A Kiss Before Dying

by Ira Levin

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t know me. I was – a friend of Ellen’s.’ Marion felt suddenly awkward; a friend of Ellen’s; someone handsome and clever and fast-talking … Someone dull underneath, someone she wouldn’t care for anyway. The awkwardness retreated. ‘My name,’ the man continued, ‘is Burton Corliss – Bud Corliss.’

  ‘Oh yes. Ellen told me about you.’ (‘I love him so much,’ Ellen had said during the visit that had proved to be her last, ‘and he loves me too’ – and Marion, though happy for her, had for some reason been sombre the rest of the evening.)

  ‘I wonder if I could see you,’ he said. ‘I have something that belonged to Ellen. One of her books. She lent it to me just before – before she went to Blue River, and I thought you might like to have it.’

  Probably some book-of-the-month novel, Marion thought, and then, hating herself for her smallness, said, ‘Yes, I’d like very much to have it. Yes, I would.’

  For a moment there was silence from the other end of the wire. ‘I could bring it over now,’ he said. ‘I’m in the neighbourhood.’

  ‘No,’ she said quickly, ‘I’m going out.’

  ‘Well then, some time tomorrow—’

  ‘I – I won’t be in tomorrow either.’ She drifted uncomfortably, ashamed of her lying, ashamed that she didn’t want him in her apartment. He was probably likeable enough, and he’d loved Ellen and Ellen was dead, and he was going out of his way to give her Ellen’s book … ‘We could meet some place this afternoon,’ she offered.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘That would be fine.’

  ‘I’m going to be – around Fifth Avenue.’

  ‘Then suppose we meet, say, in front of the statue of Rockefeller Centre, the one of Atlas holding up the world.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘At three o’clock?’

  ‘Yes. Three o’clock. Thank you very much for calling. It’s very nice of you.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ he said. ‘Goodbye, Marion.’ There was a pause. ‘I’d feel funny calling you Miss Kingship. Ellen spoke about you so much.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ She felt awkward again, and self-conscious. ‘Goodbye,’ she said, unable to decide whether to call him Bud or Mr Corliss.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he repeated.

  She replaced the receiver and stood looking at the telephone for a moment. Then turned and went to the coffee table. Kneeling, she resumed her work, sweeping the dustcloth in unaccustomedly hurried arcs, because now the whole afternoon was broken up.

  TWO

  In the shadow of the towering bronze statue, he stood with his back to the pedestal, immaculate in grey flannel, a paper-wrapped package under his arm. Before him passed intermeshing streams of oppositely-bound people slow-moving against a backdrop of roaring buses and impatient taxis. He watched their faces carefully. The Fifth Avenue set; men with unpadded shoulders and narrowly knotted ties; women self-consciously smart in tailored suits, kerchiefs crisp at their throats, their beautiful heads lifted high, as though photographers might be waiting further down the street. And, like transient sparrows tolerated in an aviary, the pink rural faces gawking at the statue and the sun-sharpened spires of Saint Patrick’s across the street. He watched them all carefully, trying to recall the snapshot Dorothy had shown him so long ago. ‘Marion could be very pretty, only she wears her hair like this.’ He smiled, remembered Dorrie’s fierce frown as she pulled her hair back primly. His fingers toyed with a fold in the wrapping of the package.

  She came from the north, and he recognized her when she was still a hundred feet away. She was tall and thin, a bit too thin, and dressed much like the women around her; a brown suit, a gold kerchief, a small Vogue-looking felt hat, a shoulder-strap handbag. She seemed stiff and uncomfortable in the outfit, though, as if it had been made to someone else’s measure. Her pulled-back hair was brown. She had Dorothy’s large brown eyes, but in her drawn face they were too large, and the high cheekbones that had been so beautiful in her sisters were, in Marion, too sharply defined. As she came nearer, she saw him. With an uncertain, questioning smile, she approached, appearing ill at ease in the spotlight of his gaze. Her lipstick, he noticed, was the pale rose he associated with timorously experimenting adolescents.

