The Comedy is Finished

by Donald E. Westlake

  “I knew it,” Mark says, not threateningly but as though he too is pleased with Koo’s accomplishment. “The others didn’t think so, but I knew it was you. How’d you do it?”

  “That room I was in. I saw it in the movies once, when a director named Gilbert Freeman owned the house.”

  “Gilbert Freeman. You said that name, on one of the tapes.”

  “I called him my favorite host in all the world.”

  “Right.” Mark frowns, thinking about that. “How does that tell anybody anything?”

  “I hardly knew Gilbert Freeman. He’s never been my host.”

  Laughing, very pleased with Koo, Mark says, “Sly old man. I’m glad I met you.”

  “Well,” Koo says. “Uhhh. I’m not sure the feeling’s mutual.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Mark agrees, the laughter giving way again to the small almost absentminded smile. “Well, time will tell, won’t it?”

  “If it does,” Koo says, “I’ll never tell time again.”

  “Ugh. You can do better than that.”

  “Not right now I can’t,” Koo says.

  33

  Peter walked with Ginger out to the car, a white reconditioned 1958 Ford Thunderbird; an early Thunderbird, from back when Ford had it in mind to build a sports car. Beside it, Peter’s Impala looked like a gross unpleasant animal; an alligator next to a swan. The two cars sat side by side in the carport, a doorless concrete-floored insert on the highway side of the house, directly beneath the room in which Koo Davis was being held. Beyond the cars, as Peter and Ginger emerged from the house, traffic flashed by on the Coast Highway in bright sunshine. Across the road, the scrub-covered hills rose steeply toward the north.

  Peter said, “You’ll be back in an hour?”

  “Depending on traffic.” Ginger was impatient to be gone.

  “Don’t make us wait too long,” Peter said. “Remember, we also have to get out of the country today.”

  “I’ll be as quick as I can. How many times do I have to say it?”

  “That’s fine, Ginger.”

  “Goodbye.” Reaching in his pocket for his keys, Ginger went around to the driver’s side of the Thunderbird.

  Peter watched in silence while Ginger unlocked the door, but then said, “Ginger, one last thing.”

  “What now, Peter?”

  “A threat,” Peter told him. “You know what’s going to happen to Davis. If you don’t come back, I assure you the police will find Davis in a way that connects him to you.”

  “You’re a very stupid person, Peter,” Ginger said. “You have alienated me for no good reason at all. I’ll bring you your two thousand dollars, I’ll get myself out of this little swamp of yours, and that will be the end of it.”

  Was Ginger right? Had Peter unnecessarily alienated him? But there had been nowhere else to go with Davis, once the first place became known. Chewing on his cheeks, keeping himself with difficulty from adding yet more verbal threats (which he knew full well could only make things worse), Peter watched Ginger insert himself behind the wheel of the Thunderbird, start the engine, and without another look in Peter’s direction back briskly out to the sunlight. Peter followed, walking slowly forward, wishing there were some way to reconstitute their former relationship, but knowing it had become hopelessly spoiled. If only they hadn’t had to move from the house in Woodland Hills. God damn the FBI! And God damn Mark or whoever was responsible for tipping them off.

  The Thunderbird swung backwards in a tight quarter-turn, then slid forward like a fish, joining the flow of traffic. Peter, shielding his eyes, stepped out into the sunlight far enough to watch the Thunderbird out of sight around the next coastal curve to the east; then he shook his head and walked back into the house, hardly noticing the pain in his cheeks.

  What a disaster this operation had been! It had seemed so clear and simple in the planning, such an unmistakable public statement, and it was ending in confusion, death, humiliation.

  Peter had made mistakes, he fully acknowledged that, but on careful reflection he didn’t believe that he had made a fool of himself. Time had made a fool of him, time and accident and the frailty of human beings; none of which could be fully guarded against.

