The Murderer Vine

by Shepard Rifkin

  “I beg your pardon.” I pulled my legs even more tightly under my chair.

  She hadn’t finished.

  Oh, the women I’d been meeting! The first was my date on Kirby’s diction money. Alice was all right, and adequate in bed, a cheese sandwich when you’re hungry. It stops the hunger, but its anticipation and consumption and after-image and desire to repeat are at zero degrees.

  Then those two call girls at L’Horloge, the ones with arctic eyes. No point in thinking further about them.

  Then Lisa. Good instincts, but the brain capacity of early Neanderthal woman.

  And now this stupid bag who’d gotten the world’s hook in her mouth — by her looks, at an early age — complained about it feverishly, and would die in ten minutes, like a fish out of water, if it were suddenly removed.

  “I’m really very sorry. I had no idea I was obstructing — ”

  You have to admit I was trying.

  “The trouble with New York, young man — ” she began, but I took last honors there.

  “Is you madam,” I said, and got up.

  I wandered out and wound up somehow in the American Wing. I liked the simple looks of colonial furniture. I stopped at the dining room of a rich Charlestown merchant, 1745. There was a full-size mannequin of the lady of the house, standing near the fireplace and smiling at me, as if she was welcoming me to her house.

  “Hello, baby,” I said.

  She kept smiling. I suddenly found myself thinking of Kirby. She could be standing there in front of the fireplace, in one of those long, low-cut gowns, with a white powdered wig, a black heart-shaped beauty mark just at the swell of the left breast. I bet she’d look great, with her long legs and firm bust, and with that shrewd little sparkle in her eyes that came whenever she was excited and interested in what was going on.

  There wouldn’t be any herbivorous calm or icy calculation or stupidity or a perpetual whine about her. I began to think I was very lucky at having her for an assistant — no, it was her idea to use her accent as camouflage. Let’s call her an associate in this joint venture. I felt suddenly much better about the whole thing. I’d always operated alone; it felt damn good to work for a change with someone bright and funny. Thinking of her was a good omen, and, ten minutes later, when I was in the antique gun collection looking at a sixteenth-century pistol with six barrels, each having its own trigger, I had an idea that would solve my last problem.

  I went right to the museum entrance, got into a phone booth, and called George Foglia.

  16

  George never talked on phones. You said, “Hi, George, how’s things?” He knew that meant you wanted to discuss serious matters. If he said, “Fine, how’s yourself?” it meant he was open for a meeting.

  George answered the phone. “Hi, George,” I said. “Joe Dunne. How’s things?”

  “Fine. How’s yourself?”

  “Fine, just fine, George.”

  “Where you hangin’ out these days?”

  “The Metropolitan Museum.”

  “You’re kiddin’.”

  When I convinced him I was really there, he said, “You know, I never made a sale there yet.”

  “There’s always the first time.”

  “Well, why not? I’ll be over right away.”

  We met in the bookshop off the main entrance. I was killing time by looking through a book on Etruscan art. He came in and peeked at it over my shoulder.

  “Hey,” he said, “ain’t that one the forgery we sold the Museum? That guy with the sword?”

  It was. George swelled with pride.

  “You gotta admit it,” he said, “we wops are great at forgeries. Catch some wop museum buyin’ a forgery! It’ll never happen. Right?”

  “Right.” I steered him into the cafeteria while he was boasting of Michelangelo’s and Cellini’s expertise at fakes and how they fooled everybody by burying a statue and letting someone dig it up.

  When we had our coffee in front of us, he leaned close and said, “Okay.”

  I told him what I wanted. He put three heaping teaspoons of sugar in his cup and stirred it slowly.

  “Makin’ a movie?”

  “Call it that.”

  “You the star?”

  He looked at me and said, “Sorry, Mr. Dunne. You know me and my jokes. I got no taste. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “You wanna get down to business?”

  I looked at him.

