Kill as Directed (16 page)

“Yes. When?”

“Right away.”

“Right away,” she said.

TWENTY

She sat with hands tightly clasped and knees tightly together, an eyelid twitching, her hair a copper pile, little ears exposed, unadorned. She was wearing a green silk suit over a white blouse, plunging deep. She wore no make-up except lipstick. She looked very young.

“Are you sure?” Harry asked quietly.

“I'm sure,” Karen whispered. “Business as usual tomorrow evening at the Starhurst.”

“Then that's it. I'll have a full five minutes? You're absolutely certain of that?”

“Yes.”

“Six fifty-five to seven?”

“Yes.”

“Two minutes ought to do it.”

He got up from his desk and unlocked the cabinet and slid his hands into the thin gloves and brought out the revolver and the silencer. She followed his movements, fascinated. He unwrapped them and laid them on his desk. “Good old Uncle Joe,” he said dryly. “He sells a mean ash. To the tune of a thousand bucks.”

“Please, Harry, put them away. You … they scare me.”

He rewrapped the gun and the silencer and put them back in the cabinet along with the gloves. He locked the cabinet, pocketed the key, and sat down again at his desk and looked at her.

“Karen.”

“Yes, Harry.”

“You're not directly involved. Will you remember that?”

“Yes.”

“I know you're frightened. It's natural. But you've got to get hold of yourself. You'll have to put on an act. If you don't think you can go through with it, now is the time to tell me.”

“I can. I will. It's just—”

“I understand,” he said. “Now listen carefully.”

“Yes, darling.”

“The alibi. Not essential, just insurance. We're all supposed to meet for dinner in that private room at Monique's at seven o'clock. Correct?”

“Yes, darling.”

“With Kurt sending the limousine to Taugus to pick up the Stones, they'll certainly be there early. Correct?”

“Yes. Kurt has trained the chauffeur himself. Just to be sure, I'll tell him to get the Stones there by six forty-five.”

“And you'll be sure to be there early, too?”

“Tony's picking me up. I'll see to it that we get there before the Stones.”

“Now as for me. I can't possibly be on time. I have office hours until seven o'clock. Right?”

“Right.”

“I'm seeing to it that I have no office appointments for tomorrow past six o'clock, and I'll send my evening receptionist home at that time. I'll dress between six and six-thirty, at the office—my usual procedure when I'm going out. I'll leave shortly after that, but nobody's going to know that. Folow so far?”

“Yes.”

“At exactly two minutes to seven, you'll excuse yourself and go to the phone booth at Monique's and
pretend
to call me. Then you'll rejoin the others and tell the Stones and Tony that I said I was shaving and changing my clothes, that I'd be leaving the office shortly. You've got that?”

“Yes, Harry.”

“By twenty past seven—it should be ample time—I'll have got back to the office from the Starhurst. At twenty past seven you'll be impatient about me and you'll ask Dr. Stone to phone me. Tony may offer to do the phoning—if he does, let him; I'd rather it were Stone, but if you slough Tony off it may look queer. Anyway, whichever one does the calling, I'll be there to take it. I'll apologize and say I just got finished dressing and was about to leave. I will leave, and I'll drive right down to Monique's and join the party. For the rest of the evening, of course, I'll be covered by events. Questions?”

“Yes.” Karen seemed less nervous now, as if talking about it had calmed her. “Between the time you slip out of the office and the time you get back, there'll be no one here. Until seven o'clock, anyway, somebody—some passer-by—might try to get into the office to see you professionally. They'll remember you weren't here—”

“Before I go to the Starhurst, I'll turn off the lights in the waiting room, and the street-door light. I'll leave the light on in my back room. If the point should ever come up—and remember, Karen, this is all precautionary; there's no reason why I should even be questioned—I'll merely say I locked up early because of having to shave, shower and change for the evening. That, not wanting to be held up, I just didn't answer the bell, or didn't hear it. It's probably an academic point, anyway. I rarely get transients.”

“Suppose a patient tries to phone you between the time you slip out and the time you get back?”