  It had been so much easier a decade ago, when the Movement was a true and active force, when a leader was someone who sensed where the crowd intended to go anyway and got out front to yell, Follow me! But where was the Movement today? Where was the crowd, the consensus; where were the willing masses for a leader to lead? There seemed to be no direction at all, no communal grievance or belief, no goal, hardly even any adversary. What was a leader to do in such muddled times? In a way, Peter could understand the defection of those seven in jail; it’s hard to be a revolutionary when revolution isn’t popular.

  Peter was now regretting that he hadn’t spent more time and thought on the theory of the New American Revolution; but when things had been going well it hadn’t seemed to matter. Each person had his capabilities, his strengths, and the Movement could use everyone in his appropriate place. Larry, for instance, was wonderful at theory, Larry truly understood what the Revolution was all about, but Larry was no leader. Larry couldn’t lead a dysentery victim to the men’s room.

  That was another of the problems. In the rich days, it had been almost inevitable that the leaders would feel a kind of paternal contempt toward the theorists, and old habits do die hard. Peter needed Larry now, to give him the dialectical underpinnings for their goals and their methods, but Peter could not bring himself to go to Larry humbly, as a student to a teacher, he simply could not reverse the leader-follower roles in that ignominious way. More and more, lacking both the tidal pressure of a mass movement and the magnetic pull of a clearly defined theoretical goal, Peter was reduced to improvisation and to patchwork solutions of immediate problems. The murder of Koo Davis, on which he was determined, had no revolutionary significance (as the death of an influential senator, say, or an undercover CIA agent, could be significant in that it would to some extent affect and alter history), but the death of Davis had become for Peter an absolute tactical necessity, the only means he could think of to overcome the stigma of his failure.

  There were three radios playing in the house, all tuned to the same news station, but to no effect. The noon deadline was almost here, and the authorities had not so much as acknowledged receipt of the latest message. That had been a frequent governmental tactic over the last several years—“toughing it out,” “stonewalling”—and if Peter had been interested in further negotiation he might very well have given in; presented new messages, offered new deadlines, broadened contact with officialdom. As it was, their tactic meshed perfectly with Peter’s own, and assured that next time they would be less cavalier.

  Liz was in the living room, once again seated with legs curled beneath her in the Eames chair. Beyond her, through the glass doors to the deck, Peter could see Larry sunk in thought. Could he rely on Larry now, for anything? No; the simplest request would surely provoke weak and cowardly remonstrances, complaints, accusations. It would not be possible to convince Larry that Peter’s past errors of judgment—or other problems in the past—were not at the moment the point. The point at the moment was to make the best of a bad job, recoup as much as possible, and get out of here.

  Which meant the death of Davis, a tactical action of which Larry would undoubtedly disapprove. Not wanting to place them all in a position where Larry would have disobeyed a direct order, Peter was forced to adjust his thinking to a plan with a cadre of one: Liz. He entered the living room, turned down the radio, sat near her, and said, “When Ginger gets back, we’ll leave.”

  “All right,” she said, not looking in his direction.

  She obviously didn’t care what happened next, but Peter had to explain his plans to someone, and she was all he had. “We’ll fly to Vancouver,” he said. “You still have that safe passport?”

  “Of course.”

  “Before then, before Ginger gets back,
we have to take care of Davis.”

  Now she did look at him, saying, “Shouldn’t we wait till tonight? How do we get him away from here?”

  “We don’t. This is where they’ll find him.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “What does that do for your friend Ginger?”

  “Ginger no longer wants to be a part of us,” Peter explained. “He’s made that very clear. So it’s no longer necessary for us to protect Ginger.”

  “He’ll give your name to the police.”

  “Good. I’ll want the authorities to know this was my operation, so they’ll be more circumspect with me next time.”

  “Next time.” She said it without inflection.

  “We have to act now, Liz,” Peter said, emphasizing his words in an attempt to capture her attention. “And it’s only the two of us. Larry is useless, and Mark has gone completely over the edge.”

  “There’s something between him and Davis,” Liz said.

  “I know that. I can’t figure out what it is.” Peter’s irritation was surfacing more and more. “When I wanted Davis alive, Mark was determined to kill him. Now when I want Davis dead, Mark stands over him like a faithful collie. We have to take him out, Liz, just you and I.”

