Evan Hunter - Romance

“No way.”

“… and substituted for it a B felony, to wit Conspiracy to Commit.”

“Eight and a third to twenty-five on each,” Nellie said.

“I was thinking two to six on the conspiracy.”

“No way. The max on both.”

“Concurrently.”

“Consecutively,” Nellie said.

“I can’t accept that.”

“Then get your client ready for the stirrups.”

“Mrs. Brand, she’s twenty-one years old…”

“Right. She killed two people and you want her out when she’s twenty-nine? Forget it. Let’s roll the dice, and let a jury decide. Maybe you’ll win. Maybe she won’t have to spend the rest of her life in hell on a pair of A felony convictions. But take my deal, and she’ll be out before she’s forty.”

Bertinotti thought about this for a moment.

“All right,” he said at last. “I’ll take the Bs. Eight and a third to twenty-five on each. Consecutively.”

“We’ve got a deal.”

“Let me talk to her.”

“Then it’s my turn,” Nellie said.

The idea came to me right after Michelle got stabbed in the alley that night. First I thought it was too bad someone hadn’t done the job properly because then the leading role in Romance would have been open, and who better to fill it than the second lead, right? Who better than me? Chuck and I were joking about it in bed that night, how unfortunate it had been, you know, that the stabber hadn’t actually killed that bitch.

We’d been living together, Chuck and I…

Well, gee, it must’ve been more than a month by then. Was it that long? I think so, yes. Since before we even started rehearsals. We fell in love the minute we laid eyes on each other. I met him when I read for the part, stage managers do that all the time, read opposite whoever’s trying out. It was so romantic. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I went to bed with him that same night, it was that kind of thing, a real coup de foudre, amazing. So romantic and sexy and immediate , do you know?

This was even before they called to say I had the part. I thought at first they meant the leading role, the starring role, because that’s what I’d read for, but instead it was the second lead, what Freddie calls the Understudy in his play. Listen, I was happy to get anything at all, believe me, I would have taken one of the bit parts, moving furniture, whatever, playing a waitress or a reporter, one of the bit parts. It galled that someone like Michelle got the part, of course, but listen, that’s the way it goes, sometimes a not very good actress gets lucky, she wasn’t a terribly good actress, you know, I mean anyone can tell you that. Even Josie is better than she was. Josie Beales, I mean, who finally…

Boy, that was amazing, I have to tell you.

I never expected that.

I think it started out as just kidding around, Chuck and me. In bed. We’d just made love, I think, it was the night she’d got stabbed, we already knew she was all right and would be back at rehearsal the next day. Chuck was telling me how much better I was… as an actress, that is. He’d never been to bed with her, I’d have killed him, that’s not what I’m saying, he wasn’t comparing us as lovers or anything. Solely as actresses. He told me, in fact, that there’d been some kind of debate about who they should offer the part to, the leading role, the Actress, the three of them had talked it over, Morgenstern and Freddie and Ashley. And they decided to offer the part to Michelle, “Probably because she had bigger tits,” Chuck said, and I said, “Oh yeah, you mean you noticed?” and we were clowning around like that when he said, “The part should really have gone to you, Andy,” and we sort of got quiet for a while, and then he said, “It would’ve gone to you if that guy had succeeded tonight.”

Well we talked about that for a while.

About whether I’d really have gotten the part if Michelle had actually got killed that night.

We decided I would have.

We decided I would have been the logical choice.

Decided, in fact, that I would still be the logical choice if anything happened to Michelle. If, for example, whoever had tried to kill her tonight came back and really did the job. We had no idea who’d stabbed her, we didn’t care who’d stabbed her, we were just saying suppose he came back and stabbed her again, only this time it took.

Then I would get her part.

We were convinced I would get her part.

Which, of course, would make me a star.

Because of all the publicity already surrounding the play, you see. And all the publicity that would come if she actually got killed.

So…

We decided to do it.

And…

Well…

He went over there and did it.

Stabbed her.

Went over there with a knife under his jacket, and threw the knife down a sewer afterward. Nowhere near her building. She lived up in Diamondback, can you believe it? I’d be scared to death going home up there at night after rehearsal. I don’t know where the knife is now. Where do sewers go? I know they don’t empty into the river because that would be polluting the water, wouldn’t it? But where do they go? Wherever they go, that’s where the knife is. It was a knife from my kitchen. A bread knife. He wrapped it in a towel and carried it under his jacket, this brown leather jacket he has. Stabbed her when she opened the door.

P.S., I didn’t get the part.

They gave the part to Josie instead.

Listen, she’s a very capable actress, I’m the first to admit that. But that’s like comparing apples and oranges, isn’t it? Josie hasn’t had the training I had, she doesn’t have the experience I have, she simply isn’t in my league.

How the hell can you figure something like that?

Chuck said maybe she was sleeping with Morgenstern.

Otherwise, why would they have passed me over…

And remember, they were considering giving the part to me in the first place, when they decided on Michelle instead…

Pass me over and give the part to her fucking understudy ?

This was a B movie, am I right?

Giving the part to someone as inexperienced as Josie?

I still can’t believe it.

Well…

I started worrying about a few things. And I started thinking about a few things, too. I probably wouldn’t have done anything further… I mean, what the hell, a part is a part, you lose out on one part, there’s always another part. So, honestly, I don’t think I’d have done anything further, in spite of worrying about Chuck maybe cracking, maybe feeling remorse for what he’d done, maybe going to the police and confessing, who the hell knew what he might do? I mean, he kept telling me he loved me, would he have killed Michelle if he didn’t love me? But romance is one thing and guilt is another, and I could tell this was beginning to eat at him, especially since it hadn’t had the desired effect, we’d killed one bitch only to have another one take her place. So I was worried about him, yes, worried about whether he’d have the strength to see this thing through. Men can be so weak sometimes, even the strongest of them, physically strong, I mean, he was so big.

And I started thinking maybe we should go after Josie next, do to her what we’d done to Michelle because then they’d have to give me the part, wouldn’t they? If Josie was out of the way? Wouldn’t they have to give it to me? Who else could they give it to? The fucking cleaning lady at the theater?