Say It & Murder

by Edward S. Aarons

  Edward S. Aarons

  Say It with Murder

  Originally published in 1954 under the pseudonym Edward Ronns

  1

  CARMODY looked up and saw he was on the beach in front of his rented house. Behind him, the few dim lights of town made a faint glow in the sky, chiefly from the yacht basin and the Crescent Beach Inn. He wiped his face with the palm of his hand and found himself sweating. There was sand in his shoes. The sound of the breakers was a steady, outrageous roaring in his ears, and he suddenly wished to get out of it tonight, to cut and run and forget it all. But he couldn’t forget it. He turned away from the barren, grass-grown dunes that looked dark and stark in the moonlight.

  The house he had rented stood on heavy pilings, a big tired monstrosity with Victorian gingerbread and a sagging porch and gray shingles and a swaybacked roof. He had paid five hundred for the privilege of living in it for the rest of the season, because it was furnished, after a fashion, but chiefly because it had that baby grand in the living room.

  He noticed, without much surprise, that a car stood parked behind the house on the rutted road that lifted over the dunes from the main blacktop road farther inland. A Cadillac, shining platinum in the moonlight. And while he stopped and looked at it he saw a woman with platinum hair seated in it. Then she was rising from behind the wheel and her voice suddenly screamed something to him, shrill and high like a thin wire. The wire of her voice jerked Carmody off his feet and he yelled as he threw himself down in the grass of the dune rising toward his house. Above the screaming of the woman and the echoing yell he threw into the night came the heavy report of a gun and he saw the flame spit at him from the dark sagging porch and he saw the shape of the man standing there.

  “You damned fool!” Carmody shouted. “Hold it!”

  The woman came out of the car and ran toward him, running with the awkward, hip-swaying, knees-together pace of a woman struggling through sand. Carmody wiped sweat and sand from his face and lifted his head carefully and saw the man come down off the porch. He held the gun cautiously in his hand and his every movement in the moonlight indicated an animal caution as he sloped forward toward Carmody.

  “Drop that gun, Paul!” Carmody yelled. It could only be Paul. He knew that it could only be Paul.

  The woman cried: “Yes, yes, Paul! Please! Are you crazy?”

  “He came here to kill me,” said the man on the porch. “Get out of my way, Irene.”

  “Paul, please!”

  “Shut up.”

  Carmody heard the heavy splat of an open palm hitting the woman’s cheek as the man hit her to emphasize his words. He heard her cry out and whimper and wondered what his chances might be if he got up and tried a run for it. Not good, he decided. Not good at all. He felt the wild pulsing of his heart and heard the pound of blood in his ears and cursed silently, lifting his head to watch the dim dark figure moving closer toward him through the curtain of coarse reeds that grew on the dark dune. He felt a sweat of fear break out all over him as he lay on his belly in the sand.

  “Paul!” he yelled. “Keep back. I’ll plug you!”

  “What?”

  “You aren’t the only one with a gun. Stay where you are. I’ll drop you if you come closer.”

  The man bent his head forward suspiciously, but he stopped his careful approach. “I think you’re lying.”

  “Then come ahead and try me,” Carmody called.

  “Were you waiting for me at that joint where you play the piano?”

  “All night. Since eleven,” Carmody called. “Drop that gun and don’t be a fool.”

  “You’re the fool,” the man said. “You didn’t think I’d walk into your trap, did you? I know you. I know you all. You’re crazy. You came here to kill me, over something that’s forgotten and doesn’t matter any more. Don’t think I don’t know about it! I know all about it. I’ve been waiting for you a long time now.”

  All the time Paul Sloade was talking, he had been edging nearer, trying to find Carmody where he lay in the sand. He was only five feet away, looking just to the left of where Carmody sprawled among the reeds.

