The Murderer Vine

by Shepard Rifkin

  It was as if she wanted to ring down a curtain on those weeks in Okalusa. And it looked as if everything that had happened there would be shoved behind that curtain. Everything.

  The electric-eye door opened to let her in. As I started the car, I could see her stop at the information desk. The male clerk leaned over with a smile that looked too friendly. I drove away hating him.

  I stopped in town for a canvas bag. I put the Kim in it. A distinctive thing like the Kim would be too easily remembered. On the other side of Memphis I sold the car to a dealer for four hundred bucks. I took a bus back to town and took the next train for Nashville. At Nashville I took a Delta flight to Chicago. At O’Hare I bought Reader’s Digest, Esquire, Pleasure, and the Atlantic Monthly. I took the airport bus, wondering whether I was sitting in Kirby’s old seat. I began reading the magazines on the Greyhound bus to Cleveland. Nothing much in any one of them, nothing to distract. The Pleasure girls were as plastic as the bags covering the bus-station sandwiches. And with as much flavor.

  I dropped the magazines in a trash can and bought several paperback novels on private detectives. At least I would have pleasure picking holes in the heroes.

  At Cleveland I took a plane for Buffalo. At Buffalo a plane for Philadelphia. The novels were unintentionally funny. They kept my mind off Kirby and the way she looked at me after she had read the headlines in the Okalusa paper.

  At Philadelphia I boarded a train for New York. I had never been so restless in my life.

  I started in on the last private eye novel. By then I could have been hired as a consultant to the publishers’ private eye author society.

  In them the private eye was always handsome. He was in his early thirties. He always had plenty of good Scotch in this apartment. He never drank anything else. He usually shot people in the belly, but in order for you to think it’s okay, he usually gets beaten up badly first. So a guy who’s been worked over, it’s all right for him to shoot someone in the belly.

  Now, a good private eye in real life is never handsome. He would attract too much attention. I’m the ideal private eye. Like I once said, I could very easily fill your gas tank at a service station and you would never think, “My, what’s this movie star doing here?” I never wear shoulder holsters. Private eyes in novels always wear them, they must have some wildly romantic meaning for most authors. I never could stand the pressure of that back strap going across my shoulder blades. It’s simpler and easier to wear the hip holster, and when you’re sitting down with your jacket open, it’s easy to pull your gun fast.

  I know it spoils the drape of one’s jacket, but then I’m not a male model.

  So the novels amused me for a while. Then I began to get jittery. I threw the unread one away. I did that after I had read three pages and realized I hadn’t the faintest idea of what I had been looking at.

  At Princeton Junction I stood up. I couldn’t walk back and forth in the center aisle without attracting annoyed glances. So I stepped out into the vestibule. As the train pulled out for the run to Newark and then New York, I began to pace back and forth. It was only three steps each way, but it did take some of the steam out of my tension. I had never felt this way before. It puzzled me. I didn’t like it.

  I smoked and watched the matchstick houses in their neat little rows marching up and down the rolling hills. Last year I had come through here on the train and there had only been woods.

  I told myself I wouldn’t ever have to look at those stupid houses anymore. They’d never be building housing projects on my coast. Well, maybe they would, but it wouldn’t be till 4780 a.d. And by then the Caribbean would have a fifty-foot layer of broken beer bottles and old bedsprings on the bottom. And who would care? I had fifteen good years ahead of me doing just what I wanted to do. To hell with 4780.

  Suddenly we were racing across the Jersey meadows. The papers were full of a plan to make a jetport out of them, and there were angry letters to the editors for and against. So long, suckers.

  The meadows were used as a vast garbage dump. I watched a huge truck lumber backward to the edge of a sewage-filled creek and dump its load. People lived in horrible little shacks made of scrap lumber with flattened five-gallon cans for roofs. They did the same in the Caribbean, but at least it was warm.

  Tremendous signboards advertised Broadway plays and musicals. People went to them for amusement in the evenings after doing things they hated all day. That was not the way to live. The correct way was to do something you liked all day, and to hell with going somewhere at night for fun.

