Kill as Directed

Fourteen

He missed Karen. When he phoned on Monday he was told the Greshams were not due back in the city until Wednesday. When he phoned on Wednesday she talked to him almost curtly: she would not be able to see him until Saturday.

On Saturday she called him; and in the hot and dripping evening she came to him at his apartment. She was pale in spite of her long weekend; she was dressed in unrelieved black. She did not kiss him when he opened the door for her.

“Have fun in Maine?” Harry asked.

“We just lounged around and rested. How are you?”

“All right.”

Her great green eyes were in shadow, puckered with tension. “I want a drink, darling.”

“Vodka?”

“Gin and tonic. Lots of gin.”

He went to the kitchen and came back with the drinks in two tall glasses. She was smoking. She rose instantly and came over and took one glass from him. She turned as though to go back to her chair. Then she turned back and said, very quietly, “I’m glad you made up your mind.”

“About what?”

“I saw Tony. He told me about your weekend at Montauk.”

“What about it?”

She licked at the glass, set it down, squeezed her cigarette out in an ash tray.

“You know how Tony runs on. He was telling me about the crazy things people say when they’re drunk. Harry Brown gets stoned and right away starts trying to pump his pal the criminal lawyer about how people kill people — where somebody who wanted to commit a murder would get hold of a gun that couldn’t be traced. Tony said he was glad he was the one you asked — anybody else, he said, might have taken you seriously. Wasn’t that sort of a stupid thing to do, darling — asking so transparently?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harry said. “It was just babbling.”

She picked up her glass and drank and looked at him over the rim. “Yes, darling,” she murmured.

He drank, too. “Incidentally,” he said, “how come you found the time to see Tony but not me?”

“Because I love you, and Tony is — well, Tony.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Kurt’s been in and out, office and home, unpredictably. I’ve had to keep available. That Carona mess is an emergency, and Kurt is spending most of his time on it. The trip to Maine wasn’t to relax. It was so he could see some people, ostensibly vacationers, about the Carona matter, about a possible inside investigation of Gresham and Company, and about Kurt’s trip to Europe in September. You know you’re going with him?”

“I know,” Harry said. “But you had time to see Tony.”

“Jealous?” she smiled.

“I’ve been aching, Karen. In all the right places.” Harry came to her, leaned over.

“Please, darling, not now.” She lit another cigarette, inhaled deeply, let the smoke out in a gush. From behind the smoke she said, “Tony is one of Kurt’s lawyers. He comes with Kurt to the apartment. Kurt gets called away. So Tony and I have a chance to talk for a few minutes. Don’t be silly... You know, Harry, I’m glad. And yet I feel ashamed.”

“What?” Harry said.

“It shouldn’t be you. I’m the one who ought to do it. But I just don’t have that kind of courage.”

He said shortly, “Let’s not talk about it.”

“We’ve got to. If I weren’t such a damn coward...” She finished the gin and tonic. “It isn’t as if I couldn’t arrange to have it done. I’ve met all kinds in my dainty career. But when you buy a thing like that you’re wide open to blackmail. From the frying pan to the fire. Who needs it? Harry...”

“What?”

“You’re his doctor...”

“No,” Harry said. Then he began to walk around the room, silent. Her eyes followed him anxiously. He stopped and turned to face her. “All right, if you insist on discussing it. There must be no possible connection with me. Not a medical method at all. It’s got to look like the exact opposite. A gangland job — what do they call it? — a hit.”

She said in a low voice, “Yes. I hadn’t thought... But I wish—”

“Look, Karen. I believe I’d have to do this even if you weren’t involved: either do it or be a monkey on a string for the rest of my life. I never had a choice. I was pulled in, not knowing what I was getting into, and then it was too late. Stay in or go out feet first. Kurt made that quite clear. The way I figure it, it’s either committing one big crime now and being free, or an indefinite series of little ones working for Kurt, with the threat of death hanging over my head night and day. Stop castigating yourself. I’m fighting for my life — for our lives.”

She reached rather blindly for the glass before she realized that it was empty. She sat there looking into it. “Harry... what do you need?”

