“If I ever get married again,” I said, “I’ll take your advice.”
“I hope so.”
“But it’ll never happen,” I said. “Not with my ex-wife bleeding me to death. You know, I’m almost ashamed to say this, but what the hell, we’re strangers, we don’t really know each other, so I’ll admit it. I have fantasies of killing her. Stabbing her, shooting her, tying her to a railroad track and letting a train solve my problem for me.”
“Friend, you are not alone. The world is full of men who dream about killing their ex-wives.”
“Of course I’d never do it. Because if anything ever happened to that woman, the police would come straight to me.”
“Same here. If I ever put my ex in the ground, there’d be a cop knocking on my door before the body was cold. Of course that particular body was born cold, if you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. This time I signaled for more beer, and we fell silent until it was on the table in front of us. Then, in a confessional tone, I said, “I’ll tell you something. I would do it. If I weren’t afraid of getting caught, I would literally do it. I’d kill her.”
“I’d kill mine.”
“I mean it. There’s no other way out for me. I’m in love and I want to get married and I can’t. My back is to the proverbial wall. I’d do it.”
He didn’t even hesitate. “So would I.”
“Really?”
“Sure. You could say it’s just money, and that’s most of it, but there’s more to it than that. I hate that woman. I hate the fact that she’s made a complete fool out of me. If I could get away with it, they’d be breaking ground in her cemetery plot any day now.” He shook his head. “Her cemetery plot,” he said bitterly. “It was originally our plot, but the judge gave her the whole thing. Not that I have any overwhelming urge to be buried next to her, but it’s the principle of the thing.”
“If only we could get away with it,” I said. And, while the sentence hung in the air like an off-speed curveball, I reached for my beer.
Of course a lightbulb did not actually form above the man’s head—that only happens in comic strips—but the expression on his jowly face was so eloquent that I must admit I looked up expecting to see the lightbulb. This, clearly, was a man who had just Had An Idea.
He didn’t share it immediately. Instead he took a few minutes to work it out in his mind while I worked on my beer. When I saw that he was ready to speak I put my stein down.
“I don’t know you,” he said.
I allowed that this was true.
“And you don’t know me. I don’t know your name, even your first name.”
“It’s—”
He showed me a palm. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Don’t you see what we are? We’re strangers.”
“I guess we are.”
“We played handball for a couple of hours. But no one even knows we played handball together. We’re having a couple of beers together, but only the waiter knows that and he won’t remember it, and anyway no one would ever think to ask him. Don’t you see the position we’re in? We each have someone we want dead. Don’t you understand?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I saw a movie years ago. Two strangers meet on a train and—I wish I could remember the title.”
“Strangers on a Train?”
“That sounds about right. Anyway, they get to talking, tell each other their problems, and decide to do each other’s murder. Do you get my drift?”
“I’m beginning to.”
“You’ve got an ex-wife, and I’ve got an ex-wife. You said you’d commit murder if you had a chance to get away with it, and I’d commit murder if I had a chance to get away with it. And all we have to do to get away with it is switch victims.” He leaned forward and dropped his voice to an urgent whisper. There was no one near us, but the occasion seemed to demand low voices. “Nothing could be simpler, friend. You kill my ex-wife. I kill your ex-wife. And we’re both home free.”
My eyes widened. “That’s brilliant,” I whispered back. “It’s absolutely brilliant.”
“You’d have thought of it yourself in another minute,” he said modestly. “The conversation was headed in that direction.”
“Just brilliant,” I said.
We sat that way for a moment, our elbows on the table, our heads separated by only a few inches, basking in the glow generated by his brilliant idea. Then he said, “One big hurdle. One of us has to go first.”
“I’ll go first,” I offered. “After all, it was your idea. It’s only fair that I go first.”
“But suppose you went first and I tried to weasel out after you’d done your part?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t do that.”
“Damn right I wouldn’t, friend. But you can’t be sure of it, not sure enough to take the short straw voluntarily.” He reached into his pocket and produced a shiny quarter. “Call it,” he said, tossing it into the air.
“Heads,” I said. I always call heads. Just about everyone always calls heads.
The coin landed on the table, spun for a dramatic length of time, then came to rest between Sigma Nu and Delta Kappa Epsilon.
Tails.
I managed to see Vivian for a half hour that afternoon. After the usual complement of urgent kisses I said, “I’m hopeful. About us, I mean. About our future.”
“Really?”
“Really. I have the feeling things are going to work out.”
“Oh, darling,” she said.
The following Saturday dawned bright and clear. By arrangement we met on the handball court, but this time we played only half a dozen games before calling it a day. And after we had toweled off and put on shirts, we went to a different bar and had but a single beer apiece.
“Wednesday or Thursday night,” he said. “Wednesday I’ll be playing poker. It’s my regular game and it’ll last until two or three in the morning. It always does, and I’ll make certain that this is no exception. On Thursday, my wife and I are invited to a dinner party and we’ll be playing bridge afterward. That won’t last past midnight, so Wednesday would be better—”
“Wednesday’s fine with me.”
