John MacDonald - The Good Old Stuff

During the two years that he had thought of murder, he had thought of many ways. Many methods. To murder and go free. Conviction would make the murder pointless.

At night Jimmy Hake would awaken, cold sweat oily on his body, his fists tightly clenched. Then, in the silence of the night, he would think of Bob Morrit.

Not of Anna. Of Bob and of death.

Ten months before, without the faintest idea of how he would use it, he had acquired, in Rio, a small amount of curare. Vegetable-base poison. Instant paralysis of the lungs. A few words whispered to a ragged guide. A large bill. A small tin aspirin box pressed into his hand. Inside, a grayish sticky substance.

He knew there was no way it could be traced.

He realized that Bob had just asked him something.

“What was that?”

Bob laughed. “It is getting late. I was asking you if you didn’t think this no-good wife of mine could be of more help in the programs.”

“How?”

“He’s got the idea,” Anna said wryly, “that I ought to listen to the programs. Isn’t listening to you two chew up the script enough?”

“You’re a good girl,” Bob said, “and we both love you, but you’re no darn help to us. You don’t even laugh any more at the script.”

“I used to laugh to make you feel good.”

“If you listened,” Jimmy Hake said, “you could tell us what sounded flat to you. You are our most unforgiving public.”

She sighed. “I always forget until after the program is over. Life is so full of a number of things. Besides, I hate the commercials and I hate the opening patter before you get into the meat of the script.”

“Then tune in late,” Bob said.

She yawned. “All right, you guys. Tomorrow at eight ten I will be your ardent listener. I will sit home and laugh like mad.”

She stood up, clean and straight in the faint light. She said, “Bob, darling, you are such a collector of gadgets. Why don’t you find a gadget that will get me home and into bed at night without any effort on my part.”

“I’ll look for one like that,” he said.

As Jimmy Hake stood up, she said, “Jimmy, what a life I lead! In the car, lighted cigarettes pop out at you. In the apartment the windows open and shut at regular hours. Things go off and on. Civilization, they call it.”

“It makes life easier,” Bob said firmly.

Jimmy Hake was suddenly anxious for them to go. He was afraid of the conversation. He was afraid of the turn it might take. Because murder had already been consummated, at least as far as he was concerned.

But Morrit was standing there by the pool, talking, his arm around Anna’s waist. And yet he was dead. It was queer. His life was over. Finished.

Anna would be broken up over it, of course. She would weep. But there would be the handy and familiar shoulder of Jimmy Hake on which to weep. Then it would be only fitting that the two people who were the closest to poor Bob should themselves be married. He would make her happy. Far happier than Bob had made her. Of that he was sure. And that was, in part, his rationalization.

He stood in the drive, and the headlights of Bob’s car swept across him. He waved, shouted good night, and watched the taillights diminish and suddenly disappear as they rounded the curve.

Suddenly sweating, he hurried back to the bathhouse near the pool. He clicked on the inside lights and stood for a moment, conscious of the fact that these next few minutes might mean life or death.

It was the men’s side of the bathhouse. The two shower stalls were on the left, the lockers on the right.

Bob Morrit had been in the shower when he had done it. He had been prepared. He had timed Bob in the shower a dozen times and found that four minutes was the minimum time he would have. While Bob had splashed and sung tonelessly, he had pulled open Bob’s locker. Bob’s favorite gadget, the trick Swiss silent alarm watch, was on the shelf. It was a clever thing, actually. It was a wristwatch. Once the alarm was set, a blunt brass plunger jabbed out of a small hole on the wrist surface of the watch at the proper time.

When it was new, Jimmy Hake had borrowed it once. It was remarkably effective. The pressure of the little plunger was sudden, strong, and startling.

With fumbling fingers he had set the alarm for the moment while Bob was in the shower. The little plunger clicked out. With a triangular file, he carefully and quickly sharpened the little plunger. Then he smeared the tip with the sticky gray curare, forced it back into the recess, and turned the alarm off.

Closing the locker door quietly, he had placed the file and the aspirin tin in the bottom of his own locker. When Bob came out of the shower a minute or so later, Jimmy Hake was out by the pool talking with the fair Anna.

All evidence had to be removed. Three items. The little tin box, the file, and the minute brass filings. He had filed the brass while holding the watch inside his own locker. In the harsh light he saw the tiny yellow glints of brass.

Locating the tin box, he opened it and carefully brushed the filings into it, snapped it shut. He was sweating as he undressed, pulled on his swimming trunks. The servants would see nothing odd in a midnight swim.

The file and box clutched in his hand, he pulled himself under the water by means of the metal ladder at the corner of the pool. His groping fingers found the drain, unscrewed the mesh cover. He dropped the file and box down, replaced the cover.

With slow strokes he made two lengths of the pool, climbed out, and, incredibly weary, walked back to the bathhouse.

Bob Morrit walked about with death on his wrist. It was as though he wore a coral snake coiled there. Sooner or later, Bob would set the alarm to remind himself of an appointment. When the alarm went off, the blood would carry the poison to his brain and Bob would be dead a minute or two after he stopped being able to breathe.

And there would be no basis on which to try the famous Jimmy Hake. Opportunity, yes. Motive, no. Would a comedian kill his head writer? Of course not. And, of course, there was a good possibility that the cause of death wouldn’t be diagnosed.

As he went up to his bedroom, he fully expected not to be able to sleep. He put water and sleeping tablets on his bedside table. But moments after his head touched the pillow, he dropped off into a sleep that was like death.

Last-minute script changes were made by Jimmy Hake. Because such changes were usually to fit the show into the schedule, there was no need for Bob to attend. He seldom did. When Jimmy Hake got to the studio just before rehearsal, he picked up the dozen copies that Bob had arranged for.

The rehearsal was like a program in a dream. Jimmy Hake could hear his own words without understanding what he was saying. It was hard to keep from looking at the doorway through which they would come to tell him Bob was dead. In his heart the little carnival toy went around and around, the body of Bob Morrit strapped to the infinitesimal seat.

The band music seemed much too loud, the voices of the supporting characters much too shrill. He wanted to hold his plump hands over his ears and run from the studio. But somehow he got through it. Some mechanical part of his mind ordered the script changes, made the pencil corrections on his copy. The program finished exactly sixty-five seconds before the allotted half hour. Sixty seconds for the closing commercial, and five more seconds for Jimmy Hake to sign off in his unforgettable manner.

Close of rehearsal allowed the cast a half hour to get coffee before returning to the studio to get set for the actual broadcast. Jimmy Hake had coffee downstairs with the guest star. He knew that he was making the right comments, smiling in the right places. But he didn’t know how he was managing to do it so unconsciously.