The Collection (85 page)

I
knocked on the door. Not loudly, not softly, just a knock.

Was it
too long before Hans came?

Did he
look frightened? I didn't know. The planes of his face were nice, but what was
in them I didn't know. I can see the lines and the planes of faces, but I can't
read them. Nor voices.

"Hi,
Wayne. Come in," Hans said.

I went
inside. Lamb wasn't there, not in the big room, the studio. There were other
rooms, of course; a bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom. I wanted to go look in all
of them right away, but that would have been crude. I wouldn't leave until I'd
looked in each.

"Getting
a little worried about Lamb: she's seldom out alone this late. Have you seen
her?" I asked.

Hans
shook his blond, handsome head.

"Thought
she might have dropped in on her way home," I said casually. I smiled at
him. "Maybe I was just getting lonesome and restless. How about dropping
back with me for a drink? I've got only wine, but there's plenty of that."

Of
course he had to say, "Why not have a drink here?" He said it. He
even asked me what I wanted, and I said a martini because he'd have to go out
into the kitchen to make that and it would give me a chance to look around.

"Okay,
Wayne, I'll have one too," Hans said. "Excuse me a moment."

He went
out into the kitchen. I took a quick look into the bathroom and then went into
the bedroom and took a good look, even under the bed. Lamb wasn't there. Then I
went into the kitchen and said, "Forgot to tell you, make mine light. I
might want to paint a bit after I get home."

"Sure,"
he said.

Lamb
wasn't in the kitchen. Nor had she left after I'd knocked or come in; I
remember Hans's kitchen door; it's pretty noisy and I hadn't heard it. And it's
the only door aside from the front one.

I'd
been foolish.

Unless,
of course, Lamb had been here and had gone away with the Chandlers when they'd
dropped by to warn them, if they had dropped by.

I went
back into the big studio with the skylight and wandered around for a minute
looking at the things on the walls. They made me want to puke, so I sat down
and waited. I'd stay at least a few minutes to make it look all right. Hans
came back.

He gave
me my drink and I thanked him. I sipped it while he waited patronizingly. Not
that I minded that. He made money and I didn't. But I thought worse of him than
he could possibly think of me.

"How's
your work going, Wayne?"

"Fine,"
I said. I sipped my drink. He'd taken me at my word and made it weak, mostly
vermouth. It tasted lousy that way. But the olive in it looked darker, more the
color I'd had in mind. Maybe, just maybe, with the picture built around that color,
it would work out.

"Nice
place, Hans," I said. "That skylight. I wish I had one."

He
shrugged. "You don't work from models anyway, do you? And outdoors is
outdoors."

"Outdoors
is in your mind," I said. "There isn't any difference." And then
I wondered why I was talking to somebody who wouldn't know what I was talking
about. I wandered over to the window--the one that faced toward my studio--and
looked out of it. I hoped I'd see Lamb on the way there, but I didn't. She
wasn't here. Where was she? Even if she'd been here and left when I'd knocked,
she'd have been on the way now. I'd have seen her.

I
turned. "Were the Chandlers here tonight?" I asked him.

"The
Chandlers? No; haven't seen them for a couple of days." He'd finished his
drink. "Have another?" he asked.

I
started to say no. I didn't. My eyes happened, just happened, to light on a
closet door. I'd seen inside it once; it wasn't deep, but it was deep enough
for a man to stand inside it. Or a woman.

"Thanks,
Hans. Yes."

I
walked over and handed him my glass. He went out into the kitchen with the
glasses. I walked quietly over to the closet door and tried it.

It was
locked.

And
there wasn't a key in the door. That didn't make sense. Why would anyone keep a
closet locked when he always locked all the outer doors and windows when he
left?

Little
lamb, who made thee?

Hans
came out of the kitchen, a martini in each hand. He saw my hand on the knob of
the closet door.

For a
moment he stood very still and then his hands began to tremble; the martinis,
his and mine, slopped over the rims and made little droplets falling to the
floor.

I asked
him, pleasantly, "Hans, do you keep your closet locked?"