“She lives alone and she’s almost always home by ten. As a matter of fact she rarely leaves the house. I don’t blame her, it’s a beautiful house.” He pursed his lips. “But forget that. The earlier in the evening you do the job, the better it is for me—in case doctors really can determine time of death—”
“I’ll call the police.”
“How’s that?”
“After she’s dead I’ll give the police an anonymous phone call, tip them off. That way they’ll discover the body while you’re still at the poker game. That lets you out completely.”
He nodded approval. “That’s damned intelligent,” he said. “You know something? I’m thrilled you and I ran into each other. I don’t know your name and I don’t want to know your name, but I sure like your style. Wednesday night?”
“Wednesday night,” I agreed. “You’ll hear it on the news Thursday morning, and by then your troubles will be over.”
“Fantastic,” he said. “Oh, one other thing.” He flashed the shark’s smile. “If she suffers,” he said, “that’s perfectly all right with me.”
She didn’t suffer.
I did it with a knife. I told her I was a burglar and that she wouldn’t be hurt if she cooperated. It was not the first lie I ever told in my life. She cooperated, and when her attention was elsewhere I stabbed her in the heart. She died with an expression of extreme puzzlement on her none-too-pretty face, but she didn’t suffer, and that’s something.
Once she was dead I went on playing the part of the burglar. I ransacked the house, throwing books from their shelves and turning drawers over and generally making a dreadful mess. I found quite a bit of jewelry, which I ultimately put down a sewer, and I found several hundred dollars in cash, which I did not.
After I’d dropped the knife down ano
ther sewer and the white cotton gloves down yet a third sewer, I called the police. I said I’d heard sounds of a struggle coming from a particular house, and I supplied the address. I said that two men had rushed from the house and had driven away in a dark car. No, I could not identify the car further. No, I had not seen the license plate. No, I did not care to give my name.
The following day I spoke to Vivian briefly on the telephone. “Things are going well,” I said.
“I’m so glad, darling.”
“Things are going to work out for us,” I said.
“You’re wonderful. You know that, don’t you? Absolutely wonderful.”
On Saturday we played a mere three games of handball. He won the first, as usual, but astonishingly I beat him in the second game, my first victory over him, and I went on to beat him again in the third. It was then that he suggested that we call it a day. Perhaps he simply felt off his game, or wanted to reduce the chances of someone’s noticing the two of us together. On the other hand, he had said at our first meeting that he liked to win. Conversely, one might suppose that he didn’t like to lose.
Over a couple of beers he said, “Well, you did it. I knew you’d do it and at the same time I couldn’t actually believe you would. Know what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“The police didn’t even hassle me. They checked my alibi, of course—they’re not idiots. But they didn’t dig too deep because they seemed so certain it was a burglary. I’ll tell you something, it was such a perfectly faked burglary that I even began to get the feeling that that was what happened. Just a coincidence, like. You chickened out and a burglar just happened to do the job.”
“Maybe that’s what happened,” I suggested.
He looked at me, then grinned slyly. “You’re one hell of a guy,” he said. “Cool as a cucumber, aren’t you? Tell me something. What was it like, killing her?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Hell of a guy. You realize something? You have the advantage over me. You know my name. From the newspapers. And I still don’t know yours.”
“You’ll know it soon enough,” I said with a smile. “From the newspapers.”
“Fair enough.”
I gave him a slip of paper. Like the one he’d given me, it had an address block-printed in pencil. “Wednesday would be ideal,” I said. “If you don’t mind missing your poker game.”
“I wouldn’t have to miss it, would I? I’d just get there late. The poker game gives me an excuse to get out of my house, but if I’m an hour late getting there my wife’ll never know the difference. And even if she knew I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, so what? What’s she gonna do, divorce me and cut herself out of my money? Not likely.”
“I’ll be having dinner with a client,” I said. “Then he and I will be going directly to a business meeting. I’ll be tied up until fairly late in the evening—eleven o’clock, maybe midnight.”
“I’d like to do it around eight,” he said. “That’s when I normally leave for the poker game. I can do it and be drawing to an inside straight by nine o’clock. How does that sound?”
I allowed that it sounded good to me.
“I guess I’ll make it another fake burglary,” he said. “Ransack the place, use a knife. Let them think it’s the same crazy burglar striking again. Or doesn’t that sound good to you?”
“It might tend to link us,” I said.
“Oh.”
“Maybe you could make it look like a sex crime. Rape and murder. That way the police would never draw any connection between the two killings.”
“Brilliant,” he said. He really seemed to admire me now that I’d committed a murder and won two games of handball from him.
“You wouldn’t actually have to rape her. Just rip her clothing and set the scene properly.”
“Is she attractive?” I admitted that she was, after a fashion. “I’ve always sort of had fantasies about rape,” he said, carefully avoiding my eyes as he spoke. “She’ll be home at eight o’clock?”
“She’ll be home.”
“And alone?”
“Absolutely.”
