It was damp, it was cold; smog filled the air and rasped at the eyeballs even indoors; it was everything a day in April should not be. Arthur Conway, as he came downstairs to breakfast, ruefully acknowledged that Los Angeles could serve up as dismal weather as could be found anywhere in the world. He had planned to get out: to take a lunch, drive up in the hills, and hike until nightfall. Any day, now, there should be word about the two stories, so he could afford to loaf a bit — get out, get a little fresh air. It seemed absurd, but he had got less exercise out here than in New York; nobody walks in California, and walking was the only form of physical exertion he enjoyed.
But in weather like this, it was out of the question; even the alternative, a day in the house with Helen, was preferable. It meant, of course, that he would at least have to make a pretense of writing.
He saw them the instant he walked into the dining room: the two manila envelopes alongside his place at the table. There was no need to open them; he knew what they were. And from the way they were displayed, it was obvious that Helen knew too. She had finished her breakfast, and he could hear her in the kitchen; he realized he would have to face her, and he knew it would not be pleasant. He had had high hopes for these stories, and it was depressing to have them rejected, but his disappointment was secondary now to his concern at the prospect of the galling scene he knew was coming.
“Two more masterpieces come home to roost, I see.” He had not heard her come in from the kitchen, and now she was standing over the table, her contemptuous glance divided between him and the envelopes.
“These are the ones you were sure of, aren’t they?” she continued. “These would bring in enough so you’d have time to write some good stories. And even the pulps won’t buy your stuff.”
“I’m sorry. I tried.” That was the extent of his defense.
“You tried...” The vitriol dripped from her voice. “You haven’t written a line since you finished these. It took you three months to get this tripe on paper. Oh well, what’s the difference? Most of the time you don’t write at all, and when you do it’s no good.”
“I can’t write this junk any more.” His voice rose; he knew he shouldn’t let her get under his skin, but he seemed powerless to prevent it.
“Any more! When could you? You were going to do this stuff just long enough to get a stake — so you’d have time for that novel and that play and all the rest of the things you talked about — and I believed. Well, at least you’ve stopped talking about them.” Her voice dropped, and now her contempt became lethal. “You’ve stopped talking, and writing, and thinking — and living, as far as I’m concerned.”
She picked up some dishes and went into the kitchen. When she did not return, after a moment, Conway took advantage of his opportunity to escape. He caught up the newspapers and started for his room, but her voice followed him.
“What shall I do with these manuscripts? Put ’em where they belong — in the—” He closed the door to shut out the rest.
He was safe in his room. She wouldn’t follow him there; that was one of the few things — one of the very few — that remained from the first days of their marriage. They had met just after the war and married a month later. Any sort of apartment was almost impossible to find, but Helen had insisted they must have three rooms so that he might have a “study” where he could work without interruption. Somehow or other she had found one, and she lived up to the rule she made herself — never to enter, or even to knock, when the door was closed. She had continued to live up to it for some reason. And that was about all that remained of those gay, desperately hopeful days when they had faith in each other — and in themselves.
They had occasionally quarreled in those days, too, of course, and usually about the same thing: Conway’s failure to sell a story, or what she called his laziness. As she was apt to consider anything less than eight hours a day at the typewriter laziness, some violent disagreements ensued. But in the fervid reconciliation that always followed so quickly, she was full of remorse for her outburst; it was, she explained, because, having no ambitions for herself, she was so terribly ambitious for him.
Conway sat down to finish the papers, but his eyes fixed on the photograph which stood on his desk. She had had it taken, at his request, shortly before they were married, and it was on the desk because it had always been there; now it took up space and was in the way and it disturbed him to have to look at it — but to move it would have been an overt act. She had been blonde then, with a handsome figure and large, intense eyes. She hadn’t changed much, Conway reflected — or, rather, she’d changed in degree but not in kind. She was not only still blonde, she was considerably more so. Her figure remained good, but it was verging on heaviness, although that, perhaps, was a matter of taste, and some might call it voluptuous. Her eyes were even more intense; to Conway, at times, they were frighteningly so.
