Crime on My Hands (28 page)

‘I'm alive,” said Vickers. “Don't faint. Where's Angie?”

Again she did not answer. She looked at him, up and down, and he stood waiting, framed in the hallway arch, with the hounds beside him. A tall man, three inches over six feet, his big gaunt frame covered with dirty odds and ends of clothing that, simply because they were on him, acquired a certain raffish dignity. His face was neither handsome nor ugly, but it was a face you looked at. The pertinent adjective now seemed to be “hungry.” A white scar ran from under his hairline across his right temple.

Joan whispered, “I don't believe it's you.” Beads of sweat came through the face powder, made a glittering rim above the perfect line of her liprouge. She went on staring, senselessly.

Vickers said impatiently, “For God's sake, Joan! Come out of it.”

She drew a deep breath, held it, let it out slowly, and moved away from the table, balancing herself carefully on her feet, her head drawn erect. “Where have you been, Michael? What's happened to you?”

There was a picture of himself as he had been four years ago. It stood on the table beside Joan. Himself, groomed and conditioned like a prize horse, his well-fed face half smiling and contemptuous. Vickers studied it briefly.

“I don't know,” he said. “Where's Angie?”

This time she answered. She had folded her hands tightly at her waist and her face had a closed look, but there was nothing in her voice. “She's not here, Michael. She went down to the beach.”

“Alone?”

“No. There's a party.”

“Still the same bunch?”

“Just about.”

“Good,” said Vickers. His eyelids drooped, giving his face the look of a death mask. “Yes. That's good. Are my things still upstairs?”

“Yes. We – didn't know...”

“No. All right, Joan. I'm going up and see what I can do about myself. And don't call her, Joan. You understand? I'm going down there myself, and I don't want you to call her.”

Her eyes widened. “But why? I should think...”

“Should you?”

He saw the curtain of subservience drawn back into place. She said, “Very well, Michael.”

He laughed. “That sounded like the old Vickers, by God!” He turned away. Over his shoulder he said, “Get yourself a drink, Joan. You look horrible.”

As he went upstairs he heard her say sulkily, “You might have let us know.”

At the top of the stairs he paused, then turned right to Angie's bedroom instead of left to his own. The house was silent. The servants, of course, would be at the beach. The hounds were still at his heels, and the bitch had finally stopped growling.

Angie was there as soon as he opened her door. The faint exciting spice of her perfume, her self in the bright draperies and the pictures and the yellow satin bedspread. He walked across to the huge double bed and touched the satin, and then he opened the closet door ­ a vast closet, full of lovely colors and textures, empty now of shape, waiting. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath, and the picture of her came before him clearly.

He turned away and glanced down at the floor, and frowned. There had been a great soft rug before the fireplace. It was gone now, replaced by an unwelcoming broadloom.

The cigarette box he had given her was on the bed­side table. A silver trinket picked up in Mexico. He took one of her cigarettes and lighted it with her silver lighter that matched the box. The extension phone was also on the table. Deliberately, being careful not to make an audible click on the line, he picked it up.

Joan's voice, hushed and half hysterical, was saying, “I want Mrs. Vickers, you fool. Angie.” Evidently she had said it before.

A man's voice answered. He was very drunk, and suddenly very happy. “Angie! Oh, you mean Angie.”

“Yes.”

“Well, Angie darling – hello! Where'd you go? I was looking all over...”

Joan cried out, “Listen! I'm not Angie, I'm Joan. Joan Merrill. I want to talk to Angie. Call her. It's urgent.”

“Urgent, huh? Call Angie. Urgent Angie. Whoo-oo, lady! You shouldn't talk like that even if it is true. And if you're not Angie, why did I call you up?”

“Please, for heaven's sake...!”

Vickers spoke quietly. “Joan. I don't think the gentleman wants to be disturbed.”

From Joan's end of the line there was utter silence, but the man said very distinctly, “How right you are. No lady should disturb a man on his way to where I was going when she disturbed me. Now look what's happened.” The phone gave an earsplitting bang as he let it drop on the table. Presumably he went away. From the noise there was quite a brawl going on. Vickers' mouth tightened.

“Joan,” he said. “Why was that drunk answering the phone? Aren't the servants down there?”

“I – suppose so, they're probably busy...”

“You'd better go to bed, Joan.” He sounded almost gentle. “You've had quite a shock.”

Her voice came over strangely choked and thin. “All right, Michael. Yes, I'll go to bed. Good night.”

He smiled as he hung up, briefly. The smile was neither humorous nor kind. He went out of Angie's room and down the hall to his own, and the hounds trailed after him.

His bedroom hadn't been touched, except for cleaning. Everything was as he left it. He liked his room. It was big and plain and comfortable, and there was nothing in it that was not his own. The bed was smaller than the one in Angie's room, quite hard, and without pillows.

He stripped in the middle of the floor. Ridding his body of these garments was like ridding it of a disease. He went into the bath and filled the shining porcelain with water that was close to scalding, and the cleansing pain of it as he slid in was the most pleasant thing he had ever felt in his life.

Later, clean from scalp to toe, tingling from an icy shower, fresh shaven, he looked at his naked self in the long mirror. Four years ago he had been proud of his body. Professional trainers had molded it in gymnasiums and tempered it at pleasant games –so much of this and so much of that, and sweats and salt rubs and massage, and the result was beautiful. Smooth and perfect and beautiful.

That was four years ago.

His muscles weren't smooth now. They were rigid and knotted, for use and not for play. The comfortable flesh had starved and sweated away. He rather liked himself better now. This whole business had its amusing side. He smiled.

“They will be amused, Coolin,” he said. “They will all be very much amused.”

He was astonished, a minute or two later, to find that his old clothes still fitted him.

When he was dressed he went downstairs again. Joan was not there. He left the house, drove the reluctant hounds away into the darkness, and went to the garage.

It was built for three cars. There was only one in it now. A long black convertible he didn't remember. Of course, in four years... He glanced at the registration card.

It didn't say anything about anyone named Vickers. 

The name was Harold Bryce, and the address was on North Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills.

Vickers stood looking at it, his forefinger moving lightly back and forth across the name.

Harold Bryce. Hello, Harold. It'll be nice to see you again, old boy. Very, very nice... And nice to know what your car is doing in my wife's garage.

The keys were in the lock, there was gas in the tank, and he had not forgotten how to drive.