Make Out with Murder

by Lawrence Block

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Feels nice, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but I really don’t want to wind up frustrated.”

  “That must have been awful the other day. I hated to see you leave like that.”

  “I didn’t like it much myself, but I don’t have any money now and I—”

  “Who said anything about money, Chip?”

  “Huh?”

  She grinned wickedly. “Dumbbell. I’m not working now, you jerk. I’m on my own time, and I’m giving you a massage because you can use one. This is just therapy for you, baby. I’m not going to leave you tied up in knots. I’m going to untie knots you never knew you had.”

  “Oh.”

  “Now you lie still and just enjoy this. I’m going to take my time, and it may seem as though I’m teasing you, but it’ll just make it that much better at the end. You’re going to love this, baby.”

  She used her hands and her breasts and her lips and tongue. She found erogenous zones I hadn’t known I had, and at times it did seem as though she was teasing me, and at times I thought I would die if it didn’t end soon, and at j times I wanted it to go on forever, and at the very end she turned her sweet mouth into a vacuum cleaner and turned me inside-out.

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “I told you you were gonna love it.”

  “You’re absolutely fantastic.”

  “Well, I do this for a living, honey. There’s a lot to be said for professionalism.”

  “I guess there is.”

  “If I weren’t reasonably competent by now, I’d go into some other line of work. But I don’t get many complaints.”

  “You won’t get one from me.”

  “Come on,” she said, slapping me lightly on the thigh, “Put some clothes on and I’ll show you what I stole for you. And where do you get off saying I do a lousy impression of Peter Lorre? That wasn’t Peter Lorre. That was Akim Tamiroff, and I do a great Akim Tamiroff.”

  There was quite a stack of membership application forms from the two-week period preceding Jessica’s death. Indulgence evidently did a hell of a business, and if all its recreational therapists were like Andrea, I could understand why.

  What I couldn’t understand at first was why I was bothering to go through this pile of paper, since every third person seemed to be named John Smith. And most of the others were pretty obvious aliases. I read in one of Haig’s books that amateurs almost always use a first name, or a form of one, as the last name of their alias. So I ran into a high percentage of names like John Richards, Joe Andrews, Sam Joseph, and so on.

  Then I hit a name I knew, and then I hit it again, and then I hit it a third time, and I cabbed to Haig’s house with three pieces of paper in my pocket that would wrap up a murderer.

  Sixteen

  He was at his desk. “You left just before Mr. Shivers called me,” he said. He looked intolerably smug. “You’ll perhaps be pleased to know that my instincts were quite on the mark. I thought I knew who the killer was, and now all doubt has been removed.”

  “So has mine.”

  “Oh? That’s interesting. I’d enjoy hearing the line of reasoning you followed.”

  “I didn’t follow any line of reasoning,” I said. “My leg-work evidently got to the same place as your brainwork, and at about the same time. I reached Andrea Sugar and checked the records of men who had been to Indulgence shortly before Jessica was killed. I didn’t expect anything to come of it because I didn’t figure he would use his right name, but he probably had to because Jessica would recognize him.”

  “That’s logical.”

  “Thank you. He didn’t just go there once. He went there three times within the week preceding her death. I was thinking that you could call that a lot of nerve, but one thing the guy has not lacked is nerve. He’s about the nerviest bastard I’ve ever heard of.”

  “That’s well put.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome.” His hand went to his beard. “I find it fascinating the way your legwork and my mental work found the same goal by opposite routes. Do you remember something I told you the other day? That there was a definite Ross MacDonald cast to this entire affair?”

  “Something about forty years ago in Canada.”

  “That’s correct. But it’s closer to fifty years than forty, and the locale is somewhat south of the Canadian border.” He closed his eyes and stroked his beard some more. “What an extraordinary amount of planning he devoted to all of this. The man has elements of genius. He’s also quite mad, of course. The combination is by no means unheard of.”

  “Well, we’ve got him now. And these three slips of paper nail him to the wall.”

  And I passed them across to Haig.

  “Gregory Vandiver,” he read aloud.

  “May he rot in hell.”

  “But this is very curious,” he said.

  “What’s curious about it? I already explained why he must have figured he had to use his right name. Because Jessica would have known him already. You told me I was logical.”

  “I never said you were logical. I said that particular statement was logical.”

  “Well, what’s the problem? Vandiver has had cash problems. Of all the people in the case, he’s the only one with a real money motive. For most people the difference between two million dollars and ten million dollars doesn’t matter much, but he got into investments over his head and needed the prospect of really big money. So he—”

  “Be quiet, Chip.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake—”

  “Chip. Be quiet.”

  I became quiet. He turned around and watched the rasboras for awhile. They ignored him and I tried to. He turned to face me, but his eyes were closed and he was playing with his beard. Sometime I’m going to shave him in his sleep, and he’ll never be able to think straight again.

  He had been wearing his beard away for maybe five minutes when the doorbell rang. I stayed where I was and let Wong get it. A few seconds later he brought in a man who looked familiar. It took me a second or two to place him as one of the Sands Point police officers.

  He said, “Mr. Harrison? I’m Luther Polk, we met yesterday afternoon.”

