Charles Williams-All The Way 1958(6)

The next morning I stopped at the office on the way out.
She was talking to the colored maid. When the maid left, I
asked quietly, after a glance behind me at the door, “Is there a
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woman registered here who has real blue-black hair, worn in
a chignon ? A slender woman, in her thirties?”
“Why, no,” she said, puzzled. “Why?”
“I just wanted to be sure,” I said. “If she checks in, don’t tell
her I asked, but let me know right away.”
“Yes, of course,” she said uncertainly. “Could you give me
her name?”
“Oh, she won’t be using her right name,” I said. “She’s too
clever for that.”

I had some breakfast in town, and drove up to Palm Beach,
mostly killing time. In a hardware store, I bought a two-foot
steel wrecking bar. I put it in the trunk, and came back to Fort
Lauderdale. I cashed several of the checks in a bank, and one
in a bar. I sat in the bar for four hours, nursing three drinks,
staring straight ahead at nothing and speaking to no one.
At last the bartender became concerned. “are you all right,
mister?” he asked.
I turned my head slightly and stared at him. “What do you
mean, am I all right?”
“I—I mean, I thought maybe you didn’t feel well, you’re so
quiet.”
”Well, I’m all right,” I said. “And don’t you forget it.”
“I’m sorry I bothered you—”
“Maybe I have to have a basal metabolism and a blood
count before I can drink in your goddamned bar, is that it? Or
you want me to take a Rorschach?”
“Okay, okay, forget it.”
I went on muttering after he retreated, and got up and
walked out.
Around eight p.m. I registered in a motel on the outskirts of
town, lay on the bed with my clothes on until nearly ten, and
then grabbed up the phone and called the office. “Will you,
for Christ’s sake, stop that stupid phonograph?”
The manager was puzzled. “What phonograph? Where is
it?”
“I don’t know,” I said angrily. “Somewhere back here. If only
they’d stop playing that same goddamned record over and
over and over— Never mind! I’ll go somewhere else.”
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He was standing in the driveway shaking his head as I shot
past him in the Cadillac.
I drove down to Miami and called Coral Blaine from a phone
booth at two a.m. She was somewhat piqued—she’d been
worried, and I’d got her out of bed.
“You haven’t called since Thursday night, and when I tried
to reach you at the Clive Hotel they said you’d left.”
“I’ve been moving around,” I said.
“There’ve been several things at the office. The bank wants
to know if you’d like to extend the loan on that Washburn
property. And the tax people have questioned the depreciation
figures on that new gin machinery.”
“Okay. Call Wellman and tell him we’ll renew the loan for
another year at the same rate of interest. If he tries to raise
us, we’ll pay it off now. I’ll take up the tax thing when I get
back. But never mind all that. Do you still see Marian Forsyth
around there?”
“Somewhere, practically every day. But, dear, do we have to
start on her again?”
“Tell me something. Do you ever speak to her?”
“No. She never speaks to me. Why should I?”
“Clever,” I said, as if talking to myself. “Damned clever.”
“What did you say, darling?”
“Oh,” I said. “Nothing. But, look, angel, I’ll be able to wind
up this real-estate deal Monday morning, and probably be
home sometime Tuesday.”
I drove back to the motel in Hollywood and went to bed.
* * *
The next morning I drove down to Miami Beach, parked the
Cadillac in the business area not too far from Dover Way, left
the hat and glasses in it, and walked to the apartment. I
changed to khaki fishing clothes and a cap, backed the pickup
out of the garage, and drove down to the Keys. It was onethirty
p.m. when I reached the turn-off on to the back road on
Sugarloaf. Since it was Sunday, fishermen were rather
numerous, pulling boats behind their cars or casting from the
bridges. Three miles from the highway there was a dim trace
of a road leading off to the left through heavy scrub where the
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water’s edge was a tangle of mangroves. The mangroves
thinned out after about a mile, giving way to open areas
where boats could be launched. Several cars with empty boat
trailers were parked in the vicinity, but there were no people
around at the moment. The nearest boat I could see was
about a half-mile offshore. I parked the truck off to one side,
locked it, and started walking back. There was only a remote
chance anybody would bother it, and it would attract no
attention, since everyone would merely assume it belonged to
another fisherman.
I came back out on to the secondary road, and had gone
less than a half-mile toward the highway when a man and his
wife stopped and picked me up. They were from Marathon,
and had spinning rods in the back seat. I told them the
battery had gone dead in my car and I was going out to the
highway to pick up a new one. They dropped me at the filling
station and general store. I drank a can of beer and read the
Sunday papers until the Key West-Miami bus came through.
When I got off at the Greyhound terminal in Miami I ducked
into a phone booth and called Justine Laray, a little anxiously
because it was already after eight p.m. Call girls didn’t stay
home all the time. But luck was with me. She was in.
“Where on earth have you been?” she asked. “I thought you
were going to call me Friday.”
“I’Ve been out of town,” I said. “But, look, do you want to
take a little trip? I’Ve got to go up to Palm Beach for a couple
of days, and we just might get a chance to look into the gown
situation around there.”
“I’d love to go, honey.”
“Pack an overnight bag, and I’ll pick you up as soon as I can
get loose here. Where you live?”
She gave me her address.
“I’ll see you,” I said.
