Death Paints the Picture

by Lawrence Lariar

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  My guess was worthless. I imagined that Nicky made the trip to try to buy the new notes from Eileen. It was a stupid idea—unfit to mention.

  We strolled to the garage. Homer examined the floor for snow-marks. There were plenty. Nevin and Nicky and Gavano and a herd of wild horses might have stamped through that garage in the last hour. We entered the kitchen through the garage. It was empty.

  So was the library. Homer locked the door and tossed Eileen’s notes on the long table.

  “Care to read your girlfriend’s typing?”

  “I’ll read anything,” I said, “if I can sit still for fifteen minutes.”

  Homer pulled the cord for Lester.

  “I’ll arrange it, sonny. But put those notes into your pocket until Lester leaves, will you?”

  “You make me feel like the maiden in a Karloff thriller,” I said. “Why the hush-hush?”

  But Homer was serious. “When I leave with Lester, you’ll lock yourself in here, Hank. And don’t open the door for anybody until I return. I’ll be in the studio—I want to ask Lester a question or two about that easel.”

  “What’s the gag?” I grumbled. “Why do I sit here and play hard to get?”

  Homer stared at me impishly.

  “I’m not thinking of you, Hank. It’s those notes I value. I have a vague feeling that somebody may try to lay hands on them.”

  “That’d be fun. Why not give ’em the chance? I’d like nothing better than to crack a few skulls before we leave this joint.”

  There was a soft knock at the door.

  “Do as I say,” cautioned Homer, and opened the door for Lester.

  The big goon blinked at us.

  “How long have you been in your room, Lester?”

  “An hour, I guess.”

  “Was your wife with you all that time?”

  Lester nodded dumbly.

  “Good,” said Homer. “Tell me, Lester—how often did you clean Mr. Shipley’s studio?”

  “Every night.”

  “Come with me.” Homer led him into the hall and I locked the door.

  I relaxed in my fat chair, like a man in a furniture ad. It felt good to rest my bones. You get into a room lined with books and something happens to your inner man, somehow. Now I lit a cigarette and turned to Eileen’s notes.

  I read on:

  MEMORY NOTES—CHAPTER ONE OF

  MR. SHIPLEY’S MANUSCRIPT:

  (I’m using the first person, as Mr. Shipley did throughout this chapter. I thought that by doing the notes this way, I could give you a clearer picture of what was written.)

  “This is a dirty book about dirty people!”

  So, my friends, beware! I am tired of friends, bored with friends, deceived by friends, betrayed by friends, attacked by friends, etc., etc. (In the manner of a tirade by Balzac.) I have too many friends and not enough enemies. Why? Because all of my friends are my hypothetical enemies. I’d rather have a villain marked than hidden in the soft soap of a meaningless and artificial camaraderie. Enemies strike in the open. A man has a chance to draw his gun and return the fire. Friends? Friends connive, betray subtly, kill slowly, etc. Paradox of paradoxes—my friendly enemies must remain so—but for how long? I had a friend once. Now even he is gone. Or are you gone, Mike Gavano? (Here, a long passage explaining the fact that Gavano was once his boyhood pal. They were brought up together in the slums of New York’s East Side. He describes the tenement, the poverty, his family and the struggle for existence. He describes the East Side as: “The black cesspool of the biggest city in the world.” He goes on to say that he would still be in that part of the world, if it weren’t for Mike Gavano.) Mike and I were pals. Mike was a big kid—hard and tough and fearless. I have always been a coward. Once Mike saved my life. He taught me to know that I was a coward; that I wasn’t built for the life I had fallen into. I wasn’t a criminal. I couldn’t steal. Danger made me tremble with fear. Mike did me a great service. He proved to me that I was a coward. Because of him, I quit the group of misfits. I began to study—to sketch—to go to school. Mike made me an artist. But, Mike, I apologize. I can’t forget that might when we met, years later. I didn’t shake your hand. I didn’t want to know you, Mike Gavano. It would have seemed strange to my friends, if I had said hello.