  Above the ridge that marked the eastern edge of the meadows, I could see the top forty or so floors of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. There you were, my filthy, rotten, unspeakable, misty and magnificent city. Inside you sat Parrish, my ticket away from you.

  I bit my lip, trying to control my tension. I couldn’t understand what was happening. I was pretty sure it wasn’t any delayed reaction about the machine-gunning. Five murderers murdered was simple justice. The hell with them.

  So what was it?

  I understood as soon as I saw the last billboard, just before the train roared into the tunnel.

  The billboard proclaimed the great merits of a musical comedy. It had a famous blonde star, and she was posed against a green background. Her hair had the same spilled-honey color as Kirby’s.

  As soon as I looked at the hair I knew I had to take Kirby with me. It would be a hell of a job talking her into it, but there would never be anyone else. I was no private eye in his early thirties who only drank the best Scotch.

  I was a private detective in his very early forties who knew what he liked. I was going to make a damn good try for that girl. And I only had a few hours to do it.

  41

  I was the first one off as soon as the train stopped moving. I had been standing in the vestibule with my luggage since Rahway.

  I grabbed a phone booth. Parrish was out and would not be back till two. I told his secretary to tell him that Mr. Nelson would arrive a little after two.

  I phoned Kirby. My heart was going very fast. I leaned my head against the glass door.

  I hadn’t felt like that since I asked a girl for a date when I was in high school. I was very shy, very unsure of myself. I finally got up enough nerve to ask her. Her name was Paula Reilly and she had thick ankles and a high-pitched giggle. I asked her if she wanted to go to the movies. She said yes.

  When we sat down in the upper balcony, I put my left arm on the rim of her seat. For the next fifteen minutes all I was aware of was my agonizing effort to let it touch her shoulders without her being too aware of it. I finally let it touch. She didn’t move away. I was astonished. It was such a precious moment that I didn’t want to ruin it, so I let that arm remain there for three hours without shifting it. It fell asleep. When we stood up, it was still paralyzed, and I helped her into her coat with only one arm. She thought I was stupid and clumsy.

  Kirby answered after the fourth ring.

  “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Wilson?”

  “You must be the gentleman who keeps callin’ himself my husband!”

  Her voice was delighted. My heart went up like a skyrocket. “Mrs. Wilson, may I have the honor of taking you to dinner this evening?”

  “Suh, it will be a pleasure.”

  “What time?”

  “I’m starvin’ for a good meal. Will six be too early?”

  “Nothing will ever be too early.”

  I hadn’t meant any note of high seriousness, but it got away from me. She was silent four heartbeats. Then she said, very low, “I have been missin’ you, Joe.”

  “Well, Kirby,” I said, “I — I want to — I—”

  “Tell me at six, Joe.”

  She hung up. I felt like yelling and jumping up and down. Instead I went to my bank and emptied my safe-deposit box. I took home Parrish’s money and my phony passport. My house smelled stale. I opened the windows and pried loose two ice cubes. I made a drink with ch
eap Scotch, placed the money in the freezer, and covered it with ice-cube trays and two frozen steaks.

  I shaved and went downstairs to the flower shop. I picked out four dozen long-stemmed yellow roses at fifteen dollars a dozen. They would have a hard time matching her hair, but they were welcome to try. I asked the delivery boy if he could take them over right away.

  “I got two other rush orders, mister. They gotta go out first.”

  I gave him a ten-dollar bill.

  “Me first?”

  “Yessir!”

  Money, money. It could do interesting things if properly distributed.

  I went out. Seventy bucks. And seldom were seventy smackers spent more happily. I took a cab down to Battery Place.

  By now, if money talked, the delivery boy should be ringing Kirby’s bell.

  I whistled all the way up in Parrish’s private elevator. I had forgotten that in my left hand I carried the canvas bag and the Kim with its six-inch reel packed with indictment, verdict, death warrant, and execution. Death and joy riding the elevator together. A subject for one of those old medieval prints.

