LINDA TILLOU HAMMILL PLIMPTON CRANE HAD A NEW NAME, a new phone number, and lived in a new city, the three of which combined to make it highly unlikely that I could have found her on my own. She had been recently divorced from Plimpton when last I’d heard of her, and I now learned from Gwen via Kay and Doug that she had since married and divorced Crane, in whose Larchmont home she presently lived with Hammill’s son and Plimpton’s daughter.
The Larchmont train leaves from Grand Central and passes through the Hundred Twenty-fifth Street station en route to the Westchester suburbs. I weighed the relative perils of boarding at Grand Central, where cops habitually lie in wait for arriving and departing fugitives, or to be wildly conspicuous as one white face in the black sea of Harlem. Grand Central, moreover, was close enough to walk to, which gave it a decided edge. I did so, and drank coffee until they called a Larchmont train, and boarded it, and bought a ticket from the conductor.
The ride was pleasantly uneventful. Someone had abandoned a copy of the World Journal, and I hid behind it all the way to Larchmont. No one took undue notice of me. There was a gas station a block from the Larchmont terminal. A skinny kid there put down a copy of Road and Track long enough to tell me how to find Merrimack Drive. It took me about fifteen minutes to walk to her house.
A ranch house, red brick with white clapboard trim, set far back on a wide and deep lot, with a couple of postwar oak trees in front. The garage door was closed and there was no car parked in the driveway or at the curb. I checked the garage. A green MGB nestled among a sprawl of kids’ toys. The obvious car for a suburban mother of two. Linda had not changed.
Either she was home alone or she was out with someone, in which case there would be a babysitter watching her young. It was somewhere between ten-thirty and eleven-I had never gotten around to replacing my purloined watch. I lit a cigarette, smoked part of it, put it out, and went to the front door and rang the bell.
There was a peephole in the door. I put my hand over it. I heard someone open the peephole for an unsuccessful reconnaisance, then Linda’s voice asking who it was.
“Bela Lugosi,” I said.
It was the sort of reply usually forthcoming from the sort of morons she was friendly with. The lock turned and the door opened and I got a foot in it, and she said, “You must be some kind of a-” and saw my face. Her eyes cracked and she said, “You son of a bitch,” and tried to slam the door. I put a shoulder into it. It flew open. She backed away, trembling, and I kicked the door shut behind me.
She was on the tall side, taller than Gwen, but as thin and angular as a stiletto. Her hair was cut short and dyed black, then tipped silver. She had large brown eyes punctuated by tiny pupils.
“What are you doing here?”
“I have to talk to you.”
“Did you bring your knife, killer?” She laughed like glass breaking. “Are you going to kill me?”
“No.”
“What on earth do you want from me?”
“Information.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m not.” She was backing away toward the door, and I moved around her to the left to leave her no place to ran. “I didn’t kill that girl I didn’t kill either of them.”
“I only heard about the one Sunday. Did you kill another one since?”
“I never killed anybody. Not five years ago and not now.” She started to say she didn’t believe me, then shut her mouth again and played Humor The Lunatic.
“I’m being framed,” I said.
“Tell me more.”
“Somebody set me up the first time around. It worked so well I even believed it myself. Then I got out. You know about that.”
“So?”
“So they worked the frame again.”
“Who did?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
The fear was leaving her now. Her eyes met mine, cold, brittle. There was an odd light in them. I wondered if she had been drinking.
“Do you expect me to believe all this?”
“I don’t honestly give a damn what you believe. I just want some answers to some questions.”
“Like what?”
“Russell Stone.”
“Gwen’s husband.”
That’s right”
“What about him? You want to kill him?”
“No.”
“He’s not much. He’s a stiff. Very proper, very much the company man, the Protestant ethic, that whole bag.” Laughter. “Goodlooking, but I bet he’s a drag in the hay. I threw a pass at him on their last trip east. He wasn’t having any. I don’t think he approves of his sister-in-law.”
“When did Gwen meet him?”
“I don’t know. You’re giving me a headache, killer. You want a drink?”
“No.”
“Oh, that’s right You don’t drink, do you?”
“I-”
“You don’t drink and you don’t kill girls. You just get framed by evildoers, is that right?”
I drew a breath. “You ought to humor me,” I said. “Get nasty with me and I might take after you with a knife.”
“I’ve decided I’m safe with you, killer.”
“Why?”
“I’m not a whore.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“I never sell it I only give it away.”