  “Yeah. Well, the army just developed a cutie for Vietnam. It’s for them Green Berets, it’s for troops operatin’ behind enemy lines. You know, hit hard, beat it, go on, hit hard, and zoom! beat it again. You need somethin’ light, that won’t rust or jam, and you need it quiet. The M-14 ain’t so good. They’re all right for regular combat, when you don’t give a damn if the enemy knows you’re there, but for these boys they’re no good, they make a hell of a racket. So the army goes and makes this here machine gun down at Aberdeen Provin’ Grounds. It’s made of some new tough plastic that floats. You drop it in the water and it floats, honest to God. They got some wild steel-magnesium-aluminum alloy for all the metal parts, so it don’t weigh hardly nothin’. All that weighs are the cartridges. And they don’t weigh hardly anythin’ either. Ask me why.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re twenty-twos.”

  “Twenty-twos? What good are twenty-twos?”

  “Twenty-twos is damn good. They got this low powder charge, see? A twenty-two with a big powder load would go zing! right through you and leave a tiny hole. So this one goes real slow, you might say it loafs along, but don’t worry, it can move faster than you can run, and the riflin’ in the barrel is designed to give it wobble when it comes out. Man, they make a big hole. You wouldn’t use it for any target over twenty-five yards away, the cartridge would be spinnin’ like a merry-go-round and be off maybe six inches to a foot. But for very close-range jungle fightin’, you can’t beat it. And if you want to play real dirty, you can cut a little cross at the end of each cartridge.”

  I made a face.

  “You gonna tell me dum-dums are against international law? I got news for you. I got a kid brother with the Marines out there. If a dum-dum saves his life, God bless him for makin’ one. He’s got a Comanche buddy from Oklahoma. Know what this crazy Indian does? He takes scalps. And that ain’t all. Hold onto your seat belt for this one. He sends the scalps home and his folks jump up and down all around them and pound them old family drums. They hold scalp dances, for Christ’s sakes. Dum-dum, scalp-schmalp, whoever comes out alive wins.” He drank some coffee. “Excuse the speech. Let me tell you the convincer about this new job. It’s got a silencer. A plastic silencer.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Empty, the whole unit weighs four pounds — count ’em — four. A drum of sixty cartridges weighs three pounds more. Add ’em — you got yourself somethin’ real interestin’ there that weighs seven pounds.”

  Seven pounds. And my cute little Magnum weighs thirty-one ounces. Almost two pounds. Empty. That’s an awful lot of weight balanced against operating conditions and effect.

  “How much?”

  “Take it easy! They only got five or six out there at Aberdeen. That’s all there is in the whole world. You want one, it’s gonna cost.”

  “Well?”

  “Lemme figure. I got a good guy in Baltimore, he knows practically everybody at Aberdeen. He contacts one of ’em an’ makes the pitch. The guy is gonna want plenty. You see why. An’ then you just don’t walk out with it. It ain’t like walkin’ out of Abercrombie and Fitch.”

  George didn’t make sales talks. If he really faced problems, he faced them.

  “This guy, he’s gonna have to take it out a piece at a time. An’ if they catch him, it’s his ass. I mean, he’s had it. It’ll cost you a grand.”

  You didn’t bargain with George. He made a price and he stuck to it like a barnacle.

  “Okay. How soon?”

  “I’ll give you a call day afte
r tomorrow. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  We shook hands. We stood up and strolled out. We walked through the Roman section. George stopped in front of the naked Roman emperor. He stared up, bursting with pride.

  “Hey, paesan!” he said, bunching his fingers and thumb together and shaking them.

  He turned to me. “I got a cousin in Palermo,” he said. “He went to art school in Rome. He’s got a lousy job teachin’ art to schoolkids. I’ll write him to cook up somethin’ for the Met. Let’s take ’em! Who’s the boss here?”

  “So long, George,” I said. “You’re on your own.”

  17

  Kirby opened the door next morning. I was sitting at my desk with my chin supported on a palm, drawing cubes and shading them carefully.

  “There’s someone to see you, Mr. Dunne,” she said. I could tell by her icy formality that she didn’t like the someone.

