by Eric Lane
And Nurse Vigesmond, and the Manzano brothers of Manzano Bros. Construction, and the checkout girl at the Holiday Inn. All the ones who took advantage and knew they shouldn’t have.
And then … last week …
Mr. Finn comes into the office. And smiles. I know that smile. It’s the smile Mr. Finn has when he’s found a couple on their last legs and he’s gotten them to sign a five-year fully loaded deluxe package lease he knows they’re never gonna live long enough to enjoy. It’s the smile he has when he’s tricked the Cuban boys to work another hour because he didn’t tell them about daylight savings. Mr. Finn is smiling that smile at me.
“Hi, there, killer.”
I pretend I think he’s come up with a clever nickname for me.
But he hasn’t. He has a letter in his hand. And reads.
“ ‘There is a murderer among us. A murderer who has committed at least six killings in the last four years. And that murderer spends each working hour within the members’ office of Riddle Key.’ ”
I swallow. “That’s it?”
“Isn’t that enough? I’m not saying I NEVER suspected you. I mean, the way Dr. Vasquez and his girlfriend got fried in that sitz bath. And when the Reverend Chuck got drowned during Mrs. Peshke’s ‘Jesus Loves Jews’ baptism? I’ve been looking through the files all weekend: suffocations, electrocutions … strangulation by sheets?! And one constant factor: Miss Minka Lupino.”
I am sweating. I have killed so many people for such a long time now without fearing anyone that it is the mere newness of the concept that frightens me.
“Are you going to call the police?”
“And ruin a winning streak? No, Miss Lupino. I don’t know who sent this, but I am afraid this office has overlooked your talents for too long. I want you to keep doing what you’re doing. But with some guidance. We have a problem the front office is concerned about. As you know, our five-year plan almost always works to our advantage. But there is one who has overstayed his welcome, and due to a loophole in the original contract, is paying only the absolute minimum on a valuable villa that could garner millions on the open market … unless you kill him.
“His name is Jay G. Garland.”
My heart has stopped.
“But he’s my favorite author.”
“Well, then, Minka … this will give you a chance to meet him.”
Three days later …
It’s Saturday night.
There’s a dance up at the club. Big-band swing music drifts over the lawns as I drive the cart up the cul-de-sac to Mr. Garland’s villa.
The plan is not mine, the plan is Mr. Finn’s. I’m to ring the doorbell and tell Mr. Garland I have some documents for him to sign, and then hit him on the head with a lead pipe.
It’s so pedestrian. Murdering a man like Jay G. Garland that way. It’s like serving KFC to Julia Child.
When I reach the front steps, I halt.
There’s music inside.
“You’ll be swell.
“You’ll be great.
“Gonna have the whole world on a plate.”
I raise my hand to knock.
And the door opens.
Standing before me is a man of indeterminate age. His hair, what’s left of it, is the color of squid ink and barbecue sauce. He has a mustache and goatee, half-glasses, jowly cheeks, pale, he never goes out in the sun. He wears a green brocade dressing gown, a white dress shirt, and a dress bow tie. He holds a brandy snifter.
“Enter.”
I go inside where I am immediately transported into a world that is the exact opposite of the world people who like sports inhabit. Red flock wallpaper, lamps with tassels, Persian carpets, antiques.
Jay G. Garland is limping, leaning on a cane with a huge ivory head shaped like snake.
“Have you ever noticed that women seldom get gout?”
I have noticed this, but this is not the time to brag.
I look at his foot. It’s gigantic. A whole extra human at the end of his leg.
“Would you like a drink? What do we have? Vodka, brandy … Cherry Herring?”
What did he say? No one offers anyone Cherry Herring.
“I can’t touch the stuff. Dr. Nagangupta says if I do, my whole body will explode but I’ll still have to hang around to clean up the mess. I’m a goddamned wreck, but they can’t kill me. Sit. Now, before you do what you have to do, let me try out a story on you. You like mystery stories?”
