Murderers' Row (11 page)

She gulped. “Don't be so damn graphic, Jim!”

I said sneeringly, “That's what I thought! You're really chicken, aren't you? Now you listen to me and get this straight: we don't give refunds. You can call it off now, but once we leave here you're in for the whole job and the whole five grand; so don't come whimpering to me later about how you've changed your mind.” I took the envelope out of my pocket and held it out. “This is it, kid. In or out. You call it.”

She hesitated. I let my lip curl scornfully. She saw it and slapped the envelope aside. “Go ahead,” she said. “Go ahead, Jim! I'll be there; midnight at the Rosten house. And you can do it just as rough as you please; it can't be too rough for me!” She giggled abruptly.

“What's funny?”

“Just something you said. She'd never miss them.”

“Miss what?”

“She's pretty flat-chested, you know. She'd never miss them.”

I watched her run along the pier to the shore and jump into a small white sports car—an MG, if it matters. She clashed the gears badly getting into low, and again shifting up, which is hard to do with a synchromesh transmission, but she managed. She was really a pretty horrible little girl. At least she was working hard to give that impression.

I was early for Rosten. It's always best to beat the other party to the rendezvous if you don't trust him very much; besides, I wanted to look the place over and see if it would do for another purpose I had in mind. It was a pretty, sandy cove bordered by a honeysuckle jungle such as they have in this part of the world; anybody who thinks of that stuff as just a pretty garden vine has never been in Maryland. Presently the big yellow Cadillac came nosing through the tangled woods like a prehistoric monster, and stopped at the parking place favored by the people who used the beach for picnics in the summer. You could tell by the rusty beer cans.

I settled with Rosten quickly enough and had him drive me back to town, leaving my car where it was hidden. I gave him instructions paralleling those I'd given Teddy. He didn't like the idea of doing or knowing anything about it until I brought up the alibi question and pointed out the legal advantages of having people around at the moment of his great bereavement.

Later that evening, I found myself waiting in a rose garden, reflecting that each part of the world seemed to have its own peculiar disadvantages for undercover work. During the past few years, in the practice of my profession, I had sloshed through Arctic bogs full of tangled laurel, fought my way across snow-covered mountains, and sweated over deserts full of spiny cacti. Now I had honeysuckle and roses to contend with. Only the people remained the same, and the job.

Having formulated this piece of deep philosophy, I took stock of my surroundings. It was a formal garden, with hedges, shrubs, and ornamental trees all pruned within inches of their lives. Mrs. Sandeman, I learned, was by way of being the local rose authority with a state-wide reputation. I couldn't help wishing she'd concentrated on dahlias or some other thornless species.

From where I stood concealed, I could see the graveled circle in front of the house. All parking space around it was already filled; the vehicles currently arriving discharged the ladies at the front door and were taken around the circle and back towards the gate by the gentlemen, to be parked beside the long, straight, tree-lined lane leading in from the highway. It was a big, well-kept place with a carefully maintained air of antique southern grandeur. One might have thought it dated from the era of carriages and crinolines. The records indicated, however, that it had been constructed less than five years ago with the antiquity built in.

I saw the white Thunderbird convertible drive up. Teddy Michaelis got out and waited on the steps while Orcutt parked the car. She looked like a dressed-up child, standing there, with long white gloves on, and ridiculously high heels, and a short, shiny blue dress with a bubble of a skirt that looked odd and impractical to me; but I don't claim to understand women's fashions. It was too bad, I thought, that she was a screwball; even at that distance, she was cute.

It would have been nice if the Rostens had managed to arrive while she was standing there alone, so she could do her stuff right off, but you can't have everything. Orcutt came back and escorted her inside, treating her like a precious and fragile work of art. It was another fifteen minutes, and practically dark, before the yellow Cadillac came along.

Mrs. Rosten was wearing something straight, white, and dramatic that left one shoulder bare. She had furs draped over her arm. The white dress showed up well, but her sunburned skin seemed to melt into the dusk, for a rather eerie effect. She paused only briefly on the steps, to shake out the furs and drape them about her; no waiting around in the night air for her. She marched inside, leaving Louis to make it on his own.