  Parrish came out to meet me. “Mr. Nelson, I’m glad to see you. Are you ready to finalize the deal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mary,” he said, “take the afternoon off.”

  “But, Mr. Parrish, you said you wanted these three letters typed and — ”

  “Mary. Afternoon off.”

  “Yes, Mr. Parrish.”

  When the elevator doors had closed behind her, he said, “There’s no one within seventy-five feet of here. Come in.”

  We went into his private office. He reached out and flicked the off switch on his private line.

  I took the Kim out of the bag and set it up.

  “Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  I punched the PLAY key. He listened. He listened the way anyone would listen to something that was costing half a million bucks.

  I had forgotten that I had left it on when I slid behind the pilings to try and hide from Vince. The mike had picked up my fast sloshing through the water.

  “What’s that?”

  I told him.

  “Wasn’t that risky?”

  I told him I had no choice.

  “Yes. I missed something. Can you play it again?” I reversed it. The shrill, wild, Donald Duck screams of the voices as the tape spun backward didn’t make him smile.

  I started it again. He turned his back to the tape and stared out across the harbor as it revolved. Then came the chugchugchugchugchug. I moved to shut it off. He held up a hand.

  “Wait.”

  There was silence on the tape. Then came a steady thump thump thump.

  “What’s that?”

  I didn’t know myself. I listened carefully. Then I realized it must have been the blood leaking through the cracks in the flooring and dripping directly onto the mike.

  I told him.

  “Good. Once more.”

  I reversed it and played it again.

  “I’m satisfied,” he said. He let out a deep breath, stood up, and unlocked a wall safe. I thought he was getting the money, but he had turned around and was holding out his hand for the tape.

  “No.”

  “No? I’m paying plenty for it.”

  “No. You’re paying for proof that the contract was carried out. Was it?”

  “Yes.”

  “That reel indicts me for multiple murder. So it’s no.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “Erase it right now.”

  “All right. Once more, please.”

  He leaned back with his eyes closed. I shoved the Kim a little closer to him, turned up the volume some more, and walked to the far end of the office. I didn’t want to look at his face while he was listening to it. It was his memory he was loading. He could have it.

  I looked down at the harbor. It was calm and remote. The sky was a deep, clean blue. It was funny. Here was Parrish trying to remember that tape for the rest of his life and here I was trying to forget it. I turned around after a while and watched his face. Then I looked at the slowly spinning reel. When the thump thump thump began again, I stopped it, reversed it, and put it on erase. In a few minutes I had a clean tape.

  I closed the case.

  Neither of us spoke for a while. Parrish spoke first. “Wouldn’t life be great,” he said, “if we could all go back again and erase our mistakes as easy as that?”

  “But we’d make them again.”

  “I suppose so.” He sighed. “I don’t know where I went wrong,” he said. “Should I have knocked my boy unconscious when he wanted to go South? What could I have done with all this knowledge if we were back in June? I couldn’t have done a damn thing.”

  “Mr. Parrish,” I said. “I am afraid I have no time for this kind of a discussion.”

  “Sorry.” He lifted his phone, switched it on, and dialed a number. “Bring it,” he said, and hung up.

  He turned to me. “The money’s not here. Not safe. As soon as I read that AP dispatch from Okalusa, I took the money from the bank. I didn’t want any red tape while you might be waiting. It should be here at five. It’s out at my Connecticut place.”

  “I’ll be here at five.”

  “Fine.”

  I went down and sold the Kim to a secondhand dealer for a good price.

  Then I thought of picking up Kirby and going somewhere while I tried to talk her into coming down to the Caribbean with me. But I decided it would be better for her to be marinated in all those roses. Let her take a leisurely bath while she inhaled their message and thought kindly of me. It would help make her mellow, and anything that might help me would be appreciated.

