Lydia

by Howard Fast

  Sarbine swallowed. The automatic was beginning to tremble in his hand. He licked his lips and then asked Lydia what she wanted. His voice was thick and hoarse.

  “Unconditional surrender,” Lydia replied.

  “You’re insane!”

  “Perhaps—in an insane world. I have no idea who’s sane any more. The devil with all this! I think I am going to kill you, Sarbine. As a matter of fact, I want to—”

  “Talk to her, Krim!” he yelled.

  “Lydia, for God’s sake—”

  “Oh, shut up, Harvey. I am going to kill that fat swine, and you ought to be pleased.”

  “Please, please,” Helen Sarbine begged her.

  “Do you love that swine?” Lydia raised the Luger a fraction of an inch. “It can’t be.”

  “Please, Mark,” Helen Sarbine begged her husband.

  “All right—surrender,” he said to Lydia. The perspiration was pouring down his face now.

  “Drop your pistol,” Lydia said. “Don’t move it. Just open your fingers and let it fall on the ground.”

  He did as she instructed. The .45 fell in the driveway with a dull thud.

  “Now take three paces back.”

  He did so.

  “You too, Mrs. Sarbine! Drop your purse and three paces back.”

  She took her three paces.

  “Turn around, both of you!”

  They turned their backs to us.

  “Hands behind you!”

  The hands were obediently placed in position now.

  “Pick up his gun, Harvey, and put it in your pocket or somewhere.”

  I picked up the .45 and pocketed it.

  “Now tie them up.”

  “With what?”

  “Harvey, don’t be an idiot. Use your necktie on him. Use her belt on her. But keep down. Don’t get in my line of fire.”

  “You are a bloodthirsty little animal,” I was finally able to say.

  “Thank your stars, Harvey.”

  I had pulled off my necktie, and I was tying Sarbine’s hands. He, on the other hand, was trying to talk me into some kind of a deal. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Lydia fumbling in Helen Sarbine’s purse.

  “How about it, Krim?” Sarbine whispered. “She’s crazy. You got the gun. How do you know she won’t kill you?”

  “Oh, shut up!” Lydia snapped at him.

  At that moment a car swung off the road and down the driveway, came screeching to a stop behind Sarbine’s car, and discharged two New Hope policemen, who came racing toward us with revolvers drawn.

  “All right—this is it!” one of them shouted. “Who’s Harvey Krim and who’s Lydia Anderson?”

  “I’m Krim. That’s Miss Anderson.”

  “That is Krim,” the other said. “I remember him. He’s the snotty kid used to hang around the Bodin place.”

  “He sure is,” Lydia said.

  I gave the cop the automatic.

  Sarbine burst out, “Officer, get that gun away from her!”

  The New Hope cop went over to Lydia and held out his hand and said, “All right, Miss. Hand it over.”

  She dropped the gun into his hand.

  “What’s this?” he demanded.

  “It’a a Luger, can’t you see?” she demanded, her eyes filling with tears. I walked over then and picked up the thing the cop held on his palm. It was a Luger, all right—the careful, exact model of a Luger that my kid brother had put together out of eighteen plastic parts some fifteen years before. I gave it back to the cop, who was ripping into Lydia and telling her how she could get hurt, using a phony gun and pretending that it was the real thing.

  “Any damn fool could see it’s a toy!” he shouted at her. Standing behind Lydia and to one side, Sarbine stared voicelessly, his throat thickening, his face turning red and purple. His wife started toward Lydia, but the other New Hope cop stopped her.

  “Don’t make trouble for us now, miss,” he said. “It’s all done.”

  I asked them then how they had gotten here.

  “Your aunt called us, Harvey. You’re an insurance investigator—right?”

  I nodded.

  “Can I see your papers?”

  While I was showing him my papers, Sarbine began to yell that I was a cheap, conniving crook.

  “He’s innocent—right?” the cop asked me.

  “He is—of everything except fraud, assault and battery, kidnaping and murder.”

  “Murder? What kind of murder?”

