“She’s not here.”
Saul’s pale eyes flickered. “Not here?”
“No.”
“Where is she, then?”
Vickers shrugged. He went past Saul into the living room, without, however, quite turning his back. “We were getting ourselves pretty involved, emotionally. Angie wanted to go away for a day or two, and think. So Joan took her somewhere – over in the valley, I believe.”
“When will she be back?”
“When she gets ready.”
“And Trehearne didn’t mind her vanishing?”
“He didn’t seem to.”
Saul smiled. He came into the living room. “So you’ve been all by yourself up here, sulking, and refusing to answer telephones. And you haven’t even called your old pals up for some gin rummy to lighten the solitude.”
Vickers said, “No,” with unmistakable rudeness.
Saul’s voice held an equally unmistakable amusement. “You know something, Vick? I think you’re lying.”
Vickers gave him a lifted eyebrow. “It’s of no particular interest to me what you think.”
Saul said, “It’s of interest to me what’s happened to Angie.”
Vickers sat down on the arm of the couch. He seemed bored rather than angry.
“Really, Bill! I don’t mind your being in love with my wife. Half the men in town seem to be in love with her, and I can understand that. But I do resent everybody accusing me of having murdered her, or of being about to murder her, because of it. Do I seem to be that primitive?”
“That’s just it, Vick. We’re not quite sure.”
Vickers got up. He went and stood in front of Bill Saul, quite close to him. Saul’s hands hung relaxed at his sides. Vickers towered over him. He smiled.
“What are you going to do about it?”
‘I’m going to look around, if I may.”
“You may not.”
“Why?”
“Because this is my house and I will be goddamned if people can make free of it.”
After a moment Saul shrugged. “All right, Vick. You’re a big boy. You can take me anytime.” He turned away. “Mind if I have a drink?”
“Help yourself.”
Saul took a long time over pouring the drink. The cellarette was not too far from the dining room doors. Vickers sat down on the arm of the couch again. He watched Saul, not with any particular intentness. Saul’s triangular, faun-like face was as blank as a dead-end wall. A gambler’s face, unreadable. Presently he looked up at Vickers, and a faint cold light of anger began to gleam in his eyes. He held the glass in his hand, full and untouched.
“Still playing Jehovah, aren’t you?” he said. “You’ve got a hell of a nerve.” He walked toward Vickers. His shoulders were dropped forward slightly, his weight light on the balls of his feet. “You resent being accused of murder. But the other way round is all right. Since you came back, out of God knows where and cares less, you’ve accused me of it. You’ve accused Job. It was no good accusing Harry to his face, but you made that plain enough, too.” He paused. He studied Vickers as though he were something not quite human. “But you’re resentful.”
“Good old Bill,” said Vickers. “You always were the only one with guts. Go on.”
Saul nodded. “I’ll go on. If you’ve done anything to Angie, I’ll go on till I see you in hell.”
Vickers hit him.
Saul went down hard onto his back. The glass shot out of his hand and rolled across the carpet, leaving a long stain of liquor. The hounds, who had become increasingly nervous, came to their feet roaring. Vickers spoke to them sharply. They subsided, growling. Bill Saul sat up. He shook his head and blinked, and ran the back of his hand across his mouth. He was not bleeding. He looked up at Vickers and said conversationally,
‘I’m beginning to resent you, Vick.”
Vickers said, “I can believe that.” He was standing beside Saul now. He didn’t do anything, but something about his attitude, the way he was balanced, suggested that Saul had better remain seated. It was very quiet in
the house, very quiet outside. There was no sound of sirens, even in the distance, nor any sound of cars on the hill. Vickers went on,
“Apparently you all resented me.”
“We had a right to. Let me ask you, Vick. Why did you keep us around?”
“Because you amused me.”
“There’s your answer.”
“You didn’t have to stay and take it. Only there was Angie, wasn’t there? And Angie had all the virtues I lacked, in addition to just being Angie. By the way, how did you do with her while I was gone?”