  “Take Mark out?”

  “We can do it. There are two of us and he won’t expect—”

  “No no,” she said, slapping the air to make him stop talking. “I know we can do it. I’m surprised you want to do it. There aren’t many of us left.”

  “Mark has already chosen to be in opposition to us.”

  Liz shrugged; nothing ever surprised or baffled her for long, a trait Peter was frequently grateful for. “Then we’ll have to kill him,” she said. “If we just draw him away, he’ll make trouble later.”

  “That’s right. What we’ll do, you’ll knock on the door, talk to him, get him to come out of the room. I’ll be partway down the stairs, where he won’t be able to see me until he’s completely out in the hall. When he comes out I’ll shoot him. Then it’ll be your job to keep the door open. I don’t want Davis locking it from the inside, forcing us to batter the damn thing down before we can get at him.”

  “What if Mark won’t come out?”

  “We need an inducement.” Peter frowned at her. “What about sex? Could you get him out that way?”

  Laughing, she said, “Not a chance.” Her face and the sound of her laughter were both harsh. “Not with Mark,” she said. “He’s even worse than you.”

  What did she mean by that? Choosing not to pursue it, Peter said, “Something else, then. Tell him something, I don’t care what. Get him to just step across the threshold, that’s all.”

  “Let me think.” She half-turned to gaze out toward the glass doors and the deck. Peter looked in the same direction, seeing Larry slumped in an orange butterfly chair out there, like a TB victim getting a final infusion of sun. Beyond the deck, the beach and ocean were lightly peopled by swimmers, surfers, hikers, sunbathers. The amazing thing was that this place could at the same time be so public and yet so private. Hundreds of people moved up and down the beach out there, past the long row of dwellings, never guessing what this one beach house contained.

  Liz said, “I’ll tell him you caught Larry trying to call the police.”

  “You mean—to turn himself in?”

  “To turn us all in.”

  Peter looked out again at the despondent figure on the deck. “God knows it’s believable.”

  “That’s the point, isn’t it?” With a lithe movement, Liz uncoiled herself out of the chair. “If we’re going to do it, let’s do it.”

  “Wait. I have to get the gun.”

  Peter’s luggage was in the room where he’d made the two tapes; the one they’d sent last night to the authorities, and the one he’d made this morning, to be left next to Davis’ body. Now, while Liz waited at the foot of the stairs, he went into that room and took from the bottom of his suitcase a small revolver; a .32 caliber Colt Cobra, with a two-inch barrel. Also in the suitcase were a Browning .380 automatic, a Ruger .357 Blackhawk revolver, and a .38 Colt Police Positive Special revolver; all larger, heavier guns than the Cobra. Peter had collected these guns over the last few years, buying them all legally, but he had no real interest in or liking for guns and had never become comfortable with any of them. He did not practice shooting, didn’t entirely trust guns, and whenever he felt the need for one he invariably chose the Cobra, being the smallest and lightest and therefore the least intimidating.

  Liz had already started up the stairs, and was waiting now three steps from the top. Peter followed, stopped two steps below her, and whispered, “Go ahead.”

  “Are you close enough?”

  “Yes yes! Go on!”

  It was necessary for Peter to clench his jaw to stop the teeth from grinding; he couldn’t afford that distraction now. Pressing his left side against the stairwell wall, he held the Cobra in both hands, out at arm’s length, his left arm braced against the wall, the revolver barrel pointed at a head-high spot directly in front of that bedroom door. Although Peter disliked guns, he knew himself capable of using them effectively at short range; twice before he had shot people, once fatally and once wounding a policeman in the side. There would be no difficulty now with Mark and with Davis.

  At the bedroom door, Liz paused and looked down at Peter, who nodded to her that he was ready. Without hesitation, she knocked sharply at the door, and a few seconds later Peter heard the rumbling voice of Mark; though he wasn’t near enough to make out the exact words.

  “It’s Liz.”

