It was a few minutes before five o’clock when Ardis Clinton unlocked the rear door of her apartment, and admitted her lover. He was a cow-eyed young man with a wild mass of curly black hair. He worked as a dishwasher at Joe’s Diner, which was directly across the alley.
They embraced passionately. Her body pressed against the meat cleaver, concealed inside his shirt, and Ardis shivered with delicious anticipation. Very soon now, it would all be over. That stupid ox, her husband, would be dead. He and his stupid cracks – all the dullness and boredom would be gone forever. And with the twenty thousand insurance money, ten thousand dollars double-indemnity . . .
“We’re going to be so happy, Tony,” she whispered. “You’ll have your own place, a real swank little restaurant with what they call one of those intimate bars. And you’ll just manage it, just kind of saunter around in a dress suit, and—”
“And we’ll live happily ever after,” Tony said. “Just me and you, baby, walking down life’s highway together.”
Ardis let out a gasp. She shoved him away from her, glaring up into his handsome empty face. “Don’t!” she snapped. “Don’t say things like that! I’ve told you and told you not to do it, and if I have to tell you again. I’ll—!”
“But what’d I say?” he protested. “I didn’t say nothin’.”
“Well . . .” She got control of herself, forcing a smile. “Never mind, darling. You haven’t had any opportunities and we’ve never really had a chance to know each other, so – so never mind. Things will be different after we’re married.” She patted his cheek, kissed him again. “You got away from the diner, all right? No one saw you leave?”
“Huh-uh. I already took the stuff up to the steam-table for Joe, and the waitress was up front too, y’know, filling the sugar bowls and the salt and pepper shakers like she always does just before dinner. And—”
“Good. Now, suppose someone comes back to the kitchen and finds out you’re not there. What’s your story going to be?”
“Well . . . I was out in the alley dumping some garbage. I mean—” he corrected himself hastily, “maybe I was. Or maybe I was down in the basement, getting some supplies. Or maybe I was in the john – the lavatory, I mean – or—”
“Fine,” Ardis said approvingly. “You don’t say where you were, so they can’t prove you weren’t there. You just don’t remember where you were, understand, darling? You might have been any number of places.”
Tony nodded. Looking over her shoulder into the bedroom, he frowned worriedly. “Why’d you do that now, honey? I know this has got to look like a robbery. But tearin’ up the room now, before he gets here—”
“There won’t be time afterwards. Don’t worry, Tony. I’ll keep the door closed.”
“But he might open it and look in. And if he sees all them dresser drawers dumped around, and—”
“He won’t. He won’t look into the bedroom. I know exactly what he’ll do, exactly what he’ll say, the same things that he’s always done and said ever since we’ve been married. All the stupid, maddening, dull, tiresome—!” She broke off abruptly, conscious that her voice was rising. “Well, forget it,” she said, forcing another smile. “He won’t give us any trouble.”
“Whatever you say,” Tony nodded docilely. “If you say so, that’s the way it is, Ardis.”
“But there’ll be trouble – from the cops. I know I’ve already warned you about it, darling. But it’ll be pretty bad, worse than anything you’ve ever gone through. They won’t have any proof, but they’re bound to be suspicious, and if you ever start talking, admitting anything—”
“I won’t. They won’t get anything out of me.”
“You’re sure? They’ll try to trick you. They’ll probably tell you that I’ve confessed. They may even slap you around. So if you’re not absolutely sure . . .”
“They won’t get anything out of me,” he repeated stolidly. “I won’t talk.”
And studying him, Ardis knew that he wouldn’t.
She led the way down the hall to the bathroom. He parted the shower curtains, and stepped into the tub. Drawing a pair of gloves from his pocket, he pulled them onto his hands. Awkwardly, he fumbled the meat cleaver from beneath his shirt.
“Ardis. Uh – look, honey.”
“Yes?”
“Do I have to hit you? Couldn’t I just maybe give you a little shove, or—”
“No, darling,” she said gently. “You have to hit me. This is supposed to be a robbery. If you killed my husband without doing anything to me, well, you know how it would look.”
“But I never hit no woman – any woman – before. I might hit you too hard, and—”
“Tony!”
“Well, all right,” he said sullenly. “I don’t like it, but all right.”
Ardis murmured soothing endearments. Then, brushing his lips quickly with her own, she returned to the living room. It was a quarter after five, exactly five minutes – but exactly – until her husband, Bill, would come home. Closing the bedroom door, she lay down on the lounge. He negligee fell open, and she left it that way, grinning meanly as she studied the curving length of her thighs.
Give the dope a treat for a change, she thought. Let him get one last good look before he gets his.
Her expression changed. Wearily, resentfully, she pulled the material of the negligee over her legs. Because, of course, Bill would never notice. She could wear a ring in her nose, paint a bull’s eye around her navel, and he’d never notice.
