Ellery Queen. The Best of Suspense

Robert Twohy Installment Past Due

The phone rang. Moorman was lying on his back, on the couch. He was a large man, pushing forty, tousled and unshaved this morning in October. He wore a T-shirt, old slacks, no shoes. A glass of white wine was balanced on his stomach; a bottle of it stood on the floor. It was about eleven o’clock.

Moorman set the glass carefully on the floor, reached back over his head, and groped until his hand connected with the phone on the end table. He put it to his head and said in deep gentle tones, “I’m terribly sorry, but your application is rejected.”

A moment of silence. Then, “What?”

“You heard me, Kleistershtroven.”

“Klei... what is this?”

“You are Kleistershtroven, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“I didn’t say you were. Who’d want a name like that? Is it a Welsh name?”

“Listen, is this Mr. Moorman?”

“That doesn’t matter. The fact is that no more entries for the quadrennial bobsled steeplechase are being accepted. That’s on orders from my psychoanalyst. Would you care for his address?”

“This is Mr. Dooney.” The voice was suddenly sepulchral.

Moorman said eagerly, “Dooney? Mr. Dooney? The Mr. Dooney? Calling me? At this hour?”

“Is this Mr. Moorman?”

“It certainly is. Are you really Mr. Dooney? Well, how in the world are you? How’s the wife and all the brood? How’s Miss LaTorche?”

“Miss LaTorche?”

Moorman emitted rich laughter. “Come on, Dooley, you old lecher, who do you think you’re talking to? Everybody knows about you and Fifi LaTorche!”

“Who is this? Is this Jack Moorman?”

“Wait a minute, I’ll find out.”

Moorman put his hand lightly over the mouthpiece, and made loud braying noises. Then he said into the phone, “Yeah, Dr. Kleistershtroven says there’s no question about it — I’ve been Moorman for years. Days, even.”

“This is Mr. Dooney of Affiliated Finance. I talked to Mrs. Moorman on Friday — is she there?”

“Is she where?”

“Is she home?”

“Hold on.” He took the mouthpiece from his mouth, turned his head, and called, “Lisa, some character named Dooley wonders if you’re home... Where? I don’t know where. I’ll ask him.”

He said into the phone, “She wants to know where you want to go, and if she should wear anything.”

There was deep breathing. Moorman said admiringly, “You’re a terrific deep breather!”

The voice was low and deadly: “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, Mr. Moorman. You’ve made a loan through us, and I talked to Mrs. Moorman on Friday and she said the payment would be in the mail. And this is Monday, and—”

“Don’t tell me — let me guess. There’s nothing in the mail, right?”

“I want to know why not.”

“I can explain that. I put the check in one of those new self-destructing envelopes and must have miscalculated the time it would take to reach you. It must have blown up in the mailbox.”

“That’s very funny,” said Mr. Dooney, after a long silence. “Your wife promised Friday that the payment would be in the mail.”

“Well, that’s Lisa — always the cheerful word. You can’t blame her for that. A recent Harris survey indicates that too much bad news is given over the telephone.”

“You’re very funny, Mr. Moorman. But this isn’t funny — this is serious. You have an account with us for $784.47. Your September payment of $71.88 was due two weeks ago, and we haven’t received it. We have a chattel mortgage on your furniture... I’m on the verge of going to the sheriff. But on the way I’m willing to stop by your place.”

“Well, Lisa’s not here. And things are kind of a mess.”

“I’m leaving my office right now. When I get there I expect a check.”

“When you get here I expect a disappointed man. But come anyway. I have some white wine and salami.”

“I’m bringing Mr. Hector with me.”

“That’s okay. I have plenty of salami... Hector, eh? Do I know him?”

“No, you don’t. I bring Mr. Hector when I want to convince someone that paying legitimate bills isn’t a matter for joking. Do you understand?”

“Not really. But he sounds like an interesting guy... Does he like salami and white wine?”

“We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Good. Be nice to see you both.”

He hung up, and sipped wine, then lay back, placing the glass on his stomach. There was a pleasant smile on his face.

Inside twenty minutes the door chime sounded. Moorman set the glass on the floor, bounced from the couch, ran to the door, and threw it open, calling, “So good of you to come! How are you? It’s Colonel Kleistershtroven, isn’t it, formerly with the S.S.? How I remember those wonderful seminars of yours!...Ah, you brought a friend with you... don’t I know him from somewhere?”

