Black Mask Detective (Vol. 34, No. 3 — May 1950)

The Random Kee-Whango by Rufe Bakal

Alex felt almost tender toward his fat and frowsy wife — now that her grave was awaiting.

Immobilized by a dinner of pork shanks and sauerkraut, Alex Faffner lay on the velour couch in the front room of the farm house, acutely conscious of his wife, who was washing dishes in the kitchen. He could not remember the exact moment at which he had decided to murder her, but the decision had been made and was, he knew, irrevocable. He remembered that for a time, a short while ago, her presence and her movements in his house — indeed, her very projection into his life — had become almost unbearable. But now, he reflected with satisfaction, that feeling was gone. Since he had made up his mind, Vi was tolerable to him. It was, he thought, like letting an ant crawl up your arm, enduring its sauciness because you knew you could kill it at your pleasure.

The kitchen noises stopped abruptly and were superseded by a variety of grunts. Vi called, “My hip bothers me, Mister Faffner; it’s going to rain!”

Alex acknowledged this forecast with a non-committal “nyuh” and said archly to himself, It won’t be bothering you for long. He smiled at his ominous little joke and almost regretted that, under the circumstances, he was unable to share it with her.

The kitchen noises resumed. Through the open doors, he caught glimpses of her moving about in the kitchen: tidy, but somewhat lumpy, in a cheap percale housedress, moving laboriously in worn carpet slippers. She was a little taller than he, and she was fat. In a happier day, he would have called her plump. But there was no longer any need for euphemizing. Studying her, she seemed strange to him, in a way that all things lose their familiarity under scrutiny. This was Vi, his wife, upon whom his head and heart had directed his hand to fall in murder, premeditated in the fields, and in the barn, and on his bed, and on the velour couch: unfamiliar to him now after two years of courtship and seven of indifferent marriage.

Vi had been a country schoolteacher when he met and courted her, a plum, just barely within his reach, which he hungered for and plucked. During the courtship, he had not considered whether or not she would make a good farm woman or even if the laughter would last, just as he did not consider now whether or not he would be caught and punished for the crime he was to commit. Vi had turned out to be a good farm woman and more. She managed the house, the chickens, the canning, the milk records, of course; but she could, as well, swing an axe and handle a plow with the best of men. But the laughter and romance had gradually lost its urgency and then, at no particular moment, had disappeared completely among the chores. In quiet moments, Alex remembered them and missed them. It is reasonable to suppose that Vi did, too.

Well, thought Alex, why worry about it? He had gone over these things in his mind often enough. The time for feeling sorry for himself was past. “My mind’s made up,” he mumbled, half-aloud.

How was it to be carried off, this thing? That was what he had to think about now.

Alex swung heavily off the couch, and smoothed his hand over the velour couch where he had been lying. He went into the kitchen, where he took his cossack and cap off the hook behind the door. Avoiding Vi at the sink, he spoke to the empty hook, “Got to go out and see about a few things.”

“All right, Mister Faffner,” said Vi wearily.

When he got outside, Alex smiled at her manner. That was something else that got him: that “Mister Faffner” business. She said it with equal emphasis on each word so that her tone suggested cold formality rather than mockery. Still, he really didn’t know what she meant by it and, at the moment, the insinuation didn’t seem to make much difference. Clear of her, Alex took a deep breath of Vi-less air. He picked a stem of timothy grass, bit into the soft end, and, chewing it meditatively, looked at the sky. He noted the fleecy cumulus clouds, which gainsaid Vi’s hip. It would not rain. He began to walk.

He found it difficult to concentrate on a plan for doing away with Vi and decided to wait until he had passed the distractions of the barnyard. The newly plowed fields stretched out before him and their very expanse seemed to reassure him: surely in the fields he would find the answer. He could postpone the ache of concentration until he reached them.