I took a cab over to Miami Beach to the apartment, and
changed back into Chapman’s clothes. Next I removed all
identification and the cards from his wallet, dropped them in
the pocket of my jacket, and counted the money in it. Nearly
all the checks were cashed now, and even with the way I’d
been throwing it around it came to a little over three
thousand, four hundred dollars, mostly in twenties and fifties
with four or five hundreds scattered through it. It made an
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impressive-looking roll, and the wallet would scarcely bend
any more. I shoved it in my pocket, and then made a bundle of
the fishing clothes and the cap, making sure my own wallet
was still in the trousers.
I called Justine again.
“Look, sex-pot, I’m still tied up in this deal, over in Miami
Beach. But I’d tell you what. I thought we’d stay in Hollywood
tonight at that motel where I’ve been, and go on up to Palm
Beach tomorrow. So why don’t you run on up to Hollywood?
I’d just go on out the beach and cut across.”
“But how am I going to get there? And where do I meet
you?”
“Hell, take a cab. I’d pay for it. There’s a bar—the Cameo
Lounge. Meet me there at, say, ten-fifteen.”
I locked the apartment and walked over to where I’d left the
Cadillac that morning. I put the fishing clothes in the trunk,
along with my canvas shoes and a flashlight. Going up to a
drugstore in the next block, I got a handful of change, went to
the phone booth, and put in a call to Robin Wingard’s home
address in Thomaston. He was in.
“Oh, hello, Mr. Chapman,” he replied. “How are you? And
did Miss Blaine tell you—”
“You mean the FCC citation?” I interrupted. “Yeah. I told
her to authorize you to get anything you needed to take care
of it. But I’m calling about something else.”
“Yes, sir?”
I lowered my voice a little. “Listen. This is strictly between
the two of us; don’t even mention it to Miss Blaine. I don’t
want to worry her. Is Mrs. Forsyth there in town?”
“Why, yes. I saw her on the street just this afternoon.”
”Has she been around the station, or the studio?”
“Why, no-o. She hasn’t been to either one.”
“But you are positive she’s in town?”
“Oh, yes. Unless she left tonight. But why?”
“I can’t go into it now,” I said. “But here’s what I want you
to do. Under no circumstances, is she to get into the station,
or the studio. If she tries to force her way in, or sneak in, call
the police. If necessary, hire Pinkertons.”
“But—I don’t understand.”
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“I can’t explain now. But I’ll be there by Tuesday afternoon,
and in the meantime don’t let her get past you. G’bye.”
I drove to Hollywood, found a place to park near the Cameo
shortly before ten-fifteen, and waited. Justine arrived in a taxi
about ten minutes later, and went inside. I lit a cigarette and
remained where I was for another forty minutes, watching the
doorway to be sure she didn’t leave. She’d have had two or
three drinks by now, and she’d be smoldering.
I went in. It was very dimly lighted, a small place with a
precious aspect about it and a Hammond organ that
fortunately wasn’t being played at the moment. There were
six or eight customers. She was at a small table about halfway
back, grimly watching the door. She had a new permanent,
and was wearing a dark blue dress and white mesh gloves,
and the overnight case was on the floor beside her.
“Well! You finally got here,” she said, as I sat down. “I was
just about to go back.”
“Sorry I was late, cutie,” I said. “Couldn’t get away.”
The casual manner and the “cutie” didn’t improve her
feelings any, but she was trying to get them under control. It
would be poor policy to blast the goose just as it was about to
produce the golden egg.
”It’s all right,” she said with an effort.
“Well, I wound up the deal.” I stuck a cigarette in the holder
and lit it. “I guess our trip’s off, baby.”
“What?”
“Yeah. I can start home in the morning—”
“Well! Of all the stupid—!” The black eyes were venomous.
“After I spend a fortune in cab fare, and sit here like a mope
for an hour and a half waitin’ for you to decide to show up—”
The bartender and several customers turned and stared.
“Hey,” I said soothingly, “take it easy, Marian.”
She slammed her drink down. “And will you, for Chrissakes,
stop calling me Marian! I’m sick of it!”
“All right, all right, I’m sorry, honey—” I looked around
uncomfortably. “I didn’t mean it. Let’s have a drink.”
I motioned for the bartender, who hadn’t missed a word of
it, and ordered two Martinis. It took several minutes to cool
her off. “We had another pair of drinks, and decided to go
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somewhere else. I could see her eye the car appraisingly,
though she said nothing. We drove over to the beach to
another bar. I was acting a little drunk now, and tried to paw
her in the parking lot. She shoved me away.
“Le’s ginna back,” I said.
“Oh, shut up!”
We went inside and had two more drinks. I noticed she was
leaving most of hers now.
“Why don’t we go on to the motel?” she asked. “We can
have some drinks there.”
I bought a bottle of Scotch from the bartender. He didn’t
want to sell it to me but I persuaded him with an extra five
dollars. We drove to the motel. It was after midnight now, and
most of the units were dark. I turned the car and backed it
into the carport between the units. I was staggering a little,
and as I was fumbling the door open I dropped her bag. It
clattered on the step.
“Be careful!” she said angrily.