  “The murder of one David Gorman, who was killed yesterday morning in New York City. I don’t know if that can be made to stick, but the rest can. Attempted insurance fraud. Kidnaping. Attempted murder—it’s a beauty. When you get them booked and safely put away, you can come back and I’ll have a detailed statement ready. It could even be that he’s an ex-Nazi called Von Kesselring—and wanted by the FBI.”

  “You’ll be here?”

  “Right here at Mrs. Bodin’s.”

  The cop put his arm through mine and led me aside. “Listen, Harvey,” he said softly. “How does this tie into the big necklace robbery last Sunday?”

  “Same guy,” I whispered back. “Sarbine—Sarbine necklace.”

  “Oh? But I seen this guy around New Hope.”

  “Summer place here. Park Avenue apartment. That’s where he tried to pull the necklace swindle.”

  “Swindle?”

  “That’s right. He sold the real one and tried to hook my company on a phony.”

  “No?”

  “It’s true.”

  “God damn. That’s a hell of a note, ain’t it?” the cop said.

  “Why?”

  “Well, Jimmy—he’s my partner—Jimmy and me, we sort of had it figured for the necklace and we thought there might be some kind of reward. But if the necklace is a phony—”

  “No reward,” I said. “Anyway, real or phony, where’s the necklace?”

  “You better solve that one, Harvey,” the cop sighed.

  About ten minutes later, as I was turning the car around, Lydia said, “I think I’m all right now, Harvey.”

  “Good.”

  “You don’t really believe I wanted him to shoot you, do you, Harvey?”

  “Sure I believe it. You practically goaded him into it.”

  “I just wanted to upset him, Harvey.”

  “You know who you upset? You upset me. That’s who you upset—me. All those ridiculous, stupid lies about police pistol ranges and the 457th Precinct. I don’t even think there is a 457th Precinct. My word, who could believe you?”

  “You did, Harvey. Sarbine did.”

  “Suppose he had called your bluff? I’d be dead.”

  “So would I, Harvey,” she agreed. “I wouldn’t want to live if you were dead.”

  “There you go again.” We were at the house now. I cut off the lights of the car and went around and opened the door for Lydia.

  “Do you think I’d want to go on living if you were dead, Harvey?”

  “Just give me the necklace now,” I told her.

  “What necklace, Harvey?”

  “The Sarbine necklace—the copy, my dear Lydia.”

  “But where would I get it, Harvey?”

  “You know damn well where you got it—right out of Helen Sarbine’s purse. You also know it’s a copy. What are you—some kind of nut or klepto?”

  “The things you say to me!” she blurted out, reaching into her dress at the breast and pulling out the replica of the necklace. “Here—take it.” She flung it at me, “The rotten things you say to me.” I dropped the necklace into my pocket. “You seem to have forgotten all about the fact that I saved your life. Yes, I saved your life, Harvey Krim, and you know it, and you make me so sick—you’re such a small, worthless worm of a man!”

  “Well, how about the things you call me?”

  “She has every right to,” my Aunt Evelyn’s voice said. “Bring her in here, Harvey. The poor child’s probably terrified.”

  Whe
n the “poor child” was safely ensconced in the living room, and we each of us had a reviving glass of brandy in hand, my aunt demanded a full and complete explanation.

  “It will come out, Aunt Evelyn,” I said. “Right now, what we need in a life-and-death fashion is a clean and forthright statement from Lydia. So if you will give her a writing pad and a good pen, we will begin to get to the bottom of this.”

  “I couldn’t possibly think of a word tonight,” Lydia complained.

  “You don’t have to think. You just write. I will dictate to you, and you put it down exactly as I give it to you. Can you type?”

  Lydia nodded.

  “Good. A typewriter will be better, because you can make carbons. Do you have a portable typewriter, Aunt Evelyn?”