  I am apologizing to you, Mike. I dropped your hand like a hot coal. I snubbed you. Now you want me to be sorry for the rest of my life, don’t you, Mike? You know how much of a coward I am. You think I’m afraid to talk. This book is yours, too, Mike. Read it and you will see why. I’m dedicating it to you first, Mike Gavano. And after you?

  It was after this last paragraph that I dozed off. Maybe it was the first bottle of stout I had gulped at Nat’s. Maybe I was tired. Or it might have been that Shipley’s reference to Gavano didn’t shock me. Plenty of artists have worked their way up from cesspools.

  I awoke to the sound of thumping on the library door. Not thumping—pounding. It frightened me for a minute. The door was actually trembling under the violent fists of somebody or other. For another minute I thought that the notes might be gone. I was clutching them in my right hand.

  I grabbed the yellow volume of erotica from the shelf, slapped the pages shut on the notes and returned it to its place among the books.

  Should I unlock the door? Homer’s warning checked me.

  “What do you want?” I managed.

  “It’s Lester! Open up!”

  I stepped toward the door and paused.

  “What’s up? What do you want?”

  “It’s Mr. Bull—he’s been slugged in the studio!”

  I swung the door open and held the knob in my hand. Lester stood before me. His face was a mask of fright. All the high blood pressure pink had left his cheeks, and his eyes were wide with horror.

  “You were in there with him, you ape! What happened?” I grabbed him by the lapels and tried to shake.

  “I went out. I dunno—”

  I pushed him backward an inch and sprinted down the hall before he could finish. My heart did nip-ups around my larynx.

  I heard Lester puffing behind me as I ran.

  CHAPTER 12

  Sluggings in the Studio

  I felt my heart beat a tattoo against my ribs.

  It was horrible.

  Homer lay on his back, near the huge oak easel. A crimson stream was curving a path down his fat cheek to the rug. The sight of the dripping blood stabbed at my midriff and made me swallow by breath. Under that blood, Homer’s face was the color of the unwashed dead, pale and grey and unlovely to look at. I forced myself to bend over his chest. There was the slow rhythm of breathing.

  “What happened to the lights?” I yapped at Lester over my shoulder. “Who turned off the lights?”

  “I dunno,” he drooled. “He was standing in the hall when I left him. I didn’t see no lights on in here.”

  I got off my knees and shoved the goon on his way. He muttered and minced out of the room.

  There was a sink arrangement in the far corner of the studio that Shipley must have used for his art work. I found an old towel and small bowl in the tabouret and filled the bowl in the sink.

  I kneeled at Homer’s side. The cold water brought a flicker to his eyes and he stirred a bit. I wet the towel again and wiped away the grizzly stain on his cheek. He had been hit hard, right over the forehead.

  I bent to lift him on the couch when something hard and heavy thwacked down on my head. The grey mass that was the couch became a fiery torch that rose up to slap me in the face, A flash of pain stabbed at my head and whirled me around in a world of technicolored stars and stripes. I felt myself spin off into a bottomless pit, red and green and yellow lights flashing in my brain.

  Someone had slapped a ragful of ice on my head. Ice water, stinking from s
ome antiseptic, trickled down my nose, splashed on my chin and drooled off down my neck. An eight cylinder engine banged rhythmically in my brain, and from somewhere up over my forehead I felt nine thousand needles prick my scalp.

  I opened my eyes. A strange, blurred face peered down at me. He came into focus after a second and I knew he must be the doctor Lester had called.

  Homer, his own head festooned in a mess of bandage, stared at me smilingly from over the medico’s shoulder.

  “Take it easy, son,” said the doctor. “You’ve had a bad shock.”

  “What hit me?” I asked, trying to get up.

  The doctor eased me down into the pillows.

  “Don’t get up until you feel strong enough.”

  I heard Swink cluck in Homer’s ear: “He’s hit bad.”

  “What hit me, Homer?”

  Homer shoved a wicked-looking fireplace tool under my nose. “You walked into this, Hank. A blunt instrument,” he smiled, “wielded with great force.”

