The Eighth Circle

by Stanley Ellin

  He tilted forward to arrange a knife and fork on the table. “See? Here’s ole Robert E. Lee. Here’s ole George McClellan. But no G-2, no Military Intelligence. You follow?

  “Ole George says, ‘I can whip the ass off Robert E. Lee, but I got to know how many soldiers in his army first.’ He sends for sneaky ole Pinkerton, best damn detective in the whole world. ‘Mr. Pinkerton,’ he says, ‘you go find out for me how many soldiers ole Lee’s got.’

  “Pinkerton comes back. ‘Sire,’ he says—” and Crowley almost careened out of his chair as he executed a sweeping salute “ ‘—sire, ole Lee’s got a million men. Even worse. He’s got a million million men! Worse than that, sire, they’re armed to the teeth! They got cannons, mushrooms, swords, and galore!’”

  Didi looked at Murray. “Cross my heart—” she said helplessly, but whatever else was forthcoming was cut short by Crowley, now in full flight.

  “Ole George listens to this,” he said, cupping a hand behind his ear, “and he’s sick about it. Why? Because he doesn’t know that every word ole sneaky Pinkerton told him is a lie! Every word of it is right from under the horse’s tail. All he knows is he can’t whip any million million soldiers. So he sits it out until Marse Lincoln dumps him, and everybody in the whole world thinks he’s a bum. You follow?”

  “I follow,” said Murray.

  “Right. But who was the one made a bum out of him? It was ole sneaky Pinkerton, that’s who! Ole great detective telling a bunch of lies. What I want to know is, why’d he do it? Stupid, maybe? Somebody paying him off, maybe? You know detective business, so you tell me. Say, what’s your name, anyhow?”

  “Sheridan,” said Murray. “Ole Phil Sheridan.”

  Crowley exploded with laughter. “Son of a bitch, that’s great!” he bellowed, pounding the table delightedly. “Your name’s Murray Kirk, sneaky ole detective, but I like you!”

  “Mr. Crowley—” said a waiter behind Murray.

  Crowley brandished a steak knife over his head. “Here comes the cavalry!” he yelled. “Here comes ole Phil Sheridan!”

  The maître d’hôtel suddenly appeared with two other waiters. “Mr. Crowley,” he said, “I think we’d better help you to the lounge.”

  Murray pushed Didi into the revolving door and whirled her out to the sidewalk. “Ole Didi,” he said when he joined her there. “Ole Didi and her friends.”

  “Sweetie, I’ve been trying to tell you and tell you, and you just won’t listen. Will you please listen for one second?”

  “Nope.”

  “You will, too! I’ve been trying to tell you that he wasn’t one bit like that when I was talking to him before at his table. Not one tiny bit.”

  “You mean, Who would have thought the old man had so much booze in him? Hey, that’s pretty good! Ole Frank Conmy himself would have liked that one. He was always the man for a juicy Shakespearian paraphrase.”

  “It stinks,” Didi said wearily. “And it’s freezing out here. Where’ll we go now?”

  “To the St. Stephen.”

  “The St. Stephen! But it’s only nine o’clock! Nobody goes home at only nine o’clock.”

  “Who cares?” Murray said. “Let’s live dangerously for once.”

  He was measuring off two snifters of cognac in the kitchenette of the apartment, when he heard Didi’s voice raised from the bedroom.

  “Murray, what’s happened to all my things? I can’t find them in the closet, and it’s like an icebox in here.”

  “Then get out of there and look in the bottom drawer of the dresser. And stop yelling like that. What’ll the neighbors think?”

  “Oh, blank the neighbors,” said Didi, as he knew she would. When she emerged in a sheer ivory negligee he was waiting on the couch, warming a glass in each hand. She took one and idly held it up to the light. “Why’d you put everything away in the dresser like that, Murray?”

  “Oh, that was because of the cleaning woman. She is now one of Father Divine’s happy band, and she’s been going around so full of saintliness that a halo is beginning to form. Anyhow, I felt bad, because every time she opened that closet door I knew she felt bad, so I did something about it. End of story.”

