The Kill-Off

'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.'

2:

RALPH DEVORE

The 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