I watched him park the car down the lane, return on foot, and vanish inside. I checked my watch and decided it would be at least half an hour before anything happened. At last I backed myself out of my place of concealment, ran the gauntlet of Mrs. Sandeman's thorns, made my way cautiously across the lawn, and got into the rear of the Rosten Cadillac.

I was tempted to sit up until I saw somebody actually approaching from the house, but that would have been sloppy technique. You never know who's going to be wandering around at a party like that, peeking into parked cars for kicks. I checked my watch again and lay down on the floor where I wasn't likely to be noticed—in Petroni's dark suit—unless somebody actually opened the door and pulled the front seat out of the way to make a thorough inspection. That's one advantage of two-door cars, but I don't suppose the advertising boys can do much with it.

I wasn't comfortable, and time passed slowly. It was another half-hour, plus about seven-and-a-half minutes, before I heard my lady coming. She was walking fast, and she had long legs and a business-like stride, but even on the gravel you could tell she was a woman hampered by high heels and a narrow dress. She jerked the car door open, hit the front seat hard, and bounced herself over about ten inches to line up with the wheel. She slammed the door closed. I heard her fumble in her purse for the keys.

“Oh, God damn!” she said savagely, as something got in her way.

I received a face-full of mink or sable as she flung her furs in the general direction of the rear seat. Then she had the keys. I waited until she had put the right one into the ignition lock for me; then, under cover of the noise of the starter, I rose up and got a head-hold with my left arm, covering her mouth at the same time, locking my hands together, holding her head hard against me as she writhed and tried to cry out. I used the leverage of both arms to exert knuckle pressure upon a certain nerve center in a certain way. Her body went slack with frightening abruptness.

I couldn't help remembering Jean, and the little sigh she'd given as she crumpled to the floor. I was tempted to feel for a pulse, but there was no time for sentimental horsing around. I got out the little kit we're issued—the one that contains a number of fascinating chemicals, including the death pill for the agent's own use—and slipped the needle, already loaded, into Mrs. Rosten's arm. That would keep her under for about four hours, if she wasn't already dead and if I'd judged the dose correctly.

I dragged her out from behind the wheel, climbed over, started the big car, and drove out of there fast, like an angry woman might—or a man with a limp female body beside him. It took me about half an hour to make my way through town and out the shore road where I'd been that afternoon. The little woods track leading to Mason's Cove wasn't easy to locate in the dark, but I found it, and drove into the clearing where I'd met Rosten earlier, hoping that nobody had decided to use it for a lovers' lane tonight.

The place was empty of vehicles. I checked Mrs. Rosten's pulse and found it strong and steady, which was a relief. I cut the lights and motor, got out and prowled around in the dark, and saw nothing. I sat down to wait. It was a very quiet place. One car went by on the shore road, sounding far away; that was all. There was no wind. There was a mist; I could see stars through the treetops, but they looked vague and distant. Well, I wasn't expecting trouble from that direction, but if anybody on this planet was planning to interfere with the grim work for which I'd been hired twice, it was about time he—or she—showed up.

Nobody came. The moon rose, big and hazy through the trees. A little wind came up and died away. Some small nocturnal animals got used to my presence and went about their nightly affairs. An owl hooted far off, then closer and then far off again. It was a weird sound to hear in the middle of the night. I couldn't help wondering if it had some sinister significance, but after all, I wasn't Daniel Boone surrounded by hostile redskins. I didn't think the people I was after would go in for bird calls, although I still didn't know anything about them. All I knew was Mac's verdict:
They must learn not to monkey with the buzz saw when it is busy cutting wood.

There was a slight sound from the car, as if the woman I'd left there had stirred in her drugged sleep. I went back and turned on the light to look at her. She'd changed position on the seat; the drug was wearing off. I regarded her for a moment, feeling kind of guilty about the whole thing; but I was committed now. I'd hoped my well-announced murder would get some action out of somebody; but nobody was cooperating. There was nothing to do but carry out the bluff to the end.

