And an alcoholic in the bargain. He poured himself a large dose of Jack Daniels at the bar, but allowed himself only half of it in the first gulp. Standing there looking at the wall behind the couch, he removed the Seurat Grande Jatte from it and replaced it with a Max Beckmann triptych. Beckmann, the Expressionist, knew life. Those overwhelming figures, impassive in their agony.
And while Goya didn’t buy impassive, he was another—
A key sounded in the door.
Milano doused the cigarette in his drink and reached the foyer as the door swung open. Chris stood framed there, a weighted shopping bag in one hand, the keys still poised in the other. She looked relieved at the sight of him. “Oh, yeah,” she said.
“Where the hell have you been?” Milano demanded.
“What?”
He peered over her shoulder. “And where’s the family? I told you to bring them along, didn’t I?”
“They didn’t want to come along. I left them at my grandmother’s.”
“What grandmother? You never told me you had a grandmother.”
“You never asked me.” Her voice became brittle. “And I have two grandmothers. One of them owns a house in Crown Heights section. Right off Eastern Parkway. It’s not much, but it’ll do for awhile. Now do you mind if I come in? Even if it’s just to deliver a package?”
Milano stood aside, and she strode by, back rigid. She went straight to the kitchen, slapped the keys on the counter, hoisted the shopping bag to it and started removing from it some large, well-filled, screwtop jars.
Watching her from the kitchen entrance, Milano felt all his tensions evaporating. But it was easy to see from her motions, from the look of her, that she was under heavy pressure. Thick-headed of him not to take into account what she had just been through.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he said. “I thought you’d be here when I got here. You scared me to death.”
“No.” She looked at him over her shoulder, still not altogether ready to forgive. “You scared yourself to death. That’s something different.”
“I guess it is.” He moved back to give her room as she thrust jars into the refrigerator. “What is that stuff?”
“What do you think? Hog maw. Chitlins. Black-eyed peas.”
“You mean that?”
“Oh, man,” Chris said pityingly. “It’s beef stew. Extra gravy. Piccalilli. My grandmother’s. You never have anything to eat around here. I thought this would come in handy.”
“It will. Did you tell the family about not mentioning me to anybody? Including your grandma?”
“Yes. None of us can figure why, but they said all right if that’s what you want. Why is it what you want?”
“Because my line of work is strictly low profile. Good enough?”
“Not after what you did tonight. Johnny, do you know how much they owe you? How much I owe you?”
“Not a thing.”
She tried to smile. “Is that how I rate?” she asked, and he saw that he was altogether forgiven.
“All right,” he said, “this is what you owe me. The folks have no clothes now, no nothing. So you get on the phone and let them know that tomorrow—”
“Don’t start that.”
“I’m being practical.”
“Don’t be practical.” Then it came out in a burst. “Johnny, why did he do it?”
“Kirwan? Try to forget him. It’s all over.”
“Not in my head. It’s all jammed up there, so I can’t really think of anything else. And the radio news was all mixed up.”
“So was he. A real psycho. And half dead to start with. You didn’t know he had terminal cancer, did you?”
“No. How do you know that?”
“He talked his head off into a set of tapes. That cop – Price – let me hear the first one. The cancer thing was on it.”
“What else was on it?”
“Well,” Milano said, “not too much you could get a handle on. But it’s funny. From what there was – and from everything else I put together about him – I have a feeling he thought he could endow that house of his with money from the sale of those tapes after he was dead. Make kind of a museum out of it.”
“He wanted to blow up a building full of people just for that?”
“Not just for that,” Milano said. “There has to be more than that, what with so many tapes. And even that part of it doesn’t make too much sense.”
“Why not?”
“Because we have a state law which bars you from profiting from any such crime you commit. You can sell your story about it, but you can’t keep the money. Which would have to mean your estate can’t either. Matter of fact, I think the victims have first claim on any such money.”
“Like Mama? For all that furniture and clothing?”
“Maybe,” said Milano. “But don’t count on it, baby. Remember, I am just theorizing. Anyhow, when it comes to getting up new furniture and clothing—”
“Hold it.” Chris held up a hand. Red light. “Honey, you and I are going to have a very heavy talk on this subject right now.”
“All right,” said Milano, “you start.”
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1983 by Stanley Ellin
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5033-6
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The Dark Fantastic Page 33