Timing was very important. I wanted to hit them early in the morning while they still had sleep in their eyes, and it was vital I get there before the maid showed up and started work. But it also had to be within shooting distance of 8:30 so the postoffice would be open when I was ready for it.
It was time to go. I flipped the last cigarette into the pond and stood up. I took the .45 out of the glove compartment and slid it into the right-hand pocket of my jacket, wondering how easily people bluffed who had already committed two murders. Probably not too readily, I thought. I wheeled the car onto the road and started back to town.
* * *
It was ten minutes of eight when I pulled to the curb in front of the Cannon house. The sun was higher now and growing hot; nothing stirred along the street except a dog making his morning rounds. I hurried up the walk. A rolled newspaper lay on the concrete slab of the porch. I picked it up and leaned on the buzzer. I could hear it somewhere inside the house. I waited a moment and jabbed it again, long and impatiently. Standing there in the sun, I was roasting inside the flannel suit. Somewhere down the block I heard a garage door fall, and a car backed out into the street I was just reaching for the buzzer again when the door opened.
I’d got her out of bed, all right. The dark hair was tousled and she was wearing a blue, robe tied tightly about the slender waist. The big eyes were still a little, sleepy and the irritation in them came into focus as she looked out and saw me. She made a half-hearted attempt to mask it, but it didn’t quite come off.
“Oh. It’s you, Mr. Harlan. Aren’t you up a little early?”
“I’ve got to talk to you,” I said curtly. I pushed on in. She stepped back, a little startled. I reached back to close the door behind me, and as I did I slid my fingers down the edge, found the two push-buttons of the night latch and reversed them. She was watching my face and didn’t see it.
You could see she thought all this was a little highhanded. “I beg your, pardon—”
“Shut up,” I said.
She took another step backward and her eyes went round with amazement. In another second she recovered, and the surprise gave way to blazing anger. “Would you mind telling me—”
I cut her off. “Is the maid here yet?”
“Mr. Harlan, will you please leave this house? Before I call the police.”
I caught the front of her robe. “Shut up. And listen. If the maid’s here, get rid of her. If she’s due within the next half hour, call her and tell her not to come. You wouldn’t want her to hear this.”
She was scared now, but trying not to show it.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not a sex maniac that’s flipped his lid, if that’s bothering you. This is strictly business. Now, how about that maid?”
She moistened her lips. “She comes at nine.”
“Good,” I said. I let go her robe and grinned at her a little coldly. “Let’s go into the living-room, shall we? What kind of hostess are you, anyway?”
She was still having a little trouble trying to catch up. She’d typed me yesterday as a harmless yokel with two left feet, and now I’d crossed her up. I had to give her credit, though; by the time we’d walked on into the living-room and sat down facing each other across the coffee table she had recovered. I was just something she had to endure until I decided to leave.
“Cigarette?” I asked, holding out the pack.
She shook her head.
“Better have one,” I said. “Good for the nerves. This is going to be a little rugged.”
“Would you mind just saying whatever it was you forced your way in here to say—”
“Right,” I answered. “I’ve got something here I’d like you to read.”
She stared at me as I took the folded yellow pages of the carbon copy from the breast pocket of my jacket. I held them while I finished lighting the cigarette and dropped the match in a tray. “Here,” I said.
She unfolded them. I studied her face as she started to read. There was a hint of shock right at first, and I knew that, was when she saw the thing was addressed to the two District Attorneys. From then on her face was a mask—a very lovely honey-colored mask dominated by two brown eyes that were completely inscrutable. She finished, folded it up, and dropped it on the coffee table.
I leaned back on the sofa with my hands behind my head and the cigarette hanging out of the side of my mouth. “Well?” I asked.
She took one of the cigarettes from the pack I had left lying on the table. She lit it with the table lighter. Her hands were steady. “Mr. Harlan,” she asked quietly, “do. you mind if I ask a rather personal question? Have you ever been confined in a mental institution?”
“Pretty good act,” I said. “But you’re wasting time.”
“I mean it.”
I sighed. “This is a nice routine, but we can skip the rest of it, if it’s all right with you, and get on with the negotiations. I want a hundred thousand dollars. Do I get it?”
She stared at me. “You couldn’t be serious.”
I nodded toward the letter. “You read that, didn’t you?”
“Yes. And a more fantastic—”
I cut her off. “Save the arguments for the jury. If this goes to trial you’re going to need them. The two of you killed your husband while he was unconscious, and if you think you can get that reduced from murder in the first degree, you’re crazy as hell. The jury wouldn’t be out long enough to finish their cigarettes. Now, listen—”
“Of all the utterly fantastic, insane—”
I leaned forward across the table. “Shut up, and I’ll read the score to you. You and Tallant and your husband can go around killing each other every day of the week and twice on Sundays, and I couldn’t care less. But when you rope me in on it it’s a different story. Your husband deliberately tried to kill me because he thought I was Tallant, and he wound up by putting a permanent wave in one of my legs. They may not look like much, compared to Grable’s, but I made a damn good living with them, and now I don’t any more. He left you a hundred thousand dollars in insurance, but that was just a clerical error. He should have left it to me. I’ve come after it. Do I get it, or don’t I?”
