It seemed impossible. And if it was impossible, Saxby must have been shot sometime after Chuck had arrived at The Red Bear. There it was—an unbreakable alibi for Chuck. I could get him released tonight. All I had to do…
All I had to do! The implications of that phrase were enormous and threatening, obliterating any sense of jubilation. All I had to do to save Chuck was to betray Ala, and to betray her now would be far more catastrophic than it had been earlier. Once Chuck was proved innocent, there would be only Ala. Their case against her would be even stronger than their case against Chuck had been.
But it wasn’t only that. Now that the cards were on the table, I could admit to myself what I’d shirked from admitting before. To tell about Ala would be to tell about Eve and me too. I could claim I’d just happened to be in her apartment when Ala’s call came through. I could say… What had I decided? That I’d had to dictate some letters concerning the Brazilian tycoon which had been too urgent to wait until Monday? But there weren’t any letters to produce, and the man I’d be trying to fool would be Lieutenant Trant. How long, given that much of a clue to intimacy, would it take Trant to hit on the truth? He’d find it out in five minutes. Then the sluice gates of scandal would be burst open for me, for Eve—yes, for Connie, too.
It was ignoble, I knew, that when there were so many much more important issues at stake, this extra complication should loom so large to me, but it did. I thought of what it would do to Eve to be dragged through the mud as a sly little secretary who had plotted to steal Consuelo Corliss’ husband, and suddenly I was filled with rage against the District Attorney and Lieutenant Trant. Why did they have to stick with such crass lack of imagination to the most obvious solution? They knew the history of Saxby and the Duvreuxs. Hadn’t it occurred to them that a man with a background like that could have any number of potential murderers who were not necessarily Rysons or Hadleys? Weren’t they investigating his past? Hadn’t they even consulted their own files or the newspaper files?
The newspapers! One of my oldest buddies was a retired newspaperman turned author. Ted Bradley was a walking encyclopedia of the more sordid aspects of life. Ted might know something, or, if he didn’t, he had a genius for finding out whatever there was to find out.
When I reached him on the phone, Ted was as unemotionally co-operative as I knew he would be.
“So this Saxby pulled a deal in Toronto and another in Quebec? Okay, I’ve got a friend in Toronto. In fact, I’ve got a lot of friends in a lot of places. I’ll make a couple of calls. If I dig up anything in a hurry, shall I call you at home?”
At home? Mal and Vivien would be at Sixty-Fourth Street. Connie would be storming in from the lawyer. And I had to make a test with spilled martini.
“No,” I said. “If anything comes in in the next hour or so, call me at...” I gave him Eve’s number.
Eve’s was the place to make the test, and it was with Eve that I should make my decision about Ala.
FOURTEEN
We made the test. In her living room I fixed a shaker of martinis and slopped it all over my shirt sleeve. Then, realizing that the heat of my body would speed up evaporation, I took the shirt off and draped it over a chair. We sat together on the studio couch, watching the shirt, waiting.
The sleeve reached the degree of near-dryness in forty-five minutes. Don’s shirt could have been a little more or a little less absorbent than mine, but only to the extent of lengthening or shortening the process by, say, fifteen minutes either way. I had touched Don’s shirt at four-thirty. That meant the shots must have been fired sometime between three-thirty and four. By three-thirty, Chuck had been in The Red Bear for an hour.
“Well,” said Eve, “that proves it, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said.
For a moment we both stood looking at the shirt. Lying on the chair with the damp sleeve slopping over the arm, it had a spookily human quality, as if at any moment the sleeve might move. Eve turned to me. Her blue eyes were very grave.
“If you tell, they’re bound to arrest Ala, aren’t they?”
“Of course they are—unless by some miracle Ted Bradley can come up with something.”
“It would be mad to depend on that. You know it would. And even if he did find something they didn’t know about Don Saxby’s past, that isn’t going to alter the evidence.” She paused. “This—the martini—it wouldn’t help her, would it?”
