Mecca for Murder

by Stephen Marlowe

  “Aw …”

  “No one saw you in town. You don’t go down there, no one’s going to see you.”

  “So I go to the A.B.C. store for a couple bottles. These hicks remember every face coming in there? So I buy some cigarettes. So what? You make me sick.”

  I stood up and went to the window. It wasn’t a window, really, just a hole you could cover with canvas. The night was cool and the sharp pine smell so strong you could almost bite into it. The candles behind me threw a couple of feet of pale illumination out the window, but it was swallowed by the blackness of the night. If I reached out I could touch that blackness and see my hand disappear in it. This was Sunday night. For forty-eight hours Willy Harker’s cabin had been our tight little universe. At night, especially when it was quiet, when there were no distant train sounds or auto horns to be heard, it was very bad. Maybe I had made a mistake with Lasitter. He had the night watch, with my Magnum for company. But I felt safer that way, because I was awake when Limerock and Fawzia were awake. I had watched them sixteen hours out of each of the first twenty-four.

  I leaned my hands down on the sill of the window. There was nothing out there, but somewhere in that nothingness people lived and thought and did things and perhaps some of them, this minute, were wondering what had happened to Limerock and Fawzia and were trying to find out. Once on Saturday and once this afternoon I had gone out to the Chevvy and listened to a news broadcast on the radio. Trouble off the China coast. The French were getting their lumps in North Africa. Washington was clearing the decks for a convention of antique dealers. An over-age freighter, jammed with pilgrims bound for Mecca, had been rammed in the Mediterranean by a Panamanian freighter. A hundred and fifty dead.

  It was midnight now. I could go out there and hear another broadcast, or I could go out there and curl up on the rear seat of the Chevvy for some sleep. I shrugged and went back to the table. The pile of money had vanished. I could afford it if it meant Lasitter remained on my side.

  I nodded at him, opened the door to the cabin’s other room and went on through. Limerock and Fawzia were sleeping on two frame beds. I could hear their regular breathing as I headed for the outside door. They slept like that, in the same room. If they did anything about it, they did it after I was asleep.

  Outside, the stars seemed very close, closer than the town of Luray at the foot of the mountain. I felt my way along the porch and down to the car. There was no moon. I opened the rear door of the Chevvy and assumed the fetal position inside. It was uncomfortable as hell. My lungs were hungry for a cigarette. I wondered if I ought to let Lasitter go down to Luray in the morning. I wondered if I were being too hard on him. We had some talks and the autobiography of Sidney Lasitter had oozed out with slow, painful self-consciousness, but with a kind of pride too. He had never married. He had gumshoed for himself in a one-man Chicago agency but the competition in Chicago is tough and Lasitter had never got beyond the divorce racket. After a year of it, the bills had piled up and Lasitter had drifted down to Washington. He worked for six months as the night dick in a hotel around the corner from the Mayflower. Then, two weeks ago, Sammy Green had lost an op and took on Lasitter in his place. He was not a disillusioned little man, although he looked like one. He had never had any illusions to be lost.

  Lyman Lee Tyler. I couldn’t figure him out. He was a lot of different people. He was a different person every time you talked to him. He had compartments. He had told me about them last night before he had turned in. He seemed very eager to tell me all about his compartments.

  “I’ll bet you’re wondering,” Limerock had said last night, very politely, not at all sneeringly as he had spoken the day before—that was a different compartment—“why I wasn’t down in Toano tearing up the place to clear my mother’s name. She didn’t kill my wife. You didn’t think she killed her, did you?”

  “I don’t, know,” I had said.

  “She didn’t, but the police can find out about it better than I can. She’s got a good name in Tidewater. They’d bend over backwards if they had to, and they won’t have to. Davisa’s not worrying, so why should I?”

  I had merely grunted something and found a cigarette butt and stretched it out and lit it.

  “I’ll tell you something, Drum. It’s something Davisa taught me when I was very young and I’ve never lost it and it makes the difference between enjoying life and suffering. Know what it is?”

  “Being born on an estate with a silver spoon in your mouth?” I had suggested.