  Carmody rose up and jumped for the gun in the other’s hand. The woman screamed again, running toward them, and a thick strangled sound came from Paul Sloade and he tried to wrench backward, away from Carmody. Carmody got his fingers on the gun, pushed it downward; then the gun jumped and bucked and roared in his grip and he felt the sting of sand kicked up by the bullet that went into the ground near his feet. He said something through his gritted teeth and smelled the perfume the woman wore as he swayed backward and broke the gun free of Paul Sloade’s grip. The other man stumbled and fell to his knees, off balance, and stayed there, his face upturned in the moonlight, graven with fear.

  “Get up,” Carmody said. “Let’s go inside.”

  The other man babbled and remained on his knees, hands clasped before him. Carmody looked at the woman and was ashamed to have her see this.

  “Get up, Paul,” he said, and he spoke gently. “I’m not going to kill you. I ought to, but I won’t. I wouldn’t dirty my hands on you.”

  The breeze made a thin whining sound through the porch screens and there was a chill in the air that spoke of approaching dawn. Carmody followed the woman and the man into the house he had rented. He walked slowly after them, stumbling a little on the top step where a board was loose, and became suddenly aware of a weight of exhaustion in him that made him wonder why he had bothered about this.

  Carmody put on the lights and waved and said, “Make yourselves comfortable.” The woman, Irene, started to take a chair and then stared at the hand he had waved and Carmody saw he was holding Paul Sloade’s gun. He grinned and took the magazine from the big Colt .45 and put the shells in his pocket and tossed the gun to the couch. “Go on, relax,” he said.

  “What are you going to do?” Paul Sloade asked.

  “Nothing. Just talk to you.”

  “How long have you been in this place?”

  “A week,” Carmody said.

  Paul Sloade was a tall man, as tall as Carmody’s six-one, but heavier and handsomer, with a mature solidity about him that spoke of his thirty-five years. His thick black hair came to a widow’s peak above high, arched brows. He had a strong jaw and white teeth and he wore a soft tan viyella coat and dark slacks and a white dacron shirt with figured necktie. There was a white scar along his left jaw that stood out against the tan of his face, and fear still moved remotely in his small black eyes. He wore wealth casually, as if he were accustomed to it and knew how to use it. His accent was pure Harvard.

  “A week,” Sloade repeated. “Why a week?”

  Carmody shrugged. “That’s when I got here.”

  “But why did you wait so long?”

  “Maybe I was casing you. I see you’ve done all right,” Carmody said, nodding to the woman who sat on the very edge of a frayed, tapestry-covered settee typical of the rented furnishings. He noticed that her hair, platinum by moonlight, was really a strange lemon-yellow.

  “My wife, Irene,” Paul Sloade muttered. “We were married two months ago.”

  “Please, Paul,” the woman whispered. “What is this all about?”

  “Nothing that concerns you. I think you’d better wait in the car.”

  Carmody saw that the marks of fingers on her face where Sloade had slapped her still lingered, pink against her tan. She was not much younger than Paul Sloade, and she was not pretty, not even remotely attractive, with her plain face and flat-bosomed figure and wan, frightened eyes. Her hands were nervous, plucking at the fine Madagascar straw of her skirt. Carmody wondered why she had dyed her hair such a brilliant yellow. Then he met her eyes again and he saw her quiet intelligence behind the fear, saw
the despair and humiliation because of Paul Sloade, and he nodded.

  “Maybe it would be better if you did go outside, Mrs. Sloade. Paul and I have an old memory to hash over.”

  “What is it?” she asked. “Something from the war? I want to stay. Truly, I do. I didn’t know he had the gun, Mr. Carmody. When Paul got your message at the Inn, he was upset; I could see he was upset and I insisted on going with him, but didn’t know about the gun and I don’t know why he wanted to kill you.” She paused and said suddenly: “Aren’t you the young man who plays at the Beachcomber place?”

  “Yes,” Carmody said. “Please go outside, Mrs. Sloade.”

  Paul said: “Get out, Irene.”

  “What will you do?” she asked. “Slap me again, Paul? I want to know about all this.” She looked at Carmody for support, but he didn’t give her any. Something crumpled in her plain face and she stopped fingering her skirt and stood up. “Very well. I’ll be outside.”

