Enter Without Desire

CHAPTER SIX

IT STARTED OUT AS A lovely summer. We spent a seven-day honeymoon traveling about Maryland, even flew over to Kentucky to be with my folks for a couple hours. I squeezed a hundred bucks into my father's thin hand when I left. He thanked me, stared at the money and asked, “What you doing these days, Marsh?”

“I'm a sculptor. I make statues and heads and things.”

“Don't say.” My old man fingered the five 20-dollar bills again, said, “You must make out good at it.”

“Not yet.”

“Man make himself a living at fooling with clay?”

“Very few do. I can't.”

“Then why you doing it?” the old man asked.

“I don't know. Guess because I like it.”

“Hmmm! Son, son, don't you know life ain't doing what you like?”

“No, pop. Elma and me, we try to do as much as we can of what we like to do. That's called happiness.”

The old man shook his head and pocketed the cash. “Marsh, that's just talk unless you got money—and you seem to have money.”

The art colony came back to Sandyhook and there was the usual heavy talk, the heavy drinking, and all of it gay and—interesting. And we had that and in addition the wonder of raising a baby. My statue of Elma... RELAXED... had won several honorable mentions, and the new one, which I called... HUNGER... was so fragile I had to make it in sections, and it gave me a hard time before it was finally cast. It caused some talk, especially when one jerky critic decided it was obscene and an insult to “motherhood,” when my agent displayed it in his gallery.

Don't get me wrong—I wasn't the boy wonder of the art circle, no one was shouting my name up and down 57th Street, but I was becoming known. My name would be mentioned as “promising” or as one of the “younger” artists in some of those dull Sunday bread-and-butter articles the critics wrote. But I could see I was a tiny bit important and enjoyed the feeling—from the way Sid and the others talked to me, asked my opinions. Wasn't anything they said, but the way they said it that made me feel good.

Elma and I were completely in love and Joan was a healthy bawling baby. We decided she would be given ballet training as soon as she was old enough—not that we especially wanted her to be a dancer, but dancing gives people such wonderful bodies. Elma wanted to start having another baby—mine—but I felt it would be best if we waited a year or so.

Elma was full of little surprises: she could swim like a fish—seemed to love the sea. When I asked her where she learned to swim so well, she gave me a corny, seductive look with her almond eyes, said, “You know the gag... I was a call girl in Venice! Father taught me to swim soon as I could stand.”

She and Joan practically lived on the beach, Joan even crawling around in the water. They were both tanned a deep nut brown and I loved to watch Elma take off her bathing suit, the creamy white of her breasts and hips in happy contrast to the brown of her body. I decided to do a terra-cotta figure of her in the nude... the UNDRESSED BATHER... made several water-color sketches, finally decided to do her from the waist up and accentuate the whiteness of her bosom by making the nipples a deep red.

My agent was excited about it and I even crushed bricks to mix with the clay, for heating... but somehow I was too busy bathing and going to parties to work. I had the sketches down, would work on the clay during the winter.

Elma was quite popular with the summer crowd. They were happy she was part Lapp—having never seen a Laplander—and they trooped into our house to hear her old records, get into hot, wordy arguments over King Oliver and Bix and Bunny Berrigan, the atomic bomb, and anything else that came to mind. We hired a part-time nurse to look after Joan, purchased a second-hand boat with a new outboard, some ridiculous yacht caps, and did a lot of fishing.

We were really eating high up on the hog.

Elma and I had our little spats, too. She felt we should live abroad while we had the money, while I wanted to play it safe—make our cash last as long as possible. Elma said, “You yourself told your father happiness is doing what you like to do. Way things are, all this war talk, let's enjoy ourselves. Joan has her own money. If after a year or two we end up starving artists, hell with it, I'll go back to punishing a typewriter.”

She gave up the idea of Europe, after reading all the travel ads, when I pointed out she would have passport trouble, due to her non-citizenship. We compromised on seeing California and maybe Mexico during the winter. With everything, we were living cheaply, spending money only for food and rent.

Sid, and some toy manufacturer who was interested in art, were working on the idea of plastic reproductions. They worked hard but ran into several snags. They made some transparent heads, but the transparency robbed all realness, and when we experimented with colors—a foggy gray, white, blue, the figures somehow reminded us of piggy banks. But we all had hopes of it making our fortune, some day.

All in all I was never so happy in my life—till one Sunday early in August. One of the painters always made a point of inviting Negroes down. Knowing I was from Kentucky, he seemed to get a bang out of introducing them to me.

Actually, since I was raised in a mill town and the mill only hired whites, I never saw a Negro when I was a kid. I suppose I grew up with some sort of prejudice instilled in me, but I lost that with my drawl while scuffling for a living in New York. Outside of admiring the works of Barthe, a Negro sculptor, I didn't especially like or dislike Negroes.... I never thought of people as a race, but merely as persons.

