Nothing to Lose But My Life (11 page)

“Them? Who is ‘them’?”

I said quietly, “I’d say Hoop. I think he was the one who countermanded Nikke’s order the other night and had me beaten up.”

“That could be.” She sounded vague, almost disinterested.

I said, “All right, how could Charles Conklin make you marry Hoop if you didn’t want to?”

“He couldn’t—he can’t.”

“Yet you fought with him about it.”

“Did I?” Tanya said. “Did I, Lowry?”

I was trying to run through deep water again. I said, “Damn it, Tanya—”

Her hand came down over mine. “I know, Lowry. I said I’d help you and you’re wondering what kind of help I meant. I’m sorry. You’ll just have to trust me for a while.”

I got up and moved away from her again. That way I could think better. I should have hated her. I could see only one thing—that she was trying to play me for a sucker. And yet she still bothered me. I was too conscious of her. I faced myself with it and admitted the truth. I had done what I feared I would do—I had fallen for Tanya Mace. Completely, thoroughly, irrevocably. It was more than her eyes, her body, it was all of her. I had fallen for a woman who might well not only be a two-time murderess but who might be trying to frame me.

I knew all this with perfect clarity, and at the same time I knew that it didn’t really make any difference in the way I felt about her. I had a surge of jealousy directed against Nikke. I who had never felt real jealousy even over Jen.

I made myself stop in front of Tanya and stare down at her, made myself forget who she was, what she looked like. I looked at her but I kept my eyes off to one side. And I spoke as harshly as I could.

“Hoop is dead,” I said. “Someone killed him tonight.”

“I know,” Tanya said quietly.

“He’s here,” I said savagely. “In this house.”

“I know that too, Lowry. I know what you’re thinking—that not very many people are aware that you come here with Enid, so whoever brought Hoop here must be one who knew it. That would be Nikke or me, wouldn’t it? Or both of us. You think Nikke and I tried to frame you for this, don’t you, Lowry?”

I was licked. She was ahead of me on all counts.

She said, “Sit back down, Lowry. I get a crick in my neck looking up at you.”

I sat down.

TANYA SAID
, “Come here, Lowry.”

She made me angry, knowing that I would come without even a struggle. I let her draw my head down on her breast. Suddenly I was tired, my anger gone. It was very nice being there. I could feel the throb of her heart and I could smell the scent I associated with her.

I thought,
You’re being the complete sucker, Lowry
. Aloud, I said, “What if Enid should come in?”

“She’s too much asleep. I’ve seen her this way before. She might as well have taken sleeping pills. Don’t worry, Lowry. I know she had a crush on you, but we won’t destroy any of her illusions.”

There was something hypnotic about her soft, husky voice, about the touch of her hands caressing my forehead. And it all seemed genuine. If Tanya was putting it on, then she was the world’s best actress. Or maybe I wanted to think that she felt this way about me.

I forced myself to say, “I still need Enid. She’s my pipeline.”

“You don’t trust me, do you, Lowry?”

“No, sorry.”

“Because I won’t tell you what I can’t—yet?”

“Because of the way you feel about Nikke,” I said.

“You do hate him, don’t you?”

I was bitter, remembering. “I’ve hated him for over five years, Tanya. I’ve nursed that hate. I’ve found no reason to stop. And after this—”

“I know all about it,” she said. “About your wife and the Colonel. About the court case—all of it.”

“Nikke told you?”

“Nikke told me,” she agreed. “I’m sorry, Lowry. We all have it tough one way or another. You got it a little tougher than most.”

“Thanks for the pity.”

“So bitter,” she murmured. “So damned bitter.”

“You love Nikke, don’t you, Tanya?”

“Very much.”

“And Nikke loves you?”

“Very much,” she said again.

I twisted my head so that I could look into her face. She was smiling down at me, a gentle smile. Slowly, as our eyes met, the smile changed. Her mouth ripened, filled out, seemed redder, more moist. Her head came down, her lips seeking mine.

I had kissed a lot of women, but kissing Tanya was a new experience. At first I thrust her away, involuntarily, as if protecting myself. I twisted aside and got to my feet, and she followed me. Her eyes were half shut, her lips parted. She reached for me.