  “Be serious, can’t you? Compartments, Davisa calls it. Living your life in compartments. No overlapping. No integration of personality, despite all the psychiatric hog-wash you hear. I’m very fond of Davisa. In my Davisa compartment, I’d die for her. I swear I would.”

  “But you’re not in your Davisa compartment now?”

  “That’s right. I wish there were some way I could let Davisa know. She’d be proud of me.”

  “Proud of the way you’ve taken Suzanne’s death, too?”

  “You think I have no feelings, don’t you? I have feelings, Drum. Sometimes I’m frightened by the extent and depth of my feelings.” He had given me that with an earnest face in the candlelight in the kitchen. “But I have learned to control my emotions, although that has nothing to do with Suzanne. Suzanne was a mistake, Drum. I’ll admit it. It was a foolish marriage. Didn’t you ever hear of a foolish marriage?”

  I had said nothing about my own marriage and divorce and what it had led to in Venezuela.

  “She was sick. I suppose I felt sorry for her. An alcoholic. I hadn’t gone to bed with Suzanne for three months. She was living with my mother and she knew I was playing around but she didn’t have enough pride to get out. Am I supposed to mourn just because our names happened to be fixed to the same marriage license? Not me, not this boy. God, I can use a drink, Drum. I’ll bet you’d make a good drinking partner.”

  That was last night. This morning he had been silent. I asked him about it. I knew he would answer. He always had to answer about himself. “I’m thinking about how I’m going to get the hell out of here,” he had said with a frank smile. “I’m going on that pilgrimage, Drum. You don’t think you can stop me, do you? When I want something hard enough, I get it.” He had winked at me. “Ask Fawzia.”

  Fawzia, who had been fixing breakfast, flushed. “You also wanted to marry me,” she said coldly.

  “One thing at a time,” Limerock had said, grinning, winking at me again. He had stopped grinning when Lasitter came in for breakfast. Whenever Lasitter looked at Fawzia, there was rape in his eyes.

  I sat up in the rear of the Chevvy and massaged my right forearm. It was cramped under me and had gone to sleep. I rubbed it until the skin began tingling.

  And then Fawzia screamed very loudly from a million miles away.

  Chapter Eleven

  I sprinted up the hill to the cabin and tripped on the porch. I got up and opened the door. Candlelight flickered in the rear room. The connecting door was open. By the light of the candles, I could see that both webbing beds were empty. Lasitter yelled and there was the sound of something heavy falling. Only one of the webbing beds was covered with its khaki blanket.

  In the kitchen, Limerock had Lasitter down on the floor. He had the smaller man by the neck and was pounding his head against the floor boards. Every time his head struck a sound like a rattle would issue from Lasitter’s throat.

  “That’s enough of that!” I shouted. Either Limerock didn’t hear me or he paid no attention. I crouched behind him and circled his neck with my arm, mugging him. I used my thigh muscles and back muscles to lift us. Limerock clung to Lasitter like a bulldog. Lasitter came up part of the way with us but hit the floor with a thud when Limerock finally let go of him.

  Something landed on my back. It was heavy enough to stagger me and made a snarling noise. “Saratan!” it snarled in my ear, forgetting the English it could speak with absolutely no accent. “Saratan!” it snarled again, in Arabic
. “Pestilence, cancer!” it hissed in English. It was under the blue strung lights of a back-alley bazaar in ’Amman, Jordan, a civilization or two removed from Washington, D.C., or even Massanutten Mountain. It had long legs and they snaked around my waist. It had long arms with claws and the claws raked my face like flame. I was able to shake it off but that took time. It took too much time. I shook it off and it landed on all fours on the floor, hissing like a snake. It was wearing a white bra and white panties. It was quivering with rage. It had very long, beautifully formed legs and a hard little, compact little, taut little body. “You were choking him,” it said. “You were hurting him.” It came for me again.

  It didn’t have to. Because Limerock was loose now. Limerock swung on me and I saw it coming. I put up my hands. I was too late. I rolled with it but he caught me good. He caught me splendidly, on the point of the jaw. I don’t have a glass jaw, but I’m human.