  “You mean that?”

  “Sure I mean it. You don’t think I could make up anything as implausible as that on the spur of the moment, do you?”

  “I guess not. And you really are a doll, aren’t you, sweetie?” Didi stretched herself out comfortably with her head on his lap and her ankles crossed over the arm of the couch. “I thought it was the management or something, and I was going to be real huffy about it.”

  “Hell, no. The management is highly moral, all right, but only about the cheaper rooms. And don’t try to drink upside down like that. You’ll choke yourself.”

  “I will not. Just you watch and see.”

  He watched and saw with admiration.

  “Say, that’s a pretty neat trick. Where’d you pick it up?”

  “Oh, down Amarillo way when I was a little kid. Used to drink upside down from the spigot all the time. Made up my mind I could learn to do it, and kept at it until I could.”

  “That’s the stuff.” Murray finished his drink, and took a deep breath. “Didi, are you listening?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Then listen good. When do we have that little house party where I meet Ruth Vincent?”

  “Well, if you aren’t the man with the one-track mind! And you can stop rubbing my tummy like that. I don’t want you rubbing my tummy while you’re asking me to help you seduce somebody!”

  “Who the hell said anything about seducing? And it’s not your tummy. Only little girls have tummies. This is your belly.”

  “Well, whatever it is, you can just stop poking it. I’m not fooling, Murray. You make me feel downright indecent.”

  “I’m sorry,” Murray said. “I guess I’m not very bright sometimes.”

  Didi sat up and swung her feet to the floor. “I guess you’re not,” she said, and then studied his face with perplexity. “Murray, what is it with this girl? Are you in love with her?”

  “I am. Isn’t it the damndest thing?”

  “You mean, marrying love?”

  “Yes.”

  Didi was silent for a long while. Then she shivered and drew her feet up under her on the couch. “It’s cold,” she said. “Why don’t you make a little fire in that old fireplace? Doesn’t seem much sense to a fireplace without any fire in it.”

  He had been expecting her to say any one of a number of things, and was grateful that none of them was forthcoming. “I’ll get you a blanket,” he said. “It’s too much mess making a fire.”

  “No, it isn’t. First make the fire, and then you can get me a blanket and another drink, please.”

  Obediently he went to work until he had built up a fair blaze, and then went for the blanket and another snifter of cognac. When he returned she was sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, idly poking a stick into the ashes of the kindling. He handed her the drink and draped the blanket over her shoulders. “Warmer now?” he asked.

  “Some. No, don’t sit over on the couch. Pull that chair up here so I can lean on you.”

  He pulled up the armchair, and Didi let her head fall back against his knee. “Isn’t that funny?” she said. “Why’d they ever go and put fireplaces in a hotel like this, anyway?”

  “Not fireplaces,” Murray said; “just one fireplace. This is the only one in the building. Back in the Depression, when they’d do anything to keep a tenant, Frank had them make it for him. He told me it wasn’t much of a job, but I have my doubts.”

  “He must have been awful cold-blooded.”

  “Just the opposite. He claimed that he never met a pretty girl in all his life who could resist getting down on the floor in front of an open fire. And once she was on the floor—”

  “Why, the old goat!” Didi said in a shocked voice.

  “Smart old goat. Look where you are right now. Anyhow, it’s a
natural symbolism. Pretty girls always like to play with fire.”

  Didi gently patted his knee. “Not all of them, sweetie. Not the one you’re carrying that big old torch for. That one is all schoolteacher.”

  “Skip it,” Murray said.

  “I will not. All right, I will. But I can talk about you, can’t I?”

  “Is there any way I can stop you?”

  “No, there isn’t.” She turned around to face him. “Murray, did you know you were two different people, as different as different could be? Did you know how bad that could be for you?”

  “Why? Two can live as cheaply as one, can’t they?”

  “Oh, stop. You are two different people, and one of them’s in that office all day, or in court, or on a job someplace, and he can be the coldest, hardest, most sarcastic thing on two feet. And the other—tell me something, Murray. The time you started taking me places—I mean, right after Donaldson gave me the divorce—why did you do it?”

