Lydia

by Howard Fast

  “Do you know what I think about you, Harvey,” he further enlightened me. “I think you’re a nut. I think you’re a menace. I also think you are a paranoiac.” I led him into the house, and he continued, “What in hell do you think we’re going to do?”

  “I want you to take the maid in. I want to get her out of there.”

  “Don’t announce us,” he snarled at the doorman. “We’re going up to Sarbine’s.”

  “So they’re going to kill her,” he said softly, as we got into the elevator.

  “That’s right,” I whispered. “They got a steamer trunk up there now. That’s to get rid of the body with.”

  His reply to that was a withering glance, which said in effect that if he had not given me his word, he would have handcuffed me and delivered me to the nearest hospital.

  On the landing outside the door to the apartment he whispered to me, “Harvey, you better make good on this one, or so help me, I’ll fry you.”

  “What do you mean, make good?”

  “You know goddamn well what I mean.”

  I shrugged and punched the doorbell, and a moment later Sarbine himself opened the door. I had looked at him this same morning, but I had not really seen him. He was bigger than I had imagined, well over six feet, perhaps six-foot-two, and he probably wore a size seventeen collar. He was a good-looking man, sandy hair turning white at the temples, a broad, solid pair of shoulders and no belly to speak of. Cold blue eyes that examined Rothschild and me without any great interest but with a degree of annoyance.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “You remember me, Mr. Sarbine. I’m Lieutenant Rothschild. This is Mr. Krim of the insurance company. Can we come in?”

  “Of course, Lieutenant. I suppose you have some information about the robbery?”

  Now that I listened for it, I thought that I could detect a trace of an accent—the slightest trace, and what accent it might be I had no idea.

  “No, I want to talk to your maid.”

  We went into the foyer. There, at one side, was the steamer trunk.

  “Taking a trip?” Rothschild asked.

  Sarbine shook his head and smiled slightly. Behind him, in the living room, I could see his wife and another man. She said something to the man, and then rose and walked out to join us.

  “Your maid is in?” Rothschild asked.

  Mrs. Sarbine smiled at me, a thin, mechanical smile without warmth. “Mr. Krim of the insurance company.” And to Rothschild, “You’re that officer—”

  “Rothschild,” he said. He didn’t like them. “I was asking whether your maid was in.”

  “I imagine so.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In her room, I suppose.”

  “And where is her room?”

  “Mr. Krim will show you,” she smiled. “Won’t you, Mr. Krim?”

  “Suppose you show me, Mrs. Sarbine?” Rothschild said.

  “Suppose you ask properly,” Sarbine put in. “You’re not a guest here.”

  Now Rothschild smiled. He was not a cheerful man, and when he smiled, it was to cover up something that had begun to boil in him.

  “I asked you where her room was,” he repeated evenly.

  “Mark, go inside, please,” Mrs. Sarbine said. “I’ll take them there.”

  Sarbine did not move. Mrs. Sarbine led us to the pantry door, and Rothschild and I followed. In the pantry, Mrs. Sarbine pointed to the door.

  “That’s it.”

  Rothschild tried the door, but it did not move.

  “The little idiot bolted it.”

  “Why?” Rothschild asked.

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  “Lydia,” I said, “this is Harvey Krim. I’m here with Lieutenant Rothschild of the police. Open the door.”

  We waited, and then there were steps and the bolt was drawn back. Lydia opened the door. She stood there silently, watching us, her eyes moving from Mrs. Sarbine to Rothschild to me.

  “Do you always bolt your door?” Rothschild demanded.

  Lydia said nothing.

  “I’m taking her in for questioning,” Rothschild said to Mrs. Sarbine.

  “What do you expect to get out of her? She’s an idiot. Why don’t you leave her alone?”

  Lydia was watching me. I nodded very slightly.

  “Get a coat on,” Rothschild said to Lydia.

  She went back into her room and returned a moment later with a gray topcoat and her purse.

  “Come along,” Rothschild said.