Inside, I switched on a light, put the Scotch and the bag on
the dresser, and started to paw her again. “Wait a minute,
can’t you?” she snapped. She slipped off the dress and put it
on a hanger in the closet, and took off her shoes. They were
blue, with very high heels. I broke the seal on the bottle, and
poured two water tumblers half-full.
“Live it up, kid,” I said, handing her one.
“I’m goin’ to put a little water in mine,” she said, and went
into the bathroom. She closed the door. I quietly unsnapped
the overnight case and opened it. She had other shoes, all
right. I grabbed out a pair of her nylons, and a pair of pants,
shoved them under the mattress on the bed, and closed the
bag. When she came out I could tell by the color of her drink
she’d poured most of it out before she added the water.
“S down the ol’ hatch,” I said, weaving a little, and gulped
part of mine. The shoes were lying on the carpet near the
corner of the bed. “Howz bout a kiss?” I said, and stepped
toward her. I landed on them, and heard one of the heels
snap. So did she.
“Now look what you’ve done, you stupid idiot!” she lashed
out. “Of all the clumsy, big-mouthed apes!”
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I weaved, fixed her with a glassy stare, and contemptuously
kicked the shoes under the bed. Hauling out the wallet, I
fumbled a fifty out of it and threw it on the bed. “Go buy self
‘nother pair. But don’ heave your weight ‘round. I could buy
you for cat food.”
I tried to stuff the wallet back into my pocket. It fell to the
floor. I reached down for it, and fell over. She stared at me
with contempt. I got up, tossed the wallet on the dresser, and
went into the bathroom. Turning on the water in the basin, I
made a retching sound, and washed my face. When I came
out, she was smiling.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “It was my fault, for leavin’ ’em
there. Here, let me pour you another little drink.”
“Sgood idea,” I replied. “Pologize. Din mean word of it.” I
drank part of the whisky, dropped the glass on the rug, and
collapsed on the bed. “Lie down few mince. Feel better.”
She stretched out beside me, and stroked my face with her
hand. “There, there, honey. Ju-u-st relax. You just had a little
too much.”
I closed my eyes. We lay perfectly still for about ten
minutes, and then she said, “Honey?”
“Ummmff?” I muttered, and stirred a little.
She waited another twenty minutes before she tried again. I
went on breathing heavily, and made no reply. After a few
more minutes she moved cautiously away from me, and got
up. I heard the rustle of the dress as she put it back on, and
the careful unsnapping of the bag to get the other pair of
shoes. I had to listen carefully to hear the door open, but
there was a faint click as it closed.
I slid off the bed, parted the curtains at the front window
just a fraction of an inch, and peered out. There was no one in
sight except her. All the units across the way were dark, and
the woman who ran the place had long since gone to bed. She
reached the entrance, turned left, toward the center of town,
and disappeared.
She should know enough not to take a cab all the way to
Miami and at this time in the morning, so she’d probably head
for the bus station. She knew I had her address, and the
chances were she wouldn’t stop this side of California. With a
married man she could tough it out and play the percentages,
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but she should be pretty sure by now that I was single. I’d
cried enough about what the tax people did to me because of
it.
I went over to the dresser. She’d left the wallet. Removing
the identification had been superfluous, but it was a
precaution I had to take. Chapman was going to be all over
the front pages in a few hours, and having his identification
turn up somewhere in a garbage can would have been
disastrous.
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Twelve
I replaced all the identification and the cards in the wallet,
and looked at my watch. It was one forty-five. Taking two
water tumblers out in the bathroom, I rinsed them and rubbed
them with a towel to remove prints. It didn’t really matter—
the maid would replace them with two fresh ones, wrapped in
waxed paper as these had been. I set to work on the three
bags, one of which was open on the luggage stand. They were
fiberglass, and would probably show prints. I wiped them all
over very carefully with the towel to remove any already
there, and then replaced them with numbers of deliberately
smeared prints—touching them, particularly around the
hardware and handles, with my fingers and hands, but always
sliding just a little. I did the same thing with all the
doorknobs, bathroom fixtures, and the glass top of the
dresser. The bottle of whisky I’d take with me, and the one
that had been in his luggage originally I’d already thrown
away.
I pulled out the nylons and the pair of pants I’d shoved
under the mattress, held them under the tap in the wash
basin until they were thoroughly wet, squeezed out the excess
water, and draped them on a coat hanger from the closet. I
hung them from the shower head that projected from the wall
above the tub, and then slid the shower curtain about halfway
out on its rod so they were hidden from view.
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I retrieved the shoes from under the bed. The broken heel
was still attached, but dangling. Turning out the lights, I lay
down on the bed with a cigarette. It was difficult to stay
awake. I’d really had more to drink than I was accustomed to.
After about an hour, I got up without turning on the lights,
slipped out the side door into the carport, and unlocked the
trunk of the Cadillac. Going back inside, I returned with the
whisky bottle and the shoes. Stumbling, I fell heavily against
the side of the car, bumped once against the wall of the
carport, and dropped to the floor. I remained utterly silent for
at least five minutes, and then got up with a great scraping of
shoes against concrete, bumped against the car once more,
put the shoes and bottle in the trunk, lowered the lid very
gently, and pressed until the latch clicked. I tiptoed back
inside, closed the door, and lay down again.
