The Kill-Off (2 page)

Her mouth worked. She took a grayish handkerchief from beneath her pillow, and blew into it. “It—it’s R-Ralph, Kossy. He’s planning to kill me!”

“Yeah?” I said. “So what’s wrong with that?”

“He is, Kossy! I know you don’t believe me, but he is!”

“Swell,” I said. “You tell him if he needs any help just to give me a ring.”

She looked at me helplessly, big fat tears filling her eyes. I grinned and gave her a wink.

“You see?” I said. “You talk stupid to me, and I’ll talk stupid to you. And where the hell will that get us?”

“But it’s not—I mean, it’s true, Kossy! Why would I say so if it wasn’t?”

“Because you want attention. Excitement. And you’re too damned no-account to go after it like other people do.” I hadn’t meant to get rough with her. But she needed it—she had to be brought to her senses. And, I admit, I just couldn’t help it. I very seldom lose my temper. I may act like it, but I very seldom do. But this time it was no act. “How the hell can you do it?” I said. “Ain’t you done enough to the poor guy already? You marry him when he’s eighteen. You talk his father, your caretaker, into getting him to marry you—”

“I did not! I—I—”

“The hell you didn’t! The old man was ignorant; he thought he was doing the right thing by his son. Setting him up so that he could get a good education and amount to something. But how did it turn out? Why—”

“I gave Ralph a good home! Every advantage! It’s not my fault that—”

“You didn’t give him anything,” I said. “Ralph worked for everything he got, and he helped support you besides. And he’s still working anywhere from ten to twenty-four hours a day. Oh, sure, you’ve tossed the dough around. You’ve thrown away the whole damned estate. But Ralph never got any of it. It all went for Luane Devore, and to hell with Ralph.”

She cried some more. Then she pouted. Then she pulled the injured dignity stunt. She
believed,
she said, that Ralph was
quite
satisfied with the way she had treated him. He’d married her because he loved her. He hadn’t wanted to go away to school. He was never happier than when he was working. Under the circumstances, then…

Her voice trailed away, a look of foolish embarrassment spreading over her flabby, talcum-caked face. I nodded slowly.

“That just about wraps it up, doesn’t it, Luane? You’ve said it all yourself.”

“Well…” She hesitated. “Perhaps I do worry, brood too much. But—”

“Let’s pin it down tight. Wrap it up once and for all. Just what reason would Ralph have to kill you? This place—all that’s left of the estate? Huh-uh. He has it now, practically speaking. He’ll have it legally when you die. After all the years he’s slaved here, worked to improve it, you couldn’t will it to someone else. You could, of course, but it wouldn’t hold up in court. I—Yeah?”

“I—nothing.” She hesitated again. “I’m pretty sure she couldn’t be the reason. After all, he’s only known her a couple of days.”

“Who?” I said.

“A girl at the dance pavilion. The vocalist with the band this year. I’d heard that Ralph was driving her around a lot, but, of course—”

“So who doesn’t he drive around when he gets a chance?” I said. “It’s a way of picking up a few bucks.”

She nodded that that was so. She agreed that most of Ralph’s haul-and-carry customers were women, since women were less inclined to walk than men.

“Anyway,” she added thoughtfully, “if it was just another woman—well, that couldn’t be the reason, could it? He could just run away with her. He could get a divorce. He wouldn’t have to—to—”

“Of course, he wouldn’t,” I said. “And he doesn’t want to, and he doesn’t intend to. Where did you ever get the notion that he did, anyhow? Has he said anything, done anything, out of the way?”

She shook her head. She’d
thought
he’d been behaving rather oddly, and then she’d heard this gossip about the girl. And then she’d been feeling so poorly lately, sick to her stomach and unable to sleep nights, and—

The telephone rang. She broke off the recital of her various ailments, and snatched it up. She didn’t talk long—not as long as she obviously wanted to. And what she did say was phrased obliquely. Still, with what I’d already heard in town, I was able to get the drift of the conversation.