This week-end the painter had a West Indian down, a middle-aged dark-brown man named Sandler, whose heavy body was still fairly muscular, and a face with an interesting high forehead and sharp cheek-bones. Sandler was some sort of union leader on the water front, and in his lousy, patronizing manner, the painter insisted I take Sandler fishing in my boat. Being from the islands, Sandler was nuts about fishing.

I wanted to study his face, and as I was going out anyway, I was glad to have company. He had an odd, sloppy English accent, and was fond of talking. As we fished, not getting much outside of some small porgies and one weakfish, he kept telling me about his work as an organizer of the rank and file along the water front.

He talked a lot; about the corruption on the docks, the stealing and dope racket, the gangster control. “And the stoolies,” he said. “We had this white joker started to hang around our group, and the sonofabitch turned out to be a dick, like I suspected.”

“From one of these un-American committees?” I asked, because I had to say something. I relit my pipe and watched the muscles of his big face as he talked. I had his head firmly in mind, but didn't want to look like an “artist” and start sketching as we were bouncing around on the waves.

Sandler laughed. He didn't have white teeth or a flashing smile, merely bad teeth. “That's what we thought. Like to give us a fit. But turned out he was just a private dick hunting for a punk. Seems there was a hold-up and a killing in New Jersey and... I don't know what made them think a longshoreman did it, but this guy was just nosing around. So we...”

I didn't move. I bit through the stem of my pipe and my guts began turning over and I thought I was going to puke.

For a while I didn't say a word, let him talk on. But when we ran into a school of king fish and Sandler started remembering the fishing he did in Trinidad as a kid, I said, “This fellow hunting for a murderer—what did you say his name was?”

“You mean the guy who was killed? Some clown who ran a jewelry shop over in Newark.”

“I mean the dick?”

“Used a phony name with us, of course, but when we got suspicious of him, he was ducking too many real jobs, we did a little snooping on our own. Name is Harry Logan. Why do you ask?”

“No special reason,” I said, hoping my voice wasn't shaking. “Don't have much to read out here in the winter, so we read every line in the papers, including all the murders. Remember that case.”

Sandler reeled in a two-pound king, said, “All you see is crime headlines. I say only way to cure crime is to cure the society that makes it necessary to rob to eat or...”

I waited till he was done making his speech, asked, “And that dick, he was a real cop or a private snooper?”

“Private dick. We got the whole story out of him. Some woman in Newark had hired him, given him a few bucks and offered a reward. He told us everything—to get off the stoolie hook. That's the trouble, always suspect hard working people, especially black people, although it turned out he was looking for a white man. But of course they never investigate the gangsters who run the docks and...”

I had a nibble but didn't even bother hitting the line. So Mama Morse had to put a dick on my trail! Things were going too well for me, something had to spoil it. Nothing was over, forgotten, that bastard, Mac, was still harassing me—us, even from the grave.

A sudden cramp nearly doubled me up. I started to sweat and Sandler asked what was wrong and I told him, “Nature is calling. Get your line in for a moment.”

Peeling off my trunks, I jumped over and holding on to the anchor rope, I relieved myself, which isn't as easy as it sounds.

The water brought me back to my senses. Climbing back into the boat, I put my trunks on and started to make a lot of chatter—getting Sandler to talk about the islands, fishing, anything... And all the time I was frightened stiff at how close I'd come to giving myself away. We hadn't talked about Mac's death in Sandyhook, of course, but the postman knew Elma's “maiden” name was Morse, and all Sandler had to do was hear that, or notice my sudden nervousness, tie it up with my sudden interest in the dick and... it wouldn't take much to add that up.

After awhile we cleaned our fish and, like all newcomers, Sandler was amazed at how close the gulls came around us—fighting over the fish heads and insides. Cleaning fish is an aid to thinking, just as I find sweeping or mopping a floor helps me think.

I did some furious thinking.

So there was a private dick named Harry Logan on the case. Mac's mother had said she didn't think much of the police efforts, so she had hired this detective. But what did I have to worry about? This... Logan... was obviously running around in little blind circles, still going for that freight hook, the longshoreman idea. Actually he had nothing to connect me with the killing—if I played it smart. He was getting paid, so of course he'd run down any clue. Well, let him run himself crazy, use up the old lady's dough looking for a fat, dark-haired longshoreman with an accent— that guy was another world removed from me.

Sure, I was safe. Even if he came out and questioned Elma for possible clues, there was little chance of his getting suspicious of me... there were millions of short guys. And he mustn't have considered Elma as having any leads, or he would have been out long before this.

By the time we docked, I felt fine, had convinced myself I had nothing to worry about. Hell, these private dicks were known to charge thirty to fifty bucks a day and Sandler had said this incident happened a month ago. By this time the old lady had probably spent all she was going to spend on the case and Harry Logan was off her payroll. Anyway, long as he was fooling around the water front, I was safe.