  I heard my teeth click together. Very loud. Inside my head. I felt nothing but numbness. The next thing I knew I was on the floor and Limerock, in his underwear, like Fawzia, was standing over me. I yanked at his ankle. He was barefoot. He kicked me. If he was wearing a shoe, the fight would have been over. The kick took the side of my jaw. I was still numb. Limerock yelled and hopped away from me, bending down to hold his foot.

  I scrambled to my feet quickly and shook my head. I hit Limerock once and it was a good solid right over the heart and it drove him back against the sink. The sink and the split-log wall shook, but Limerock didn’t go down. He came back at me and we clinched, swatting ineffectually at one another’s kidneys like they do in the bad fights on television.

  “What the hell are we fighting for?” Limerock said, sobbing. “That son of a bitch attacked her.”

  An invisible referee came between us and broke the clinch. We stood there glaring at each other and panting. I smiled. He was a spoiled brat, probably worse than his mother that way, but he could handle himself.

  Fawzia went over to him and now they clinched. Lasitter was leaning against the table. He tried to look at me, but his eyes were out of focus. He was holding the Magnum in his hand.

  “Give it to me,” I said.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Give it to me.”

  Limerock bent down and picked up Fawzia’s blanket. He, draped it across her shoulders and in a moment she was as shapely as a pup-tent. “All I wanted was a glass of water,” she said. “I came in here for a glass of water. He didn’t say a word. He just stood up and ripped the blanket off. I screamed—”

  “I ought to kill him,” Limerock said.

  Lasitter was still holding the Magnum. He was making up his mind. His eyes were back in focus now and thoughtful. A purple bruise blotched the side of his jaw and his face all the way to the cheekbone. “I’ll give you the gun, pal,” he said. “But we got to get a few things straight.”

  “Give,” I said.

  He laughed a harsh laugh and slapped the Magnum hard against my palm. I tucked it in the waistband of my trousers. “Just let’s get a few things straight,” he said, and rubbed his face.

  “Yeah, let’s. If you try a stunt like that again, I’ll beat you till you’re black and blue.”

  “Hell, Drum, I’m a human being. I got feelings. What the hell. I wanted smokes but you wouldn’t let me go down and get them. I wanted hootch. Man, I wanted a drink. What a drink can do at a time like this. How would you like a nice fat drink of good rye whisky right now and know there’s more where that came from and a couple of bottles in reserve? You think I got what you got? I’m a little guy. I ain’t pretty. If I whistle, sixteen dames won’t line up to wait their turns. What the hell, Drum. Give a guy a break.”

  “Like what, for instance?”

  “Like letting me drive down to Luray in the morning for some smokes and a couple of bottles.”

  “After this stunt you pulled, how the hell do I know what you’ll do down there?”

  “Use your head, Drum. I like my job. I want to keep it. You know what Sammy’ll do if I cross you. I don’t want to cross you. Why would I want to cross you? All I want is some smokes and a couple of bottles. I won’t give you no more trouble, I swear to God. How’s about it, pal?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah,” I said. “Okay. In the morning. Now let’s all get some sleep.”

  Lasitter sat down at the kitchen table, dropping his head on his folded arms and staring intently across the planking as if there were something very special at the other end of the table that only he could see. Limerock and Fawzia went outside to the other room. I followed them and headed for the door.

  “Wait a minute, Chet,” Fawzia said, her voice very grave. I turned around and looked at her. Limerock had brought a candle out here, stuck to a metal plate with its own melted wax. In its light, Fawzia’s face looked as grave as her voice. “Can I talk to you outside for a minute?”

  I shrugged. It was a night for shrugging, after the smoke had cleared. I was boss here in this cabin. Like hell I was.

  We went outside and shut the door behind us. Fawzia wrapped herself in the blanket snugly and held it at her neck with one hand. We went out to the car and I leaned against the fender. “Cold?” I said.

  “Only a little. I just wanted you to know I lost my head in there.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “No, it’s not all right. I scratched you pretty bad. I saw what it looked like in the kitchen.”

  “You had a right to lose your head after what happened.”

