Monty found himself staring at the phone again. He was waiting for the call that he knew would come. Paula had called several hours before and told him that Adam would be taken into custody tonight. On some level, Monty knew that all of this was inevitable.
While he waited for the call, he was watching an old black-and-white movie on television. It helped distract his mind from the disturbing fact that his brother would soon be arrested for murder. The black-and-white images on the television screen flickered seductively in front of him. He remembered when he and Adam used to stay up all night in their basement kingdom watching old movies. Out of the Past. Criss Cross. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Anything swift and violent. He learned from these movies in a way Adam had not. He incorporated their vision into his vision. He learned that greed, the unyielding need to possess what other men already possessed, was the driving force in most men’s lives. He took this knowledge and transformed it into a successful legal career. This same knowledge seemed to be too much for Adam. It burdened him until the weight became too much and Adam collapsed in on himself like a black hole. He became a cipher, a negative. A desperate man leading a desperate life.
Monty was watching Double Indemnity. Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck had just killed Barbara Stanwyck’s husband and thrown his body off a moving train to make it look like an accident, but Monty knew that they would be caught. For one thing, there was Edward G. Robinson. There was always someone like Edward G. Robinson hanging around to catch you. No matter how smart you were, no matter how perfectly you had planned the murder, Edward G. Robinson was always smarter, always one step ahead. Plus, you could never trust the woman. Barbara Stanwyck would always betray you in the end. She was always hiding something. She was never what she seemed. In fact, it looked as though the only way to get away with murder was to accept from the beginning that Edward G. Robinson was going to catch you, and Barbara Stanwyck was going to betray you and then, maybe, just maybe, you might have a fighting chance of getting away with it.
Monty knew this to be true. He wondered if Adam did. Even if Adam did know these things to be true, Monty was sure the lesson would be lost on him.
He watched the movie and waited for the phone to ring.
The doorbell chimed and Adam paused a minute before switching off the television. He had been watching Double Indemnity on Turner Classic Movies. It was almost over and he wanted to see his favorite part before he answered the door and stepped into the next phase of his life. The film had been one of his favorites since childhood. One he and Monty had watched late one night in their underground realm, each of them enthralled in the dark drama that played out before them in flickering, staccato pulses of light.
Adam had discovered that the movie offered a valuable lesson for the careful viewer. It was a lesson that he doubted Monty had ever learned. The lesson: Women were inherently dangerous. Adam knew this to be true; hadn’t his life thus far proven it to be so? Yes, women were inherently dangerous, but of course one couldn’t shun their company for a lifetime. One needed only to accept this fact and act accordingly. Don’t tempt fate. Adam had selected just one woman, but, given the theorem that all women were a risky proposition, it had not necessarily been his fault that his chosen one had been so badly damaged. And when the time had come to select a second woman, had he not made a better choice? Had he not had the upper hand? Did he not succeed in controlling her true nature, her inherent danger? Yes, he had made two careful selections in one lifetime, but Monty, Monty wallowed in women. He used them to excess. He did not understand their dangerous nature. The lesson had been lost on him. Adam knew that his brother’s beauty had shielded him from much of that danger, but soon, the odds would catch up with him. The threat would come back on him twofold.
Adam watched now as Fred MacMurray finally learned the lesson, finally acknowledged Barbara Stanwyck’s inherent danger and sought to save himself from her. He shot Barbara Stanwyck. But not before she shot him. Yes, he had finally learned the lesson, and the knowledge had only cost him his life.
The doorbell rang again, and Adam turned off the television and wondered if all those years ago, he and Monty had been watching the same movie.
He opened the door without first checking to see who was there. He knew who was on the other side. The door swung open to reveal Leo, dressed in his best ready-to-wear suit, a cigar clamped between his teeth. Behind him, two uniformed policemen stood framed in the doorway.
He let them in without speaking. As one of the officers read him his Miranda rights, Leo stood off to the side watching the drama unfold. The glee in Leo’s eyes as the ritual was carried out was unmistakable and at the same time unnerving. Adam wouldn’t have thought the pudgy little bald man would have been capable of such serene happiness.
“Do you understand these rights as I’ve read them to you?”
“I understand.”
Leo stepped forward and handed Adam a legal paper. It was a search warrant. Leo asked Adam to sign the warrant and Adam complied. There was nothing to be found in the house, perhaps baubles that would ignite the little man’s jealousy, but nothing Adam did not want to be found.
“May I make a phone call now?”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
Adam lifted the receiver and dialed. He found that his fingers were having trouble finding the buttons but, in the end, they did not betray him. He listened to the faint ringing on the other end. Then the click of the receiver being picked up and Monty’s expectant voice.
“I need you. They’re here.”