He had grasped the nearer man’s hand, pumped it, and still held it as he peered in a benevolent manner at the other man. The man whose hand he held wore a neat tan suit, and had a pallid, tense young face with harried eyes. The other man was small, narrow-shouldered, balding, dressed in a dark suit; he had tight lips and cold eyes enlarged by thick-lensed glasses.

The first man, grimacing angrily, pulled his hand free. “I’m Mr. Dooney. This is Mr. Hector.”

“Don’t I know you, Mr. Hector?”

Mr. Hector’s lips went tighter, and he shook his head.

“Sure I do! I’ve seen you plenty, out at the track.”

Mr. Hector’s enlarged eyes became more so. He shook his head harder.

“Sure, you’re the guy.” Moorman laughed in a friendly fashion. “You’re pretty well-known out there. Everybody calls you ‘The Stooper.’ ”

Mr. Hector said, in a strained voice, “What are you talking about?”

“He’s being funny,” said Mr. Dooney. “He thinks he’s a comedian. He thinks this is all a joke.”

“It isn’t a joke,” said Mr. Hector, and hefted his briefcase.

“Sure, the old Stooper — goes around picking up discarded mutuel tickets, looking for a winner somebody missed. You get many of those. Stoop? Is it a living?” He made to pat Mr. Hector in a comradely way on the shoulder; Mr. Hector twisted his narrow shoulder away from Moorman.

Dooney said, “The joke’s just about over, Moorman.”

“Oh. Well, why don’t you come in?” His broad frame filled the doorway. “Why are you standing around in the hot sun? Come in, come in... How’re the wife and all the brood? How’s Miss LaTorche?”

He stepped back. Dooney proceeded in, his face stony. Mr. Hector followed.

“Sit down,” said Moorman. “Sit down anywhere. Take that chair there. Stoop. Just throw the clothes on the floor. They’re fresh ironed, but what’s that to you? Like you say — you don’t have to wear ’em. Just pitch ’em in the corner... right?”

Mr. Hector stared at him, then walked away across the room. There was a folding chair near the dining table. He sat down on it, with his briefcase on his knees, and looked at Moorman, his narrow face lowered and his lips drawn in.

Moorman dropped on the couch, crossing his legs. “Where are you going to sit, Dooley?”

“Dooney.”

“Right, Dooney. Where are you going to sit?”

“I’ll sit in this chair here.”

“There’s an applecore on it.”

“I can see the applecore. I’ll remove it.”

“Good thinking.” Moorman nodded approvingly as Dooney picked up the applecore by the stem and dropped it in the near fireplace. “That’s a good place for it. You must have been raised in the country. Nothing like a frosty night with the wind how ling, and the sweet smell of roasting applecores... remember those nights, Dooley?” He blinked, and nodded, smiling reminiscently.

Dooney sat down. He said, his voice flat, “This has been very amusing, Moorman. You’re a very funny fellow. Now it’s time to face some realities that are going to be a little bit harsher. Do you know what failure to meet the terms of a contract means?”

“Not really, no. Do you know. Stoop?”

“Stop calling him Stoop!”

“He doesn’t mind, he’s used to it. Everybody at the track calls him that.” He smiled genially at Mr. Hector, whose thin lips became thinner. “Well, Dooley, what’s on your mind? What can I do for you?”

“You can write me a check for $71.88. That’s what you can do.”

“Sure, I can do that easy enough. Is that all you want?” He slapped various pockets. “I don’t seem to have my checkbook. Maybe Lisa’s got it. Sorry. Well, I’ll get it in the mail tonight — okay? As you know, my word is my bond.” He smiled widely.

Dooney said, “You think you’re such a comedian. Well, here are some facts.” His forefinger picked out various articles in the room. “That color TV there, that dining table, those bookcases, the rug, the drapes — they’re all going out of here. All of them. Today, this afternoon. And the beds in the bedroom, and the washing machine in the kitchen. When we leave here, we’re going directly to the sheriff. We’re going to get an order, Mr. Moorman — Mr. Hector is our company lawyer. He has the contract there in his briefcase — the contract you and Mrs. Moorman signed in our office. You’re delinquent. You think it’s all a big joke don’t you? Tell him, Mr. Hector.”