  “Is his name Moran?”

  “So he says.”

  “Send him in.”

  Moran came in bleary-eyed and needing a shave. He was yawning. His clothes smelled of Moran. The collar of his shirt was dirty, and so was his tie.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said wearily, holding up a hand. “I slept in the car to save a few bucks.” He displayed his hands. They were filthy. “I had a flat.”

  “Wash up,” I said. I gave him a towel and a bar of soap and the key to the washroom down the hall. I stood by Kirby’s desk and watched her look at him. Then she looked at me with her mouth pursed in distaste.

  “Don’t be so harsh,” I said. “That’s the guy who’s helping you make fifteen hundred bucks.”

  Moran came back looking a little better. He had used the towel rather than the soap, but then I didn’t have to live with him. Kirby was now looking at him with bright, speculative glances. He misunderstood. He swelled with pleasure.

  When I closed the door to my office, he rolled his eyes and licked his lips. “Mmm,” he said, “that is some dish. It’s these quiet-looking ones turn out to be tigers in the sheets.”

  “Let’s see what you have.”

  “Business, business, business. That’s you, Joe. Business, business.”

  “And if you want your money, money, money, Moran, produce.”

  “I’ll produce all right.”

  He put down two driver’s licenses, all stamped and legal. “I had some guy remove the personal data with some chemical. How’s it look?”

  It looked perfect. “All right,” I said.

  “All right, hell! That’s perfect. All you have to do is fill in and you’ve got it made.”

  He put down a Xerox copy of the registration card of a graduate student in the School of English Studies — one Harold Wilson.

  “Here’s a copy of the records at McGill on this guy. His whole school career. Said Wilson has pretty near all the specifications you asked for — five eight, a hundred and eighty, black hair, gray eyes, born nineteen twenty-eight in Dunsmuir, Saskatchewan— Hey, that fits you like a glove!”

  The son of a bitch was sharp, all right. I thought that this might happen, and I wasn’t a good enough actor to get past this spot easily.

  “Fancy the amazing coincidence,” I said sarcastically, and then, as if the whole subject wasn’t interesting enough to talk about, I said, “What else you got?”

  He gave me a slow, half-lidded look. Oh, the son of a bitch.

  “Well, the guy lives in a little apartment a few blocks from McGill. I had my friend go through it. I told him to steal anything that wasn’t nailed down, as if a crazy junkie had been in the place. So he grabs a twelve-dollar radio and a three-fifty alarm clock and a fifteen-dollar electric razor. He made it look like this hophead was going frantic in there looking for diamonds or cash hidden in the bureau or under the rug. He really turned it upside-down.”

  “Was it worth it?”

  “He found some letters from the guy’s mother, a whole stack. He took three. They probably wouldn’t even be missed.” Moran handed them to me. He grinned. “My friend was very humiliated. He said no respectable burglar would spend four seconds in a place like that.”

  “What did he do with the stuff?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Dumped it in the river?”

  Moran chuckled and nodded. I looked at the letters. “Dear Hal: I’m glad your studies are going so well. This is all we can spare. Business has been bad in the hardware line because of the drought. Mrs. Garrison broke her hip in a fall down the back stairs and I’m taking care of her — ”

  Nice family letters. Nice to take along and keep in a bureau drawer for someone to read over some night in case I’d be away — someone who might feel cynical about me. I was sorry to clip Harold, but maybe when it was all over I’d mail him an anonymous hundred bucks. It would give him something to brood about forever.

  “Okay. What else?”

  He took out two small manila envelopes. He opened one and shook it. Several clothing labels cascaded onto the desk. “From a good medium-priced department store, as requested.” He put them back inside. The envelope was marked W. The other envelope was marked M. One was for women’s clothes, the other for men’s.

  “This took some doing,” he remarked. “I got a good shoplifter and told her not to shoplift. She thought I was kidding, but she went to work with a razor blade.”

  He put down two charge plates from the same department store. One was stamped Mr. Harold Wilson; the other, Mrs. Harold Wilson.