I went to work grimly, picking up Mrs. Rosten's purse and slipping the shoes from her feet. She wasn't wearing stockings; she was tanned enough, I guess, to figure she could get by without them. I carried the stuff halfway across the beach and arranged it neatly on the sand. Then I went back to the Cadillac, started it, and drove forward, out onto the beach, until I felt the wheels begin to sink and slip. I tested reverse, and the rear tires only dug in deeper, indicating that nobody was going to drive the big car out of there, now, without a considerable amount of preliminary work.

I got out, walked around, opened the other door, and got Mrs. Rosten into my arms. I carried her across the beach, out into waist-deep water and threw her in.

It was a stupid damn business. By the time I had fished her up and towed her back and arranged her artistically at the water's edge, I felt like a prize damn fool. Soaking wet, with water squelching in my sharp Petroni shoes, I made my way back up the beach disgustedly, and stepped behind the car to watch and wait.

It didn't take long. The cold water had brought her around. I saw her head come up. Her long dark hair, washed free of combs and pins, covered her face like seaweed. She pushed strands of hair from her eyes, sitting up in the shallows, and looked around dazedly, regarding her surroundings and herself with shock and horror. I could hardly blame her. She'd left a gay party and got into her expensive car, something had happened that she couldn't quite remember, and now she was discovering herself in the sodden wreckage of her party finery washed up like driftwood on a dark and lonely shore...

I saw her draw a long breath and take her runaway emotions under firm control. She got to her feet, took a couple of steps to dry land, and stood there looking around in the moonlight, rubbing her hands on her hips to get the wet sand off them. Now there was something aggressive and challenging, something startlingly primitive in the way she stood there, brown and tall and lean, with her bare feet planted solidly in dry sand, well apart. The wet white cocktail dress could have been a scrap of hide or woven bark. Plastered to her body unheeded, leaving one tanned shoulder bare, it gave her a look of barbaric nakedness. All she needed, I thought, was a stone-tipped spear, and maybe a tame ocelot for a pet. The damn cat didn't need to be very tame, at that. She could handle it.

She stood there, looking and listening warily. I saw her take notice of the Cadillac, stuck in the sand, and I saw her discover her shoes and purse, closer at hand. Presently she moved over and studied them, frowning. She shrugged, and at last gave some attention to her dress, twisting the skirt up hard against her thigh to force the water out of it.

After yanking the wrung-out garment into some kind of order, she squeezed the excess water from her hair and found something in her purse with which to tie the hair back out of the way. She stepped into her shoes, and moved towards the car, but froze as I stepped into sight and came towards her.

“You didn't have to wake up,” I said, stopping in front of her.

“You!” she breathed. “What are you doing here? What in God's name do you think you're—what do you want?”

“You didn't have to wake up,” I said. “I could have arranged it the other way, too. Call it an object lesson, Mrs. Rosten.”

“I'll kill you for this,” she said softly. “I will! I'll shoot you down like a dog, Peters—or are you Petroni tonight?”

“Let's say Petroni,” I said. “Peters is a harmless jerk.”

“The inference being that you're not harmless? You're threatening me?”

I looked at her sadly, and sighed. “Lady, it's not a threat, it's a demonstration. I'm showing you how easy it would be. The only reason you're still alive is because I wanted you that way.” I paused deliberately. “You should have come to the phone when I called you this morning, Mrs. Rosten.”

“I see,” she breathed. “I see. So that's it!”

“I don't call up people just to pass the time of day, not people like you. You could have figured that out, if you'd got off your high horse for a moment. I was trying to do you a favor. You threatened me with cops. You didn't even do it yourself; you had your maid do it. That wasn't smart. That wasn't smart at all.”

It was a funny interview. It's hard for a man to be menacing with his pants hanging wet and baggy down his legs, but it's equally hard for a woman to be regal with her dress dripping water into her shoes. We were on even terms, except that she didn't know what I was after, and I did. At least I hoped I did.