  “Yes,” I said. I introduced him to Haig, who had by now opened his eyes. “I suppose you want a further statement, but I don’t think—”

  “No, it’s not that,” he said. “I will need a further statement from you eventually, but there’s something else. Do you want to sit down?”

  “No, but if you’d be more comfortable—” He shook his head. “I have some bad news for you,” he said slowly. “I felt I ought to bring it in person. Late last night or early this morning Mrs. Vandiver shot and killed her husband. She then took her own life. The bodies were discovered by servants at approximately ten this morning. Mrs. Vandiver left a sealed envelope addressed to you beside her typewriter. Under the circumstances it was necessary to open and read the letter. It’s a suicide note, and explains the reasons for her actions. I thought you would like to have it. I’ll need to retain it as evidence, but you may examine it now if you wish.” This is the note:

  Dear Chip,

  By the time you read this I will probably be dead by my own hand. Unless I lose my nerve, and I might. But I don’t think so.

  It was Gregory who tried to kill me by planting a bomb in my car. It was also Gregory who killed Melanie and Jessica and Robin, and he would have killed Kim too in due time. I found this out an hour ago when he tried a second time to kill me. He was attempting to strangle me in my sleep. I woke up in time to get loose. I’ve always kept a small pistol in my bedside table. I managed to get it in time. I shot him and killed him. In a few minutes I think I’ll shoot myself.

  I’m just so tired, Chip. Tired of everything. It’s astonishing that I could have been married to this man for so long without sensing his evil nature. I merely took it for granted that he was a bore. I never had an inkling that he was a homicidal maniac into the bargain.
>
  Maybe I’m in shock. Maybe suicide is an irrational act for me to perform. I certainly don’t feel guilty for having killed Gregory. It was self-defense, certainly, and I would be let off for that reason. So maybe I’m just using this as an excuse for something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.

  I don’t know if you can understand this, since I scarcely understand it myself. But I somehow think you might be able to, Chip.

  Please don’t think too badly of me.

  I read it through a couple of times. Then I gave it to Haig. “She was my client,” he said, “and I failed to protect her.”

  Luther Polk said, “Sir, if she was determined to take her own life—”

  “If I had had one more day,” Haig said. “One more day.”

  “It was definitely self-defense, just as she wrote it,” Polk went on. “There were abrasions on her throat from where her husband had tried to strangle her, and—”

  “Pfui!” Haig said. “Caitlin Vandiver did not write this bit of fiction. Gregory Vandiver did not attempt to strangle her. She did not shoot him. She did not shoot herself.”

  Polk just stared down at him.

  “A little over forty years ago,” Haig said. “And a bit to the south of Canada.”

  I probably should have picked up on it by then, but I was only half hearing the words. I picked up one of the membership forms from the desk and looked at the signature, and then I got it.

  “Oh,” I said.

  Haig looked at me.

  “I just recognized the handwriting,” I told him. “But what I can’t figure out is why. I know, forty years ago in Canada. But why?”

  “In a quick phrase?” He touched his beard. “Because he didn’t have the guts to kill his father,” he said.

  I tried to make some sense out of that one while Haig began listing names on a memorandum slip. Polk was saying something in the background. He must have felt as though he had walked into a Pinter play after having missed the first act. We both ignored him. Haig finished making his list and handed it to me.

  “I want these people in this room in an hour’s time. Do what you have to do to arrange it.”

  I read half the list and looked at him. “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” I said. “You’re not really going to do a whole production number, are you? Everybody in one room together while you show them what a genius you are. I mean, all you have to do is call the police.”

  “Chip.” He folded his hands on his desk. “This is the most extraordinary case I have ever had. The criminal is an archfiend of terrifying proportions. I am going to play this one strictly according to the book.”

  Seventeen

  You wouldn’t believe what I went through, getting them all there, And I couldn’t possibly bring it off in an hour, even with Luther Polk on hand to expedite matters. Polk was helpful, especially once he came to the conclusion that he was not going to know anything about what was going on until Leo Haig was ready to tell him.

  “He’s a genius,” I explained. “He was telling me just a few hours ago that there’s a very thin line between genius and insanity. You can think of him as walking along that line, doing a high-wire act on it.”

  “But you say he’s about to come up with a killer.”

  “He’s going to come down on one,” I said. “With both feet. And he’s got enough weight to land hard.”

  “Not all that much weight,” Polk said. “He’d be right trim if you was to stretch him out to a suitable length.”

  I pushed the image of Leo Haig being lengthened on a medieval rack as far out of mind as possible, and settled down to the serious business of setting the stage and assembling the audience. It took two hours and twelve minutes, and I think that was pretty good.

  They arrived in stages, of course, but I won’t burden you with the order of their coming, or the way I fielded their questions and settled them down. I’ll just tell you what the room looked like when Haig condescended to enter it.

  Wong Fat and I had set up a double row of chairs on my side of the partners’ desk, facing Haig. My own chair was off to the side, between the audience and the door.