And now, although it had never been said in words, they were through. It surprised Conway that she had not already left him, although he thought he knew the reason. But he would have to wait for her to make the break; she was not a woman to allow any man to discard her.
He got a cigarette from the dresser and stopped to gaze into the mirror. He saw a man of thirty-two, who looked older, with a well set up body, hair that was thinning slightly at the temples, and a skin which would have seemed pale even in New York. His pallor was typical of the frustrations he had met with since they had come here, and he wondered how much California had had to do with what had happened to Helen and himself. Not much, he decided; they had begun to get on each other’s nerves in New York. That had been one of the reasons Helen had wanted to come out here two years ago; she had said that if he could be out of doors more, he might feel better and work better. But, as it turned out, when he proposed taking a day off, she complained bitterly, so that he neither felt nor worked better, and their relationship had steadily become worse. And as it did, Conway’s writing became more laborious and less frequent — and less salable. It was a vicious circle, and — Conway realized that he was about to wallow in self-pity; he made himself acknowledge that the reason he hadn’t been writing, and wouldn’t write today, was because he hadn’t an idea in his head. He picked up the papers again and began to read, with a forlorn hope that he might come on an idea out of which he could, somehow, make a story.
There’s one thing to be said for the Los Angeles papers, he thought as he looked through them, they never let you down. No matter how low you may be, in body or spirit, a brief contemplation of the gallery of unfortunates presented daily in the press must make your own lot seem sheer bliss.
It appeared to be about an average day. “Couple Robbed in Parked Car,” with hints of darker deeds. “Nude Woman Dancing in Park Eludes Police” — that, he thought, was a new low even for the Los Angeles gendarmerie. “Waitress Slain by Sex Fiend” — a regular weekly occurrence; they must keep a standing headline for that one. Conway wondered if the police would ever capture one of these maniacs, who seemed to make up a sizable portion of the population of Southern California. To the best of his knowledge they never had. “Main St. Bars Raided; Two B-Girls Arrested.” A blind man on Main Street at any given moment after 10 P.M. could find twenty B-Girls with their hands in someone’s pockets, but the police found two, so things must be looking up. “Wife Who Vanished from Parking Lot Found in Motel with 16-Year-Old Boy; Husband to Seek Divorce.” Conway never ceased to be amazed at what precocious juveniles they breed in California.
He blew smoke at the ceiling and again scanned the headlines. The trouble with most of the crime news in Los Angeles, he had long since concluded, was that it was too bizarre for fiction. Or else, by repetition, it had become commonplace. There were no new angles; crime was in a rut.
And then, suddenly, out of the blue, it came to him. He riffled through the paper, found the story, and reread it. What had happened was so simple it was almost ludicrous.
Mr. and Mrs. George J. Yates had gone shopping the preceding Friday night at the neighborhood Supermarket. Mr. Yates had gone in to do the marketing for the week-end — Mrs. Yates not, apparently, being the domestic type — leaving her in the car in the parking lot. When he returned, some twenty minutes later, the car was not there, nor was Mrs. Yates. He had trudged home, only to find that his wife was not there either, and the following morning he had reported her disappearance to the police. As three days passed with no news of her, Mr. Yates’ concern turned to worry, to terror, to dread of the horrible fate which had probably overtaken Mrs. Yates. But he was not prepared to be so humiliated by the preposterous truth.
Mrs. Yates, it now appeared, had been sitting in the car waiting when Alvin Canmer, aged 16 and a junior at West Side High School, happened to pass the car. Alvin was on his way home from his part-time job in the hardware store, where he had waited on Mrs. Yates once or twice. He said “Good evening” to her, and a conversation ensued, the details of which, unfortunately, were not recorded. But Mrs. Yates was beginning to be bored with waiting for Mr. Yates, and also, it seems, she had been bored with Mr. Yates himself for some time. At any rate, the dialogue had apparently got down to the facts of life in near-record time, with the result that Alvin got into the car and drove to the nearest motel. There they paid a night’s rent in advance, parked the car outside their bungalow, and retired — for three days. Alvin had occasionally sallied forth for food.