But I had a few uneasy nights over it, started worrying about fingerprints again, then forgot it. I had other things on my mind—we had an auto accident.

We had invited Sid and his wife over for supper and Elma thought we ought to have lobsters. It was a bright day, with little breeze, and we took the baby and headed for Three Mile Harbor, where you can buy lobsters weighing from one to twenty pounds. Three Mile Harbor is past Easthampton and would be a nice ride for us. They also sold excellent crab cakes and we usually stuffed ourselves with half a dozen or so on the spot, like hungry kids... which was the real reason we drove out there instead of trying one of the markets in Riverhead.

As we were nearing Riverhead, a low slung foreign car tried to pass me, cut in ahead of us sharply, taking off our left fender and bumper and giving us a severe jolt.

Happily Joan was sleeping in Elma's arms, so nobody was hurt. But I was angry because the bastard never even stopped. His car was one of these very light jobs and I figured he'd probably done more damage to his buggy than to our heavier Chewy. I stepped on the gas—after we tossed the fender and bumper in the back of the car— and sure enough, less than two miles down the road I overtook him, his right wire wheel wobbling like crazy.

Forcing him to the side of—the road, I jumped out. A pale, thin fellow of about 22—one of these bow-tie and crew-cut lads with a silly face—sat behind the wheel. He stuck a whole pack of butts up to his thin lips, then jerked it away, leaving a cigarette pasted to his mouth, waved at me and mumbled, “Sorry.” He must have practiced that cigarette deal for a long time.

“Sorry? You didn't even bother to stop, you dumb sonofabitch!”

“Stop? I nearly turned over, took me a mile to get the car under control and...”

“Send that crock of crap C.O.D. to somebody else!”

He looked me over, decided I was too short, said, “No need for all the big talk. I'm insured.” He crawled out of his car and I don't know how he ever got in it—he was six feet tall, but all skin and bones.

We went through the routine of taking each other's license number. I told him I wasn't insured but it didn't matter, since it was clearly his fault. He was getting up more courage by the second, said, “No insurance? And driving a wreck like that? Why even the potato pickers have better cars than your...”

“Keep your trap shut, buster. Having insurance doesn't cover up your hit-and-run deal. We might have been lying dead beside the road for all you care.”

“Happen to be in a bit of a rush, so let's cut the dramatics and get...”

I socked him in the belly, right where his gray flannels and dark blue silk polo shirt met. Elma came running out of our car as big boy doubled up and sank to the road... and started to weep!

Actually I hadn't hit him hard because I wasn't sure if I wanted to wallop him and had only half swung. Elma said, “Shouldn't have done that, Marsh. He drunk?”

“Naw, merely a spoiled brat. He isn't hurt.”

Elma looked down at him, finally said, “Oh stop crying and get up. My goodness, you look positively silly, sitting there and crying like a baby.”

Riverhead is a county seat and you see more prowl cars than in other areas of Long Island. While we were standing there, a police car stopped and a handsome young cop came over and asked what was wrong. We told him and the cop pulled the kid to his feet and shook him. The kid began crying louder than ever, but when he mumbled his name, a sort of servile tone of respect crept into the cop's voice and I knew this must be a real rich kiddy.

The cop came over to us and whispered, “You know he could have you pinched on an assault charge? However...”

“He could? Why he...!”

“... However I think he'll drop it if you'll forget the hit-and-run business. Best to make it a civil thing and let the insurance company take over.”

“I don't know how he got a license in the first place. Acts like a moron,” I said as Elma touched my shoulder, pointed to our car. The radiator was leaking. “Goddamn, look at that and we're at least twenty-five miles from home!”

“Let me drive you to a garage,” the cop said. “One not far...”

“I'm not for running up any tow bill.”

“Forget the charges, he'll take care of it.”

“He will? I didn't hear Slim say anything about that or...!”

“He will,” the cop said like he knew a lot more than he was saying. “Just drive straight ahead. We'll follow.”

Elma and I got in our Chewy and drove slowly, the cop car followed, and crew-cut brought up the end of this sorry parade. We reached a service station in a cloud of steam and had hardly been there any time when a smooth Packard roadster pulled up, a heavy-set bald man at the wheel. He was either a relation of the kid, or the head butler, or maybe merely the boy's keeper. He bawled the brat out—but politely—then came over to us and I didn't catch his name, but it wasn't the same as Slim's. He said, “I'm terribly sorry about all this. Suppose you leave your car here and I will have it completely repaired?”

“Rather have my own mechanic do it.”

“As you wish. Have you called him?”

