“Yes, I do,” he said, “and you had a right to be.”
“But I shouldn’t have left, Tony. That was wrong. I should have stayed, and tried to help you. We should have tried to work it out together. That’s what I want to do now. May I stay?”
“May you stay? Oh, darling!” He seized her hands and kissed them again.
And then he remembered, suddenly, shatteringly. Marva!
What could he do? How could he explain? Could Alison possibly believe that he’d imagined that he’d killed her, and that he’d allowed Marva to remain in the house only because she was blackmailing him? Or would Alison think that the instant she’d gone he’d taken up with another woman? Even been living with her!
Terrified, he tried to think. Alison would simply have to believe him. Their reconciliation would have to be based on truth, not on a lie. He’d have to make a clean breast of everything... and to begin with he’d have to get rid of that horror in the guest room right now.
He lurched to his feet and headed toward the room. At least Marva was in there, not in his own bedroom. He opened the door and started to say, “You can get out now, you can’t blackmail me any more...”
And then he saw her. She was tumbled on the bed, a gross heap of repulsive flesh. But her face wasn’t pale any more. It was dark rather, and swollen, disfigured. And around her throat was knotted one of those expensive nylon stockings that had been bought on Alison’s charge account.
The haze was engulfing him again, blurring the real world into the unreal. Alison was at his shoulder, staring at the grisly object on the bed.
“I can explain everything,” he began.
“You killed her?” Alison’s voice sounded harsh, like the voice of a stranger.
“I must have.”
“You were drunk?”
“Of course. How else could I have done it?”
“It was the same way, wasn’t it, like when you threw the glass at me?”
“No, no... you don’t understand. This woman is nothing... scum... she didn’t deserve to live. She was blackmailing me... telling me I’d killed you... but we can get rid of this body... you can help me... nobody will care... nobody will ever miss her... Alison, where are you going?”
“Tony, you’re a murderer!”
“You’re going to tell the police, I suppose.”
The room was growing murkier. Darkness was descending, in the middle of the day. Through the gathering dusk he walked toward Alison, trying to make the decision as he went. Either way, he had lost her.
High Card Deals
by Max Van Derveer
A deck of cards is representative of an uncontestable hierarchy where rewards and punishment are dispensed immediately. When used as an aid for solution, we may expect efficiency, unimpeded by sentiment.
Arnold McDowell, professional blackmailer, paced the thick carpeting in the grandiose penthouse suite nervously. Suddenly he stopped at a sparkling window and stared down on the glut of city traffic twenty-four floors below. He felt very alone. He glanced at the wrist watch with the buzz alarm. Three o’clock in the afternoon. He turned. “Dammit, Talbot, I said she wants out.”
“So?”
“It could ruin us.”
“How? There are other women.”
“Not like Gretchen.”
Seated on the edge of the heavy couch, his knees wide spread, Talbot flipped the cards from the fresh deck effortlessly. In all of his thirty-eight years he had failed miserably in one endeavor. He had failed to beat solitaire. He continued to turn the cards and place them with an esoteric rhythm as he said, “Does the next one have to be like Gretchen?”
“Gretchen is good. She knows all the tricks. We’d have to teach...”
“Why does she want out?”
“Will you forget those cards and concentrate on what I’m telling you?”
Talbot’s fingers became still as he looked up at the tall, lean and slightly stooped McDowell. At fifty-three, McDowell was immaculate and intelligent, the kind of man who fueled himself with twenty demitasses of coffee daily. He knew where he was going, and he knew how he was going to get there. But it was the latter that bothered Talbot, that inner drive that sometimes carried McDowell to the brink of panic. Talbot had no time for panic.
He said calmly, “I’m listening, Arnold. I’ve been listening for eleven years. That’s how long we’ve been associates, isn’t it?” He returned to the card game. “You still haven’t told me why she wants out. Tell me her reason.”
“She wants to go to California.”
“And do what?”
“Nothing. That’s just it. She wants to go out there and just...” McDowell’s face became wrinkled in consternation. “... and just sit,” he finished lamely.
“She’s in love with you, you know.”
“That hasn’t anything to do with this!”
“It could have, Arnold. Definitely. Maybe she’s tired of playing with her doctor friends. Maybe she’s decided she wants to concentrate on you.”
“All of a sudden you’re an expert on women?”
“Not on women, Arnold. Gretchen. I’m an expert on Gretchen Kane.”
“You’ve never shown interest in a woman in your entire life!”
“Which doesn’t necessarily mean I do not understand Gretchen.”
McDowell turned from Talbot in exasperation. Talbot sometimes irritated him. This was one of those times. Sitting there playing that card game while their entire operation was tumbling down. Sure, maybe Talbot could accept the collapse without batting an eye. After all, blackmail wasn’t basically his meat. Give him a killing. That’s what Talbot liked. Hand him an envelope stuffed with crisp bills, point to the victim and turn away. Talbot was glacially efficient. It was why the tough boys liked him. It was why Talbot — certified public accountant, tax expert, with a palatial office in the Adams Building — sometimes made long trips out of the city.
McDowell went to the open French doors and stood concentrating on Gretchen Kane. She was stretched out on a lounge chair on the balcony, soaking up the sun. Dark glasses bridged her nose. He couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or closed behind those glasses. Thirty-six, indolent, she was a handsome brunette who had sense enough to remain a brunette, with a soft line of cheek and throat, good strong legs, and a fascinating appetite for double gibsons and korma-curry. A hyacinth colored sunsuit hugged the lines of her body with a provocative plunge of neckline. Her skin was tanned a honey-colored brown.
McDowell said softly, “Reconsider, Gretch?”
“No, darling.” She didn’t stir.
He walked into the sunshine, stood looming over her. “This has been a good thing for all of us. You have lived well. The suites, the clothes, the...”
“We’ve run our line, Arnold. I can feel it. There’s going to be a killing. Talbot is...”
“Talbot is necessary.”
“Is he?”
“He’s our ace in the hole. Our threat.”
“I don’t want anything to do with murder.”
“There isn’t going to be a murder.”
“With Talbot there is. Sooner or later there’s going to be someone who will not bend under the pres sure, someone who will go to the police — and then there will be Talbot. And it’s going to happen soon, maybe the next time out. I can feel it.”
“You’re not psychic.”
“Right now, darling, I feel very psychic. And I want to go to California. I want out.”
“One more, Gretch. Doctor Lynne.”
“No.”
“He’s strictly a pigeon. No sweat. He’s sixty-four. He has a wife, an exclusive practice — and, most important, he already has a reputation. He likes young women. You can wrap him around your little finger. One trip to his office and you will have him up here. Then the tape recordings, the bite and the payoff. It can be big. He has that kind of money.”