I walked into the office once Millard Thornhill’s, and for the briefest instant Stanley showed his real surprise. But he didn’t express much of it.
“Jay,” he said. “I thought you were down in New Jersey. How are things at Polyclinic?”
“All right. How are things up here?”
He gestured, a suggestion of a shrug and a wave of one hand.
“What brings you around to the office at this hour?” he asked.
He was nervous. He had not expected me, or anyone, to appear. He was present, himself 5 only to establish that he was in fact here, and that Fenner Griscom might have set out to see him. Griscom was supposed to be dead, now, battered and smashed in a mysterious car accident somewhere in Central Park.
“I want to have a conference,” I told him. “Let’s go downstairs.”
He stood up, but he didn’t move.
“Who’s there?”
“Just a conference about this Generous Heart contract,” I told him, my words evasive, my tone reassuring. “I have decided to sign. I see you’ve already got the publicity under way. The Generous Heart Grows Rich in Giving. Excellent. Whose was it? Vincent’s or Haley’s? But before I sign, I want to have a conference in my office.”
“Who’s there?” he repeated, still not moving.
I tried to look puzzled.
“I was able to get Vincent,” I said. “He’s here. Maybe I can reach Haley later.”
I moved away to the door, and Stanley followed me, partly reassured, but with his misgivings not completely at rest. We descended the stairs, and again we passed those many banners of our past triumphs. And the new placard, THE GENEROUS HEART GROWS RICH IN GIVING, carrying the message of this present defeat.
I preceded Stanley into my office, and then I turned. I saw his face when he entered. He saw, or heard, the chuckling Talcott first. His eyes widened in both question and warning. Then, in a freezing instant, he saw the man who should have been dead. And he caught the import that they were present together. He stood inside the doorway, motionless. I could understand his feeling. This was a traditional set-up for a murderous double cross.
“What’s the matter, Stanley?” I asked “Come in and sit down. I’ll get Vincent.”
“Hello, Stanley,” said Griscom, the tone and the features even and composed. “Surprised I’m here?”
Talcott emitted a crescendo of merriment, beginning with a throttled snort, a hearty snicker, then rising to a bellow of laughter, but all without words. Stanley looked at me, and there was agony in his face. And appeal.
I said, soothingly:
“Come in, sit down. This won’t take a minute. I just want to sign the contract, Stanley, and talk over the general policies of the drive.”
He came into the room, then, but slowly. And I went out, across the main-floor lobby, down the corridor to Vincent Beechwood’s open and lighted door. When I came into his office, Vincent had just finished pouring himself a sizable glass of cognac. He was already full of it, his eyes were glazed. But he was not drunk. He was more sober than I had ever seen him, and more frightened.
“Did you bring your gun?” I asked.
“Yes. But what do you want it for, Jay?”
“I told you, when I phoned. Where is it? Give it to me.”
Vincent opened the top drawer of his desk and brought out the .32 he sometimes used in Florida fishing. He extended it to me, butt first. But there was panic in his eyes. I took the gun, and slipped it into the pocket of my coat. It bulged and it weighed, a counterweight to the jar of molten cream in the other pocket.
His voice was slurred and harsh, but the words were clear.
“Jay, have you got something against me?”
“Why should I have?” I asked. “Is the gun loaded?”
“It’s loaded. But I don’t know. Maybe you do have some grudge I don’t know anything about.” His eyes were drunk, and despairing, but they were also sane, cold sober, and questioning. “You didn’t really answer me, Jay. Have you got anything at all against me?”
I said, curtly:
“Let’s go, Vincent. I’m going to sign a contract. And I want you there.”
He picked up his cognac and drank it off. Then he slowly rose from his chair behind the desk.
“Can I really trust you, Jay?” he asked.
“Can I really trust you, Vincent?” I echoed him.
“I’ve got a wife and some kids, Jay. It’s not just me. I know I haven’t been much. But I think of them.”
“So do I. I’m thinking of the wife and kids I hope to have. Let’s go.”