It was nine when I awoke. My clothes were badly rumpled. I
had a slight hangover, but it wasn’t bad. I washed my face,
but didn’t shave, and when I appraised myself in the mirror I
looked like a man on the wrong end of a two-day binge.
Shoving the empty wallet in my pocket, I put on the hat and
glasses and took one last look around. Everything was all
right. Except for the pants and the nylons drying in the
bathroom, there was nothing to indicate a woman had ever
been here.
I went out, being careful not to leave any prints on the knob
as I closed the door, got in the car, and drove out. The woman
who ran the place was in the doorway of the office; she
smiled, and I solemnly tipped my hat. It was a few minutes
past ten when I reached downtown Miami and finally found a
parking place. The briefcase the tapes had been in was on the
back seat. I got out with it and walked to the bank.
I wrote out the check for a hundred and seventy thousand
dollars, and presented it at a window. The teller was a girl.
She did a take, raised her eyebrows, looked at me again, and
disappeared. I gathered it wasn’t every day she cashed
checks in that amount for grimy and disheveled characters
who’d obviously slept in their clothes and hadn’t shaved for a
couple of days. Well, I’d expected a certain amount of
consternation. I stuck a cigarette in the holder and lit it.
Dakin came out. As I’d suspected before, he never
remembered what anybody looked like. He glanced
uncertainly around at the people at other windows, and when
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the girl nodded towards me, he said, “Ah, yes. Mr. Chapman.”
We shook hands.
“Do you really want this in cash?” he asked incredulously.
I stopped humming The Music Goes Round and Round,
glanced at him as if I thought the question tiresome, and said,
simply, “Yes.”
I knew then they’d already checked the signature against
the card and knew it was genuine. They suspected a con
game of some kind, or that I was in some kind of trouble at
home and had worked out this deal for disappearing with a lot
of ready cash, but in the end there was nothing they could do
about it. I’d put the money in the bank, so who had a better
right to take it out? He did ask, since it was made out to cash
and the girl hadn’t actually seen me sign it, if I’d mind making
out another?
“Not at all,” I said. I made out another, signed it, and said,
“But I’m in rather a hurry, if you don’t mind.”
He looked at the signature, and shrugged. There was a
slight service charge for transferring the funds. They brought
the money, packed it into the briefcase for me, I paid the
service charge, tipped my hat politely to the girl, and walked
out with the briefcase under my arm.
When I reached the car I placed it on the seat beside me,
unzipped it, and removed ten fifties from one of the bundles. I
placed them in the wallet and started out US 1. At the edge of
Coral Gables there was a large sporting goods store I’d
already located. I stopped and bought a six-foot aluminum
car-top boat. While the men were installing the carrier atop
the car and securing the boat and oars to it, I walked
impatiently up and down, chainsmoking cigarettes and
muttering about the delay. It came to a little over a hundred
dollars. I gave the clerk three fifties, and when he brought my
change, I asked, “How far is it to Lake Okeechobee?”
“You’re headed the wrong way,” he said. “It’s north. Go
back—”
“Thanks,” I said, paying no attention. I was already walking
out.
It was only a few miles from there to the roadside curio
stand. I began watching for it, and when I saw it ahead I
checked the mirror to be sure no one was too close behind
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me. I was clear. I kept booming right on at fifty until I was
slightly past the place, and then hit the brakes in a crash stop.
Rubber screamed, and the car yawed back and forth across
the pavement, finally sliding to a stop on the gravel several
hundred yards away. I put it into reverse, and shot backwards,
and slid to a stop again right before the place.
The cold-eyed proprietor was waiting on a pair of tourists
from Michigan. They were looking at seashells on a long table
—or had been. They’d stopped everything now to stare at me.
I leaped out of the car and ran over to the row of ornamental
flamingos beside the fence. Grabbing one of them up, I lifted
it, as if estimating its weight. It was one of the type normally
set in paddling pools, with a circular concrete base at the
bottom of the thin steel legs.
I turned towards him with an imperious gesture. “I’ll take
one of these.”
He regarded me coldly. It was possible, of course, that he
didn’t like anybody, but I felt sure he remembered me. “I’m
waiting on these people, mister,” he said. “What’s the hurry?”
“Look,” I said, beginning to shout. “I didn’t stop here to tell
you the story of my life. All I want to do is buy one of your
goddamned flamingos—”
I grabbed it up in my arms as if to take it to the car, but lost
my grip on it and let it drop. It fell over on the gravel. I
lunged for it again. At that moment his wife hurried out of the
shop and said anxiously, “I’ll take care of these customers,
Henry.”
The Michigan couple was fascinated with the performance.
Henry grabbed the flamingo away from me and stalked to the
car. Nodding curtly to the trunk, he asked, “You got the
keys?”
“The keys?” I was aghast. “No, no, no! Put it in here!” I
yanked the rear door open. “On the seat.”
He looked at the pale blue leather and then at me. “Mister,
it ain’t none of my business what you do with your car, but
you ort to put it in the trunk.
I removed the cigarette holder from my mouth and stared at
him in sheer outrage. “In the trunk? Who the hell ever heard
of putting a flamingo in a trunk?”
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This broke the tourists up at last. They had to turn away,
and I heard strangled sounds of laughter.
“I mean—damn it—” I went on, gesturing wildly. “There’s no
room. My—my suitcases are in there.”
