Fredric Brown - Homicide Sanitarium

"Good," I interrupted him. That was my notebook; it had been lying on my desk near the telephone. I knew which names were in it and which weren't.

Adrian went on: "Mostly they were looking for you, through your friends.

They asked me first if I'd seen you tonight and I said I hadn't. And then--"

"That's the bad part, Adrian," I told him. "After you left Mike's, Mike got onto me. I had to lock him up in a closet in his back room. He's out by now, and he'll tell the cops fast that I was in his place and that you were with me. They'll know you were lying when they were at your place. I should have told you that over the phone so you could have changed your story. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to do some fast talking the next time they call on you."

He waved that aside. He said, "I can talk fast. And I've got connections. I can't get away with murder, but I can get away with lying to the cops for a couple of hours--if I think up a good story why I lied to them. Can you give me one?"

I shook my head slowly. "Why did you lie to them, Adrian? I don't even know that."

"I'm not too sure myself," he said. "All right, then, don't worry about that. I'll figure an out for myself. What about you?"

I said, "I've got a hundred to one chance. It was a thousand to one when I figured it out--just before I met you. If I've got you on my side --for another hour or so anyway--that cuts it down to a hundred to one."

"Not very good odds."

"No," I admitted. "Not very good. I don't like them at all. But the alternative gives me less of a chance--no chance at all."

"You haven't an alibi?"

"Not a ghost of one. Damn it, Adrian, three people know we left home to take a walk in the park half an hour before I killed her. And a paraffin test will show I fired the gun. Adrian, barring a miracle, I'm strapped into that chair now."

"And what's the miracle?"

"I can't tell you, Adrian. It sounds silly, but--if you want to help, and God knows why you should--you'll just have to string along with me for the next hour or two. If you don't, that's okay. I don't blame you. I don't think I would, if I were in your shoes. If you don't, my chance goes back from one in a hundred to one in a thousand, but I'll carry on."

"What do you want me to do?"

"That's the sad part; I won't even tell you. Because if we're separating now, you'd better go right to the cops and tell 'em how you lied to them the first time.

They'll know by now anyway, from Mike. And you're in deep enough; I don't want you to have to do any more lying for me by saying you don't know where I am."

Adrian sighed. "And what makes you think I wouldn't string along a little longer? Want me to write it out and sign it? You're not going to commit another murder, are you?"

"I don't think so."

"All right, then. What are we waiting for? Oh, the ham and eggs." He made a face.

I got up and said, "Forget the ham and eggs. I can eat ham and eggs in jail, maybe. Come on."

I dropped two dollar bills on the counter as I went past Jerry and said,

"Forget the grub, Jerry. We just remembered something important." And I got out before he could say anything.

We got in Adrian's car and he started the engine and asked, "Where to?"

I said, "Carry on as though those cops hadn't dropped in on you. Just what we were planning to do before."

"You mean go to Dane Taggert's? What for?"

"What we were talking about in Mike's. You're looking for a Bluebeard for your play. You said I'd have to have Taggert's okay for the part, didn't you?"

Adrian killed the engine. He said, "Don't try to kid me you're interested in a part and a murder rap at the same time, Wayne. It doesn't make sense and the gag is wearing thin."

I said, "That's exactly what you told me a little over an hour ago--only about a different matter. You said then that the gag about my having killed Lola was wearing thin. It's got a little thicker since then. Hasn't it?"

"Yes, but--"

"But you want to know what I really have in mind. Just take my word for it that this gag might get thicker, too. I hope it will. But maybe it won't. If you don't want to play--and I've said already I won't blame you --I'll get out and trot along."

I opened the door of the car. Adrian sighed and said, "All right, all right. But look--how much of a hurry are you in to get there?"

"Only my life depends on it." Then I relented a little. "You didn't ask that; you asked how much of a hurry I'm in. None, as long as we get the role business settled before the cops get me. I can spare half an hour, if that's what you mean."

He started the car again. He drove across Central Park West and took the southeast fork inside the park; he cut east and then north to where there's a wide parking place near the lake. He parked the car and turned to me.

"Let's get one thing straight, Wayne," he said. "There's no gag left about that first gag? You did kill Lola?"

"Yes," I said.

"Then--are you sure you know what you're doing, boy? Let me give you some money, and get away from here before they catch you. I had another three hundred cash at home; I've got five hundred you can take now. Are your fingerprints on file?"

"No," I told him. "But what am I going to do? Get another chance at acting somewhere? I'm no good at anything else. No, Adrian. Thanks for your offer of the money, but I'm going to take my chances here."

"All right, then. I'll help with a lawyer. And it looks like I'm going to have to do some awfully fast talking--or I'll need one for myself too."

"Adrian," I said, "you're a good guy; that much I know. But why are you doing all this? Being a good guy or even a good friend--and we haven't seen an awful lot of each other recently at that --doesn't include taking chances like you're taking."

"Because--because Lola needed killing if any woman ever did. Because I don't blame you, boy. I--Sometimes I think I knew her better than you did, because you were blinded by being in love with her. I wasn't. I almost hated her, and yet--you don't mind my talking about this now, do you?--there was an attraction, a purely physical attrac--"

I said, "Stop. I'm afraid I do mind you talking about it. Let's skip anything that was, or ever was, between you and Lola. It doesn't matter now."

"All right, we'll speak of her abstractly. Wayne, you don't know, being blinded by loving her and being too close to her, what that woman was capable of, what she was under that beautiful exterior of hers. Or maybe you do at that. Maybe you found out tonight for the first time. Is that right?"

I said, "You're righter than you know, Adrian."

"Then--let's do this. Let's go to the best lawyer I know. Right now. We'll wake him up in the middle of the night. We'll talk it over with him and then you give yourself up, taking his advice on what to say and what not to say. If you're guilty, I doubt if he's going to be able to get you a habeas corpus, but he can--"

"No, Adrian," I said. "Listen, can you make a car backfire?"

"Can I-- Are you crazy?"

"Can you?"

"You'd have to disconnect the muffler or something, wouldn't you?"

"I don't think so, Adrian. Your engine's still running, isn't it? Try turning the ignition off and on and goosing the gas pedal at the same time. I mean it. Go ahead and try it. I want to know, for sure."

He turned and stared at me a moment in the dimness of the car, and then he leaned forward and turned the ignition key. There was a loud backfire.

"Couple more times," I said. "I want to see how close together you can space them, doing it on purpose that way."

"You want to draw the cops here?"

"I'll take a chance on that. You want me to give myself up anyway."

He tried it; the explosions were only about a second apart.