Crime on My Hands (17 page)

This idea pleased me. I could have a storm written into the picture and plod through it to where Listless had thrown the guns. The wind machines could be so placed, under my direction, that they would blow the sand away at that spot. I would time my pace and distance so that I should arrive at the time when metal showed through the sand. Then I should stumble and fall realistically, stick the guns under my coat, and stagger on. Not even the killer would notice anything phony, even if he were looking directly at me.

I could see the scene in my mind's eye. Hilary Weston, the hated, admired, loved, intrepid, brilliant leader of his little band, struggling through the storm when all else was lost save his steel determination to win through. He staggers! Is he done for? Then so are the others, for he is the heart of his people. See how he struggles there in the sand! Observe his heroic efforts to stand once more. He's up! He's down! He's up! Sing your song of triumph, you hidden violins that play on the desert by God knows what means! Scream defiance, wind! Blacken, sky! You shall not deflect Hilary Weston from his destined path, you shall not prevent Sanders from getting out of this mess!

A good scene. One to wring murmurs of compassion from the audience, and cheers from Sammy if I found the guns. And if I didn't find the guns? Then the Sanders mind would have to conceive another scheme. Knuckles fell on my door in brisk tattoo. I jerked out of dreams of Academy awards and continued freedom from jail to invite the knocker in. It was Paul.

He seemed nervous. “Uh, hullo, George,” he muttered.

“Spread it on the mohair,” I invited. “Have a cigarette and a drink?”

“Thanks.”

I fixed drinks, sat opposite him, and looked at him. His black eyes avoided mine. “I – uh,” he floundered.

“Yes?” I said. “What's the matter? Are you afflicted with termites?”

He raised his eyes. They seemed to hold a combination of defiance, anxiety, and a debonair determination. A neat trick, that, but they looked that way to me.

“Well,” he began again. “It's a nice night, isn't it?”

“H'm?”

“Yeah. The fog's lifted. Say, how you getting along on this investigation?”

“We expect an arrest any moment,” I said flippantly.

“Yeah? Well, look, you don't need to look any further. You can put the arm on me. I did it.” 

My first reaction was not: “The crime is solved, now we can go on with our business.” My first reaction was to see red.

I have read more news stories than I can remember in which the alibi of the accused was that he didn't remember stabbing, shooting, garroting, burning, or beating to death his victim. “I saw red.” I have sneered at such alibis. No more.

When Paul was making his announcement, we were sitting opposite each other, drink in hand, cigarette in mouth, about five feet apart. I was probably in motion by the time he had finished his confession. The next thing I remember was that Paul was shrinking away from a blow aimed at his face. He looked as though he were going to faint. The next thing I realized was that I was aiming the blow. I caught myself just as I started to swing.

I backed away. A mental haze cleared before my eyes, and I had a coherent reaction. “This,” I thought, “is the rat who shot Peggy Whittier in the back. In the back, the rat. I should have killed him.”

The fear began to leave Paul's eyes. He fumbled for the cigarette he'd dropped on the floor. It was a couple of minutes before he spoke.

“What were you trying to do?” he rasped. “Kill me?”

“If I'd had a witness to your admission, you'd be fish bait by now,” I told him. “I didn't think I could feel this strongly about anybody. But Peggy Whittier was a sweet, helpless sort of person, and she didn't have a chance. She never knew what hit her.”

His black eyes widened, reflecting the wall lamps in bright gold dots. “I didn't–” he began. He broke off to assume an air of bravado. “So?” he snarled.

I began to be able to look at him objectively. I wasn't afraid of him; he wasn't much more than half my size. I knew I could handle him. I sat down.

“All right, Paul,” I said quietly, “let's have the story. Why did you kill Flynne?”

“He was a grade-A bastard, that's why.”

“How?”

“How?” He eyed the rivulet of his spilled drink. “Look, could I have some more of that? My nerves–”

“The condemned man drank a hearty meal,” I said. “Not my liquor. You can't have a drop of – Oh, what the hell,” I said. “Of course you can have a drink.” I fixed it. “Now,” I repeated, “how?” 

