Love Has No Alibi

by Octavus Roy Cohen

  “But that isn’t what you think, is it?”

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  He told me about the cops being there. From his description, they were a couple of detectives from the same division the hospital is in. According to him, they asked all sorts of questions, and promised to stick with it. He said, “But there’s nothing to stick with. I couldn’t think of anybody who would want to shoot me, so what chance have they got?”

  He wasn’t badly hurt. But he’d been shaken up plenty. He was jittery. We sat around and talked. We talked mostly about how lucky he was; what an escape he’d had. He agreed with us, but he wasn’t happy. He was thinking that there’d likely be a next time, and he might not be so lucky then.

  Time passed faster than we knew. Dana looked at her watch and seemed troubled. I said I’d run her back to the club for the supper show. She wouldn’t hear of it. Arthur begged Agnes to go home. He was pitifully grateful to her.

  She said she intended to stay, but Arthur argued her down. She finally agreed to go with Dana. She’d drop Dana at the club and keep the same taxi. We said good night. Agnes leaned over the bed and brushed her lips over Arthur’s. He seemed to like it.

  It was almost midnight. Arthur and I were alone. From the corridor came the usual hushed sounds of a hospital. The elevator made the only real noise. Its door banged every time it opened, every time it closed. Arthur didn’t seem to notice.

  I was feeling lousy. I fumbled for a cigarette, then stowed it away again. Arthur said, “Go ahead. Give me one, too.” We lighted up. It seemed to help both of us.

  I said, “Is it all right to talk?”

  “Sure. I’m okay. Scared—that’s all.”

  I said, “You told the police you didn’t have any idea who might have done it. Is that true?”

  “Yes. I wish it weren’t.”

  “I don’t get it. An attempted murder almost out in the open . . .”

  “It was a good safe place.” He smiled wanly. “And it’s a pretty bad night.”

  “You didn’t see the person who shot at you?”

  “No.” He hesitated. “That is . . . well, I don’t think so.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Something like that happens, Kirk—and you’re liable to remember things that never occurred. While they had me in the operating room I had a hazy remembrance of seeing a man running out from among the parked cars. I’d say a tall man, wearing a felt hat and an overcoat. But I couldn’t swear to it. It may have been imagination entirely.”

  I kept on probing. Maybe there was something important that he wouldn’t recognize as important. I asked the questions, but he didn’t seem to have the answers. The resident physician came in and chatted with us. He gave Arthur a colorless liquid in a little glass. He said, “That’ll give you a good night’s rest.” Then he suggested that I probably needed some sleep, it being already two o’clock.

  I told Arthur I’d see him the first thing the next morning. He said there wasn’t anything he wanted. I hoped the medicine was going to knock him cold. I didn’t want him to lie awake all night with nothing but his thoughts for company.

  I walked to my apartment. I undressed and slipped under the covers. I kept the light on and lay there for a while, staring at the ceiling.

  At three o’clock I telephoned Dana’s apartment. She answered so quickly that I knew she must have been waiting for the call. Her voice was far from steady. I told her Arthur was right as rain. I said that it might have been an accident. I didn’t press that point too far, because then she wouldn’t have believed me. I just planted the idea.

  She asked me things which I couldn’t answer. I told her if she weren’t able to sleep she must call me. She promised. We said good night and hung up. I felt more lonely, more worried, than ever.

  Facts were marching around in my brain like little wooden soldiers. They added up to one unpleasant conclusion.

  Several inexplicable things had happened recently.

  Some unknown person had deposited one hundred thousand dollars to my credit at the bank.

  A woman named Ethel Brower, whom I had never seen nor heard of, had been murdered in my apartment.

  A very spectacular young lady named Candy Livingston had returned from being kidnaped and had apparently made a deliberate effort to impress herself on me.

  Dr. Arthur Maybank had been shot at—probably, but not certainly—by a man who obviously had intended to kill him.

  Four major happenings without rhyme or reason. Four occurrences which had only one thing in common.

