The Collection (89 page)

"Adrian,"
I said, "you're a good guy; that much I know. But why are you doing all
this? Being a good guy or even a good friend--and we haven't seen an awful lot
of each other recently at that --doesn't include taking chances like you're
taking."

"Because--because
Lola needed killing if any woman ever did. Because I don't blame you, boy.
I--Sometimes I think I knew her better than you did, because you were blinded
by being in love with her. I wasn't. I almost hated her, and yet--you don't
mind my talking about this now, do you?--there was an attraction, a purely
physical attrac--"

I
said, "Stop. I'm afraid I do mind you talking about it. Let's skip
anything that was, or ever was, between you and Lola. It doesn't matter
now."

"All
right, we'll speak of her abstractly. Wayne, you don't
know,
being
blinded by loving her and being too close to her, what that woman was capable
of, what she
was
under that beautiful exterior of hers. Or maybe you do
at that. Maybe you found out tonight for the first time. Is that right?"

I
said, "You're righter than you know, Adrian."

"Then--let's
do this. Let's go to the best lawyer I know. Right now. We'll wake him up in
the middle of the night. We'll talk it over with him and then you give yourself
up, taking his advice on what to say and what not to say. If you're guilty, I
doubt if he's going to be able to get you a habeas corpus, but he can--"

"No,
Adrian," I said. "Listen, can you make a car backfire?"

"Can
I-- Are you crazy?"

"Can
you?"

"You'd
have to disconnect the muffler or something, wouldn't you?"

"I
don't think so, Adrian. Your engine's still running, isn't it? Try turning the
ignition off and on and goosing the gas pedal at the same time. I mean it. Go
ahead and try it. I want to know, for sure."

He
turned and stared at me a moment in the dimness of the car, and then he leaned
forward and turned the ignition key. There was a loud backfire.

"Couple
more times," I said. "I want to see how close together you can space
them, doing it on purpose that way."

"You
want to draw the cops here?"

"I'll
take a chance on that. You want me to give myself up anyway."

He
tried it; the explosions were only about a second apart.

I
said, "All right, let's go."

"To
Taggert's? You're really going to follow through with that silly business of
wanting the role in the Bluebeard play?"

"Yes."

Backfire

Adrian
shrugged, and backed out of the parking place. He drove on across the park and
over East Seventy-second past Third Avenue. He parked in front of a remodeled
brownstone front halfway down the block.

"This
it?" I asked.

"Sure.
Haven't you been to Taggert's place before?"

"I've
seen him around," I said. "I've never been in his home up till
now."

Adrian
started to get out of the car. Then he said, "Wait a minute, Wayne. I've
been thinking while I drove. I think I've got your angle, now. It threw me for
a while. You're going to try an insanity plea, aren't you? That's the reason
for this build-up of keeping after a Bluebeard role just after you've killed
your wife. That's why you locked Mike in his closet. That's why you tried the
backfires, or had me do it. That's why you've been telling everyone you killed
Lola, but not going to the cops. You--you aren't really crazy, are you?"

I
said, "I sometimes think that maybe I am, Adrian."

He
clapped me on the shoulder. "That's the boy. If that's your story, stick
to it. I'll ride along for a little while yet. Not too much longer, or I'm
going to have to cop an insanity plea myself."

I
didn't say anything, and we got out of the car. He led the way to the door and
pushed a button in the hallway. The latch of the lock clicked almost right
away, and we went in
and walked up two nights.

Dane
Taggert was standing in the doorway of his apartment. He said, "Took you
fellows long enough to get here."

Adrian
said, "I went home to get those scene sketches to show you, Taggert. How
goes the rewrite on the third-act curtain?"

We
were inside by then. Taggert said, "Finished, but don't know whether
you'll like it or not. Let's have a drink first. Rye and sparkling okay? Sit
down; I'll get it."

Adrian
sank into a chair, and I wandered over to the radio. It was a big Zenith
console, the kind with four wave bands. It wasn't playing but I looked at the
setting. It was on short-wave and the dial was turned for police calls. I moved
it out from the wall a little and reached in behind. The tubes were warm; it
had just been shut off.

