Til Death

by Ed McBain

  “Oh, Teddy,” she said, “what should I do?”

  Teddy’s face became instantly alert. The impression she gave of devoting her complete attention to whoever was speaking may have simply been an illusion. She was, after all, forced to watch a person’s lips if she was to “hear” anything. But mechanical necessity did not explain the complete sympathy Teddy expressed as she listened. To the speaker, Teddy was a perfect sounding board. Her eyes, her mouth, her entire face took on a look of complete understanding. She tilted her head slightly now, and her eyebrows moved a fraction of an inch, the brown eyes focusing on Christine’s mouth.

  “I’ve made a mess of everything,” Christine said, and Teddy leaned closer, watching the lips, nodding slightly to let Christine know she was listening.

  “I haven’t known Cotton very long,” Christine said. “Oh, perhaps a year—but that isn’t very long as relationships go. He came into my bookshop once, tracking down some typing paper that had been used in a warning note. I have a bookshop in Isola.” She paused. “He asked me out, and I accepted. I’ve been seeing him.” She paused again. “I’m a widow, you know. Not a Professional Widow, the way some girls are Professional Virgins or Professional Mothers. My husband was a pilot during the Second World War. He crashed over Okinawa. It took me a long time to get over it, but the dead are dead, and the living must go on. So I’m not a Professional Widow, Teddy. I haven’t been wearing sackcloth and rolling about in the ashes. But…it was hard to fall in love again. It was hard to find any man who could live up to the memory of Greg. And then Cotton came along…”

  Teddy nodded.

  “And I fell in love again.” She paused. “I don’t think he loves me. In fact, I’m almost sure he doesn’t. I really don’t think Cotton is ready yet to become really involved with any woman. But I love him. And it’s enough to be near him, and to be wanted by him. For now, that’s enough.” Again she paused. “I did a stupid thing today. I tried to make him jealous, and I think I may have lost him. Cotton isn’t a man who can be pushed. Teddy, Teddy, what shall I do? What the hell shall I do?”

  She fumbled for the purse in her lap as the tears sprang to her eyes. Snapping it open, she dug into it, expecting the familiar feel of her own bag, surprised when her hands struck something hard and unyielding. She stared into the purse.

  A Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum stared back at her.

  “They’re on their way over, Steve,” Kling said as he hung up the phone. “I explained the situation to them. They’re coming in through the next street.”

  “Good,” Carella said. He turned back to Sam Jones. “Now, let’s do some serious talking, shall we, Jonesy?”

  Jonesy nodded. His face was still white. His hands were still trembling in his lap.

  “First of all, Jonesy, would you mind telling me where you went this afternoon when you left Tommy’s house for your alleged walk?”

  “Alleged?”

  “Yes. Alleged. Where did you go?”

  “Why?”

  “Because somebody sawed through a rod connected to the steering tube of the Cadillac and we had an accident that damn near killed everybody in the car. That’s why, Jonesy.”

  “I thought that accident—”

  “What did you think?”

  “I thought it was just an accident.”

  “It wasn’t. And you were conveniently out of the car at the time. Buying cigarettes, remember? Even though Tommy offered you his.”

  “You don’t think…”

  “All I want to know is where you went on your walk, that’s all.”

  “I don’t really remember. I was very nervous. I just walked.”

  “Where?”

  “I came out of the house and walked. I must have walked about half a mile. Then I turned back.”

  “Meet anyone while you were walking?”

  “No.”

  “Stop any place?”

  “No.”

  “Then we have only your word for your whereabouts during the time that tie rod could have been sawed through.”

  “I suppose…if you put it that way…”

  “How would you put it, Jonesy?”

  “Why would I want to…why would I want to do a crazy thing like that?”

  In a deadly flat voice, Carella said, “Tommy has a will leaving everything he owns to you.”

  “That? For Pete’s sake, what the hell does he own?”

  “What does he own, Jonesy?”