“This isn’t the way you talked, when you phoned.”
“Isn’t it?”
Standing behind his desk, Vincent erectly considered the array before him, stuffed matches, and then a lighter, and then a package of cigarettes into the pockets of his coat. And looked at me. And once more asked:
“I don’t know. If you’ve really got something against me, Jay. I wish I knew what.”
“Have you got the right to ask?” I fingered the gun he had given me, now in my pocket. “You had a decision to make, and you made it. In fact, several decisions. Why? Are you afraid?”
Vincent’s gray, stunned eyes did not leave mine.
“Yes. You’re damn right I’m afraid. Of you.”
“Why? Don’t you believe what I told you?”
His answer was slow, and soft, but I heard it.
“No.”
“We’ve been all over this, Vincent. Let’s go.”
He walked ahead of me back the length of the corridor, then across the expanse of the broad, tiled and carpeted lobby, and finally into my office. He took a chair I had placed at one corner of the desk, while I moved around to stand behind it. Stanley, at our appearance, seemed almost faint with relief.
“All right,” I said. “Where’s the contract?”
“Their signatures are in our files,” he managed to tell me, but swiftly regaining confidence. “You have our three copies here, I think. Top left-hand drawer.”
I opened it, and found three of our gray bound forms as he said, Campaign Consultants printed on the outside with the usual brief description, and under it, typewritten, The Generous Heart. I took them out and leafed quickly through the stereotyped terms and stipulations, finding no changes. Even the provisions for re-scheduling costs for higher goals were as usual. But the maximum possible target mentioned was higher than I had expected.
I sat down and took out my pen, uncapped it.
“You mention five million,” I said, speaking to Gris-com. “Do you actually expect us to raise that?”
There was a moment of silence, Griscom puzzled but not really interested, Talcott grinning in broad derision. Stanley interposed, hastily:
“That’s just the usual contingency.”
“Seems optimistic,” I said. “For a one-shot drive, by an agency that never made a public appeal before.”
There was again a second of quiet. Then Stanley said:
“We think, that Is I’ve talked it over with Mr. Gris-com and Mr. Talcott and some of their other directors, and if this is as successful as we’re sure you can make it, Jay, this will probably be an annual affair.”
I looked in polite query at Griscom. He was not greatly concerned. He was merely annoyed. Implacably annoyed, and his voice held cold menace.
“Is this what you wanted a conference for? I thought you wanted to sign up. We’ll think about next year when it is next year.” He considered me, then lazily added, “Don’t worry about the goal, Mr. Ravoc. You’re not going to raise five, you’re going to raise ten million. Maybe more. Your firm has a fine reputation. Even you don’t appreciate it.”
Again our eyes locked, holding no human recognition, but complete understanding.
“Your agency’s case has never before been presented to the general public. It takes time to tell the story and build up an appeal.”
“Don’t worry about the frills,” said Griscom. “We’ve kept on
a few of the old patients, zombies coming to the agency since the year one. Build your publicity around them. We expect more from the personal appeals Charley and I make to upper-bracket donors. You’ve got a list of special givers, we know ways to solicit them, and we’ll find lots more, on our own. They’ll be glad to help. In fact, they’ll be simply dying to contribute.” He paused, with cool emphasis, as a substitute for smiling at his own joke. “All you do is get out the releases, write the campaign literature, run a few banquets as usual. We’ll collect. Now, are you going to sign and get this over with?”
I flipped the top contract to the last page and signed, tossed it across the desk toward Griscom, repeated with the second, the third. He picked up each, as it came, studied the signature, refolded the separate forms, then gathered them all, composedly slipped them into the inner pocket of his coat.
“That’s that,” he said, then added with imperial amusement aimed at Talcott and Stanley. “Anyway, the trip up here wasn’t a total waste. Was it?” He indolently rose. “I think I’ll get a cab and go home. I’m worried about Belle.”
I said:
“Wait.”
“What for?”
I dipped a hand into the pocket of my coat and brought out the silver jar. I laid it down in the center of the desk.