He dropped the flamingo on the seat. I shoved a fifty-dollar
bill in his hand and got in and roared away. As soon as I was
out of sight I slowed to forty; there was still a lot of time to
put in, and only the remotest chance that Henry would call
the police and report me as a menace to navigation. If I were
picked up he might have to part with the change from the
fifty. I stopped in Homestead and bought a roll of heavy white
cord.
It was shortly after two p.m. when I turned off into the large
parking area at the Theater of the Sea, located between
Tavernier and Islamorada on the Overseas Highway. It was
one of the well-known tourist attractions of the Keys, a large
souvenir shop and a fenced area containing the aquarium
ponds and tanks stocked with marine life. There were two
performing porpoises, and a guide who conducted a tour. I
went inside, bought a ticket, and waited for the next tour.
When the crowd was large enough, some fifteen or twenty
tourists, we started around, staring at the fish and listening to
the lecture. I paid scant attention and spoke to no one until
the guide was squatted at the end of one of the ponds coaxing
a jewfish to come up and gulp the mullet he had in his hand.
In a moment it did, and then settled slowly back into the
rather murky water.
The guide rose. I pushed my way through the crowd around
him, and demanded, “Did you say that was a jewfish?”
“That’s right,” he replied. “They’re one of the grouper
family—”
I stared at him suspiciously. “I thought they lived in salt
water.”
Someone giggled at the rear of the crowd. “They do,” the
guide explained with weary patience. “These are all salt-water
fish.”
I pursed my lips and nodded. “Just as I suspected. All I can
say is it’s a hell of a way to treat fish.”
He sighed, opened his mouth to explain that the ponds were
filled with sea-water, but turned away with a well-you-run-
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into-all-kinds expression on his face. The crowd tittered. The
tour went on. I remained on the outskirts, aloof and
disapproving.
I arrived in Marathon at four-thirty p.m., after stopping
several times along the way to get out and look at the water.
One hour and twenty minutes to go. I checked my watch
against a time announcement on the car radio to be sure it
was still reasonably accurate, and hunted up a bar. It was
quiet, with hardly anyone in it, and there was a telephone
booth at the rear. There was also one out front on the
sidewalk, in case the first happened to be occupied.
I ordered one Scotch and water and nursed it for an hour.
The bartender tried once or twice to start a conversation, but
I gave no indication I even heard him. At exactly five-fifty, I
got up and started out, and then stopped abruptly. “Oh, my
God, I’ve got to make a phone call—” Getting several dollars’
worth of change, I went back to the booth and called Coral
Blaine.
“Where are you, dear?” she asked. “I’ve been trying to
reach you—”
“I’m at Lake Okeechobee,” I replied.
“Then you’re on your way home?”
I paid no attention. “It’s funny, though. I keep thinking I’ve
been here before. I’ve never been in Lake Okeechobee have
I?”
“Heavens, dear, I don’t know. I’ve never heard you mention
it. But I’m glad you’ve started back—”
“Tell Wingard it was too late,” I said. “But he can forget it
now.”
“Oh,” she said, a little uncomfortably, I thought. I was
listening carefully for clues. “That was what I wanted to get in
touch with you about. He was in this morning—”
And he’d told her, of course. “It was too late before I figured
it out,” I went on, ignoring her completely. “It wasn’t your
fault. You kept telling me Marian was there—”
“Darling,” she interrupted, “couldn’t we stay off that
subject, just once?”
I nodded. There it was. I was sure now.
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“You kept telling me she was,” I continued, “but I didn’t
believe you, because I kept seeing her down here.
Everywhere I went. What she was doing, of course, was going
back and forth. But I don’t know why I didn’t figure out about
the radio station in time. I knew how clever she was—”
“Harris, is this some kind of joke?”
“All she had to do was walk in there and pick up the
microphone and spread her lies to everybody in the country,
and turn ’em all against me. Make ’em think I didn’t treat her
fairly. The way they turned against Keith, and it wasn’t his
fault at all. The girl walked right into his car—”
“Harris—!”
“People believed her, too. I can tell. I see ’em looking at me
on the street— But I stopped her, even if it was too late. She’s
here with me now.”
“Harris, will you please listen to me? You’re mistaken—”
“Oh, no,” I said triumphantly. “Maybe she’s got you
believing those lies too. Don’t defend her. You know it was all
lies. And she is with me. Right here. I’ve got her out in the
car. She broke into my room last night, and when I woke up
she was leaning over whispering lies to me. I tried to make
her shut up—”
“You don’t know what you’re saying!” Her voice was
growing shrill. “It’s utterly impossible.”
She had turned the knife that Monday morning, but in the
field of really exquisite deadliness she was an amateur. While
she was sitting there listening to me say I’d just killed Marian
Forsyth, Marian was standing at the next desk, talking to
Barbara Cullen.
I dropped my voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
”You’ll hear from me. I’ll be in a foreign country, angel,
where they didn’t hear the things she told about me, and I’ll
send for you.” I hung up.
I went back to the bar, ordered another drink, and sat for
ten minutes or so staring moodily at the mounted sailfish
above the backbar mirror.
“Beautiful fish,” I said to the bartender. “You know, they
catch a lot of those down in the Keys.”