He folded the slip of paper, put it into his wallet, dropped bills from his wallet on the table, swallowed what remained of his beer, and got to his feet. “It’s in the bag,” he said. “Your troubles are over.”
“Our troubles are over,” I told Vivian.
“Oh, darling,” she said. “I can hardly believe it. You’re the most wonderful man in the world.”
“And a sensational handball player,” I said.
I left my house Wednesday night at half past seven. I drove a few blocks to a drugstore and bought a couple of magazines, then went to a men’s shop next door and looked at sport shirts. The two shirts I liked weren’t in stock in my size. The clerk offered to order them for me but I thought it over and told him not to bother. “I like them,” I said, “but I’m not absolutely crazy about them.”
I returned to my house. My handball partner’s car was parked diagonally across the street. I parked my own car in the driveway and used my key to let myself in the front door. From the doorway I cleared my throat, and he spun around to face me, his eyes bulging out of his head.
I pointed to the body on the couch. “Is she dead?”
“Stone dead. She fought and I hit her too hard . . .” He flushed a deep red, then he blinked. “But what are you doing here? Don’t you remember how we planned it? I don’t understand why you came here tonight of all nights.”
“I came here because I live here,” I said. “George, I’d love to explain but there’s no time. I wish there were time but there isn’t.”
I took the revolver from my pocket and shot him in the face.
“The police were very understanding,” I told Vivian. “They seem to think the shock of his ex-wife’s death unbalanced him. They theorize that he was driving by when he saw me leave my house. Maybe he saw Margaret at the door saying goodbye to me. He parked, perhaps with no clear intention, then went to the door. When she opened the door, he was overcome with desire. By the time I came back and let myself in and shot him it was too late. The damage had been done.”
“Poor George.”
“And poor Margaret.”
She put her hand on mine. “They brought it on themselves,” she said. “If George hadn’t insisted on that vicious prenuptial agreement we could have had a properly civilized divorce like everybody else.”
“And if Margaret had agreed to a properly civilized divorce she’d be alive today.”
“We only did what we had to do,” Vivian said. “It was a shame about his ex-wife, but I don’t suppose there was any way around it.”
“At least she didn’t suffer.”
“That’s important,” she said. “And you know what they say—you can’t break an egg without making omelets.”
“That’s what they say,” I agreed. We embraced, and some moments later we disembraced. “We’ll have to give one another rather a wide berth for a month or two,” I said. “After all, I killed your husband just as he finished killing my wife. If we should be seen in public, tongues would wag. In a month or so you’ll sell your house and leave town. A few weeks after that I’ll do the same. Then we can get married and live happily ever after, but in the meantime we’d best be very cautious.”
“You’re right,” she said. “There was a movie like that, except nobody got killed in it. But there were these two people in a small town who were having an affair, and when they met in public they had to pretend they were strangers. I wish I could remember the title.”
“Strangers When We Meet?”
“That sounds about right.”
That Kind of a Day
Traynor got the call at a quarter to nine. The girl on the line was named Linda Haber and she was a secretary—the secretary—at Hofert & Jordan. The boss had been shot, she kept saying. It took Traynor close to five minutes to find out who she was and where she was and to tell her to sit
down and stay put. She was still babbling hysterically when he hung up on her and pulled Phil Grey away from a cup of coffee. He said, “Homicide, downtown and west. Let’s go.”
Hofert & Jordan had two and a half rooms of office space in a squat redbrick building on Woodlawn near Marsh. There was a No Smoking sign in the elevator. Grey smoked anyway. Traynor kept his hands in his pockets and waited for the car to get to the fourth floor. The doors opened and a white-faced girl rushed up and asked them if they were the police. Grey said they were. The girl looked grateful.
“Right this way,” she said. “Oh, it’s so awful!”
They entered an anteroom, with two offices leading from it. One door was marked David Hofert, another marked James Jordan. They went through the door marked James Jordan. Linda Haber was trembling. Grey took her by an arm and eased her toward a chair. Traynor studied the scene.
There was an old oak desk with papers strewn over it; some papers had spilled down onto the floor. There was a gun on the floor a little to the left of the desk, and somewhat farther to that side of the desk there was a man lying facedown in a pool of partially dried blood, some of which had spattered onto the papers.
Traynor said, “Mr. Jordan?”
“Mr. Hofert,” the Haber girl said. “Is he—” She didn’t finish the question. Her face paled and then she fainted.
Some lab people came and took pictures, noted measurements, and made chalk marks. They had Hofert’s body out of the building in less than half an hour. Grey and Traynor worked as a team, crisp and smooth and efficient. Traynor questioned the secretary when she came to, then had the medical examiner give her a sedative and commissioned a patrolman to drive her home. Grey routed the night elevator operator out of bed and asked him some questions. Traynor called the man who did the legal work for Hofert & Jordan. Grey got a prelim report from the M.E., pending autopsy results. Traynor bought two cups of coffee from a machine in the lobby and brought them upstairs. The coffee tasted of cardboard, from the containers.