“Anyway, aren’t I the best part of the case?”
I said: “The whole is always greater than the parts.”
But I didn’t hear the sound of my own voice. A car door slammed somewhere, and footsteps scraped on concrete, growing louder. Somebody heavy and fast was coming up the walk. She heard the sounds and froze: a nymph on an urn.
I drew my gun and sighted down the corridor. The curtained front door was standing slightly ajar the way I had left it. A shadow rose on the curtain, the screen door creaked. I stepped back into the room and examined the clip of my automatic. It was full, and the cartridge was still in the chamber. The footsteps approached the open doorway of the room we were in, lagging slower each time.
Mavis’s fingers bit into my shoulder. “Who is it?”
“Be quiet.”
But the heavy feet had stopped. They moved indecisively, and retreated. I stepped out into the corridor. Kilbourne was waddling rapidly toward the open front door.
I said “Stand,” and shot at the wall beside him. The bullet tore a six-inch gash in the plaster, and halted him in his tracks.
He turned slowly, his hands ascending under hydraulic pressure. He was wearing a Homburg and a fresh dark suit with a mottled pink carnation in the lapel. His face was the same mottled pink. “Melliotes was right,” he said. “I shouldn’t have let you live.”
“You’ve made a lot of mistakes. There are hundreds of people still living—”
The car door closed again, almost inaudibly. I handed the blue revolver to the woman behind me, “Can you use it?”
“Yes.”
“Take him into the room and keep him there.”
“Yes.”
I elbowed Kilbourne out of my way, ran for the front door and slid behind it. A man ran up to the porch, the breath in his ruined nose like a fanfare of trumpets. When Kilbourne’s chauffeur came through the door I hooked his shins with my toe. He went down heavily on hands and knees, and I poleaxed him with the butt of my forty-five. The screen door slammed.
Its echo came back to me from the far end of the corridor, amplified to a heavy gun’s explosion.
She met me in the doorway, empty-handed. “I had to do it,” she chattered. “He tried to take it away from me. He would have shot us both.”
“Leave me out of it.”
“It’s true, he was going to kill me.” The parrot screech of hysteria drowned out Mavis. She looked at her hands as if they were evil white birds. A wicked magician named Kilbourne had attached them to her by witchcraft.
Kilbourne was reclining on the floor, one heavy shoulder propped against the cot. A mound of flesh expensively dressed for death, with a single flower which he had bought for himself. A darker carnation blossomed in one eye-socket Melliotes’ gun lay across his lap.
“Will you take to the airport?” she said. “Now?”
“Not now.” I was feeling the flaccid puffed wrist. “You always do the wrong thing, beautiful.”
“Is he dead?”
“Everybody is dying.”
“I’m glad. But take me away from here. He’s horrible.”
“You should have thought of that a minute ago.”
“Don’t uncle me, for God’s sake. Take me away.”
I looked at her and thought of Acapulco. The fine warm fishing waters and the high sea-cliffs and the long slow tequila nights. Ten million dollars and Mavis, and all I had to do was a little fixing.
It went past the secret eye of my mind like a movie that had been made a long time ago. All I had to do was take it out of the can and dub in dialogue. Not even dialogue was necessary. The chauffeur had been knocked out before the shot. Melliotes was unconscious. And the slug in Kilbourne’s brain was from his gun. Mavis and I could walk out of there and wait for the will to be probated.
I took a long hard look at her full body and her empty face. I left it in the can.
She saw my intention before I spoke. “You’re not going to help me, are you?”
“You’re pretty good at helping yourself,” I said. “Not good enough, though. I could cover up for you, but you’d let something slip when the men from the District Attorney’s office came around. It would be first degree then, and I’d be in it.”
“You’re worried about your own damned scrawny neck.”
“I only have the one.”
She changed the approach. “My husband didn’t make a will. Do you know how much money he has? Had.”
“Better that you do, probably. You can’t spent it when you’re dead or in the pen.”
“No, you can’t. But you’re willing to send me there.” Her mouth drooped in self-pity.
“Not for long; probably not at all. You can cop a manslaughter plea, or stick to self-defense. With the kind of lawyers you can buy, you won’t spend a night in jail.”
“You’re lying to me.”
“No.” I stood up facing her. “I wish you well.”
“If you really wished me well, you’d take me out of here. We could go away together. Anywhere.”
“I’ve thought of that, too. No go.”
“Don’t you want me?” She was distressed and puzzled. “You said I was beautiful. I could make you happy, Lew.”
“Not for the rest of my life.”
“You don’t know,” she said, “you haven’t tried me.”
I felt ashamed for her. Ashamed for myself. The Acapulco movie stirred like a brilliant snake at the back of my mind.
“There’s a phone in Melliotes’ office,” I said. “You call the police. It’s better, if you’re going to plead self- defense.”
She burst into tears, stood sobbing violently with her mouth open and her eyes tight closed. Her wild urchin grief was more touching than any of her poses. When she groped for something to cry on, I gave her my shoulder. And eased her down the corridor to the telephone.
Chapter 24
The studio guard was a big ex-cop wrapped in crisp cellophane refinement. He leaned toward the hole in his plate-glass window. “Who was that you wanted to see?”
“Mildred Fleming. She’s secretary to one of the producers or directors.”
“Oh yes. Miss Fleming. One moment if you please.” He talked into the phone at his elbow, looked up with question-mark eyebrows: “Miss Fleming wants to know who it is.”
“Lewis Archer. Tell her Maude Slocum sent me.”
“Who sent you?”
“Maude Slocum.” The name had unexpected reverberations in my interior.
He talked into the telephone again and came up smiling. “Miss Fleming will be with you shortly. Have a seat, Mr. Armature.”
I took a chromium chair in a far corner of the big, airy lobby. I was the only living person on the secular side of the plate glass, but the walls were populated by giant photographs. The studio’s stars and featured players looked down on me from a lofty unreal world where everyone was young and hugely gay. One of the bright-haired fillies reminded me of Mavis; one of the dark young stallions could have been Pat Ryan thoroughly groomed and equipped with porcelain teeth. But Pat was huddled somewhere on a slab. Mavis was at the Hall of Justice talking