Saul said wryly, “I didn’t.” His eyes were narrow, malicious, very bright. “Given a little more time, or a certainty that you were dead...” He shrugged.
“Yes,” said Vickers slowly. “That was stupid of you, Bill. You should have made sure.”
“Oh. Now you’ve made a definite choice. It’s me.”
Vickers looked down at him. Bill Saul seemed to be comfortable on the floor. There was nothing even faintly indicative of worry about him. Vickers began suddenly to grow angry. He was more angry than he had ever been in his life. He wanted to beat Bill Saul to death and then tramp upon his face – not because of what Saul had done to him, but because Saul was making him look silly. He felt like a small boy in a tantrum. My God, he thought, I shall be throwing things and screaming, all because Bill isn’t behaving like a killer.
He went away from Bill and sat down. “Get up,” he said. “For heaven’s sake, get up, get yourself a drink, and get me one, too.” His head, abruptly, began to split. He took it in his hands and laughed. The laughter was rueful, but genuine.
“These things,” he said, “should go smoothly. There’s a certain pattern, a certain form. They start with the accusation, delivered in a concise and dramatic manner, and end with the confession, which is then followed by threats, or abject surrender, depending on the individual. This little scene has got awfully bitched up.”
Saul handed him a healthy double shot. He got rid of it quickly and felt better. “Sit down.” He leaned forward and looked steadily at Saul. “The hell of it is, Bill, I know you tried to kill me in Mexico. I have the impulse to beat it out of you, but... the atmosphere is wrong, somehow.” In Pépon’s alley I could have done it, and laid your body with the rats. But not here. Not with Angie watching...
“Besides,” he added, ‘I’m not sure beating would do any good, with you.”
Saul shrugged. “It’s been tried,” he said. “By experts. Why do you think I tried to kill you?”
“I know it wasn’t Harry, because somebody tried again, with a gun, after Harry was dead. I know now it wasn’t Job. He was up here a little while ago, and he’s in the clear, absolutely. That seems to put it right in your lap, Bill.”
“That’s the way you figure it.”
Vickers said slowly, “I always thought it was you. You’re the only one I could ever see having guts enough to hit a man with homicidal intent – even from the back.”
There was not the briefest flicker of expression across Saul’s face. He said, with a certain cold edge to his tone, “I may hit you, Vick, and it may be with homicidal intent, but it won’t be from the back.” He paused. “There’s just one thing wrong with your logic. One factor you’re leaving out.”
“What’s that?”
“You.”
Vickers looked at Saul from between his hands. There was a bar of pain being pressed down between his temples. It weighed on his eyeballs and the bar was bright, and the shimmer spread out from it so that he could not see very clearly. He said, “Explain that, will you?”
“You got knocked on the head. That much you know. The rest of it you’ve built up in your own mind. It wouldn’t be hard to do. I’ve been hurt once or twice myself, and I know how your brain acts when it’s full of fever. You had it rough for four years. That’s stamped all over you. All right. It’s natural to want revenge. And it’s natural to h
ook onto something – or somebody – definite, so you can be sure of getting that revenge. We were the last people you remembered seeing. You knew us. You didn’t know José Doakes, who saw a rich gringo wandering around with a king-size bun on and just couldn’t resist the temptation. So we were it.”
He got up, heading for the cellarette again. “Will you have another drink, Vick, while that’s soaking in?”
Vickers was staring straight ahead of him, at the place where Bill Saul had been sitting. He did not seem to be aware that Saul had moved. There was a long pause before he said,
“Yes. I’ll have another drink.”
Saul took the glass out of his hand and went to refill it. Vickers did not stir. He sat with his elbows on his knees and his hands holding his cracking skull together, and presently his eyes closed and a deep groove came between his brows. Bill Saul came back with Vickers’ drink and put it down beside him.
Vickers opened his eyes. There was a queer expression in them. He got up and took the lapels of Saul’s coat in his hands and held them in close, so that Saul’s face was near his own. He examined it. Saul’s mouth, for the first time, twitched nervously.
