Songs in the Key of Death (13 page)

Wife. Watching Penelope getting high, he brooded. Here was his replacement as head of the department. Soon it would be made public and Corliss would have to know. Staff might accept the change and forget about it but his wife would not take it easily.

“Cheer up, Wally,” Fetterson said, his overfed face florid with good-fellowship. “It may never happen.”

“It already has.”

“You hate presenting to clients. You’ll be happier out of the rat-race.”

“There are others involved.”

Fetterson, a married man, knew what his former media chief was getting at. “Explain to Corliss. Tell her the job was killing you.”

Wingbeat left the session. He fled to the safety of his desk, lost himself in pages of figures which demanded nothing of him except that he arrange them in columns that added up. Never mind the job killing him. Robbed of her prestige as wife of a manager, deprived of the extra money that went with the responsibility, Corliss would make his life not worth living.

The idea entered Wingbeat’s troubled mind without preamble. Kill or be killed. It was preposterous, but perhaps it was the only way. Not Corliss—he would never murder his wife. But if he could find some safe way to terminate Penelope Good’s stay on the planet, his problem would disappear.

Wingbeat was so shaken by the possibility that he left the office earlier than usual and drove home in rush-hour traffic. His street looked different at a quarter to six, with men getting out of cars and wives greeting them. Larry Boxer was opening his front door, jacket off, shirt sleeves rolled, bulging briefcase hinting at problems the jovial salesman faced like anybody else.

“What happened, Wally?” he called. “Fired at last?”

“Not yet, Larry.” Wingbeat was so harassed, he let fly an answering salvo. “But when they drop me, I’m coming over to live off you.”

Inside the house, he took his wife and son by surprise. They were playing dominos at the kitchen table. Corliss had her first gin and tonic beside her. Philip was getting through milk and cookies.

“Good Lord,” Corliss said, as if a game-show host had climbed out of the television set.. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here. Hello, dear.” He kissed her and ruffled the cornsilk hair on his son’s giant head. “Evening, Pip.” As he moved off to change his clothes, he said, “Think I’ll do a little gardening. Not hungry yet.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“Taste-testing. Metro’s new liqueur.”

“Is it as bad as it smells?”

Ten minutes later, wearing an R&B sweatshirt and the trousers he was proud of because of their grass-stained knees, Wingbeat hurried down to the gardening shed and brought out clippers, rake, work-gloves, and a plastic bag for rubbish. The tin of weed-killer was almost full. He took it to the light and began reading the copy on the label. It certainly carried enough warnings about the danger of swallowing the stuff.

“Father?” Philip was watching him.

“Hello again, Pip.” He felt uncomfortable, caught in the act. “Nothing on the box just now? Aren’t they rerunning Dr. Who?”

“Can I help you? I want to help.”

“Take the clippers and go up to the rock garden. Trim the grass between the rocks.”

“What are you going to be doing?”

“Finishing reading this.” Empathy between father and son was intense. Wingbeat had to turn away as his eyes filled up. “Get on with it, son,” he said. “Dad needs to be alone.”

Early next morning, briefcase in hand, Wingbeat left the break-fast table and walked not to his car but across the back lawn to the gardening shed. Inside, he opened the briefcase, took up the tin of weed-killer, fitted it carefully inside between files, then closed the case.

“What gives?” Corliss called from the doorway as he came back and let himself into the car. Pip’s calm face watched from the kitchen window.

“Left my watch on the shelf last night,” he said, raising his wrist as an exhibit. It was no lie. Anticipating such a question, he had taken off his watch and left it in the shed before going after dandelions last night with a rusty knife.

Penelope Good paid him a short visit at half past nine, perching on his spare chair, crossing her shiny legs and swallowing coffee from a mug with “Carnaby Street” silk-screened on it. Then, “Must run, love,” she said. Penny called everybody love, or ducks. “The idiot in the corner office wants to pick my brains about a new-business presentation.”