“There’s one thing more. Who sent this acid to Mrs. Hep worth?”
Of the four, only Talcott regarded it with interest. Very likely this was the first he had even heard about it. In frozen mockery, in boredom, and perhaps with some inner fury and despair, Griscom said:
“What a pity. So good-looking, too.”
“What is it?” asked Stanley, too mechanically. “Did you say acid?”
But he knew. Through Belle Griscom. And that left only Vincent. I stood up, looking at him. He was silent, shivering, questioning me again with his raw blue eyes, and utterly pale. I said:
“Mr. Anders, an investigator for the Generous Heart, says you gave him this jar of acid. Did you?”
“Jay.”
“It was wrapped and he did not know what was in. it, but you gave it to him for delivery to the Artcraft Studio on Madison Avenue. There, it was rewrapped, and delivered to Shana Hepworth. In my name.”
Vincent slowly stood up.
“No,” he said. “No. Griscom dropped in, on his way home, and gave me that package. He asked me to give it to his messenger, who was due to pick up some copy.”
“What copy? We weren’t handling the Generous Heart.”
“No, but I knew—”
I gave him a long moment to think this one through, and when I saw that he had, but still didn’t care for the only answer possible, I said:
“You knew what, Vincent?”
“I thought we would be handling it soon.”
“And you knew why. Because your threat to Shana would make me agree to this contract, that I have just now signed.”
Damp points of sweat stood out on his face, more gathering, and suddenly it was white, and wet. His voice was a forced sound no louder than a whisper.
“No, you’ve got it all wrong.”
Griscom spoke in dry, impersonal sarcasm, and command.
“Those misunderstandings are bound to happen. Aren’t they, Stanley? But we never let them interfere with business.”
I took out the gun.
“I do,” I said. “They are business. I make them my business.”
Griscom’s poise boiled over into rage and urgency.
“Put that away, Ravoc. We’re all set now, don’t make trouble for all of us over nothing. Put it away. Put It away.”
Talcott leaned forward in his chair, crouching, watchful.
“Take it easy,” he said. “If your friend pulled a fast one, forget it, it’s all in the day’s work.”
“Not with me,” I said.
I raised the gun, aiming it carefully, and Vincent wheeled, running. I fired twice before he ran through the doorway, one bullet raking and splintering the framework on a level with the back of his head. Then I came around the desk fast and a moment later stood outside the doorway of the office, watching Vincent as he raced up the stairs. He was halfway up, but with no place to turn, a perfect target. I raised the gun and aimed and fired three shots with an interval between each, watching him stagger and nearly reach the top step, then collapse backward falling against the wall and the streamers, banners, placards, ripping down DISASTER STRIKES DISASTER, LET THE SLUM CHILD BREATHE, and tearing away THE GENEROUS HEART GROWS RICH IN GIVING before he came to rest two-thirds of the way up the staircase, his body on one step, legs pointed upward, head lowest of all, his face pressed into the maroon carpeting.
I walked up the stairs and when I reached him, stood for a moment, watching. With my free hand I felt for the pulse in his wrist, then pressed back an eyelid with my thumb. I looked behind me. The three of them were there, silent, taut, appalled.
“I think I got him,” I said. “But just to make sure.”
I finished the remark by aiming the gun downward and firing point-blank. Then I slid the gun back into my pocket and turned and descended to rejoin them.
Griscom spoke first, in mingled fury and sick regret.
“You God damn fool. You crazy, half-baked, bungling, God damn fool. Do you realize what you’ve just done?”
“Sure. He crossed me, and I killed him.”
“And cost us all the biggest take yet. Do you realize that? Besides cooking yourself, which will be a pleasure to me, Ravoc. A real pleasure.”
“How is this going to cost anybody anything?” I asked.
“When this gets out—” he began, then stopped, regarding me in slow surmise.
“Why should it get out?”
“Those shots, to begin with. The whole neighborhood is on the phone right now, calling cops.”
I stared at him in open derision.
“I think not. The building is soundproof, Griscom, I thought you knew how to handle these things forward and backward.”