Taggert
must have heard me move the set; he stepped to the doorway of the kitchen, an
open bottle in one hand.

"Nice
set you've got," I told him, moving it back. "Is it good on police
calls?"

His
eyes missed mine and went to the dial. He said, "Very good. I sometimes
get story ideas from them. I still do an occasional detective short."

"Tubes
are warm," I said. "You must have been listening in before we
came."

"For
a few minutes. How do you want your highball, Dixon? Strong? Medium?"

"Medium
will do, thanks."

I
sat down across from Adrian and felt his eyes on me curiously, but I paid no
attention until Taggert came in with the drinks on a tray. I took one and
sipped it.

Taggert
said, "About that third-act curtain, Adrian. What do you think of the idea
of--"

"It
stinks," I said.

They
both turned to stare at me. Their eyes took in the gun--the nickel-plated, .32
revolver--that was in my hand, resting on the arm of my chair with the muzzle
pointed between Carr and Taggert. Then their eyes came back to my face. I
wouldn't know, being behind it instead of in front, but I think my face was
pretty deadpan, and I kept my voice that way too.

I
said, "I've got one idea for a third-act curtain. It's corny as hell. Why
don't you have your wife-killer shoot the rest of the cast and then
himself?"

Adrian
cleared his throat. He said, "It's been done, Wayne.
Othello.
Roderigo,
Iago, Othello."

"Not
quite the same," I said. "Othello himself doesn't kill either
Roderigo or Iago. My plot is different." I saw Taggert start to get up and
I said,
"Sit down,
Taggert. I'm not kidding." I cocked the
revolver.

Taggert
had sunk back in the chair. He looked sideways at Adrian. He asked, "Is
this a bad joke, Adrian, or is he ... crazy?" There was a little sweat,
not much, on Taggert's forehead.

Adrian
was staring at me intently. He said, "I'm not sure."

I
said, "You had the police short-wave on, Taggert. You know there's a
pick-up order out for me. Let's take the gloves off. Even this one."

With
my free left hand I took a man's right leather glove from my coat pocket and
tossed it to the floor in front of me. I asked Taggert, "Ever see it
before?"

He
shook his head slowly.

I
explained, to Adrian rather than to Taggert, "Lola had it in her purse,
along with the gun. This gun."

Adrian
stared at me, bewildered. I said "You're on the outside of this, Adrian.
Taggert knows what I'm talking about, but you don't. I'll straighten you out.
Don't move, Taggert.

"Tonight
Lola suggested we take a walk in the park. It puzzled me a little, because it's
a cool night, not the kind that makes you want to take a walk at eleven in the
evening. But Lola wanted to--and she was sober tonight and very nice to me, so
we went for the walk.

"There
was hardly anyone else in the park at that hour. We were near the lake and
suddenly Lola wanted to walk over to the bridle path--through a dark spot. She
didn't give a reason; maybe she had one ready if I'd argued but I didn't argue.
We were behind a big clump of bushes, concealed from the drive--if there'd been
anyone on the drive. Out on Central Park West, a little past the bridle path, a
car began to backfire."

I
had them both now. They were staring at me and Adrian's eyes were wide.

I
said, "It was nice timing. I remembered afterward that Lola had been
glancing at her watch fairly often. Lola must have dropped a couple of steps
behind me without my knowing it. After the first time the car backfired, she
said 'Wayne' and I turned and there--it was just light enough to see her--was
Lola with a pistol in her hand aimed right at me. She had a glove--that
glove--on the hand that held the pistol. Shall I let that be the second-act
curtain, Adrian, while we have another drink?"

Adrian
was leaning forward. He said, "Go on. And don't corn it up."

I
said, "I did corn it up, then and there. I guess Lola wasn't used to
murdering people; she didn't move fast enough. And, for some reason, I did move
fast enough. I had my hand on the gun, over hers, before she pulled the
trigger.