Her irreverence about Fetterson only made Wingbeat wonder how she talked about him in front of others. “All right, love,” he said. “Did you enjoy the Yucca tasting?”

“Fabulous. I can’t understand why the others were putting it down.”

Wingbeat had smuggled a full bottle out of the boardroom. He opened his bottom drawer and lifted the jug into view. “Play your cards right—” he hinted.

“Yummy-yum,” the girl said, rounding her eyes.

“You never know your luck in a big city,” he told her. “This could be the day!”

When she was gone, he closed his door. He found a sheet of clean paper and folded it crisply. He twisted open the cap on the bottle and removed it. He took the tin of weed-killer from his briefcase and poured a quantity of the white powder into the V of the folded paper. Then he funneled the poison carefully into the bottle, tapping the paper to expedite the flow. Last of all, he capped the bottle, turning it a few times to disperse the powder. The bottle stored away, he opened the door, went back to his chair, and lost himself in a forest of numbers.

At four-thirty, Wingbeat wrapped the bottle in a brown-paper bag left over from one of his frugal lunches. Then he got into his jacket, took hold of his briefcase in one hand and the bag in the other, and walked down the hall to Penelope’s office. She was on the telephone, shoes tumbled on the carpet, stocking-feet propped on her desk. As she spoke and listened, she read her visitor in the doorway, his face, his briefcase, the rounded paper bag. The silky toes crimped and flexed.

“Is this an imposition?” Wingbeat asked when, at last, she terminated her call. “I know it isn’t closing time yet, but this bottle needs drinking. And you do enjoy the stuff. And I used to be manager of this department and you soon will be, so between the two of us we ought to be free to—”

“Say no more, say no more.” The girl got up and slipped her feet into the alligator high-heels. She put on a Charles Boyer voice... “Come wiz me to ze Casbah. I have cheese to go wiz de booze!”

The receptionist performed not a double, but a triple-take as she saw the unlikely couple vanish into an elevator. “Strategy conference,” Penelope called as the door slid shut.

Home from school, Philip Wingbeat raised suspicion in his mother’s mind by not raiding the refrigerator directly. “Are you all right?” she asked him.

“Worried.”

“What about? Damn it, you’ve been sleeping in class again, I’m going to have to pay yet another boring visit to placate the principal.”

“Worried about Father. He seems depressed.”

“He enjoys it. If it wasn’t for me pushing him, he’d be shining shoes at Central Station.”

Philip could not bring himself to mention the weed-killer. His silence on the subject had something to do with preserving his father’s dignity. But he was determined to sound a warning. After that, he would have done everything in his power.

“Mother, it isn’t like other times. I think he may try something. Father needs help.”

Corliss Wingbeat heard something in her son’s voice. An alarm rang inside her head. Walter had come home on time from work the other night. That was definitely odd. The boy’s rapport with his father was close. “You may be right,” she said. Leaving her chair, she went and found her purse, throwing in wallet and car keys. It was one thing to tease Walter in a casual way, but she wanted him secure for quite a few years yet. “I’ll collect your father at the office. We’ll have supper out. I’ll talk to him. Feed yourself from the fridge, darling.”

Corliss drove in the opposite direction to the main flow of traffic, arriving at the R&B offices just as the receptionist was putting things away. “I’m sorry, you’ve missed him, Mrs. Wingbeat,” the girl said. She could hardly believe her luck. Wingbeat’s wife never came to get him. And tonight of all nights!

“I can’t have missed him. It’s barely five o’clock.”

“He left early.” The smile came easily. “Along with Penny Good. They said they were going for a strategy conference.”

By a heroic effort, Corliss managed to conceal most of her fury from this twerpy girl. “Have you any idea where they’re holding their conference?”

“Penny’s apartment isn’t far from here.” The receptionist checked a list in a rare display of efficiency. She recited the address, adding, “It’s the old converted building around the corner.”

Walter Wingbeat was surprised at the smart interior of the apartment, situated as it was in such a grotty old structure. He said so as he cracked the cap on the bottle of Yucca, pretending he was breaking a seal.

