Enough! (A Travesty and Ordo) (20 page)

The policeman at the door, seeing me awake,
summoned a nurse and a doctor and Staples, in that order. The nurse refused to
answer my questions; she was there only to take my temperature, pulse and half
a dozen other things. The doctor joked away all my questions; he was there only
to read the nurse’s report. But Staples was perfectly willing to answer
questions: “It’s Saturday,” he said. “Twenty
minutes to three in the afternoon.”

“But what happened?”

“Somebody tried to kill you,” he
said.

“Tried to kill
me!”

“Tell me about last night.”

So I told him about last night, the party, the
assembled suspects, the post-mortem that Kit and I had done in which we’d
eliminated three names from the list but had come to no other firm conclusions,
then my departure, the cab ride home, “and then I don’t know. I can’t
remember anything after I went into the apartment.”

“You were hit on the head,” Staples
told me. “The killer set your oven to explode, hoping it would look like
an accident. You’re lucky to be alive.”

“The oven?”
Suddenly I realized what I’d done. Good God! “I might have been
killed!”

Staples nodded soberly. “I think that was
the general idea.”

I wiggled my various parts under the covers,
trying to figure out if they were all still there. “How bad—What hap—How am I?”

“Concussion. Some scratches and bruises, a few minor burns. Nothing serious. You were lucky.”

“I sure was.” Then I realized my
distraction was keeping me from getting on with the original scenario. I could
brood about exploding ovens later; for the moment, I had a role to play:
“But why?” was my first prepared line. “Why would anybody do
such a thing?”

Staples looked grim. “It seems,” he
said, “you and Miss Markowitz did better than you knew last night. You
must have gotten close to the killer without realizing it.”

“You mean, he thought we were onto him?
And that’s why he tried—Good God, Kit I struggled up off the pillow.
“Call her, Fred, she’s in danger!”

His grimness increased, as he rested a hand on
my shoulder. “I already thought of that, Carey. I’m sorry, we were too
late.”

“Too late? What
do you mean? You don’t mean—”

He nodded. “I’m sorry. He must have gone
down to her place as soon as he left your apartment last night.”

“Kit,” I said.

He patted my arm. “Don’t worry, Carey.
We’ll get him.”

“Kit,” I said.

*

I spent nine days in the hospital, and all in
all it was very pleasant. I had visitors as often as I wanted, I had as much
rest as I wanted, and by the fourth day I had my typewriter and manuscripts and
could even get some work done.

Staples visited at least twice a day,
sometimes with Al Bray and sometimes alone. On his second visit I gave him
Kit’s conclusions about the innocence of Jay English and Dave Poumon, plus the
unrevealed alibi of Jack Meacher, and we agreed it was ironic that Kit had
proved her own innocence by becoming another victim. He kept assuring me he was
making progress, and indicated he was leaning more now in the direction of Irv
Leonard. (I hadn’t mentioned Kit’s conclusions in re Irv,
feeling the list of suspects was shrinking rather alarmingly as it was.)
Staples also had me go over and over and over the events of the party searching
for that one small item that had scared the
killer, but we never seemed to find it.

Patricia visited several times, with her
husband’s knowledge, and once we managed to perform an unnatural sex act
together. Honey Hamilton also visited, twice, seeming very warm and sympathetic and eager to
console me for my tragic loss. Other friends visited, some smuggling in bottles
of bourbon, but most of the time I remembered to keep a long face.

There were only two bad moments. One was when
Jack Freelander arrived with a rough draft of his porno article; trapped in
bed, I had no choice but to read the damn thing and make comments. The other
incident, more serious, was one of the times Staples brought my mail. He was
stopping at my apartment every day to see how the reconstruction was coming
along—they were putting in a new kitchen and fixing the walls—and was also
picking up my mail. On Wednesday when he arrived, the bundle included a large
white envelope with a familiar-looking blue logo on the return address. What
was it?

Tobin-Global!

The detective agency, Edgarson’s private
detective agency!