  That thing was me. My bank account, my apartment, my personality, my friend. I felt certain that Arthur had been shot simply because he was a friend of mine. It made no sense. But there it was. I, Kirk Douglas, was the common denominator.

  I turned out the light and knew I wouldn’t sleep.

  I also knew that the answer to the puzzle was a long way off. I remembered a line written by a war correspondent. I felt that it fitted this situation.

  The line was:

  “Things will get much worse before they get better.”

  CHAPTER XII

  SATURDAY to Monday can be a long time, if you’ve got things to do.

  I spent most of Sunday with Arthur Maybank. He was up and about and all ready to start punching the timeclock again Monday morning. He was still jittery and still didn’t have any idea about who fired at him or why. We tossed the ball back and forth until we both got tired. There wasn’t a single conclusion in a carload of words.

  In my spare time I was with Dana. That meant a lot more conversation about the queer things that had been happening. I tried to work and gave it up as a bad job. I was more on edge than I knew. When I didn’t sleep Sunday night, I realized I’d better do something. What I did was to telephone Dana at the lunch hour Monday.

  I told her it was time for us to snap back to normal. I suggested a between-shows supper at my apartment that night. A nifty little meal that I could whip up. She seemed to like the idea, and we both promised solemnly that we’d wrap up all the words we knew which were synonymous with murder and shove ’em back in the dictionary. This was to be fun. It sounded swell when I thought it up. It sounded even better as night approached.

  She was coming over in a taxi the minute she finished the dinner show. She was going back just in time to put her make-up on and slip into an evening gown. That added up to two hours we’d have together; maybe fifteen minutes more than that.

  I shopped on the way home from the office, being careful to buy only things I knew I could cook. That meant lamb chops. I’m a bearcat with those. I bought a few flowers to pretty up the table. I stopped at the liquor store and bought a bottle of a domestic red wine which I knew by experience. It was good wine in anybody’s language.

  I set up the gateleg table in the middle of the floor and put the flowers on it. I stuck candles in two glass candlesticks. I figured that would be the payoff. House lights out, flickering glow of candles casting shadows on the wall. Maybe the night wasn’t made for love, but I intended to help all I could.

  I opened a can of asparagus, which is one of the neatest culinary tricks I know. I fished around in the cupboard and retrieved a tiny glass of genuine Russian caviar. I had saved it for a special occasion, and this was going to be extra special. I got out my wooden salad bowl and started tossing up a green salad. I had some chopped hard-boiled eggs to go with the caviar, a stick of butter, some bakery rolls, my imitation silver and my best napery. I laid off cooking the lamb chops until after the cocktails had been served. If they weren’t just right, the whole thing fell down.

  Housework doesn’t come easy to me. I puttered around in shirt sleeves and a cute little apron Dana had given me. It was half past nine before I caught up with myself. I lighted my pipe and relaxed. Nothing to do now but watch the clock crawl toward ten. Then it would be me and Dana. No murders, no hundred thousand dollars. Just a pretty girl and a mug trying to prove they were in love with each ot
her. We hadn’t had an evening like that in so long I’d almost forgotten how lovely it could be.

  At 9:40 on the dot, the buzzer sounded. Dana was early. Maybe she’d persuaded them to put on the dance act in the middle of the show. She must have worked some sort of miracle or she couldn’t be here this early.

  She wasn’t. I opened the door and let my jaw drop as I looked into Candy’s sapphire eyes.

  She had on a coat which could have been mink but which I’m willing to bet was sable. She was wearing a big, floppy green hat. She had on alligator shoes and carried an alligator bag. The coat was open, and I saw she was wearing a green woollen dress. It fitted her snugly enough so you didn’t have to strain your imagination.

  She stood staring at me, and I did the same right back at her. Then it hit me that I was forgetting all my party manners. I opened the door a little wider, stood back and said, “Miss Livingston, I presume.”

  She walked in, took off her coat and hat with a single gesture and flung them on a chair. She took a look at the table, at the foolish little apron I was wearing. She said, in her low, husky, exciting voice, “So that’s how it is.”