“Thanks,” Penelope said. “I badgered the landlord into plastering the cracks and painting. The rest I did myself. But the exterior is not to be believed. I shudder at the thought of a fire.” She produced two tumblers. “Sorry I don’t have liqueur glasses.”

“You’ll buy a nice set of crystal,” Walter confided, pouring a generous measure of the ruby liquid into one of the tumblers,” out of your first pay as department head. Listen, have you got any juice or mineral water? I’m not as keen on this stuff as you are.”

“Hurray, more for me!” She brought him a bottle of fizzy orange. “You’re awfully good about this job change,” she said. “Some men would be homicidal.”

“Truth is, the stress was killing me. You’ve done me a favor, you and Fetterson.” He poured his orange, toasted her, drank as heartily as she did. The important thing, the reason for his being here, would be to get rid of the remains of the poisoned liqueur after she keeled over. Then, to fake illness himself. When she was well and truly deceased, he would come around and telephone for an ambulance. Too late.

“Yeeuch!” the English girl said with delight. She poured the drink down her throat and reached for the bottle. “I don’t care if the public laughs at the name and hates the product. I shall drink all they can produce.”

Nearly an hour had passed and half the bottle of cactus liqueur was in Penelope Good’s stomach when the door buzzer sounded. Wingbeat’s terror had been mounting, drink by drink. He had put in enough poison to fell a rhino. His former assistant was very merry indeed, but she showed no signs even of a mild tummy upset, let alone death by weed-killer. “I’m going to answer the door,” Penny slurred. “If I should return during my absence, please notify me.”

Wingbeat had no place to go. The apartment was of the bed-sitting room variety with kitchenette attached. His alternatives were to hide in the bathroom or a closet or else stay put and face the visitor. When it turned out to be Corliss, with an expression on her face of curiosity mixed with repressed fury, Wingbeat panicked. He had never been so terrified in his life. His mind couldn’t produce a logical assessment. All it could contribute was the idea, “Out, out, out!” His wife was blocking the doorway, flanked by Penelope Good, who was smirking from one shell-like ear to the other. The window! There was no other escape route.

Flinging aside a length of curtain, he hoisted the sash and stepped through onto the iron-barred platform of a fire escape. A paved parking lot lay three floors below.

“I wouldn’t!” his hostess called.

As if to substantiate her warning, the rickety construction squealed, a couple of rusty bolts slipped out of crumbling concrete moorings, and the fire escape swung out and away from the wall. “Hey!” Walter yelled. Now he really had something to be afraid about.

Corliss and Penelope were framed in the open window. His wife did the usual—she demanded something from him that he could not deliver. “Get back in here!” she yelled.

The English girl was shrieking with delight. “You look so funny! I love it! Your wife showed up and you actually—This is fabulous!” And then, having spent a part of her life being pummeled and battered in an English private school, and on her holidays falling out of boats or off of mountains in Europe, the bold young woman said, “Hang on, love. I’m coming to get you.”

Wingbeat watched her kick off her shoes. He stared in fascination as her nylon-clad toes took purchase on the window ledge. “Don’t move,” she said. She tried a step forward onto the platform. It was too far away from the wall. “Give me your hand. And hold on. We’ll drag you back.”

It was a moment of focus. Walter Wingbeat saw his manifold fears now combined in the person of this optimistic girl. She had taken over his job. He was afraid to pass the terrible news on to his wife. The future was unbearable. If only Penelope Good did not exist.

Her arm was extended, her hand inches away. The decision was made for him by a survivor inside, a Wingbeat of whose existence he was only dimly aware. He grasped her hand, took his tightest grip, then gave a sudden, ferocious pull. It was as if he was taking her to him and her face brightened mischievously, but only for a split second because there was no place for her to go but down. She swore, two blunt words he was surprised to discover in her vocabulary. A moment later, she was spread-eagled between cars on the pavement. The building superintendent, who had been watching the drama, ran to examine the body.