  I sat up. The room began to surround me, move away and then spin around at an obtuse angle.

  “Be careful now, Sonny,” said Homer.

  I made it. I was on the leather davenport in the studio. A crowd of shadowy heads came into focus, and I saw Grace and Trum whispering near the window. Cunningham gaped at me from the end of the davenport, shaking his head sadly. Behind Homer stood Olympe, her hands full of bandage, her oval face pale and frightened. Stanley Nevin stood beside her, almost as pale.

  “No fracture, Doc?” asked Homer. “This iron is heavy enough to kill a man.”

  The doctor touched my head gently. I squirmed.

  He said: “You’re both lucky, gentlemen. Lucky to be alive. Another inch to the right and we’d have a different story.”

  I hefted the poker.

  “Lucky for us we’re natural fatheads, eh, Homer?” I tried to smile, but the needles jabbed deep into my sense of humor.

  Swink said: “Did you see anything before you were hit, MacAndrew?”

  “Not before—after,” I corrected. “I saw lots of funny lights.” I explained what had happened.

  Homer called Lester over to the davenport. The big ape crossed the room all atwitter, fumbling his hands.

  “Let’s have it,” said Homer. “From the time you left me in the hall.”

  Lester cleared his throat. “I was walkin’ down to the kitchen, after leavin’ you in the hall. My wife told me she wanted to give the food order, like she does every night this time. That’s on account of I always phone the market for tomorrow’s stuff. She was in the kitchen. She give me the order and I start back to the phone in the main hall. I happen to look in the studio. Then I see you on the floor and run for Mr. MacAndrew.”

  “You saw me from the hall?”

  Lester fidgeted. “No. I can’t see you from the hall. I didn’t hear nobody inside the studio, so I decide to take a look inside.”

  “What made you look inside?”

  “I dunno. Maybe it’s because I think you’re in here and there ain’t any light on.”

  “Did you turn the light on when you walked in?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why not, if you were worried about me?”

  “I dunno. I guess my eyes got used to seeing with only the hall light comin’ in.”

  “What did you do after you saw me?”

  There was a pause.

  “I was scared. I ran after Mr. MacAndrew right away.”

  “Did you see anybody else in this room?” Homer snapped.

  “Nobody.”

  “What happened after Mr. MacAndrew came in here?”

  “He told me to call a doc. I went to the hall phone and tried to get Doc Hilton. When I come back, there’s Mr. MacAndrew, layin’ on the floor with you.”

  “Did you see anybody in the hall, after you made the phone call?”

  Lester shifted, uneasily. “I saw Mr. Cunningham. He was walking through the dining room.”

  All eyes were on Cunningham.

  Homer continued: “How long were you gone to make that phone call?”

  “It took time. I couldn’t get the Doc right away.”

  “That’s true,” the doctor explained. “My wife wasn’t at home tonight. The maid gave Lester two phone numbers. Of course,” he smiled, “I was at the second place.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” said Homer. “That’ll be all, Lester.”

  Cunningham came forward. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to know what I was doing?”

  “Not at all,” Homer beamed. “What makes you think I’m interested?”

  “You probably will be, sooner or later,” Cunningham said. “I had just come in from outside, through the kitchen. You can check on me with Minnie Minton.”

  “Good enough, Cunningham.” Homer touched his head gingerly. “Now, if you’ll all kindly leave us alone—”

  At that moment Nicky English entered the room, bedecked in a purple robe, much too long for his boyish figure. He squinted around the studio in his birdlike fashion and his mouth dropped open in grinning amazement.

  “What goes on?” he piped. “Sherlock and Watson get socked by mysterious assailant?”

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “What detectives on what case were playfully conked by which mysterious thug in whose studio?”

  My gag got a laugh, but it didn’t last long.

  Homer eyed English slyly.

  “Where were you when the light went out, Nicky?”

  “Keep your shirt on, Bull; Nicky English is a past master at alibis.”

  “Nicky English had better come up with a good one,” I muttered.