  In the front row, farthest from me, sat Detective Vincent Gregorio. He was wearing a black silk suit with a subtle dark blue stripe and a pair of wing tip loafers you could see your face in if you were in a house where they covered the mirrors. I don’t know where he bought his clothes, but between them and his twenty-dollar haircut he looked like a walking advertisement for police corruption. I was surprised that he had agreed to come so readily. Maybe he got a charge out of it when Haig called him a witling.

  Andrea Sugar sat on Gregorio’s right, which was an obvious source of pleasure to Kid Handsome, because he was doing a courtship dance that a male Betta splendens would have been proud of, preening and posing and not knowing how little good it was going to do him. Andrea was wearing a maroon dress with bright red cherries all over it, and if you can’t think of the thoughts it inspired, that’s too damned bad, because I am not going to spell them out for you.

  I had put Addison Shivers, our sole surviving client, alongside Andrea. That also put him directly across the desk from Haig which seemed only proper. He was the angel for this theatrical production. His suit was probably as old as detective Gregorio, but it still looked good. He sat quite stiff in his chair, and when Haig came into the room he took off his glasses and cleaned them with his necktie.

  Kim was seated next to Mr. Shivers, with Gordie McLeod on the other side of her, which put him in the chair closest to mine. This had not been my idea. I would have preferred to be able to look directly at Kim without having him around to play the role of an automobile graveyard at the foot of a beautiful mountain. That’s a bad choice of words, actually, because Kim could not have looked less mountainous. She seemed to have grown smaller and more petite in the short time since I had seen her. She was wearing what she had worn earlier. I had seen nothing to object to then and I saw nothing to object to now, except for the hulking moron who was holding her hand in his paw.

  McLeod was wearing something loutish. I think he’d put on a clean bowling shirt in honor of the occasion. His shoes needed a shine and probably weren’t going to get one. They had thick soles, for stepping on people.

  Detective Wallace Seidenwall was directly behind McLeod, which put him closer to me than I might have wanted him. He had not grown discernibly fonder of me since our last meeting. “This better be good,” was a phrase which came trippingly to his lips during the waiting period. He didn’t say it as though he thought it was going to, either. He was wearing a gray glen plaid suit that Robert Hall had marked down for good reason. Either his partner got all the graft, or Seidenwall was running a yacht, or something, because he was due for a bitter disappointment again this fall when the Best Dressed list came out.

  Ferdinand Bell was next to Seidenwall, and he was the only one in the crowd who looked genuinely happy to be present. “This will be a treat,” he said upon entering, and he enjoyed himself immensely making small talk with the others and asking the names of all of the fish. He had on the same suit he’d worn to Melanie’s funeral. His short white hair set off his pink scalp, or maybe it was the other way around, and his plump cheeks reminded you more than ever of a chipmunk when he smiled, which was most of the time.

  I had stuck Luther Polk next to Bell, which put him directly behind Addison Shivers. (I know I’m taking forever giving you the geography of all this, and I know you could probably care less about the whole thing, but Haig spent so much time charting it out that it is conceivably important. I know I’d catch hell if I didn’t go through it all.) I don’t think I described Polk before, but if you’ve seen Dennis Weaver in that television series where he plays an Arizona marshal attached to the New York Police Department, then I won’t have to describe him for you. He had had relatively little to say to the two Homicide detectives, or they to him, and he sat there keeping his hand comfortingly close to the revolver on his hip.

  Madam Juana wa
s sitting on the far side of Polk. She was wearing her basic black dress and a string of pearls, and she looked like the stern-lipped administrator of a parochial school for girls. (I can’t help it, that’s what she looked like.)

  Well, it wasn’t what you would call perfect. I mean, there should have been three or four more obvious suspects present. John LiCastro would have been a nice addition to the group, but Haig had pointed out that it would have been an insensitive act to place him in the same room with policemen for no compelling reason. And it would have been even nicer if our other client had been present; if Haig had had just a few more hours to work with, Caitlin would have been alive.

  So it wasn’t perfect, but it was still a pretty decent showing, and I have to admit I got a kick out of it when Leo Haig marched into the room and every eye turned to take in the sight of him.

  He seated himself very carefully behind his desk. I had a bad moment when I thought he was going to put his feet up, but he got control of himself. He took his time meeting the eyes of each person in the room, including me, and then he closed his eyes and touched his beard and went into a tiny huddle with himself. It didn’t last as long as it might have.

  He opened his eyes and said, “I want to thank you for coming here. I am going to unmask a killer this afternoon, a killer who has in one way or another affected all our lives. Each of us has been thus affected, but not all of you are aware of the extent of this killer’s activities. So you must permit me to rehash some recent events. Not all of them will be news to any of you, and one of you will know all of what I am about to say, and more. Because the murderer is in this room.”

  He was grandstanding, but of course it went over well. Everybody turned and looked at everybody else.

  “This past Wednesday,” Haig said, “my associate Mr. Harrison discovered the body of Miss Melanie Trelawney. She had died of an overdose of heroin. Previously she had told Mr. Harrison that she feared for her life. His observations of the scene at Miss Trelawney’s apartment led Mr. Harrison to the certain conclusion that she had been murdered. When he confided his observations to me—”