  “No, that’s different. You did the only thing you could do. You couldn’t let them keep fighting. Limerock might have killed him.”

  “Look,” I said. “Honestly, you don’t have to apologize. I still love you.”

  “Please be serious. I like you, Chet. It has nothing to do with the way I feel about Limerock. I just like you. Maybe you’re beginning to realize I wish I really didn’t feel that way about Limerock. He wants to marry me, but he’s no good. He wants me to marry him but I’m not going to, even though he can turn me to butter just looking at me. You know something? I wish I were a nymphomaniac. It couldn’t possibly be so intense.” It was very dark. I couldn’t see her. I didn’t move when she stopped talking. Suddenly, she came against me in the darkness, with a soft pressure. Her skin was cold. She wasn’t wearing the blanket.

  “Would you like to make love to me, Chet?” she said, very softly. “Right now?”

  I didn’t say anything. There was a warm, firm, increasing contact where we touched. I groped behind me with my hands and found the cold metal of the Chevvy’s fender. I opened my hands on it and tried to concentrate on the cold, hard surface and the way it felt under damp palms.

  “Would you?”

  She was still leaning against me. Her lips were very close to my lips when she said that. She was standing on tiptoe and leaning against me and I could feel her lips moving, barely touching, against my lips. Her body was moving now too, a boneless, flowing kind of movement, a sensual poetry of the belly and the loins.

  “I’m not a purchasing agent now,” she said. “I’m not buying, Chet. I’m a raqs-essurat.”

  She had her word-for it and I had mine. She was mixed up. She was trying to prove to herself that sex and Lyman Lee Tyler were not synonymous. Maybe she was proving it, I don’t know. I liked her. I was surprised to find out abruptly how much I liked her and although sex was there it had nothing to do with sex.

  I put my hands on her bare shoulders and pushed gently. When there was enough room to talk without tickling her lips with mine, I said, “Are you sure it was Mr. Brown who tried to rape you and not the other way around?”

  Her breath caught. She slapped me hard. When I didn’t move or say anything she slapped me again. I stood there for a long time after she had gone running back into the cabin.

  Chapter Twelve

  On Monday morning after breakfast, Lasitter took my Chevvy down the mountain to Luray. He was gone for two ho
urs and came back with a fifth of rye and a carton of cigarettes. The carton was torn open and he was smoking. He had broken the seal on the rye. He seemed very happy.

  One bottle of rye and one carton of cigarettes. You’re’ some detective, Drum. You should have guessed. You should have realized something was wrong.

  He went into the kitchen and poured himself half a tumbler of rye. That much of it in one glass looked like strong tea. He drank it like strong tea but it brought tears to his eyes. He smacked his lips and exhaled a sigh and gave me the Chevvy’s ignition key with a theatrical gesture.

  “All right if I take this here hootch out to the car with me?” he said.

  I shrugged. Limerock said something about not drinking before lunch. Fawzia avoided any contact with Lasitter, and she wasn’t talking to me. She asked Limerock to ask me if it was all right if she took a pack of cigarettes from the carton Lasitter had left on the table, as a small girl does when she is mad.

  I smiled and told Limerock to tell her it was all right. I lit her cigarette for her and she blew the match out with a plume of smoke. Limerock said, “Well, what’s on the docket at your private resort today, Drum? Hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains? An excursion to the Luray Caverns for all campers over twelve? Some new type of surprise from the good old, dear old management?”

  “Well, now that you mention it, there’s a cord of wood out back that needs splitting.”

  “Me,” said Limerock as I got the axe for him, “and my big mouth.”

  Willy Harker had stored his wood in the open, between the cabin and the outhouse. The big pine logs had to be split for the wood-burning stove. Limerock spit on his hands and rubbed them together, then hefted the axe. He was in good spirits today. He chopped more wood than we could use and seemed raring to go when he finished. He was that way, boyishly enthusiastic, friendly and joking all day. I almost began to think he was keeping me on Massanutten Mountain against my will.

  When I went out to the Chevvy to wake Lasitter for supper, he was already up and hitting the fifth of rye again. There wasn’t much left to hit.