Эд Макбейн - Beauty and the Beast

“Miss Reynolds,” I said, “I can subpoena you before trial, and take a deposition under oath—”

“Yes, well, you just do that,” she said.

“I’d rather we talked quietly and sensibly here. Someone’s murdered two people, do you realize—”

“Yes, George Harper.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Have you ever seen any of Sally’s paintings?”

“If I knew they were black-and-white, then I guess I’d seen them someplace, yes.”

“Where?”

“At her house, I suppose. You know I was in her house for one of the meetings.”

“Yes. Which is where you met Andrew, isn’t that right?”

“That’s right.”

“ And Lloyd Davis and his wife.”

“Yes.”

“Andrew had a little trouble remembering Davis.”

“I’m not responsible for Andrew’s memory.”

“Doesn’t it seem odd to you that Sally’s paintings were black-and-white, and this committee you formed—”

“I didn’t form it.”

“The lady on Fatback then. This committee was composed of concerned black and white citizens—”

“Yes, we were concerned. Don’t try to make it sound silly, Mr. Hope. We were actually concerned about what had happened. Deeply concerned.”

“Was the committee called The Oreo?”

“No.”

“Then what was?”

“I have no idea.”

“Would it have been the group you socialized with after the committee broke up?”

“I don’t know what it is, I already told you that.”

“Have you ever seen the painting hanging in the bedroom of the Davis house?”

“I’ve never been to the Davis house.”

“Have the Davises ever been here ?”

“I wasn’t even living here when The Oreo—”

She cut herself off.

“Yes, Miss Reynolds?”

“I wasn’t living here.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I had the apartment over the store.”

“Uh-huh. What were you just about to say?”

“Nothing.”

“About The Oreo, I mean.”

“Nothing.”

“The painting I saw in the Davis bedroom—”

“I think you’d better leave, Mr. Hope.”

“...depicted a white woman performing fellatio on a black man.”

She looked at me and blinked.

“If you already know —” she said, and cut herself off again.

I said nothing.

“You’re trying to get me in trouble, aren’t you?” she said. “You’re trying to involve me in what happened.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Then what difference does it make whether I was part of The Oreo or not?”

“ Were you?”

“What the fuck difference does it make? Why don’t you ask yourself why your precious client killed his wife, why don’t you ask yourself that ? I’ll tell you why, Mr. Hope. Because he found out about Michelle, that’s why. And Sally was the next one because that’s where the whole thing started, with the three of them.”

“Which three?”

“I thought you knew already. You saw the painting, I thought you—”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then forget it.”

“You’ve come too far already, Miss Reynolds.”

“I came too far the minute I let them talk me into...”

She stopped again.

“Go ahead.”

“What do you want, a free show, Mr. Hope? Dirty movies? We had a little club, okay? It started with Michelle, Sally, and Lloyd, and then Andrew got involved, and one night they asked me if I’d like to party with them, so I did. Only five of us that first time, three on the bed, two of us — Lloyd and me — on the overflow mattress.”

“The one on the floor?”

“Yes.”

“Go ahead.”

“That’s all.”

“There’s more.”

“All right, there’s more,” she said, and sighed. “Michelle and I were the only white women at first. But there were plenty of other whites on the committee, men and women both, and eventually — after the committee broke up — they drifted into The Oreo.”

“How many people?”

“In The Oreo? When it was in stride? A dozen, I guess.”

“Leona was a part of this?”

“In the beginning. Before she got on heroin.”

“Did George Harper ever attend any of these—”

“George? That ape? Don’t be ridiculous! He never even knew what was going on. He was out peddling his junk while his wife was romping in the hay. Why do you think he killed her, Mr. Hope? Because he found out , that’s why.”

“What about those paintings?”

“Sally gave one of them to all of us in The Oreo. You saw the one at the Davis house, the one of Michelle and Lloyd? They posed for that one night, out on Fatback I think it was, Sally high on pot and sketching Michelle and Lloyd. Made the painting later. I’ve still got my own Oreo painting someplace. Mine has a panther on it. A black panther. Eating a white kitten.”

I nodded.

“Got it all, Mr. Hope?” she said. “Any further questions, counselor?”

“Just one,” I said, and paused. “ Why ?”

“Why? Well, I’ll tell you, Mr. Hope. At first it was just a way of communicating. The committee had broken up, we’d failed to produce even a ripple, and this was a way of maintaining contact. Of proving that we were color-blind, proving it didn’t matter to us who was white or who was black on those beds, it just didn’t matter . And later...”

She shrugged.

She smiled wistfully.

“It was exciting,” she said. “It was just so damn exciting .”

It was Friday morning already — December 4, 12:06 A.M. by my digital watch — when I called Bloom at home. I had visions of interrupting a sex scene between him and his wife; turnabout is fair play. Instead, he answered the phone in a fuzzy voice that told me he’d been dead asleep.

“Morrie,” I said, “this is Matthew.”

“Who?” he said.

“Matthew Hope.”

“Oh. Yeah,” he said. I suspected he was looking at his bedside clock. Or perhaps his wristwatch. Did Bloom wear his wristwatch to bed? Was it a fine digital watch like mine, with a little button you could press to illuminate the dial?

“Morrie,” I said, “I just had a very interesting talk with Kitty Reynolds.”

“Kitty who ?”

“Reynolds.”

“Who the hell is that?”

“I thought you might have got to her by now.”

“Matthew, it’s midnight, past midnight, I was fast asleep. If you want to play games—”

“She and Andrew Owen were having a thing, Morrie. That’s why Sally divorced him.”

“Okay,” he said. “So?”

“There’s more.”

“Let me hear it,” he said.

I let him hear it All of it. The committee, the paintings, The Oreo — all of it. He listened without uttering a word. All I could hear on the phone was his level breathing. When I finished my recitation, he was still silent. I thought perhaps he’d fallen asleep on me.

“Morrie?” I said.

“I’m here,” he said.

“What do you think?”

“I think we ought to ask Lloyd Davis some questions,” he said.

Friday is always the longest day of the week.

This Friday — while I waited for the police to locate Lloyd Davis — was the longest of any Friday I could remember. I did not get back to the office after the closing at Tricity until almost ten-thirty, to find a couple named Ralph and Agnes West waiting in the reception room. The Wests were the nephew and niece-by-marriage of an elderly client who had died without leaving any truly close relatives; they had called me several times since his death to ask if they might come to the office to collect their share of the estate. I had told them each time they called essentially what I told them now. On the phone each time, it had taken four or five minutes. It now took almost an hour because both Ralph and Agnes West were (a) dense and (b) blindly determined not to be cheated out of their rightful share of the estate.