“It’d make it worse. Saxby still could have been killed at four, and she was there at four. We know she was. She called you at seven minutes past.”
She gave a bleak little shrug. “But, George, you can’t really believe she did it. Ala? It doesn’t seem possible.”
“Of course I don’t think she did it. But that’s no way of being sure, is it?”
“But if she’s innocent, it would be awful to tell, cruel. It would just be switching the horror from Chuck to Ala. It would be worse almost than leaving things the way they are.” There, of course, was the crux.
“The Lieutenant’s coming tomorrow morning to question us,” I said. “Whatever happens, at least I’ll have to talk to Ala before that.”
“And let her know she can get Chuck released?”
“Isn’t it really her problem? She’s got to realize that if it wasn’t for her, this would never have happened to Chuck. Maybe, if she’s innocent and if she has enough guts, she’ll want to tell the Lieutenant anyway.”
“And if she hasn’t enough guts?” said Eve. “Or if she’s guilty?”
“Then it’ll be right back to being my problem again. I guess that’s the only way to handle it. But if we do have to tell, there’s us, you and me…”
“Us?” she echoed. “Do you think that matters any more? We can’t think about us now. We can’t…”
We sat there thinking about that until Ted Bradley telephoned. A wild hope surged through me as I heard his dry, laconic voice.
“Well, what about this for service?” he said.
“You’ve got something?”
“Trust old Bradley. It was a cinch. I called my contact in Toronto. He didn’t answer, but Bradley’s not one to be daunted. My contact has a brother in San Francisco. He’s an ex-newspaperman too. I called him and he had it all—just like that.”
“All—what?”
“About Saxby. He’d just seen his picture in the local paper and he’d recognized him right away. His name wasn’t Saxby and he wasn’t even a Canadian. He was a guy from Oregon called Don Merchant. About five years ago he and another guy, called Kramer, and a girl, Kramer’s sister, ran a blackmail racket in San Francisco. In his characterization as a painter, Saxby got in with the high-society set and dug up dirt about them. If there wasn’t any dirt, either he or the girl saw that some was provided. Then Kramer moved in for the shake-down. One of the victims finally had enough guts to turn them in. My buddy covered the case. Kramer was shot resisting arrest, Saxby got five years, they couldn’t pin anything on the girl. Incidentally, after his release, when Saxby-Merchant snuck across the border to start operating in Canada, he was breaking parole. How about that? Will that hold you for a while?”
“Terrific,” I said. “Thanks, Ted. Thanks a lot.”
“Don’t thank me,” he said. “Just worship me. I’ll go on digging and keep in touch.”
I called Trant at Centre Street. He wasn’t there, but I raised a stink, and a long-suffering sergeant gave me his home number. Trant answered right away. His voice sounded as polite and friendly as ever.
“Oh, Mr. Hadley—yes.”
“Look,” I said, “I’ve just found out something about Saxby in San Francisco. His name wasn’t Saxby, he wasn’t even Canadian, he—”
“He came from Oregon,” Trant broke in, “and his name was Donald Merchant. He was convicted of running a blackmail racket with a girl and a man called Kramer. Is that what you mean? I’ve known that since yesterday. There’s a lot more, too. A later set-up in Quebec with another partner, another girl. Even a very early
deal in Portland with yet another girl. Girls and dirt, Mr. Hadley. Saxby was never without them.”
I should, of course, have suspected that if an ex-newspaperman in San Francisco knew something, the police were bound to have known it earlier, but in my great need for hope I’d clung to hope. Now I felt dejected and deflated.