Mr. Hector nodded, fished in his briefcase, and pulled out a document. “This is the contract. It’s all here, all signed and witnessed. There’s no legal way to block appropriation. The furniture and appliances are all covered by the chattel mortgage — and as of now, it all belongs to Affiliated Finance.”

“Oh.” Moorman rubbed his jaw and looked solemn. “Well, all right. But I should tell you that the TV doesn’t work too good. You got to keep kicking it to hold the picture. When you want to watch it, get some guy to stand by it and boot it every ten seconds. Otherwise, you have to keep throwing things at it.”

Mr. Hector looked at him with huge glazed eyes. Moorman said, “Before you escalate your terror tactics... you claim to be a lawyer?”

“I am a lawyer.”

“Anybody can say that. Do you have a badge?”

“A badge?”

“I didn’t think so. Also, a real lawyer always carries a diploma.”

“I have a diploma in my office.”

“And I have a Thompson submachine gun in my office. That makes me the neighborhood hit man.”

Dooney said, “This is one of his jokes, Morris — don’t pay any attention.”

“You say it’s a joke?” Moorman sat forward, large hands clasped, face intent, brows drawn down. “Is that what I am to you? Is that what all of us are, all us little people who grub in the grime for our washing machines and color TVs, who sweat and strain to make our monthly payments so you and your flunky here can spend the day joy-riding around in your swanky Mercedes-Benz—”

“I have a Pontiac — ’72 Pontiac.”

“Whatever. Is that what we are to you — just a contemptible joke?”

He whipped his anguished face to Mr. Hector and jabbed a finger at him, his face gone suddenly hard and grim. “I want the simple truth, fellow — that’s all I’m asking. You’re The Stooper, and I know it and you know it. Your boss here doesn’t know it, but—”

“He’s not my boss.”

“Well, whatever he is to you... that’s none of my affair, I’m not going to open that can of worms. But the point is, you claim to know something about the law—”

“I’m a lawyer!”

“Yeah. You bragged about your famous diploma. Where’d you get it, some correspondence course advertised on a book of matches? Even from there you should have learned one thing — that if you can’t prove the signatures on a contract are valid, that contract isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”

Mr. Hector said, “Are you saying that these are not valid signatures?”

“Of course they’re valid. Who says they’re not? Are you implying that there’s been a detent to infraud?”

“This is ridiculous,” said Dooney. “Stop it, Moorman — we’re busy men.”

“Yeah. It’s almost noon. You’re probably hungry... Want some salami?”

“No.”

“Bet Stoop does. He looks like he could use a good meal.”

He went into the kitchen. They heard him whistling.

Mr. Hector muttered, “I’ve got a headache. This guy is crazy.”

Dooney nodded glumly.

Moorman called, “How do you want your salami?”

“We don’t. We’re going, but we’ll be back. With the sheriff.”

Moorman came in. He bore in his right hand a four-foot salami. “Stick around, there’s plenty. Stoop really looks hungry. Look at his eyes bug out at the sight of this!” He beamed at Mr. Hector. “Really go for salami, eh. Stoop? You want to wait for a knife, or you just want to start chewing?”

Mr. Hector was tucking the contract in his briefcase. Moorman tossed the salami gently so that it landed across Mr. Hector’s knees. The lawyer stared at it in wonderment.

“You want one, Rooney? I got a couple more... If you don’t want to eat it now. Stoop, shove it in your briefcase.”

Dooney was on his feet. Mr. Hector stood up too, the salami rolling off his lap to the rug.

Dooney said, “Enjoy your joke. It’ll be a lot of fun when Mrs. Moorman comes home and you tell her that all the furniture and the color TV and the beds and the washing machine are gone.”

Moorman was quiet. His face looked suddenly strange and still.

He murmured, “I wish I could.”

He had turned and was gazing out the wide sliding window at the back lawn.

At the far end, near the redwood fence, was a patch of raw earth, recently spaded.

Dooney said, “What did you say?”

Moorman gazed out the window. The two men stared at him.

Dooney said sharply, “Are you all right, Moorman?”

“What?” Moorman turned quickly. “Of course, of course! Why shouldn’t I be?” He shook his head and laughed, a low forced note. “Thinking of something, that’s all... just thinking of something.”