I phoned Len's garage and Len said he'd send his oldest kid with the tow jeep and I told him to come himself, and he said he was busy—in fact he seemed a little annoyed. But he finally came driving up in a battered jeep he loved. He said it would cost a hundred and fifty bucks, including towing, to fix up the Chewy. Crew-cut had the wheel of his European struggle-buggy repaired and seemed to have disappeared. But the smooth character in the Packard didn't argue with Len, merely wrote out a check, and Len chained our car to his jeep and drove off.

Elma, who seemed amused by it all, said, “Well, no car, * no lobsters.”

Executive-type made with a slight bow. “My car is at your service. I shall be happy to drive you wherever you are going.”

We rode out to Three Mile Harbor in style, bought four fighting lobsters, had some crab cakes, and this guy not only paid for everything, saying, “Least I can do for the inconvenience you've been caused,” but also drove us home.

I had an idea the brat had been in plenty of accidents and his family was afraid one more and he might lose his license, or even land in the jug. I bet if we'd held out, we could have got real dough from them.

That night Len called me. “I can fix your car, Jameson, but frankly it isn't worth putting that kind of money into it. Can get you about... maybe... another hundred and fifty for it as it stands. Gives you three hundred toward either a new car or a good second-hand job. I got a new Buick— only has 4,000 miles on her—that's a steal for fifteen hundred bucks. Means cost you $1,200. It's a buy.”

I told him I'd think it over, drop in to see him in the morning. When I told Elma she said, “That's a bright idea. If we're driving to California this winter, we'll need a decent car. Maybe we ought to consider buying a new one.”

I was busy the next morning. Somebody had lent me a book on Calder's mobiles, and I was all for making myself a mobile. I had a good idea. Start with a heavy iron hook, and suspended from that little figures of seaweed, clams, shells, and suspended from those, a blow fish. I was off on this terra-cotta craze, and I wanted to catch all the bright colors of the fish, the almost human fat face, the green jewel eyes. I spent most of the morning making water-color sketches, wondering if it was hard to get a mobile in balance. Around lunch time, when I was walking to the beach, I remembered the car and called the garage. Len's kid said his pop was in New York, wouldn't be back till the next morning.

The following morning Elma borrowed Sid's car to do her shopping and when she came back, I drove over to see Len. He seemed a little upset as he showed me the Buick, which really looked new. I told him, “We're planning a trip to California this winter. Will this car hold up, or should we buy a new one?”

“Why... eh...” Len was staring at the car without seeing it, his mind a million miles away. I just stood there, waiting. After a long moment he snapped out of it, asked, “Like the car, Mr. Jameson?”

“Sure. Just told you so. Will this hold up on a trip to the Coast?”

“What? The Coast? Sure, sure.”

I laughed. “Have a rough night in the city, Len?” I vaguely remembered he was a widower... maybe he went to town now and then... to go to town.

“I had a terrible day yesterday. I'm in a kind of jam.”

“Money?”

“God, I wish it was just money. Know this reservoir some miles out from here? Well, month or so ago my boy was fishing there. Not supposed to, but you can catch some mighty fine bass. All the kids around here sneak in some fishing there. Well...”

“Game warden slap a ticket on him?”

Len shook his gray head. “Worse than that, much worse. See, the kid fished up a pistol, one of these German guns. Water ain't hurt it much, so I take it apart, dry and oil it up and it works fine. Only I get to thinking I don't want no pistol around with the kids. Rifle is okay, but a pistol.... You listening, Mr. Jameson?”

“Yes, I'm listening,” I said quietly, my voice sounding as though I was talking into an echo chamber.

I knew at that moment it was all over, the world seemed to be squeezing in around me. I was caught. Murder had caught up with me, as it always does, I suppose. Odd, the little things that you couldn't figure on... that private dick... and now a kid fishing up the gun. Odds were probably a million to one against anybody hooking the gun... but somebody had. A kid, excited at his catch. Only he couldn't have known he had caught me on that hook.

“... Guess you never met my younger brother Bud, Mr. Jameson. He's a photographer in New York. Anyway, he wanted the gun and I was glad to get rid of the thing. Well, sir, the darnedest thing happened: Bud's got a combination studio-office and apartment, and the place is robbed by some sneak thief. Bud must have caught him in the act because the guy fled up the fire escape to the roof, and run away. But it turned out he left a pillow case with the loot in it on top of a skylight. Just threw it up there while he was running. The spunky bastard returns the next day and picks it up. Well, Bud... You ain't sick or nothing, Mr. Jameson? Seem kind of pale.”

“Stuffed myself with lobster last two days,” I said, a strange calm, low voice that didn't seem to belong to me. I heard my own voice like a man listening to a judge sentencing him to death... a sentence expected.

“Want a glass of water? Maybe a shot?”

I shook my head. “I'm all right.”