Uh-huh.
“I’ve been noodling for a while, but I’m kinda rusty and I could use a sounding board. A killer. Let’s call her a her. For fun. Starts to knock off the rotters in a town or village. They’re stinkers and she’s an avenging angel type. Gets in Dutch though, blackmailer has the goods on her, tells her she has to kill someone she doesn’t have in the ledger, someone she likes … or the blackmailer gives her the shiv. This hooking you?”
Yeah, I’m hooked.
“Now. She could kill the blackmailer. But he’s on his guard. So she has no choice but to go through with the deal. But she doesn’t want to kill the guy. She’d like to put paid the blackmailer too. What’s a girl to do?”
Jay G. Garland opens his hooded eyes.
“Question is—what kind of person is she? Is she a murderer? Really? In the sense that she is defined by her murder? A person who becomes a murderer and never really goes back to what she was kind of murderer? Or. Is she a very nice, very pleasant, very moral woman who just happens to have committed a couple of murders?”
“I think it’s the latter.”
“And frankly, she’s pretty much run the table on all the creeps in the town, so there’s no one left to bump off … save one.”
He manages to lean forward, a big physical move. He makes Nero Wolfe look like Ben Vereen.
“Who do you think lets in all those bums anyway? Who turns a blind eye to the Young Phils and the Muffs and the rest of them?”
“The blackmailer?”
“Bingo. And by now …” He glances at a grandfather clock with the face of Noël Coward and I don’t even want to tell you what the big hand and the little hand were. “… By now our friends should have him taken care of.”
I stare at my idol.
“You’re wondering how I knew it was you. Your last three murders were from my own books—Murder Gotta Gimmick, A Little Night Murder and Murder at Jules Feiffer’s Little Murders. And who here at Riddle Key would know my books as well as Ms. Minka Lupino, who has purchased more cheesy paperback copies of my books than any other buyer on Amazon-dot-com.”
I had left an e-trail!
“And now … since we understand each other … go.”
“Go where?”
“To the club. There are people there who owe you a debt of gratitude. And they are waiting to show you their thanks.”
So I go. As I do, I hear sirens. Two ambulances are shooting through the streets, one going up, one going down. Busy night in Riddle Key.
When I arrive at the club where Mr. Finn is to wait for me, the darkened ballroom is filled with figures, white hair, blue hair, toupees, bald pates … dancing in the dark to “Stardust.” But there is no Mr. Finn.
I look down at the dance floor. There is a fine dusting of white sand on the parquet. And as I look at the dancers, I could swear I see the odd smile, hear the odd giggle, a whispered but buoyant “Shush!”
I look out through the ballroom windows to the eighteenth green. And there, gathered outside on the grass are … the Cuban fellas. They’re sweating, glistening in the moonlight, as if they’ve been hard at work … and at this time of night …
They hold shovels and rakes. And they’re smiling at me. And they give me a little thumbs-up good-goin’ sign.
Mr. Finn doesn’t show up that night. Nor does he show up the next day or on Monday or any day at all, ever again.
These days Riddle Key is a lot less lethal a place. People die, that’s part of the deal, but not at such an accelerated rate.
And out
on the eighteenth green—where the Cuban boys buried Mr. Finn—the sand trap rides a little higher and a little lumpier.
Now I sit in Mr. Finn’s old office, showing new tenants the grounds, the housing, the amenities. And they always notice the books on my shelf. All of them hardback first editions of the works of Jay G. Garland, all personally inscribed to me.
“To Minka Lupino. If anybody ever murdered me, I’d want it to be you.”