  When she was gone Carmody listened to the wind in the screens and the surf on the beach, and then got up and went back into the big old-fashioned kitchen and found a bottle and two glasses and returned to the living room. The house smelled of dampness, of salt and the sea. He noticed by the mantel clock that it was almost four in the morning. His mouth felt fuzzy and his eyes seemed full of sand. He poured three fingers in each tumbler and handed one to Paul Sloade.

  Some of the old arrogance returned to the man’s handsome face. “I guess you’re wondering about Irene.”

  “None of my business.”

  “She owns the Crescent Beach Inn, you know.”

  “Yes.”

  “You checked into that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose you think I married her for the money.”

  “Yes.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Paul Sloade said, his voice rising. “I wish I’d gotten you with that first shot.”

  “Shut up,” said Carmody. “I didn’t ask you about your wife or why you married her.”

  “Then why are you here?” Sloade yelled. “What are you snooping around for?”

  Carmody said: “Keep your voice down. I find myself beginning to hate you all over again.”

  “It’s about Major Deegan, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was cleared. The military board cleared me. I didn’t tell the Reds anything about him.”

  “Some of the guys think otherwise.”

  “Who?” Sloade asked.

  “Sam Link. Robbie Ravelle.”

  “That trash?”

  “They’re coming here to even the score,” Carmody said quietly.

  Sloade’s arrogance collapsed. His mouth looked loose and wet and he drew in a deep shuddering breath and then abruptly lifted his glass and drained it in three or four quick, heavy swallows.

  “I knew it would come some day. I’ve been waiting, ever since the prisoner exchange. I know all about it. That’s why I shot at you. I knew you or somebody else would trace me down sooner or later, try to kill me. But I’m not afraid of you—or of them!”

  Carmody said: “You ought to be.”

  “What do they think they can do? I’ll call the police. We’re not in prison camp any more. There’s such a thing as the law. The police will take care of them.”

  “For how long?” Carmody asked. “They have a lot of patience. They learned how to be patient, over there.”

  “What about you? Why should you tip me off about it?”

  “I don’t know,” Carmody said.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “I don’t know why I should bother about saving your rotten life, Paul. You weren’t worth a drop of Major Deegan’s sweat. It wouldn’t be any loss if some of the fellows evened the score.”

  “Well, then, what are you waiting for? Here I am. Why don’t you kill me?”

  “Because you’re not worth killing,” Carmody said. “I sent you the note just to tell you to be careful. I think I can control Sam Link. I’m not so sure about Robbie.”

  “The big idiot?”

  “The big one, yes.”

  “Why, he belongs in an institution!”

  “Maybe. He wants to kill you. So does Sam Link. The hard way. I thought I’d tell you, that’s all.”

  Sloade looked cunning. “Why? What’s in it for you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You think I’ll give you a piece of the Crescent Beach Inn? Or money? Like hell. I worked too hard to get it. I work too hard staying married to Irene. It isn’t easy. It’s mine, now. Nobody gets a piece of it.”

  “Nobody wants it, Paul.” Carmody stood up, not having touched his drink. “Now I’ve told you how it lays, that’s all. I thought I’d go through with it with Sam and Robbie and even it up for Lucas Deegan, but it’s not worth it, and I don’t hate you any more. I don’t care what you do up here. I came here to finish you, with Sam and Robbie, but when they get here I’m telling them that you’re tipped to the deal and it’s all washed up.”

  “Thanks for nothing.”

  “Get out,” Carmody said. “Get out now, Paul.”

  Sloade worked his hands together. “What am I supposed to do? Cut and run for it? Drop everything and run away screaming, just because three crazy men think I’m responsible for what was done to them in prison camp?”

  Carmody said patiently: “I’ve counted myself out. I don’t care what you do about it, Paul. I’ve warned you. I’ll try to convince Sam and Robbie to drop it and forget it. I’ll tell them I’ve warned you and maybe they’ll give it up.”