(I had by now been living a Valium-free
existence for nearly a week, and it was astonishing what a difference it made
in moments of stress. What did Mankind do before these wonderful pills? Reality
is drabber and slower and grayer without them, but the scary moments are
suddenly faster and far more terrifying. My three murders had been serious, of
course, but they had happened at a pace where I could retain control over
myself and events. Now, with only the hospital’s grudgingly-dispensed pain
killers inside me, a simple matter like this envelope nearly killed me with
fright. Consequences seemed more real, dangers more possible. Valium had made
it possible for me to walk my tightrope
as though there were a net
. Now, the
chasm yawned plainly beneath me.)

Had Staples seen this return address? Had he
made the connection? Should I explain it somehow, make up some story? Should I
look in the envelope?

No. No to everything.
In a panic situation, the best thing to do is nothing. If Staples had made the
connection he’d mention it himself. (But officially I’d never met Edgarson! How
could I explain this discrepancy?)

Closing my eyes to that drop, forcing myself
to an appearance of calm without the assistance of pills, I casually put the
mail on the bed, the Tobin-Global envelope face down, and Staples and I spent
ten minutes discussing the latest developments in the case. Karen Leonard had
an alibi for her husband for the night of the party, but Staples had taken a
dislike to her—an easy thing to do—and therefore thought she might be lying.
I can’t stand it
, I kept screaming inside my head, but I did stand it, and at last
he left, and I clawed my way into that white envelope, and found—

What? Shirley’s papers, the original set that
I hadn’t been able to find. Utterly bewildered, I read the accompanying letter:

Dear Mr. Thorpe:

Having been unable to reach you by phone, I
have decided to return these documents to you, though of course Tobin-Global
stands prepared to assist you in your marital situation in any way we can.
Unfortunately, we have no record of your ever having engaged our services.

These documents were found in the desk file of
Mr. John Edgarson, a former employee no longer with the firm. If Mr. Edgarson
was working for you privately, I must
point out that by the terms of Mr. Edgarson’s employment he was required to
relay all potential client arrangements to Tobin-Global. The resources of a
large organization like Tobin-Global are, of course, much more useful in delicate
marital situations than the services, no matter how well-intentioned, of any
one individual.

If you were under the impression that Mr.
Edgarson was taking some action on your behalf, would you get in touch with
me?

Sincerely,

Walter Carter, V. P.

I liked the straightforward way in which
Walter Carter maligned the dead; apparently his opinion of Edgarson was just as
high as mine. And I also appreciated his decision to send these papers back.
What an unsuspected little time bomb Edgarson had left in his wake! Undoubtedly
he’d stolen those papers during that period when he was occupying my apartment,
and I couldn’t begin to guess what smarmy use he’d intended to make of them.

Well. All’s well that ends well. I took from
under my mattress a bottle of smuggled bourbon and made do as best I could for
the absence of Valium. Shirley’s papers, covering letter and envelope and all,
went out with that day’s trash, and on the following Monday I left the hospital
and went home.

*

The new stove and sink and refrigerator were
in, but the wall between the kitchenette and the living room had so far been
only partially sheetrocked, leaving some of the raw new studs exposed. The
living room windows had been replaced. There’d been some damage in the living
room, primarily breakage of small objects like lamps, with the principal
casualty being my answering machine. The carpet had also suffered both fire and
water damage, and would have to be replaced. But most of these things were
insured, and in any event the apartment was certainly livable.

I felt rested and refreshed. In the hospital,
I’d finished the Cassavetes piece and now I had “Big John Brant: The Acorn
And The Oak” just about ready for its final
draft. Patricia was coming over tomorrow afternoon to permit me to worship once
more at her shrine, and I had a date with Honey Hamilton for Thursday night.
Life, which had been full of turmoil for a while, was at last settling down
again.