But when, after three days, they had attempted to slip out without paying the balance of the bill, they had been apprehended by the motel proprietor. Finding both of them insolvent, he had called the police, who, on checking the registration of the car, learned somewhat to their surprise that they had recovered the missing Mrs. Yates, who was duly returned, temporarily, to her outraged and reluctant husband.
Along with a million other readers that morning, Conway chuckled inwardly at the story. But it was not the story itself which interested him: it was the timing of the disappearance — the suddenness, the rapidity, the unpredictability of the whole thing.
He turned to the account of the murder of the waitress.
He could sympathize with the bafflement of the police on this one. Gladys Ford, 89, divorced, had left the restaurant where she was employed at ten o’clock Saturday night. She had not, so far as could be ascertained, been seen alive again. Her parents, with whom she lived, had reported her disappearance. As in the case of Mrs. Yates, nothing had come of that, either.
Monday afternoon the patrolmen in a radio car cruising on a quiet residential street had noticed a parked car with a license number which seemed vaguely familiar. Checking, they discovered it to be on their stolen car list. Checking further, they found on the floor, covered by a blanket, the body of Gladys Ford. A resident of the neighborhood was sure the car was there before eleven o’clock Saturday night — which was no more than an hour after the unfortunate victim had left the restaurant. She had been strangled with her own belt.
The headline, “Slain by Sex Fiend,” Conway decided, might have been due to the fact that the pattern of the case somewhat resembled other sex murders of the past few months. Or it might have been that editors know that the addition of the word “Sex” lends a piquancy which is lacking in a murder performed by a run-of-the-mill maniac.
But the important thing was that tragedy, as well as romance, could strike with such complete unpredictability. And merely because of its fantastic suddenness — and senselessness — leave no trace. In that was the idea for a story, and Conway believed that he could write it.
He worked straight through until almost six o’clock, and when he stopped, weary and hungry, he felt better than he had in months. He wanted to get out of the house; he was sure Helen had no intention of getting dinner, and he hoped that he might avoid a meeting with her. He listened at the door and could hear nothing; he assumed she had followed her usual practice after one of these quarrels of going out to a movie, having dinner somewhere, and going to another movie in the evening.
He went downstairs cautiously, but all was clear, and the car was still in the garage. He was grateful that Helen was too uneasy about her driving to want to cope with Los Angeles traffic if she could avoid it.
He had a quick dinner in a neighborhood restaurant and decided to find out how practical was the scheme he had worked out for his story. What he had in mind was a “perfect murder” plot, with the police themselves providing the killer’s alibi. That, in turn, was dependent on the unexpectedness of the crime, and on exact timing.
For two hours he drove about, checking times and distances, even selecting streets and routes, to prove to himself that his scheme was valid. It was more than that, it seemed perfect; he could find no flaws in it at all. He drove home in a cheerful frame of mind.
For the next two days Conway worked steadily and contentedly. He saw Helen only at lunch, and open hostilities were avoided by the fact that neither spoke a word. He became more and more optimistic over the possibilities of the story; it might even make a picture, and a movie sale would solve all his problems. By midnight of the second day he estimated he was about halfway through.
Helen came downstairs while he was having breakfast the next morning. “You’ve been giving that typewriter quite a beating,” she said.
“It’s coming along pretty well.” He realized, suddenly, that these were the first words he had spoken to anyone in three days. The added realization came that he had not missed the sound of his own voice nor of anyone else’s — especially Helen’s.
“Just let me know if you need any paper, carbons, pencils, or erasers. The noise of that typewriter is music to me, and I’d hate to have it interrupted — it might be a long time before the inspiration returned.”