  Murray took the empty glass she thrust at him and set it on the floor. “You ought to know why. I thought you were kind of nice.”

  “No, you didn’t. I was a mess. I was just a scared, lonely, weepy mess. And you knew that, didn’t you? That’s why you came walking in right out of nowhere with a whole load of flowers and a big old bottle of perfume, wasn’t it?”

  “Was it?”

  “Yes, it was.” Didi banged his shoe with her fist. “And that’s your other side. That’s the Murray Kirk who’s kind and considerate and worries about how people feel and never laughs at them when they’re a little dumb sometimes.”

  “I never said you were dumb any time,” Murray protested. “And will you quit doing that to my foot? You’ll break a toe.”

  “I am dumb sometimes.” Didi banged his shoe even harder. “But I am also smart enough to know that you’re two different people, and it’s no good to keep them separate the way you do. All that happens is that one side watches the other, and doesn’t do anything to help. If you’d only put them together for once, you’d see how utterly crazy it is to go around swooning over this beautiful statue of a stuck-up schoolteacher. Oh, what’s the use!” she said, and wheeled around to face the fireplace. The stick she had been playing with was nearby, and she picked it up and flung it into the blaze.

  “This is a hell of a note,” Murray remarked to her back. “Have you ever heard me say one word against Evan or Alex or anyone else you were ever interested in?”

  “No, but I never told you I wanted to marry them, did I? You know Evan already had a wife, and I certainly don’t expect to marry Alex, for God’s sake.”

  “Why not? He seems to be a nice enough guy, all in all.”

  “I told you a long time ago why not. I wouldn’t marry any man in the world didn’t have money. I mean real money, too, not just a lot of talk.”

  “I guess that takes care of Alex, all right.”

  “Well, I can’t help it. He’s a lamb, but all he’s got right now is what I give him. If we got married he wouldn’t even have that much, because then the alimony would stop.” Didi shrugged listlessly. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll go marry good old Donaldson again. He’s sure got himself worked up for it.”

  “That’s a switch, isn’t it? Last time I asked—”

  “Oh, what do you care!” Didi said irritably. “Just bring me another drink, please, and stop picking at me.” She flung herself around to face him again. “Besides, what makes you think this girl would come to a party just because I invite her? She doesn’t look like the friendly type one bit.”

  “She’ll come. She’s crazy about Evan’s poetry, and I told her you used to know him. Build that up. Let her know you’d be glad to talk to her about him. Bring in a couple of that crowd that used to hang around him, and let her know she’ll meet them, too. Only thing is, don’t tell her I’ll be there. That might make a problem.”

  “Oho,” said Didi, “I can see it might. Murray, something already happened between you and that girl, didn’t it? What was it?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t quite figure it out myself.”

  “Did you make a pass at her or something?”

  “Now you sound like an army doctor asking an inductee about his sex life. Can we avoid the clinical note, please?”

  “Then you did,” said Didi with conviction. “And I bet you got a nice, hard kick right where it would do you no good at all.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. But I still don’t know. Suppose I do take care of this for you—I mean, suppose I go to all this trouble and everything. What would I get out of it?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Well—” She put her little finger into her mouth and sucked it thoughtfully while she regarded him with narrowed eyes. “You could buy one of Alex’s pictures. That’s the very least you could do.”

  “Very least!” Murray said, and then had to laugh. “Didi, everything that guy paints is the size of a circus tent. What would I do with anything that size in this place?”

  “Oh, aren’t you the dashing lover! Well, as it happens, there’s lots smaller things in his studio, and that’s where your precious party’ll be Saturday night. And you better bring your checkbook, too. That’s your ticket of admission.”

  “You blackmailer,” Murray said admiringly. “All right, it’s a deal. One small picture, hand painted. I’ll bring in the bottle, and we’ll drink to that.”