  “How do I know? He’s not a rich man, that’s for sure. If he dies, there might be some money on his GI insurance policy. And he’s got a 1958 Buick and probably a small savings account. But that’s all that I know of.”

  “You seem to know an awful lot about it.”

  “Well, I’m his best friend. Why shouldn’t I know? Besides, this isn’t something a man would keep hidden. God, you don’t think I’d try to kill Tommy—Tommy! My best friend!—for a few thousand dollars, do you?”

  “It’s been done for less,” Carella said. “With best friends. With husbands and wives. With mothers and sons. Some people like money, Jonesy.”

  “Yeah, but…you’re on the wrong track. I could never do a thing like that.”

  “There’s Tommy’s will.”

  “He’s married now. He’ll change that as soon as he comes back from his honeymoon.”

  “Which might be a damn good reason for killing him now,” Kling said.

  “Look, you guys are crazy,” Jonesy said. “I wouldn’t. I just wouldn’t do a thing like that. You think I could kill Birnbaum? A nice old guy I’ve known since I was a kid? You think I could do a thing like that?”

  “Somebody did a thing like that,” Carella said.

  “But not me. Why would I want to?” He paused and studied the detectives. “For Pete’s sake, would I kill the only living witness to those wills? Does that make any sense to you?”

  “He’s got a point, Steve,” Kling said.

  “Look, I’m telling you,” Jonesy said. “I had nothing to do with either Birnbaum’s—”

  There was a frantic knocking at the door. Christine Maxwell did not wait for anyone to open it. She threw it open and burst into the room waving the Magnum.

  “I found this in my purse,” she said. “Not my purse. A girl took mine by accident. In the ladies’ room. She left this one. I thought it was…”

  “Slow down,” Carella said.

  “…my bag, and I opened it to get a hanky, and this was inside.” She waved the gun again.

  “Stop waving that damn thing, it may be loaded!” Carella shouted, and he took the gun from her. Then he nodded. “This is it, Bert,” he said. He sniffed the barrel. “We won’t have to look any further for the gun that killed Birnbaum.” He turned to Christine. “You said this was in your purse?”

  “No. I only thought it was my purse. A blonde girl was in the ladies’ room with me. She must have taken my bag by mistake. She left this one.”

  “A blonde?” Kling said.

  “Yes.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “A very big girl,” Christine said, “in a red silk dress.”

  “Ouch!” Kling said. “I was dancing with her before dinner.”

  “Let’s find her,” Carella said, and he started for the door.

  “She’s probably a million miles—” Kling started, and at that moment Tommy Giordano came breathlessly into the bedroom.

  “Steve!” he said. “Steve, I’m…I’m going out of my mind with worry.”

  “What is it?” Carella asked.

  “It’s Angela! I can’t find her anywhere. She’s gone!”

  There was the strong smell of cigar smoke.

  There was a long shaft of light far away, and a silhouette filling the piercing beam.

  There was pain, excruciating pain that throbbed and vibrated and sang with a thousand shrill voices.

  There was warmth, a warmth that was thick and liquidy, oozing, oozing.

  Cotton Hawes fought unconsciou
sness.

  He felt as if his body was quivering. He felt as if every part of him was swinging in a wild circle of nauseating blackness. Some inner sense told him he was lying flat on his back, and yet he had the feeling that his hands were clutching, grasping, trying to reach something in the blackness, as if his legs and feet were twitching uncontrollably. The pain at the side of his face was unbearable. It was the pain, finally, which forced away the unconsciousness, needling him with persistent fire, forcing sensibility into his mind, and then his body. He blinked.

  The cigar smell was overpowering. It filled his newly alert nostrils with the stink of a thousand saloons. The shaft of light was penetrating and merciless, flowing steadily through an open window at the end of the room, impaling him with sunshine. A man stood at the window, his back to Hawes.