All The Way — 130
He was so happy at having somebody to talk to again he did
a clown routine. He picked up the bottle from which he’d just
poured my drink, stared at it unbelievingly, and shook his
head. “Pal, you’re right square in the middle of the Keys.”
“Lovely country,” I said. “Next time you go, you ought to
take the whole family; they’d love it.” I got up and went out.
I went on towards Sugarloaf Key, still driving under forty.
There were several problematical factors now, but I was sure
I had plenty of time and didn’t want to make that turn off the
highway until it was dark. A lot depended on when she
decided to call the Florida highway patrol—if she did at all. It
would be the logical thing to do. There was still a good
possibility I hadn’t really killed anybody, but not much doubt
that I was foaming mad and might at any minute. But Marian
had insisted her first concern would be getting off the ship
herself before it went down, and that she’d chicken out at the
prospect of having to call and have her insane fiance picked
up and spread all over the front pages before she had a
chance to start disowning him.
But at any rate, she was going to have to tell somebody, and
that somebody would call the Florida authorities. But the
Okeechobee thing should have stuck in her mind; God knows
I’d hit it hard enough. Of course, the operator would have
said it was Marathon calling, but nobody ever paid any
attention to that, and she’d said it to Mrs. English, anyway.
The chances were there would be no alert in this area until
they started picking up my trail, and I needed less than an
hour now to duck into the hole and pull it in after me.
When I reached Big Pine Key I could see I was still too early,
so I pulled off the highway, drove up a back road for a mile or
so and parked, still facing away from the highway. Two or
three cars went past. If they noticed me, so much the better.
It would take a long time to search Big Pine; it was one of the
largest of all the Keys.
When it was completely dark, I turned and went back.
There wasn’t a great deal of traffic on the highway. As I began
closing on the turn-off at Sugarloaf there was only one car
behind me. I slowed and let it pass, and then made the turn. I
speeded up, hurtling over the bumpy country road. In a few
minutes I came to the trace of a road going off to the left, and
in only two or three more to the openings through the wall of
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mangroves where boats could be launched. My headlights
splashed against the pick-up truck. Aside from it, the place
was utterly deserted.
The faint ruts ran on for another two or three hundred
yards through heavy brush that scraped the car on both sides,
made a sharp turn toward the water, and dead-ended among
the mangroves. There was a narrow channel here, going
through them to open water, but it was never used for
launching boats because the underbrush and mangroves were
so heavy on all sides it would be impossible to turn or
maneuver. I stopped just above high tide, and cut the lights
and engine. Impenetrable darkness closed in around me, and
thousands of mosquitoes, and utter silence except for the
faint lapping of the water. There was no surf, because of the
shallow water and the mangrove islands farther out.
Getting out, I fumbled the key into the lock, and opened the
trunk. When I’d located the flashlight, I turned it on,
unfastened the boat, and lifted it down. I dragged it down to
the edge of the water, put the oars in it, the concrete
flamingo, the ball of cotton cord, and my canvas shoes. Taking
out my khaki shirt, I wiped the steering wheel, dash, door
handles, and trunk handle, and then rubbed and wiped my
hands and fingers over them to leave a satisfactory number of
unusable prints in case they did start to check.
I opened the whisky, took a drink of it, poured the rest into
the water, and threw the bottle far over into the mangroves.
Lifting out Justine’s shoe with the broken and dangling heel, I
dropped it beside the rear of the car, under some overhanging
brush, and checked it with the flashlight. It couldn’t be too
obvious. I nudged it farther out of sight with my foot. Good. I
dropped the other shoe in the boat. Closing the car, I pushed
off. The water was quite shallow and I had to wade out
several steps before I could get aboard.
I sat down and poled it out of the narrow channel with one
of the oars. When I reached open water I threw the other
shoe overboard. It would move around with the tide, and
might or might not be found, but it made no difference. I
turned off the flashlight and began rowing parallel to the
shore, watching the dark wall of the mangroves. In a few
minutes I could see the break in them, and pulled in to the
beach. I switched on the flashlight again, and saw the pick-up
truck. Pulling the boat up, I squeezed the water out of my
All The Way — 132
trouser legs, took off the wet leather shoes, and put on the
canvas ones. They had corrugated crepe-rubber soles.
I carried the flamingo up, unlocked the trunk, and placed it
on the floor in front. Then the ball of cord, and the wet shoes.
I put the oars in back, carried up the boat, and placed it on
top of them. Carrying the flashlight, I followed the ruts on
through the brush to the Cadillac. I walked towards the edge
of the water, threw the light in, and could see the marks of
the boat and my tracks on the soft bottom as I’d waded out.
The leather shoes had left some fairly good imprints above
high tide, also, and I walked down, leaving the distinctive
track of the canvas ones on top of them in places.
I opened the trunk and took out the steel wrecking bar I’d
bought. Slamming the lid down so it locked, I stuck the flat
end of the bar under the edge of it and began prying upward.
It was stubborn, and I had a large area of steel bent and
chewed before the lock finally gave up and it flew open. Then
I closed and locked all the doors, and used the end of the bar
to knock in the right front window so I could reach the latch. I
rifled the glove compartment, leaving everything strewn on
the floor. Taking out the briefcase and my fishing clothes, I
took one last look around with the flashlight to be sure I
hadn’t overlooked anything, and walked back to the truck.