  I said, “Have a seat. I’m doing things with the cocktail shaker which might turn out to be Manhattans. How about one?”

  She glanced at the mantel clock. I could see her brain working. Near the witching hour of ten. Dinner in the process of preparation. I knew she knew it couldn’t be anybody but Dana Warren.

  She said, “I thought I’d come up and see you sometime. But I picked the wrong time.”

  I said, “Don’t be absurd. I’m delighted.”

  “Not very convincing. But before I go, tell me: Why don’t I get a break like this?”

  I grabbed onto that “before I go” business. I hoped she was serious. I said, “What would you be wanting with it?”

  “I could use it. It appeals to the domestic in me, plus other things. I’m also quite expert in a kitchen, believe it or not.”

  I said, “We’ll get together—soon.”

  She gave me a slow smile. “Not quite definite enough, Kirk. What are you: A man or a mice?”

  “A mice.”

  “Then I’ll diagram it for you. I, Candy Livingston, being of sound mind and body . . . not a bad body either, if I may say so . . . do solemnly state . . . That’s all mixed up. The idea is that I’ve been throwing myself at you. And you haven’t given me a tumble.”

  “I’m shy.”

  “Sure. This stage-setting proves it.” She made a motion toward her coat and hat. “I’m on my way. My telephone number is in the book. Try using it sometime.”

  The buzzer sounded again, two short rings, a pause, then a short ring. Too late for anything now. That was Dana.

  As I went to the door, I heard Candy say, “I’m sorry . . .” I opened the door and Dana came in. She had her coat over her arm. She was wearing a cute little dress; a sort of blue-and-gray plaid effect. Over her formal hair-do she had thrown a kerchief. She swept into the room and got an eyeful of Candy Livingston.

  It would have been funny if I hadn’t been so miserable. This was the topper. This was all I needed to make me certain that a black cat was living on the path I was walking. The two girls looked at each other, and then Dana moved across the room with her hand out. You’d have thought that this was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to her.

  They shook hands, said nice things about each other, and then Candy said, “I crashed a party. I’m checking out.”

  “You’re doing nothing of the sort.” Dana smiled at me. It was a lovely smile with icicles on it. “Have you enough for three, Kirk, or will each of us be one-third starved?”

  I said miserably that I had plenty for three. I fled into the kitchen. I slammed the cocktail shaker around, took down a third glass, poured the drinks, put them on a tray and brought them in. I was thinking, “Don’t be a damned fool, Dana. She wants to go. Let her do it.”

  But Dana had other ideas. She was putting herself out to be gracious and lovely. The play had been taken away from me. From here out, I was just the cook.

  I went into the kitchen, turned up the flame under the coffee percolator and started pitching lamb chops under the broiler. They sizzled and sputtered, and I hoped some of the fat would jump up and bite me. Then Dana would be sorry!

  I heard them arguing. The conventional thing. Candy said she wanted to go. Dana said No. She made it convincing. Maybe she wanted to create the impression that three made her happier than two. It made sense but it didn’t make me happy.

  We nibbled the caviar while the chops were doing their stuff. Dana didn’t even give me a look to indicate that this wasn’t just what she would have chosen if she’d had the chance. Romance for two had become boredom for three.

  The chops made a lot of smoke. I cooked them too much. I was slow taking the bakery rolls out of the oven and they were charred on top. I kept on thinking how nice this would be if Candy hadn’t selected this night to track me to my lair. I didn’t feel complimented. I felt like a kid who had looked forward to getting a certain toy on Christmas and gets two other toys, neither of which he wants. That was the way it was. Sure, I wanted Dana. But not this way.

  The dinner was not a startling success. Dana and Candy were apparently having a grand time, which only served to irk me more. I contributed my ten cents’ worth to the conversation, but what I said didn’t rate being written down for posterity. But it was the best I could do under the circumstances. The whole thing was a mess.