“I heard a voice,” Vickers said. “I can still hear it. It said, ‘Turn around, Vickers. I’ve waited a long time for this.’ It said, ‘I want to see your face as you go down.’”
“Imagination, Vick. Dreams.”
“It spoke in English. It called me by name. It was no Mexican thief talking to me.”
Small beads of sweat stood out along Saul’s hairline. “Vick!” he said.
“It was your voice, Bill. It must have been.”
His hands were large, with strong bones and a lacing of thick muscle. They were the hands of a stevedore, a laborer, a common seaman. They let go of the lapels of Bill Saul’s coat and fastened around Bill Saul’s neck. They tightened.
Saul’s upper lip curled back. He seemed to be grinning, but there was no humor in it. He slid his right hand into his pocket.
The dining room doors opened. Angie’s voice cried out. Vickers shivered. Saul’s eyes moved until they could see Angie, coming toward Vickers. Saul’s face relaxed. He took his hand out of his pocket. The veins in his forehead were swollen and his breath rasped painfully. Angie said, “Vick. Vick, what are you doing?”
She touched his wrist. She was quite calm, not in the least noisy or hysterical. Her face was dead white. Vickers turned his head and looked at her. His grip loosened on Saul’s throat. He frowned at Angie, and then he seemed to remember who she was. He let go of Bill Saul altogether. He stood for a moment looking from one to the other and then he turned away and leaned one hand on the back of the couch and stayed there. He was shaking. Saul straightened his collar. He coughed a couple of times and finally got his voice working.
“Angie,” he said. “Where in the hell did you spring from?”
“In there.” She nodded toward the dining room. “I’ll explain about it later. Maybe you’d better go, Bill.”
“Yeah. I think I get the set-up, though. Not so dumb, at that.” He caught her by the shoulder, almost roughly. “What do you think about it? Did I...?” He jerked his head toward Vickers.
She said softly, “Bill, I don’t know what to think!” For a moment it seemed she was going to cry.
Saul said, “Do you want to get out of here?”
“No.” She looked at Vickers. “No, Bill. Thanks. I’ll call you in the morning.” She laughed. It was not a gay sound. “Quite a situation, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Isn’t it.” Saul went over to Vickers. “Vick.”
Vickers raised his head slowly.
Saul said, “Will you do something? For your sake, for Angie’s sake – for all of us. Will you go see a psychiatrist?”
Vickers did not answer. He turned away and sat down on the couch. Bill Saul went out. The front door closed behind him. The hounds paced and growled uneasily. There was still no sign of the police. Angie sat down beside Vickers.
“Baby...”
His eyes were strange and unseeing. He caught her wrist. “Am I crazy? Have I just dreamed all this?”
“Darling. I...”
“If I dreamed it, then who shot at me? Who tried to kill me in the taxi? Or... did I dream that, too?”
He got up and went away from her. Presently he turned and said, “Do you think I’m crazy?”
“Of course not, Vick. It could be like Bill says, and it wouldn’t mean you were crazy. You’ve been through an awful lot. You could have made a mistake. Anybody could.”
“I suppose so.” He was still shaking. He put his hands in his pockets. They were cold.
Angie said, “In a way, wouldn’t you be happier to know it was a mistake? That none of your friends was guilty of such an awful thing?”
He shook his head. “I have no friends, Angie. They’re all yours.” He drew a long unsteady breath. “I don’t know.” He came back to the couch and flung himself down beside her and put his head on her shoulder, his face pressed against her neck. She could feel his lips move. “I don’t know...”
Joan Merrill came in from the dining room. She looked at Vickers with distaste, and spoke to Angie.
“I just thought I’d tell you. I didn’t call the police.”
Angie stared at her. “But, Joan! I sent you.”
“I know. But I didn’t call them.”
“Why not?”
She gestured impatiently. “Why cause any more trouble? We’ve had enough publicity as it is. I knew the whole thing was a lot of melodramatic tommyrot.” Vickers had sat up. Joan looked him straight in the eye. “Just like you, Michael. An ordinary accident couldn’t happen to you. To anybody else in the world, but not to Michael Vickers. With you it would have to be attempted murder, with a lot of fancy trimmings.” She paused. “You don’t need a psychiatrist, Michael. You just need a little sense.”