The knowledge that he was working had always mollified her; apparently it still did.
“I’d better tell you that you won’t be hearing any music this morning — or maybe even this afternoon.”
“I might have expected that.”
“I have to figure out the finish before I do any more writing. I got hot about this idea and wanted to get what I had down on paper. Now I have to stop and think out the rest.” He saw the sardonic look come into her eyes, but she said nothing. He finished his breakfast as quickly as he could and went to his room.
He read over what he had written, made a few changes, and then settled down to plot out the rest of the story. He had created a murderer who had done that so-called impossible thing: committed the “perfect crime.” His problem now was to create another character who was just a little brighter than the killer: who could smell out the murder and prove that the “perfect crime” was impossible. He rejected the easy solutions which came to him; he refused to settle for the chance coincidence, the lucky guess or the unlucky slip which might — and usually does — expose the criminal. Conway had written a murderer who knew himself and his limitations, who had planned a crime he could get away with, and cast himself in a part he could play. He had to be caught, not because he did the wrong things, but because he did the right things.
For two solid days and nights Conway wrestled with the challenge he had set himself, and was no nearer a solution than when he started. By evening of the third day he had become convinced that he had conceived a perfect murder and that there was no solution.
By means of careful timing and a good deal of listening at the door, he had managed to avoid Helen for two days. Now, with the old, familiar defeat staring at him, he dared not face her. But he had to get out, out of this room, out of the house; he needed a change of scenery, of diet, of air. He listened from behind his door for over an hour; then, having heard no sound, he ventured down.
Helen was sitting in the living room like a cat outside a mousehole.
“Don’t look so surprised — I live here, you know. And don’t forget it. How long did you think you could go on ducking me the way you’ve been these last two days?”
“I haven’t been ducking you, I’ve been working.” Even as he said it he realized the feebleness of the defense, and the opening it provided her.
“Working! At what? Giving yourself a manicure? You certainly haven’t been working at that typewriter.”
He reminded himself that he must keep calm, that he must not let her lash him into a fury. “It’s the finish,” he said. “I’ve had to think it through. It’s been a tough nut to crack.”
“And you haven’t cracked it.”
“Not entirely, but—”
“And you never will.”
It was time for her to start to rage, he thought; for her voice to rise to that screaming frenzy he had come to know so well. But it didn’t. The rage was there, but it was blanketed by an icy hardness as she went on.
“Another masterpiece you couldn’t write. If all the unfinished manuscripts of Arthur Conway were laid end to end, they’d make a good paper chase. And that’s all they are good for.”
“Okay.” With a faint hope that he might be able to make it, he started for the door.
“Wait a minute. I didn’t sit around here all afternoon just to get a glimpse of your lily-white face.”
Conway breathed more easily. This was not to be a tantrum: she had something to say. “Thank you, Mrs. Conway. Somehow I didn’t think you had.”
“And don’t call me by that name — it reminds me of you. I loathe you, I detest you, I despise you, and if you were worth it, I’d hate you.”
“Very nicely put. Sounds like something out of one of those unfinished manuscripts.”
“And you can save those bum jokes.”
“I’m only filling in until you decide to come to the point.”
She hesitated only a moment. “I want a divorce. And unless you’re even stupider than I think you are, you do too. So — what do we do?”
For the first time it had been mentioned. It was out in the open, and it cleared the air to such an extent that he almost liked her.
“After considered thought, my suggestion would be that we get a divorce.”
“Very bright,” she said. “Now see what you can do with this one. What about money?”
Conway thought he knew where this was leading, but there seemed no point in hurrying her. “You know what we’ve got in the bank,” he said. “It ought to be enough for the lawyers and the court costs.”
“Yeah. And what about me?”
“What about you?”
“You think you’re going to divorce me and throw me out without a cent to my name?”
