The Plot (21 page)

Her eyes were on Alex, on Alex.

Manny thought: A fine client. “Meet my new client, the murderer.”
Dear Maggie Cousins: I have a little story that should interest Cosmopolitan Magazine. It is written by a new author of mine, a murderer
. He came out of his reverie and stared at Libbie Mae. “Mr. Daignot! Mr. Daignot!” He spoke sharply, nodded at Libbie Mae to call Louis' attention to her expression as she stared at Alex, to the trembling of the hand that held the knife. Manny believed in the fury of a woman scorned. He thought that Alex would be safer with the two young men, even if one of them seemed to be a murderer and the other an unmistakable pimp, than with Libbie Mae's jealousy and Libbie Mae's knife.

Louis nodded comprehension. “Miss Wilcoxen will have to come with us, Budder.”

“This ain't no joy ride, Louis boy.”

“The servants will let me in if she's with me, Budder; otherwise——”

“That's so. Hear, Sis Lib, Louis and me got to take a cyar ride with her.”

She shook her head and moved closer to Alex.

“You're staying here, Sis Lib. Mind now!”

Manny swallowed. “I think you should go with those two, Alex, but if you're afraid to, I'll try to stop them.”

“You try,” Budder said. “Come on, Mr. Rockefeller Center, you try.”

“I'll be all right, Manny.” She looked at Libbie Mae. “Take care of yourself, Manny.”

Budder told Alex to drive and sat next to her. “That way I know you'll keep your hands off Louis. I want Louis should be thinking all the way out how to get Budder that money.”

Libbie Mae sat down and faced Manny, the knife still in her hand. Manny fanned himself nervously with his hat. She took the knife and tossed it as expertly as Budder had done, and watched it quivering. Suddenly she began to talk, as if to herself. “I'm gonna pay them back, Miss High-and-Mighty and Mr. High-and-Mighty. I don't care for the money,” she said. “He gets it; Budder can take that money.” She gave Manny a shove so that he moved off the sofa hastily, and, reaching her hand down in the fold between the cushions, she pulled out a wad of bills. Facing Manny, who promptly closed his eyes, she raised her skirt and stuck the money into the top of her stocking. She shook him fiercely. “You,” she said, “when Budder comes back, you tell him I been to the police. I'm going to telephone the police what all I know, and I'm going up No'th. The police let Budder keep any of that money he'll maybe get, he can take the next train No'th and try to find me. You tell Budder, hear?”

Manny waited while she walked out of the house, while he heard her heels tapping down the street. He waited, counting slowly to sixty, then tiptoed across the room, pulled the knife out of the wall, and carefully wrapped it in his immaculate linen handkerchief, and ran out of the house. It seemed to him he had been running forever before he saw the taxi. “Hey, taxi! Do you know the Wilcoxen plantation? Good. I want to get there as fast as I can.” He started to pull his handkerchief out to mop his forehead, felt the knife in it, shuddered, and leaned forward on the seat to get there that much sooner.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Louis said firmly, “We're going in, William Reas.”

“Stand aside, boy,” Budder said. He waved at William Reas, moving his closed fist just beneath the servant's eyes.

Louis was trying to convince himself that if he went to the police, if he were frank with them about his share in it, if that convinced them about Ethel's plan to kill Jamey so that what Jamey did was shown to be self-defense, they wouldn't be too hard on Jamey. But he could not convince himself that he could bear to see Jamey taken off to jail, Jamey in a prison cell. If it came to that, he would rather go to prison than let Jamey go. Once he had decided this, he felt as if a weight had been lifted off his chest; he felt light. He began to run. He heard Alex hurrying after him, and then Budder, loping easily, whistling monotonously.

Budder stopped whistling. He said, “He ain't going to give you a cent of money, Louis boy!”

Jamey hadn't answered Louis' insistent knock. Something about the house, the cold air, perhaps because the air-conditioner, usually turned off at six, was still on, made Louis turn the knob and walk in. Alex had followed Louis into the room, looked at the stiff figure on the chaise longue, and turned away; that was when Budder's whistling had ceased.

