Kill the Mother!

by Michael Mallory

  “Jesus!” I cried, diving off the sofa onto the floor. A couple seconds later, the revolver dropped down into my field of vision. I quickly grabbed it and then sat up. Marcy was standing over me, wearing a smile, and holding another gun, this one an automatic. “The gun you’re holding is empty, so don’t bother trying to use it. This one, however, has a full clip.” She leveled the automatic at my forehead. “By the way, I wiped that one clean on my robe before I threw it, so the only prints the police will find on it are yours.”

  “You think of everything,” I said, grimly.

  “Yes, I do. Now get up.”

  I was thinking furiously, and coming up with little. Then, “Wait,” I said. “Colfax knows someone took a shot at me.”

  “That wasn’t my idea,” she said. “It was those idiot kids. They came to enjoy firing the gun.”

  “But if you’re trying to make me out to be the killer, how do you explain those shots?”

  “Who witnessed the shooting?”

  “Colfax took the bullet.”

  “But who witnessed the actual shooting?”

  “No one, but—”

  “Then as far as he knows, you staged the entire thing for purposes of misdirection. And since the bullets came from the gun you’re holding, that’s the proof.”

  This was going from bad to worse.

  Leaning down to me, Marcy asked, “Anything else?”

  Think! Ah! “You’ve forgotten something, Marcy,” I said, feeling the perspiration forming on my upper lip. “You killed Nora because she knew your secret, but someone else does, too.”

  “Who.”

  “The detective she hired to find you. He must know.”

  “You know, Nora actually tried to use that against me as well. At first she said my secret would be safe with her as long as I was ‘part of the team,’ meaning at her beck and call. Then when I found out what she was hiding, she tried to use her investigator’s knowledge as the chip that kept her on top of the situation. Nora hated even playing fields. But now that Nora’s dead, all I have to do is find out who the investigator is and offer a deal. If he doesn’t take it, then.…” She raised the gun to the level of my head and made a popping sound with her mouth.

  “The thing is, Marcy, I know who the man is,” I said. “I saw his invoice in Nora’s desk. If you kill me, that information dies with me.”

  She regarded me with amusement. Or maybe it was pity. “Except for the fact that you’ve just told me where to find it.”

  That tears it, William Powell’s voice said in my head. We’re through, you and I. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

  Marcy DeBanzi straightened up and motioned for me to get up off the floor with the gun. “Any more doomed attempts to save your ass you feel like trying before the inevitable occurs?” she asked.

  “Didn’t last night mean anything to you?” I groaned, slowly facing her. “We spent all night together, naked.”

  “Yes, and there’s a black mole on your left side you should have checked out. Oh, wait, never mind. You’ll be dead soon.”

  “Marcy.…”

  “You want me to say I enjoyed last night?” she asked. “Fine, I did, even though my primary reason for jumping you was to prevent you from taking that phone call, which I assumed would be the police. Had you taken it, we would have gone through all this last night. Instead, we had a little fun, and I take my fun where I can. You’re a boy scout, Dave, a goofy, naïve puppy dog pretending to be a grown up. But oddly, you’re not that bad in the sack.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it. Now let’s get this over with.” She came closer and stuck the barrel of the automatic between my eyes, which I closed. “Oh, for crying out loud, get your damn eyes open and walk over to the fireplace,” she ordered.

  I peeked. “The fireplace?”

  “You know, the place where you build a fire? Over there, and hurry.”

  I did as she commanded, but walked backwards, never turning my face away from her or the gun for more than a second. Think! Either think of something or die! “You know, Marcy, someone had to hear the shots you just fired,” I said, back up and dropping the empty gun she had thrown to me down on the couch. “They’ve probably already called the cops.”

  “That’s the idea. The cops will find you unconscious on the floor, two bullet holes in my wall from the murder weapon, covered in your prints, me half-naked and hysterical, having been raped—”

  “Raped! Come on! The cops will see through your story.”