I also felt utterly safe. Staples had begun to
look guilty in my presence the last few days, meaning the investigation was
stymied once more; this time, I should think, permanently. He’d suggested as I
was leaving the hospital that they keep me under police protection for a while,
since the killer might have it in mind to try for me again, but I pointed out
the needlessness of that: “Since he hasn’t been arrested by now, he knows
he must be safe from me, that I don’t know or didn’t notice whatever it was. It
would be much more dangerous for him to try to kill me again than to leave
things alone.” Staples agreed at last, reluctantly, and so I was finally
again a private citizen. There’d been many a twist and turn in the trail since
I’d stupidly lost my temper with Laura Penney that night, but it was all over
now. I was home and dry.

When the doorbell rang at two o’clock Friday afternoon I was on the phone with
Honey, the two of us murmuring at one another the way people will on the day
after their first night together. “It’s the doorbell, sweetheart,” I
said. “I’ll call you back later.” We made kissing noises at one another,
and I hung up.

And who was this at the door? Patricia? But
she’d said she wouldn’t be able to come around any more this week; not till
next Tuesday at the earliest. But I could find out who my guest was before
seeing her, or him; as a part of the general renewal and repair around this
place, the intercom had been fixed, and it was now possible for me to lean
close to the grid in the wall, push the button to the left, and say, “Who
is it?”

“Fred Staples,
Carey.”

“Come on up.”

I hadn’t seen Staples all week. He’d been
avoiding me, I’d assumed, because he had nothing new to report on the Laura
Penney-Kit Markowitz murder case. Since I was reasonably sure he still had
nothing to report on that case, maybe this meant he had another of his unusual
homicides to show me. That would be nice; it had been quite a while since I’d
had the chance to flex that muscle.

Nevertheless, the thought of facing Fred
Staples still made me sufficiently nervous that I went to the bathroom and
popped a Valium before opening my front door. He came thumping up the stairs in
his hat and raincoat—an early March rain was drizzling outside—and he had Al
Brav with him. “Welcome,” I said. “Come on in. Coffee?”

“No, thanks,
Carey.” Staples seemed a little awkward with me, and Al Bray merely
nodded his hello.

Was something wrong? They came in, I shut the
door, and we all stood in the living room together. I said, “Something
wrong, Fred?”

“We got a new development,” he said.

I made myself look eager. “In
the Laura Penney case?”

“Another anonymous letter,” Staples
told me. “Apparently from the same source.”

“Anonymous
letter?” But Edgarson was the source of that first letter, how
could he have sent another one now? Postmarked Seattle? Or maybe he’d made some sort of
arrangement that the letter should be sent automatically if he didn’t stop it.

Staples had reached down
inside his raincoat and his jacket and was now extending the letter
toward me. “Same kind of paper, same kind of typing,” he said.

God
damn
that Edgarson, would he never leave
me alone? I took the letter and opened it and read,

He can blow himself up all he wants,

but he should have thrown away the key

to the basement door at Penney’s.

That
wasn’t Edgarson. I’d blown myself up long
after Edgarson had been removed from the scene. And what was this nonsense
about a key? Looking at Staples and Bray, seeing their serious faces, I said,
“This thing accuses me of being the killer.”

Nodding, Staples said, “It does read that
way, Carey.”

“But you
know
I’m not the killer. Never
mind all this business about blowing myself up, you
know I didn’t kill Laura Penney.”

Staples was doing all the talking, while Bray
just watched, and now Staples said, “The basement door to that building is
around on the side street. The detective wouldn’t have been able to see it, so
you could have gone in that way. And I must say, Carey, that if you
did
go in
that way, it suggests premeditation.”

I said, “But I don’t have any such key. I
never did have.

Why would I have a key to the basement of some
building I don’t even live in?”

Staples smiled a little, as though pleased
with me. “I’m glad to hear that, Carey,” he said. “If you’d said
you
did
have a key, I would have been a little troubled.”

“Well, I don’t.”

Staples and Bray looked at one another, both
still solemn-faced, and then Staples sighed and shrugged and looked at me again
and said, “We’ve gotten to be pretty good friends, Carey. I hope this
won’t spoil that.”

“No, of course not, why should it?”
Handing the anonymous letter back to him, I said, “I guess that must be
the same nut that left the message on my answering machine that time. Probably
the other anonymous letter was about me, too.”