I could no more have pushed her aside again than I could have flown down the Slope. My mind threw out a feeble warning and then it was gone, engulfed.

I could hear myself saying her name over and over and hear her repeating mine. The satiny silk of her pajamas melted away and my hands were on her cool-hot flesh. I said once, “Nikke?”

“Nikke isn’t here, Lowry.”

And later, I said, “What if Enid should wake up?”

“She won’t. Anyway, I don’t care. I don’t care, Lowry.”

And she said, “God, Lowry, you’re rough.”

I was half out of my head. “I’m taking part of my revenge against Nikke,” I said.

• • •

“You want to hate me, don’t you?” Tanya asked. She was coming from the kitchen with coffee. It had simmered until it was dark and thick and rancid. I needed it. I was shaking.

“I can’t.”

Tanya sat down and tried the coffee. She made a face. “Lowry, it’s nearly daylight. What are you going to do with the body?”

It was a matter-of-fact question and it deserved a matter-of-fact answer. “I thought of dumping it in the murderer’s lap,” I said.

“You mean take it to my place?” She was laughing at me again.

“I hoped you could give me the answer I need,” I said.

“I can—to a point. Don’t take it to my place—or Nikke’s.”

“That doesn’t leave much, does it?” I rubbed a hand over my face. It was bristly. “Look at my position, Tanya. Who’s a better suspect?”

“No one. Certainly not me. He hadn’t changed his will in my favor or anything like that.”

“If you were being forced into marrying him, that gives you a motive.”

“Who’d tell—you?”

“Enid.”

“I doubt if Enid knows it—when she’s normal. It’s probably something she picked up when she was—like she is now. And who would believe her?”

“I wouldn’t tell,” I had to admit. I took a deep breath. “Look, I have to operate from some kind of an assumption. I have two choices—that you or Nikke or both of you framed me, or that you’re telling the truth. If I decide you’re telling the truth, then I have to start over. Who wanted to kill Hoop?”

“Who didn’t?” Tanya said. There was no humor in her voice.

“Conklin, maybe.”

“They’re business associates. He could want to, I suppose. But he’s made a lot of money out of the Colonel’s contacts. I can’t see why he should kill him.”

I hung on to the subject. “Where did you and he go after you left Hoop’s last night?”

“I stopped for a drink,” she said. “Then I went to a drive-in for a sandwich. I was still upset so I came home and rested before going to the party.” She paused a moment.

“I don’t know what Charles did,” she said then. “I didn’t pay any attention and I was too mad to care as long as he didn’t try to bother me.”

“You were pretty late getting to Sofia’s,” I said.

I stayed home until I felt calm enough to face Charles,” she said. “I know, I had lots of time to kill the Colonel and plant him here. So did Charles, I suppose. So did a lot of other people.”

“Hoop wasn’t home when you went there?”

She shook her head. “No. I was supposed to meet him at a quarter to seven and have a bite of supper and then we were to go together to the party. Dobbs, the butler, asked me to wait in the library. The Colonel was supposed to come down in a minute. But it was Charles who came in.”

“But Hoop didn’t appear?”

“No.”

“Weren’t you suspicious?”

She shrugged. “We often ate in the library before the fire. It was his favorite room. But sometimes when we were to eat together, he’d call and say he was detained. Then, if it wasn’t to be too long, I’d eat alone and wait for him.”

“He called then?”

“No,” she said, “Charles came in and told me that he and the Colonel had business and I wasn’t to wait. I assumed they’d been in contact. I started to go when Charles told me he wanted me to marry the Colonel sooner than we’d planned.”

“When had you planned?”

She smiled at me. “I’d kept it indefinite, Lowry.”

That was as good as telling me she had been working on Hoop for reasons of her own and that she had no intention of marrying him. And again suspicion flared; I wondered just what game she had been playing.

I said, not wanting to follow up that phase of the subject right then, “That butler told me Hoop was in an important conference.”

Tanya smiled. “I was probably the conference. The Colonel often came directly into the library from stairs that led up to his bedroom. Dobbs didn’t necessarily have to see him to think he was there.”

That interested me. “Very neat,” I said. “Then the Colonel could go directly up to his bedroom from the library—or take someone up?”

Tanya wasn’t insulted. “Yes, he could. But he didn’t take me up.”

