Роберт Беллем - Pulp Frictions

‘I’ve got my doubts,’ Smitty told her, ‘about the money part of that, anyway. Outside — and consider yourself a material witness.’

If the old crone was to be believed, it had happened outside on the dance floor under the bright arc lights, and not in here. He was pretty sure it had, at that. Monahan wouldn’t have dared try to force his way in here. The screaming of the other occupants would have blown the roof off. Secondly, the very fact that the floor had been more crowded at that time than later, had helped cover it up. They’d probably quarrelled when she tried to quit. He’d whipped out the pencil and struck her while she clung to him. She’d either fallen and killed herself on it, and he’d picked her up again immediately before anyone noticed, or else the Falvey woman had handled her carelessly in the washroom and the impaled pencil had reached her heart.

Smitty decided he wanted to know if any of the feminine entries had been seen to fall to the floor at any time during the evening. Pasternack had been in his office from ten on, first giving out publicity items and then taking a nap, so Smitty put him back on the shelf. Moe, however, came across beautifully.

‘Did I see anyone fall?’ he echoed shrilly. ‘Who didn’t! Such a commotion you never saw in your life. About half-past two. Right when we were on the air, too.’

‘Go on, this is getting good. What’d he do, pick her right up again?’

‘Pick her up! She wouldn’t get up. You couldn’t go near her! She just sat there swearing and screaming and throwing things. I thought we’d have to send for the police. Finally they sneaked up behind her and hauled her off on her fanny to the bleachers and disqualified her—’

‘Wa-a-ait a minute,’ gasped Smitty. ‘Who you talking about?’

Moe looked surprised. ‘That Standish dame, who else? You saw her, the one with the bum pin. That was when she sprained it and couldn’t dance any more. She wouldn’t go home. She hung around saying she was framed and gypped and we couldn’t get rid of her—’

‘Wrong number,’ said Smitty disgustedly. ‘Back where you came from.’ And to the cop: ‘Now we’ll get down to brass tacks. Let’s have a crack at Monahan—’

He was thumbing his notebook with studied absorption when the fellow was shoved in the door. ‘Be right with you,’ he said offhandedly, tapping his pockets, ‘soon as I jot down—. Lend me your pencil a minute, will you?’

‘I... I had one, but I lost it,’ said Monahan dully.

‘How come?’ asked Smitty quietly.

‘Fell out of my pocket, I guess. The clip was broken.’

‘This it?’

The fellow’s eyes grew big, while it almost touched their lashes, twirling from left to right and right to left. ‘Yeah, but what’s the matter with it, what’s it got on it?’

‘You asking me that?’ leered Smitty. ‘Come on, show me how you did it!’

Monahan cowered back against the wall, looked from the body on the floor to the pencil, and back again. ‘Oh no,’ he moaned, ‘no. Is that what happened to her? I didn’t even know—’

‘Guys as innocent as you rub me the wrong way,’ said Smitty. He reached for him, hauled him out into the centre of the room, and then sent him flying back again. His head bonged the door and the cop looked in enquiringly. ‘No, I didn’t knock,’ said Smitty, ‘that was just his dome.’ He sprayed a little of the alcohol into Monahan’s stunned face and hauled him forward again. ‘The first peep out of you was, “I killed her.” Then you keeled over. Later on you kept saying, “I’m to blame, I’m to blame.” Why try to back out now?’

‘But I didn’t mean I did anything to her,’ wailed Monahan, ‘I thought I killed her by dancing too much. She was all right when I helped her in here about two. Then when I came back for her, the old dame whispered she couldn’t wake her up. She said maybe the motion of dancing would bring her to. She said, “You want that thousand dollars, don’t you? Here, hold her up, no one’ll be any the wiser.” And I listened to her like a fool and faked it from then on.’

Smitty sent him hurling again. ‘Oh, so now it’s supposed to have happened in here — with your pencil, no less! Quit trying to pass the buck!’

The cop, who didn’t seem to be very bright, again opened the door, and Monahan came sprawling out at his feet. ‘Geez, what a hard head he must have,’ he remarked.

‘Go over and start up that phonograph over there,’ ordered Smitty. ‘We’re going to have a little demonstration — of how he did it. If banging his conk against the door won’t bring back his memory, maybe dancing with her will do it.’ He hoisted Monahan upright by the scruff of the neck. ‘Which pocket was the pencil in?’

The man motioned towards his breast. Smitty dropped it in point-first. The cop fitted the needle into the groove and threw the switch. A blare came from the amplifier. ‘Pick her up and hold her,’ grated Smitty.

An animal-like moan was the only answer he got. The man tried to back away. The cop threw him forward again. ‘So you won’t dance, eh?’

‘I won’t dance,’ gasped Monahan.

When they helped him up from the floor, he would dance.

‘You held her like that dead, for two solid hours,’ Smitty reminded him. ‘Why mind an extra five minutes or so?’

The moving scarecrow crouched down beside the other inert scarecrow on the floor. Slowly his arms went round her. The two scarecrows rose to their feet, tottered drunkenly together, then moved out of the doorway into the open in time to the music. The cop began to perspire.

Smitty said: ‘Any time you’re willing to admit you done it, you can quit.’

‘God forgive you for this!’ said a tomb-like voice.

‘Take out the pencil,’ said Smitty, ‘without letting go of her — like you did the first time.’

‘This is the first time,’ said that hollow voice. ‘The time before — it dropped out.’ His right hand slipped slowly away from the corpse’s back, dipped into his pocket.

The others had come out of Pasternack’s office, drawn by the sound of the macabre music, and stood huddled together, horror and unbelief written all over their weary faces. A corner of the bleachers hid both Smitty and the cop from them; all they could see was that grisly couple moving slowly out into the centre of the big floor, alone under the funereal heliotrope arc light. Monahan’s hand suddenly went up, with something gleaming in it; stabbed down again and was hidden against his partner’s back. There was an unearthly howl and the girl with the turned ankle fell flat on her face amidst the onlookers.

Smitty signalled the cop; the music suddenly broke off. Monahan and his partner had come to a halt again and stood there like they had when the contest first ended, upright, tent-shaped, feet far apart, heads locked together. One pair of eyes was as glazed as the other now.

‘All right break, break!’ said Smitty.

Monahan was clinging to her with a silent, terrible intensity as though he could no longer let go.

The Standish girl had sat up, but promptly covered her eyes with both hands and was shaking all over as if she had a chill.

‘I want that girl in here,’ said Smitty. ‘And you, Moe. And the old lady.’

He closed the door on the three of them. ‘Let’s see that book of entries again.’

Moe handed it over jumpily.

‘Sylvia Standish, eh?’ The girl nodded, still sucking in her breath from the fright she’d had.

‘Toodles McGuire was Rose Lamont — now what’s your real name?’ He thumbed at the old woman. ‘What are you two to each other?’

The girl looked away. ‘She’s my mother, if you gotta know,’ she said.

‘Might as well admit it, it’s easy enough to check up on,’ he agreed. ‘I had a hunch there was a tie-up like that in it somewhere. You were too ready to help her carry the body in here the first time.’ He turned to the cringing Moe. ‘I understood you to say she carried on like nobody’s never-mind when she was ruled out, had to be hauled off the floor by main force and wouldn’t go home. Was she just a bum loser, or what was her grievance?’