  ‘Marion?’

  ‘Yes.’ She offered her hand hesitantly. ‘How do you do,’ she said, directing a too-quick smile at a point somewhere below his eyes.

  Her hand in his was long-fingered and cold. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.’

  * * *

  They went to a determinedly Early American cocktail lounge around the corner. Marion, after some indecision, ordered a Daquiri.

  ‘I – I can’t stay long, I’m afraid,’ she said, sitting erect on the edge of her chair, her fingers stiff around the cocktail glass.

  ‘Where are they always running, these beautiful women?’ he inquired smilingly – and immediately saw that it was the wrong approach; she smiled tensely and seemed to grow more uncomfortable. He looked at her curiously, allowing the echo of his words to fade. After a moment he began again. ‘You’re with an advertising agency, aren’t you?’

  ‘Camden and Galbraith,’ she said. ‘Are you still at Caldwell?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought Ellen said you were a junior.’

  ‘I was, but I had to quit school.’ He sipped his Martini. ‘My father is dead. I didn’t want my mother to work any more.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry—’

  ‘Maybe I’ll be able to finish up next year. Or I may go to night school. Where did you go to school?’

  ‘Columbia. Are you from New York?’

  ‘Massachusetts.’

  Every time he tried to steer the conversation around to her, she turned it back towards him. Or to the weather. Or to a waiter who bore a startling resemblance to Claude Rains.

  Eventually she asked, ‘Is that the book?’

  ‘Yes. Dinner at Antoine’s. Ellen wanted me to read it. There are some personal notes she scribbled on the flyleaf, so I thought you might like to have it.’ He passed the package to her.

  ‘Personally,’ he said, ‘I go for books that have a little more meaning.’

  Marion stood up. ‘I’ll have to be leaving now,’ she said apologetically.

  ‘But you haven’t finished your drink yet.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly, looking down at the package in her hands. ‘I have an appointment. A business appointment. I couldn’t possibly be late.’

  He rose. ‘But—’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She looked at him uncomfortably.

  He put money on the table.

  They walked back to Fifth Avenue. At the corner she offered her hand again. It was still cold. ‘It’s been very nice meeting you, Mr Corliss,’ she said. ‘Thank you for the drink. And the book. I appreciate it – very thoughtful—’ She turned and melted into the stream of people.

  Emptily, he stood on the corner for a moment. Then his lips clenched and he started walking.

  He followed her. The brown felt hat had a gold ornament that glittered brightly. He stayed some thirty feet behind it.

  She walked up to Fifty-fourth Street, where she crossed the avenue, heading east towards Madison. He knew where she was going; he remembered the address from the telephone book. She crossed Madison and Park. He stopped on the corner and watched her climb the steps of the brownstone house.

  ‘Business appointment,’ he muttered. He waited around for a few minutes, not knowing exactly why he waited, and then he turned and walked slowly back towards Fifth Avenue.

  THREE

  Sunday afternoon Marion went to the Museum of Modern Art. The main floor was still occupied by an automobile exhibit which she had seen before and found uninteresting, and the second floor was unusually crowded, so she continued up the turning stairway to the third floor, there to wander among the pleasantly familiar paintings and sculptures; the arched white smoothness of the Girl Washing Her Ha
ir, the perfect spear of Bird in Space.

  Two men were in the room that held the Lehmbruck sculptures, but they went out soon after Marion entered, leaving her alone in the cool grey cube with the two statues, the male and female, he standing and she kneeling in opposite quarters of the room, their bodies elongated and gauntly beautiful. The attention of the statues gave them an unearthly air, almost like religious art, so that Marion had always been able to look at them with none of the slight embarrassment she usually felt on viewing nude sculptures. She moved slowly around the figure of the young man.

  ‘Hello.’ The voice was behind her, pleasantly surprised.

  It must be for me, she thought, there’s no one else here. She turned around.

  Bud Corliss smiled in the doorway.

  ‘Hello,’ Marion said confusedly.