Standing in the darkness, with the mosquitoes chewing me,
I took off his suit, shirt, and tie. I dropped the glasses in one
coat pocket, bent the hat into a mass of straw, and shoved it
in the other. I put on the khaki fishing clothes and the cap,
transferred the money from his wallet to my own, put his back
in his trousers, along with the cigarette holder, lighter, and
his car keys. Taking the flashlight, I went down to the edge of
the water and made a mark by which to gauge the ride.
Placing the light on the seat of the truck, I wrapped his
clothes around the long steel legs and curving neck of the
flamingo, and tied them with the ball of white cord. There was
a hundred yards of it, and I used it all. I looked at my watch.
It was only shortly after eight. There were cigarettes and
matches in the glove compartment of the truck. I lit one and
sat down, suddenly conscious that I was tired. It had been the
day-long tension; and I remembered now I never had eaten
anything. At nine I went down and looked at my mark. The
tide was coming in. That was all right; I didn’t want to go out
on to the highway with that boat until at least midnight. Of
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course, even if they were looking for him they didn’t know yet
that he’d had a boat, but they would later.
At one a.m. the tide was at slack high water as nearly as I
could tell. I drove out to the highway. There were very few
cars on it now, passing at widely spaced intervals I waited
until there was no one coming from westward before pulling
on to it, and drove fast so as not to be overtaken. The
oncoming cars, of course, could see nothing but my
headlights.
At the approach to the Bahia Honda bridge a road led down
off the highway to a picnic ground at the edge of the channel.
I drove down, got out with the flashlight, and threw the beam
outward on to the water. The tide was ebbing now, beginning
to swirl around the pillars of the bridge.
I carried the boat down, put it in the water, and swamped it.
It had flotation units, of course, and didn’t sink entirely. I
shoved. It disappeared downstream in the darkness, headed
seaward on the tide, at least fifteen miles from the car. It
might not be found for days, or even weeks. I threw the oars
in, and then the steel wrecking bar, heaving it as far as I could
into deeper water.
Nothing remained now except the flamingo. I placed it on
the seat beside me in its mummy wrappings of clothes. The
Bahia Honda channel was the deepest in the Keys, and the
bridge the highest, so no fishing was permitted from it.
Waiting until no cars were coming, I shot on to the highway
and up the incline of the bridge. When I reached the top, at
mid-channel, I slammed on the brakes and hopped out. One
pair of headlights was coming towards me, still over a mile
away. I ran around the truck, yanked the door open, and
heaved the flamingo over the rail.
It was a few minutes past five a.m. when I backed into the
driveway at the apartment and put the truck in the garage. I
went inside, turned on the air-conditioning unit, and poured
an enormous drink of whisky. I was wrung out, and empty, and
felt dead. I’d been onstage continuously for just a few hours
less than thirteen days.
It was complete now. That was the whole package, and
looking at it as objectively as I could, I didn’t think they’d ever
untie it. I dropped the briefcase on the bed and started to
open the zipper. Then I shrugged, pushed it off on to the floor
All The Way — 134
and lay down. It didn’t seem to matter whether it was full of
money or wallpaper samples. All I wanted was Marian
Forsyth.
This struck me as an odd reaction for Jerome Langston
Forbes. Maybe I’d been somebody else for so long I’d
forgotten my own behavior patterns.
All The Way — 135
Thirteen
I shaved off the mustache the next morning, lay in the sun in
the back yard for a few hours to erase the faint difference in
the tan on my upper lip, and got a haircut, a short brush job.
If the barber even suspected the bleached effect on the outer
ends wasn’t entirely due to the sun, he merely thought I was
queer.
The story broke a little more slowly than we’d anticipated,
but once it did it gathered momentum like a rocket. On
Wednesday morning Harris Chapman was a prominent
Louisiana businessman who was reported missing somewhere
in the Lake Okeechobee area after an apparently incoherent
telephone call to his private secretary—and two days later the
headlines were screaming FLAMINGO KILLER.
I could piece the sequence together pretty well from the
newspaper accounts. Coral Blaine waited a full twenty-four
hours before notifying the Florida highway patrol and asking
them to make a search. She had no address except that I’d
said I was in Lake Okeechobee, and reported I’d talked in a
rambling fashion. Maybe I’d had a sun-stroke. To the police it
meant merely another drunk. But it got into the paper on
Wednesday morning, complete with name, and then the
deluge began.
I gathered the Antilles Motel was first. I’d been missing
forty-eight hours by then. My room wasn’t paid for after
Sunday, but she wasn’t particularly worried, since the
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luggage was still there. The police probably pricked up their
ears then. If this was a binge, it was a honey. The pants and
stockings probably weren’t mentioned at first, but the motel
did lead to Fitzpatrick, and Fitzpatrick to the bank, and then
it began to hit the fan in handfuls. Drawing out that much
money in cash was highly irregular, and they’d disapproved—
How much money?
A hundred and seventy thousand dollars.
A hundred and—what? In cash?
By this time police lieutenants and city editors were
probably trying to juggle three telephones at once. The money
hit the headlines on Thursday morning, a hundred and
seventy thousand in twenty, fifty, and a hundred dollar bills, in
a briefcase. That was fine. The sooner, and the longer the
time between this and the eventual finding of the car, the
better.