“That’s all it’s worth.”
The eyes flashed. “Go easy, killer. I’m bitchier than you, you’ll come out second best.”
“I didn’t come here to fight Linda.”
“I know. You want in-for-ma-tion.”
“That’s right.”
“What I want” she said, “is a drink. Just a small one, because I am nicely up on bennies and too much would blunt the edge. Sure you don’t want one?”
“Positive.” I wanted one desperately.
“Then I drink alone.” I followed her into the kitchen. She poured Scotch into a water tumbler. “Get me some ice, will you? Right behind you.”
I turned toward the refrigerator, then heard her move. She was making a grab for the wall phone. She had the receiver off the hook and her finger in the “O” hole. I hit her open-handed across the face. She reeled away, and I pulled the phone out of the wall.
Her face was white, with red marks from my fingers. “Superman,” she said.
“Don’t try it again.”
“Not with that phone, I won’t.” She picked up her glass. “What would happen if I threw this in your face?”
“I’d beat the crap out of you.”
“Uh-huh. Well, the hell with the ice.” She drank the straight Scotch all the way down and put the empty glass on the counter. “You hurt me, killer.”
“You had it coming.”
“I know.” She stood for a moment, thinking. “The hell with it I don’t want to get hurt any more. The killer plays too rough. I just want you to get the hell out of here. I don’t suppose it would do me much good to scream, would it?”
“None.”
“I didn’t think so. So let’s go back to the living room and sit down on the couch, and you can ask me your precious questions about Russ Stone, All-American Boy. And I will answer them and then you will go away. All right?”
“Fine.”
We went back to the living room. There was a phone there, and I ripped the cord out of the wall.
“I don’t think you trust me.”
“I don’t trust anybody.”
“That’s probably a good policy.” She settled herself on the couch, folding her long legs under her little rump. “You want a cigarette?”
“I have my own.”
We lit cigarettes. She inhaled deeply, sighed the smoke out, and shrugged. “Okay,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
“I think Gwen was having an affair with someone while we were married. Whoever it was, he’d have a good motive for framing me. The only motive I can think of. I want to know who it was.”
“You honestly think Gwen was playing around?”
Did I? A difficult question. “Yes.”
“What makes you think that?”
“It doesn’t matter. I want to know who the man was.”
“Don’t you have it mixed up? You were the cheater, lover.”
“Forget that.”
“You think my little sister-”
“Cut it out, Linda. You know all about it. Now tell me.”
She considered this. “If she were having an affair,” she said thoughtfully, “why should she tell me about it?”
“Someone would have to cover for her from time to time. She didn’t have any really close friends in town. Except you.”
“She never said anything to me.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’am?”
“Yes.”
She stretched like a cat, ground out her cigarette in an ashtray. “It wasn’t Stone,” she said. “I’ll bet on it.”
“How can you be sure?”
“He was in California. That’s where she met him.”
“He was in New York at the time.”
“He was? I didn’t know that But he wouldn’t do anything with a married woman. Not that Boy Scout.”
“Just because he turned you down doesn’t mean he couldn’t fall in love with Gwen.”
“I’ll ignore the dig, killer.” She laughed shortly. “No, not Stone. The great Stone face. No. It might mess up his career, and it wouldn’t be moral Remember, I met the clown. He’s a type, all right. Only with your own wife and only in the dark and only at night and only in the missionary posture. That’s what they call it in the South Seas, did you know that?”
“Yes.”
“Because only the missionaries did it like that down there. The natives liked it doggie style. Which has its points, certainly. That way you don’t miss television.”
I didn’t say anything. She flicked her tongue over her red lips, her eyes holding mine. I pretended not to hear the murmur beneath the words or see the invitation in the pin-point pupils.
“It wasn’t Stone,” she said.
“Then who?”
“Probably nobody.”
“I don’t believe it. Was it Landis?”
“Who?”
“Pete Landis. Before we were married-”
“Oh, the rabbit!” She laughed aloud. “Not a bad guess, but no chance. She had a thing with him once.”
“I knew about it.”
“Sometimes a woman has a return engagement with an old love, but not this one. Not Mr. Wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am. When his wife had a premature baby, Gwen said it stood to reason. He’s not your man, killer.”
She changed position on the couch again, moving closer to me, twisting her body deliberately. I tried to ignore her. She was not at all pretty and she looked all of her years, and yet there was something annoyingly attractive about her. The evil accessibility, the aura of sexual skill and experience. I felt a stirring in my loins that I could not wholly will away, and she looked at me and knew it.