“Well, sir, to make a long story short, Bud reported the robbery, of course. The robber didn't take much, but Bud lost some equipment worth a couple hundred and if you report a theft you can deduct it from your taxes. Bud forgot all about it till last week a cop comes to his studio and says they found the crook. Picked him up for carrying a gun in a bar brawl, and it turns out this very Luger is checked by the cops and it's a gun that killed some man over in Newark....”

Killed some man over in Newark.... The words cut through my brain like a knife. Everybody in the world seemed to know about it. A nobody, a lousy mama's boy like Mac is shot, and suddenly it becomes interstate gossip. That crack about it being a small world... it was making a noose around my not-so-small neck.

“... Of course they try to pin the killing on this here sneak thief. A youngster too. Telling you, kids these days scare the pants off me. But it turns out this kid had a perfect alibi, he was in the army at the time of the killing. So he tells the cops where he got the rod—in Bud's apartment. Now Bud ain't got no gun permit and he plays it cool—says it's all a lie. Since the crook admits he left the stuff he stole on the roof overnight, Bud suggests maybe whoever owned the gun might have stuck it in the pillow, on the roof. Well sir...”

“That's a good out,” I said, my lips moving on their own, as if they weren't a part of me. I don't know why I bothered to talk. I didn't want to. I didn't want to do a thing but flee... get out of the world.

“Mr. Jameson, Bud is a sharp thinker. Always had a good head on him. They question Bud as to where he was on the day of this murder and he also has a perfect alibi—a magazine sent him to Chicago to cover a convention. Well, sir, you know how the police are—human beings—not looking for no extra work. The New York cops say the case belongs to the New Jersey cops and the Jersey police, well they got the gun but they don't know whose it is. They check on Bud again and then drop the case. Bud don't hear nothing more about it. This thief gets a year under the Sullivan Law and a suspended sentence for robbing Bud, in fact Bud even gets some of his stuff back from a hock shop. Tell you, we all breathed a sigh of relief, might of got Bud and me and my kid in a peck of trouble.”

“You mean... that's the end of it?” My voice suddenly came alive, became my voice again.

“That's what we thought. Bud didn't tell me this, but last week a private detective drops in to see Bud. He tells...”

“A private dick?”

“Yep. Brash fellow, too. Tells Bud right to his face he believes the crook, that it was Bud's gun. Seems he's working on the case. He don't say Bud did the killing, mind you. Fact is, he promises to keep Bud's name out of things, if Bud will only tell where he got the gun. Bud don't fall for that because if the police ever knew he lied... well, you know how it is in those things.”

“I know,” I said, my voice weary and dead again.

“Now this Logan, the detective, he ain't got no rights like a real cop has and Bud sends him packing. Only this Logan is a sharp one. You see...”

“Too sharp,” I mumbled. And I thought: So sharp he'll cut my heart out, slice my life to pieces.

“You see, photographers, doctors, people like that, get a lot of small cash fees and well... you know... don't always keep records. They don't make out truthful income tax reports either. They all do that. This detective, he starts snooping around and tells Bud he'll get him on a tax charge if he don't come clean about the gun. Bud is plenty worried. Calls me into town yesterday and we have a long talk.”

“You talked to Logan... I think that's what you said the dick's name was...?” I asked, my voice so very polite, the polite voice of a talking corpse.

“No, no, Mr. Jameson, not with him, what to do about him,” Len said, impatiently. “Thing is, Bud don't want him snooping around his customers. Scares them away, and suppose he finds something, turns Bud in for a tax dodger? Be messy. Either way he's got us over a barrel with our pants down. What Bud wanted to discuss with me. Suppose he tells the guy where he really got the gun, then what happens to me, my kid? I mean, we have to decide whether we trust this bird, make a deal with him.”

“Did you make a deal?”

“Naw—not yet. Hell, I don't want to do no year in the can for not reporting a gun. And I sure don't want them to send my kid to no reform school. This is real serious. Bud had a chat with this dick, told him he was getting to be a pain in Bud's rear, and they got an appointment to talk again this Saturday. Be a showdown. By then we got to decide whether to tell him or fight him. You know, Mr. Jameson, I shouldn't be telling you this or...”

“Damn right you shouldn't! Got to watch your mouth, Len. For Christsakes, they make saints out of stoolies these days—never know who you're talking to,” I said curtly, marveling at the anger in my voice. What did it matter if I was angry or not—now? What did anything matter? But if Tony heard this.... I don't know, guess that crack about hope springing eternal is true, for I still had a faint ray of hope... hope that made me sick to my guts. But it was there, waiting for me to turn to it.

“Absolutely right,” Len said, looking me over. “Of course I know I don't have to worry about you, Mr. Jameson. And...”

“I've forgotten every word you said. Told anybody else?”

“Not a soul. Guess I simply had to get this off my chest to somebody, why I spilled it to you. Feel better now that I've talked it out, too.”

