Wall of Eyes

Chapter 16

The section of the city was a bad one but the cottage itself was well kept and neat. A row of salvias still bloomed on either side of the veranda. Sands used the knocker, a brass lion’s head with a piece of felt glued to it to dull the sound.

The woman who came to the door was a small timid scrawny woman in a house dress and hair curlers. She opened the door about six inches and peered hostilely through the crack.

“Mrs. Moore?” Sands said. “I’ve come to see your daughter Marcella. My name is Sands.”

“My daughter’s sleeping,” Mrs. Moore said abruptly. “She works late and she’s got to get her sleep no matter what your name is. You can come back later.”

“No,” Sands said politely, “I can’t.”

“Well then, I guess you won’t see her.”

She sounded firm enough but she didn’t close the door. Sands guessed that Marcella had given her orders and that Mrs. Moore herself didn’t care who came to the house.

“Detective-Inspector Sands,” he said, giving her his card. “I want to see your daughter right now. It’s important, about a murder.”

“About... about a murder?” She looked shocked yet at the same time relieved that the decision had been taken from her hands. “Well, come in, I guess. I’ll call her.”

She flung open the door and stepped back quickly into the hall to let Sands come in. She put one hand up to her head as if to hide the curlers.

“I... I’ll go and call her. In there’s the parlor. You can sit down and I’ll...”

“Yes. Thanks.”

He left the door of the tiny parlor open. He heard Mrs. Moore go upstairs and call softly, “Marcie! Wake up, dear. There’s a...”

“How many times have I told you not to wake me up before...”

“Hush, dear. You weren’t sleeping, were you?”

“I was sleeping! Why do you think I wasn’t sleeping?”

“Not so loud. You just sounded sort of awake. I’m... I’m sorry. There’s a man downstairs. A policeman, he says he is.”

“Tell him to wait.” Marcie’s voice was deliberately loud and clear. “I’ll be down when I’m good and ready to come down.”

There were more sounds of hushing and then Mrs. Moore came downstairs again. She did not come into the parlor but stood in the doorway looking down at her fingernails.

“She’ll be down any minute,” she said in a low voice. “She’s kind of tired and...”

“Thanks,” Sands said again.

“And if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just... I’ll go and...”

“That’s all right.”

He waited for ten minutes. When Marcie appeared she gave him a curt nod. He saw that she had been making him wait deliberately, because she had not combed her hair or dressed or made up her face. Sands, tolerant of the larger sins, was always shocked by petty spite.

He said coldly, without rising, “Sit down, please.”

She crossed the room and sat down with exaggerated care for the long skirt of her housecoat. She didn’t look as young as she did under a spotlight, and not at all shy. She didn’t have to pretend anything here in this house that she herself supported. Behind this door she didn’t have to waste any of the shy fleeting glances she used on Stevie Jordan or Johnny Heath.

“Well?” she said.

He handed her his card. She took it, holding it by one corner.

“You don’t have to be so smart,” Sands said. “I’m not trying to get your fingerprints.”

She let the card flutter to the floor. “I was just being careful. The police think up a lot of cute things, like the insurance agent that came yesterday. He didn’t fool me. I can take care of myself.”

“You didn’t by any chance take care of Stevie Jordan too, did you?”

“Stevie? What are you talking about?”

“Jordan was shot last night in Joey Hanson’s office. He’s in the hospital and he probably won’t get out of it except the hard way, feet first.”

“Stevie,” she said in a dazed voice. “Stevie. I don’t believe it. No one would want to hurt Stevie. He was a very — he’s a nice guy.”

“Yes, I liked him,” Sands said quietly. “He hasn’t shot because he wasn’t a nice guy. He was shot because he got mixed up in this quite accidentally. The same as you did, Miss Moore. And once he was mixed up in it he lost his head, the same as you might.”

“I’m not mixed up in anything!” Marcie cried.

“Not actively, no,” Sands said. “But you knew them all, didn’t you? Kelsey Heath, Geraldine Smith, John Heath, Stevie Jordan, Mamie Rosen, Tony Murillo...”

“Murillo? I don’t know Murillo. I never even saw him.”

Sands stared at her.

“Well, I never did. I only know his name from listening to Mamie.”

“Strange,” Sands said.

“What’s so strange about it? Do you think any dame in her right senses would bring her boy friend backstage and introduce him to that bunch of bitches?” She paused and repeated “bitches,” because she liked the sound of the word coming from her own mouth. It was a word she often thought but never said. But here behind her own doors she didn’t have to pretend, she could say what she wanted to.