She hung up the receiver. Keeping her eyes averted from mine, she thanked me for coming to see her. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, Kossy. I get so worried, you know, and then I get excited—”

“But you’re all squared away now?” I said. “You know now that Ralph has no intention of killing you, that he never did have and never will have?”

“Yes, Kossy. And I can’t tell you how much I—”

“Don’t try,” I said. “Don’t tell me anything. Don’t call me again. Because I’m not representing you any longer. You’ve gone too damned far this time.”

“Why—why, Kossy.” Her hand went to her mouth. “You’re not angry with me j-just because…”

“I’m disgusted with you,” I said. “You make me want to puke.”

“But why? What did I do?” Her lower lip pulled down, piteously. “I lie here all day long, with nothing to do and no one to talk to…a sick, lonely old woman…”

She saw it wasn’t going to work, that nothing she could say would square things between us. Her eyes glinted with sudden venom, and her whine shifted abruptly to a vicious snarl.

“All right, get out! Get out and stay out, and good riddance, you—
you hook-nosed little shyster!
”

“I’ll give you a piece of advice first,” I said. “You’d better stop telling those rotten lies about people before one of them stops you. Permanently, know what I mean?”

“Let them try!” she screamed. “I’d just like to see them try! I’ll make things a lot hotter for ’em than they are now!”

I left. Her screeches and screams followed me down the stairs and out of the house.

I drove back to the cottage, and told Rosa the outcome of my visit. She listened to me, frowning.

“But, dear—do you think you should have done that? If she’s that far gone, at the point where someone may kill her—”

“No one’s going to, dammit,” I said. “I was just trying to throw a scare into her. If anyone was going to kill her, they wouldn’t have waited this long.”

“But she’s never gone this far before, has she?” Rosa shook her head. “I wish you hadn’t done it. It—now, don’t get angry—but it just isn’t like you. She needs you, and when someone needs you…”

She smiled at me nervously. With a kind of nervous firmness. The cords in my throat began to tighten. I said what Luane Devore needed was a padded cell. She needed her tail kicked. She needed a psychiatrist, not a lawyer.

“What the hell?” I said. “Ain’t I entitled to a vacation? I got to spend the whole goddamned summer with a poisoned-tongue maniac banging my ear? I don’t get this,” I said. “I thought you’d be pleased. First you raise hell because I’m going to see her, and now you raise hell because I’m not.”

“So I talk a little,” Rosa shrugged. “I’m a woman. That don’t mean you should let me run your business.”

I jumped up and danced around her. I puffed out my cheeks and rolled my eyes and fluttered my hands. “This is you,” I said. “Mrs. Nutty Nonsense. You know so damned much, why ain’t you a lawyer?”

“The great man,” said Rosa. “Listen how the great attorney talks to his wife…I’m sorry, dear. You do whatever you think is right.”

“And I’m sorry,” I said. “I guess maybe I’m getting old. I guess things get on my nerves more than they used to. I guess—”

I guessed I might possibly have been a little hasty with Luane Devore.

“Don’t let me influence you,” Rosa said. “Don’t do what you think I want you to. That way there is always trouble.”