  “Not if I sell it well enough, and believe me, I will. I may have confessed that I didn’t like acting, but I never said I wasn’t good at it. Now stop.” Keeping the automatic trained on me, she slowly reached over and took the iron fireplace poker in her other hand. “The police will be told you fired at me but missed, and then ran out of bullets, and I was able to get to the fireplace and grab the poker and hit you over the head with it.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier just to shoot me?”

  “Not with this gun. If the cops were to trace the registration, it would lead them straight to the thing I’m trying to hide. That revolver over there is unregistered, and that’s the only gun they’ll find. Now kneel.”

  “What?”

  “Get on your knees.”

  “You’ve already said you weren’t going to shoot me, Marcy,” I said, “so why should I?”

  In response, she took a murderous swing at me with the poker, which I barely avoided by throwing myself onto the floor. Then she tapped me on the head with the end of it. For anyone who has never been threatened with an iron poker, even being tapped with it is extremely painful. But it also makes one a little angry. I tried to rise up, but she hit me again, harder this time, hard enough to make my vision go all red. “Damn,” I muttered, sinking back to my knees. I knew if I tried moving again, she would start clubbing me in earnest, so the more I resisted, the more convincing my injuries would look to the police. Gazing up with eyes now tinted with pain, I saw her toss the Luger on the sofa. “I’ll hide it later,” she said, “after I’m done playing piñata.”

  If there was a way out of this, I couldn’t see it. Or so I thought. Glancing past her to the front wall of her house, it came to me. It was a longshot, but I was out of shortshots. “Marcy, would you allow me one last question for old time’s sake?” I begged.

  “Christ. Make it fast.”

  “Do you watch a lot of movies? Television?”

  She looked puzzled. “I knocked your brain loose, didn’t I?”

  “Humor me and answer the question.”

  “No, Dave, I do not watch a lot of movies or television. Besides, if you’re thinking of asking me out on a date for dinner and a show, I think we’re a bit past that in our relationship.”

  “I know, I know. It’s just that you seem to be so proficient at planning crimes down to the last detail that I wondered if you’d gotten that knowledge from watching—” I stopped talking, and looked past her to the front window, which was mostly blocked by heavy blue drapes, except for a couple inches in the middle where the curtains didn’t close. Looking past her, I widened my eyes. “Detective Colfax, thank god you’re here!” I shouted, “Hurry!”

  Instinctively Marcy spun around to look at the window, and as she did I leapt to my feet and, ignoring the severe pain in my head, launched myself at her, grabbing her from behind in a bear hug, and pushed forward with all my weight. She screamed as she tumbled face first to the hardwood floor, the fireplace poker falling beneath her. “Ow, fuck!” she shrieked. “Do you know how much that hurt, you asshole?”

  “Yes, I think I do,” I said, kneeling on her back, pinning the poker under her weight, while I grabbed her left wrist and twisted her arm with both hands, desperation and anger enhancing whatever natural strength I possessed. She screamed again, and I didn’t care.

  There had, of course, been no one at the window. The old look-over-the-shoulder-and-pretend-to-see-someone bit was the second oldest
in the book (just after rubbing a pencil over a blank page to reveal writing indentations), but only someone who watched movies and television would know that.

  “I think I’ve got a broken rib, you cocksucker!” she cried. I still didn’t care. I gave her enough room to move her right arm out from under her, but only so I could also grab it and twist it behind her. The poker was still underneath her, and it had to hurt. Still, she put up a good fight, but I was bigger. When she ceased fighting momentarily, I was able to whip off my belt and use it to cinch her wrists together. Holding her arms in a makeshift lasso with one hand, I groped around for my cell phone. Finding it, I dialed 911 and reported a shooting. I didn’t trust that a neighbor would have heard the shots. Marcy screamed and struggled underneath me, calling me names I wasn’t sure had been invented yet, but I was able to ride her, bronc style, hoping she would soon surrender. When I had finished calling, I tossed the cell away, and lifted myself off of her and pulled on the belt, until I had pulled her torso up off the floor. It looked horrifically uncomfortable.