  ‘It really is a small world,’ he said, coming to her. ‘I came in right behind you downstairs, only I wasn’t sure it was you. How are you?’

  ‘Fine, thank you.’ There was an uncomfortable pause. ‘How are you?’ she added.

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  They turned to the statue. Why did she feel so clumsy? Because he was handsome? Because he had been part of Ellen’s circle? – had shared football cheers and campus kisses and love …

  ‘Do you come here often?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So do I.’

  The statue embarrassed her now, because Bud Corliss was standing beside her. She turned away and moved towards the figure of the kneeling woman. He followed at her side. ‘Did you make the appointment on time?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. What brought him here? You’d think he’d be strolling in Central Park with some poised flawless Ellen on his arm …

  They looked at the statue. After a moment, he said, ‘I really didn’t think it was you downstairs.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, Ellen wasn’t the museum type—’

  ‘Sisters aren’t exactly alike,’ she said.

  ‘No, I guess not.’ He began to circle around the kneeling figure.

  ‘The Fine Arts department at Caldwell had a small museum,’ he said. ‘Mostly reproductions and copies. I dragged Ellen there once or twice. Thought I’d indoctrinate her.’ He shook his head. ‘No luck.’

  ‘She wasn’t interested in art.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s funny the way we try to push our tastes on people we like.’

  Marion looked at him, facing her on the other side of the statue. ‘I once took Ellen and Dorothy – Dorothy was our youngest sister—’

  ‘I know—’

  ‘I took them here once when they were just going into their teens. They were bored, though. I guess it was too young.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, retracing his semicircular path towards her. ‘If there’d been a museum in my home town when I was that age – Did you come here when you were twelve or thirteen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘See?’ he said. His smile made them fellow members of a group to which Ellen and Dorothy had never belonged.

  A man and woman with two children in tow came bursting into the room.

  ‘Let’s move on,’ he suggested, at her side again.

  ‘I—’

  ‘It’s Sunday,’ he said. ‘No business appointments to run to.’ He smiled at her; a very nice smile, soft and lenitive. ‘I’m alone; you’re alone.’ He took her elbow gently. ‘Come on,’ he said, with the persuasive smile.

  They went through the third floor and half of the second, commenting on the works they saw, and then they went down to the main floor, past the gleaming automobiles incongruous within a building, and out through the glass doors to the garden behind the museum. They strolled from statue to statue, pausing before each. They came to the Maillol woman, full-bodied, strident.

  ‘The last of the red-hot mammas,’ Bud said.

  Marion smiled. ‘I’ll tell you something,’ she said. ‘I always get a little embarrassed looking at – statues like this.’

  ‘This one embarrasses me a little,’ he said, smiling. ‘It’s not a nude; it’s a naked.’ They both laughed.

  When they had looked at all the statues, they sat down on one of the benches at the back of the garden and lit cigarettes.

  ‘You and Ellen were going steady, weren’t you?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘I thought—’

  ‘Not officially, I mean. Anyway, going steady in college doesn’t always mean as much as going steady outside of college.’

  Marion smoked in silence.

  ‘We had a great many things in common, but they were mainly surface things; having the same classes, knowing the same people – things having to do with Caldwell. Once we were through with college, though, I don’t think we would’ve got married.’ He stared at his cigarette. ‘I was fond of Ellen. I liked her better than any girl I’ve ever known. I was miserable when she died. But – I don’t know – she wasn’t a very deep person.’ He paused. ‘I hope I’m not offending you.’

  Marion shook her head, watching him.

  ‘Everything was like that museum business. I thought I could at least get her interested in some of the uncomplicated artists, like Hopper or Wood. But it didn’t work. She wasn’t interested at all. And it was the same thing with books or politics – anything serious. She always wanted to be doing something.’

  ‘She’d led a restricted life at home. I guess she was making up for it.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And then, she was four years younger than I.’ He put out his cigarette. ‘But she was the sweetest girl I’ve ever known.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Didn’t they ever find out anything about who did it?’ he asked incredulously.