T
he day I began thinking about killing Luane was the day the season opened. Which was also the day the dance pavilion opened, which was the day I met Danny Lee, who was the vocalist with Rags McGuire’s orchestra. She was a she-vocalist even if her name was Danny. A lot of girl vocalists have boys’ names. Take Janie, Rags’ wife, who was always with the band until she had that bad accident—I mean, until this year, because there wasn’t really any accident, Rags says. It was another party by the same name, and she is staying at home now to look after their boys who did not actually get killed after all. Well, Janie always sang under the name of Jan McGuire. I don’t know why those girls do that, because everyone knows that they’re girls—they do, anyway, as soon as they see them. And with Janie, you didn’t even need to see her to know it. You could just feel it, I mean. You could just be in the same building with her, with your eyes closed maybe, and you’d know Janie was there. And, no, it wasn’t because of her voice, because she had more kind of a man’s voice than a woman’s. What they call a contralto, or what they would call a contralto if she wasn’t a pop singer. Because they don’t seem to classify pop vocalists like they do the other kind. Rags was kidding when he said it—he used to kid around a lot—but he told me that Janie was the only girl singer in the country who wasn’t a coloratura. Or, at least, a lyric soprano. He didn’t know where the hell they all came from, he said, since there didn’t used to be a coloratura come along more than once every ten years. Well, anyway, he can’t say that any more; I mean, about Janie being the only girl who isn’t a coloratura. Because Danny Lee isn’t one either. She’s got the same kind of voice that Janie had—only, well, kind of different—and she even kind of looks like Janie; only Rags gets sore when you say so, so I’ve never done it but once. Rags is awfully funny in some ways. Nice, you know, but funny. Now, me, when you like a person, when you think a lot of ’em, I think you ought to show it. I mean if you’re me, you have to. You can’t do anything else, and you wouldn’t think of saying or doing anything to hurt them. But a lot of people are different, and Rags is one of them. Take with Janie. I know he thought the world of Janie, but he was all the time jumping on her. Always accusing her of something dirty. She couldn’t look at anyone cross-eyed, just being pleasant, you know, without him saying she was running after the guy or something like that. And it just wasn’t so. You wouldn’t find a nicer girl than Janie in a month of Sundays. Oh, she drank a little, I guess. These last few years, she drank
quite
a bit. But—well, we’ll leave that go a while.

Now, I was saying that I’d thought about killing Luane that first day of the season. But that isn’t really the way it was. I mean, I didn’t actually think about killing her. What I thought about was how it would be maybe if she wasn’t there. I didn’t want her not to be there exactly—to be dead—but still, well, you know. I started off wondering how it would be if she was, and then after a while I began kind of half-wishing that she was. And then, finally, I thought about different ways that she might be. Because if she wasn’t—dead, I mean—I didn’t know what I was going to do. And you put yourself in my place, and I don’t think you’d have known either.

Usually—during the winter, anyway—I lay around in bed until five-thirty or six in the morning. But that day was the first of the season, so I was up at four. I dressed in the dark, and slipped out into the starlight. I did the chores, sort of humming and grinning to myself, feeling as tickled as a kid on Christmas morning. I felt good, I’ll tell you. It was dark and the air was pretty nippy at that hour of the morning, but still everything seemed bright to me and I had that nice warm feeling inside. It was like I’d been buried in a cave, and I’d finally managed to get out. And that was kind of the way it was, too, in a way. Because this last winter had really been a bad one. Take the engineer’s job at the courthouse, firing the boilers; now that’s always been my job—an hour morning and evening and an hour on Saturday morning—but last winter it wasn’t mine. And the school custodian job—four hours a day and two days once a month—that had always been mine, too, and now it wasn’t. I talked to the head of the county commissioners, and he sent me to the county attorney. And the way he explained it—about the boilers—was that the commissioners could be held liable for any money they spent in excess of what was necessary. So automatic boilers were being installed, and that was that. I tried to argue with him, but it didn’t do any good. It didn’t do any good when I talked to the president of the school board, Doctor Ashton. They were dividing my job up among some of the vocational students. I wouldn’t be needed now or at any time in the future, Doc said. And he gave me one of those straight, hard-eyed looks like the county attorney had.

So there I was. A hundred and fifty dollars a month gone down the drain. Practically every bit of my winter income, except for a little wood-cutting and stuff like that. Well, sure, I’d always kept a pretty big garden, canned and dried a lot of stuff. And, of course, there were the pigs, and we had our own eggs and milk and so on. And, naturally, I had some money put by. But, you know, you just can’t figure that way; I mean, you can’t count on standing on rock bottom. You do that, say, and what happens if things get worse? If a rainy day comes along, and that water that’s only been up to your chin goes over your nose? Money can go mighty fast when you don’t have any coming in. Say you run in the hole five dollars a day, why in a year’s time that’s almost two thousand dollars. And say you’re forty like I am, and you’ve got maybe twenty-five years to live unless you starve to death…! I tell you I was almost crazy with worry. Anyone would have been. But now it was the first day of the season, and all my worries were over—I thought. I’d just work a little harder, make enough to make up for what I didn’t make during the winter, and everything would be fine. I mean, I thought it would be.