  Mark rumbled again.

  “I have to talk to you. Come on, Mark, don’t make me yell through the door.”

  Peter’s perceptions were so acute now that he could see the doorknob turn. He watched it disappear as the door opened inward, but Mark did not immediately appear.

  Now, however, Peter could hear what Mark was saying: “What’s the problem?”

  “It’s Larry.” Liz’s manner seemed to Peter offhand and mechanical; shouldn’t she sound more troubled? Or was this more appropriate to her style?

  “What’s the matter with Larry?” Not a bit of Mark showed beyond the doorway, not even a shadow.

  “Peter caught him calling the police. He wanted to turn us all in.”

  The familiar snarl of Mark’s laughter made Peter hunch more closely against the protecting wall. When would the damn man come out of there? The waiting was difficult; it was getting harder and harder not to grind his teeth.

  Mark said, “That’s Larry, all right, always the wrong move at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. Did Peter stop him in time?”

  “Yes, we think so. But Peter needs help, he wants you to come down and help him.”

  “Help? With Larry?”

  “Peter’s holding him,” Liz explained, “but we can’t trust Larry anymore, we don’t know what he’ll do next. Peter can’t deal with him alone.”

  “You mean he wants Larry put out of the way, and he’s too much of a coward to do it himself.”

  Oh, am I? You’ll soon learn about that.

  “That isn’t it.” Liz sounded as impatient as Peter felt. “He can’t control Larry all himself, that’s all. Come down and help him.”

  “This is all too stupid,” Mark said, but grudgingly, meaning he was about to give up. Peter could tell by the way Liz stepped back from the doorway that Mark was coming out now. Here he—

  “Peter, there’s trouble out—”

  Larry’s voice! Peter swung around, stunned, and Larry was at the foot of the stairs, gaping upward, bewildered: “What are you—?” Then, understanding: “Mark, look out!”

  Swinging back, Peter saw Mark just stepping into the hallway, looking in this direction—beardless! That surprising naked face was also seeing this tableau, understanding it, and even as Peter was bringing the gun up Mark was flinging himself backward. Damn! Peter fired, knowing it was no good, too late, then fired a second time even more uselessly
, as the door slammed shut.

  Liz was shouting something, Larry was shouting something. Peter bounded up the stairs, twisted the knob, but the door was locked from the inside. Enraged, he emptied the Cobra into the closed door, hoping the bullets would go through the wood and glass, would hit something in there, and then he turned to fling the empty pistol in rage and frustration down the stairs at Larry, who merely sidestepped it, crying out, “Peter, have you gone crazy?”

  “That son of a bitch,” Peter growled, and he wasn’t sure himself whether he meant Mark or Larry. To Liz he said, “Does Mark have a gun in there, do you know?”

  “What a mess this is,” Liz said, as though it was Peter she blamed.

  “Does he have a gun?”

  “How would I know?”

  “We have to assume—Oh, Jesus, can’t anything go right?”

  Larry by now had reached the head of the stairs, his expression astounded and disapproving. “You were going to shoot Mark!”

  “Yes, by Jesus, I was, and you fouled it up!”

  “But why?”

  “Because we have to kill Davis, and Mark’s in the way.”

  “But we don’t have to—”

  “Don’t argue tactics with me,” Peter said, his finger poking out at Larry, his patience finally gone for good. “You’re a weak sister, you always have been a weak sister, and you won’t tell me how to run this operation.”

  Larry’s face closed down; he made an obvious effort to attain dignity. “I’ll tell you,” he said. “I’ll tell you what I came in to report. They’ve cleared everybody away from our area of beach.”

  “They? Who?”

  “I don’t know. Lifeguards, police, what difference does it make?”

  “Maybe somebody saw a shark.”

  “They haven’t just cleared everybody out of the water, they’ve moved them away from the beach, too. It looks as though they’re setting up sawhorse barriers two or three houses away on both sides.”

  “There’s got to be some—” But then it all overflowed, and Peter yelled, “You did call the police! You bastard, bastard, bastard—”