“Murillo’s been at the club,” Sands said. “Jordan and Joey Hanson know him.”

“Just out front though,” Marcie said. “And not very often. Mamie told me Joey had warned her to keep Murillo away.”

“Did Geraldine Smith know him?”

“I guess so,” Marcie said. “She knew Mamie.”

“You weren’t working there when Geraldine was alive?”

“No. But I heard about her from Stevie and Mamie.”

“I suppose you knew that Geraldine was John Heath’s girl friend for a time?”

She leaned forward, looking at him levelly. “Get this clear, Mr. Sands. Johnny Heath and what he did or does or will do don’t matter a damn to me. He’s responsible for getting me into this mess. I didn’t do anything to anyone. I made one lousy mistake and that was going out with Heath and putting up with that snotty sister of his and that stuffed shirt of a James. Well, they got their money’s worth of laughs out of me. Now I don’t want to hear any more about the Heath family. I’m sick of the name. Any woman’s a fool to have anything to do with men unless she has to, to get by. Well, I don’t have to. I can dance, and some day I’m going to prove it and the customers won’t be all drunk either.”

She leaned back in the chair again and closed her eyes. She had never talked like that before to anyone and never would again. It was tiring to tell the truth, pretending was easier. She must remember how much easier pretending was the next time she felt like giving herself away. It got you nothing to give yourself away and it took too much out of you. She’d go back to the club and pretend she was shy, she’d be aloof from the other girls and careful of her language, and some day...

Sands left her sitting in the chair, her eyes hard with dreams.

Her mother fluttered back into the parlor, making subdued clucking noises with her tongue.

“It’s all right,” Marcie said irritably. “Don’t make a fuss.”

“But... but he said a murder!”

“Nothing to do with me. A boy at the club was shot.”

“Oh, you should never have to work in such a place,” Mrs. Moore said plaintively. “I don’t know, I think it would be almost better to have a job in an office where you get decent people.”

“We won’t go into that.” Marcie turned her head away and gazed blankly out of the window. “It was Mr. Jordan who was shot.”

“Mr. Jordan! Isn’t he the nice one, the one you said you liked.”

“I never said I liked him. I said he was better than the rest of them. That’s not so hard.”

“Well, I thought you... well, all right, dear. You going to stay up now? I’ll go up and make your bed.”

“All right.”

She waited until her mother had gone upstairs, then she slipped into the hall and picked up the phone.

A woman’s voice said, “General Hospital.”

“Mr. Jordan, please,” Marcie whispered.

“Jordan? First name?”

“Steven.”

“Room number?”

“I don’t know. I just want to know how he’s getting along.”

“One moment, please.” There was a rustle of paper and the drone of distant voices. “Mr. Jordan is not allowed visitors. I’m sorry.”

“But how is he? I mean, he’s not... not dead?”

“Heavens, no,” the woman said with an efficient laugh. “If he were dead his name would be crossed off my list.”

“Thank you,” Marcie said, and hung up and leaned against the wall, giggling, and crying a little.

The nurse was young and ugly. When she smiled the long scar on her cheek merged with the smile.

“Hello, Kitty,” Sands said.

She turned her face so he’d see only the good side of it.

“Hello, Inspector.”

“They making you at home here?”

“Oh, sure. Most of the time I’m just sitting beside his bed. His temperature’s down a little.”

“May I see him?”

Kitty smiled again and said, “You don’t have to. I did what you said. I got it written out. Wait here a minute.”

She disappeared into Jordan’s room. When she came back she handed Sands a notebook.

He did not open it. He said, “How’s the cheek?”

“Fine.” She touched it quickly. “It’s nice to be back at work again, though I’d rather be on something more exciting.” She rubbed her cheek, smiling, and thinking of how dull her police job had been before she investigated the case of juvenile delinquency that had given her the scar. The juvenile had thrown a bottle.

“They’ve taken Billy to the epileptic hospital at Woodstock,” Sands said, guessing her thoughts.

“Better for him,” Kitty said. “He wasn’t responsible.”

“No.”

“Though in a way it makes it worse, having no one to blame, really. Next time I’ll duck.”

“Good idea,” Sands said and opened the notebook. The report was headed, “Steven Jordan — 9 A.M.” and was carefully detailed from the moment that Jordan had asked for a drink of water at 9:03 and relapsed into semi-consciousness.