Alex walked aimlessly at first, following the fresh furrows, and then, as he had often done as a child, stepping from crest to crest of the furrows. He was annoyed that the seed of murder, already firmly implanted in his brain, did not spring full-grown. As a farmer, he should have known better; but he was impatient. He put his head down and began to walk as fast as he could over the land, slipping and stumbling, hoping that a solution would emerge from all the joggling. Little tableaux of murderous acts appeared to him, disconnected and incomplete; distorted guns, knives, poisons and ropes flashed through his mind in a crazy montage. He saw little cinematic snatches of conspiracies, plans, alibis, getaways, and hideouts. These visions frustrated him and made his brain ache. Well, how could he, Alex Faffner, a simple farmer, know about the techniques of murder? Poisons, for instance. What could he know about the subtleties of poisons? It suddenly occurred to him that he was not even sure of the spelling of the word. Were there two o’s in it, or two i’s? This seemed a pressing matter to him, and he was relieved for the excuse it gave him to leave the larger struggle while puzzling over it. He stopped, rested on one knee, and smoked a cigarette. Poison? Poisin? He arranged them in his mind and then wrote them side by side in the earth with his finger. Yes, of course: poison — but, perhaps: poisin.

He dropped the subject, and looked about him. He was now far out in the fields, with a good view of the whole farm: the house and barn in the distance, the rolling fields and pasture land. Then, suddenly, the scheme did spring full-grown, and the icy tingle of a thrill going up his spine and around the base of his skull brought him to his feet.

Of course! This was perfect. The farm. He rubbed his hands with excitement. The closest neighbor was Richard Kulze, almost a mile away and with no clear view of his farm. He studied the terrain hurriedly to make sure of it. Yes, on the farm they were all alone, Vi and himself: no one to see them, no one to pry, no one to suspect. A straightforward method would do, then. The plan came easily and quickly to him now. He’d dig a pit in the plowed field, go down maybe eight feet, just to make sure there’d be no slip-up. He’d get Vi out there on some pretext or other and then, Kee-Whango! Alex liked the sound of this magic word, which seemed the key to his liberation, and he repeated it aloud with relish: “Kee-Whango! Kee-Whango!” That does the trick!

Then he’d fill in the pit again and run a furrow over the ground with the plow, restoring the pattern. He began to laugh at the clever simplicity of it all. And then, afterwards. Well, afterwards, he’d tell folks that Vi had gone to visit her sister in Milwaukee. And, later, he’d admit grudgingly that perhaps she had left him for good. Anyway, there was plenty of time to work all that out and he was I confident now that he could.

He was so pleased with the plan that he permitted himself the wistful speculation as to whether the corn would have a better yield over Vi’s pit. He returned to the house in a happy mood.

At dusk he told Vi that he had to “run over to the Kulze place to see Dick about something.”

“All right, Mister Faffner,” said Vi.

He threw a spade into the box on his pick-up truck and drove by a devious route to a clump of trees on the far end of the fields. He concealed the truck in parking it and, carrying the spade, walked quickly to the place in the fields he had selected that afternoon. He spat on his hands and began to dig competently.

The digging went quickly, more quickly than Alex had thought it would. The earth was easy to handle and he seemed to have a strength he had not counted on. Everything was going his way. He sang as he worked, songs that were popular when he first met Vi. He might have finished the digging that night, but decided that he could afford the luxury of waiting one more day. Perhaps it was wiser to wait, anyway, he thought, for there was more than digging to be done and Vi was, after all, a strong, big woman. He would come, then, on the next night to finish the pit. And to finish the whole business, with a Kee-Whango.

Alex crawled out of the hole and looked down into it. He realized for the first time that what he had been digging was actually a grave. The thought of this shocked him momentarily and he wavered. Then, realizing that what he had wanted so badly was within his grasp, he turned away from the pit, laughing at his sentimentality of a moment ago. You don’t think about those things, anyway, he told himself, just as you don’t think about getting caught. You plan it all, if you’re smart, so that you don’t get caught, but you don’t think about it.