  “I won’t throw away everything I’ve worked to get here.”

  “Do as you please,” said Carmody.

  “I’ll call the cops.”

  “No, you won’t. Because if you do, then the whole story comes out, and then where will you be with Irene and the hotel? Your name will be mud. Just slime. You won’t call the cops.”

  Sloade shook his head. “I don’t understand you.”

  “Maybe I don’t understand myself.”

  “You came here to get revenge, and now you’re quitting on it, is that it?”

  “Just about.”

  “Look, Bill, if I tell you something, will you believe me?”

  Carmody stood waiting.

  “I didn’t let go a word to the Reds about Major Deegan. It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it,” Paul Sloade said.

  “Get out of here,” Carmody said.

  “Don’t you believe me?”

  “No. Not a word. Never.” Carmody was shaking. “Take off.”

  “Can I have the magazine back, for the gun?”

  “No.”

  Paul Sloade rose to his feet. His face looked unhealthy. Carmody felt only disgust for him. He said nothing as the big man with the scar on his face moved across the dusty room and out through the screened doorway to the porch. He stood still, listening to the wind and the surf and the grating of the man’s shoes, and then he heard the sound of the lemon-yellow Cadillac starting up and he put down his glass and turned off the light and stood by the window in the darkness, watching the moonlight on the beach.

  Sam Link would be sore. Robbie Ravelle would be maniacal. He had double-crossed them, pulled out, reneged on the whole setup. He did not feel guilty about it. It was done and over with, and he knew now that it had been a part of all the madness of prison years, and he was glad he had warned Paul Sloade, not for Sloade’s sake but for his own, and he hoped that was an end of it. He would have to figure some way to cool Sam and Robbie, that was all. And then forget it, the way Major Deegan would have wanted him to forget, and go ahead with the music and tomorrow, for whatever tomorrow might be worth. Sam and Robbie were due tomorrow.

  Carmody moved through the dark room and picked up the drink he had mixed and drank it slowly and thoughtfully. He thought he could hear Major Deegan’s quiet voice approving of what he had done. Today, after seeing Sam and Robbie, he would leave Crescent Beach and go back to New York. Then he tho
ught of the score he was working on. Carmody turned on the light again and went to the big scarred piano in one corner of the room and gathered up all the sheets of music and stuffed them in a battered leather case and then took them with him into one of the ground-floor bedrooms in the back of the creaking Victorian house. From under the bed he hauled out a new suitcase and began packing his clothes in readiness for departure. It did not take him long, but when he looked up and lighted a cigarette, he saw the first faint pink streaks of dawn in the sky.

  He was no longer tired or sleepy. He left the packed grip and the leather folder of music on his bed and stepped outside, through the back door of the house into the first glimmering light of day. The air was cool and damp, fresh in his lungs. The wind stirred his thick dark hair. He yawned and stretched, feeling good, feeling as if he had rid himself of an incubus that had been astride his shoulders for far too many months. Then he stood still, with his hands over his head, and looked at the sand dune behind the house in surprise.

  Irene Sloade was sitting there.

  “Hello,” he said.

  She looked like a ghost in the thin wisps of light

  “I thought you went home with Paul.”

  “He forgot about me.”

  “Forgot?”

  “He was upset. I was down the beach a little way and he just got in the car and drove off in a hurry. It’s all right. I understand he was upset.”

  “Have you been sitting here all this time?” Carmody asked.

  “Yes.”

  She wore a stole over her bare shoulders, and he saw the red and green straw flowers over her bosom on the Madagascar straw dress she wore. Not even the flowers could hide the fact that her breasts were small and flat. Her face in the gray dawning light looked tired. She wore a ruby pendant and small ruby earrings set in gold. Carmody was again struck by the quiet understanding and intelligence in her pale eyes. He saw that her hands, picking the ruby pendant at her throat, were long and delicate and quite beautiful.

  “Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you to the hotel.”

  “I can walk there alone.”

  “Were you waiting around to see me?”