Mr. Hector and Dooney looked at each other. Dooney said, “What’s going on, Moorman?”

“Nothing.” Moorman’s smile looked set; he rapidly blinked his eyes. “Look, uh... all right, I did make some jokes. It was because I — well, all right, I wanted to take my mind off... listen, we all got problems, is that right? They’re not all money problems. There’s other things, too. I–I’m sorry if anything I said sounded insulting. It wasn’t meant to be, it was just for fun — you seemed like good guys. There’s nothing, nothing.” He shook his head quickly and his stiff smile widened. “It was all just fooling around. Look, how much was that? Seventy-what?”

Dooney said, “$71.88.”

“Okay. I got it right here, in my pocket. $71.88, eh? I was going to give it to you...” He pulled out bills, and counted them off: “Twenty, forty, fifty, sixty, sixty-five, seventy, seventy-one... I got no change. Call it $72.00.”

Dooney took the money. He said, “Do you have twelve cents, Morris?”

“I’ve got nine cents. That’s all I have.” The lawyer was going through his pockets.

Moorman said, “That’s okay. That’s fine.” He pocketed the coins Mr. Hector held out. “That takes care of it, huh?”

“I’ll write you a receipt for $71.91.” Dooney had sat down again and taken a receipt book and pen from his pocket.

Mr. Hector was watching Moorman. He said quietly, “I suppose your wife will be pleased when you tell her the bill is paid.”

“Yeah. She will.” His quick responding smile was only a stretching of his lips. It did not touch his shadowed eyes.

“Is she away on a little trip?”

“What? Yeah. Right. She’s visiting some relatives.” He glanced out the window, across the lawn, then his glance shot back. “Yeah, she’ll be pleased. Look, I’m sorry if I said some silly things, but that’s the way the mind works sometimes.” He walked them to the door. “Everything okay now?”

Dooney said, “All right, Mr. Moorman. Another payment is due in a couple of weeks.”

“I know. It’ll be there. You can count on it.”

They walked down the drive. He watched them.

Mr. Hector looked back, as he got in the car. He saw Moorman watching, his face set, his eyes still.

He said, as Dooney started the car, “Drive to the police station.”

“What?”

“He’s crazy. That was plain from the beginning... That patch of earth was almost raw.”

Dooney stared ahead, as he drove through the tract.

“You saw what happened right after he first glanced out there. How he changed.”

Dooney nodded.

“And right after that, so anxious to get things straightened out with us. To know that everything was all right — and that we weren’t going to the sheriff.”

Dooney said, “We got the payment.”

“Yes, but... the way he changed, what he said, his craziness, his wife not being there... and the look of that spaded earth. This was no joke, Ron. Not that look in his eyes. There was a look of... I don’t know — something horrible, something recent.”

His thin lips tightened into a hint of a smile, and his large eyes glittered behind the thick glasses.

He said softly, “The next joke for Mr. Moorman may be a long time coming.”

Moorman cut off a chunk of salami, which he ate as he finished the bottle of wine. Then he lay down on the couch.

The phone rang.

He picked it up, gave a deep vocal yawn, and sighed wearily, “Cannonball Express.”

“Honey, how are you doing?”

“Good. Fine.”

“How’s the day off?”

“Terrific. How’s your Aunt Letitia?”

“You mean Aunt Charlotte. She’s fine. I’ll stay a couple more days, I think.”

“Okay.”

“Good weather here... Love you, honey. Say, did you get hold of Affiliated Finance?”

“They got hold of me. Mr. Dooney called.”

“You told him I just plain forgot to send the check, what with hurrying to catch the plane and all?”

“Well, not quite. But he got his money. He came out here with a lawyer. They were going to hijack the furniture.”

“Good Lord! Is everything okay?”

“Oh, it’s great. They think I’ve murdered you and buried you in the back yard.”

“What! What did you tell them?”

“Nothing. I just looked out at the place I’d dug up Saturday to put in some tomato plants. And they got this weird notion.”

“I wonder why.”

“Well, you know... I have a few days off, and don’t want to hang around the bars. I’m drinking a little white wine and missing you, and just hatching up a few things to pass the time... I expect the cops here shortly.”