She stared at me. “You have a wonderful imagination, Mr. Harlan, even if it is slightly deranged. My husband was drinking. He lost control of his car—”
I cut her off; “We’ve wasted enough time. Get Tallant on the phone. I’ll tell you what to say.”
“You mean the Mr. Tallant who runs the sporting goods shop?”
“Among other things, that’s the Mr. Tallant. Now get with it.”
Her eyebrows raised. “And if I don’t?”
I reached across the table, caught her by the front of the robe, and hauled her to her feet. “You’re not big enough to tell me whether you will or won’t. Where’s the phone?”
The brown eyes were full of contempt. “You’re looking right at it.” She half turned her head and nodded. The telephone was on a stand in the corner of the room between the rear window and the dining-room door.
“Come on,” I said. I took her arm and propelled her ahead of me. The directory was on a shelf under the instrument. I handed it to her opened to the first page inside the cover.
“There are the numbers,” I said. “The local police, and the Sheriff’s office. If you think I’m bluffing, or crazy, here’s your chance to call me. Dial either one. Tell them a man has forced his way into your house and is threatening you. They’ll have a car here in less than three minutes.”
She eyed me coolly. “And in less than two I would be disfigured for life.”
“I won’t touch you. I’ve got a gun, but I won’t resist arrest, either. I’m not that silly. Add it up. Carrying a gun without a permit, illegal entry, assault, attempted extortion—say five to ten years for a package deal. Go ahead.”
She looked at me and then at the telephone. I picked up the instrument and held it out toward her. “Call the police. Or call Tallant. It’s up to you.”
She tried to bluff it out. For an instant her eyes locked with mine, but then they dropped. She lifted the receiver and dialed.
It wasn’t one of the emergency numbers. She was calling Tallant.
9
“Just say something’s come up,” I ordered, “and that he’s to get over here as fast as he can. Not another word.”
She stared coldly. In the dead silence of the room I could hear the phone ringing at the other end. It stopped.
“Mr. Tallant?” she asked. “This is Mrs. Cannon. Something has come up, and I wonder if you could drive over here right away—”
I pressed down the plunger on the cradle to break the connection and took the receiver away from her, but the damage was already done.
“Smart,” I said. “But that’s all right. He can’t do anything.”
“What do you mean?” she asked coldly.
“Skip it,” I said. I put the phone back on the stand. This girl was sharp. If Tallant had come on cold, without knowing how much she might have already said, I’d have had the advantage. But she’d outfoxed me, and tipped him. She’d told him as plainly as if she’d drawn him a picture that I was here—or somebody was here putting the pressure on her, but that she hadn’t admitted a thing. Mr. Tallant— Hah.
But suppose? For just a moment uncertainty took hold of me. Maybe she really didn’t know him. I knew he had killed Purvis, all right, because I’d seen him, but the rest of it was just a lot of logical surmises strung together. And if she hadn’t had anything to do with Cannon’s death, I was as far up the creek as you could get without a helicopter.
No, I thought suddenly. The hell she wasn’t implicated. Use your head. She’s given herself away twice in the past three minutes. She chickened out when you threw that bluff at her about calling the police. And she made an even bigger boo-boo.
“You’re pretty smooth,” I said, “but you goofed on that one.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s Mister Tallant and Mrs. Cannon, but you dialed his number without looking it up.”
We were still facing each other by the telephone. “Really?” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Is that so remarkable? We happen to be on a committee together.”
“What kind of committee?”
“We’re trying to form a Little Theatre group.”
“Very interesting,” I said. I went back and sat down on the end of the sofa. He’d be here any minute now, and I was beginning to grow tense again. The two of them together were going to be something to handle. She remained across the room looking at me as if I were something that had crawled out of a shower drain. We waited. Nobody said anything. The silence went on building up so that when the door chime tinkled out in the kitchen it was like a hand-grenade going off.
She turned and started toward the entrance hallway. The instant she was through the door I reached down behind the sofa and flipped the switch of the recorder. Then I sprang up and followed her. I was leaning against the door frame between the living-room and the entry hall when she opened the outer door. Tallant was standing on the porch.
We were almost the same size exactly, but he could have been a year or so younger and you had to admit he was a handsome devil. It was obvious he’d never plowed up as many stadiums with his face as I had, but nobody except a chump would have ever called his good looks girlish. The eyes were blue-gray and rather hard, and the cleft chin didn’t detract at all from the tough competence of the jaw. The short-cropped dark hair had a tendency to be curly. A smooth hunk of cookie, I thought. Whether you were after the same girl or the same fumble, he’d give you a bad time either way.
“Come in, Mr. Tallant,” she said. I didn’t have any idea what kind of messages she was passing along to him with her eyes, but I watched his. I also cased him for a gun, but didn’t see any place he could be carrying one. He was wearing a sports shirt and no jacket.
He stepped inside the entry hall. As she closed the door he inclined his head a little in my direction and said, “Who’s this?” It wasn’t too convincing. He knew who I was, all right.