  The typewriter was forthcoming, and presently I was dictating the following to Lydia:

  To whom it may concern:

  What follows is my own personal statement of the facts surrounding the disappearance of the Sarbine necklace. My name is Sarah Cotter. About eight months ago, I managed to obtain a position with Mark and Helen Sarbine as a house-maid, using the name of Lydia Anderson. My intention was to prove that Mark Sarbine had defrauded my father out of the necklace and had been instrumental in causing my father to take his own life. On Sunday April 26 the Sarbines held a dinner party at their house and displayed their necklace to the guests. During the evening the necklace was in clear view, and I had an excellent opportunity to look at it. To my surprise, I discovered that it was not the same necklace that I had once owned and worn, but rather a cheap imitation, worth at most a few hundred dollars. Later that same evening, Mr. Mark Sarbine called the police and told them that the necklace had been stolen. The following day, Monday, I poked a knife into a cake of lard in the refrigerator, felt something hard, and discovered that it was the Sarbine necklace—or rather the imitation necklace. By Wednesday the Sarbines must have realized that I knew what was in the lard, because on that day they removed the necklace from the lard. Because I now realized that they had stolen the false necklace in order to make their insurance claim stick and because they knew I was in contact with Mr. Harvey Krim, the insurance investigator, they kidnaped me, brought me back to their apartment at 626 Park Avenue, and threatened my life. Mr. Krim rescued me from there and took me, for the sake of my own personal security, to the home of his aunt, Mrs. Evelyn Bodin, at New Hope, Pennsylvania. Following us to New Hope, Mr. and Mrs. Sarbine once again attempted my murder. This attempt was frustrated by myself and Mr. Krim, and during our struggle, Mr. Krim and I managed to obtain the copy of the necklace—the same copy the Sarbines had reported stolen, claiming at that time that the copy was actually the real necklace. Both Mr. Krim and I have examined the copy carefully. I am prepared to swear under oath that it is the same necklace Mrs. Sarbine was exhibiting to her guests on the night of the so-called robbery. 1 am also prepared to swear under oath that Mr. Krim and I obtained this imitation necklace with no help or instructions from either the New York City or New Hope police—or any other federal or state or county or city police.

  Signed,

  Sarah Cotter, alias Lydia Anderson.

  When I had finished dictating this to Lydia, and Lydia had finished typing it, my aunt said not one word, but only stared silently at both of us. Lydia, however, burst out with the opinion that it would not stand up for a moment.

  “Why not?” I asked her calmly.

  “Because both Sarbines will come right out and accuse me of stealing the necklace.”

  “Oh? And did you?”

  “You know well enough that I did, Harvey.”

  “Do I? Really, Lydia, you know that you couldn’t have stolen the necklace—that is, the real necklace. It has disappeared, been broken into pieces, sold—it’s gone, once and for all. So you didn’t steal it. As for this imitation”—I took the copy out of my pocket and showed it to my aunt—”why would you want to steal it? How could it possibly profit you?”

  “What do you mean?” Lydia demanded.

  “You know exactly what I mean. There is only one person who could conceivably profit from the theft of this necklace—Mark Sarbine, the man who insured it. Certainly not you.”

  “But he will tell the police—”

  “What will he tell them? That you stole the copy? And who will believe him? You are the one person who could not be taken in, who once owned the real necklace, wore it, and would know in a moment that the copy was a copy. Of course he will try to implicate you. But he will fail.”

  Still, Aunt Evelyn watched us coldly and silently.

  “I can’t sign this,” Lydia said.

  “Why? Is there a word of untruth in it? Read it again.”

  “All right,” Aunt Evelyn said suddenly. “I have listened to a good deal, Harvey. Now tell me this—are you putting this child in an untenable position?”

  “I am not,” I said. “I am trying to get her out of an untenable position.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I am in love with her.”

  Lydia shook her head unbelievingly, her deep-blue eyes hazing over with moisture. She certainly cried easily enough. “Is it the truth, Harvey? You mean it, don’t you?”

  “I mean it,” I nodded.

  “Then I am sorry for all those terrible things I said. I do love you too, Harvey. I think we should get married next week.”

  “Next week? Good God, I only met you yesterday.”

  “I don’t have any illusions about you, Harvey,” she said. “Do you have any about me?”