  ‘Nothing. Isn’t it awful—’

  They sat in silence for a moment. Then they began to talk again; about how many interesting things there were to do in New York, what a pleasant place the museum was, about the Matisse exhibit that was coming soon.

  ‘Do you know who I like?’ he asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know if you’re familiar with his work,’ he said. ‘Charles Demuth.’

  FOUR

  Leo Kingship sat with his elbows propped on the table, his fingers interlocked around a cold-frosted glass of milk which he studied as though it were a beautifully coloured wine. ‘You’ve been seeing him frequently, haven’t you,’ he said, trying to sound casual.

  With elaborate care, Marion placed her coffee cup in the indentation of the blue and gold Aynsley saucer, and then looked across the crystal and silver and damask at her father. His full red face was bland. Reflected light blanked the lenses of his glasses, masking his eyes. ‘Bud?’ she said, knowing it was Bud he meant.

  Kingship nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ Marion said squarely, ‘I’ve been seeing him frequently.’ She paused. ‘He’s calling for me tonight, in about fifteen minutes.’ She watched her father’s expressionless face with waiting eyes, hoping that there would not be an argument because it would tarnish the entire evening, and hoping that there would be one because it would try the strength of what she felt for Bud.

  ‘This job of his,’ Kingship said, setting down the milk. ‘What are its prospects?’

  After a cold moment Marion said, ‘He’s on the executive training squad. He should be a section manager in a few months. Why all the questions?’ She smiled with her lips only.

  Kingship removed his glasses. His blue eyes wrestled uncomfortably with Marion’s cool stare. ‘You brought him here to dinner, Marion,’ he said. ‘You never brought anyone to dinner before. Doesn’t that entitle me to ask a few questions?’

  ‘He lives in a rooming house,’ Marion said. ‘When he doesn’t eat with me, he eats alone. So I brought him to dinner one night.’

  ‘The nights you don’t dine here, you dine with him?’

  ‘Yes, most of them. Why should we both eat alone? We work only five blocks from each other.’ She wondered wh
y she was being evasive; she hadn’t been caught doing something wrong. ‘We eat together because we enjoy each other’s company,’ she said firmly. ‘We like each other very much.’

  ‘Then I do have a right to ask some questions, don’t I,’ Kingship pointed out quietly

  ‘He’s someone I like. Not someone applying for a job with Kingship Copper.’

  ‘Marion—’

  She plucked a cigarette from a silver cup and lit it with a silver table-lighter. ‘You don’t like him, do you?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Because he’s poor,’ she said.

  ‘That’s not true, Marion, and you know it.’

  There was silence for a moment.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Kingship said, ‘he’s poor all right. He took pains to mention it exactly three times the other night. And that anecdote he dragged in, about the woman his mother did sewing for.’

  ‘What’s wrong with his mother taking in sewing?’

  ‘Nothing, Marion, nothing. It’s the way he alluded to it so casually, so very casually. Do you know who he reminded me of? There’s a man at the club who has a bad leg, limps a little. Every time we play golf he says, “You boys go on ahead. Old Peg-leg’ll catch up with you.” So everyone walks extra slowly and you feel like a heel if you beat him.’

  ‘I’m afraid the similarity escapes me,’ Marion said. She rose from the table and went out towards the living room, leaving Kingship to rub a hand despairingly over the few yellow-white hairs that thinly crossed his scalp.

  In the living room there was a large window that looked out over the East River. Marion stood before it, one hand on the thick cloth of the draperies. She heard her father come into the room behind her.

  ‘Marion, believe me, I only want to see you happy.’ He spoke awkwardly. ‘I know I haven’t always been so – concerned, but haven’t I – done better since Dorothy and Ellen—’

  ‘I know,’ she admitted reluctantly. She fingered the drapes. ‘But I’m practically twenty-five – a grown woman. You don’t have to treat me as if—’

  ‘I just don’t want you rushing into anything, Marion.’