I finished my chores. Then, I spread a big tarp in the back of the Mercedes-Benz, and put my mower and tools inside. You’re probably wondering what a man like me is doing with a Mercedes, them being worth so much money. But the point is they’re only worth a lot when you’re buying; you go to sell one it’s a different story. I did get a pretty good offer or two for it, back when I first got it—two seasons ago—but I kind of held on, thinking I might get a better one. And, of course, I liked it a lot, too, and I did need a car to get around in, to haul myself and my tools and passengers during the season. So, maybe it was the wrong thing, but it looked to me like I couldn’t really lose since I’d gotten it for nothing. So, well, I’ve still got it.

The man who did own it was a writer, a motion-picture writer, who used to come up here for the season. He began having trouble with it right after I went to work for him, and he had me tinker on it for him; and it would run pretty good for a time and then it would go blooey again. He got pretty sore about it. I mean, he got sore at the car. One morning he got so mad he started to take an ax to it, and I guess he would have if I hadn’t stopped him. Well, back then, there was a summer Rolls agency over at Atlantic Center—that’s a pretty big place, probably ten times as big as Manduwoc. So I suggested to this writer that as long as he needed a car and he didn’t like the Mercedes, why not let me tow him over there and see what kind of a trade-in he could get.

Well, you know how it is. Those dealers can stick just about any price tag on a car they want to. So this one said he could allow six thousand on the Mercedes (he just boosted the Rolls price that much), and the writer snapped him up on it. And as soon as he’d driven off, the dealer signed the Mercedes over to me. I tinkered with the motor a little. I’ve never had to touch it since.

Yes, this writer was pretty sore when he found out what had happened. He claimed I’d deliberately put the Mercedes on the blink, and he threatened to have both me and that dealer arrested. But he couldn’t prove anything, so it didn’t bother me that much. I mean, after all, a man that’s got twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars to throw away on a car, has got blamed little to fuss about. And if he can’t protect an investment like that, he shouldn’t have it in the first place.

After I’d finished loading the Mercedes, I went in and did a quick job on the house. Which didn’t take long since I’d slicked everything up good the night before. I ate breakfast, and then I fixed more breakfast and carried it up to Luane. We had a real nice talk while she ate. When she was through, I gave her a sponge bath, tickling her and teasing her until she was almost crying she laughed so hard. As a matter of fact, she did cry a little but not sad like she sometimes does. It was more kind of wondering, you know—like when you know something’s true but you can’t quite believe it.

“You like me, don’t you?” she said. “You really do like me, don’t you?”

“Well, sure,” I said. “Of course. I don’t need to tell you that.”

“You’ve never regretted anything? Wished things had been different?”

“Regret what?” I said. “What would I want different?”

“Well—” She gestured. “To travel. See the world. Do something besides just work and eat and sleep.”

“Why, I do a lot besides that,” I said. “Anyway, what would I want to travel for when I’ve got everything I want right here?”

“Have you, darling?” She patted my cheek. “Do you have everything you want?”

I nodded. Maybe I didn’t have everything I wanted right there in the house, her being pretty well along in years. But working like I do, I didn’t have to hunt very hard to get it. Most of the time it was the other way around.

Well, anyway. I got her fixed up for the day with everything she might need, and then I left. Feeling good, like I said. Feeling like all my troubles were over. I drove up to Mr. J. B. Brockton’s place, and started to work on the lawn. And in just about five minutes—just about the time it took him to get out of the house—all the good feeling was gone, and I knew I hadn’t seen any trouble compared with what I was liable to.

