The Man Who Lived by Night (22 page)

Hoag:
Figuring the police would gun him down on the spot.

Scarr:
If they hadn’t, I would have. I had a gun with me on stage, in case I needed it.

Hoag:
You made Rory into a rock ‘n’ roll martyr. Kept him forever young. That’s how you justify to yourself what you did. The truth is that he was your oldest and best mate and you had him murdered. But you’ve twisted the truth to suit you. You’ve twisted everything to suit you. That’s what this memoir is all about—putting your lies down on paper so as to make them into truth … You had the limelight all to yourself now Rory was gone. Why did you give it up? Retreat here? And why are you choosing to come back now?

Scarr:
What I told you before was true—I’d had it with the T. S. persona. I wanted to grow. I couldn’t as long as Rory was around for me to fall back on.

Hoag:
When you end a friendship, you really end it, don’t you?

Scarr:
It was necessary. As were the past few years I’ve spent alone here. I’ve been able to study, learn new instruments, experiment with new sounds …

Hoag:
Everything was going fine until the day Pamela gave you my message about going to see Tulip’s photo album. And something clicked. You’d forgotten about the one thing that could actually link you to Rory’s murder. You’d forgotten about that photograph. And so had she. She hadn’t looked in the album for years. She told me she couldn’t. And she obviously didn’t remember about you and Larry knowing each other.

Scarr:
Her brain was quite thoroughly scrambled.

Hoag:
Yes. It was all a blur, she said. Of course, there was always the chance she would remember. Enter your pal Father Bob. You’d been paying him off to keep quiet ever since he sold you the speed that killed Puppy. You even made his dreams come true. You set him up as a resident neighborhood guru. Financed his church, paid him a salary—it beat killing him. And it came in real handy when Tulip started getting into God in a serious way. You steered her right to him, just in case she did remember about Larry and felt like confiding in somebody evangelical. It was easy for you to manipulate her behavior. All you had to do was condemn him and she’d make a beeline right for him. He kept an eye on her for you. It turned out not to be necessary. Tulip never did remember about you and Larry Lloyd Little. Not until you came to see her and demanded that picture. Then she knew. And you had to kill her. You made it look like a break-in to confuse the police.

Scarr: (silence)
I never wanted to kill her. But I had to—she said she would tell the police about me. She loathed me, you see, because Violet had left her for me. She blamed me for ruining Violet.
(pause)
I had to kill her.

Hoag:
You played dumb when I mentioned her photo album on the way to the funeral. You said you had no recollection of it—just another facet of your fine overall performance. Except for one little slip. When I said she had photos from all over the place, including
Los Angeles,
there was a flicker in your eyes. You were wondering if somehow I knew. I didn’t. But for an instant, you wondered. And you let it show.

Scarr:
My guard was down. I was mourning the mother of my child.

Hoag:
Whom you’d killed. And you didn’t stop there. Things were in danger of unraveling now. The police knew that Father Bob had been a drug dealer. He was a loose end. He could talk. With Tulip dead there was no reason to keep him alive, so you killed him, too, and made it look like another break-in. Neat and tidy.
(pause)
I’m curious about the others. Derek, Marco, Jack … have they ever known?

Scarr:
No. Never.

Hoag:
They weren’t aware you knew Larry Lloyd Little?

Scarr:
They weren’t around when I was mates with Dennis. I was on holiday after our tour. Just me and Tulip.

Hoag:
But Jack was so opposed to my looking into the past. Why?

Scarr:
He has a good life here with me. He was afraid you’d upset the present order.

Hoag:
He was right.

Scarr:
Yes.

Hoag:
I thought I understood you, Tristam. Clearly, I didn’t. I don’t. Help me understand you.

Scarr:
What for? You aren’t going to finish our book.

Hoag:
Indulge me—for friendship’s sake.

Scarr:
I don’t expect you
can
understand me. Not by applying your morality to me.

Hoag:
It doesn’t apply to you?

Scarr:
T. S. is not everyone else.

Hoag:
You honestly think you’re above the rules that we, as semicivilized people, set upon ourselves?

Scarr:
Anyone who succeeds as I have—to the very top—has ignored those rules. They’ve lied, cheated, stolen …

Hoag:
You’ve killed four people, Tristam. You’re about to make it five. No one has a right to do that.