“He daid. He ain't going to give you a cent of money,” Budder repeated. “He ain't going to help you out worth a cent, Louis boy.” He thrust his hands into his pockets and studied Jamey's body, the empty pill tray on the table, the book on the table, the empty highball glass. He turned away and studied the rest of the huge bare room disparagingly. “I had as much money as that old man, I'd have something fancier than this here.”

Louis felt empty, frightened, deserted. Yes. Deserted; he felt like the babe in the wood, the helpless trusting child led by his father to the deep forest and abandoned there. But he wasn't a child and Jamey wasn't his deceitful father, and he was damn well going to find his way out of the forest and not meekly die there.

“What you studying on, Louis boy? You go on and study on how to get money out of a corpse. I'm going to look this place over.” He closed the door, and they heard him lock it.

Alex said, “He's dead, Louis. Louis, he's dead!”

He could not permit himself to feel bereavement now; he could not permit himself to be soft now, to grieve. He could not permit himself to sit down in the forest and howl. Louis stuck his hands into his pockets and tried to look down coldly on the thin, small corpse. “Yes, he's dead. Well, he killed himself, Alex. He killed himself because they found Ethel's body and he had killed Ethel.”

She had moved near Louis; now she stepped back. “Louis, don't! Louis, that's so horrible! That's so terrible, Louis! Don't! Don't blame it on him just because he's dead and can't——” She began to cry. “You're horrible. How can you talk like that?”

“How can't I talk like that? What else can I say? The police will be here soon; what shall I say to them? That I did it—as Joseph Reas must have assured them I did—that I killed Ethel?” Because he had been so close to telling the police just that, he was violent against the idea. He pulled his hands out of his pockets, and thrust his arms toward Alex with the wrists together. “Shall I say, ‘Here I am, boys, wrap me up'? Is that what you want me to say?” He let his arms fall. “Before I came here I knew Jamey had killed Ethel, but you didn't hear me talking then, did you? I came here to find out what he wanted me to do before I talked to anyone. Then I find he's run out on me.”

“Louis! He's dead. He's lying there dead, Louis!”

“He's lying there dead, and I'm standing here holding the bag, Alex! Don't you see—he left me standing here and holding the bag!” He told himself to remember that. They heard sounds outside and then the door opened and Budder shoved Manny inside and relocked the door after him.

Budder called through the door, “Go on, Mr. Rockefeller Center, go on and tell them. Maybe they'll hurry up in there!”

“Alex, are you all right? Oh, Jamey!” He had just seen the body.

“He's dead.”

“Yes.” Removing the hat that had been shoved to one side of his head, Manny walked to the chaise and stood looking down. “Rest in peace,” he said. He took the mink throw hanging on the back of the chaise and put it gently over the small body, covering it completely. “He was old and tired. He's resting now.” He turned from Jamey to Louis. “This doesn't come under the head of agenting, Daignot, but you better not rest. I came out here to warn you that that girl went rushing to the police.”

Louis snorted. “She'll have company there.”

“The police should be here soon.”

Alex was crying. “Manny, he says Jamey killed himself because he killed Ethel. He says Jamey murdered Ethel!” She threw herself into the little man's arms; over her shoulder, Manny shook his head reproachfully at Louis.

“Jamey must have thought you were pretty good to want you to write his life, Daignot, but you'll have to be a genius to write that one! Mutt and Jeff, Ethel and Jamey! Even if he wanted to kill her, and that I can understand perfectly, how could he? Such a weak little person!”

“And Jamey was so good to him, Manny! I warned Jamey, I told Jamey, but——Oh, read this, read this!” She pulled the letter out of her pocket. “Read the note Jamey sent me before he died.”

Louis bent, picked up the letter, and read it.

“Blaming the murder on a dead old man!”

Louis rapped the back of his hand against the paper for attention. “Listen to this, Mr. Klein.”

“Don't you read it to Manny. I don't want you to read it to Manny.”

“I must, Alex, please. Listen to this:
Put away your naughty suspicions of Louis, Alex dear. Our Oedipus has not killed his father
.”

Alex interrupted. “That's why I thought Louis was innocent, because Jamey wrote that!”