She walked out. They sat watching her until she was out of sight, and they could hear her climbing the stairs. Vickers got up. He didn’t go anywhere, or say anything. He just got up, and stayed there. Angie watched him. Her mouth moved uncertainly, but she did not speak. Her eyes were worried. They were a lot like Coolin’s eyes, watching Vickers.
A little thread of sound crept in under the silence. At first nobody noticed it. Then Molly pricked up her ears and howled, tentatively, and Vickers said, “Quiet.”
He bent his head, listening. “A siren,” he said. “It’s coming up the hill.”
Chapter Fifteen
The siren continued to come up the hill. It came into the drive and stopped. Vickers went into the hallway. He glanced up the stairs. Joan Merrill had come part way down again. Angie came after Vickers and put her hand on his arm. Nobody said anything. The hounds pushed their muzzles against the crack of the door and snuffled and growled.
Vickers pushed them away and opened the door.
There were three men outside. One was in uniform. He was from the Hollywood Sheriff’s office. Two were in plain clothes. They were all policemen. One of the plainclothes men said politely,
“We’ll all wait inside. Trehearne will be along in a minute.”
There was another man in uniform standing alongside the car in the drive. Joan Merrill came the rest of the way down the stairs. She took hold of Angie. Vickers. said, “What do you want?”
The three men came inside. They were not belligerent. The man who had first spoken said again, “Trehearne is coming.” He nodded toward the living room.
Vickers looked from one to the other. He shrugged and put his arm around Angie. Joan shot him a quick, furious look and let go. She followed behind them as they went toward the living room. The three men followed her.
From somewhere outside, a faint hail reached them. It had a note of urgency in it. Everybody stopped. A look passed between the three men, and the uniformed policeman went quickly back to the door. Outside, the man by the car began to run along the drive.
The plainclothes man again indicated the living room.
They went in. Vickers sat down, with Angie close beside him. Joan stood in the middle of the floor and looked at the strange men.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “What do you want?”
The man said monotonously, “Trehearne is coming. He’ll tell you.”
Vickers said, “Joan. Sit down.”
Joan looked at Angie. Angie smiled. It was meant to be a reassuring smile. It was not. Joan sat down. Coolin and Molly prowled about, sniffing at the strangers. They did not approve of the smell of them, and said so.
The second plainclothes man spoke for the first time. “Mister,” he said, “will you for Chrissake call off those elephants. They make me nervous.”
Vickers said, ‘I’m so sorry.” He called the hounds. They came reluctantly and crouched down. The room became quiet. There was no further sound from outside. Nobody said anything. Vickers put his hand up to his forehead to stop the throbbing. Angie’s hand was on his thigh. Her fingers bit into the flesh.
There came a distant murmur of voices from the drive.
Everybody leaned forward slightly, listening. The voices came closer. One of them was very loud, full of a large anger, and not articulated. There were footsteps. People scuffled heavily up to the door and through it into the hall. They came into the archway and stood looking down into the room.
One of the people was Joe Trehearne. His eyes were hot and angry. He was half supporting a man with a split chin and a raw pair of wrists and lips that were puffed out like slabs of liver. A man who was covered with dirt and dry leaves and a fair quantity of blood, which was not yet as dry as the leaves.
Trehearne said, “Vickers, did you do this?”
Vickers said, “Certainly not!” He got up. “Well, don’t stand there like a fool, Trehearne. Bring the man in. Joan, will you get him a drink?”
Joan rose and went to the cellarette. Trehearne helped the man down the steps and into a chair. He was still glaring at Vickers.
“Brownie,” he said, “is this the guy?”
Brownie shook his head. “Dunno.” He took the glass Joan offered him, gulped down the whisky in it, yelped and went rigid as the stuff burned the cuts inside his mouth. Finally he shook his head again. He said to Trehearne plaintively, “Told you didn’t see him.” His words were barely formed.
Stranger At Home Page 13