"Is
it locked? No, I don't, ordinarily." And then he realized he hadn't quite
said it right, and he said, more fearlessly. "What's the matter with you,
Wayne?"

"Nothing,"
I said. "Nothing at all." I took the forty-five out of my pocket. He
was far enough away so that, big as he was, he couldn't think about trying to
jump me.

I
smiled at him instead. "How's about letting me have the key?"

More
martini glistened on the tiles. These tall, big, handsome blonds, they haven't
guts; he was scared stiff. He tried to make his voice normal. "I don't
know where it is. What's wrong?"

"Nothing,"
I said. "But stay where you are. Don't move, Hans."

He
didn't. The glasses shook, but the olives stayed in them. Barely. I watched
him, but I put the muzzle of the big forty-five against the keyhole. I slanted
it away from the center of the door so I wouldn't kill anybody who was hiding
inside. I did that out of the corner of my eye, watching Hans Wagner.

I
pulled the trigger. The sound of the shot, even in that big studio, was
deafening, but I didn't take my eyes off Hans. I may have blinked.

I
stepped back as the closet door swung slowly open. I lined the muzzle of the
forty-five against Hans's heart. I kept it there as the door of the closet
swung slowly toward me.

An
olive hit the tiles with a sound that wouldn't have been audible, ordinarily. I
watched Hans while I looked into the closet as the door swung fully open.

Lamb
was there. Naked.

I shot
Hans and my hand was steady, so one shot was enough. He fell with his hand
moving toward his heart but not having time to get there. His head hit the
tiles with a crushing sound. The sound was the sound of death.

I put
the gun back into my pocket and my hand was trembling now.

Hans's
easel was near me, his palette knife lying on the ledge.

I took
the palette knife in my hand and cut my Lamb, my naked Lamb, out of her frame.
I rolled her up and held her tightly; no one would ever see her thus. We left
together and, hand in hand, started up the hill toward home. I looked at her in
the bright moonlight. I laughed and she laughed, but her laughter was like
silver cymbals and my laughter was like dead petals shaken from a madman's
geranium.

Her
hand slipped out of mine and she danced, a white slim wraith.

Back
over her shoulder her laughter tinkled and she said, "Remember, darling?
Remember that you killed me when I told you about Hans and me? Don't you
remember killing me this afternoon? Don't you, darling? Don't you
remember?" 

Murder Role

My
back was pushing against the door, but the doorway was shallow and the yellow
glow of the street light across the way caught me full in the face.

Adrian
Carr saw me; he stopped theatrically. Everything Adrian Carr does he does
theatrically. Adrian has never spoken a line on stage, but he has more ham in
him than any odd dozen of the actors he hires. And more money than the hundred
most successful actors in the business, if there
are
that many
successful actors on the legitimate stage.

His
eyebrows went up half an inch and he stood there, arms akimbo under his opera
cape. He said, "Trying to avoid me, Wayne?"

I
laughed a little, trying to make it sound convincingly unconvincing. I said,
"Not you, Adrian. The police."

"Oh,"
he said, "the police. That I can believe. But an actor trying to avoid a
producer . . ." He shook his massive head. "Maybe it's just as well,
Wayne. I haven't a part you'd fit."

"You're
still type-casting, then," I said.

"If
you were casting I suppose you'd hire Henry Morgan to play Othello."

"Want
to bet," I asked him, "that he wouldn't do a beautiful job of
it?" I looked over his shoulder and there was no one else in sight so I
stepped out to the sidewalk beside him.

He
smiled, "Touché. I believe Henry would, at that. I chose the wrong
example. Ah--what was that line about avoiding the police? They don't jail one for
debts nowadays, my boy. Or have you done something more serious?"

I
said, "I have just killed my wife."

His
eyes lighted. "Excellent, my boy, excellent. I've often thought that you
should, but it would have been indelicate to suggest it, would it not? Ah--let's
see--I haven't seen Lola for weeks. Did you commit the deed recently?"

"An
hour ago," I told him.