“Oh, Jack!” He could picture her shaking her head, and her eyes warm and loving and bewildered and at the same time not unhappy, and accepting the fact that he wasn’t quite the standard suburban husband. “So you’ve been playing your games! When are you going to grow up?”

“Never, I hope. Sounds like no fun at all.”

“You’re almost forty!”

“That’s a canard. I’m just sexually precocious. I’m really fourteen.”

“Six, more likely.”

“You could be right. Six is a good age for games.”

“What are the cops going to do?”

“Belabor me with cacklebladders and boil me in midnight oil. Then they’ll dig up the tomato plot again.”

“You could be in trouble.”

“Yeah, if you should get clumsy up there and fall into some bottomless pit. So don’t disappear. Come home radiant and rambunctious, and we’ll have a lot of fun.”

“We always do... what’ll come of it all?”

“What, game playing? Well, in the end you stop breathing, however you’ve lived — so why not have some fun while you still see the colors and hear the music?”

“Why not indeed?” she said softly. Then, briskly, “All right, Scarlet Pimpernel — what’s the scenario, when I get back?”

“You go to the D.A. and do your damnedest to convince him that you’re not dead and buried somewhere, and spring me. Then we sue Affiliated Finance for four hundred and eighty million dollars, for false arrest, slander, and general terpsichore... Oh, sweetheart, you know something? You won’t believe it!”

“I know I won’t. Tell me anyway.”

“You know that little creep we’ve seen at the track a couple of times — long-nosed, ghoulish-eyed, sneaky-looking? Picks up the used tickets and looks them over?”

“The Stooper?”

“Yeah. Well, he’s Affiliated Finance’s lawyer.”

“No!”

“You’re right — not really. But I think I’ve got Mr. Dooney thinking he might be.”

“That’s terrible.”

“I know. But I didn’t play favorites. I tried to plant the idea in the lawyer’s head that Mr. Dooney has a kept woman on the side — Fifi LaTorche.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

“I know. Why aren’t I?”

“Goodbye, Jack. I love you.”

“I love you too. Stay out of drafts and don’t let Aunt Mehitabel push you off a cliff.”

“I’ll be home Wednesday.”

“I’ll be looking forward. Pick me up at the jailhouse.”

He hung up, then snapped his fingers. A new thought had come to him.

He’d better hurry — the cops should be here in a few minutes. He went to her bedroom, grabbed a bra and a pair of stockings from the bureau; slid the rear glass door open, ran in the back door of the garage; got his shovel, ran to the patch of earth, dug quickly, shoved the bra and stockings into the hole, and covered them up. He ran back to the garage with the shovel. Then he sauntered into the kitchen, washed his hands, and hummed in a satisfied way.

They would dig up the items, and their interment wouldn’t make any sense, but that was all right; the men wouldn’t want to have wasted their time in fruitless digging, so they would attach some kind of sinister significance to what they had uncovered. Bras and stockings always convey a message, and are nice to come upon unexpectedly. So everybody would have a good time. And wasn’t that what life was all about?

The door chime rang. He ran to open the door. Standing outside were Dooney, Mr. Hector, and two other men; one of the two was a uniformed policeman, the other looked like a plainclothesman.

Dooney looked firm but a little apprehensive. Mr. Hector looked righteous and retributive. The other two looked like men on a job.

Moorman cried heartily, “Hey! You came back!” He swung a jovial hand, to hammer Mr. Hector’s shoulder affectionately; Mr. Hector twisted away. “Hey, all right! How are you, Chief?” He was beaming at the policeman. “Y’all come in, heah? I got plenty of salami — no wine left, though. Stoop, do us a favor, will you?” He thrust bills at Mr. Hector, who drew back. “Run down to the store and pick us up a couple jugs of wine... No? Okay, we’ll have to do without. Come in, guys... Lisa,” he called, “some guys have stopped by... No, I forgot. She’s asleep.”

Mr. Hector glanced at the plainclothesman. He and the policeman were gazing fixedly at Moorman.

Mr. Hector said, “You told us she was visiting some relatives.”

“What? Yeah, sure. Of course I did. I forgot for a moment. Yeah, that’s where she is. She’s away. Visiting some relatives.”

His face seemed suddenly ashen. They were all looking at him.

His eyes slid away from them and looked out the window.

Their gaze followed his. They all stared out the window, at the patch of fresh-spaded earth at the end of the lawn.