END OF PLAY
NINE POINT EIGHT METERS PER SECOND PER SECOND
Pete Barry
Nine Point Eight Meters per Second per Second premiered at Circle Players Theater in Piscataway, New Jersey, as part of an evening titled Accidents Happen, July 18–26, 2008. It was directed by the playwright. The cast was as follows:
BALTHAZAR John P. Dowgin
It was later produced and selected as a finalist at the 34th Annual Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival, in July of 2009. It was directed by J. Michael DeAngelis. The cast was as follows:
BALTHAZAR Pete Barry
A single comfortable chair in the void; slight movement and a sound of wind make it clear that the chair is plummeting through the atmosphere. BALTHAZAR KENT, a wiry-haired English gentleman, dozes.
He jolts awake, looks around, and digs his BlackBerry out of his pocket.
He dials.
BALTHAZAR: Hullo?
Yes. I’d like to speak to a manager.
Well you see I was hopping your flight five-four-nine from Heathrow to Los Angeles, and now I appear to be falling out of the sky.
Yes, I’ll hold.
(Pushes a button on the BlackBerry.)
Michael. I’ll be late to the four-o’clock in California. Stall the meeting. Call me back. Quickly.
(Pushes another button.)
Hullo? Yes, sir, I’m falling. Still in my seat, though. It seems to have come with me. Where am I? Somewhere between London and Los Angeles. I know we had reached North America. I’m sorry if I can’t be more specific.
I’d like to resolve this problem within the next two minutes, if possible.
I’m assuming that’s the maximum amount of time I have before I hit the ground.
Yes, sir, I did the differential calculus, taking into account my drag, vector velocity, and the earth’s gravitational pull at nine point eight meters per second per second.
How do I know the earth’s gravity? The wonders of a liberal education.
Yes, I’m sure you are unfamiliar with liberal education, sir. Otherwise you would not be answering the telephone in an airport terminal.
Hold please.
(Pushes a button.)
Michael.
Get that bloke from accounting, the corpulent fellow, Hinkley. Ask him if it’s true that if one’s parachute should fail to open during free fall one should pump one’s legs as if running as ground approaches. I’ve heard that somewhere. And call my wife and tell her to up my life insurance policy, if she knows what’s good for her. Call me back. No buts, Michael.
(Pushes a button.)
Yes, sir, where were we?
It would help if you could tell me how to unfasten this belt buckle.
The chair is a flotation device? I hardly believe that helps if I hit the ground at several hundred miles per hour.
I highly doubt that it will bounce.
Where is the plane? Sir, it’s your company’s plane. It wasn’t my responsibility to keep abreast of it.
It may have been destroyed in a terrorist attack, or perhaps my seat was inadvertently sucked out of a fire exit.
Frankly, sir, if the engineers who constructed that aeroplane are of your caliber of intelligence, it is quite possible that the entire machine spontaneously burst into its component sheet metal.
I just don’t see how this is my problem.
Please hold.
(Pushes a button.)
Simone, darling how are you? Quickly, darling, up my accidental death policy.
No I don’t believe it’s going to matter, I’m going to pump my legs as I hit the ground, once I get out of this chair. Still, it’s best to be prepared.
Well, I’m not sure if there’s anything wrong with the plane. I’m not on the plane. Why is everyone so concerned about the damn plane?
Yes, I’m plummeting to earth, darling.
How is this my fault?
You tell me not to go to the office every day of the week! Your horoscope has been wrong several hundred thousand times to date!
Am I wearing my good suit?
HEAVEN FORBID I SHOULD FALL OUT OF AN AIRPLANE AND IT NOT BE TO YOUR EXACT SPECIFICATIONS, MADAM!
Look, got to resolve this thing, I’ll call you back.
(Pushes a button.)
Yes, have you figured out this seat belt yet?
Michael?
Have you got Hinkley?
Have you stalled the meeting?
Then what are you calling me for?
I called you? Don’t be stupid, Michael, do what I’m asking you to.
(Pushes a button.)
Hello, who is this, now?
Yes, the seat buckle is stuck.
Lovely.
Cut it? Sir, your company would have relieved me of my undergarments if they believed I could have used them as a sharp weapon.
Look, perhaps you have some sort of owner’s manual.