If Vi sensed anything unusual during the rest of the night or the next day, she didn’t show it. Alex was very kind to her and that, in itself, was suspicious. But since he had begun work on the pit, he felt a tenderness toward her that he had seldom felt since the days of courtship. He felt genuinely sorry for her when he saw the untroubled ease with which she carried on her household routine. She did not act at all like a condemned woman. But, then, she didn’t know that she was condemned. Only Alex knew that...

At dusk he went out again, bolder, now, straight for the fields, not bothering to conceal the truck. He finished his job in an hour and sat down to smoke a cigarette on the mound of earth he had thrown up. He smoked it leisurely, threw it into the hole when he was finished, and breathing heavily, drove back to the house. He parked the truck and walked slowly to the house. As he went, he kept repeating to himself in a low, trembling voice: “Come on, Vi, get your coat on and bring the flashlight. I need some help.” Such a simple, natural thing for him to say to her; and yet, he felt that he had to practice saying it, as if nothing were so important in the little drama he had devised as getting the opening line just so.

He opened the back door and was relieved to find that his wife wasn’t in the kitchen. Now there would be no necessity to face her, for a while yet. “Vi,” he called. “Get your coat on and bring the flashlight. I need your help!”

“All right,” she said from the front room. “Where?”

Alex ran his tongue over his parched lips. “Where? Where what?”

“Where do you need some help, Mister Faffner?”

Why fool around? he thought. “In the far field!”

Vi shuffled into the kitchen, putting on her coat as she came. Seeing her come, Alex walked into the back yard to wait for her. He felt a little drunk, a little too giddy, and he clenched his fists, digging his fingernails into his palms until the pain steadied him.

Vi had just come out the back door when two brash fingers of light were thrown in a wide arc from the highway into the drive. Alex felt the back of his head go hot. That was something he hadn’t figured on: someone coming to the house. He grew panicky, grabbed Vi’s arm and implored in a frantic whisper, “Vi. Come on, let’s hide. Let’s go! Let’s hide!”

Vi wrenched her arm away and looked coldly into his wild eyes. “Why, Mister Faffner, whatever’s the matter with you?” she said quietly. “Gracious, it’s probably only Richard Kulze.”

Richard Kulze? Dick Kulze had seen him digging the pit! That was why he had come, to snoop around. To poke his nose in other people’s business. Alex’s reason would have told him that the contour of the land made it impossible for Kulze to have seen him, but Alex was lost somewhere between reason and unreason.

Vi was right: it was Richard Kulze’s car.

Alex closed his eyes, as though that might relax him. At this moment he recalled, oddly enough, that when he and Vi had had their wedding photos taken, the photographer had told them to relax by taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, fighting to get a grip on himself. That scene with Vi was bad enough — she probably knew something was up — but he couldn’t let on to Kulze, just in case Kulze hadn’t seen him digging.

Kulze turned down the window of his car and leaned out. He said that he was going bowling in the town and thought maybe Alex would like to come along with him.

“No, not tonight,” said Alex shakily. He could tell that Kulze hadn’t seen him dig the pit. Kulze wasn’t that deep.

“Now, what are you and Mrs. Faffner doing out this time of night?” Kulze laughed. “Going to finish your plowing?”

Alex hated him and his laughter. “Why, no,” he said, “having a little trouble with the pick-up. Thought I’d work on it a little tonight. Vi is going to hold the flashlight.”

Vi looked at him curiously, but said nothing.

“Need some help?”

Alex refused more emphatically than he had intended and there was an uncomfortable pause. He could feel the sweat on his back and his shirt sticking. His hands were damp and he rubbed them against his overalls. He studied his shoes, aware that Vi and Kulze were looking at him.

Kulze cleared his throat uneasily. “The pick-up, eh? What’s the matter with her?”