  His lip curled my way. “I was up in my room, Watson, preparing for my evening milk bath. I came down to bawl hell out of Lester for filling my tub with Grade B. I am strictly a Grade A milk bather.”

  “Very funny,” I shot. “You should have been in vaudeville, Nicky. Vaudeville’s as dead as your wisecracks.”

  “I was in my room, Bull,” he snapped. “Take it or leave it!”

  “Don’t be self-conscious, Nicky,” cooed Homer. “Of course I’ll take it. All newspaper men are intrinsically honest, aren’t they?” He reached over and grabbed Nicky’s hands suddenly. “Are you anemic, Nicky? Or just cold? Your hands are like ice. One would think you had just come back from another walk in the snow.”

  English jerked his hands away.

  “You’re nuts. I just took a cold shower.”

  Homer’s face fell in mock agony. “Of course, Nicky, of course. I forgot that you were the cold water type. Nothing like a cold shower before hitting the hay, eh?”

  Gavano walked in, blowing on his hands.

  Homer chuckled. “You just have a cold shower, too, Mike?”

  Gavano gaped at our bandages, then laughed out loud.

  “I’ll be damned! Somebody beat me to it, Bull!” He pointed to me and burst into a fresh spasm. “I could’a done better myself!”

  “You think this is an amateur job, Gavano?”

  Gavano nodded violently. “O’ course! I don’t hit nobody behind his back. See, I woulda smashed your little schnozzle into a pulp, Bull!”

  “In that case, I’ll be a Pollyanna,” said Homer, and fingered his bandages lightly. “Now, if you people will all be good enough to leave, MacAndrew and I would appreciate a few moments of solitude.”

  Swink showed them out. I saw Trum hesitate at the door. He came over to the davenport.

  “I’d like to speak to you for a moment, if I may, Bull.”

  Homer again held his head. “I’m sorry, Trum. It’ll have to wait.”

  “But this is important.”

  “I’ll talk about it later. We must have time to lick our wounds.”

  Trum sucked his lip and moved toward the door. “I’ll be wa
iting for you in my room, Bull.”

  Homer dropped into an easy chair and fixed me with a cheery grin and a bleary eye. “Feel any better?”

  I nodded. “Strong enough to go five rounds with the guy who slammed me. Now why would anyone want to slug innocent MacAndrew?”

  “Look through your pockets, sonny. I expect our muscular friend has relieved you of Eileen’s notes.”

  “In the pig’s eye, he did!”

  “You mean you have them?”

  “Definitely!” I said, and told him what had happened in the library, mentioning the name of the book I had cached them in, its location on the shelf and the color of the binding.

  “Incredible! That loses you your amateur standing, Hank. Watson was a bungler compared with you.”

  The pain in my head became a dull drum beat, and I eased down to a more comfortable position. Skittering sharp jabs ran up and down my spine. I could hear a few low voices from somewhere down the hall, but when I twisted my neck to catch them the needles stabbed my head back into the pillows. I held my temples and said: “Damn it!” and bent forward until the pain passed.

  For some reason or other a sudden feeling of fear gnawed at my brain. Suppose the man with the poker came back again, switched out the main light and lit into me? I closed my eyes and toyed with the idea. I was certainly in bad shape for another such attack. There was sweat on my forehead.

  I didn’t like the idea. I forced my eyes open.

  Grace Lawrence was standing at the end of the davenport, staring down at me.

  “Oh, Hank,” she said, “isn’t this terrible? Was Homer hurt badly?”

  “He’ll live.”

  She bit her lip.

  “What’s eating you, Grace?”

  “What a louse I am!”

  “Are you telling me, or asking me?”

  She turned her wet eyes on me. “Please, Hank, I didn’t come back to wisecrack. I thought—”

  She meant it. I patted her knee. “MacAndrew apologizes, Grace. What’s on your mind?”

  “It’s all this—this mess.” She bit her lip again and almost sobbed. “I could have—”

  I caught the sound of a step in the doorway.

  It was Trum. He barged into the room, torn between a scowl and a frown.