  Two hours later, with the bottle empty and the fire guttering out, she was sound asleep on the floor, curled in a foetal position under the blanket. She was still there the next morning, but now completely out of sight under the mound of additional blankets and the mink coat which Murray had courteously piled on her before making his own unsteady way to bed. Only a gentle rise and fall of the mound gave notice of life underneath it.

  When he left the apartment he closed the door very softly behind him, and, out of deference to the chambermaid’s delicate sensibilities, left the DO NOT DISTURB sign dangling from the knob outside.

  13

  A large part of the morning was spent trying to locate Harlingen—he was in court, Dinah Harlingen explained over the phone, but she wasn’t exactly sure which court—and then, after Mrs. Knapp had located him on the basis of this slender clue, waiting for him to get to the office. By the time he arrived Murray had brought the Lundeen file up to date and had prepared a discreetly censored outline of it. He and Harlingen put in a long session over the outline.

  It was clear that various items in it, and especially the notes on Schrade’s story, did not make Harlingen too happy. Not that Conmy-Kirk wasn’t doing a good job, he hastened to assure Murray. On the contrary, it was doing a damn fine job. After all, fit all this stuff together the way Murray had done, and what did you have but a perfect picture of LoScalzo’s line of attack. Miller’s five previous convictions would seem to give him a motive for paying an exorbitant bribe, and that was the springboard. Then Miller would testify that the stand-in arrest had been arranged at the very time Lundeen was away from Benny Floyd. And then Schrade would step up and swear to his own part in the affair, and that was it. Why, the Conmy-Kirk report was as good as a blueprint of the prosecution’s whole case!

  Trouble was, however, that knowing a man’s line of attack didn’t automatically provide you with a satisfactory defense against it. Take the time element, for example. If LoScalzo was out to prove that the deal had been arranged at the very time Lundeen was with this floozie Helene, she’d have to take the stand, wouldn’t she? She was the only one who could alibi Lundeen, wasn’t she?

  “What about it?” Murray said. He had been looking forward to this part of the discussion with relish. “My money says that the jury’ll take one look and go for her as big as Lundeen did.”

  “That isn’t the same as believing her. And it isn’t what I meant, anyhow. Can you picture how this will hit Ruth? It’ll be awful. I don’t even know if Arnold would allow me to put that woman on the stand. I’ll have t
o talk to him about it. And I should talk to the woman, too. She may—”

  Murray felt a quick alarm at the way his trump card was being snatched from his hand. “Hold on,” he said. “As far as Lundeen is concerned, there’s no point making an issue of this thing until we have the whole case lined up, and he can see he has no choice in the matter. And with Helene—well, I’d say that the best thing is for you to stay away from her altogether for the time being.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the situation with her is a little more complicated than I might have made it look. It’s sort of a touchy setup.”

  Harlingen shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, Helene has a husband. He was probably right there on the scene that day, along with her and Lundeen.”

  Harlingen immediately brightened. “But what’s wrong with that? I think it’s fine. It couldn’t be better. It gives us a corroborating witness, and it certainly proves that Lundeen and that woman—”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “You’d have to see the old coot to know what I mean. He’s about forty or fifty years older than the girl and looks like a toadstool, but even more poisonous. My hunch is that he gets his kicks watching through the keyhole.”

  “My God!” said Harlingen.

  “That’s only part of it. He’s also one of those types who are a little offbeat when they talk to you. The kind who can suddenly cut loose in the witness chair and turn everything into a holy show. As a witness he’d be murder. Of course, since I know my way around him and the girl now, I can handle them pretty well. That’s why I think you’d do better to leave them to me until it’s really necessary for you to step in.”

  Harlingen looked like a man who had found an especially loathsome serpent twining around his arm and was still shaken by the experience. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I see your point. If you’re on good terms with them I wouldn’t want to endanger that.” There was no regret in his voice when he said it. “And after all,” he went on with growing assurance, “if the woman does testify, she doesn’t have to explain what happened in detail, does she? She could say that Arnold was an old friend. That he dropped in for a cup of coffee. At least we’d be sparing Ruth that much.”