“The... the distributor, I guess.” Alex had to keep his wits about him now, had to concentrate on what Kulze was saying; but he found himself repeating childishly in his mind, “Go away! Go away!”

“So you’re a mechanic, too, now, eh, Alex?” said Kulze.

Alex saw no trap in that question. “Why, yes, I guess so.”

“You know, Alex, I always say that a good farmer got to be a good jack-of-all-trades. We got to do plumbing, carpenter work, mason-work, and what have you. Got to be good on all them things. Like you, even got to know how to tinker with a motor.”

“Guess that’s right, Dick.”

“Now, take you, Alex,” Kulze persisted, “if you ever wanted to give up farming — and I’m not saying you would — you wouldn’t have no trouble at all making a damn — pardon me, Mrs. Faffner — damn good living in some town doing carpenter work. Now, am I right or am I wrong?”

“Why, yes, I guess so,” said Alex, hoping that he had said the appropriate thing. He became acutely conscious of Vi standing next to him, saying nothing. He felt her eyes burn into him and he wondered what she was thinking. All of it was so strange and confusing; Kulze and Vi and the pit in the fields. Even he himself seemed strange, not like Alex Faffner at all.

“I won’t keep you folks,” said Kulze after a pause. They exchanged goodbyes, Alex’s being elaborately cordial, and Kulze turned his car around and drove away. They stood and watched the tail-light disappear down the highway.

The air seemed lighter to Alex. He turned and started walking toward the fields, not wanting to look at Vi or talk to her, not wanting any questions. He felt better now, and ready for what lay ahead. He’d gotten over that extra hurdle all right. “Come on, let’s get going!” he called over his shoulder.

“All right, I’m coming,” said Vi wearily, and she labored after him over the fields.

A stillness hung about the Faffner house when, a week later, Richard Kulze once again pointed his car into the drive-away. He sounded his horn, but there was no response. Puzzled, he got out of his car and walked to the front door. It was ajar. He walked in gingerly, his head cocked. There was a stir in the kitchen, and the faint sound of someone weeping softly.

Kulze was in the kitchen now. He stopped short when he saw Vi sitting in a straight-back kitchen chair. “Why, Mrs. Faffner, what’s the matter?”

“He’s left!” Vi said, composing herself with much effort.

“Who’s left? Alex?”

“The day after the night you came. Mister Faffner took the bus to town; said he had to get a new distributor for the pick-up.”

“And ain’t he been back since?” Kulze asked with astonishment.

“And hasn’t been back since.” She looked at him significantly and said very slowly: “Mister Faffner took most of his carpentry tools with him!”

Her eyes encouraged him as he deliberated the implications of that fact, and her head nodded affirmatively as he did arithmetic in his mind, adding the taking of the tools to the strange conversation of a week ago and to Alex’s disappearance and getting the obvious result.

He looked at her tenderly. “Gee, Mrs. Faffner, I just don’t know what to say. I never figured. I never thought. Alex.”

He comforted her as best he knew how, and soon they were able to speak of the desertion and the great injury done Vi.

“I thought he acted awful queer that night,” Kulze mused. “Thought he had something up his sleeve.”

Vi dabbed at her eyes with a corner of her apron and agreed that Alex had been acting peculiar for a long time.

“Sort of leaves you high and dry, Vi,” said Kulze. “What you aim to do now?”

“Oh, I guess I’ll stay on here for a while to make sure. To make sure he’s gone for good, that is.”

“Poor Vi,” said Kulze, “it’s going to be awful lonely for you.”

Vi rose and walked to the window. She stood before it, looking out over the rolling fields. With a hint of regret in her voice, she said, “There’s some that are lonelier than I.” Then she stared down at her hands and, with a shudder, wiped them in her apron.

Kulze fumbled with his hat, taking a step backward. “I guess I’ll be going.”

Vi turned, her face brightening. “No, Dick,” she said. “Don’t go. Stay. I’ll make a fresh pot of coffee.”