Корнелл Вулрич - A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

“All right, thanks a lot,” the voice came back. There was a click at the other end. He felt himself caving in at his middle.

“Give her my love,” Helen was saying from the open doorway.

“There’s a fresh dame here sends you her love, honey,” he said into the dead phone. “But she’s not as pretty as you are.”

As his sister banged the front door after her, the fake grin left his face with it. He parked the phone and leaned his head weakly against the wall for a minute or two. He’d been through too much in just one hour, too much to take without leaning against something. And there was lots to come yet, he knew. Plenty.

He was alone in the house now with the body of a murdered woman. That didn’t frighten him. It was getting out of there that worried him — with a double row of porches to buck in either direction, porches jammed with the rocking-chair brigade on sentinel duty. Yet out it must go, and not cut up small in any valise either. That body had a date with its own murder. It had to travel to get there, and it had to travel whole. Though at this very minute it was already as dead as it would ever be, its murder was still several hours off and a good distance away. Nine thirty, in a clump of trees near Pine Tree Inn, just as a starting-point. Details could come later. The important thing was to get it away from this house, where no murder had ever taken place, and have it meet up with its murderer, who didn’t know that was what he was yet, and wasn’t expecting to kill.

Let him worry about getting rid of it after that! Let him find out how much harder it is to shake off the embrace of dead arms than it is of living ones! Let him try to explain what he was doing with it in a lonely clump of trees at the side of the road, at that hour and that far from town — and see if he’d be believed! That is, if he had guts enough to do the only thing there was for him to do — raise a holler, report it then and there, brazen it out, let himself in for it. But he wouldn’t, he was in too deep himself. He’d lose his head like a thousand others had before him. He’d leave it where it was and beat it like the very devil to save his own skin. Or else he’d take it with him and try to dump it somewhere, cover it somehow. Anything to shake himself free of it. And once he did that, woe betide him!

The eyes of the living were going to be on hand tonight, at just the wrong time for him — just when he was pulling out of that clump of trees, or just as he went flashing past the noon-bright glare in front of the inn on the road away from Asbury, to get rid of her in the dark open country somewhere beyond.

She would be reported missing the first thing in the morning, or even before — when his father phoned — Larry would see to that. Not many people had seen them dancing together and lapping their Martinis together and smoking cigarettes in a parked car together — but just enough of them had to do the damage. A waiter here, a gas-station attendant there, a bellboy somewhere else. Larry’d know just which ones to get.

He said to himself what he’d said when he answered the man’s phone call. “It was your party; you’re gonna pay for it, not Dad. She’s gonna be around your neck tonight choking you, like he choked her!”

Only a minute had gone by since Helen had banged the front door after her. Larry didn’t move, he was still standing there leaning his head against the wall. She might come back, she might find out she’d forgotten something. He gave her time to get as far as the Boardwalk, two blocks over. Once she got that far she wouldn’t come back any more, even if she had forgotten something. She’d be out until twelve now with Gordon. Three minutes went by — five. She’d hit the Boardwalk now.

He took his head away from the wall but he didn’t move. He took out a cigarette and lit it. He had all the time in the world and he wanted that last silvery gleam of twilight out of the sky before he got going. It was a lot safer here in the house with her than out in the open under those pine trees. He smoked the cigarette down to its last inch, slowly not nervously. He’d needed that. Now he felt better, felt up to what was ahead of him. He took a tuck in his belt and moved away from the wall. Anyone who had seen him would have called him just a lazy young fellow slouching around the house on a summer evening.

He wasn’t bothering with any fake alibi for himself. His father had a peach and that was all he cared about. If through some unforeseen slip-up the thing boomeranged back to their own doorstep in spite of everything, then he’d take it on — himself. He didn’t give a rap, as long as it wasn’t fastened on his father. His own alibi, if worst came to worst, would be simply the truth — that he’d been in the house here the whole time. And, he told himself wisely, when you don’t bother tinkering with an alibi is usually when you don’t need one anyway.

He pulled down all the shades on all the windows. Then he lit just one light, so he could see on the stairs. From the street it would look like no one was home and a night-light had been left burning. Then he went upstairs and got her out from under the bed.

He was surprised at how little she weighed. The first thing he did was carry her downstairs and stretch her on the floor, over to one side of the stairs. To go out she had to leave by the ground floor anyway.

Then he sat down next to her, on the lowest step of the stairs, and for a long time nothing else happened. He was thinking. The quarter hour chimed from somewhere outside. Eight fifteen that was. He still had loads of time. But he’d better be starting soon now, the Pine Tree Inn wasn’t any five minutes from here. The thing was — how to go about it.

It was right there under his eyes the whole time, while he’d been racking his brains out. A spark from his cigarette did it — he’d lit another one. It fell down next to her, and he had to put his foot on it to make it go out. That made him notice the rug she was lying on. About eight by ten it was, a lightweight bright-colored summer rug. He got up and beat it over to the phone directory and looked under Carpet Cleaners.

He called a number, then another, then another, then another. Finally he got a tumble from someone called Saroukian. “How late do you stay open tonight?”

They closed at six, but they’d call for the article the first thing in the morning.

“Well, look,” he said, “if I bring it over myself tonight, won’t there be someone there to take it in? I’ll just leave it with you tonight, and you don’t need to start work on it until you’re ready.”

They evidently lived right in back of, or right over, their cleaning shop. At first they tried to argue him out of it. Finally they told him he could bring it around and ring the bell, but they wouldn’t be responsible for it.

“That’s O.K.,” he said. “I won’t have time in the morning and it’s gotta be attended to.” He hung up and went over to get it ready for them.

He moved her over right into the middle of it, the long way. Then he got his fountain pen out, shoved back the plunger, and wrecked the border with it until there was no more ink in the thing. It took ink beautifully, that rug. He went and got some good strong twine, and he rolled the rug around her tight as a corset and tied it at both ends, at about where her ankles were and at about where her broken neck was. It bulged a little in the middle, so he tied it there too and evened it out. When he got through it wasn’t much thicker than a length of sewer pipe. Her loosened hair was still spilling out at one end though, and there was another round opening down where her feet were. He shoved the hair all back in on top of her head where it belonged, and got two small cushions off the sofa and wedged one in at each end, rammed it down with all his might. They could stand cleaning too, just like the rug. That was the beauty of a bloodless murder, you weren’t afraid to leave anything at the cleaner’s. He hoisted the long pillar up onto his shoulder to try it out. It wasn’t too heavy, he could make it. No heavier than carrying a light-weight canoe.