Chapter Ten
Max Shriber’s apartment was in the tower.
I didn’t use the house phone. I thought it might be better if I went up unannounced.
I got in the elevator and said, “Max Shriber.”
Up on Max’s floor there were only two apartments, A and B. Max was A.
I rang the bell and fiddled with the gun in my pocket. I wanted it to come out easily.
I rang the bell and nothing happened. I could hear it buzzing faintly inside the apartment. But nobody answered the door.
I felt a wave of relief sweep over me. The hell with it. Nobody home. O.K., too bad. I’ll call some other time. I had been brave enough when I started out. But now that it looked like I would not have to meet the man with the nasty voice I could feel my knees shaking with relief.
I turned the doorknob and pushed. It was just a casual gesture to show I wasn’t really afraid. I almost fainted when the door opened easily.
Well, a man’s got to live with himself. I opened the door wider, stepped inside and very quietly closed the door behind me again.
I was in a small, beautifully furnished foyer. The foyer opened into a living room that obviously was used as an office. There was a big desk. Some wood-covered filing cabinets. And the walls were decorated with big, framed autographed pictures of some of the big people that Max Shriber, big agent, handled.
Holding the gun in front of me as I had seen them do in the movies, I advanced into the room.
“Anybody home?” I said. I was surprised. My voice was a hoarse, rather dismal croak. I tried it again. “Anybody home?”
Still no answer.
“Hey, Maxie,” I called in a loud, courageous voice. “Where are you? Hey, big agent. What’s the matter? Where are you?”
I walked over to the desk. There was nothing very special on it.
I thought about the two men who had wrecked my apartment. Max Shriber’s chauffeur and the smaller one. I wondered who the smaller one was. His valet, probably.
I pulled out the top drawer of the desk and dumped the contents onto the floor. I opened the files and began throwing handfuls of papers on the floor. It was a wonderful feeling.
I started to pull the books out of the bookcase. But I couldn’t do it. I’m a book publisher. I hate to see anybody mishandle books. Break their bindings or even turn down corners of a page.
I suddenly felt very foolish. I bent down and started to put the stuff back into the desk drawer. But I felt even more foolish doing that. I straightened up.
“Hey, Maxie,” I said once again. “Where the hell are you, Maxie?”
I walked across the living room to the bedroom. And then I saw Maxie.
He was lying very still on the unmade bed. The blood had stained the pillowcase and the blankets and sheets.
A gun was lying on the floor at the foot of the bed.
Sick with shock, I reached down and picked up the gun. I sniffed it. It smelled as if it had been fired.
I held the gun gingerly, dazed for a moment or two. But I came out of it with a shudder. I threw the gun back down on the floor where it had been and started out of the room.
Fingerprints, I thought belatedly, and came back and picked up the gun with my handkerchief. I was wiping off my fingerprints when I suddenly remembered my prints must be all over the desk and the filing cabinet. I was still wiping the gun and had started walking into the living room, when the front door opened. “Maid?” a woman’s voice said.
I was too startled to speak. I thought of telling her to come back later but I was too frightened to force the words out.
The maid came into the room. A round, smiling, cheerful woman. “Good afternoon,” she said.
Then she saw the gun in my hand.
“My God!” she gasped. “Is that a gun?”
I laughed nervously. “A gun?” I said and laughed again. I put a cigarette in my mouth and held the gun up to it and pretended to click the trigger.
“Darn it,” I said. “These fancy cigarette lighters never work. Must be out of fluid. Ha, ha,” I added. “Guess I’d better use a match.”
The maid was eying me with suspicion.
I laughed foolishly. “Did you think that was a real gun?” I said.
“Who are you?” the maid said. “What are you doing here?” Then she saw the overturned file drawer. “What are you doing in here? Where’s Mr. Shriber?”
“So you really thought that was a gun,” I said, smiling idiotically. “That certainly is a good one.”
The maid looked around uncertainly. “Mr. Shriber!” she called. “Mr. Shriber!”
Then she started for the bedroom.
“Keep out of there!” I said. “Get out of there!”
But I was too late.
She saw his body and began to scream. She was reaching for the phone before I got to the door.
The human brain is an amazing instrument. Sometimes it’s hard to believe how quickly and apparently without conscious direction it can act.
On my way out the door, without hesitating, without thinking what I was doing, without even breaking my stride as I ran, I jerked the maid’s passkey out of the door lock.
I hardly realized what it was but I knew I had to hang on to it. By the time I had hit the fire stairs the maid was finished phoning. At least I figured she was because she’d started to scream again.
I took the stairs about five at a time. I pounded down six or seven flights and then, still not really thinking, just acting on instinct, I stopped and pushed open the exit door. I was standing in a corridor. There were more apartments to a floor now. Eight or ten.
I stood by the stairway door listening. I must have stayed there five minutes. Then I heard the voices from above. And I could hear footsteps racing down the stairs.
Very gently I closed the stairwell door and moved along the corridor.
That was when it first dawned on me why I needed the passkey.
I paused in front of an apartment door. Inside I could hear a radio. I moved on. I could hear voices in the next two apartments. But the fourth one was quiet.
From the stairwell I could hear the sound of voices and footsteps growing louder.
I decided to take a chance. I put the passkey into the lock. The door opened easily and I stepped quickly inside.
The apartment was pitch black. The blinds and curtains were drawn. I closed the door behind me very softly, and slipped the catch. I stood by the door in the dark for a moment or two breathing heavily.
I was moving my hand carefully along the wall hunting for the light switch when the voice said, “Is that you, darling?”
It was a soft, melting feminine voice. I grunted an affirmative sound.
“I’m glad you came back so soon. Wasn’t Mr. Pearson there?”
I made a negative grunt.
“I’m so glad. The hell with Mr. Pearson, darling. It’s perfectly stinking to have to see a man on business on your honeymoon. I’m glad he was out.”
There was a long pause.
I had my hand on the doorknob. But the voice stopped me.
“Darling?”
“Huh?”
“I did just what I promised. I said I wouldn’t move out of bed till you got back. And I haven’t.”
I made what was supposed to be a small sound of ecstasy.
