“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.