Scarr:
You disappoint me, Hogarth. Being that you respect greatness, I thought you would appreciate what I’ve accomplished. I thought you would understand.

Hoag: (pause)
“Whatever it takes …” That’s what Derek said you were willing to do. I guess you’ve just gone—

Scarr:
Farther than the others dare to go. Precisely. It’s fear that brings the little people up short. They’d do just as I have if they had the balls. But they haven’t, the poor sods. They’re afraid they’ll get caught. They’re weak. I’m not. I’ve the balls to take what I want.
(pause)
And now, at long last, it’s my time. A new image, thanks to the work you and I have done. New start. New sound.
Mine.
A double album, I think. A video. A return tour. The body isn’t what it was, but otherwise I’m better than ever. Richer. Fuller.

Hoag:
How do you live with yourself, Tristam?

Scarr:
Whatever I’ve done has been necessary. It had to be done, or I wouldn’t have done it.

Hoag:
How nice. How very, very …

Scarr: (silence)
You were saying?

Hoag:
I was … I was just thinking how
comforting
it must be to be a psychopath … Kind of the ultimate form of self-indulgence, wouldn’t you say?

Scarr:
I’ve enjoyed our talks. I’ll miss them.

Hoag: (silence)
Yeah, I … Care for the last of the champers?

Scarr:
You go right ahead.

Hoag: (silence)
Must have had more to drink than I … Feeling kinda …

Scarr:
Yes?

Hoag:
Was getting fond of you, Tristam.

Scarr:
Likewise.

Hoag:
You were one of my idols. Haven’t many left. Come to think of it, haven’t any …

Scarr:
Sorry if I disappointed you.

Hoag:
How you going to do it?

Scarr:
It will look like suicide.

Hoag:
Why am I … ?

Scarr:
Your failed writing career, I expect.

Hoag:
Oh, that … Guess I’d buy it.

Scarr:
And the police will as well.

Hoag:
You know what I was thinking, Tristam? If everyone in the world was … was like you … the world would go to hell.

Scarr:
Welcome to hell. Scarr’s the name. Shall I take that empty bottle from you, Hogarth?
(silence)
Hogarth?
(Silence, followed by sound of car engine starting, then idling. Papers rustle. Car door opens, closes. Faintly, the sound of garage door sliding shut. Then the sound of engine idling.)

(end tape)

“Y
OU COULD HAVE BEEN
killed,” fumed Merilee as she knelt there beside me, her brow creased with concern, her eyes big and shiny.

“I wasn’t,” I assured her, though I wasn’t a hundred percent sure of it myself.

I was sitting on the gravel in front of the garage with my head throbbing. I was seriously groggy. Pamela kept waving spirits of ammonia under my nose and I kept waving them away. Lulu was watching me from beside Merilee, a low moan coming from her throat. From the main house came the sounds of music and laughter and voices. The party was still going strong.

“Up we go now, Hoagy,” ordered Pamela, placing her hands under my arms and hoisting me none too gently to my feet. “We’ve got to keep you up and about or you’ll be of no use to anyone.

She held onto one arm. Merilee took the other. The two of them began to walk me around the driveway on my rubbery legs.

“What if he’d had a gun?” demanded Merilee. “What if he’d just shot you instead of … of … ?

“I’d be dead,” I replied. “The point is, I’m not. And I got him to show his hand. It’s all on tape.”

Root came out of the garage. He was shaking his head. It was Root who’d found me in the front seat of the Peugeot, out cold, about a half hour after T. S. had served me the drugged champagne and shut me in the garage with the car’s engine running. It was Root who’d dragged me out into the fresh, cold air. He’d fetched the others at my request, after I started to come to.

“I don’t see any tape recorder, Hoagy,” Root said.

“I hid it under the driver’s seat,” I told him.

He nodded and went back in the garage. “Got it,” he called, returning with the recorder. “Car is empty otherwise. He took your papers, tapes, all of it.”

That was no problem. I’d made copies of everything, including the photograph. T. S. had bought my story that he was holding onto the only copy. It hadn’t occurred to him I’d want him to kill me then and there—or to go ahead and try.

“Hoagy, darling?”

“Yes, Merilee?”