"And
then we were fighting for the gun, and Lola was plenty strong. And she must
have been scared and thought she was fighting for her life, because she fought
like a demon for that gun. She almost got it aimed at me again once, short as
that struggle was. But it was turned back, pointing at her, when it went off.

"And
the car, out on the street fifty feet away, backfired once more after the shot.
I just stood there, too stunned to move or to know what had really happened. It
didn't make sense; Lola couldn't have gone suddenly insane, because the fact
that she'd had the glove along--a man's glove, by the way--and the gun proved
she'd
planned
it.

"But
first I was mostly worried about having killed her. I suppose I did silly things.
I pulled off the glove and rubbed her hands I started to run for help and ran
back because I didn't want to leave her there alone. And I touched her again
and knew for sure that she was dead."

I
looked at Taggert. I said, "One thing I remember out of that frantic first
few minutes after I killed her. I heard the sound of footsteps on the cinders
of the bridle path and I turned around and said, 'Hurry! Someone's hurt!' But
no one came. Whoever had been on the bridle path turned around and went back to
the street--
when he heard my voice instead of Lola's.
He got in the
car--the car he'd made backfire a few times--and drove off. But that part of it
I figured out afterwards, while I was walking around wondering what to do.

"And
I finally figured it, Taggert, and I waylaid Adrian and had him bring me here.
I hadn't meant him to know that Lola was really dead; I knew he'd think I was
acting. But that didn't matter, since he played along anyway."

Taggert
wet his lips. He didn't wear his voice quite straight when he asked, "What
makes you think I was the man in the car or that he was an . . . accomplice of
Lola's, if she really tried to kill you?"

"It
makes sense that way," I told him. "She was in love with you. She
couldn't divorce me because she had no grounds--in New York State--and anyway I
still have some insurance I took out a few years ago during a prosperous
period. A big chunk of insurance, Taggert, enough for you and Lola to take a
chance to get."

I
said, "And the plan was worthy of a detective story writer, Taggert,
because it was so simple. You'd know how easily complicated plots and plans go
astray. This one was so simple as to be foolproof once Lola had pulled the
trigger. But even this went haywire--because she didn't pull the trigger soon
enough. Am I right?"

Taggert
said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Adrian
said, "Maybe I'm being stupid, but--I'm not sure I do, either.
How
was
Lola to get away with shooting you?"

I
said, "The story was so simple that even the cops would believe it: We
were held up in the park. I tried to jump the holdup man and was shot. And
Lola had fainted. If no one had found her in half an hour or so, she'd have
come to and screamed.

"They
couldn't have disproved that story with a sledgehammer; it was so simple.
There'd be no gun anywhere around that Lola could have used; there'd be no
nitrate marks on her hand; my wallet and probably her purse would be gone.
Taggert's backfires would have covered the sound of the shot; nobody would have
thought anything of it. If there'd been people around, in the park, Lola
wouldn't have done it tonight; there would have been other nights. The sound of
the car backfiring had another purpose too, probably; it could have let Lola
know that there was no one going by on the sidewalk immediately outside the
park at that point.

"When
he heard the shot in the park, Taggert would have come in--as he started to do,
until he heard my voice--got the gun and the glove and my wallet and Lola's
purse, and ditched all of them on the way home. Maybe he even had an alibi
rigged, just in the remote chance that the cops would doubt Lola's
straightforward story and go nosing around."

I
shrugged my shoulders. "As simple as that, except that Lola didn't pull
the trigger quickly enough."

Adrian
said, "I'll be damned. When I told you Lola was vicious, I didn't guess
she'd--"

"I
told you you didn't know the half of it, Adrian."

"But,
Wayne," he asked, "how can you prove it?"

I
stood up and backed around the chair I'd been sitting on until I was behind it,
with a little more distance between me and them. I rested the gun on the back
of the chair, still pointing between them.

I
said, "I can't, Adrian. I can't prove it in a thousand years, so I told
you what the third-act curtain was going to be. I shoot both of you. And
myself."

Adrian's
face started to turn the color of the white window curtain just behind him. He
said, "Me? But why? Surely, on account of ten years ago--"