“But with a man like that—”
“A lot of people could have wanted to kill him? That’s hardly the point, is it, Mr. Hadley? The point in this case is that Chuck’s the one who went there to kill him with a gun, Chuck’s the one who admits he was on the scene at a time when the shots could have been fired, Chuck—”
“But, goddamnit, he’s innocent. He told us what he’d told you and my wife and I—”
“Are sure he’s telling the truth? I’m sorry, Mr. Hadley. I know how you feel. Relatives always feel that way. Listen, could I make a suggestion? I’m sure Macguire would say the same thing. If you really want to help your nephew, concentrate on the alibi. When there’s as much evidence as this against anyone, the only effective defense is to prove he couldn’t have been there at the time of death. The time of death, Mr. Hadley. Think about that. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m still on the job. In fact, I’m working on the time of death myself. I’ll be around to see you tomorrow morning anyway, so if you or your wife do think up anything that might be helpful, you can tell me then. Good night, Mr. Hadley.”
He hung up. There it was again, the same old avuncular gentleness, coupled with his uncanny flair for making you think he already knew the one thing you were desperately trying to keep from him. Concentrate on the alibi.
“Well?” said Eve.
“You were right,” I said. “It doesn’t change anything. He knew all that already and more.”
“And he’s still coming to see you tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Then you’ll talk to Ala tonight?”
“As soon as I get home.”
As I said that, she glanced at her watch. So did I and suddenly it was borne in on me how, ever since we’d known each other, we’d both of us always been glancing at our watches, always been goaded by time. Quick, quick, only a minute more.
“You’ve got to go anyway,” she said. “Connie’ll be wondering what happened to you.”
I glanced around the pink, put-together-with-pins room which, for months now, had been my sanctuary, and suddenly, knowing I did have to go and that my one feeble attempt to stave off disaster had failed, I hated Connie, hated Ala and beyond everything hated Lieutenant Trant. The only thing in the world I wanted was to stay with Eve, to deny every obligation to everyone else, to be able just for once to play it my way.
“Sure,” I said. “I’m going.”
She was standing very close to me. I turned, and in the moment of turning, her nearness and the necessity for leaving her, warring together, were like an actual physical pain. I took her in my arms. I was still in my undershirt. There was a mirror behind us. I could see our reflections. My gaunt, haggard face, like the face of a prisoner on a chain gang, startled me.
“Damn them,” I said. “Damn them all. They got themselves into this. If they have to suffer for it—okay. It’s you, having to drag you into it!”
“If you’re in it, where else should I be?”
I drew her closer, trying, as I always did, to record exactly how she felt in my arms so that the illusion of her could remain with me after I’d gone.
“But if I do have to tell, if there’s all the mud in the world slung at us—”
“What difference does that make? It’s the least of our worries.”
“But when it actually happens, when it makes everything dirty and ugly—”
“I’ve got you, haven’t I? At last I’ve found the one thing in life I want. Do you think I’d let a little mudslinging intimidate me? George darling, haven’t you realized that about me by now?”
Her hands came up my back, moving over the bare skin of my neck. Her lips pressed against my mouth and clung to it. Then she was kissing my chin, my cheek. And the fear of losing her, which had always been there, however deeply I had tried to bury it, was gone. In those seconds I was sure that I was as essential to her as she was to me. And I knew, with the indestructible optimism of love, that whatever they did to us, they could never make what we had dirty and ugly—for us.
“It’ll work out,” I said. “Trant knows his job. He’ll find out who did it. Then they’ll all lick their wounds and crawl back into their Corliss world. And that’ll be my exit cue. Good-bye, good-bye. Nice to have known you. I’ll send you a postcard.”
“From Tobago,” she said.
“Yes, darling, from Tobago.”
And there it was, shimmering in my mind, the dream Tobago so much, much more beautiful than any real Tobago—basking in the sunshine with the sky blue as the sea and the sea blue as the sky and the tall palm trees swaying in a breeze, their delicate fronds gleaming like jade.
At Sixty-Fourth Street the lights were on in the living room. The moment I opened the front door, Connie came out into the hall.
“Mal and Vivien went home. George, why did it take so much time?”
“I was waiting in the bar for a call,” I said.
“But Mack, the barman, was there?”
