The Third Figure (18 page)

“After I talked to you last Sunday, thinking about it, I decided that you’d probably want to talk to me again.” His voice was low but distinct.

With an effort I looked at Johnny Hanson directly, trying to assess him.

“Why did you think I’d want to talk to you?”

He didn’t answer immediately. His eyes were filmed with the fixed, glassy sheen of a quiet, almost imperceptible insanity. The eyes now seemed part of a rigid, immobile mask, one that would surely be shattered by a single smile or dissolved by a single tear.

“Why did you think I’d want to talk to you?” I asked again.

“Because, Mr. Drake, some of the things I told you were wrong. So I felt that, if you found out, you might be back to see me.” He gestured with a listless hand. He seemed to have lost interest in the conversation.

“Mother says you’re a clairvoyant,” he said finally. “She says you’re actually quite famous.” His manner seemed merely polite—as if he were making desultory conversation to put me at ease.

I nodded, saying nothing—holding his gaze.

“I don’t believe in ESP.” His tone lacked both inflection and animation. It was almost as if he were speaking by rote or from a shallow trance.

“I’m not sure whether I believe in it either,” I answered. “It’s hard to believe in something you don’t understand, even if it happens to you. However—” I paused, for emphasis. “However, it works.”

“Oh? Does it?” The question was delivered with an arch, artificial inflection.

“Yes, it works, Johnny.”

“Then I suppose you know who it was that killed Dominic Vennezio.” It was said without even the smallest trace of hesitation. If anything, it was I who felt uncertain as I said:

“Yes, I think I do know who killed him.”

“And that’s why you’re here.”

“Yes. That’s why I’m here.”

“You think I—know something about it.”

“Yes, I think you do. Or, rather, I think
I
know something about the murder, now. I think I know why you told me you’d never been to the beachhouse, when actually you had. I think I know why you denied seeing your father during the past year, when actually you had. And I also think I know why you told me that it was your mother’s lover who murdered Vennezio.”

In a total, motionless silence we stared at each other. He sat on the littered bed with his long legs crossed and his elbow resting on one knee, his cupped hand beneath his chin.

“I suppose,” he said, “that I could get a lawyer to sue you for defamation of character, or harassment or something. Questioning someone about murder might be a shock that could damage him. For life.”

“I know. But if I’m right, then it’s something I have to do, whether I like it or not.”

“Why?” He seemed merely curious, not really involved.

“Because we can’t live in a society where murderers are allowed to go free.”

He smiled. “That sounds pretty pompous, Mr. Drake. And it doesn’t make much sense, either. There’re probably a hundred murderers free right this minute, in the city of Los Angeles alone. Look at Dominic Vennezio.” As he pronounced the name, I saw the first flaw appear in the mask: a spasmodic twitching of the lips, instantly controlled.

“That doesn’t change anything, though,” I replied. “We still can’t allow murderers to go free if we can help it. And I think I can help it.”

He nodded, almost indifferently. It was as though he were conceding some small point in a trivial, meaningless argument.

“After you leave here,” he said, “what will you do?”

“That depends on you, Johnny.”

“Mother said you’re working for Russo.”

“Well, that—that’s right in one way and wrong in another.”

“Either way,” he said, “you don’t look like you’re feeling very virtuous about it.” He rose to his feet, to stand briefly looking down at me. He seemed sunk in a deep reverie. Then, sighing with a petty, pouty exasperation, he turned away, walking with his long, graceful stride to the desk. He bent down, opened the bottom drawer and reached inside, then straightened, holding two large books in his hands. He closed the drawer with his knee, and placed the two books on the desk top. For a moment he stood pensively gazing down at the books. Then, once more sighing, he moved the top book aside, unopened. The second book was larger than the first, and by turning my head I could read the title:
Principles of Life Drawing
.

With a deliberate, almost ceremonious gesture he raised the cover. The book had been hollowed out; inside lay a small automatic pistol. He picked up the pistol and turned to face me fully, at the same time closing the book. The pistol was pointed at my chest. Now he moved across the room to lock the door, still holding the pistol on me. Then he returned to the bed, sitting as before.

Five feet separated us, possibly six.

Only once before had I ever faced a gun. I could still remember that sick sensation: staring fascinated at the round black muzzle—helplessly, incredibly afraid.