“Best you don't tell anybody else. Same goes for your son.”

“Sure. Got my kid so scared he wouldn't let out a peep. Well, been burdening you with my troubles and thanks for listening—and forgetting. Now what you want to do about the car?”

“The car?” That faint ray of 'hope'—there was only one thing I could do... murder is a sickness, a trap, a one-way street with only one possible out—another murder. This Harry Logan had to be killed before Saturday, for once the trail led to Len, to this neighborhood, to Elma, everything would point toward me. The simplest deduction would turn up...

“About the car, Mr. Jameson?”

“Yeah, the car. Why... I don't know.”

“This Buick is a real steal, and that's no sales talk. Won't be able to hold it for long—guy needs cash badly. Of course, you want to fix up your old car, that's up to you.”

“We'll probably take the Buick. Have to.... to... eh... talk it over with my wife,” I said, wondering why at the moment I wasted time on a car. A gun was what I needed. Good God, where would this killing stop? Would I ever be in the clear? Did Logan have a partner? Had he told the cops what he thought about the gun and Bud's story? Would Mama Morse hire another dick, another snooper trying to spoil my happiness, my life?

“That okay, Mr. Jameson?”

I jumped. “What? Sorry, seem to be daydreaming. What did you say?”

“I said today's Tuesday, you talk it over and I'll wait till Friday before I show it to anybody else. Okay?”

“Yes. I'll call you tomorrow. Maybe tonight,” I said, talking without thinking.

I drove back to the house and told Elma about the Buick, talked to her calmly, as though I was interested... and all the time I felt like a bystander, an eavesdropper.

She thought we should buy the Buick and I called Len and said we would probably take it, but Elma wanted to see it. He said he'd drive it over to our place Thursday or Friday and we could settle the deal.

I went out to my studio, lit my pipe, stared at my sketches of the blow-fish mobile. How unimportant all that seemed now! It had taken all my courage, everything I could get up, to kill Mac. In a way it helped that I hated him... but now... to shoot down this Logan, to kill a man I'd never seen or talked to... in sheer cold blood. I wasn't sure I could do it.

And could I get away with it... again? Again. I was getting to be an old hand at murder. Would it be again and again and again and...?

Sid came over to drive us to the beach and I mechanically got into my trunks, held the baby, even took part in the small talk, discussed my idea of the mobile, as we drove. And all the time my inner mind was working like an adding machine, turning over and discarding ideas—ways of killing.

I still had that same old advantage—Logan didn't know me from a hole in the wall. I'd have to see what he looked like, then surprise him, ambush him. And the gun?

Good God, I ought to at least buy the tools of my new trade!

And the gun? I could steal Tony's new revolver, but would the same scheme work again? One thing—if Logan was killed the cops would certainly learn about Mama Morse, but unless Logan had told anybody about Bud and the gun, the cops would be right back where they started— looking for the swarthy fat man who shot Mac... and now Logan. The same old false trail, but for a double murderer this time. What about Bud? Would he run to the cops when he heard about Logan dying?

Bud might... but it was a fifty-fifty chance. From what Len told me the only idea Bud had was to get out from under. I'd have to chance his clamming up. Christ, all the things I'd have to chance! Was my luck still riding, or was I pushing it too hard?

Everybody is lucky—only one can't tell if it's good or bad luck 'til it's too late to matter.

It was all crazy: I lay on the beach and sunned myself, as though the sun or lack of sun was the main thing wrong with my health, my chances of being alive a year from now. I joked and played around with Elma in the water, and under it all only one thing was on my mind—murder.

That night I even slept and in the morning there was a letter from my agent, he had a possible buyer for the bronze of the baby's lips sucking Elma's breast. It was a legitimate reason for going to town... and I made up my mind I'd kill Logan that day.

Just like that, practically on the spur of the moment, I decided to take a man's life. I wondered if I was crazy, or was the violence in the air so great these days that taking a life seems almost normal?

I didn't know how I would go about it, but I felt a certain sense of relief that I had made up my mind, that within a few hours things would be settled for me, one way or the other.

I borrowed Sid's car and stopped off at the Alvins to ask Alice if she wanted anything from the city. She and a woman in one of the summer cottages were going to make a big outdoor barbecue and while Alice went to ask what sauces they'd need.... It was so easy to find a gun, take it... a long-barreled target automatic... lighter than the Luger. What a gun expert I was becoming!

Crossing the Tri-Borough Bridge I suddenly turned off into the Bronx and drove around aimlessly. North of the Yankee Stadium I came upon this old residential section that almost looked like the side street of a small town. I found a little alley that had this square wooden house on one side, the drawn dusty shades evidence it was either empty, or maybe shut for the summer. On the other side of the alley were these nice high hedges that needed trimming, then a wide open lot and a small modern brick house. The alley ran around the old wooden house to an unused garage. Back of the garage there was the exposed skeleton of an apartment house foundation—a house that was probably started way back during the depression years and never finished. This was surrounded by a sagging wooden fence that kids had knocked down in several places, and a street with more private houses.