  Hawes tried to get to his feet, and the nausea came back with frightening suddenness, swimming into his head and then dropping like a swirling stone to the pit of his stomach. He lay still, not daring to move, aware now that the side of his face was bleeding, remembering now the sudden blinding blow that had knocked him to the floor unconscious. The nausea passed. He could feel the steady seeping of the blood as it traveled past his jawbone and onto his neck. He could almost feel each separate drop of blood rolling over his flesh to be sopped up instantly by the white collar of his shirt. He felt as if he were being born, hypersensitive to every nuance of smell, and sight, and touch. And, newborn, he was also weak. He knew he could not stand without falling flat on his face.

  He turned his head slightly to the left. He could see the man at the window clearly, each part of the man combining with the next to form a sharply defined portrait of power as he crouched by the window, the late afternoon sunshine enveloping the silhouette in whitish licking flames of light.

  The man’s hair was black, worn close to his skull in a tight-fitting woolly cap. The man’s brow was immense in profile, a hooked nose jutting out from bushy eyebrows pulled into a frown. A small scar stood out in painful relief against the tight skin of the man’s face, close to the right eye. The man’s mouth was a tight, almost lipless line that gashed deep into the face above a jaw cleft like a horse’s buttocks. His neck was thick, and his shoulders bulged beneath the blue tee shirt he wore, biceps rolling hugely into thick forearms covered with black hair that resembled steel wool. One huge hand was clutched around the barrel of a rifle. The rifle, Hawes noticed, was mounted with a telescopic sight. An open box of cartridges rested near the man’s right shoe.

  This is no one to tangle with in my present condition, Hawes thought. This may be no one to tangle with in any condition. He looks like a man who tears telephone books in sixteenths. He looks like a man who allows automobiles to drive over his inflated chest. He looks like the meanest son of a bitch I have ever seen in my life, and I am not anxious to tangle with him. Now, or maybe never.

  But that’s a rifle he’s holding, and it has a telescopic sight, and he sure as hell doesn’t plan to pick his teeth with it.

  Do I still have my gun? Or has he disarmed me?

  Hawes looked down the length of his nose. He could see the white throat of his shirt stained with blood. He could see his shoulder holster strapped to his chest beneath his open coat.

  The holster was empty.

  There’s nothing I can do but lie here, he thought, and wait for my strength to come back.

  And pray, meanwhile, that he doesn’t take a pot shot at anybody across the yard at the reception.

  The black MG convertible had been a gift from Ben Darcy’s parents. Unaware of his private intention to enter dental school, they had offered the sleek, low-slung car to him as a sort of bribe. Ben had accepted the bribe and then entered dental school, anyway, just as he’d planned to. Everybody was happy.

  The car was capable of hitting rather high speeds on a straight run, and Ben was doing his best at the moment to prove that the manufacturer’s claims were valid. The top down, his foot jammed on the accelerator, he cruised along Semplar Parkway at the lowflying speed of eighty-five miles an hour.

  Beside him, her long brown hair blowing back over her shoulders, Angela Giordano, nee Angela Carella, watched the road ahead with wide eyes, certain she would be killed on her wedding day.

  “Ben, can’t you slow down?” she pleaded.

  “I like to drive fast,” he answered. “Angela, you’ve got to listen to me.”

  “I’m listening, Ben, but I’m scared. If another car should—”

  “Don’t worry about me!” he snapped. “I’m the best damn driver in Riverhead. You couldn’t be in better hands.”

  “All right, Ben,” she said, and she clutched her hands in her lap and swallowed hard and continued to watch the road.

  “So you married him,” Ben said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, Ben, really, we went through all this on the dance floor. I wouldn’t have come with you if I’d known—”

  “Why did you come with me?” he asked quickly.

  “Because you said you wanted to take me for a spin for the last time. A ride around the block, you said. All right, I believed you. But we’re not going around the block, we’re on the parkway heading toward the next state, and you’re driving much too fast. Ben, would you please slow down?”

  “No,” he said. “Why’d you marry him?”

  “Because I love him. Does that answer you?”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Believe me. Please believe me.”

  “I don’t. How can you be in love with him? A bank clerk! For the love of God, Angela, he’s a bank clerk!”