“A gun equipped with a silencer. And, of course, cartridges. The gun and silencer with all traceable markings removed beyond even chemical detection. Professional stuff. I want that gun to be found.”

“You shouldn’t have said anything to Tony. You should have come to me in the first place. I can get them for you, Harry.”

“Your connections... I never thought of that.” He saw her turning the empty glass over and over in her hands. He said, “Another drink?”

“Please.”

He kissed her hands and took the glass into the kitchen and came back with a bubbling refill. She drank thirstily as he stood over her. She took the glass from her lips and looked up at him and said, “Go away, darling — over there, where you were... There’ll be no connection with me, either. A long time ago I was the love apple of the eye of a certain big shot in Frisco. In my strip days. He was crazy for me. Want to know what my professional name was then?”

“What?”

“Jackie Jill. Cute? All strippers have cute — or nutty — names. He knew me as Jackie Jill and I knew him as Uncle Joe, period. He couldn’t possibly associate me with Mrs. Kurt Gresham of New York. Don’t laugh, but he’s basically a sentimentalist. He stopped carrying the torch for me ages ago, but he’ll remember Jackie Jill.”

“I don’t like it,” muttered Harry.

She laughed. “If you’re worried about the flame reviving, don’t be. I can reach Uncle Joe, and I’m positive I can arrange to get you what you need. Without danger to either of us. He’d do it as a favor for Jackie Jill, and no questions asked. It’s his way of doing business; he has no interest in what use the material is put to. It’s a matter of demand and supply; as far as Uncle Joe is concerned, the matter ends there. To use your word, Harry — professional.”

“How would you work it?”

“I’ll call him long-distance from a pay phone, as Jackie Jill. I still have his unlisted phone number. Uncle Joe owes me a few favors from way back, and he knows he can depend on my discretion. His interest will end there. Should I do this, Harry?”

“Do it, but be careful.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know yet. I think the Starhurst. That time schedule you told me about — he sticks to it?”

“Meticulously.”

“He comes at five minutes to seven?”

“On the dot.”

“And the visitor at seven?”

“Promptly. Not a minute before or after. He’s drilled that into them so that now it’s second nature.”

“That gives him five minutes alone,” Harry said. “It ought to be enough — it has to be... I think — yes, we’ll work out an alibi for me, just in case I’m questioned or investigated...”

“Harry.”

“Yes?”

“There’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

The mixture of distress, defiance and shame in her voice made his head come up sharply. “What’s that?”

“I’ve got to tell you now...”

“What?”

“If anything should go wrong—”

“Yes?”

“I’ll lie. I’ll ditch you. I know me. I’ll leave you high and dry. Holding the bag. I’ll say it was all your idea — that you forced me into it... I told you, darling, I love you, and I do. But I know me, and I’ll look to save my own skin, love or no love. I want you to understand that now, before this goes any further...”

He looked at her across half the room. “You’re a remarkable woman, Karen.”

“I’m a dirty coward.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being honest with me. But don’t worry. Nothing will go wrong.”

“But the police — they’ll press, they’ll squeeze. They have ways...”

“They won’t get the chance.”

“But Harry, think. Now. Before...”

“I’ve thought, Karen,” Dr. Harrison Brown said. “I’m going to kill him because I have to. If it goes wrong, I’ll kill myself.”

On Sunday night the Kurt Greshams threw a party at their Park Avenue apartment. It was a gay party, in formal dress; Mrs. Kurt Gresham was radiant in a stunning Casisini original. The affable host announced to his guests that on September first he was going off to Europe for a couple of months in the company of his new personal physician. “If I were young I’d take my wife, or a sweetheart, or perhaps my wife and a sweetheart. But I’m old, so I have to take my doctor instead. So it goes.”

There was laughter, and applause, and the hostess invited her guests into the glittering dining room for supper and champagne.

“Oh, Harry,” Kurt Gresham said. “Tony has arranged with the Immigration people for your passport. But you have to go down there.”

“Sure,” said Harry.

“Tony will go with you. When there’s red tape there should always be a lawyer.”

“Sure,” said Harry.

Tony Mitchell grinned. “I’ve set up a date for ten A.M. Wednesday, Doctor. That all right with you?”

“Sure,” said Harry.