“How what?”

“You said Flynne was a grade-A bastard.” 

“Well, he was.”

“How?”

“My God!” he flared. “Don't you know what a bastard is? You've been around Hollywood long enough to know.”

“I've never made a classification. Grade-A is a meaningless term to me.”

“He was a throat-cutter. He spread rumors. Turn your back on him, you'd get a knife in to the trademark.”

“An extra?” I scoffed. “An unknown who couldn't keep his board bill up to date? You pass for a big shot. How could
his
sort harm you?”

“There's plenty of ways,” he said darkly. “I'd have been a producer if it hadn't been for him. I'd have owned my own company maybe.”

“So? Tell.”

He paused for a moment, sipped at his drink, which shook in his hand. “I had an idea once,” he began. “It had to do with photographic backgrounds for animated cartoons. I had an in, too, at a cartoon lot, and I was ready to shoot the backgrounds. It was a terrific idea. I might have got an Academy award, I might have got screen credit, hell, I might even have got paid. So I made an appointment with the producer, and this rat Flynne beat me to it and sold him the idea. That's when I first wanted to kill him.”

“You knew him before, then?”

“Hell, yes. All my life.”

“Oh, were you raised in Des Moines, too?”

“Right next door,” Paul said. “He broke my new bicycle one Christmas.”

“I see,” I said. “Tell me. Where's the gun you shot them with?”

“I'll turn it in,” he said, with a touch of uneasiness.

I stood up again. I was relaxed now. I took his empty glass. “Have another drink, old boy,” I said. “It'll help you to lie more convincingly. Flynne came from Nebraska. He and Peggy were not shot with the same gun. Who are you covering up for? I think you'd better tell me the truth now.”

“You're trying to trap me,” he said, angrily.

I set down the bottle of flat soda and looked at him. “Trap you? You walk in here and say you did it. Trap you? Trap you into what?”

“Well, you don't believe me. You don't believe I slipped out of my office, hid behind the first-aid trailer, drew a bead on the bastard and gave it to him.”

“Did you do that to Peggy, too?”

He looked at me with misery in his eyes. It ran down the slump of his shoulders and dripped off his fingertips. It generated itself into a cloak; misery lay across his back like a wet shroud.

“Oh, damn it to hell!” he said, and he was close to tears. “Damn the lousy thing to hell and gone! I didn't kill her, George. Why didn't I think of that?” He straightened his shoulders, not quite throwing off his cloak of misery. “Give me that drink. Never mind the soda. My nerves are shot.”

“Will you tell me the truth?”

“I've got to, I guess.” I gave him the drink. He gulped it, shuddered. “Listen, George, you're not trying to pin it on her, are you? She didn't do it, honest to God, she didn't!”

Naturally, I hadn't the foggiest notion which she Paul was referring to. And I was caught between my ignorance and my desire to know. If I asked him directly, he might not tell me her name. On the other hand, if I egged him on, let him talk, he might tell me things that would help, and he might continue to think I knew.

“Didn't she?” I asked. “How do you know?”

“Because she didn't care! She didn't give a damn about him any more. It was all over between them. You've got to believe me, George! Maybe the evidence does point toward her, but it was a plant. Somebody wanted her to be stuck for it. But, so help me, it was over more than two years ago. She hasn't even seen him until he showed up here to get murdered.”

“How do you know she hasn't seen him?” I asked.

“Because she told me. I believe her. She wouldn't lie to me. We're going to be married.”

“Congratulations,” I said. “And so, to insure your happy marriage, you flip in here to confess to murder. Where were you intending to spend your honeymoon, in the gas chamber? A little stuffy, I should think.”

“Hell, I don't know what I was trying to do. All I know is that I wasn't going to see her get stuck with it.”

“What makes you think she was?”