Then the motel again, and the stockings and pants. No.
Nobody’d ever seen a girl, and I’d left there alone that
morning. Then, probably, the bartender at the Cameo, though
it was happening so fast now it was impossible even to guess
the sequence of the explosions. Girl with an overnight case.
Argument. He’d called her Marian, and she flipped her lid.
Who was she? Just a babe, and from the language she used—
Then who was Marian? Tell me, Jack, I never heard of her.
The bartender at the second place remembered us together.
Somebody had heard a girl’s voice say something about one
o’clock that morning when I’d driven into the motel. And
some bumpings in the car park some time later. And the car
was backed in. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing, in
the room to indicate a woman had ever been there except the
one thing a man would be certain to overlook if it happened to
be out of sight.
The picture was developing fast now, and you could imagine
what it was like around the detective squad-rooms and city
desks with the headlines and the story almost in sight.
Missing millionaire may have slain night-life girl. Then Naples
and the mysterious Marian again, and the car-top boat, and
Lake Okeechobee. Then Coral Blaine’s admission, at long last,
as to what I’d really said, and the flood burst.
But in the end it was Henry who clinched it, and topped
them all, and gave it the tag every sensational story has to
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have. Flamingo. The Flamingo Killer. Flamingo Mystery Girl.
There were pictures of Henry, and of Henry’s curio stand, and
of Henry’s pink birds with their reinforcing-steel legs and
sinuous concrete necks. Henry’s “as told to” first-person story
appeared on the front page of one edition. I’d been there once
before, and he’d recognized me. He’d even told me, he
recalled, that the flamingos were made of concrete. And this
time I was going past at about seventy and all of a sudden I
saw the flamingos or remembered ’em and slammed on my
brakes and backed up and grabbed one to see how heavy it
was— And then, when he’d asked me to open the trunk I’d
gone pale and sweaty and shaky and there was a wild crazy
look in my eyes, and I’d screamed, ‘No, no, no!’ And then I’d
said, ‘Who the hell ever heard of putting a flamingo in a
trunk?’ Oh, I was crazy, all right. There was no doubt I was
crazy as a loon.
The police, of course, had already checked the telephone
company and learned the long-distance call had been made
from Marathon. At first this raised some doubt I was as insane
as I was trying to appear to be, since it looked like the
workings of a logical mind deliberately throwing the police a
false trail. But after talking to the guide at the Theater of the
Sea and that bartender at Marathon they decided it was
probable I did think I was at Lake Okeechobee. And I’d
admitted to Coral I was puzzled by the fact it was somehow
familiar. I’d been in Marathon for three days only the week
before. The erratic pattern was there, the utter derangement
alternating with moments of purpose and relative lucidity. I’d
been in a screaming hurry at Henry’s place, and then I’d
stopped for an hour to gawk at fish and leaping porpoises
while the body of a dead girl was folded in the trunk of my
car.
But what girl? That was still a mystery.
Two Deputy Sheriffs found the car on Thursday afternoon
about five o’clock. That was nearly four days after it was
abandoned and some twelve hours after it was known all over
the State that it probably had a hundred and seventy
thousand dollars in it. The story was plain. I’d gone out in the
ocean in a six-foot boat with a girl’s body and a concrete
flamingo, and I’d never come back. Some man wearing
rubber-soled shoes had come along later, pried open the
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trunk, and made off with the hundred and seventy thousand
dollars. They found the blue shoe with the broken heel.
And by Friday morning they were pretty sure who the girl
was. They finally located the taxi driver who’d taken her to
Hollywood. He remembered where he’d picked her up. The
girl’s name was Justine Laray, the paper said, and her
occupation was unspecified, but she had a police record in
Miami and in Pittsburgh for soliciting, vagrancy, and one
conviction for shop-lifting. Nobody in her apartment house
could recall having seen her since Sunday night. Some of her
clothes were still in the apartment, but nobody knew just how
many things she’d had. There was no suitcase at all. But the
taxi driver and the Cameo bartender both swore she’d had
only one with her. So maybe that was all she had. They were
both sure she’d worn blue shoes.
On December 2, just a week after the car was abandoned,
two fishermen found the boat near Pigeon Key, some twentyfive
miles from where the car had been. No body was found.
Of course they didn’t expect to find the girl’s if it was tied to
the flamingo, but Chapman’s should have come ashore. They
nearly always did, in drownings. The police were suspicious
or this, but admitted it could have become snagged in coral
along the reefs or wound up in the impenetrable tangle of
mangroves along the shore.
A lot of space was given to Marian and her former
relationship with him, but as far as I could determine from the
papers she was never suspected. What could they suspect her
of? Driving him mad by remote control? She was in
Thomaston all the time; that was established from the first
day. They ran a picture of him—probably the one she’d
mentioned—but there was more glamor and character than
resemblance, and it had been taken without the glasses. If
anything, it looked less like him than I did.
And not once from beginning to end, as well as I could tell
from the papers, did anybody ever question the fact that it
was Chapman.
As she had pointed out, why should they? He said that was
his name. And what reason would he have for lying about it?
Would somebody pretend to be Chapman, just to go mad and
drown?