I looked the scene over as though it was all a stage set, something especially built for what I had in mind—a personal drama.

Suddenly everything fell in place: if I could only get Logan in the alley, a quick shot that nobody would notice... Sid's car waiting in front of the sagging fence on the other street... me rushing across the old foundation and a clean get-away.

It sounded too easy, too simple, and yet I knew its very simplicity was in my favor. There were no complicated plans here to go wrong... I'd lucked up on this place by chance, nothing to identify me with it again.

I drove downtown and called my agent. He was out and I left my name, said I was coming into town from Sandyhook and would call later in the afternoon; even that was a sort of alibi—a mild one.

Driving over to Newark made me feel a bit queasy... I kept thinking over and over—the murderer returning to the scene of his crime. Harry Logan was in the book. I figured him for a small, one-man agency... he'd been doing all this snooping himself... and I knew I was right when he answered the phone himself, saying, “Yes? Logan speaking.” He had a dull, clear voice.

“Are you Harry Logan, the private detective?”

“Not the, but a private detective. Who's this?”

“Free to do some work today?”

“Maybe. Who is this?”

“Tell you when we talk. Have some shadowing I want done. I'm willing to pay well for it.”

“Fine. Come up to my office and start talking. Anybody who can pay well is more than welcome in my...”

“I can't come up to your office,” I said. “I think I'm... eh... being followed. Explain it all when I see you. Can you meet me in about ten minutes? I'm a big guy in a baggy tweed suit, bald head.”

“Funny way to do business. Why can't...?”

“This is a kind of funny case. Mean a hundred bucks for a few hours' work.”

“Got yourself a boy, baggy tweed. Where do we meet?'

I was phoning from a drugstore across from his office. “There's a drugstore across the street from your place. I'll be able to be outside there in ten minutes. What do you look like?”

“Tall, girls sometimes tell me I'm handsome—even when they're sober. I'm wearing a blue suit and a brown coconut straw,” Logan said, as though I amused him.

“Okay, ten minutes,” I said and hung up.

I drove around the block twice and even stopped at the drugstore for a red light. Logan was tall and handsome, didn't look at all like a dick—nothing tough about him.

I drove north and when I came across the George Washington Bridge, I parked and called him again. “This is baggy tweed, Mr. Logan. Sorry I couldn't keep our date.”

“What is this, a rib?”

“Oh no, this is on the level. For...”

He said, “I don't like this.”

I said quickly, afraid he'd get off the hook, “You see, I got scared. It's... eh... sort of dangerous for me to be in New Jersey. Process server after me.”

“Gotcha. This a divorce case?”

“Why... yes. Any objections?”

“Nope, long as you put the green on the line. How do we get together?”

“It's one-thirty. Have you a car?”

“It's been called that.”

“Suppose you come to New York, to my place in the Bronx? If you use the George Washington Bridge, shouldn't take you more than an hour to get there. Let's make it for three.”

“Right. What's the address?”

I gave him the address of the house in the Bronx, added, “My wife has been giving me a hard time, so if the shades are down, don't worry. Don't want her to know I'm living there. Just come around to the back door. I'll give you fifty dollars then, and another fifty by seven tonight, when you tell me who she's seeing for supper.”

“Got yourself a deal. Only, be there—this is a long ride, chum.”

“I'll be there. This means a great deal to me.”

I drove up to the Bronx, parked the car on the street side of the sagging fence and old foundation. There wasn't a soul on the street, the kids must have been in a neighborhood pool, or park. Walking around the block to the deserted house, I passed a woman wheeling a baby carriage—no one else in sight. I knew my luck was with me, I'd stumbled on the ideal spot for murder. It was two-twelve. My seersucker coat was wet with sweat and my mouth sandy dry. I had to walk three blocks before I found a candy store. A bottle of soda made me feel a little better, only I wished the soda had been a whisky bracer.

Walking back slowly, I turned into the alley as though I owned the place, sat on the back steps. I put my hand in my right pocket, made sure the safety was off the gun....

And waited.

The sky turned a grayish blue... as though it was all a blue wash on which a drop of black had been spilled. I wondered if I was losing my sight. I wanted to ask Logan, who was pacing up and down beside me, staring at my stomach every few minutes with a worried look.

But when I opened my mouth to ask him about the sky, the air was as thick as a huge marshmallow and all I could do was chew on it. It felt good whenever I was able to swallow a little of the air. It stunk a bit, too, a rotten, over-sweet smell.

Logan muttered—and it was amazing how clearly I could hear even the smallest sounds. “Hope your wife gets here soon. Almost an hour now. Cops will come any minute and unless she gets here first or...”