He was speaking quietly:

“I could kill you during the lunch hour, when everyone’s at the dining hall. Do you have a car?”

“Wha—what?”

“I said,” he repeated patiently, “do you have a car?”

Y—yes.

He nodded. “I could kill you during the lunch hour,” he repeated, musing dreamily, “and then I could get your keys. Later tonight I could drive your car up just outside the window—” he pointed to the large casement window opening directly on a graveled driveway, “—and I could load your body inside.” He seemed to think about it, calculating. “I’d probably have a fairly good chance. I could make it look like an accident.”

I’d been staring at the window, draped in a gauzy linen. I realized that no one passing outside could see into the room, unless a lamp were lit. I realized, too, that Johnny Hanson had already considered this possibility.

Could I suddenly kick out, for the gun? I’d heard occasional voices in the hallway outside. He might not dare to shoot.

Should I leap for him?

No. He could pull the trigger before I cleared the chair. It was the one caution the police were constantly preaching: don’t startle a man with a gun. Stay quiet, stay calm. If possible, get your man talking. You can’t outrun a bullet—or outfight a man with a gun.

If only I could smoke a cigarette. If only …

“… did you happen to come here, anyhow?” he was saying.

“Wha—what?”

“I said,” he repeated, now with a faintly impatient exasperation, “how did you happen to come here, anyhow? Was it really ESP, or what?”

As I answered, I moved to a more erect posture in the soft chair, then inched toward the cushion’s edge.

“You could call it ESP,” I said.

“Sit back, Mr. Drake.”

I obeyed. As I did, I was aware that my shirt was damp with perspiration.

“Tell me,” he insisted, “why you came here.”

“I talked to your father, for one thing. And to—other people.”

“My father.”

“Yes.”

His eyes began to blink rapidly, their fixed, glassy film shattered, revealing a deep, desperate wound within. It was the mask’s second flaw, uglier and more decisive than the first.

“You didn’t know, then.” It was a harsh whisper. “Not for sure.”

I shook my head. “No, I didn’t know. I suspected. But I didn’t know.”

Sadly he smiled. He lowered the pistol until it rested in his lap. He looked down at the gun.

“You might’ve gone back to Los Angeles and never known.”

“No. When I first saw you, here, I knew.”

“You guessed,” he said, still staring down at the gun. “You didn’t know.”

I was too numbed to reply. Helplessly, as it had last night, my mind began revolving in wild, eccentric circles around something Larsen had said:

You’re like a kid playing blindman’s bluff
.

Had Larsen predicted that I might be killed? Somehow it seemed desperately important that I remember—yet I couldn’t. I could only …

“When I was six or seven,” he was saying, “I can remember going to the park with my father. We used to play hide and seek. He never cared what people thought. He used to run with me and play tag.” He deeply sighed. His head was still bowed. He was holding the gun very loosely now in his right hand. With his left forefinger, slowly, he begin stroking the gun. The gesture had an odd, hypnotic compulsion. His caress was gentle: almost a lover’s touch.

“She hated him,” he said suddenly. “She killed him.”

“Killed him?” A sensation of shocked disbelief penetrated the numbing helplessness of my fear. “Is he dead?”

“No, he’s not dead. He’s still alive. But he’s dying. His soul is dying. For two years, he’s been slowly dying, inside. He’s a—a bum, now. A drunken bum. He was arrested a few months ago for stealing a bottle of muscatel wine from a grocery store. He went to the county jail for thirty days. Then, in jail, he couldn’t stand it, without liquor, and he—he cracked up. Went insane. They sent him to the county hospital, to the psycho ward. When they were ready to release him, they told him that he had cirrhosis of the liver and that he’d die if he kept on drinking. And then they gave him his clothes and told him to go.” He stopped speaking, staring down at the treasured gun. “That’s why it was so easy to kill Vennezio,” he said softly.

“Did your mother know you’d seen your father?” I asked.

“Are you kidding?” It was a teen-ager’s expression, grotesquely incongruous. “I ask my mother to please pass the toast on Sundays—and once in a while I do her the favor of asking for money. But that’s all—everything. After sixteen years, all I can think about is subtle little ways to make her life miserable. It—it’s an obsession. A total obsession. I think about her constantly, planning what I’ll do to her next—how I can make her suffer, while I still seem to be a dutiful, devoted son. I suppose, really, killing Mr. Vennezio was a kind if an—extension of that same planning. It—it had the same feeling, planning to kill him. There was the same feeling that everything else was unreal and far away—everything else but the planning.”