I took off my coat and hung it on the hall tree which Vivien had made her buy because it was “amusing.”
“Yes,” I said.
“What did he say?”
Her voice was never loud. In fact, it was a very pretty voice. But in its eagerness it seemed to be yelling.
I went into the living room and made myself a drink, not because I needed one but to give myself a moment’s respite. She came hurrying after me.
“Well, George, tell me. What did he say?”
I turned to her with the drink in my hand. “It’s no good. The police had already been there anyway. Chuck got to the bar just after two-thirty. It’s only a ten-minute walk from Saxby’s. It doesn’t help.”
“But… the man’s quite sure?”
“Absolutely sure,” I said.
I’d known, of course, what that would do to her. She was always so pigheadedly determined to anticipate the best that when it didn’t come it knocked her much harder than it would ever knock me. She sat down on the arm of a chair, her hands dejectedly in her lap.
“I—I was so sure…”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “What about the lawyer? Didn’t he have any bright ideas?”
“The lawyer? Oh, he tried to be encouraging. He’s quite a nice man. But, well, a lawyer’s got to be realistic, doesn’t he? He said the District Attorney has more than enough evidence. In a case like this, he said, about the only really effective thing would be an alibi. That’s what he’s going to work on. That’s—that’s why I was hoping so much about the bar. That’s why…” She got up abruptly, grabbing at hope again. “But it is almost an alibi, isn’t it? They say Don was killed between two and five. We know Chuck left just after two. If only there was some way ... if somebody had heard the shots or something… and it was later. If we could prove he was killed later…”
She was looking straight at me as if she were willing me to come up with some staggering inspiration. Trant and now Connie. The irony was crippling. I told her about Ted Bradley and my call to Trant, not that it would help, but just to let her know. “At least they realize what Saxby was. Maybe something will come up.”
“When?” she said. “When? All this time Chuck’s there in that terrible place. He knows he’s innocent and he’s there. I keep thinking about him all the time and I can’t stand it much more. I…” Her voice choked off but after only an instant she had pulled herself together again, smiling a pale, almost humble smile. “I’m sorry. I know it’s as bad for everyone else as it is for me. It’s just… well, it’s been such a terrible day and I’m dead tired.”
“Of course you are.”
“And there’s nothing else we can do tonight, is there?” She ca
me to me and put her hand on my arm. “Let’s go to bed, dear. We both need some sleep.”
Ala would be in her room. I’d have to stall and sneak up to her when Connie was safely in bed.
I said, “Okay, you go on up. I’ll just finish this drink.”
“Couldn’t you bring it up with you?” Her hand on my arm tightened its grip. “Please, George, bring it up. I can’t face being alone any more. It’s all too much for me. It… oh, George, George…”
She threw herself clumsily against me. Her hands were moving spasmodically up and down my arms.
“I know you hate me to be weak. I—I know you think we ought to be independent, ought to be able to stand on our own feet. And you’re right. I know you are. That’s what a good marriage should be. But now when everything’s become such a nightmare, there’s nothing to keep me going but you.” Her arms were around me, clinging to me desperately. The guilt was in me, the double, triple guilt, and, forcing a way through my defense, came pity for her and contempt for myself that I should still be pretending I could give her something which months ago, somehow, somewhere, had become lost.
“Be with me, George,” she said. “Please be with me.”
I put down the drink, feeling the entangling net of obligation closing around me. So when was it to be for Ala? Tomorrow morning? Early, before Connie was awake? I stood there holding my wife in my arms. Then I eased myself gently away and with an arm around her guided her up the stairs and into our bedroom.
“It’s all right, Connie. It’s going to be all right.”
Long after she was asleep, or pretending to be, I lay awake. She’d been holding my hand between the beds. Her arm still lay exposed on the white spread. It was as firmly rounded and beautiful as it had been twelve years ago.
Twelve years? Twelve years from that auspicious, rapturous wedding night to—now.
FIFTEEN
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