He was beginning to relax now. The drinks were taking hold. “Well, I knew you were working on it, and I knew you could solve it. Listen, I've seen your pictures, and I've read all the
Saint
stories. Well, I didn't think much of you as an actor, but you were a hell of a detective. You couldn't make it so convincing if you weren't pretty good. So here comes this situation. I knew you'd nose around in the past, and uncover this thing. From there it was an easy jump. And the hell of it is, the evidence points to her. So, I guess I went off my nut. I thought if I confessed, I'd be tried but they couldn't prove it. Then they'd throw the case out of court, and by that time it'd be forgotten. So she could go on. She's got a great future, you know.”

“Has she?” I prodded. “Personally, I think she's terrible.”

He was on his feet instantly. “You can't say that about Carla. I don't give a damn if you are bigger than me.”

I waved him back into his seat. “Carla, eh?”

His eyes widened. “Why, you dirty rat!” he cried. “You didn't even know who I was talking about!”

“Whom,” I corrected. “Let's don't be sloppy.”

“Ah, shuddupl” he growled. “Of all the stinking tricks.” He tossed off the fresh drink I put in his hand. “The great detective! Was I ever a sap! You don't know from nothin', any more than I do.”

“Not as much,” I agreed. “You may as well tell me what you know.”

‘I'll tell you nothing!”

“I'll find it out, anyway.”

“Go ahead. The hell with you.”

“Carla was here,” I told him. “She told me a fanciful yarn. Coupled with what you said tonight, it looks serious. Do you want me to go to the sheriff with it?”

“What'd she tell you?”

“Uh-uh. You talk.”

He leaned forward earnestly. His eyes were beginning to take on a slight glaze. “What did she tell you, George? She don't know whass good f'r. Gimme – give – me anurr – drink.”

I poured him a double shot. He stared into it for a long time, tossed it off. “Zhorge,” he said, after a while. “Ole Zhorge.” He put his head gently between his knees and passed out. 

Unless you weigh 63 pounds in divers' shoes, you don't pass out on four drinks. Five, counting the double shot. Of course, liquor hits different persons different ways. It hits the same person different ways on different occasions. But you don't pass out.

So, he had primed himself before coming. The potions of liquid courage had formed an anesthetic foundation for the good scotch I had given him. I should imagine, too, that his subconscious had something to do with it. I was larger, heavier than he. I could have forced admissions from him. So he passed out.

I went through routine conventional moves to bring him to consciousness. I slapped his face, I pulled his black hair. I wiped Sticko off my hands and tickled him. It was like trying to revive a sack full of sand.

I remembered a story I had heard. Three campers had finished their evening meal of game that had seemed slightly high. One was stricken with ptomaine. He writhed on the ground, groaning like an attic ghost. The chef, wounded to the depths of his culinary sensibilities, took a boiling pot from the bed of coals and emptied it on the sufferer's stomach. The victim screamed to his feet and beat hell out of the chef, but the ptomaine was cured. Would this cure drunkenness?

I put a teakettle on my electric grill. When it was hot, I laid Paul on his back and opened his shirt. I poured a dollop of steaming water on the tender skin of his stomach.

No frightened gazelle ever moved faster from an ambushing lion. If the door of my trailer had opened inward, he'd have left a jagged outline of himself as he plunged through it into the night. His feet sped him instinctively away; in a few seconds, his yells were only a remembered earache.

A round face, with great dark eyes poked itself around the trembling door. Wallingford eyed me and the kettle, smoking in my hand.

“George!” Wallingford cried. “What you doing to that poor fellow?”

“I just poured a little boiling water on his stomach, Wally. Come on in.”

“Thanking you just the same, George, I'm liking it here. I can duck.”

I poured out the water, turned off the grill. “Come on. I was just trying to get some information from him.”

He edged into the trailer. “I don't know from nothing. Don't even think question marks. I'll dream about his screams.”

“He passed out,” I said. “I was just bringing him to.” I grinned at the fat little man. “Have a drink?”

“Not so long as I can fight you off. You will get yourself in a cell with soft walls, George, doing things like that. Maybe you better take a few days off, huh? Maybe the strain is breaking you?”

“Let's just forget it,” I said. “It wasn't very important. What's on your mind?”

He cast another apprehensive glance at the kettle, seemed to relax, and smiled shyly at me. “It's John,” he said.