“When did you decide to kill him?”

He frowned, thinking about it. Then he answered matter-of-factly, “about two months ago. Maybe a little longer.”

I must have almost smiled as I said, “You certainly had a lot of people fooled. Almost everyone thought it was a professional job.”

“When you don’t care about being punished,” he said slowly, “then there’s nothing to worry about. I can remember standing looking down at him. I could still smell the powder smoke. And I remember thinking that I’d been a lot more frightened as a kid, watching horror movies. I didn’t feel a thing. I wasn’t frightened, and I wasn’t hysterical. I wasn’t angry, and I wasn’t glad—I didn’t laugh, and I didn’t cry. I was just standing there.”

“How’d you happen to phone the police?”

He looked at me. “You seem to be fairly perceptive, Mr. Drake. Can’t you figure that out?”

“I imagine that you wanted them to arrive while your mother was there.”

“Yes.” He nodded gravely. “That’s exactly right.”

“Did you want to involve her in the murder?”

“No. I wanted to shame her. I couldn’t forget my father, in that psycho ward. It’s all I could think about. I couldn’t sleep, thinking about it.” As he spoke, his manner again became withdrawn, his tone again dreamily monotonous. “I’ve often thought, since, that the weeks I spent planning the murder were … He paused, searching for the word. “Exhilarating. It’s the only time I can remember feeling alive. Really alive.”

“How
did
you plan the murder?”

“It all started with a gardener we had here at the school. He was an eccentric, paranoid old man, and he only lasted a week or so. But he had several guns. Pistols. That’s one of the reasons he was fired, because he wouldn’t give up his guns. Anyhow, one day I was doing some sketching close to his little cottage. It was probably a week after I’d seen Dad, and already I was trying to think of some way I could kill Vennezio. It was mostly fantasy, of course—but the more I thought about it, the more the idea seemed to take on substance. So, when I saw that the gardener had been called to take a phone message down by the gate, I simply walked inside his cottage. I’m not sure I was even looking for a gun—at least not consciously. In fact, I remember that I was surprised to find myself inside the cottage. But there it was—” He lifted the small automatic, fondly. “—lying on a table. So I simply picked it up, put it in my pocket and walked out.”

“What’d you do next?”

“Well, next, I began to plan it all in detail. I thought of several plans, of course. That was the worse part, in fact—trying to make up my mind between two or three alternatives. But finally I decided to do it on a Sunday night when I’d be visiting Mother. And after I decided, it all seemed to fall into place. It was all so simple, really. I just drove off Sunday night about 6:30, ostensibly going back to school, as usual. I knew that, about an hour later, she’d leave for the beachhouse. I’d followed her, you see. I knew. So I just drove out to the beachhouse, ahead of her. I got there just a little after seven thirty, as I remember. And I …” His voice drifted off. He seemed sunk in some private reverie. His eyes were shining, his lips slightly parted.

“I knocked on the door,” he continued, staring far beyond me. “And I heard his footsteps coming.”

“Did he open the door immediately?”

“Oh, no.” He seemed primly shocked. “No, no. He asked who it was, then he looked at me through the peephole. At first, I’d thought about shooting him through that peephole. I read a story, in fact, where that happened. But, this way, it was so much better. I had the gun in my right-hand jacket pocket. He let me in, of course. I said I had a message from Mother, and he let me in. I pretended to be worried; I think he was afraid of an accident. Anyhow, he let me in. And as soon as he did, I took out the gun. I—I’ll never forget his expression, when he saw it.” Deliciously, Johnny Hanson almost seemed to hug himself. “His eyes became absolutely like saucers. It’s a cliché, I know. But it’s true.”

“Then you shot him.”

He nodded. “Yes, I shot him. Three times. Without more than a second’s pause between shots. I remember being extremely conscious of time. It seemed as if every second was an eternity—another cliché. I don’t know whether you’ve ever smoked pot, but that was the sensation: the essence of being high. It was the end of everything—the absolute end. I remember, firing the third shot, that I felt as if I could die, right then. I realized that I’d never feel any more completely alive than I felt right at that moment.”