take a minute. And you’re forgetting this is staged for them when they look around. They’ll find him dead. You’ll make absolutely sure he’s dead before you do a thing. Like, if he uses the intercom to call you when he has an attack, and it works, you’ll just have to hold off going in to him till he dies. The unit will go off. It could go off the minute he turns the thing on.”

“Suppose it doesn’t go off?”

“But it will, Shirley.”

“Suppose he just uses it to call me. Maybe he just wants me to bring him something. I mean, before he has an attack, and it goes off? What then?”

“I thought of that, too. You just stick within hearing distance, like you do now, until the time comes when you know he’s having an attack. He’ll never know whether the unit’s working or not. See? There’s nothing can go wrong. Just the same, I’ll go over every point a hundred times, before we pull it.”

“I’m beginning to see. It’s good, Jack—it’s good.”

“Sure. So they find him dead. The intercom’s turned on. Obviously he was trying to call you. Only you were out here, sitting by the Gulf, and you didn’t hear a thing. You’re all broken up. The unit’s inspected. They find what? They find I did a careless soldering job. The set grounded out. He was trying to get you, but the unit wasn’t working. It’s my fault. I’m to blame. But did I actually kill him? Nobody’ll ever go so far as to say I did. It’s a human error.”