“Try me.”
“Go on,” I said. “What about Jean Dahl? What about her? Was that an accident, too? And what about Max? Another accident?”
“It wasn’t me in the dark. It was Max. If he says it wasn’t, he’s lying. Jean Dahl was blackmailing him. I don’t know what with. But she was blackmailing him. He tried to get her twice before. And then in the dark he did it.”
She let go of the sheet.
She sat on the bed, naked to the waist.
“I love you, Dick. You say you love me. You say nothing ever changes. If you love me, believe me.”
“You tried to kill Max.”
“That’s the bad part. I told him this afternoon I wouldn’t marry him. He’s a gangster, Dick. You don’t know anything about it. This isn’t the book publishing world. This isn’t nice people who read the Saturday Review of Literature and make witty remarks at cocktail parties about people they hate.
“You don’t know anything about this. This is the jungle. You have to fight and lie and cheat to get where I am. You have to knife your friends and go to bed with your enemies. You’ve got to be hard. You’ve got to be so tough they can’t hurt you. When you’re trying to make it the people on the top are kicking you, trying to keep you down. And when you get there, the people below are trying to pull you back down. It’s a jungle, Dick. And it’s been my life for ten years.”
I watched her. I could feel a pulse in my temple throbbing.
“Max wanted me to marry him. I told him I wouldn’t. He said I had to. He said I had no choice. He’d tell about faking the book. And he would have. He was just as desperate as I was. He would have ruined me forever. He’s a gangster, Dick. You don’t understand him. I tried to kill him. I thought I had. I wish I had. I’d do it again.”
She stood up slowly.
“Look at me, Dick. Look at me.”
I looked at her.
Her arms were at her sides. Her body was firm but soft. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
“I belong to you, Dick. I always have.”
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t.
“Help me, Dick.”
“What can I do?”
“Tell me you believe me.”
“I don’t know.”
“I love you, Dick. You believe that, don’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Kiss me. You’ll know. You’ll have to know.”
“Janis…”
“You’ll know. You’ll know if I’m lying or not. You’ll be able to tell. I love you, Dick. Kiss me.”
I looked at her. I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t tell at all.
“Darling, I don’t know…”
“You’ll know.”
I dropped the gun onto the floor and moved toward her. I took her arms at the elbows and drew her close. She lifted her head. Her eyes were open. They were very serious and very deep.
I kissed her.
Only our lips touched. Her mouth was soft and warm.
“All right, darling,” I said. “We’ll see. But wait a minute. Just a minute. I have something to do first.”
I went to the door and locked it.
Then I walked to the mirror. I picked up a chair and shattered the mirror. It broke into a thousand jagged pieces. Through the emptiness we could see the back of the picture.
I walked to the head of the bed and began to examine the headboard.
It took me a few minutes to find the hidden microphone. It was very cleverly concealed but I knew what I was looking for. I had to rip the whole headboard off the wall in order to get at it. I smashed through and tore out the wires.
“So much for dear Walter,” I said.
Then I turned to Janis.
She began to speak again. “I’m telling you the truth, Dick. I’ve done terrible things. I admit that. But you have to believe me when I tell you I didn’t mean to kill Anstruther. And you have to believe me when I say I love you. If you believe those two things none of the other terrible things matter.”
I looked at her for a long while, trying to decide what to do.
“Kiss me, darling, and then you’ll know. You’ll know one way or the other. You’ll know.”
Her lips parted and in a moment we were clinging together. My hands held the small of her back. Her arms were around me. We sank backward to the bed.
“Darling,” I whispered. “Darling.”
“Don’t you know? Don’t you know?”
“I know.”
I lay beside her kissing her again. She unbuttoned my shirt and ran her hand inside, caressing my back.
We were close together, holding each other. She was trembling.
“Nothing changes,” she whispered. “It was always us. From the first. Always.”
Then my mouth was on hers.
The time fell away. Two bodies, two brains, two souls driving, straining, aching to be united-to become one.
At the end, I knew.
She was right. I knew.
We lay breathless in each other’s arms.
“Darling,” I said. “My darling.”
For a long time we lay quietly, holding each other. Not speaking, not thinking. Then I sat up and found us cigarettes.
“I don’t care,” I said. “I don’t care what you did. I don’t care what you do. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Only us. There’s a way out of this. We’ll find it. I’ll stick with you. I’ll lie or steal. Or cheat. Or kill. I don’t care. I believe you. I believe and I’ll get you out of this. I believe you.”
“Oh, my darling.”
“Come on,” I said. “We haven’t got much time. Max is lying in the next room. I was in his apartment this afternoon. I was seen there. My fingerprints are on the gun. What we’ll do is this: I’ll go to the police and confess. They know he was a gangster. They know my apartment was wrecked and that I was beaten up by Max’s boys. That sets it all up. I went up to talk to him. To tell him you were marrying me. We had a fight. He’s a violent man. He lost his temper and pulled a gun. I got it away from him and shot him in self-defense. We can make a case. They can’t hang me. The worst would be a year or two in jail. But they won’t do that. We’ll fix up a case. Walter will have to help us. And he’s good at that. He’s had plenty of experience framing things. Here’s one more thing for him to frame.”
Janis’ eyes were wide. “But what about Max?”
“He needs help,” I said. “He’s very badly hurt. Maybe nobody will find him for a while. This is the jungle. I can play rough too.”
I put on my pants and shirt, walked to the bar and poured myself a drink. Janis pulled on her robe.
“Listen, darling,” I said. “This is going to be tough. This is going to be the hardest thing either of us ever did. I’m betting everything on you. I believe you when you say you didn’t do it, and I’m betting my life that you’re telling me the truth.”
“I love you,” Janis said. “You know I’m telling the truth.”
“Now you’ve got to tell me all of it. From the beginning. If I’m going to do this I have to know it all. There can’t be any slip-ups. Any details we’ve overlooked. I’m going to ask you questions and I want you to answer them.