  Sarbine was still standing where we had left him, in the foyer. “Where are you taking her?” he demanded.

  “To the station house,” Rothschild replied shortly. “Got any objections?”

  Sarbine did not reply. He stood there and his wife stood there, and the man in the living room sat where I had seen him before, smoking a cigarette. We went out of the apartment, rang for the elevator, and went down and out into the street in silence.

  “It’s a few blocks from here,” Rothschild said. “We’ll walk.”

  “Sure, we’ll walk,” I agreed.

  Rothschild took out a cigar as we walked and put it in his mouth, but did not light it. He hunched up his shoulders, and his walk became a prowl. He wore his anger and irritation all over him, and perhaps he was silent because he did not trust himself to speak. Neither Lydia nor I said anything, and we walked to the station house in silence, and in silence we followed Rothschild upstairs to his office. He motioned for us to sit down, and then he sat down behind his desk, lit his cigar, and stared at me somberly.

  “All right, Harvey,” he finally said. “Let’s have it.”

  “What?”

  “The whole goddamn thing.”

  “The whole goddamn thing is this,” I replied, irritation beginning to build up inside of me. “I didn’t want this kid murdered.”

  “Crap,” Rothschild snapped. “Just plain crap.”

  “Well, that’s it. Crap or not, that’s it.”

  “And suppose you tell me how come you knew she was scheduled to be murdered?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “You can’t tell me that. You call me up with some lousy cock-and-bull story and drag me over to that Park Avenue place when I should be at home having my supper like any sane man, and you get me to bring in this dame, and when I ask you to open up on it, you can’t tell me.” Now he stood up behind his desk, poked his cigar at me, and yelled, “Well, you’re goddamn well going to tell me or so help me God, Harvey, I’ll ride you out of this business!”

  “Then you’ll ride me out of it,” I shrugged.

  “What about you?” he flung at Lydia. “What have you got to say for yourself?”

  Lydia shook her head.

  “Were they going to kill you?”

  “I don’t know,” Lydia said.

  He sank back into his chair and stared at her, his eyes narrowing. “Say that again?” he said softly.

  “What?”

  “I asked you, were they going to kill you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What happened to your accent? Where’s the honey-and-cotton drawl and the idiot look?”

  Lydia shrugged.

  “I want an answer. Are you from Texas or not?”

  “No, I’m not from Texas,” Lydia said.

  “Then suppose you explain.”

  “I’ve got nothing to explain,” Lydia said. “If I want to use a southern accent, that’s my right. And if I want to say that I am from Texas, I have every right to do so. I’m not breaking any law.”

  He looked from her to me, back to her, back to me. “You can make fools of lots of people, Harvey—but not out of me.”

  “I’m not trying to make a fool out of you, Lieutenant. Believe me, I’m not. And I’m not crazy either. I had dinner tonight with Jack Finney, the director. He said that Gorman had been his friend and that Gorman had told him that Mark Sarbine might kill him. Gorman.”

  “When did he tell him that?
”

  “Yesterday—or Monday.”

  “So you conclude that Sarbine’s going to kill her? You’re a liar, Harvey,”

  “Just don’t call me a liar, Lieutenant. Just don’t call me that.”

  He turned on Lydia abruptly then and demanded to know how she came into this. “Did you steal the necklace?” he flung at her.

  “I did not.”

  “I ask you again, what did the Sarbines have against you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why did you bolt the door of your room?”

  “Because Mr. Krim here telephoned me and told me to go in there and bolt the door behind me.”

  “Why should you do anything that Mr. Krim tells you to do?” Rothschild asked incredulously.

  “Because I trust him.”

  “You what?”

  “I trust him.”

  “You trust Harvey Krim,” Rothschild nodded. “Just like that, you trust Harvey. Well, I suppose there has to be one. I suppose there has to be some half-wit somewhere in this world who trusts Harvey Krim.”

  “That’s enough, Lieutenant,” I said.

