The Return of the Black Widowers (38 page)

"In that case," said Gonzalo fiercely, "why do you envy us?"

"Because something happened."

"Aha," said Gonzalo. "What happened?"

Kriss said, "Something peculiar that just messed up everything."

"That's not informational. You’ll have to tell us what it was that messed up everything."

"All right, but it's complicated. I'll have to start by talking about my wife."

"If you wish to do so," said Avalon, "please do. We'll leave it to your good judgment to keep matters within the bounds of good taste."

"There's nothing remotely involving bad taste that's involved," said Kriss. "My wife—Grace—and I married in middle life. I was fifty-three, she was forty-seven. She's my second wife, I'm her first husband. She has no children and mine are grown up. We live together, just the two of us, in perfect harmony. We've stayed in love and we simply do not quarrel."

Trumbull said, "I find that hard to believe, Mr. Kriss. I've never come across any couple that didn't quarrel on occasion, and that certainly includes myself and Mrs. Trumbull."

"It depends on how you define 'quarrel.' Grace and I are both articulate people and we each have strong views. Sometimes those
views compete and we have no hesitation in letting each other know that. As you Black Widowers do at your meetings, we yell at each other sometimes. We wouldn't be human, or in love with each other for that matter, if we didn't.

"But when I say we don't quarrel, I mean that our disagreements are always kept within the bounds of decency and fair play. We don't call each other names, we don't throw things, we never use our muscles. And when we do disagree, we make up again before bedtime—as an invariable rule. I'm explaining this so you'll understand how shocking the thing that happened was."

Drake said, "Wait. If your wife didn't marry until she was forty-seven, it's safe to assume that she was living on some inherited competence or on some adequately paying job or profession. Is
she
a musician, by any chance?"

Kriss grinned self-consciously. "Yes, she is, in a manner of speaking. She's a piano teacher—but not a concert pianist, you understand."

"A social difference?" asked Rubin drily.

"Yes, in a way. Still, it makes for marital harmony if we keep each other on an even level. Having lived with her maiden name, after all, for forty-seven years, she has kept on using it with my thorough approval. We put both names on the door when we married—G. Barron and A. Kriss—her name on top because she has students coming to the door all the time."

Rubin said, "Does it bother her that you are much more famous as a musician than she is?"

"I don't think so. She refers to it now and then, perhaps with just a touch of grimness, but you can be sure that I know better than to be too aware of it, or to refer to it."

"So what happened?" asked Gonzalo.

"Well, about a month ago we were watching television quietly— and separately. We have two sets in two different rooms and can each watch without being disturbed by the other because we have a sizable apartment and a well built one. She was in her office,
with the door closed, watching
Star Trek,
a program she's very fond of. I was in the living room watching a
Kate and Allie
rerun. I was about ten minutes into the program, so it must have been 7:40 P.M. when the doorbell rang. That's always unsettling, because no one is supposed to get up to the apartment without the concierge downstairs ringing us. Of course, it might be a neighbor, or one of the building employees.

"I knew it would be hopeless to expect Grace to answer the door while she was watching
Star Trek,
so I heaved myself out of my chair, went to the door, and, like a true New Yorker, refused to open the door without asking who was there.

"There was no answer, so I opened the peephole and looked out— and, I tell you, I got a grade-A shock, because the hall was full of policemen as far as the eye could see. I opened the door at once and there were five of them—four policemen and a policewoman.

"I looked at them blankly and said, 'What's going on, officers?'

"The policeman in the lead said, in a kind of brusque, official voice, 'We have information that there's a marital fight going on here.'

"Well, I'm sure there are people who are capable of putting on a convincing display of astonishment when they're not, in actual fact, astonished, but I'm not one of them. I was simply astonished at the idea of being involved in a marital fight of a kind that needed police attention, and my astonishment must have impressed the police as genuine.

" 'A marital fight?' I said, stunned. 'Here? In this building?'

" 'In this building,' said the policeman.

" 'Then you have the wrong apartment,' I told him.

" 'No, sir,' he said. 'We were given the apartment number and your name.' And of course my name was right on the door staring at him, so to speak.

"My look of incredulity must have made the policeman feel impelled to justify his intrusion into our life. 'Our information is,' he said, 'that you had a knife at the throat of your wife.'

"Words absolutely failed me at the thought of such a thing
between Grace and myself. No wonder there were five of them. They were expecting a maddened killer, with a knife dripping blood.

"Suddenly I thought of the two television sets that were on. However, we both ran the volume low to avoid troubling the other: my own set was a murmur and I couldn't hear Grace's at all through her closed door. And neither program had been violent. I checked that with Grace later.

"But by then it had dawned on me that I had better produce a wife in one piece. Grace hadn't come out to see what was going on at the door, so I called for her.

" 'Grace!' I shouted. She must have been reluctant to interrupt her watching. I had to call twice more—the second time in considerable agitation, for it seemed to me the police might begin to think I was bluffing and that I had a wife on the other side of a closed door who was either unconscious or dead.

"But finally she came out, clearly in fine shape and good health. 'What's the matter?' she asked, and then she saw the policemen, and asked it again with more urgency.