“I'll have Dr. Lamper cover for me tomorrow evening; we have a reciprocal arrangement when either of us has an important social thing on. And I'll instruct my answering service to transfer all professional calls to Lamper's number beginning at five o'clock. Incidentally, when you pretend to call me at two minutes to seven, remember that it's my private number you're supposed to be calling; and when you ask Stone to phone me here at seven-twenty, be sure to give him the private number. That way we don't get into complications with the answering service. Anything else?”

“The …” she moistened her lips “… gun.”

“I'm going to ditch it and the silencer where the police will find it. That's the whole point, Karen. All identifying marks have been removed, and it will copper-rivet the professional look of the job. The gloves I'll shove down the incinerator here when I get back—they may show traces of gun oil or gunpowder, and I can't risk ‘that. So … that's it.” He stared at her. “What do you think?”

“I love you,” Karen said.

He rose. “You'd better go home now.”

“I love you, Harry.”

“What time do you phone me?”

“Two minutes to seven. Private number.”

“Stone?”

“Twenty after. Same.”

“I love you,” Harry said.

TWENTY-ONE

The day of the murder dawned to a unity with nature that was almost Greek. Friday was made for violence—scowling skies; dripping heat; windless; almost airless. It took effort to breathe. The weather aroused savagery.

By another irony, it turned out to be a busy day professionally for Dr. Harrison Brown. He was on the run all day, either out on house calls or seeing patients in his office. During his afternoon office hours he began to run behind schedule; only the fact that at the last moment two patients cancelled their appointments made it possible for him to send his evening receptionist home at six o'clock and darken his waiting room. He had called Dr. Lamper and notified his answering service at midday.

He locked the office street door carefully and switched off the outside light over his shingle.

First he downed a shot-glass of Scotch neat. Then he drank some water and put the bottle away. He had promised himself one drink before the event in his office, and two cocktails afterward, at Monique's, no more.

He went to the dressing room at the rear and set to work. He was conscious of no particular tension or sense of excitement. His whole life hung on the nature and quality of his actions during the next ninety minutes, and he was pleased to find himself without nervousness or fear.

He undressed without haste or wasted motion and showered under warm water which he gradually turned to cold until he gasped. He toweled himself brutally and, naked, shaved without nicking himself. He purposely left the used towels on the floor of the bathroom and his discarded clothes strewn about. He put on fresh linen and a loose charcoal-gray mohair suit and a white shirt and a dark gray tie. It was six-thirty exactly when he slid the revolver into the waistband of his trousers, tucked the oilskin-wrapped silencer into the breast pocket of his jacket, locked the cabinet and made a last tour of the premises and took a last mental inventory.

For the first time he felt a quiver of fear. He had almost forgotten the gloves. He got them and put them in an ouside pocket. Immediately the feeling went away.

He had one last inspiration before he left: he took the receiver of his private phone off the cradle and left it that way. If anyone should try to dial him on the private line before he returned, there would be a busy signal, as if the phone were in use.

He slipped out into the street at twenty-one minutes to seven, leaving himself a cushion.

It was ten minutes to seven when he stepped into the dark tenement hallway directly across the street from the entrance to the Starhurst Hotel.

The taxi let the familiar fat figure out half a block from the Starhurst; probably, Harry Brown thought, an automatic precaution against some cabdriver's remembering his Friday night destination. Through the dirty glass of the tenement hallway door Harry watched Kurt Gresham, carrying a brief case, go through the revolving door of the Starhurst. He glanced at his watch. It was six minutes to seven.

The millionaire disappeared.

Harry gave him fifty seconds. Then he stepped out into the street and crossed over, going not fast and not slowly. He pushed through the revolving door of the hotel without hesitation and turned right—up the long slot of the lobby there was no one to be seen, or to see—and walked along the short corridor to the brass-knobbed door and turned the knob with his gloved hand. He opened the door and stepped into the little vestibule. He glanced up the stairs; no one. He glanced into the short corridor; no one.

