Текст книги "Epitaph For A Dead Beat"

Автор книги: David Markson

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

“You spent—” A gleam had come into the publisher’s eyes. “Where is the press room, please? I should like to announce our position.”

There weren’t any reporters, whatever his position was. The police had issued no statement except that unnamed suspects were being questioned, and legally Fern was a material witness only. “We’d like to keep it that way for now,” Vasella said reasonably.

“I’m sorry – but I’ve quite made up my mind. The public must be informed. This girl is innocent. Plagiarism indeed– the whole idea is preposterous—”

“Thank you, Ernest,” Fern told him.

“You poor girl, not at all. I can only hope you’ll learn to forgive me for having permitted myself any doubt—”

She dismissed his chagrin with a gesture, and he turned to motion one of his lawyers to the door. “Phone them,” he said. “All the local papers, the wire services. Yes, don’t forget the wire services—”

Brannigan kicked a drawer shut with a noise like a truck backfiring, walking out. He couldn’t prevent the calls, and once Fern’s identity was made known the department would have to commit itself about booking her. Every tendon in his thick neck was visible when the publisher stopped him in the doorway.

“You’ll make arrangements for her release now, naturally? The entire situation is unthinkable, subjecting one of our most talented writers to this indignity—”

Brannigan brushed the man’s hand from his sleeve as if it were something with eight legs and a sting. “Get me a writ,” he said. “Until then I’d suggest you offer no more advice about police procedure.”

“Well, I certainly shall, if this is to be your attitude.” The publisher waved off another member of his portable bar association to wake up a judge or two. “Call Learned,” he said.

“This man Fannin thinks he is some kind of Sampson,” he told reporters thirty minutes later, “out to betray Delilah. A Delilah whose favors he demanded when she was too stricken with remorse to protest—” He glared at me for emphasis, presumably the way he would glare at some untutored wretch of an editor who’d rejected Bishop Sheen and Jim Bishop on the same afternoon. “But the Philistines shall rise up and slay him,” he went on. “Fern Hoerner’s brilliant novel will be on the best-seller lists within the week, and her thousands of readers will vindicate her. As will millions of other fair-minded Americans when they applaud the film for which negotiations are already underway. Indeed, I’m having lunch with Marlon this Tuesday—”

“Marlon who?” a reporter said.

They tried to corner me when he’d run dry, but Dunn from the D.A. s office told them they would have to wait. They popped bulbs anyhow, wanting to know who had chewed up my face, and I was just sore enough to say a pimp named Oliver Constantine and to toss in the address. They began yelling for shots of Fern and the publisher insisted that they get them. Brannigan blew up then and restricted everybody to the outer lobby, then locked himself in an office with Vasella, Dunn and two of the publisher s lawyers. That left me eating Camels in a corridor, inconsequential as a raindrop in the Irrawaddy.

I was hunting for a drinking fountain up a flight when I ran into Ephraim. The police no longer had any interest in him and he was on his way out, looking whipped. He’d put on a suit before he’d turned himself in, cheap cord off the basement racks in a lower-grade shop and far from new. Tin sorry I tried to hit you last night,” he said clumsily.

“Forget it. Poets are out of my league anyhow.”

He didn’t smile. “Fern did it – there’s no question?”

“A question of proof.”

“Will they prove it?”

“If they don’t come up with anything besides my version they’ll never get into court to try.”

“What happens then?”

I nodded toward the street. “Cocktails with the bookish set. A week from now she’ll be telling Katherine Anne all the clever little things Vladimir said to Tennessee, between canapés.”

That made twice he didn’t smile, but I decided it wasn’t particularly hilarious. “She won’t go to any cocktail parties,” he said.

I looked at him with care. “If that means you know something, now’s the time to spill it, Ephraim.”

The expression on his face was reflective, gloomy, without much meaning. “I don’t know anything,” he said.

He scuffed away, plunging his hands into his pockets. I scowled after him, then got my drink and went back downstairs myself.

The conference had broken up and they were letting the publisher play in the schoolyard again, which could only mean one thing. Nothing had developed which had given me any reason not to expect it. He was chatting with Dunn and one of his attorneys, and he broke away from them beaming like a gimcrack Cary Grant when he spotted her.

“Fern, I’ll escort you home—”

She was coming out from the rear with Vasella. “Thank you again, Ernest, sincerely. You’ve been great—”

“Nothing, nothing—”

“Are there martinis tomorrow, did you say—?”

“Everyone will be there – J. D., E. B., W H., E. E.—”

They went by arm in arm, clucking, like a couple of celibate hens who’d just got word about the new rooster. I was a handful of yesterday’s feed they didn’t glance at in passing.

She had a second thought when she reached the head of the steps. She stopped, said something to the publisher, and then came back.

“I really must say thanks, Harry, since its worked out so beautifully.” She was cooing. “After all, it wasyou who put the idea into my head. A mock confession to three murders I didn’t commit – perfectly safe, and probably the greatest publicity idea in the history of literature.”

“God almighty—”

“You don’t think it’s possible, do you? In spite of how ripe you were?” She laughed. “Oh, Harry, if you could only have seen the outrage in your face – you were so shocked you even gave these people a more convincing story than I gave you. Ah, well, not that it matters what you believe, not that it matters in the least—”

Bulbs began to flash in the stairwell. A nerve was jumping in my cheek as I watched her walk out of there.

CHAPTER 31

I didn’t tell them. I didn’t say a word. Vasella had gone into the interrogation room, and he and Brannigan were pacing with all the pent frustration of castrated steers when I looked in. Brannigan snorted once and told me to go back to bed.

The Chevy was on Hudson Street. I sat in it for a while, mumbling.

She’d made up the whole story. That was all I would have needed to mention. Pardon me, fellas, tee-hee-hee, but now she says she was just playing. So she could sell her book, you know? You know? I’m really sorry if I’ve put anybody to any trouble…

The girl was as nutty as a two-headed gnu.

Even thinking about it was absurd. There wasn’t anyone else in it. I could run it up and down the flagpole all day, she’d still be the only one to salute.

Okay, Ebenezer. But what have you got to show proof-wise, like?

Let the cops prove it. Me, I’d had enough. I was going back to sleep like the captain said.

Sure I was. So I drove up Hudson two blocks and then parked again. The image in my rear-view mirror was leering at me. I leered back.

This was ridiculous. She did it.

The image kept on leering. It was a dark, amorphous blur, like an inkblot. What do you think you see in the blot, Mr. Fannin?

Fern killed them.

Of course she did. There, now, that’s a good lad. Tell me, when did you first start to get this sensation that people were taunting you? Do you often feel inadequate, left out? Do you find total strangers smirking behind their hands when you walk into a room?

She did it, damn it.

It was 4:19 when I parked in front of a hydrant four doors down from her building. There was a faint mist from the river. The angle was bad, but I could see the glow of a lamp behind her blinds. She probably had a wax statuette of somebody named Harry up there and was huddled over it in a trance, jabbing it with long sharp pins.

Who do it, voodoo it? Something moved in the shadow of an alley across the street and I went over.

“Rotten detail?”

Toomey grunted. “Got to watch her, I suppose. Not that it’ll lead to anything.”

“The publisher with her?”

“Blalock? Yeah.”

“Blalock?”

“Ernest B. Blalock – Junior. I thought you and him got to be pals.”

“I keep telling him to call me by my first name.”

“Those things take time. You look bushed.”

“I’m past knowing.”

“Just feel restless, huh?”

“Unfulfilled. Or does that make me sound like a Beatnik?”

“I know what you mean. They sure can’t dump it on a jury with just your word against hers, in spite of your honest face.” He chuckled. “I supposed you’ll get sued for that, too.”

“Sued for what, too?”

“You missed the cheery news, huh? They’re going to slap papers on you for libel, slander, defamation of character– whatever his lawyers can think of. It’ll make the tabloids for six weeks straight, with pictures of the Hoerner babe looking sexier every day. Hell, I might even buy that book myself.”

I reached for a cigarette. “What’s my face got to do with it?”

“When those newspaper guys asked you what door you walked into – I just meant that Constantine might sue you also. If nothing comes of his end he might feel kind of sore that you called him a dirty name for publication. Although on the other hand I suppose you could prove a few things about him—”

“And his Vice Squad contacts who claimed they didn’t have any file on him last liiesday.” I was fumbling in a pocket. “You got a match?”

“They covered for the guy, huh? Yeah, here—”

He flicked a lighter, and my hand went toward his wrist. I never touched him.

“Jesus!” he said. “Oh, Jesus—”

We both broke into the gutter at the same time. I did not have a gun, but Toomey’s service revolver was in his hand before we had gone three strides. The roar of the gunshots was still reverberating.

They had been incredibly close together, muffled so that they had sounded almost like a single explosion. My brain told me it had counted four but I couldn’t be sure. We bolted around opposite ends of a parked Buick, getting across.

I was ahead of him on the stone steps. I yanked at the door handle once. Toomey pushed me aside, grabbing my arm for balance and slamming a foot against the lock. It gave with a splintering sound and I went through and then doubled over, clamping my jaws against the searing pain in my chest. I stumbled up the one flight after him and around to the front.

The door to the apartment held against his shoulder. He braced himself against the banister opposite it, then vaulted forward and took it with both heels. It rocketed inward.

I stopped dead, and my insides turned to stone.

Ernest Blalock was standing at the far side of the room. He was in his shirtsleeves. The shirt was white, but no whiter than his face. His stare was fixed on the low couch next to him.

She was sprawled hideously. Her head was twisted downward, and her golden hair was trailing along the floor. A trickle of blood had seeped out of her mouth, still gleaming, but I did not have to get over there to know that it would coagulate in a minute. Her eyes were gaping in their sockets.

She was still wearing the tweed skirt, but she’d taken off her blouse and put on that short bluejacket. The jacket was open. The flesh below her black brassiere was so severely charred that the gun had to have been held flush against her. There had been five shots, not four. I could have covered the entire tight grouping with a poker chip.

There were voices in the hall, and I got the door closed somehow. I was vaguely aware of Toomey racing in and out of Fern’s bedroom, and then into the one with the fire escape which had belonged to Josie Welch. He cursed once, reappearing, and I watched him take Blalock by the arm. “Tell it,” he snapped.

Blalock shuddered. His look was glazed. He buckled against the wall when Toomey swung him around.

“Damn it—”

“That – that – Ephraim Turk. We were in the kitchen. He—”

Toomey motioned toward the second bedroom. “He go that way?”

Blalock forced a nod. “Oh, dear God. He literally dragged her around by the hair, he—”

Toomey was already on his way to the phone, jamming the revolver back onto his hip. He dialed rapidly. “Toomey, Lou – get me the lieutenant, fast. Or Captain Brannigan if he’s still on it—”

Blalock had taken a faltering step toward him. He spun suddenly, plunging into the kitchen. “Sure, dead,” I heard Toomey say. “Looks like a forty-five. What the hell, he had half an hour to swipe one someplace, he’s had the habit. Right here, yes sir—”

He hung it up. I was looking at her again, smelling the burned powder and the burned flesh. I could hear Blalock being sick. Toomey frowned at me.

“Hey, fellow, not you too?”

“Too much,” I said. “I better get some air—”

“Yeah, yeah, I can see how you’d feel. It would be your word alone he’d killed her on, wouldn’t it?”

I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t. I went back outside on legs that did not want to do anything but fold in half.

CHAPTER 32

There were people on the stairway to the next floor, all of them in bathrobes. “Say, did we hear—?”

“Police matter,” I managed, and then I heard Toomey telling them something behind me. I went down and through the smashed lower door, wincing at every step. I took hold of the concrete rail with both hands and hung there, swaying.

My word he’d killed her on. Sensitive, saintly little Ephraim. She won’t go to any cocktail parties. I should have known, dear Christ I should have known.

Audrey Grant and Josie Welch. Call girls, tramps who’d had nothing for him but scorn. One of them had married him as the most brutal kind of joke, the other had given herself to him once and then pretended it never happened. But Pete Peters had been right. In his warped life they had been the only two women who mattered, and I’d told him that Fern had murdered them both.

I’d told him. I’d been so sure, so damned sure. And so convincing that thirty minutes after he’d talked to me he’d not only gotten the gun but had already used five of the six bullets it probably held, and now he’d be… now… I heard the first distant wail of a siren in the darkness as I started to run.

Commerce Street, I’d seen the address in the paper. It took me three minutes to get over there, no more, sprinting through the wet mist with both hands clasped against my side. The building was ancient, brick, and its glass vestibule door was open. E. Turk, 3-EI lurched up the two flights. I stopped, gasping, just steps shy of the landing, fighting vertigo and pain and a dozen other things I could not have named.

“—Listen, listen, we ought to wait for the police—”

“—But time is passing, suppose he needs—”

“—Who’s this coming now? They couldn’t have gotten here so quick—”

Faces turned from a closed door as I dragged myself up the rest of the way. They might have been faces reflected in muddied water, for all I saw them. I staggered through the cluster to the knob. The apartment wasn’t locked.

“Hey, whore you? You ain’t supposed to—”

I turned my head. I must have looked like Raskolnikov on his way to get rid of the ax. I must have looked like Yorick when they dug him up. No one made anymore protest. I pulled the door after me.

There was only one room. It was close, disordered, filthy. He was on a narrow disheveled bed, on his back. One of his shoes was off, and there was a rip in the heel of his blue sock. The gun was still in his hand, although it had jerked out of his mouth at the recoil. A Ruger Blackhawk.

People don’t kill other people. People are good, people have beautiful souls. There had been about forty books on two metal shelves above an unpainted wood table. It didn’t seem that he would have had time, but he’d gotten his hands on each of them, rending bindings and shredding pages as if he’d decided that literature had been the cause of all his troubles. In a way, maybe it had been. The debris was scattered around the bare floor, except for a single page which lay near his shoulder. It could have been there by chance, but it was corny enough for the fanciful son of a gun to have meant it. It shook me, because of the foolishness I’d been quoting to myself before he’d hit me in that alley last night:

…It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.

Two cops were pressing up the stairs when I came out. One of them was Sergeant DiMaggio.

“I guess you better go back over, Fannin.”

I nodded. An elderly man touched my sleeve as I started down, lifting a leathery, concerned face. “He was an author, that boy. I don’t know if he was any good or not. He’s dead, eh?”

“As dead as Dickens,” I said, but the voice wasn’t my own. Mine was trying to burst through the top of my skull, screaming in horror.

CHAPTER 33

Hiram Henshaw was perched cross-legged on a deformed hassock in his living room, squinting at me like a myopic canary from behind his thick lenses. He was wearing a stained sleeveless undershirt and a pair of pegged pants the color of rotted apricots. Except to whistle once or twice he had not made a sound in the ten minutes I’d taken to tell him the story.

I wasn’t sure why I was up there. My viscera were still rattling around like loose bolts, and I felt about as sociable as a hangman. It was well after nine o’clock.

He picked at a splotch of dried shaving lather in his left ear. “So you’ve been pacing the paranoic pavements ever since you left the law, like?”

“A couple hours. I had coffee just down the block—” “Indeed, indeed, glad to be of sympathy. I can see how the circumstances would make a cat start gnawing on his nearest leg. Like rough. But man, you couldn’t have been cognizant that crazy Turk would perforate the chick’s pajama tops. Or that he’d do unto himself like he did.”

“Okay, I guess I couldn’t have been. But still, I—” “Still you’re dogged by dismal doubt. She came on with this parting bit about how she’d extemporized the whole solo, and you’re sure she had to be just giving you the big razzoo – but you’re not thatsure—”

“You’ve got it, friend.”

“Yet you voiced the conclusion yourself – the chick was the only one with motive for the mayhem, nest pas?This is not reassuring enough for your caviling conscience?”

I shook my head. “I’ve got to come up with something concrete. If I could just prove she’d stolen the book—”

“Oh, yes. But she would have held flame to that script of old Loosh Vaulking’s first thing – tell-tale page after tell-tale page, gone, gone. Alas, I dig your dilemma, I truly do.”

“Yeah.” I took a smoke. “How do writers work, Henny? Damn it, I suppose once a guy copied over a new draft of something he wouldn’t have any reason at all to save the earlier version—”

Henshaw shrugged. “Like as not, not, like. But on the other hand since when does a cat need a reasonto save things? Like I cherish three hundred and thirty-seven unpaid traffic tickets in a scented drawer, you know? And—”

He stopped abruptly, tilting his head to one side. His brow was wrinkled. After a minute he began to talk to himself. “In Vinnie’s Place? Surely, in Vinnie’s. Just making idle talk, and Loosh declared – hmmm, now what did Loosh declare? Like his pad had gone to pot since the domestic tranquility had terminated. Like Fern had left his bed and board, his bed and broom, and that cat was such a slob he couldn’t live in the same room with himself. So like he’d been – like – well, pull my daisy—”

He faced me again. He pursed his lips. Very slowly he got to his feet. “Now leave us not let hope spring too eternal, lad, but Loosh Vaulking had this brother. Upstate a ways – where, where? Dobbs Ferry, oh, yes. Oh, yes, indeed. And in his brother’s pad are many mansions, you dig me? And like Loosh had taken to stashing stuff for storage—”

Henshaw giggled. And then he bowed from the waist. “Like I reiterate, there could be nothing up there but bags of old bread. But if you’ll remember to make restitution for the long-distance chatter before you debouch, man, there’s like a telephone on the floor under yon sagging chair—”

And it was that simple. That simple. The draft was sketchy, and far from finished, but it was indisputably the same novel. Roger Vaulking, his wife and a housemaid were able to swear it had been in a closet in their home, along with other possessions of Lucien’s, for over two years. An immediate injunction was granted against sale of the Blalock edition, and Roger Vaulking told reporters he would eventually release the work through another firm, but not until its notoriety had substantially lessened. Review copies with Fern’s name on them were around, of course, and Dana O’Dea got hold of one and sent it to me from San Francisco about a month later.

She’d hung around for a day or two, but my ribs got worse before they got better, and that baseball nostalgia goes only so far. I was sorry, but even Medwick had to leave potential scores on base once in a while. I rewrapped the book and mailed it to Sergeant DiMaggio that November, when Constantine and Ivan Klobb were indicted on assorted counts of prostitution.

Not that there was much point in the gesture. The sergeant probably never read it either.