  “Oh? So it’s enough! And what are you going to do to make it enough, Harvey? Are you going to take a poke at me? I would like that. There is nothing I would like more. Go ahead, Harvey. Try.”

  “Come off it, Lieutenant.”

  “Now you tell me this,” he threw at Lydia; “Did they try to break into your room after you had bolted the door?”

  “They tried to open the door. They didn’t try to break it down.”

  “Are you going back there tonight?”

  “I don’t think so,” Lydia said.

  “If I want you, where can I find you?”

  “Through me,” I said.

  “Through you,” he nodded. “All right, Harvey—you’ve made a fool out of me and you’ve had your fun. Next time is my turn. Get out of here now, both of you!”

  Out on the street, I said to Lydia, “If you don’t mind my mentioning it, you’re a sort of strange kid, Lydia.”

  “Because I trust you? Doesn’t anyone else trust you?”

  “Just generally. Do you really trust me?”

  “I suppose so. Why does the policeman hate you so much?”

  “Partly because it’s his nature and partly because I am not an endearing character.”

  “No, I guess you’re not,” Lydia admitted. “Were they really going to kill me?”

  “That’s my guess. You saw the trunk they brought up from the basement. It’s my guess that they had decided to kill you and put your body in the trunk. That sounds silly, doesn’t it?”

  Lydia nodded.

  “So you can see why Rothschild was annoyed. We live in a world compounded out of brutality, insanity and murder, but when I suggest an obvious way of killing a girl and getting rid of her body, people think I’m putting them on. Do you think they would have murdered you?”

  “They might have,” Lydia agreed. “It would seem to make a sort of gruesome sense.”

  “Have you eaten dinner?”

  She shook her head.

  “All right. I’ll buy you some dinner, and we’ll talk.”

  “I’m not broke, so you don’t have to buy me dinner.”

  “I’m not buying information, just dinner,” I replied sourly.

  We walked a few blocks to an Italian restaurant I knew on Seventy-first Street, near Lexington Avenue, where Lydia had a large antipasto and two portions of spaghetti and meatballs. I suggested mildly that with the list of tantalizing items on the menu of a restaurant like this one, it seemed a shame that one should waste a healthy appetite on spaghetti and meatballs; but Lydia replied, her mouth stuffed, that spaghetti and meatballs were the only Italian food she knew anything about, and that when she was this hungry, she was not up to trying anything new. I then told her that I didn’t think it was real hunger, but a sort of nervous reaction.

  “I’m nervous but I’m also hungry,” she said. “Why don’t you just let me eat my meatballs, Harvey?”

  “Go ahead—eat them.”

  “That’s what I’m doing, Harvey.”

  So I sat and watched her eat her meatballs until finally she had finished them and the last bit of spaghetti and wanted to know why I was looking at her the way I was?

  “Well—what way?”

  “Like I’m some kind of nut. Is that what you think—that I’m some kind of nut?”

  “No, I think that you’re nervous and depressed, but that’s understandable. Did you ever think of getting some help?”

  “What do you mean, help?” she demanded, bridling a bit.

  “Well—psychiatry.”

  “That’s none of your damn business, Harvey,” she said coldly.

  “Sure. So you’d better decide what is my business and what isn’t. It’s my business to save your stupid neck because you do ridiculous things, the kind of things a schoolgirl would do, but it’s not my business to ask you whether anyone ever looked at that churning mess you call your brain.”

  “I guess people don’t like you very much, do they, Harvey? I suppose that’s why you are what you are.”

  “Whatever I am, maybe I managed to save your neck tonight?”

  “What do you want me to believe, Harvey—that they would have folded me into that trunk and carted me away?”

  “You little fool,” I exclaimed, “did you look into the refrigerator?”

  She stared at me.

  “Did you?”

  She nodded then.

  “And was the lard gone?”

  “The lard was gone, Harvey,” she said softly.

  “I don’t know why I bother. I swear I don’t know why I bother.”

  “I know—”

  “Yeah!”

  “Well, you’re not the only one who would like to have fifty thousand dollars, Harvey.”