He took the gun from his waistband and the silencer from his pocket, fitted the silencer to the muzzle, and went softly and quickly up the steep stairs. Outside the door of 101 he released the safety of the Colt.

He turned slightly to the right so that the hand with the gun would be away from the door. Then he raised his left hand and rapped, not loudly, not softly, on the worn much-painted panel.

There was the slightest pause, as if the occupant of the room were puzzled.

Then the door opened.

And there stood Kurt Gresham, wide open to eternity.

Dr. Harrison Brown raised his right hand.

The little red mouth in the big round pink face made a little red hole as the colorless eyes went from Harry's face to the gun with the silencer in Harry's gloved right hand.

Then Kurt Gresham slowly fell back, and Harry followed, pushing the door gently to behind him with his left hand; the door clicked, and they stood there, eye to eye, in a dreadful silence.

Harry raised the revolver, elbow loose, grip firm.

He saw the jowls shake suddenly. He saw the little bit of pink tongue flick out and back from the dry lips. He saw the colorless eyes take on a jelly-like look.

And he told his trigger finger to squeeze.

And it would not squeeze.

It would not.

It would not.

Kurt Gresham took the gun from him and, grabbing his lapels with one surprisingly strong hand, swung him about and pushed him. He fell back into an overstuffed chair.

Gresham was saying, “Idiot. Fall guy. Sucker. Weak sister,” over and over in a soft vicious voice. And all of a sudden somebody's fist crashed on the door panel outside and the knob began to turn. As it began to turn, the millionaire darted to the bed and shoved the gun under the pillow and was halfway back to the door when it burst open.

A giant of a man with a broken nose was in the doorway pointing a big black automatic pistol.

TWENTY-TWO

Through Dr. Harry Brown's vacant head ran the clear, cold, futile thought, He's surprised. Whoever the man is, he expected anything but the hotel guest on his feet with an inquiring look and a visitor sitting in an armchair.

“Mr. Curtis,” the giant said. He had a bass voice, rusty-sounding as if from disuse. “Everything all right?”

“All right?” repeated Kurt Gresham. “Why, certainly, Mr. O'Brien. Come in.”

The giant stepped further into the room and the millionaire reached around him and shut the door.

“Why the pistol, Mr. O'Brien?” Gresham said. “Would you mind putting it away? I have a weak heart.”

The giant looked foolish. Harry thought, He's a wrestler, or an old-time fighter. The broken nose, the impossible spread of shoulder, the stupid little pig-eyes under the lumpy ridges of bone, the gorilla's jaw …

“Oh, Doctor,” said Kurt Gresham. “This is Mr. O'Brien, the Starhurst's house detective. My doctor, Dr. Brown.”

“Your doctor?” O'Brien said. He breathed noisily through the broken nose. “Well, how do, Doc.”

Harry nodded.

“What happened, Mr. O'Brien?” the millionaire asked, frowning.

“I dunno,” the house detective growled. “Somebody's idea of a joke, I guess, Mr. Curtis. I got a call in my office. Some dame talking fast and hysterical-like, said she heard shooting in Suite 101. She hung up before I could ask her who she was or what room she was calling from. I had no time to check.”

“What time did she call?” murmured Gresham.

“Five minutes to seven on the nose—you know, Mr. Curtis, I got that wall clock right facing my desk in my office?—and I guess I made it up here in ninety seconds flat—took me only a few seconds to arrange to stop the elevators and seal off the exits.”

“That was quick work,” the millionaire said. “It makes me feel a lot safer, knowing there's a man like you on duty around here. I'll see you won't regret it, even though it was a hoax of some sort. Let's say a Christmas present?”

“Thanks, Mr. Curtis,” said the giant bashfully. “It's a fact that if this'd been a real shooting, the guy would be sewed up tighter than a drum. I'd have got him hands down … Well, excuse the interruption, gents. I got to go get the elevators started again and the boys off the doors.”

There was a rap on the door just as the house detective put his enormous hand on the knob. O'Brien glanced at Gresham, and the millionaire nodded.

“I'm expecting somebody, Mr. O'Brien. It's all right.”