  I walked around the waterfront again, taking deep breaths of the salt air. I watched a freighter go out toward the Narrows with its signal flags fluttering. I watched the seagulls dipping and screeching in its wake. I leaned on the railing and watched the ship disappear, swinging to the left. The signal Pilot aboard made a tiny red dot which remained visible quite a long time. I realized with a smile I had my back turned on Manhattan all this time.

  Five to five. I went back to Parrish. It was all on his desk, in neat little stacks. I counted it and put it into my canvas bag. I zipped it up.

  “Don’t spend it all in one place,” he said.

  I smiled.

  “Well,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you,” I said. We stood waiting for the elevator. There was an awkward silence. We were like two lovers who have ended an affair and for whom there is nothing more to say.

  The elevator finally came. I stepped in.

  “So long,” I said.

  I lifted a hand and the elevator started down. The bag’s strap was cutting into my shoulder. It was a marvelous sensation.

  42

  I could hear a drum banging. When I turned the corner, a tuba began going oompa-pa, oompa-pa. It was a Salvation Army band, all girls. Under the black bonnets they were smiling. The tuba player wore glasses and was very serious about her instrument. One of the girls was shaking a tambourine.

  I went by and rang Kirby’s bell. No answer. In the tub, I bet. I waited five minutes and planned what I should say to her as my opening sentence.

  I rang again. No answer. She was probably out doing last-minute shopping. I walked back to the corner. I would be able to see her coming and also listen to the band. I went up to the tambourine player and smiled. She blushed.

  I pulled out all my loose change and dropped it into the tambourine. What the hell. They helped out in floods and earthquakes. In an emergency they would give me a blanket and a cup of coffee if I needed it. My donation amounted to a little over two bucks. I wondered if anyone ever sent roses to Salvation Army girls. I looked at my watch. They began another tune. They played with enthusiasm and little subtlety. The girl with the tuba kept looking at me out of the corner of her eye. I looked back and grinned. She turned pink and primly turned a quarter of a
circle to her left.

  The tambourine player lifted her pure, thin soprano and sang, “There is an afterlife, where we shall all meet again.”

  I didn’t believe a word of it. I still don’t. But if anyone wants to keep that crutch, they can. I wouldn’t ever pull it away from anyone.

  I began thinking how to get a passport for Kirby. It would be too risky to try for one in the States. I decided to fly to El Paso with her. We could get tourist cards.

  You could pick them up with as much trouble as a bus transfer. In Mexico City I had a contact who would sell us U.S. passports stolen from tourists’ luggage. A little expert doctoring and Kirby would have hers. With that we could get into Nicaragua without any problems.

  Boy, I had it all figured out.

  I went back and rang her bell. She must have gone the other way. No answer. I went down to the corner drugstore and phoned. No answer. I got the chief operator.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “MU 6–7184. Is there anything wrong with the line?”

  “I’ll check, sir.”

  I waited.

  She came on again. “No trouble, sir. The line works perfectly.”

  I thanked her and hung up. I went back and rang again. No answer. I didn’t expect one, and I pushed a couple bells on the top floor. When the buzzer sounded, I pushed the door open. I walked up two flights. At the end of the hall was a window opening out onto a fire escape. The catch was open. I pushed the window up and stepped onto the fire escape. I moved five feet to my right. There was her window. The catch was open. A square hole had been cut out of the glass. You can do that with a glass cutter and a powerful little rubber suction cup to pull it out backward. The square of glass was lying on the far end of the fire escape.

  I wasn’t wearing a gun. For the first time in my life I acted stupidly. Instead of quietly pulling out, running home, getting mine, and coming back, I opened the window as softly as I could. It opened quietly. I picked up a heavy glass ashtray lying on an end table. I could throw it for temporary distraction.

  I went into the bedroom. I felt better. There was no disorder. Her dress and shoes and fresh underwear were neatly laid out on the bed. There were two vases in the bedroom, one on the dresser table, and one on the night table. Both were crammed with the yellow roses. They all had opened almost all the way and their fragrance filled the room. A dozen roses lay on the pillow. She had run out of vases.