He suddenly stiffened, held out a hand for me to be quiet —which was comical—as we both heard a car stop out in the street with the weird scream of tortured rubber. I heard the sound of people running up the alley... then Elma came into focus and behind her I saw the frightened face of Alice.

Logan grabbed Elma as she came toward me, her face ugly with hysteria. He shook her, said something in her ear, glancing at Alice. I saw her lips move and she pushed him aside and knelt next to me. She was wearing a strapless summer dress and I noticed the creamy white of the rise of her breasts as she bent over me—in pleasant contrast to her tan shoulders. I'd never do that terra-cotta nude of her now. I'd never do a damn thing any more...

She moaned, “Oh Marsh... Marsh,” and tears rushed from those wonderful slant eyes. The lovely mouth, the fine body, the ideas and jokes we had in common... all the things I loved and thought would always be mine... the things I murdered to keep... and now was losing.

I had only one thing more to do—try to explain to Elma why I did it. But when I opened my mouth, the air came in thick as spongy rubber. I kept chewing on it, trying to talk.

I moved my jaws hard... I had to tell her! But when I swallowed to clear my throat, another chunk of the sticky air stopped up my mouth.

I knew then I wouldn't be able to explain things to her and that made me sad, hurt. I made one last effort to clear my throat, but the hunk of air in my mouth merely moved down to my Adam's apple and stuck there and I began to choke.

I must have blacked out while I was gagging, for when I opened my eyes again I thought the blue sky had fallen on us. There was a wall of dark blue behind Elma... and a streak of white. Then I knew I was looking at the legs of a lot of cops and the streak of white was merely the pants of the ambulance doc.

Keeping awake was a long effort. The air was still stuffing my mouth and I could hardly breathe. Elma was bending over me, her eyes the tenderest things I'd ever seen. I looked into those wonderful eyes... tried to tell her with my own why I'd done all this... the gamble I'd taken, the horrible crime I'd committed... all for our happiness.

Her big lips were moving but I didn't hear a sound. I swallowed a few times, barely moving the chunk of air clogging my throat. Then—as if an invisible door had been opened—I heard her say, “Marsh, and if what they say is true... that you shot Mac... it was all my fault! I—I brought all this misery to you.... But, darling, if you had only told me!” She began to weep again, her tears falling on my face like a caress.

My eyes smiled up at her, trying to say she'd given me the only happiness I'd ever known and I was grateful.

She sobbed. “Marsh, Marsh... if you had... told me!”

I pushed the chunk of air to one side of my mouth with my tongue. I moved my hand, trying to touch her face— and nearly fainted with the effort. With my eyes I wanted to say, “Elma, what difference would it have made if I had told you? Only make you upset. And this goddamn professional busybody, this Logan, would have got me—us—and there would be the scandal of a long trial and the chair waiting at the end of the line, the...”

Then she said it... how clear I heard her words!

“Marsh, sweet, you see.... I hired Logan. To make the old lady feel better. And if I'd known it was... you...” She looked up and Logan's ordinary face came into view as he whispered, “Sure, Mr. Jameson, I'd have kept my mouth shut. I'm only paid to find out things, not to do anything about it. Why... when you told me your name... why I stalled calling the cops... till Mrs. Jameson came.”

“Marsh, we have so much ahead of us. You must get well and somehow we'll fight this out and...” Elma's voice ended in a hopeless sob and her tears wet my eyes.

The crazy irony of the whole mess hit me. So Elma had hired Logan! Sweet Jesus—if I had known! He probably would have blackmailed us, but I'd still have Elma and the baby... our life.

I wanted to laugh, to cry.... Marsh Jameson the clever boy, and all the time life had been laying in ambush, laughing at me, waiting for this final twist of the knife in the back, this last kick in the groin fate had been saving up for me.

I opened my mouth wide to laugh and this big solid chunk of air slipped in. I tried to shove it out but it went down my throat like a cork in a bottle. I couldn't chew it. I began to choke, to gag.... I knew I was dying now.

I thought, Death, you miserable bastard, get away from me.... Death, sneaking up in the shape of a hard hunk of smelly air.

Elma's large mouth suddenly twisted open to form a grotesque circle and a scream came tearing out, a scream that seemed to cover me with sound, and I began drifting away on it. I tried to fight, like a swimmer bucking the tide.

The choking in my throat made an odd rattling sound. Elma screamed and screamed and the doctor in white bent over me, but her tears hit my eyes, seemed to dim things. It seemed as though I was falling through a telescope, Elma's Screaming face was growing smaller and more indistinct in the distance.

Her screams were growing heavier and heavier—around me, carrying me away on the sound. I was floating on the sound waves and then Elma's face became a blur and I was sinking in the waves... sinking and... sinking fast....

The End