  Time passed faster than I would have believed possible. I didn’t realize that it was almost midnight until Dana got up and reached for her coat. Candy made a similar gesture, but Dana stopped her. She said, “Just because I’m a poor working goil is no reason for you to break your evening off in the middle.”

  Candy didn’t need much persuading. She let herself be talked into staying.

  Dana rejected my suggestion that I taxi her back to the club. Both she and Candy went thumbs down on the idea that we all go. I took Dana to the elevator. I said, “I’m awful sorry, honey. This wasn’t the way . . .”

  She gave me a sugary smile. “We had almost as much privacy as we would have had at the club, didn’t we Kirk?”

  The elevator door slid open. She stepped into the cage. It dropped out of sight. I said a few profane words and started back into the apartment.

  Wonderful evening. Everything just dandy.

  Candy was carrying dishes into the kitchen, scraping them and holding them under the hot-water faucet. Maybe she was a screwball, but she was also a pretty good kid. I pitched in with her. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do.

  She said, “I really loused things up, didn’t I?”

  I smiled vaguely and didn’t say Yes or No.

  “Trouble with you,” she went on, “is that you’ve got too much masculine charm, too much personality—”

  “And a, few brains.”

  She gave me time to cool down. I didn’t know what she was thinking about Dana and me, but whatever it was, I felt sure I wouldn’t like it.

  We got things straightened up. Candy found a bottle of benedictine and poured two thimblefuls. She set them on the coffee table and seated herself on the couch. She produced a platinum cigarette case. She lighted two cigarettes and passed one to me. She patted the cushion alongside her, and I sat on it. She said, “Alone at last.”

  I thought of an answer to that one, but kept it to myself.

  After a while she said, “May I talk?”

  “Sure. Go right ahead.”

  “When I came over here tonight, I had an idea. I’ve still got it.”

  “That puts you one up on me.”

  “Are you interested?”

  “Of course . . .” What else could I say?

  She started, stopped, and then started again. That was unusual for Miss Candy Livingston. I glanced at her. Her cheeks were flushed.

  She said, “I’m asking you a straight question, Kirk. You can give me a
straight answer. But more than anything else, I want you to believe I’m serious.”

  I waited. I thought I was prepared for anything, and I was. For anything except what came next.

  “You’re a very attractive man, Mr. Douglas,” she said slowly. “How would you like to marry twenty million dollars?”

  CHAPTER XIII

  I DON’T KNOW how I took that one. Instinctively, I knew she wasn’t kidding, but even then I couldn’t believe it.

  Twenty million dollars is a lot of money. Candy Livingston was a lot of girl. The combination was good. It wasn’t something you could laugh off even if you understood it. I didn’t.

  I had gotten along pretty well up to now. I didn’t have to fight my way through college. I stepped into a fair job when I graduated, then I had a stretch in the army, and then I had walked into another job. My work seemed to suit Yarborough & Jensen, and it looked as though I might be going places. But not the places Candy was offering.

  I sat on the couch alongside of her, doing nothing and saying the same thing. For the first time in our brief and unusual acquaintanceship, she was embarrassed. She dropped her cigarette in the ash try and let it smoulder. I reached over and ground it out. I could hear traffic noises. I could even hear the whirr inside the electric clock on the mantel.

  I wanted to talk, but I couldn’t figure what to say. If it were a gag, I didn’t want to appear to take it seriously. If she was serious, I was equally anxious not to hurt her feelings. It was a ridiculous position for a man to be in. Especially a man named Kirk Douglas.

  She said quietly, “You can’t quite figure whether I mean it, can you?”

  I nodded.

  “I mean it. Straight across the board.”

  “Why?” The question popped out before I knew I was going to ask it.

  She hesitated. “Perhaps,” she said, “because I’m in love with you.”

  Once again I was hanging on the ropes. I didn’t know the procedure in a case like this. The faintest sort of a smile showed briefly on her lips. She said, “Unaccustomed as you are to public proposals . . . you still make some sort of an answer.”