When Sands had finished, Kitty said anxiously, “Of course it’s not much, but you can see pretty clearly what was on his mind and from the way he spoke I knew it was urgent. He seemed frantic.”

“Yes,” Sands said.

“He must have seen these two together some place, this Heath and Murillo. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” Sands said gravely. “That makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Kitty.”

“Do I read about it in the newspapers some day?”

“Some day, perhaps.”

“Well, good luck.”

“Good luck,” he echoed. He found his way to the elevator and for the six floors down he stared unseeingly at a woman whose figure was a probability curve. The woman went home and cried bitterly in front of a mirror. Sands went home and lay down on the bed with his clothes on.

Perhaps if he got some sleep he could work it out. If he started at the beginning with the accident, and pictured it all clearly — Kelsey Heath driving, Johnny in the rumbleseat with the girl, the football game and the dinner and the phone call, the date and the girl who was to die ready in her best clothes waiting...

She knew it was only a matter of time now. They hadn’t found the gun, but the policeman had taken her gloves and there was some test they gave to prove you had fired a gun. Tony had told her about the test. He’d said, “They don’t have a test for knives though,” and laughed in that crazy shrill way he laughed when he was bragging.

Only a matter of time. She wondered what they’d do to her. Put her in prison, if Stevie lived. For years she’d be in prison, getting older, not even waiting or hoping to get out because there wouldn’t be any reason to get out, nothing and no one to come back to.

Or maybe Stevie would die and they’d hang her.

Well, so what? Other people were dying all the time and hanging was quick, quicker than cancer or things like that, and there was no hell and no heaven. What could you lose? You’d lived your life. You asked for it, you got it, you took it. That was the only hell there was. And the only heaven.

But she didn’t want to think about love, not just now. Hers wasn’t the kind you thought about to make yourself feel good. No moonlight and roses, no love whispers. He’d never told her he loved her. Maybe he would now, if he knew what she’d done for him. If she could tell him, if she had the nerve...

She lifted her head from the pillow and looked at the clock. It was only ten. She hadn’t wakened so early for years. Maybe that was an omen, to tell her that it was her last day. Last day. Make it long. Make it a good last day. Make the phone ring.

But he wouldn’t phone, she knew that. And if she phoned him...

Think of the surprise he’d have, imagining he was so well hidden! Think of the fear (that would pay him back a little), and maybe some pleasure too (and then she’d be sorry for having thought of paying him back). Because there was nothing to pay back. She needn’t have stayed or let him stay.

If she phoned she’d hear his voice. She didn’t even have to ask for him. She’d keep on phoning until he answered it himself. All the other times she’d just hang up without saying anything. She could try it just once. Maybe he’d answer the first time, if she was lucky. And last days should be lucky days to make up for all the other days that had everything in them but luck.

No, she couldn’t phone.

She gave a little groan and rolled over on her face and one of the feathers worked through the pillow and pricked her cheek. She propped herself on her elbows and pulled the feather out and looked at it. She began to giggle suddenly, because the feather reminded her of a song Tony had sung once, about a pig who flew past with a feather stuck in him to see which way the wind blew.

“And the wind blew north,” Mamie hummed, “and the wind blew south, and the wind blew the feather...”

Imagine. Here it was her last day and she was giggling and humming as if nothing was going to happen to her.

Maybe I really want something to happen to me. Maybe I don’t give a damn as long as it’s a change, any change. I think I’d be ready for anything if...

No, don’t think about phoning him. How do you know the cops wouldn’t be listening in? Maybe they tapped your telephone wires. But they wouldn’t do that, I’m not important enough, and besides they think I don’t know where Tony is.

She sat up straight on the bed and pulled down the sheets. She wasn’t conscious of any of her usual morning pains and irritations — the sunken feeling in her eyes, as if they had fallen into her head from their own weight, the sight of herself in the mirror, the pale puffy face and mottled white legs. She went past the mirror without even looking at herself and opened the door into the hall. No one was using the telephone, and Mrs. Malley was upstairs making beds and swearing at her husband to get him up.

She slipped down the hall quietly in her bare feet. She waited until Mrs. Malley had started a new theme, then picked up the phone and dialed the number. She knew it by heart.

It rang three times, then a girl’s voice said, “Hello,” and Mamie hung up without speaking.