  “No,” I admitted, and then added, “I hope not.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE REST of the evening was uneventful. The local cops came over, and Aunt Evelyn gave them tea and cake and ten dollars each, and I gave them Lydia’s statement and one that I had prepared. They asked to see the copy of the necklace, but I blandly announced that one of the men from my company had arrived to pick it up. I don’t know whether they believed me or not, nor did I care. I only knew that I had no intention of letting that imitation out of my hands until I turned it over to my company. I also told them that if they got in touch with a Lieutenant Rothschild of the New York City police, he would send for the Sarbines and pin the whole thing down.

  “But don’t try him tonight,” I said. “He’ll be asleep, and he’s a tiger when he’s awakened at night.”

  “I bet he is,” the older of the two cops nodded. “Tell me, Harvey, aren’t you the kid who was always getting into trouble?”

  “He is,” Aunt Evelyn said.

  “What kind of trouble?” Lydia asked.

  “Like maybe not always telling the truth,” the cop said.

  Afterward, I assured Lydia that he had the memory of a sieve and a nasty nature as well, but she looked at me narrowly and thoughtfully.

  Early the following morning I left for New York, a silent and strangely introspective Lydia sitting beside me. At one point when I mentioned her name, she said to me,

  “Are you always going to call me that, Harvey? After all, my real name is Sarah.”

  “Not to me.”

  “That’s a funny thing to say. What do you mean—not to you? You’ve only known me three days.”

  “I could know you three years, and it wouldn’t be like this. To me, you’re Lydia.”

  Another time during that ride, she asked me whether she could see the necklace. I gave it to her and she played with it, sitting there in the car.

  “What does it mean to you, Lydia?” I wanted to know.

  “I can’t say, Harvey—I really can’t. It has some kind of symbolic meaning that I don’t really understand. Even this copy has some of that kind of meaning. It was like the focus of my life, only with no substance. But neither did anything else in my life have substance—not my mother or my father or my home—so I guess I fixed on this necklace. It was to be my Rock of Gibraltar. Only it was not. Please, Harvey, have substance.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “I mean, all t
hat other stuff, calling you a coward and all that—it’s all an awful kind of gag, that’s all. Forgive me, please?”

  “Well—I guess I ought to get out of this business. Don’t you think so?”

  “I think so, Harvey,” she agreed. “I think I have had enough of them—the Sarbines and the Von Kesselrings.”

  Back in the city, I returned the car to the Hertz place, and then walked with Lydia to my office. Downstairs I said to her:

  “Do me a favor, baby—please?”

  “Whatever you want, Harvey.”

  “Wait here. I won’t be more than a few minutes.” I patted the necklace in my pocket. “Just a few minutes. Then maybe a surprise for you.”

  “I’ll wait here, Harvey,” she agreed.

  I went up to the office then. I poked my head into my own cubicle and had a word with Harold Hopkins. “Missed you,” Hopkins said. Mazie Gilman passed by and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. I stopped her and told her to stand absolutely still for a moment. Then I draped the necklace around her neck—and let it sit there for thirty seconds.

  Alex Hunter’s secretary grinned and announced me. According to form, Hunter made me wait five minutes. When I finally entered his office, he was bent over his desk, writing. He went on writing. Then, without looking up, he asked,

  “Well, Krim—blown it?”

  “Go to hell,” I said softly.

  Now he looked up and stared at me. “Out Tuesday, out—yesterday I don’t think you like this job.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You sound damned independent. Why don’t you turn up the Sarbine necklace before you talk as if you own the place?”

  “Oh?” I said. “Well, what about this, Mr. Hunter, sir?” taking the necklace out of my pocket and tossing it onto his desk. I must hand it to him that he didn’t blink an eyelash. He simply picked up the imitation, looked at it carefully, turned it over, and then dropped it back on his desk.

  “It’s a phony. It stinks,” he said.

  “That’s right, it’s a phony. But it’s the necklace that was stolen, and the same one that would have cost the company a quarter of a million. That’s the necklace you sent me out to find. I found it. You wanted performance, and I turned in performance.”