  “Don’t start counting yours.”

  “It’s a common human failing, Harvey. This is a country that worships money. You don’t have to feel guilty about desiring fifty thousand dollars. We’re not in Russia.”

  “Lard,” I said in disgust. “And that idiot cornball accent. You don’t think you really fooled anyone with it?”

  “I fooled Rothschild.”

  “Big deal.” I spread my hands. “You fooled Lieutenant Rothschild. God help us if we ever need the police for anything again, but why worry about that? You fooled Lieutenant Rothschild. I wish I had a ribbon to pin onto you.”

  The waiter came over and asked about dessert. “That’s a nice girl,” he said; “what the devil you shout on her like that?”

  “None of your damn business why I shout at her,” I told him, and then I asked her if she wanted dessert.

  She was almost in tears. “No, big spender,” she flung at me. “No, I don’t want any dessert. Especially from a louse.”

  “Just God save me from saving the life of anyone ever again. Anyone. It can be a tiny child boiling in a pot of oil. I don’t lift a finger. You heard her!” I shouted at the waiter. “She doesn’t want any dessert—especially from a louse! Just bring me a check.”

  “I don’t blame her,” the waiter said.

  “You hear that?” I said to Lydia. “A lot of people who hear a waiter make a crack like that get all upset and go to the manager and give him a hard time. He can just thank God that I’m so good-natured—”

  “You good-natured?” Lydia cried.

  “Well, what’s the matter with my being good-natured?”

  “It’s just that you’re kind of miserable,” Lydia said unhappily. “I’ve never met anyone just like you. It’s not that I ever really believed that there were private eyes, such as you read about in books, but couldn’t you try—a little?”

  “What? What do you want me to try?”

  “To act like a detective—like someone who knows what he’s doing.”

  “You just said you trusted me.”

  “Well, I meant it,” Lydia nodded. “I mean, there with
the lieutenant, well you didn’t double-cross me or anything—”

  “You know why?” I demanded.

  “To get the necklace,” she replied softly.

  “That is right,” I agreed. “That is absolutely right. I covered up for you, lied for you, destroyed every shred of respect Lieutenant Rothschild has for me, all for one reason—to get that rotten necklace.”

  “That’s also the only reason you stopped them from killing me—if they ever intended to kill me.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, just tell me this, Mr. Krim. You were so confounded certain that I stole the necklace that you would have sworn to it on a stack of Bibles—”

  “Well, did you or not? Why don’t you level with me now?”

  “I did not steal it.”

  “There we go again,” I sighed. “And that great big lump of lard in the refrigerator just walked away.”

  “No,” Lydia said, “someone took it away. And just tell me this, Mr. Harvey Krim—if you were so absolutely certain that the necklace was hidden in the lard, and that I was the one who had hidden it there, why didn’t you take it with you when you first came to the apartment?”

  “Because I didn’t realize then that it was the only obvious and sensible place for you to hide a necklace you had stolen.”

  “But you realize it now, don’t you?”

  “I realize it now,” I nodded. “Of course I realize it now. I know it. So let’s put our cards on the table and stop all this shilly-shallying. You did hide the necklace in the lard, didn’t you?”

  She studied me thoughtfully, examining me with those deep-blue eyes of hers. Then she shook her head, a little disgustedly. “No,” she said, “no. I am not a liar—”

  “I never said you were a liar, Lydia. I can understand the necessity—”

  “Just stop right there,” Lydia said. “I will not have you telling me that you understand the necessity for my lying. You asked me directly and point-blank, half a dozen times, did I steal the necklace? Each time you asked me that, I told you no, I did not steal that necklace. Then that brilliant mind of yours did its homework, and it came up with the proposition that I had hidden the necklace in the lard. That you would figure out from the fact that I alone in the house could tolerate the miserable stuff. I suppose you also figured that so long as the necklace remained undiscovered, I would be safe, Sarbine requiring me as a lead to where the necklace was hidden. But once the lard had disappeared, I was in mortal danger.”