I lounged against the door frame and watched his face. “I’m a Federal radio inspector,” I said. “Checking up on television interference in the neighborhood.”
He was good, all right, and he’d been prepared, but that was a little too hot to field without showing it. I saw it hit him for a fraction of a second before he covered.
He frowned then. “What’s this?” he asked quietly. “A gag?”
“Never mind,” I said. “You’ve already answered your own question. Come on in and sit down. I’ve got something I want you to read.”
I stepped aside and let them come through the doorway. I was careful not to let him get too near, and he was just as careful not to turn his back, though it was all too well covered to be obvious. Nobody said anything for a moment, but tension was like smoke in the room.
I’d left the letter on the coffee table intentionally. He’d have to go there to pick it up, so the logical place to sit down would be the handiest—the sofa or one of the chairs facing it. I nodded in that direction. “Mrs. Cannon’s already read the good news,” I said. “I think she missed one angle of it, but you’ll probably catch on. If you’ll notice, it’s a carbon copy.”
“Say, what the hell is this?” he asked roughly. “Who are you? And what do you want?”
I waved a hand. “The letter, Tallant. Why don’t you just pick it up and read it? It’ll explain everything.”
He shrugged indifferently and walked over to the coffee table, picked up the folded yellow sheets, and sat down on the end of the sofa where I’d been. She lit a cigarette with studied arrogance and perched on the arm of one of the big chairs. I watched his face as he read. The mouth grew ugly. When he finished he looked up at me, his eyes hard.
I stood back out of reach and gave them the pitch, straight down the middle and smoking. “All right. I told you it was a carbon copy. You can see that for yourselves. A friend of mine has two originals, both signed. If anything happens to me, they go in the mail, one to the District Attorney at Houston and the other to the D.A. here. They’ll have three murders to work on, and you can figure out for yourselves what the odds are that they’ll be able to burn you for at least one. Don’t think you can hide me well enough, either. If they don’t find me for ten years they’ll still be able to identify what’s left with that dope on the broken leg and the dental work.
“Everybody knows I was under my own car there at the wreck, and if the police get this letter they’ll know I was in the next room when Purvis was killed because there’s never been anything in the papers about those two bottles of beer. You haven’t got a chance in the world.
“Hold still and you won’t get hurt. All I want is a hundred thousand dollars, which is exactly what you collected from the insurance company. There’s plenty more, and none of it would do you any good in Death Row. So how’s it going to be?”
While I was talking Tallant had got hold of himself again, and now there was only a nasty smile on his face as he looked at me. “You mean you’ve got the guts to try to shake Mrs. Cannon down with a pipe dream like this?”
“Come off it, Jocko,” I said. “I was standing in the next room when you killed Purvis. You want to deny it on the stand?”
He picked up the letter again and made a big deal of looking for something in it. “Here it is. ‘—in the kitchen, where I could not be seen from the living-room—’ I assume from the way you put it that Purvis—whoever he was—was killed in the living-room. Now, this man couldn’t see you, but you could see him. You have X-ray eyes, or something?”
“I didn’t say I saw you kill him,” I replied. “I said I was in the next room. But you were the only person in there with him, and I don’t think he could hit himself over the head hard enough to break his own arm and split his head open at the same time. Little far-fetched, wouldn’t you think?”
He snorted. “So you didn’t see the man, but you say it was me
. It just came to you, like that? A revelation, or something?”
“I saw you go out,” I said wearily.
“Oh, you saw the man go out the door? He backed out, is that it?”
“No, he didn’t back out.”
“Then you saw him from the rear?”
“That’s right.”
“You never did see his face?”
“No,” I said. I was beginning to get a little tired of it, but if it made him feel any better to think he was making a monkey of me it was all right.
“Did this man have his name stenciled on his clothes somewhere in back?”
“Oh, knock it off, Tallant. You can play Mr. District Attorney some other time.”
He looked at Mrs. Cannon and spread his hands. He smiled. “The defense rests.”
“Never mind the hokum,” I said. “The question is do you want the police to have this? So far, you’re covered from every angle. Nobody suspects you. But they get one look at this, and everything hits the fan. They’ll come at you from a thousand angles at once. They’ll question you separately for thirty-six hours at a time and it’s going to be hard to remember what the other one’s supposed to be saying and what you’re supposed to be saying and what you did say fourteen hours ago when you had your last cigarette, and then they’ll tell you the other one has cracked wide open and is trying to turn State’s evidence to get off with life. You want to try it and see how you hold up?”
He lit a cigarette and shrugged. “If you think the police will take the word of a blackmailing creep like you against a woman of her standing, go ahead and stick your neck out. They’ll make it plenty rough for you.”
“When you get tired of bluffing,” I said, “we’ll start to talk business.”
“We’ve already talked it. She’s not going to pay you a nickel for any framed-up mess of lies like this, and I’d advise you to fade while you still can.”
“How about letting her answer for herself, chum? It’s her neck.”
I turned and glanced at her; she was still perched on the arm of the chair, smoking. Her eyes met mine coolly. “I never heard anything as fantastic in my life.”