"I said, 'Someone reported that you and I were having a fight and that I was killing you.'

"It was her turn to be astonished, and the blank surprise on her face was all the policemen needed to see the report was wrong. They turned away and the man in charge said, 'Okay, but we had to investigate the matter, you understand?'

" 'Of course,' I said. 'You had no choice—and I thank you for trying to protect my wife.'

"And they left."

There was a silence, and then Avalon said, "Well, Mr. Kriss, it was an unsettling experience, I'm sure, but there were no later consequences, were there?"

"Not of any definite kind, Mr. Avalon."

Halsted said, "Are you referring to indirect consequences, Mr. Kriss? I imagine it must have created a stir among the apartment staff to have so many police charging up to your apartment. It
must have spread among all the neighbors and required embarrassing explanations."

"I certainly offered none," said Kriss stiffly, "and no one said anything directly to me about it. The story may have spread about a marital fight, but there isn't a person in the building who could possibly believe that I had been abusing Grace. We're well known as the Darby and Joan of the apartment house. No, that's not what bothers me."

Gonzalo said, "We're still trying to get to it. What
does
bother you, Arnie?"

Kriss said, "It's the question of who informed the police, of course. Someone called the police emergency number, reported a fight between us with a knife, and gave them the apartment building, the apartment number, and my name. It couldn't be a casual troublemaker. It had to be someone who knew me."

Trumbull said, "Maybe so, but you know a great many people who know your name and address. One of them must have had a few drinks and then got what he thought was the very funny idea of sending the police to your door. There's no way of telling who it might have been."

"You're quite wrong," said Kriss angrily. "As I told you, almost all the people I know are musicians, and none of them would do it. It's not that they're models of virtue, but they don't have that kind of mind, any more than I have. Once they've stopped thinking about music, musicians are a spent force.

"Look, this is the sort of thing a musician thinks is funny: one of them will regale another by saying, 'Isaac Stern was wrapping his violin about one of Paganini's show-off pieces and made certain he hit every note—he left no tone unSterned.' Here's another: Two aspiring violinists had finally achieved their goal and were playing a duet at Carnegie Hall. Naturally, there was a good deal of nervousness, and one of them lost his place in the sheet music. He improvised desperately while trying unsuccessfully to locate the bar he was playing, and finally whispered out of the corner of his mouth to the other, 'Where
are
we?' And the other
whispered, 'Carnegie Hall.'
That's
what musicians think is funny—not one of them would ever think that sending the police to my apartment on a false alarm would be funny."

Avalon said gravely, "It's my experience that people can't be categorized that easily. Still, it might be one of your fans—though I should think they wouldn't know your exact address, or that, even if they did, they wouldn't be so disrespectful as to try such a trick."

"I should hope not," said Kriss. "Anyway, I'll tell you who I think it is. I suspect it's one of my poker buddies—maybe all of them "And the lines of his face sank into depression.

"Why do you think that?" asked Gonzalo.

"No real reason, Mario, but they all know exactly where I live. They've been to my apartment often enough. And I told you I don't exactly fit in. For all my trying, they may still feel enough of something different about me to make them pull that trick on me. It makes me feel bad. Very bad. I enjoyed those sessions and now I can't."

"Have you stopped playing poker?"

"Oh, no. We still play, but the pleasure's gone. I keep looking from one to another, wondering which one of them did it. I don't know how much longer I can keep it up. It's spoiled everything."

Drake said, "Have you tried to face them with it? Maybe one or more will confess and you can have a good laugh over it. If you can take the joke like a sport, then they may really accept you. You would have passed a rite of passage, I suppose."

"But it's not my kind of rite of passage," said Kriss impatiently. "And I did face them with it, though not as a group. I thought that if only one of them had done it, he wouldn't like to admit it in front of the others. I took the opportunity of speaking to each one of them separately and mentioning what had happened in as jovial a manner as I could manage. Each one of the four told me it was a dirty trick and didn't show any signs of thinking it was funny. One of them must be lying, I suppose. At least one of them."

"But I take it you get along well with them," said Halsted.
"You've been playing with them for some considerable time and I assume they've never made a move to get you out of the game."

"Never," said Kriss.

"So did anything happen recently that would have made one or more of them annoyed with you? Did you arouse their envy in some way?"

"Not on purpose. Of course, my apartment is somewhat better than theirs are, but not that much so."

Gonzalo said, "You didn't boast about how much you get for a concert appearance or anything like that, did you?"

Kriss looked revolted. "Of course not. You know me better than that."

Avalon said, “Well, let's use our brains. The particular practical joke that was played upon you, Mr. Kriss, put you in the position of being a wife-abuser. Is one of your poker-playing friends a wife-abuser?"

"Not to my knowledge. Of course—"

"Yes?"

"Steve is having trouble with his wife. Not physical, as far as I know. He's been running around, I gather, and his wife caught him at it, so things are antagonistic between them."

"I'm not a psychologist," said Avalon, "but isn't it possible he'd like to beat up his wife and rather than actually do it he worked up a fantasy that you beat up yours."

"Why me?" asked Kriss.

"Perhaps he was annoyed by your calm and pleasant married life. You might have boasted about that, Mr. Kriss."