"Better
late than never, if I may coin a phrase. I presume that you strangled
her?"

"No,"
I said. "I used a gun."

I
took it out of my pocket and showed it to him. It was a nickel-plated .32
revolver.

From
somewhere, blocks away in the night, came the sound of a siren. I don't know
whether it was that sound or the sight of the gun, but I saw a startled look
cross Adrian Carr's face. I don't know how my own face looked, but I ducked
back into the doorway. The sound got louder.

He
laughed heartily as he peered in the direction from which the sound came, and
then turned back to me. He said, "It's all right; it just crossed this
street two blocks up. Not coming this way."

I
stepped back down to the sidewalk. I said, "That was foolish of me; I
shouldn't call attention to myself by ducking that way, I know. Probably they
aren't after me yet. It's too soon."

He
leaned forward and whispered, "Haven't they found the body?"

"I
don't think they have."

"Where
did you shoot her?"

"In
Central Park," I told him.

He
clapped me on the shoulder with a heavy hand. "Perfect, my boy, perfect. I
can't think of a more fatal spot. Ah--you did a good job? You're sure she's
dead?"

"Very
sure. The bullet went into her right breast, but at an angle. It must have gone
through her heart. She died instantaneously."

"Capital.
Shall we have a drink to celebrate? I was going home, but--"

"I
could use one," I admitted. "But at some quiet place where I'm not
known."

"Around
the corner at Mike's?"

"I
don't know it--so they don't know me. That'll be fine."

Mike's
turned out to be a place whose neon sign proclaimed it to be The Hotspot, but
despite that boast, it was quiet. There was a juke box in the rear, silent at
the moment.

We
sat at the bar and ordered martinis. Adrian Carr said, "You live near
here, Wayne. Why not call up Lola, if she's home, to come around and have a
drink with us?"

"Why?"
I asked. "You don't like her."

"I
admit that. But she's good company. And she's beautiful. Just maybe, Wayne,
she's the most beautiful woman in New York."

I
said, "I don't think I'll call her, Adrian."

"Why
not?"

"She's
dead. I killed her tonight." I glanced at my wrist watch. "An hour
and a quarter ago. In Central Park. With a gun. Remember?"

He
nodded. "Of course, Wayne. It had slipped my mind. As one grows older--How
old are you, Wayne?"

"As
an actor, twenty-eight. Thirty-seven, off the record."

"A
callow youth. At forty-nine one begins to mellow. At any rate, I'm beginning.
And how old is Lola now? Wait, let me figure it out. She was--ah--twenty-two
when she was with Billy Rose and that was ten years ago. I knew her pretty
well, then."

"I
know that," I said, "but let's not go into it. That's past, long
past."

"And
let the dead past bury its dead. How wise of you, Wayne. But--" he held up
an impressive forefinger--"the present. Do you mind when I talk to you
like a Dutch uncle?"

"Yes,"
I said.

"I
know you do. But don't you see that that woman has ruined your career as an
actor? You might have gone places, boy. You still might. I can't give you the
role I know you want, but--"

"Why
not? In words of one syllable, Adrian, why not?"

"Damn
it, Wayne. I know your arguments about type-casting, and maybe you're right.
But then, too, maybe I am, and I'm the one of us who does the picking. I'm the
one who loses my shirt if that play isn't cast right."

"I
haven't read the play. Heard only a bit about it. Just what does the role
take?"

"You've
heard enough about it, my fine friend. You're acting the lead role to the hilt,
or trying to. Try to tell me you don't even know it's a Bluebeard theme, a man
who kills his wife."

"I
knew that," I admitted. "But still I ask, what does the role
take?"

"A
nice touch. A touch you haven't quite got, Wayne. I'm sorry." He made wet
circles on the bar with his martini glass. "Remember
Arsenic and Old
Lace
and how howlingly funny it made murder seem? Well, this--although it's
a different theme--starts out with the same light approach, but we're
experimenting. The whole thing is a gradual change of pace--starts like a
comedy drama and ends in sheer horror, with a gradual build-up in
between."