If he had ever noticed, just once paid her a pretty compliment . . .
If he had ever done anything different, ever said or done anything different at all – even the teensiest little bit . . .
But he hadn’t. Maybe he couldn’t. So what else could she do but what she was doing? She could get a divorce, sure, but that was all she’d get. No money; nothing with which to build a new life. Nothing to make up for those fifteen years of slowly being driven mad.
It’s his own fault, she thought bitterly. I can’t take any more. If I had to put up with him for just one more night, even one more hour . . . !
She heard heavy footsteps in the hallway. Then, a key turned in the doorlatch, and Bill came in. He was a master machinist, a solidly built man of about forty-five. The old-fashioned gold-rimmed glasses on his pudgy nose gave him a look of owlish solemnity.
“Well,” he said, setting down his lunch bucket. “Another day, another dollar.”
Ardis grimaced. He plodded across to the lounge, stooped, and gave her a half-hearted peck on the cheek.
“Long time no see,” he said. “What we havin’ for supper?”
Ardis gritted her teeth. It shouldn’t matter, now; in a few minutes it would all be over. Yet somehow it did matter. He was as maddening to her as he had ever been.
“Bill . . .” She managed a seductive smile, slowly drawing the negligee apart. “How do I look, Bill?”
“Okay,” he yawned. “Got a little hole in your drawers, though. What’d you say we was havin’ for supper?”
“Slop,” she said. “Garbage. Trash salad with dirt dressing.”
“Sounds good. We got any hot water?”
Ardis sucked in her breath. She let it out again in a kind of infuriated moan. “Of course, we’ve got hot water! Don’t we always have? Well, don’t we? Why do you have to ask every night?”
“So what’s to get excited about?” he shrugged. “Well, guess I’ll go splash the chassis.”
He plodded off down the hall. Ardis heard the bathroom door open, and close. She got up, stood waiting by the telephone. The door banged open again, and Tony came racing up the hall.
He had washed off the cleaver. While he hastily tucked it back inside his shirt, Ardis dialed the operator. “Help,” she cried weakly. “Help . . . police . . . murder!”
She let the receiver drop to the floor, spoke to Tony in a whisper. “He’s dead? You’re sure of it?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure I’m sure. What do you think?”
“All right. Now, there’s just one more thing . . .”
“I can’t, Ardis. I don’t want to. I—”
“Hit me,” she commanded, and thrust out her chin. “Tony, I said to hit me!”
He hit her. A thousand stars blazed through her brain, and disappeared. And she crumpled silently to the floor.
. . . When she regained consciousness, she was lying on the lounge. A heavy-set man, a detective obviously, was seated at her side, and a white-jacketed young man with a stethoscope draped around his neck hovered nearby.
She had never felt better in her life. Even the lower part of her face, where Tony had smashed her, was surprisingly free of pain. Still, because it was what she should do, she moaned softly; spoke in a weak, hazy voice.
“Where am I?” she said. “What happened?”
“Lieutenant Powers,” the detective said. “Suppose you tell me what happened, Mrs Clinton.”
“I . . . I don’t remember. I mean, well, my husband had just come home, and gone back to the bathroom. And there was a knock on the door, and I supposed it was the paper-boy or someone like that. So—”
“You opened the door and he rushed in and slugged you, right? Then what happened?”
“Well, then he rushed into the bedroom and started searching it. Yanking out the dresser drawers, and—”
“What was he searching for, Mrs Clinton? You don’t have any considerable amount of money around, do you? Or any jewelry aside from what you’re wearing? And it wasn’t your husband’s payday, was it?”
“Well, no. But—”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he was crazy. All I know is what he did.”
“I see. He must have made quite a racket, seems to me. How come your husband didn’t hear it?”
“He couldn’t have. He had the shower running, and—”
She caught herself, fear constricting her throat. Lieutenant Powers grinned grimly.
“Missed a bet, huh, Mrs Clinton?”
“I – I don’t know what you’re—”
“Come off of it! The bathtub’s dry as an oven. The shower was never turned on, and you know why it wasn’t. Because there was a guy standing inside of it.”
“B-but – but I don’t know anything. I was unconscious, and—”
“Then, how do you know what happened? How do you know this guy went into the bedroom and started tearing it apart? And how did you make that telephone call?”
“Well, I . . . I wasn’t completely unconscious. I sort of knew what was going on without really—”
“Now, you listen to me,” he said harshly. “You made that fake call of yours – yes, I said fake – to the operator at twenty-three minutes after five. There happened to be a prowl car right here in the neighborhood, so two minutes later, at five-twenty-five, there were cops here in your apartment. You were unconscious then, more than an hour ago. You’ve been unconscious until just now.”