“In the first place, I’m not going to divorce you — you’re going to divorce me. In the second place, you can have every penny I’ve got. That’s my best offer.”
“That’s fine. That’d be just dandy. You give me every penny you’ve got after paying for the divorce, and I wouldn’t have bus fare. That’s a nice out for you. But what am I supposed to do?”
“You might go back to Topeka. You could make up with your sister, and live in that house your mother left her.”
“I wouldn’t be caught dead in Topeka, I wouldn’t speak to Betty if she was the last person on earth, and the cold little fish is my half-sister, not my sister.”
“Okay. Well, what did you do before we were married?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What’s that got to do with it?”
“As I recall, you had a job for which you were paid $37.50 a week. You lived on that, if not sumptuously, at least adequately. Since we’ve been married you’ve dwelt somewhat more comfortably, been nourished at least as well, and dressed considerably better than when you provided for yourself. To my great regret I can’t guarantee to continue this — this ‘standard of living to which you’ve become accustomed,’ I believe the phrase is. But I see no reason why you shouldn’t go to work. I’ll agree to pay you a percentage of what I earn until you remarry, as alimony, and you’ll wind up much better off than you’ve ever been. Just don’t marry another writer.”
“I can see myself ever getting a plugged nickel from you once we were divorced.”
“You’d have the devoted assistance of every police force and court of law in the United States to aid you in getting it; one of their chief functions is to guarantee the unearned increment of divorcees.”
“Let’s stop kidding. If you didn’t have it, I couldn’t get it out of you, even with the police, the army, navy and air force on my side. And you’ll never have it.”
Conway wondered how much of this constant tearing down, this repeated belittling, a man could take.
“Not that I wouldn’t get a lot of pleasure out of seeing you in jail, but it wouldn’t pay my rent. No — I want cash. Not very much, but I want it now.”
“What’s your idea of not very much?”
“Five thousand dollars.”
Her calmness had puzzled him from the beginning, and now he was bewildered. She had something in mind, he knew, but what it was he could not imagine.
“I can’t think of anything I’d rather have than five thousand dollars to give you. Have you any ideas as to how I might obtain that paltry sum?”
She looked at him judicially. “One of the most repulsive things about you is that cheap sarcasm you’ve become addicted to. I suppose it makes you think you’re a wit.”
Conway had no illusions about being a wit, but he did wish that occasionally he might be able to produce a comeback to some of her more devastating remarks. But his retorts had been getting more and more feeble, less and less frequent.
“Naturally I know how you can get five thousand. I wouldn’t expect you to.” Conway looked at her blankly. “I’ve made up a list of a few friends of yours back East,” she said as she took a slip of paper from her bag. “They’re all doing very nicely. And they’re all very fond of you — respect you because you’re a writer, and they’re only businessmen. They all thought you were going to write that great American novel, too. And they haven’t seen you for a couple of years, so they haven’t found out what a phoney and a flop you are. It’ll be a cinch to get five thousand out of them.”
“You’re out of your mind!”
“Oh no I’m not. This is the best idea I’ve had since I said ‘No’ the first time you proposed to me. I make you a present of the idea and you have a chance to do a little creative writing — and you’ll get paid for it for a change. Tell ’em that you’re sick, I’m sick, you’re writing that novel, I’m going to have a baby — anything you like. There are five names here,” and she handed him the list. “Allen and Tyler should be good for two thousand, maybe twenty-five hundred. Strike them for twenty-five hundred anyway. Try the others for a thousand; a couple of them might only come across with five hundred, but even so — And if you get more than the five thousand, you can keep the profit — or some of it, anyway.”
Conway’s mind must have been running in terms of fiction: he had half-expected her to name a bank to be robbed, or suggest a dope-smuggling scheme. Her plan was safer. It was also simpler, surer, and more repugnant to him.
