CHANCE MOLLOY KNEW HE did not have enough evidence to convict anyone of murder. He could not, in a court of law, back up his dark suspicions.
He sent a direct warning to Nesbitt. “Sit down in that chair and wait, Nesbitt,” he said.
“It’s been—several minutes. Perhaps the woman has escaped.” Nesbitt’s lips shook. He sank back on the chair.
Molloy seemed relaxed. Actually he was not. He was taking a hard chance. He was following a line of action that was daring, risky; it might came to no good end. But he was going through with it; if it failed he would take the consequences—and try again. Those guilty, he was unalterably determined, would pay for Martha’s murder.
Julie Edwards swung toward the office door, stiffened. “I hear ... footsteps ...”
Molloy nodded. He had heard the footsteps too. He called, “Who is it?”
“It’s me—Copeland,” came a sick voice.
“Well, come in, man. Is the woman with you? Bring her in.”
Copeland came into the office alone. He did not look well.
“She—killed—herself,” he said hoarsely.
“What?”
“Molloy—she—oh, my God, man!” Copeland put his hands over his face.
“What’s that?” Nesbitt yelled. “You say she killed herself?”
“Y-yes.”
“How did it happen?”
“A razor. She—”
Molloy was composed. He said, “You were going to bring her down here without letting her know what she was in for.”
“Yes. Yes, I was ... I—that is what I intended.” He got a good effect with jerking his words out. “But—but she wasn’t as drunk as I supposed. She got suspicious. She said some nasty things—she has an awful tongue. I think—I suppose—I lost my temper and gave it away. I think I said: ‘Cut that out. We know all about you. We’ve got the goods on you.’ Yes, I think that’s what I said. She—she became terrified.” He clamped both hands to his face, which was pale enough, and continued, “She ran into the bathroom. My razor—she took it and she ...” He threw out his hands wildly and moaned, “God, I hope never to seen another such sight as long as I live.”
“Dead! She’s dead!” Nesbitt cried. He whirled on Molloy, screamed, “Molloy, you are responsible—”
Molloy brought up one hand; the gesture, commanding, was enough to silence Nesbitt; the frown that followed it commanded Nesbitt to restrain himself.
“We will go up and look into this,” Molloy said.
Copeland cried, “First—a doctor—”
“Didn’t you say she was dead?” asked Molloy dryly.
“I don’t—Man, if you had seen—that razor ...” Hands, arms, cheeks, all participated in the shudder that Copeland gave.
Molloy was not much affected. He saw with satisfaction, however, that Julie was outwardly tranquil. “You had better come along,” he said to her. “Safety in numbers, you know.” He used the polished toe of his shoe to touch the door, swing it a little wider. The tone in which he spoke to Copeland was reserved, bleakly expressionless. He said, “Will you show us the way upstairs, Mr. Copeland?”
“But a doctor—”
“Later.”
Mounting the grand sweep of staircase, they were in dispersed order—Copeland ahead, then Nesbitt, and Julie beside Molloy, quite silent. They were all silent. The absinthe-colored carpeting was very thick; it took their footsteps and made them nearly noiseless.
Julie’s hand found Molloy’s arm. He glanced down at her, gave her, over his concentration on the grim business at hand, warmth and encouragement. He had sensed that she was appealing to him silently, and he was gratified. And again he wished for more normalcy, so that he might investigate the emotions she seemed to arouse in him. He wanted to test his feelings, weigh them, and balance them against the many other factors that infatuation should be balanced against.
They were in a hall. There came, momentarily, a lapse in the force of the blizzard, and the absence of the storm as a background sound effect was acutely noticeable. For a few seconds the wind no longer pounced on gables or breathed hard around eaves, or made beams creak or clattered shingles. The resulting silence, by comparison, was much too intense. It seemed an abnormal and too clear stillness.
“What door?”
“That one.” Paul Roger Copeland pointed shakily.
“Go in.”
“I—”
“Go in,” Molloy said.
Copeland opened the door and, head down, eyes averted, went into the room.
George’s voice sounded bleakly in the room.
“Come in,” George said. “But be careful.”
Molloy stepped inside himself.
“So you made it.”
“Uh-huh,” George said. “I ain’t made it all the way though. They still got whatever they’re packing in the way of guns. I ain’t quite got up the nerve to search ’em.”
In the bedroom it was now still, except when the wind nuzzled the window and rattled its sash. The hard sugarlike snow, driven against the sides of the house and rebounding, was occasionally carried past the window in streamers that resembled trailing tobacco smoke. But in the bedroom it was cozy.
Vastly troubled, George watched Walheim and Fleshman. He watched them as a cat would eye two rats—quite confident of dealing with either rodent separately, but apprehensive lest one, perhaps both, escape if he moved on them together.
“You haven’t quite got us, you know,” Walheim said.
“You think not?” George asked.
“We’re armed ... Would it do any good to offer you money?” Walheim inquired.
“No.”
“Say quite a large sum—”
“Shut up,” George said stolidly. He did not think of the money; there was no tremor in his loyalty. A solid man and unshakable, he was concerned only about how they could finish this without somebody getting shot. George stood firmly; his hat sat squarely on his head; there was a small pool of melted snow in the indented crown of his hat, and another pool was retained by the hat’s upturned brim. His damp overcoat hung limply. The gun was steady in his hand, his eyes were alert, his face impassive.
Fleshman cleared his throat hoarsely. The fat man tried his hand. “Use your head—”
“I am. Use yours. Don’t try to pull anything.”
“You’ll be sorry—”
“Shut up.”
Fleshman sulked. His head hung forward and his lips pouted and the upper one protruded. The fat man did not like suddenness, surprises, hardness, and George was all of these.
The fat man spoke to George peevishly. “You were watching the back door, huh?”
“No.”
“But—”
“I was watching the woman,” George said. “Mr. Molloy sent me ahead to keep an eye on her.” Small beads of moisture that were not melted snow stood on George’s upper lip. “That door over yonder, the one I came out of, is a closet. I was there all the time.”
Molloy stood poised, tense. He had, in an instant, weighed the situation, and it was very bad. Walheim and Fleshman were trapped—and yet weren’t. They were not disarmed. Walheim, in particular, was on the edge of desperation and might do anything. Walheim was evidently like that, a man whose need was to meet a climax with physical action. Walheim would be a man whose idea of hell, in a climax, was to do nothing. The man, inflamed, was dangerous.
“The woman alive?” Molloy asked.
“Yeah,” George said. “They were going to work on her throat with a razor. I stopped that.”
The razor, open, Molloy saw on the floor. Its mother-of-pearl handles, its unstained blade, glistened.
The woman lay on the bed. She was sleeping. Her face was loose and sensuous, petulant in sleep rather than evil. The blanket concealed her body from the collar-bone down, except for one pink curving leg that was uncovered. Her breathing made the most noticeable sound in the room.
Molloy’s eyes went back to Walheim ... The man, Molloy thought bitterly, is going to take the crazy chance ...
Paul Roger Copeland pointed wildly at George. “This man ... who is he?’
No reply came from Molloy. He was watching, laying grim plans for action. Preparing for the holocaust that, if he had read Walheim rightly, would break in a moment.
“I’m George,” George said. He was not taking his eyes from Walheim.
“But—”
“How come I’m here?” George said. “How did that happen? You want to know? Brother, I’ll tell you. Mr. Molloy figured no head of a big company like Transfa was dope enough to be fooled by a phony dame, specially a phony dame who had held a job as important as Martha held. That just wasn’t reasonable. It wasn’t logical. The only answer was that you were pretending to be fooled. And where did that reasoning lead us? It led us to figuring you were one of them. We didn’t know you personally killed Martha, though.”
Copeland’s arms dangled loosely. His color became worse, and his head sagged.
“That’s ridiculous—”
“Another thing,” George said. “You’re pretty damn healthy. You’re supposed to be selling Transfa on account of illness. But you’re pretty damn healthy, ain’t you?”
“I’m not involved!” Copeland wailed.
“That’s very funny.”
“I tell you—”
“You think I wasn’t in that closet there? You think I didn’t listen to you tell these guys to knock off the woman? You think I didn’t?” George asked.
“You heard! ... ?”
“Sure I heard it.”
Molloy was hardly listening ... It was coming now. Walheim’s posture had not changed; he gave few outward signs; there was no do-or-die clenching of teeth and no clenched muscles. But it was corning now ...
Fleshman was horrified. He had sensed Walheim’s decision. He would, of course, go along with Walheim. But he was sick of the thought of violence, at the idea of George’s bullets driving into his belly. The fat man’s temperament was one that mostly revolved around his viscera, anyway. The only things he really valued had to do closely with his physical comfort—good food in his stomach, soft places to sit, silk underwear ... Now! It was now! Walheim was moving for George, and he moved, too, and the stillness in the room was broken apart by two shots, and it seemed in an instant that Marcus Walheim was quite dead there on the floor ...
A silly pouting grin twisted Fleshman’s lips, and he sat down. It was the hurt grimace of a fat man whose gluttony, laziness, and overdependence on others had led to disaster. He began to sob. There was no real hardness in him anywhere. The big smeary tears rolled down his cheeks. Both his hands pressed tenderly over the place in his abdomen where George’s bullet had entered.
George looked at his handiwork stupidly.
“They—jumped me,” George said. “They—I had to—well, there wasn’t anything else to do.” He stared down dazedly at the gun dangling in his hands. “Jeeze!” he said.
Molloy’s attention went to the bed. The woman was sitting up there. Her eyes were wide open, too widely open, as if the alcoholic stupor had not been fully dispelled. Her lower lip drooped, her shoulders sagged, and she was pale, as if there was no warmth in her flesh.
George peered at her.
“Oh, the rumpus woke her up,” he said.
Paul Roger Copeland fled silently down the stairs. He knew each inch of the steps, because he had climbed them countless times as child, youth, and man, and he was able to go silently, without stumbling. It was on these same stairs that, as a boy, he had played and imagined himself as a dashing corsair, rapier-keen, seizing prizes at will—boldly, audaciously, without regard for the rights of others.
Copeland turned his head furtively, glancing back. Chance Molloy was still in the room, and Julie Edwards. Nesbitt, too. They were, for the moment, too shocked by what had happened to notice Copeland’s flight.
Copeland opened the front door, slipped out, taking the key, which he inserted in the lock from the outside, locking the door. He stumbled through the snow to Molloy’s car ... The key was not in the ignition lock. Molloy must have taken it. Copeland began running away through the snow, head down against the wind.
There was a cry behind him, but he did not turn his head. He knew, instinctively, it would be George leaning from the bedroom window. The snow had hampered him, and he applied more effort, drove muscles harder. He heard a vague yell: “Stop! Stop!” The icy air cut his lungs; it came into his throat like a flame. He could now, strangely, see himself with cruel, naked clarity. A man of cruel cunning, a man who chose to seize rather than earn what he wanted, an opportunist. His ears pounded now until he could hardly distinguish the hammer of shots behind him. If only the frozen air didn’t hurt his lungs so—the pain struck sudden and sharp now, and he stumbled—he stumbled and then he went down tiredly, throwing his thin dark face into the snow and letting it remain there. Unwillingly he gave his last gasping breaths to the tiny, hard flakes of snow ...