Louis continued reading the letter: “
So our Oedipus must not gouge out his eyes, Alex, our Oedipus must use his eyes
.” Louis gave the note to Manny. “This Oedipus did not kill his father. I didn't murder Jamey, so far, so good. But it isn't far enough. Riddle me a riddle! Did you ever hear anything to beat him? He writes that kind of note to clear me with Alex, but apparently Ethel's death is too unimportant to mention, and as far as supplying something for the police!” Louis snapped his fingers scornfully.

Manny had put his pince-nez on to read the note. He tapped the note with the pince-nez. “He wants
you
to supply the something for the police, Daignot. I'm familiar with the Oedipus myth. Oedipus gouged out his eyes when he discovered he had killed his own father. You have not killed your father, therefore you need not gouge out your eyes. Jamey wants you to use your eyes to clear yourself with the police, that is plain as day.”

“I would prefer something plainer, thanks. He once told me that if I had to save my life, I could plot, so he arranges that I've got to plot to save my life. A little parlor game with my neck! Fantastic, I tell you!”

“And I tell you that I've known Jamey a long time and he wasn't at all fantastic. Jamey only pretended to be fantastic when it paid off. I tell you there is more sense to this than appears. Jamey wouldn't write a story unless it made sense, and he wouldn't have done anything unless it made sense. This is what you must find out.”

“The sense in it?”

“People kill, surely, ordinary people become murderers, yes, but if they are sane they don't kill fantastically, and if they are insane, the reasons, although irrational and fantastic to us, are credible to them. Yes, people kill, Jamey could kill. I could kill, too.” He looked alarmed at the suggestion. “There are ideals precious enough for me to die defending, there are people so important that I would kill for them, but not fantastically.”

Louis said, “The murder was real enough. Ethel's body bled, her eyes rolled up, her heart stopped pumping.”

“The murder was real and Jamey wouldn't have committed it for any fantastic reason; Jamey was a sane man, if queer—Oh, excuse me,” he said to Jamey, blushing, “a sane man, if
peculiar
, eccentric. Jamey was an eccentric enough character, but he would only have killed Ethel for sane reasons. You supply the reasons, Daignot, and then maybe I'll believe you.”

“Jamey killed Ethel because he knew she was going to kill him. Is that sane enough? Self-defense isn't fantastic; self-defense pays off with your life.”

“Yes, self-defense pays off—but need self-defense have included murder? You tell me you will give me the reasons for Ethel wanting to kill Jamey, later. I accept that, but tell me,
how
was she intending to kill him?”

“By poison, I think. I think she was intending to substitute poison for his sleeping pills when he took his nap.”

“And Jamey knew this?”

Louis smiled. “Jamey knew everything, the old——”

“If Jamey knew of this plan, why murder Ethel? I mean, why didn't he pretend to go along with her, save the pills for evidence, and call in the police? I mean, why take matters into his own hands? That's not sane, and that's not Jamey. If Ethel was going to kill him and he knew it, why not save himself by legal methods, why not call the law in? Jamey's business was writing, not killing. Jamey would never have let something as implausible as that slip by in one of his stories; why should he let it slide by in real life? To Manny Klein, this doesn't make good sense.”

Louis was thinking; he didn't answer. Alex said, “Jamey had had a heart attack, Manny. He knew that his life——”

“Granted. Still …” He made a gesture to show he was not yet convinced.

Alex tried again. (Louis did not even seem to be listening to this.) “Jamey was so vain, Manny. He told me that he couldn't stand having the public know that anyone close to him didn't adore him. Ethel was so devoted to him, supposedly, perhaps Jamey couldn't bear——”

Manny shook his head. Louis said, “No, that isn't enough, Alex.” He had been through those two reasons, already. Jamey certainly would have called in the police if those two reasons were the only ones. Jamey could have whispered to William Reas at dinner to call the police. The police would have arrived. Jamey, who would have been safely locked in his room, pretending to be drugged and dying, would have handed over the evidence, the drugged pills. The police could have taken Ethel and the evidence away with them, but that wouldn't have been the dead Ethel in the back of the car, that would have been the strong loud Ethel, who would not have lain there silently, that bump against the side of the car her only protest. Ethel, her tongue licking the side of her mouth, would have talked. Ethel would have talked about: