The Gorgeous Murderer

by Henry, Kane,

  “Heroism Award?” she said. “What’s that?”

  “It’s been accumulating for twenty-one years.”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “Last time it was paid was twenty-two years ago to an employee named Edwin Samuelson.”

  “But what is it?”

  “An award of a thousand dollars if one of the employees of the bank performs an act of heroism. If no one does during that year, another thousand dollars is added the next year, and so on and so on. Right now it stands at twenty-one thousand dollars.”

  “No one has been a hero in twenty-one years?”

  He smiled, kissed her forehead. “That’s not as strange as it sounds. Very few people, during a lifetime, perform an act of heroism, that is, ordinary people, in ordinary walks of life. There must be both the opportunity, which happens very rarely, and the inclination to act on such opportunity. Actually, an act of heroism is a rare occurrence. We have eighty-two people employed in the bank; nice, ordinary people. In twenty-one years, nobody was a hero. In the bank, there’s never been a holdup, or, really any kind of untoward happening. In our private lives, we just go along, humdrum and normal.”

  “How would you like to win a Heroism Award?”

  “Me?”

  “The Evangeline Ashley Heroism Award.”

  “Love it. How?”

  “Put your arms around me and kiss me. But like a hero.”

  And on the twenty-third day of March he asked her to marry him. He even made a joke. “For me, for Mr. Hodges, for the Board of Directors,” he said. “But especially for me.”

  The moment was propitious. She was at low ebb. She was unsettled, at loose ends, disappointed, and fearful. Her brief career as an actress had been preposterous even to her. Her return to Florida had been a descent, step by step, from glorified waitress in the Upstairs Room, to the tumultuous affair with Bill Grant, to the sickening and simultaneous affair with Orgaz, to the tiresome job as hostess in a tea room.

  Bill Grant was gone. Orgaz was dead, by her hand. She had no job, no plans, no prospects. And she gave grave heed to the warning she had received, a warning which it would be dangerous to ignore. She was, in fact, grateful for the warning, for she knew, from Bill Grant, that Pedro’s associates were not men who had need to give warnings. If she were an embarrassment to one of them he could have squashed her somewhere in the dark and ended any embarrassment. Instead it had been his whim to send an underling with a warning. She had no intention of staying in Florida beyond the prescribed period.

  She remembered that hungover morning with the elderly director just prior to her exodus from Hollywood. She remembered his words. Go home and catch up with a nice young guy your own age and get married and have babies and live happily ever after. What have you to lose?

  And so she accepted the proposal of Oscar Blinney.

  IX

  THEY WERE MARRIED ON the morning of the twenty-sixth day of March. During the forenoon of the twenty-sixth day of March, her worldly goods—her Savings Bank account—under arrangements made by Banker Blinney, were transferred in her name to the Mount Vernon Savings Bank in the State of New York from the Miami Savings Bank in the State of Florida.

  Then they packed. At two o’clock of the afternoon of the twenty-sixth day of March they flew north for a short honeymoon in Atlantic City, New Jersey. They checked into the Mayfair Hotel at eight o’clock in the evening of the twenty-sixth day of March. At ten o’clock of the evening of the twenty-seventh day of March, during their short honeymoon in Atlantic City, New Jersey, she was, for the first time, unfaithful to him.

  He was sick during that day, the twenty-seventh. Stomach virus, the doctor had said, not unusual when coming from the South to the North. It would pass in a day or two, the doctor said.

  She went down to the bar, bought herself a drink, and then was bought a drink by the dark curly-haired man. The dark curly-haired man had a deep voice and an elegant manner. He was a salesman for Rona Plastics which was having their convention tomorrow, but he had arrived a day early. He bought more drinks for her and for himself, told her about his lovely twins aged three, told her about his lovely wife whom he loved dearly, and took her to his room.

  She returned to her own room at midnight, cognizant of the fact that she had never learned the name of the salesman from Rona Plastics. She wished his twins well, and his wife, looked down upon Blinney who was snoring peacefully, drank bourbon from the open bottle, undressed, and went to bed.

  Blinney recovered nicely.

  On the thirtieth day of March he took her home to Mount Vernon. Blinney was sentimental. He asked if he could carry her across the threshhold. She approved. She said she would not go in any other way. He carried her across the threshhold.

  Within a month Blinney knew that it would not work. Within a month he knew of his egregious mistake. Within a month he knew that he had set, baited, and snapped a trap upon himself (as which of us has not done sometime during a lifetime)? She was slovenly. She was incapable of caring for a home. She had no interest. She drank at all hours of the day. She lay around in flimsy negligee flipping the pages of picture magazines. She did not prepare meals. She could not cook. They ate in restaurants, or, if they ate at home, Blinney would do the cooking as he had done when he was a bachelor.

  There were always dishes in the sink, and the house was dirty. Before he was married, Blinney had had a woman who came in to clean four times a week. After he was married, Blinney discharged her. He was ashamed. His wife drank all day. She was capable of filthy language. She could be uproariously drunk in the afternoon. He could not have a stranger in the house. He was ashamed, and he was fearful of the possibility of gossip in the small town.

  She was bored, indifferent, and lazy. She depended solely, as she had always done, upon the snare of her sexual attractiveness. Blinney still required her but panic and revulsion had returned. She neglected the house but she took meticulous care of her body. She lay in scented baths. She preened, creamed, and pomaded. Her chief interests were shopping, the beauty parlor, jazz records which she played interminably, bars and taverns in the afternoon, and nightclubs at night.

  The pattern settled into mold, congealed, crystallized, fixed. They were as strangers (or as lovers living in hate). Occasionally they went out together; ate, drank, laughed, and even flirted. He detested her and detested himself when he succumbed to her and learned of the satanic thrill of spasmodic flesh-lust practiced in revulsion, despair, and self-hatred.

  Thursdays and Fridays are the busiest days in all banks and The First National Mercantile, at 34th Street and 6th Avenue, was no exception. On Thursdays and Fridays Blinney was about as busy as any man who worked at First National Mercantile.

  He had developed time-saving procedures. Each Monday he took home the payroll sheets of the week before, studied them, and had an approximate idea of the amounts which would be required. On Thursday at 9:05 he would call down to the vault for the approximate amount of cash in the approximate denominations customarily requisitioned by his five big Thursday accounts.

  By nine-thirty, they would call in the actual amounts needed. Within his cage and behind the shatter-proof window (which he could unlock and raise and lower), he would package the payrolls during the quiet of the early morning and during breaks in the more busy hours when there was usually a long line of customers in front of his window. By twelve-thirty his payroll work was completed and the money lay in his drawer within binder-strips marked $1000, $2000, and $5000.

  The business of banking at his level was unadventurous and routine; he was a glorified clerk; a sales person behind a counter dealing in currency. Between one and two o’clock in the afternoon the men would come for their parcels of money; usually men in pairs, big and burly ex-policemen, smiling, and making their jokes. They would wait in line until their turn, slip their requisitions through the slot beneath the window, make their first joke, and wait.

  He would raise the window, accept their briefcase
, neatly stack the packages of money within its recess, listen to another joke, return the briefcase, lower his window, and see them again the next week, hopeful for a better joke. He was not impressed with himself, his business, or the high adventure it entailed.

  And so, on the fifth day of May, at one o’clock, when the phone beside him tinkled, he lifted the receiver without enthusiasm. Flatly he said, “Hello?”

  The female voice said, “Mr. Blinney?”

  “This is he,” he said.

  “Adrienne Moore.”

  “Who?” he said.

  “Adrienne Moore. This is Mr. Blinney?”

  His voice took on timbre. “Oh yes. Of course! Gee, Miss Moore. So good of you to call.” But the line of customers stretched in front of him, impatiently buzzing.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she said.

  “As a matter of fact, you are,” he said. “May I call you back later?”

  “Yes, of course. Sorry to have been of trouble.”

  “No trouble. No trouble at all.”

  “I’m in the phone book, Mr. Blinney. The address is Washington Mews. I’ll be in all day.”

  “I’ll call you back. Thank you for calling.”

  “Oh, not at all. Good-bye, Mr. Blinney.”

  “Good-bye, Miss Moore.”

  And as he cashed a check for a beaming rotund lunch-hour lady-customer, hope thrilled within him; there welled within him, unaccountably, an intuitive presentiment of succor.

  He called her, from a phone booth, at five-thirty. By then, he had made up his mind to skip, for the first time, target practice at the Gun Club. He had not talked with another woman, alone, since the advent of Evangeline Ashley. He had not talked with another woman, alone, since the trap had closed upon him, since despair had become a part of him, since his life, in so short a time, had narrowed to a sense-dulled despondent mechanical existence, somehow incomprehensible.

  He remembered her, vividly. He remembered Adrienne Moore. He remembered the soft, feminine, sympathetic beauty, despite the drunkenness of that night, and despite the then overwhelming presence of Evangeline Ashley. He remembered the soft outlines of her face. He remembered her sweet smile. He remembered the muted, melodious, deep-toned, cultured voice.

  And he remembered the respect she had engendered within him. Respect. Respect was a part of love. Respect had always been a part of his dream of love. Respect! How mad can you get? Respect!—his dream of respect—the woman on the pedestal—and he had married Evangeline Ashley!

  He called, from a phone booth, at five-thirty. He asked Miss Moore to dinner and she accepted. He said he would call for her at seven o’clock. She said that would be perfectly lovely and he thanked her and he hung up. Promptly at seven o’clock he presented himself at her house in Washington Mews near Greenwich Village, but they did not go out for dinner.

  She answered his ring, opened the door, and invited him in. She wore black pumps, black tapered slacks, and a black sleeveless sweater. She was tall and slender and well-figured and haughty of carriage, darkly smooth-skinned, high-colored in visage, highhipped, round-armed, delicatefingered, red-lipped, and tousle-haired.

  “Hi,” she said in her serious deep voice. “So good to see you.”

  “Hello, Miss Moore,” he said.

  “Come in. Please do come in.”

  He entered into a large living room which contained one of the rarities of homes in New York: a wood-burning fireplace—which was burning wood. It was a beautiful room, the walls entirely of a warm thin-stripped wood, the ceiling of a lighter wood with inlaid designs. She took his hat and said, “Would you like a Martini, Mr. Blinney?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  She poured gin and vermouth and stirred with a long cocktail spoon. “You’re probably wondering about my motives,” she said. “I still want to do you, and I’d like to start tonight, so, by your leave, I took the liberty of preparing a bit of dinner which we’ll eat in. Was I too bold?”

  “No, no, not at all.”

  She smiled. “You wouldn’t think me an aggressive sort, now would you, Mr. Blinney?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “And please, not Mr. Blinney.”

  “Well, I am, Oscar. And according to Kenny, you are of a—well, let us say—of a mild temperament.” She smiled again. “There’s nothing mild about me, Oscar. Perhaps then, with opposite natures, we’ll be good for one another; sort of complement one another.”

  “Perhaps,” he said and sipped his Martini.

  “Are you too polite to ask the question?”

  “Question?” he said.

  “If I’m supposed to be that interested in you—how come I took until now to be in touch with you?”

  The drink had begun to melt some of his shyness. “I admit I thought of it, I mean, just now, for a moment.”

  “I have a very good excuse. I wasn’t here. I just got into town. Today.”

  “You remained in Coral Gables?”

  “No. I had a show. At the Berkshire Galleries in San Francisco. I flew there directly from Coral Gables. And so now you must realize that I have not been derelict, that I do pursue, and that I’m shamefully aggressive.” And she laughed. And then she cocked her head and studied him. “You know, something’s been added.”

  “Pardon?” he said.

  “Your face. There’s a new dimension. I believe I’m going to have more fun painting you than I had anticipated.” She moved her head back as she regarded him, her eyes narrowing.

  “You sit and sip,” she said, “while I engage myself in my kitchen. Be with you in a trice, or perhaps thrice trice. Thrice trice, nice.” She giggled, as a very young girl. “Thrice trice is not twice trice but thrice trice. Say that quickly a dozen times or so. It’ll cut the waiting time.”

  Appetizer was hot shrimp, main course was roast ribs of beef with mashed potatoes and juice-gravy, tossed green salad, and sparkling Burgundy; dessert was expresso coffee and petit-fours, and more sparkling Burgundy. And then she said, “Oscar, you’re exactly as I pictured you would be. This has really been a charming evening and I thank you.”

  “Oh no. I thank you”

  “Which brings me to another point.”

  “Yes?”

  “I warned you I was a blunt one.”

  “Yes, Adrienne?”

  “Blunt, yes, but not bitchy, although what I’ll say now may sound bitchy. About the girl you were with that night, Evangeline.”

  “I… I…”

  “If ever there were two people who didn’t belong in each other’s company!”

  “I… please…” He reached for the goblet of Burgundy and drank rapidly.

  “You’re obviously such a decent kind of guy. And that one.” She shook her head, her face serious and puzzled. “She had a horrible reputation at school, just horrible. And the rumors that drifted back after she left school…”

  “Please.”

  “I was no longer in Coral Gables but, gosh, every time I had a visitor from the South, they were full of choice tidbits of Evangeline Ashley in Rome, and Evangeline Ashley in Hollywood. I just can’t understand a man like you and a gal like that—and honestly, I’m not being bitchy.”

  “I… I married her.”

  It was as though she had not heard. “Pardon?”

  “I married her.”

  And now it was as though she did not understand. “Married whom?”

  “Evangeline Ashley.”

  And now it struck and blood suffused her face in a dark flush. “I’m sorry. Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry. I’m so damned ashamed.”

  “I… I regret it.”

  “So do I. Please forgive me.” The flush remained, perspiration at her temples. The deep, dark, enormous eyes quivered with tears. “I… I’m just beside myself. Damn!”

  “No, no.” He gulped, spoke slowly, distinctly. “I regret that I married her.”

  “Please. If you please. I’d rather not talk about it.”

  “No. If you plea
se. I rather would. I must. Please. Please listen.”

  And he had release. He had confession. Calmly, unhurriedly, stolidly, in an unemotional monotone, as though a witness reciting the misadventures of another, he told her all he knew of Evangeline Ashley, from the moment that he had first seen her to the present; he told her of his courtship and his marriage; he told her of his trap and its convolutions, the impossible insoluble quandary; he told her of himself, his background, his parents, his job, the bank, Alfred Hodges, even the Board of Directors—all in relation to Evangeline Ashley.

  He talked for almost two hours to her nods, grunts, murmurs, and small noises of comprehension, but she did not interrupt once. And then he was finished. He sat back, and they were silent.

  And then he said, “I’m sorry.”

  Almost truculently she said, “For what?”

  “For sitting her and running off at the mouth like that. For boring you. For—”

  “Now stop that!”

  He sighed, bit a corner of his mouth. “Maybe it was the wine. Maybe I just had to talk to someone. Maybe it was… was you.”

  “I hope, sincerely—it was I.”

  He pushed his knees against the chair and stood up. “I’ll be going now. I thank you, for everything… and for listening.”

  “Going where, Oscar?”

  He shrugged.

  “Home?” she said.

  “No.” He spoke the word dully.

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged again. “Because I think I’ve taken advantage of you. Because it’s late. Because you’ve been very nice, and I’m most appreciative. Because I like you… very much… too much.”

  “That’s no reason for wanting to go away, is it?” And she stood up, and her smile was small, and tender.

  “It is,” he said. “Things… happen to me. Thoughts. An excitement with certain people. You. It’s wrong.” He grimaced, ran a hand down his cheek. “There must be something wrong with me. Rotten. I must be rotten somewhere.”