He thought about it, studying me.
“I do. And believe me, these amateur jobs never stand up. There’s the body. Nothing you rig now, no story is going to explain it. Not for ten minutes.”
“Why bother to explain it? Just get rid of it.”
He met this suggestion with one look of withering scorn. But he was weighing the situation, and while he considered, Talcott spoke up.
“Why not let him try, Fenner? It’s his baby. What can we lose?”
Griscom began to be persuaded. But he directed a savage question at me.
“He’s missing. How can that be explained?”
“Desertion, that’s all. Debts. Too much wife. Too much mother-in-law. He got tired of buying his mother-in-law a tomb on the installment plan. So he just picked up his hat and went. It happens every day, and by the dozens.”
Griscom and Talcott stared at each other, holding a silent consultation, a meeting of the minds between two of the greatest authorities in the entire field of investigation. Then Griscom came back to me.
“Provided those shots weren’t heard. And provided the body can actually disappear. How? Have you thought of that?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll handle it.”
A measure of Talcott’s prevailing merriment returned.
“You’re damn right you will,” he chortled. “You don’t think we’re going to touch this thing, do you?”
Griscom somberly asked:
“How?”
My eyes went from his, to Talcott’s, to Stanley’s, then returned to Griscom.
“I know a Long Island inlet,” I said. “Not too deep. But deep enough. And deserted, at this hour.”
“He’s got to be weighed down,” said Talcott.
“How’ll you get him there?” asked Griscom.
I nodded to both of them.
“Simple. I’ll wrap a rug around him, put him in a car, drive there, and dump them both. There’s a gray coupe outside nobody wants to hear about again, isn’t there? Unless
you’ve got a better idea, I’ll get rid of them both at the same time. What about it? Does that fill the prescription?”
The experts again held a wordless conference. Then Talcott muffled a blast of laughter, and Griscom nodded.
“If you want to try,” he said. “But you’d better not slip. We don’t know anything about it, naturally. At the same time, we aren’t going to give you any chance to operate by yourself. We’ve got to know, Ravoc. We want to know, and be sure.”
I said, bleakly:
“Exactly. I’ve got to know and be sure, myself. And I’ve got to get back from there, after I’ve dumped the body and the car. One of you, or all of you, will have to follow me out, and pick me up, afterwards.”
Again the silent consultation, and this time it included Stanley. He had the only other car. He didn’t seem to like it. In fact, I thought at first he was about to be sick. But actually, he was crying. Griscom slapped Win, but with a closed fist, and hard.
“Don’t try that stuff again,” he said. “Remember when you tried it before? Remember what it got you?”
Stanley halfway heard him. He stopped crying, and saw all of us as though for the first time, with something like pleased surprise.
“What do you want?” he asked. “What should I do?”
“Get your car, Stanley,” I said, smoothly. “Get it started, and have it behind the gray coupe. Give me the keys to the gray coupe, Talcott, then go with Stanley, and drive. Keep me in sight. If you want that cut of the Generous Heart, don’t lose me. I’ve got to get back, and I must not be seen.” I looked around the lobby, up the stairs at the body of Vincent, the torn and ripped posters, into my own office. Then I looked at Griscom. I indicated two heavy rugs spread across the broad tiled lobby. “I’ll wrap him in these. You go out and stand on the sidewalk next to Stanley’s car. I’ll step outside before I pick him up, and if there’s somebody around, give the word to Charley to sound the horn. If not, I’ll pick him up and pack him out. Got it?”
They understood too easily. Talcott handed me the keys to the death car, now scheduled to be both a hearse and a tomb, then the three of them went out. I entered my own office and turned out the lights. Then I went back to the lobby, gathering and rolling the long heavy rugs into position. Then I mounted the stairs. I gathered the torn streamers and posters, first, rolling them into a bundle I tossed below. Then I grasped Vincent Beech-wood by the armpits, raised the torso, descended backward down the stairway, dragging him gently after me.
The Generous Heart Page 19