“Why
aren’t
you dead?”

“Quite,” agreed Pamela. “You should have died in there from the carbon monoxide.”

“Oh, that. The Peugeot’s a diesel. Can’t kill someone from carbon monoxide poisoning by locking them in a garage with a diesel.”

“Why not?” asked Root, frowning.

“Diesel engines don’t produce carbon monoxide,” I replied. “Or hardly any—not like gas engines do. The combustion systems are totally different. Diesel exhaust may be billowy and stinky, but it’s also nontoxic. Not many people know that. I figured he didn’t.”

“How do
you
know it?” Merilee wondered.

“A French mechanic once told me.”

“What if you’d misunderstood him?”

“I speak perfect French.”

“I know, but—”

“You’re saying you set yourself up?” Root asked, sucking on his gopher teeth.

I nodded, which I immediately regretted. It made something rattle inside my head. “He had to get me out of the way and he couldn’t afford another murder, especially right here at his own home. That would keep things unraveling. So I gave him the perfect opportunity to stage a suicide. He put something in the champagne to knock me out. He didn’t drink any of it himself, of course.”

“Wouldn’t the drug have shown up in your system?” asked Merilee. “I mean, if there’d been an autopsy?”

“Not necessarily, Miss Nash,” said Root. “You’d be amazed at how many disappear quickly, and without a trace. Naturally, he took the bottle with him.” Root turned to me. “He thinks you’re dead.”

“He thinks I’m dead.”

“You really are a stupid ninny,” said Merilee.

I took her hand and squeezed it. “Why, Merilee, that’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever, ever …” My knees buckled.

“I think,” said Pamela, grabbing me, “we’d best get some strong coffee into the lad.”

Together, they walked me into Jack’s apartment. I slumped into his lounge chair. Lulu vaulted into my lap, all pretense of gimpiness gone, and licked my nose. I really was going to have to wean her off of fish. Root lurched into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. He wanted to listen to the tape in private for some reason. Merilee sat across from me, wringing her hands. Pamela came in from the kitchen and pressed a steaming cup of instant coffee in my hand. I gulped from it. It didn’t clear my head much, but it did burn my tongue.

“How do you feel, Hoagy?” Pamela demanded.

“I’ve felt worse, though I can’t remember when offhand. And you?”

“Me?” Pamela asked.

“It must be a bit disturbing to find out you’ve been managing the country estate of a murderer.”

“Believe me, it is not the first time.”

I stared at her a second. “Pamela, I think I’m going to have to do your memoirs next.”

“I’m afraid there won’t be nearly enough spice.”

“We’ll make some up. That’s where the fun comes in.” Foolishly, I gulped some more coffee. “Not that this isn’t my idea of fun.”

The bedroom door opened. Root stood there in the doorway, his face ashen.

“All there?” I asked him.

“Dreadful stuff,” he said quietly.

“Not a pretty story,” I agreed.

“Dreadful stuff. All of those years … All of those lives …”

“What are you going to do, Inspector?” Merilee asked him.

“Do?” Root swallowed. “I-I’m going to go up there and arrest Tristam Scarr for the murder of four people.”

“Don’t forget the attempted murder of a fifth,” I said. “I’ll be happy to testify.”

Root belted his trench coat, squared his shoulders, and started for the door. Abruptly, he stopped. “What am I doing? What
am
I doing? That’s not some sewer rat up there. That’s
T. S.”

“A sewer rat,” I added.

Root ran both of his hands through his messy carrot-colored hair. “But there are members of the royal family up there.”

“They’ve gone,” Pamela pointed out. “Another engagement.”

Root pursed his lips, shot a glance at the phone. “Still. I’d best ring up headquarters first.”

“Why, Inspector?” I asked.

“That’s just it, you see. I’m
not
an—”

“You shouldn’t be intimidated by people just because they’re famous.”

“I’m not,” he insisted, reddening.

“Look at Merilee over there,” I said. “She’s as famous as anybody, and she’s just plain folks.”

Merilee stiffened.
“Just plain folks?”

Root mulled it over, wavering. “I suppose you’re onto something there …” He glanced at the phone again. Then he took a deep breath. “Well, then,” he announced firmly, “I’m off.” He started once more for the door. This time he opened it.