  “I hate you!” she screamed.

  “I think you’re beautiful,” I replied. “If I hadn’t fallen in love with you, I’d go get that automatic and shoot you through the head.”

  Like hell you would! Bogie sneered inside my brain. You’re not the killer type.

  He was right, of course, but Marcy didn’t need to know that.

  Holding her with one hand, I was able to reach the revolver the other. I rubbed it all over my clothing, hoping that it was enough to eradicate, or at least blur, the prints. After about three exhausting, invective-filled minutes, a police car arrived at the house. The doorbell rang and as loudly as I could, I shouted: “Officers, come in, this is an emergency!” I could hear some pounding, accompanied by Marcy’s shrieks for help, and a moment later, the door was forced open. I gratified to see Fillmore and Baker enter the house, weapons drawn.

  “What the hell is going on?” Fillmore demanded.

  “He’s crazy!” Marcy shouted. “He raped me, and he tried to kill me.…”

  “She’s lying, officers,” I said, calmly. “She killed two young men and is an accomplice in the killing of two women. There’s an automatic somewhere over there that has her prints all over it, and just underneath her is a fireplace poker that she hit me with.”

  “It was self-fucking-defense!” Marcy screamed.

  “When you find the automatic be sure to check the registration,” I went on. “I think you’ll find something interesting.” I still didn’t know what Marcy’s secret was, but clearly I struck a nerve, since it sent her into a fury.

  “Can’t you morons see how he abused me?” she screamed. “He raped me, for god’s sake!”

  “We did have sex, officers, but it was purely consensual,” I countered. “But that was before she threatened me with a gun and then wanted to bash me over the head with a poker.”

  “Get away from her, sir, nice and slow,” Baker ordered, holding a gun on me, and I complied, easing her down to the floor, and then letting go of my belt, which was still restraining her wrists. Marcy used that opportunity to roll over and try to attack me with her feet.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold it right there, lady!” Fillmore said, holding his gun inches from her head. Marcy got the hint and remained still, though she was panting like a dog and was virtually naked, her robe having fallen open. “Everybody, calm down!” Fillmore ordered. “You, ma’am, I don’t want to see you do anything with your hands except cover yourself up. No sudden moves.”

  “Should I call for backup?” Baker, asked, pulling out her radio with her free hand.

  “Yeah,” Fillmore said. “I don’t want this to get any more out of hand than it already is.”

  Baker made the call on the radio, and then turned to me again. “What was your name again, sir?” she asked.

  “Beauchamp. Dave Beauchamp.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be working for her?” She pointed at Marcy.

  “I was working for her sister, whose death she facilitated.”

  “He’s lying! He’s a maniac!” Marcy cried. “Why are you taking his side? You’re a woman, for god’s sake!”

  “Right now, ma’am, I’m a police officer.” Baker said. “Don’t worry. We’ll get this straightened out. If he’s guilty of anything, we’ll find out.”

  Was I guilty of anything?

  Stupidity? Robert Mitchum offered.

  Give the kid a break, Bogie said. Naïveté, maybe, but a dame turned on him. It happens to the best of us.

  While I was mentally thanking Bogart for his support, Fillmore had recovered the revolver across the room, and was bagging it.

  The cry of another siren then pierced the air and before long two more officers were in the front room, one of them another policewoman. “See if you can get some clothes on her, but stay on guard,” Fillmore instructed the recently-arrived female officer, who picked Marcy up and led her into the bedroom. Once they had left, he said, “You know, Beauchamp, we’re going to have to take you into the station.”

  “Please,” I said. “I’ll enjoy the quiet.”

  “I’m going to have to handcuff you, too.”

  “Whatever. Will you be cuffing Marcy?”

  “Yeah, but I’ll let Baker do that.”

  “Ask her to make the cuffs loose, would you? I am afraid I had to get a little rough with her left arm to make her drop the gun. Oh, and if you could get Detective Colfax from Northeast Station to come down so I only have to give my story once, I’d appreciate it.”