I can’t see how I can start running while sitting down.
All right, I’ll try it.
(He fiddles with the buckle, and it pops open.)
Oh, look at that, something you suggested actually worked.
Fine, I’m abandoning the chair.
(He slides out of the chair, looks down, and scuttles back into it.)
SHIT.
Shit. All right. It’s not land. It’s water. The ocean. Shit. I wasn’t prepared for this. I suppose we hadn’t reached the continent. All right. I’m back in the chair. Wait. Is hitting water like hitting the ground? Maybe I could still pump my legs. Or will I sink right through? Should I buckle in? Or not buckle in? All right. Is this chair solid? Is that good or bad? Should I hold my breath? Will the impact harm me if I do? Are you there? Is this chair safe? Oh my God is that a shark? Is it true that—
(Black, and SPLASH, and the deep, quiet sound of immersion in water. Then the gentle white noise of ocean waves.
Lights up.
BALTHAZAR lies motionless in the chair, mouth wide open.
His BlackBerry beeps.
Beeps.
Beeps.
He sits up and answers it.)
Hullo, yes? (Long pauvse.) Is Portia here?
Well let me check.
No, sorry, I don’t believe Portia is here right now, you see I’m in the middle of the FUCKING OCEAN.
Yes I believe you have a wrong number. Now—
NO NO WAIT DON’T HANG UP.
Are you an American?
A Canadian? Even better.
You must alert the authorities. The, Mounties, or whatever you have.
My name is Balthazar Kent, and I am an extremely important—
What?
Yes, Balthazar, yes that really is my name.
Well, ha ha ha, and what’s your name?
Well, hello, Marta, you sound like a very stupid girl.
Oh, you’re top of your class at university? And employee of the week?
Well let me ask you this, Marta, did you clear over one point six million pounds for your company last quarter?
Oh, you didn’t?
Well, you see, I did, Marta. So I’m rather an important fellow. And I’m currently late for a meeting in California. So if you’ve any brains in your head at all, you’ll call the authorities right now, so they can get me to my meeting.
NO DON’T HANG UP.
Please ask a manager or someone else to make the call for you.
Thank you.
What is this, anyway? A telemarketing firm?
Why on earth are you calling a British mobile number?
&nbs
p; Your manager has the authorities? Can you patch me through or whatever?
Hullo? Is this the Mounties?
Oh, you’re just the regular police, then.
I can barely hear you, sir.
Well I am in the middle of the ocean.
The Atlantic, I presume.
I was on an intercontinental flight to Los Angeles, and—
Oh, on the news, eh?
Do you know what happened? (Long pause.) You have got to be kidding me. (Pause.)
I am never, ever, ever, ever, flying with this company again.
No, I suggest you don’t, either.
What do you mean?
Just come pick me up.
I don’t know, don’t you people have helicopters?
I’m on a bloody BlackBerry! Can’t it be tracked with some kind of satellite triangulation?
Well, why don’t you ask Marta? She’s top of her class at university!
NO DON’T—
Yes, hello, Marta, I was just wondering if you were studying satellite transmissions or global positioning systems at university.
You’re studying theater. How nice.
Yes, you’re right we did have two. Shakespeare and Milton. We didn’t produce a single other author or poet.
Well of course I’m glad to be talking to you, Marta, I was getting worried I wouldn’t hear the dulcet tones of your voice again.
No I won’t explain what “dulcet” means. You should have studied that at university.
Look, I’m just getting a little tired of people not doing what I’m asking them to.
What time is it in California? I can’t keep these clients waiting forever.
Yes, Marta, I really am in the middle of the ocean.
Will I die? What kind of bloody morbid question is that? How could I possibly calculate that kind of probability?
Am I prepared to die? What on earth do you …?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I’m sorry, Marta, the signal is very bad. I must not have heard you properly. I swear I thought you asked me … (Pause.) … if Jesus Christ was my Lord and Savior.