“I’m sorry, Ralph,” he said, sort of kicking at the grass with his toe. “I tried any number of times to reach you yesterday, but your phone was always tied up.”

I shook my head. I just couldn’t think of anything to say for a minute. He wasn’t like some of the summer people I worked for—people who just order you around like you didn’t have any feelings, and maybe make jokes about you—about the “natives”—in front of their company. He was more like a friend, you know. I liked him, and he went out of his way to show that he liked me. Why, just last season he’d given me a couple suits. Two hundred and fifty dollar suits, he said they were. And, of course, he was probably exaggerating a little. Because how could just a suit of clothes cost two hundred and fifty? But even if they only cost fifty or seventy-five, it was a mighty handsome gift. Not something you’d give to people unless you thought an awful lot of them.

“Mr. Brockton,” I said. And that was as far as I could go for a minute. “Mr. Brockton, what’s the matter?”

“Well, I’ll tell you, Ralph,” he said, not looking at me, still kicking at the grass. “Doctor Ashton’s son got in touch with me by mail a week or so ago. I’ve decided to give the work to him.”

Well. You could have pushed me over with a dew drop. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Bobbie Ashton?” I said. “Why—what would Bobbie be doing doing yard work? Why, he must have been joking you, Mr. Brockton! Doc Ashton, why, he always hires his own yard work done, so why would Bobbie—”

“I’ve already engaged him,” Mr. Brockton said. “It’s all settled. I’m sorry, Ralph.” He hesitated a second; then he said, “I think Doctor Ashton is a good man. I think Bob is a fine boy.”

“Well, so do I,” I said. “You never heard me say anything else, Mr. Brockton.”

“I like them,” he said. “And I come here to rest, to enjoy myself. And I do not like—in fact, I refuse, Ralph—to be drawn into community quarrels.”

I knew what the trouble was then. I knew there was nothing I could do about it. All I could do now was to get to some other place as fast as I could. So…so I made myself smile. I said I could see how he might feel, and that he shouldn’t feel bad about it on my account. Then I started reloading the Mercedes.

“Ralph,” he said. “Wait a minute.”

“Yes, sir?” I turned back around.

“I can give you a job with my company. In one of our factories. Something that you could do, and that would pay quite well.”

“Oh?” I said. “You mean in New York City, Mr. Brockton?”

“Or New Jersey. Newark. I think you’d like it, Ralph. I think it would be the best thing that ever happened to you.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I guess you’re probably right, Mr. Brockton, and I sure do appreciate the offer. But I guess not.”

“You guess not?” he said. “Why not?”

“Well, I—I just guess I hadn’t better,” I said. “You see, I never lived anywhere but here. I’ve never been any further away than Atlantic Center, and that was just for a couple of hours. And just being away that far, that little time, I was so rattled and mixed up it was two-three days before I could calm down.”

“Oh, well,” he shrugged. “You’d get over that.”

“I guess not,” I said. “I mean, I
can’t,
Mr. Brockton. It’s kind of like I was rooted here, like I was one of them—those—shrubs. You try to put me down somewhere else, and—”

“Oh, I’m not trying to! Far be it from me to persuade a man against his will.”

He nodded, kind of huffy-like, and headed for the house. I drove away. I knew he was probably right. I kind of wished I could leave Manduwoc—just kind of, you know. And before that day was much older I was really wishing it, with hardly any kind-of at all. But there just wasn’t any way that I could.

Luane would never leave here. Even if she would, what good would it do? Any place we went, people would laugh and talk about us like they’d always done here. There’d be the same stories. Well, not exactly the same, I guess, because outsiders wouldn’t know about Pa. So they wouldn’t be apt to say that Pa and Luane, well—that I was really her son instead of her husband. Or, her son as well as her husband. But however it was, it would be bad. And Luane would start striking back twice as hard, like she’d struck back here. Probably she’d do it anyhow, even if people did have the good manners and kindness to keep their mouths shut. Because she’d been the way she was now for so long, she’d lost the knack for being any other way.