  “Here is the registration for your ’62 Chevy sedan, in decent mechanical condition.” He put that down on the desk. He dropped the car keys into my hand. “She’s parked half a block down. In front of a fire hydrant. The spare is flat. The jack works.”

  “Why park it at the hydrant, for Christ’s sake?”

  “I drove three hundred and fifty miles with a hangover, I got no sleep last night, I had a hell of a time latching on to some babe in the university record office. She cost me a lot of drinks and plenty cash besides. Not to mention looking for a good, smart burglar. Don’t go nagging me about a lousy fifteen-dollar ticket.”

  He was right. I apologized. He was mollified.

  “One thing more,” I said. “Got any Canadian money? Small change?”

  He grinned. “It wasn’t in the deal, but you can have what I got.” He pulled out three pennies, three nickels, two dimes and three quarters.

  “I guess that’s it,” I said. I paid him the balance. He counted it again himself.

  “All there?” I said dryly.

  “You don’t mind my checking up on you, do you, Joe? It’s an evil world.” He finished and put the money away carefully.

  I walked him to the door. He kept staring at Kirby all through the office. His glance roamed from her breasts to her ankles and up again. She turned pink but wouldn’t drop her eyes. She gave him stare for stare.

  At the door he turned and whispered, “Joe, can you fix me up?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “You laying her yourself, right?”

  It was a fair question, sincerely intended and all it needed was a calm yes or no. Instead I wanted to punch him through the glass door. My face must have shown it, for he stepped outside quickly.

  “Well, I’ll be leaving.”

  “So long, Moran.”

  He looked at Kirby and looked at me. “Yeah. Well, so long, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson.” He closed the door quickly. I would gain nothing by denying it. If I dropped the whole thing, he might figure I didn’t consider that parting shot important. Parting shot was right. I felt like I’d been hooked right in the guts.

  I turned and looked at Kirby.

  “What did he say to you?”

  “He said, ‘Goodbye, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson.’ž”

  “No, before.”

  “I forget.”

  “Your face became all cold, as if you wanted to kill him.”

  “He complained I had short-changed him.”

  “Oh. Well, good riddance.” She ben
t over her work. Watching the long line of her neck and the way her hair fell, covering the side of her face, I realized that Moran had sensed my feeling toward Kirby pretty closely. Better than I had myself. In a way I was grateful to him for the warning. It would never work out for an employer to become involved with an employee. Never.

  “Kirby. Come in.”

  She stood up and brushed the hair away with the back of her hand with an impatient gesture. I wanted to tell her if she ever cut her hair, I would kill her.

  She came in and sat down.

  “As you heard our departed friend say, we are now Mr. and Mrs. Harold Wilson.”

  “I don’t like that name.”

  “I don’t either. But you can pick yourself a first name.”

  “I like Kirby.”

  I liked it too. But it would be better to take another one. “How about ‘Mary Lou’?” I said. “When I was in Korea there was a guy in the squad from Alabama. He had a big Mary Lou tattooed all across his chest. I said suppose you and Mary Lou have a falling-out? He gave me this big smile and said, ‘We did. But it don’t matter, because every third girl in the South is named Mary Lou.’ž”

  “I want Kirby.”

  So I yielded on that one.

  Somehow I liked the fact that I could still call her Kirby.

  “Here is your driver’s license. Fill it in and sign it ‘Mrs. Kirby Wilson.’ It’ll be useful to cash checks with.” I watched her fill it in. June 12, 1944. I’d send her something nice for her birthday next year from wherever I would be.

  I gave her the clothing labels and told her to remove the old labels and sew them in as quickly as possible. I gave her the charge plate and the Canadian coins.

  “Keep them in your change purse,” I said. “As if you left in a hurry and didn’t have time to use them all up. And here are the keys to our new car.”

  “A Caddy?”

  “No, it is more fitting my lowly station in the university pecking order to own a five-year-old Chevy.”

  “I’ll survive.”

  She was all set to go. “When do we start?”