No, not her. I found it more impossible than ever now to imagine an intimate relationship between Tanya and Hoop. I said, “But if someone could have got up to his bedroom, they could have slipped down and killed him when he was alone in the library—or gone from the library up to the bedroom and killed him—and Dobbs would never have known.”

“I suppose so,” she said. “All of his friends know about the arrangement. For an outsider, though, it would take a good second-story man to get up to his balcony and into the bedroom.”

“Nikke has men like that available,” I said.

“You’re letting your hate eat you up, Lowry.”

I countered, trying to get back at her, “Why did you make love to me, Tanya, if you’re so fond of Nikke?”

“I’ll tell you some time,” she said.

I couldn’t best her. I went back to the other subject. “When you were home resting, did a car drive up here?”

“No,” she said. “Not even Enid, if that was what you were wondering”

I shook my head. “Enid couldn’t have carried him inside. He’s heavy. A dead body of any kind is heavy. It took a man or men”

“I don’t know,” Tanya said thoughtfully. “I brought him down from my garage. I had to drag him but I got him here.”

She could have slapped me and I wouldn’t have been more startled. I had been wavering toward trusting her. accepting what she had told me—and now she came up with this.

“Damn it—” I began.

She got up and moved toward the fire. “I can tell you that much, Lowry. It won’t make any difference except in what you think about me. That’s why I didn’t say anything before. I had to think it over.”

It sounded lame. “Why tell me now?”

“Because.” she said, “the more I think of it, the more I realize you’re in a bad spot. I thought at first we could move the body and that would protect you. Now I’m not sure. Once the local police realize you’re Malcolm Lowry, they won’t hesitate. And whoever killed the Colonel in the first place is going to let them know about you, you can be sure of that.”

“Then you think it’s a frame on me?”

“I’m positive,” she said. “Either that or you’re a damned fool and you really did do it.” She took a handkerchief from her pajama pocket, unfolded it and brought out a piece of paper “This was on the body,” she said. “I found the Colonel on my garage floor. as if someone had pushed him from a car and left him there. I took this before I brought him down here.”

She handed me the paper. I unfolded it, although I didn’t need to, I recognized the receipt I had left for the Colonel Only I had put it in his strong box and put the strong box back in the safe

I said, “It’s possible Hoop found this—I left it for him—and had it with him when he was killed.”

“It’s possible,” Tanya agreed, “only it was tucked half in his breast coat pocket as if to make sure the police wouldn’t miss it.”

I said, “There are a lot of things I want to know about. One, why did you bring him down here?”

“It seemed the least likely place anyone would think of to look for him. I was going to move him again as soon as I got the chance.”

“With my help?”

Her smile was submissive. “Maybe that’s one reason I stored him in that bedroom.” She had to giggle. “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t do it to shock you away so you wouldn’t go to bed with Enid.”

“No,” I said reasonably, “finding a corpse in my bed would be more apt to drive me into hers.” I didn’t tell her that I was still wondering, that I wasn’t sure her reason for bringing the body here was a particularly acceptable one.

“How was he dressed when you found him?” I asked “Naked,” she said promptly. “Except for one of his own blankets wrapped around him. His clothes were laid inside the blanket.”

His own blanket. He’d probably been brought from his own house dead if that was the case. My first theory was right, I thought. He’d been killed either in his bedroom or his library and most likely by someone who knew his—or her—way around the house.

But right now thinking wasn’t getting us anywhere. I said as much to Tanya. She agreed it was time we did something and went to her place to dress. I spent the time getting things ready.

First I looked in on Enid. She was sleeping peacefully, her expression almost normal again. I couldn’t really be sure that it meant anything, but to play it safe I scrawled a note and propped it on the nightstand. I didn’t want her to wake up, find herself alone, and start remembering. She had had it tough enough for one time.

Tanya was quick. She came down wearing a beach robe and sandals and carrying a towel. In her other hand, she had a little canvas flight bag. She handed it to me. Inside were a pair of trunks, a terrycloth robe and a towel. All were nice and new.

“I bought them for you yesterday, Lowry,” she said. “I guessed at the size.”

Considering how I’d been pawed when she was dressing my ribs, I doubted if my size had been much of a mystery. I said, “For what—swim in November?”