Slowly the twitching diminished. Sight began to return to the glazed blue eyes. “Karl, I could never—”
“Read, damn you!”
Blinking, T. J. bent over the sheet, began shakily, “‘I, Terrance Joseph Lorrance, do hereby confess that …’” His voice trailed away as his eyes raced down the page, reading paragraphs rather than words. Halfway down his eyes halted. “Killed Caresse at the pool …?”
Again Fabro felt an urge to laugh. “When the other shots were being fired. You used a topcoat you stole from my office to muffle …” Breaking off, he reached into his pocket, took out the envelope. “I almost forgot.” He let the seven tortoise shell buttons slide from the envelope onto the table. “These were left, T. J. After you burned the topcoat.”
“I didn’t burn …” Fearfully, T. J. looked up from the buttons. “Have you gone crazy, Karl?”
He did laugh then. Crazy when he felt this lightness of body that made him want to dance?
“Keep reading,” he gasped. “You’ll see.”
T. J. was still looking at him. “Nobody will believe this.”
“Why not?”
“I’d have no possible motive,” T. J. said. “I barely knew Caresse.”
“The last paragraph.”
T. J. looked. “Blackmail …?”
“She knew something in your past.” Fabro bent over, read aloud from the bottom of the page, “‘… and because it involves others I can never tell, not even to save myself.’” He chuckled. “Still think I’m crazy?”
“But the Academy Awards,” T. J. protested. “You were the one who ran.”
“I’ll say I thought the man was mad. Some actor I’d refused a job.”
“That still doesn’t explain the ledgers.”
“You explain them. In that same last paragraph.” Fabro aimed his forefinger at the sheet. “They contained the material Caresse was using to blackmail you.” He laughed delightedly. “Oh, it’s all foolproof, T. J. Look. I even typed the way you would. Letters transposed, words misspelled. A man with a warped mind.”
“My mind isn’t—”
“Wait.” Fabro composed his face against the laughter. “The finest lawyers in the country to defend you. A battery of experts to prove insanity. Three, maybe five years in a pleasant sanitarium somewhere. Then you regain your sanity, the experts testify again, and the court frees you.”
“Impossible. Even if I had the money—”
“My money!” Fabro felt a brief flare of irritation. Why was the idiot so slow to grasp things? “Don’t you see? I’ll be head of Major. In Benjy’s place. With millions to use.”
“I still can’t …”
“Not even for Pamela?”
T. J. exhaled, as though he had been kneed in the groin. “What does Pamela …?”
“Survival.”
“Survival?” T. J. echoed.
“What we talked about yesterday.” Fabro scowled at the bewildered face in front of him. “How will Pamela survive if we both go under?” He spat words at T. J. “No house. No heated pool. No Miss Mclntyre. Some germ-ridden charity hospital. Jammed in with thirty other kids in a dark filthy ward. One chance in ten of coming through.”
“You’re saying that if I’ll sign …?”
“Irene will take care of her.”
“Irene?”
“She loves you, T. J.” Fabro reached out, touched the bent shoulder. “Shell cherish Pamela for you. And so will I.” He smiled warmly. “I’ll give you a written promise. As soon as you sign.”
“Irene loves me?” T. J. asked wonderingly.
“Yes,” Fabro said. “So sign.”
T. J.’s eyes went down to the type-filled page. Slowly his lips pursed, as though alum had been sprinkled on them. For a long time he stared at the page. Long enough for the frog or toad or whatever it was outside the window to croak six times. Finally he spoke in a voice not unlike the croaking outside. “I can’t.”
“Not even for Pamela?”
“I just can’t.”
Fabro leaned casually over the desk, pulled open the drawer and took out T. J.’s pistol. A small-caliber Italian weapon, a war souvenir, which he had already made sure was loaded. “I told you once to get rid of this.” He thumbed the safety catch. “Now I’m glad you didn’t.”
He found his silk handkerchief, draped it over the butt, grasped handkerchief and weapon with his right hand and came slowly around the desk. T. J. sat frozen, eyes on the pistol, looking like a bird mesmerized by a snake.
“I’m sorry,” Fabro said. “We’ve been good friends.”
“Karl, you couldn’t …”
“It’s the only alternative,” Fabro said. “Dead by your own hand. Your confession beside you. Written on your typewriter. Giving details only the killer would know.” He smiled. “I’ll miss you.”
Eyes still on the pistol, T. J. said nothing.
“You really won’t sign?”
T. J. made a faint negative movement with his head. Far back in Fabro’s mind a tentative rage flared, a distant shimmer of red sheet-lightning. Then it was gone. He should be angry with T. J., but he wasn’t. He raised the pistol.
“One last chance.”
“No.” T. J.’s voice quavered hopelessly. “You’d only kill me afterwards.”
Fabro grinned at the empty face, already the waxy color of death. “You’re right. But it doesn’t matter. This is just as good.” He felt a joyful surge of blood. It was going to be far easier than with that blonde whore in the car, squawking like a ravished pullet when his fingers found her windpipe. Almost as easy as with Caresse. He bent down so the bullet’s angle would be upwards, the way it would be if T. J. had fired it himself. “Close enough for powder burns,” he heard himself say cheerfully. “And the fingerprints later.”