  Once Marcy had emerged dressed from the bedroom with Officer Baker, she was cuffed and the two of us were taken into the San Pedro station, where Detective Dane Colfax arrived about an hour later, unfortunately, with Mendoza in tow. I was happy that Mendoza went to talk to Marcy, who was in a different interrogation room. Colfax stayed with me. I waived my attorney rights and gave him everything, absolutely everything I knew about the case. I know in the movies, private eyes always hold back some information from the police, either to protect a client or a love interest, or just to keep their professional mystique intact. But I had been played like a Steinway since the moment I met Nora Frost; that’s why I had been hired, just so I could be played. The only reason I was still alive was because I either got lucky or smart, I’m not sure which. I’m not sure it matters. When I was finished Colfax said: “You know, as long as you were going to ignore my repeated instructions that you to drop this case anyway, the least you could have done is kept me informed along the way.”

  “Most of it didn’t come together until last night, and then Marcy confessed the rest this morning.”

  “I hope you don’t think Ms. DeBanzi’s is in there confessing to Mendoza right now. She’s ratting you out even more completely than you’re ratting her out.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she is. But here’s the thing, Colfax, I don’t have a motive for any of this. Marcy does.”

  “I don’t know, Beauchamp. It’s still your version of the facts against hers. Maybe you had a motive that we just haven’t discovered yet.”

  Something struck me then, something I had not yet considered regarding this case. On the one hand it was a tragic irony, but on the other, it was going to keep me out of prison. I leaned back and smiled, which seemed to take him by surprise. “Detective, I can settle this whole matter for you right now,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, because I know something Marcy doesn’t, and when she finds out about it, she’s not going to be happy.”

  “Spill it.”

  I reminded him about Nora’s real children, Richard and Robert, lying comatose in that private hospital in the San Gabriel Valley.

  “Right,” Colfax said. “It’s a damn shame, but how are they going to help you?”

  “By the simple fact that they’re still alive,” I said. “Nora told Marcy that they were dead, which was a lie, and Marcy believed it. She knows nothing about the private hospital.”

  “So?�
��

  I leaned forward across the distressed table in the interrogation room. “Even though they are in vegetative states, Ricky and Bobby are Nora’s legal next of kin until the courts decide otherwise. That means Marcy can’t touch the estate. She orchestrated the deaths of four people for nothing. I think if you were to break this news to her, you would get an incriminating reaction.”

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth about this?”

  “Go call the San Gabriel Valley Private Hospital. They’re in the book. Or use directory assistance, since any phone number I give you might be a phony that delivers you to a confederate of mine who’s in on the plot.”

  “You’ve been watching too many movies, David.”

  “You’re probably right, but still, go call and talk to someone named Dr. Maxwell, or anyone else there, for that matter. They will verify the boys’ conditions. Then go tell to Marcy what you’ve learned. I’ll wait here.”

  Colfax left the room for about twenty minutes, during which time I did my best to do nothing. Then he returned. “I don’t suppose you know anybody named William Pratt, do you?”

  “William Pratt?” I deadpanned. “Wasn’t that Boris Karloff’s real name?” Colfax uttered something that I couldn’t make out, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. “Have you filled Marcy in on the situation?”

  “Yes, and fortunately for you, Beauchamp, you guessed right. She went ballistic and incriminated herself enough to hold her until we can squeeze the rest of the story out of her.”

  “Am I also correct in assuming that you’re not going to give any credence to the rape accusations?”

  A strange smile crossed Colfax’s face. “Part of Ms. DeBanzi’s explosion was to leap up from the table, charge Hector Mendoza and kick him in the crotch so hard that he actually passed out. It took three male officers to restrain her.”

  Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, I thought, but only said, “Ouch.”

  “Hector’s been taken to the ER. I mention this because it convinced me that Ms. DeBanzi is not the type to get raped without a fight. If she could fight off a squad of trained police officers, she would have killed you. Frankly, I’m a little surprised you survived the consensual sex with her.”