“She was having an affair,” she said suddenly.
“She told you?”
“Not in so many words, but she was never good at hiding things from me. And I did cover for her once or twice, but that was easy enough. You never suspected a thing, did you, lamb?”
“No.”
One hand fussed with her hair. “Poor baby.” The hand dropped to my leg and patted me. “I never found out who was the lucky man. I got the impression it wasn’t a name I would have recognized. Or you either. Someone she met in the neighborhood, that would be my guess.”
I looked away. Not Stone, not Landis. Somebody, but no one she knew, no one I knew. Not the man she had later married.
Just… someone.
It didn’t make any sense. Why kill for her and then give her up? Or, if he had thought he would get her, why kill a second time? He must have known he was safe. I had spent years in jail, and by the time I was out my wife was on the other side of the continent and married to another man, and I obviously suspected nothing, and did not even know the man, so that suspicion would be of no value to me-
Unless it was not her lover at all, but someone who just happened to hate me.
But who?
“You don’t look happy, sweetie.”
“I’m not.”
“Poor lamb. I didn’t help you, did I?”
“No.”
She moved closer to me. I could smell her, her perfume mingling with the odor of sexual arousal. “Poor lamb,” she said again, “there ought to be something I can do for you. I can’t give you a drink, I can’t give you any worthwhile information-”
I couldn’t say anything, or move. Or ignore the dismaying fact that I wanted her.
She stood up, more bright-eyed than ever, her tongue working nervously with her upper lip. She took off her blouse and slacks, kicked off her house slippers, removed her underwear. Her body was boyish, with tiny breasts and narrow hips, and it had aged well.
“There is something I can give you, lamb.”
I hate you, I thought, but I couldn’t make the thought stick. Lust is the ultimate legislator, and the mind its servant I stood up. I removed my own clothing. And she watched me, her eyes examining my body, saying silently that they had seen all of the male bodies in the world, and that, now, they wanted this one.
I reached for her. She danced lightly away from me, eyes amused.
“Not here, lamb. We don’t want to stain the couch, do we?”
She took my arm. Her hands were cool. We walked, side by side, toward the bedroom. She bumped her hip against me as we walked. At the doorway I grabbed her, kissed her. She ground her body against mine, then slipped out of my arms.
“Bed,” she said.
She lay on her back. My hands touched her breasts, her belly. I moved over her, ready for her, and…
“Come on, lamb. I never fucked a killer before. Can you do it without a knife, baby?”
The words were knife enough. They went for the groin and found their mark, and desire dropped like a fast curtain. Everything turned to flashes of red and black. I had a fire in the back of my skull. My hands turned to fists.
I did not kill her, I did not even hit her. I wanted to. I ached to. But somehow I found strength I never even knew I had, and I threw myself away from her, threw my whole body away from her and off the bed and onto the floor. And lay there for a nearly blank moment while the red and black faded slowly out and the world, for better or for worse, came back into focus.
“Well Gwen said you were a lousy lay, killer. Do you always crap out like that? Is that what happens with the whores? You use the knife when you can’t get it up?”
“I never killed those girls,” I said quietly. I got up from the floor. “I never killed anyone. But just now I came within two inches of killing you, Linda. I hope you got your kicks.”
“I got all the kicks you could ever give me, killer.”
I looked at her. I couldn’t even hate her any more. It was all gone, and I felt nothing more than a nugget of shame for having briefly wanted her.
“You can put the knife away,” I said. “I just became immune to you.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
“My baby sister had a lover.”
“I don’t care.”
“She told me all about it.”
“I don’t care.”
“She wasn’t in love, though. It was purely for sex. You couldn’t keep her happy in that department, killer.”
I turned away from her. I walked back into the living room and she followed after me. I got dressed. She didn’t.
“I know who it was.”
“I didn’t ask his name. Partly because, at the moment, I don’t think I really cared. Partly because I had the feeling she would tell me anyway. I had challenged her to stick the knife in again, and she had to prove she could do it, so she would tell me.
“Don’t you want to know?”
“What’s the difference?”
“It was someone you know.”
I dressed slowly and deliberately. I wanted more than anything on earth to get out of there and away from her, but I took my time and dressed slowly and carefully, turning my socks right side out, before putting them on, knotting my tie neatly, all of that.
And she said, “It was Doug MacEwan.”