He glanced at the list, knowing the names he would find there. His closest friends. His only friends. The men he had gone through the war with. B Company of the 165th Field Artillery had plodded across Africa, climbed through Sicily, slogged the length of the Italian boot, and these six had been together, miraculously, through it all. And they had learned the dependence of each one on all the others.
They would come through, all right. Conway knew them. Although they were scattered now and he had not seen any of them for two years, they kept in frequent touch by mail, and, if anything, the bond between them seemed stronger than ever. They’d come across. Even though all were married and most had children, and they were just beginning to get on their feet, with mortgaged houses, payments on cars, hospital and obstetricians’ and pediatricians’ bills, they wouldn’t let him down. He knew them. And they were scattered around the country; they wouldn’t check with each other, at least until afterward.
Oh, the letters would get results. They’d deprive their wives and children to help a pal out of a jam. All I have to do, Conway reflected, is to steal the money from those women and kids, hand it over to Helen, and be free... free to shoot myself.
Some of his shocked incredulity showed in his face, and Helen was amused.
“Don’t like the idea, h’m? Well, unless you’ve got a better one, that’s what you’re going to do. Or else.”
Her confidence, her good humor, bothered him more than anything else. She was so awfully sure of herself.
“Or else what?”
There was no humor now, but the confidence was even more blatant.
“Or else this. If you haven’t written those letters by noon tomorrow, I’m going to go to work on you. And I mean really go to work. I’m going to drive you out of this house or drive you crazy, or both. There’ll be such rows that the neighbors will be calling the police — or I will. But I won’t let them arrest you. I’ll be your ever-loving wife and ask them to put you in the psychiatric ward. And I’ll tell them why.”
Bull’s-eye. A direct hit.
“And then, when I’ve really given you a working over, whether you’re in a padded cell or have decided to run for it, I’ll write your pals, and what a sob story they’ll get from me. I might be able to get even more out of ’em than you could. And don’t try to write them and beat me to the punch, because anything you say now will only make it more convincing when I write — if I have to.”
Conway sat down. He had no breath and the blood was pounding in his head. She was crucifying him, he realized, in the one way she could. And she knew she could.
“All this I’m telling you is just the persuader,” she went on. “I don’t want to have to do it that way. It’ll take time and be a lot of trouble, and I might not get as much out of them as you can. But don’t think I won’t do it if I have to.”
The pounding in his head was lessening. He could think, after a fashion, and he hoped he could speak. But he dared not get up from the chair.
“Don’t try to bluff me, and don’t try to scare me.” His voice sounded steadier than he had expected. “I’ve been all right for over four years. I’ve been perfectly well.” He realized that his voice was rising, and went on more calmly. “You know it as well as I do, so don’t think you’re going to scare me with that line of talk. I don’t scare that easily.”
“No?” She leaned toward him, and he could hardly focus on the finger she pointed. “Look at yourself. You’re sweating like a horse. Your voice is croaking. And you’re so weak in the knees you can’t even stand up.”
She moved away and he no longer had to concentrate on that finger that so frightened and fascinated him, reminding him of some dread, forgotten thing in the past.
She lit a cigarette and looked at him through the lazily curling smoke. “Why do you think I’ve started all these rows the last couple of months?” she said. “Because I wanted to see how sure you were of yourself. And I found out. No matter what I said or did, you kept calm and controlled. All you wanted to do was to get away, to avoid a row — because you were scared. You’ve taken things from me no man in the world would take — no man, that is, who was in his right mind — and sure of it.”
Somehow he got to his feet and moved toward the door.
“Let me out of here,” he said, and realized that only a whisper came out. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
She moved to the door and opened it.
“Just one thing more.” She stopped him with her hand. “You said a little while ago that I knew how much we had in the bank. Well, I do, but I don’t think you do, so I’ll tell you. There’s exactly one dollar; I drew out the rest this afternoon. So don’t get any ideas about taking a powder and not coming back. You wouldn’t get very far.” She dropped her hand and he started out woodenly. “Remember, noon tomorrow.”