Slowly T. J. began to slide from the chair, finally ending up with his knees on the carpet. He placed his hands, palms opposed, on his chest and bent forwards with closed eyes in an altitude of prayer. Fabro saw that by bending a little further he could still fire upwards through the temple into the brain. He brought the pistol’s muzzle close to the silvered sideburn and for a micro-second he thought he had fired. Then, as white hot pain seared his side, he realized the explosion came from another part of the room.
He swung heavily toward the sound and saw her standing just inside the door. She had on the sapphire mink coat and the sequin gown she had worn to the Academy broadcast and her eyes, jet black and far too large for her white face, had an inquiring expression, as though she were waiting for him to answer a question she had asked. In her two hands, held out away from the mink coat, was the .25 Colt automatic he had given her when they were first married. Through the hazy film pain put over his eyes he stared uncomprehendingly. “Irene?” he said. “Irene?” Then comprehension came and with it outrage that she should dare interfere. He started around the table toward her, ignoring the thing tearing at his side. “Give me that,” he said. “Before you spoil everything.” Nearing her, he reached for the automatic and saw to his surprise his outstretched hand still held the Italian pistol but before he could explain flame spurted from the muzzle confronting him.
Richard Blake
Outside the room, in the hall, it had sounded like wooden ducks being knocked over in a penny arcade shooting gallery. But inside, seen from the doorway, it was a third-act curtain at the Grand Guignol.
Christ!
Fabro hunkered down on the carpet, back against an oversize leather chair, face contorted with pain, clutching at his belly with fingers through which blood oozed. Lorrance on his knees behind a gleaming teak and chrome desk, wearing a black silk faille robe over black silk pajamas, eyes closed, hands pressed palm to palm below his chin, a modern monk at his orisons. And by the door Irene Fabro, under her glossy mink coat a dress sparkling with tiny lights, her face so composed that except for the smoking pistol still pointed at where Fabro undoubtedly just was she might have been posing for a fashion page in Harper’s Bazaar.
/>
He would remember it forever.
At his back, from the hallway, he heard the approaching click of Lisa’s high heels. He heard her sharp intake of breath as she reached the door, and at the same time he heard a whispering from Fabro. Ho dropped on his knees, peered into the twisted face. There was no recognition in the glowing eyes. Fabro’s lips writhed. “Bitch,” he whispered to nobody in particular. “Spoiled everyth …” and the glow went out of his eyes and he toppled over on his side. Where his hands had been on the dress shirt was a blotch of blood.
Blake rose to his feet, looked at Lisa, standing wide-eyed in the doorway, and then at Irene Fabro. She was staring down at Fabro, her face still bland. “Is he …?” she asked. Blake nodded and she said quietly, “He was going to kill T.J.”
“How?” he asked.
“How?” She stared at him blankly. Then, smiling, she lowered the pistol until the muzzle was pointing at the carpet “By his arm.”
Blake glanced down at the carpet. Part way under the chair, half concealed by Fabro’s sleeve, was another pistol. Some kind of a foreign weapon.
“Love, honor and rape,” Irene Fabro said.
“What?”
“Didn’t you know?” She began to laugh softly. “Karl raped me last night.”
Lisa moved to her. “You’d better sit down, Mrs. Fabro.”
“And I’ll take that pistol, please,” Blake said.
“No.” Somehow Lorrance had reached them from the desk. “I’ll take it.” He drew the pistol from between Irene Fabro’s hands. “I’ll say I killed him.” He glanced pleadingly at Blake. “She’s suffered too much already.”
Irene. Fabro giggled. “Isn’t it funny,” she said. “My husband. He raped me last night.”
Lisa slapped her.
“Why …?” Irene Fabro began, wonderingly raising a hand to her cheek. Then it was as though a bulb had been turned on back of her eyes. “Of course,” she said. “Thank you.” She turned to Lorrance. “Please, T. J.” She took the pistol, gave it to Blake. “No more lies.”
“But you’ll be involved,” Lorrance protested.
“I don’t care, darling. Not if we’re involved together.”
He took her hand and they sat down on the couch, close together, not talking, just holding hands. A telephone began to ring. Blake crossed to the teak desk, put down the pistol and picked up the closest receiver. The telephone kept ringing. He picked up the other receiver. It was Josh Gordon. “What the hell gives?” he demanded. Blake told him.
“Irene shot him?”
“Five slugs in the gut.”
“And the bastard’s really dead?”
“Yes.”
Outside, in the street, a siren wailed.
Josh said, “The cops?”
“Just coming.”
Lisa had crossed to the desk. She put her head close to the phone so she could hear what was being said. Her hair smelled of pine cones and lilac.
“Five slugs, eh,” Josh said.
“That’s right.”
“Not good.”
“Why isn’t it good?”
“Bad precedent,” Josh said. “Give Agnes ideas.” He sighed. “Don’t ever get married, Dick.”
Lisa took the phone. “He’s getting married tomorrow, if I have to use a shotgun.”
“Shotgun?”
“I want a name for my child.”
“I’ll be damned,” Josh said. “How far are you along?”
“Six hours,” Lisa said.
Conditions of Sale: This book shall not. without the written consent of the publishers first given, be lone. re-sold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.
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Copyright © 1959 by Jonathan Latimer
Cover design by Jason Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-4804-8626-3
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Black Is the Fashion for Dying Page 20