Well, you couldn’t count on luck, could you? The luck all went to the wrong people, the kind with brains and looks and money, who didn’t need luck. The kind like Tony and her didn’t get anything except what they snatched from each other. You had to grab something from somebody else before somebody else grabbed it from you. That was how you had to live. Mamie knew that. She knew that when Tony hit her he wasn’t hitting her at all, he was just hitting out at the first thing that was handy, he was hitting out at Life. Nothing personal in it. Funny how all these things became clear if you only had a little time left. If people could always think that, that they had only a little time, they’d be nicer, they wouldn’t always have to be thinking so far ahead of their own future.

Shivering as her feet struck the bare cold floor she went back into her room and sat in the chair by the window and looked out at Charles Street.

She thought, Stevie was right, it would be kind of gruesome to see the sun rise on Charles Street. Or even the moon. Charles Street was made for darkness.

She wondered if Stevie was dead. And now that things were clearer she even wondered why she shot him. It was late, she was tired, the gun was there in her bag, Stevie had been nasty and he was the only one who’d seen Tony running out of the house. When she shot him she thought she was doing it just for Tony, but this morning she knew that the other reasons counted too. She knew she wouldn’t have even thought of shooting him if the gun hadn’t been right there in her bag. She had been carrying the gun because she thought if she met Tony she’d give it to him. He might need it, and he’d forgotten to take it along.

It was very funny to think that Tony had murdered someone. He’d always talked about killing — “I’d like to kill that...” or “She needs a knife between the ribs,” or “I’d like to strangle you.”

Just words. He thought he was tough. And then it turned out he was. That was what was funny.

Just like me, Mamie thought. I’m always talking about killing myself and if I really did that would be funny too. I wouldn’t shoot myself because maybe I wouldn’t die.

She thought of the pills she had hidden in a drawer. You took the whole dozen of them and then you went to sleep. Then everything was settled for you. You didn’t have to worry about jail or Tony or getting old or holding a job or having headaches or washing your stockings...

She went back into the hall. The door into the kitchen had been closed, so that meant that the Malleys were in there and Mr. Malley was eating and Mrs. Malley was watching him, grudging the very grains of sugar he used.

She dialed again, slowly this time, putting off the moment when the girl’s voice would say, “Hello,” again and she’d have to go back to her room without hearing his voice. But it wasn’t the girl.

“Hello,” Tony said.

She hung onto the mouthpiece hard to keep from falling. He had only to speak one word and everything began to move inside her, churned up by hope, every kind of hope. This wasn’t the last day, it was just a day. And she wouldn’t go to prison because the cops were dumb. They’d never catch Tony. Joey wouldn’t fire her. Stevie would get better.

“Hello,” he said again, impatiently.

“Hello,” she whispered huskily. “Tony?”

He didn’t answer. She knew what he was doing in that silence. He was looking around quickly and furtively, he was frowning, he was trying to control his voice.

“Tony?”

“How did you...” He was so scared he could hardly speak.

“I knew,” Mamie said.

“What do you want?”

“I’ve got to see you, Tony.”

“See me? You must be crazy!”

“Sure,” Mamie said with a weak giggle. “Sure, I’m crazy. We could meet some place. Listen, Tony...”

“You shot Jordan?”

“Yes. For you. I did it for you. Honest, I did it for...”

“Not so loud, you fool!”

“I want to see you. Just once. He knows I did it. The policeman knows. I haven’t got much time left, Tony. I want to see you.”

“You must...”

“He took your clothes, to measure. And he knows I did it, and I haven’t got much..”

“Shut up, you fool.”

“I’ll kill myself. I will! I got those pills.”

“Go ahead. It’ll save me trouble. Only you won’t. Listen, what did you tell the cops?”

She was crying now and shivering and none of the words would come out of her mouth. He said something she couldn’t hear, and then the receiver was banged down.

She cried with her face up against the wall as if it could comfort her, pressing her forehead against the limp and faded daisies of the wallpaper.

“Please,” she said once, not to Tony or to God, but to the limp daisies and the telephone and the hard wall.

She heard Mrs. Malley moving in the kitchen and she left the wall and went back to her own room.

When she could see well enough she poured out two glasses of water from the pitcher; one was her glass and one was Tony’s glass. She used Tony’s glass for the first six pills and her own glass for the other six.

Then she went over to the mirror and combed her hair, twisting each curl carefully around her finger. She powdered her nose and put on some lipstick and straightened out her nightgown and the bedclothes. Then she lay down precisely in the middle of the bed and closed her eyes.