Ardis’ brain whirled. Then, it cleared suddenly, and a great calm came over her.
“I don’t see quite what you’re hinting at, lieutenant. If you’re saying that I was confused, mixed up – that I must have dreamed or imagined some of the things I told you – I’ll admit it.”
“You know what I’m saying! I’m saying that no guy could have got in and out of this place, and done what this one did, in any two minutes!”
“Then the telephone operator must have been mistaken about the time,” Ardis said brightly. “I don’t know how else to explain it.”
Powers grunted. He said he could give her a better explanation – and he gave it to her. The right one. Ardis listened to it placidly, murmuring polite objections.
“That’s ridiculous, lieutenant. Regardless of any gossip you may have heard, I don’t know this, uh, Tony person. And I most certainly did not plot with him or anyone else to kill my husband. Why—”
“He says you did. We got a signed confession from him.”
“Have you?” But of course they didn’t have. They might have found out about Tony, but he would never have talked. “That hardly proves anything, does it?”
“Now, you listen to me, Mrs Clinton! Maybe you think that—”
“How is my husband, anyway? I do hope he wasn’t seriously hurt.”
“How is he?” the lieutenant snarled. “How would he be after gettin’ worked over with—” He broke off, his eyes flickering. “As a matter of fact,” he said heavily, “he’s going to be all right. He was pretty badly injured, but he was able to give us a statement and—”
“I’m so glad. But why are you questioning me, then?” It was another trick. Bill had to be dead. “If he gave you a statement, then you must know that everything happened just like I said.”
She waited, looked at him quizzically. Powers scowled, his stern face wrinkling with exasperation.
“All right,” he said, at last. “All right, Mrs Clinton. Your husband is dead. We don’t have any statement from him, and we don’t have any confession from Tony.”
“Yes?”
“But we know that you’re guilty, and you know that you are. And you’d better get it off your conscience while you still can.”
“While I still can?”
“Doc” – Powers jerked his head at the doctor. At the man, that is, who appeared to be a doctor. “Lay it on the line, doc. Tell her that her boyfriend hit her a little too hard.”
The man came forward hesitantly. He said, “I’m sorry, Mrs Clinton. You have a – uh – you’ve sustained a very serious injury.”
“Have I?” Ardis smiled. “I feel fine.”
“I don’t think,” the doctor said judiciously, “that that’s quite true. What you mean is that you don’t feel anything at all. You couldn’t. You see, with an injury such as yours—”
“Get out,” Ardis said. “Both of you get out.”
“Please, Mrs Clinton. Believe me, this isn’t a trick. I haven’t wanted to alarm you, but—”
“And you haven’t,” she said. “You haven’t scared me even a little bit, mister. Now, clear out!”
She closed her eyes, kept them closed firmly. When, at last, she reopened them, Powers and the doctor – if he really had been a doctor – were gone. And the room was in darkness.
She lay smiling to herself, congratulating herself. In the corridor outside, she heard heavy footsteps approaching; and she tensed for a moment. Then, remembering, she relaxed again.
Not Bill, of course. She was through with that jerk forever. He’d driven her half out of her mind, got her to the point where she couldn’t have taken another minute of him if her life depended on it. But now . . .
The footsteps stopped in front of her door. A key turned in the lock, the door opened and closed.
There was a clatter of a lunchpail being set down; then a familiar voice – maddeningly familiar words:
“Well. Another day, another dollar.”
Ardis’ mouth tightened; it twisted slowly, in a malicious grin. So they hadn’t given up yet! They were pulling this one last trick. Well, let them; she’d play along with the gag.
The man plodded across the room, stooped, and gave her a half-hearted peck on the cheek. “Long time no see,” he said. “What we havin’ for supper?”
“Bill . . .” Ardis said. “How do I look, Bill?”
“Okay. Got your lipstick smeared, though. What’d you say we was having for supper?”
“Stewed owls! Now, look, mister. I don’t know who you—”
“Sounds good. We got any hot water?”
“Of course, we’ve got hot water! Don’t we always have? Why do you always have to ask if – if –”
She couldn’t go through with it. Even as a gag – even someone who merely sounded and acted like he did – it was too much to bear.
“Y-you get out of here!” she quavered. “I don’t have to stand for this! I c-can’t stand it! I did it for fifteen years, and—”
“So what’s to get excited about?” he said. “Well, guess I’ll go splash the chassis.”
“Stop it! STOP IT!” Her screams filled the room . . . silent screams ripping through silence. “He’s – you’re dead! I know you are! You’re dead, and I don’t have to put up with you for another minute. And – and – !”
“Wouldn’t take no bets on that if I was you,” he said mildly. “Not with a broken neck like yours.”
He trudged off toward the bathroom, wherever the bathroom is in Eternity.