  “I love him.”

  “What can he offer you? What’s he ever going to give you?”

  “He doesn’t have to give me anything,” Angela said. “I love him.”

  “I’m better looking than he is,” Ben said.

  “Maybe you are.”

  “I’m going to be a dentist.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why’d you marry him?”

  “Ben, please, please slow down. I’m—” Her eyes widened. “Ben! Look out!”

  The Buick came hurtling onto Ben’s side of the parkway suddenly, passing a slower car ahead of it. It came like a steam locomotive, unable to cut back because of the car ahead, committed to the pass, determined to reach the safety of its own lane by a new burst of speed. Ben recognized the impossibility of the situation. He swung the wheel sharply to the right, heading for the grass at the side of the parkway. The Buick whooshed past with the roar of a diving jet as the small MG cleared the vented fender of the bigger car by no more than a foot, climbing onto the steeply sloping bank of grass, and then executing a small sharp turn to the left as Ben yanked the wheel over again. For a moment, Angela thought the car would roll over. Tires squealed as it hit the concrete again, going into a skid, and then straightening to face the dead center arrow of the parkway. Ben slammed his foot onto the accelerator. The speed indicator rose to ninety.

  Angela could not speak. She sat beside him gasping for breath. And finally she closed her eyes. She would not watch. She could not watch.

  “It’s still not too late,” Ben said.

  His voice droned in her ears over the rush of air in the open cockpit of the sports car. Her eyes were closed, and his voice sounded strange, low and meaningful, droning on monotonously.

  “It’s still not too late. You can still get out of it. You can have it annulled. He’s wrong for you, Angela. You’d find that out, anyway. Get rid of him, Angela. Angela, I love you. You can have it annulled.”

  She shook her head, her eyes closed tightly.

  “Don’t go on the honeymoon, Angela. Don’t go with him. Tell him you’ve made a mistake. It’s not too late. You’d be doing the right thing. Otherwise…”

  She shook her head again. Weakly, she murmured, “Ben, take me back.”

  “I’ll be waiting for you, Angela. Get rid of him. He’s no good for you. Do it yourself, Angela. Tell
him, tell him.”

  “Ben, take me back,” she mumbled. “Please take me back. Please. Please. Please please please please please—”

  “Will you tell him? Will you tell him you want it annulled?”

  “Ben, please please—”

  “Will you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ll tell him.” She did not care that she was lying. She only wanted the nightmare of this ride to end, wanted to get away from the man beside her. “Yes,” she lied again, and then she gave the lie strength and conviction. “Yes, take me back and I’ll tell him. Take me back, Ben.”

  “I don’t believe you. You’re not really going to tell him.”

  “I am!”

  “Do you love me?”

  She could not answer.

  “Do you love me?”

  “No,” she said, and she began weeping bitterly. “I love Tommy, I love Tommy! Why are you doing this to me, Ben? Why are you torturing me like this? If you ever cared anything for me, take me back! Please take me back!”

  “All right,” he snapped suddenly. He slowed the car, and then executed a screeching U-turn. His foot pressed against the accelerator once more. Angela did not look at the speedometer.

  Tommy was waiting at the curb when the MG pulled up before the Carella house. Angela leaped from the car and rushed into his arms, and he held her for a moment and then said, “What the hell’s the idea, Ben?”

  “It was just a wedding gag,” Ben said, grinning feebly. “Kidnapping the bride, you know? Just a gag.”

  “You’ve got one hell of a sense of humor. You’re lucky I don’t knock you flat on your ass. You had us all going nuts here until we noticed your car was gone. Goddamnit, Ben, I don’t think this is the least bit funny. I don’t think it’s funny at all. Goddamnit, I think I will knock you on your ass!”

  “Come on, where’s your sense of humor?” Ben said, and again he grinned feebly.

  “Oh, go to hell, you bastard,” Tommy answered. He put his arm around Angela. “Come on, honey, let’s go inside.”