IV

Backfire

Adrian shrugged, and backed out of the parking place. He drove on across the park and over East Seventy-second past Third Avenue. He parked in front of a remodeled brownstone front halfway down the block.

"This it?" I asked.

"Sure. Haven't you been to Taggert's place before?"

"I've seen him around," I said. "I've never been in his home up till now."

Adrian started to get out of the car. Then he said, "Wait a minute, Wayne. I've been thinking while I drove. I think I've got your angle, now. It threw me for a while. You're going to try an insanity plea, aren't you? That's the reason for this build-up of keeping after a Bluebeard role just after you've killed your wife. That's why you locked Mike in his closet. That's why you tried the backfires, or had me do it. That's why you've been telling everyone you killed Lola, but not going to the cops. You--you aren't really crazy, are you?"

I said, "I sometimes think that maybe I am, Adrian."

He clapped me on the shoulder. "That's the boy. If that's your story, stick to it. I'll ride along for a little while yet. Not too much longer, or I'm going to have to cop an insanity plea myself."

I didn't say anything, and we got out of the car. He led the way to the door and pushed a button in the hallway. The latch of the lock clicked almost right away, and we went in and walked up two nights.

Dane Taggert was standing in the doorway of his apartment. He said, "Took you fellows long enough to get here."

Adrian said, "I went home to get those scene sketches to show you, Taggert. How goes the rewrite on the third-act curtain?"

We were inside by then. Taggert said, "Finished, but don't know whether you'll like it or not. Let's have a drink first. Rye and sparkling okay? Sit down; I'll get it."

Adrian sank into a chair, and I wandered over to the radio. It was a big Zenith console, the kind with four wave bands. It wasn't playing but I looked at the setting. It was on short-wave and the dial was turned for police calls. I moved it out from the wall a little and reached in behind. The tubes were warm; it had just been shut off.

Taggert must have heard me move the set; he stepped to the doorway of the kitchen, an open bottle in one hand.

"Nice set you've got," I told him, moving it back. "Is it good on police calls?"

His eyes missed mine and went to the dial. He said, "Very good. I sometimes get story ideas from them. I still do an occasional detective short."

"Tubes are warm," I said. "You must have been listening in before we came."

"For a few minutes. How do you want your highball, Dixon? Strong? Medium?"

"Medium will do, thanks."

I sat down across from Adrian and felt his eyes on me curiously, but I paid no attention until Taggert came in with the drinks on a tray. I took one and sipped it.

Taggert said, "About that third-act curtain, Adrian. What do you think of the idea of--"

"It stinks," I said.

They both turned to stare at me. Their eyes took in the gun--the nickel-plated, .32 revolver--that was in my hand, resting on the arm of my chair with the muzzle pointed between Carr and Taggert. Then their eyes came back to my face. I wouldn't know, being behind it instead of in front, but I think my face was pretty deadpan, and I kept my voice that way too.

I said, "I've got one idea for a third-act curtain. It's corny as hell. Why don't you have your wife-killer shoot the rest of the cast and then himself?"

Adrian cleared his throat. He said, "It's been done, Wayne. Othello. Roderigo, Iago, Othello."

"Not quite the same," I said. "Othello himself doesn't kill either Roderigo or Iago. My plot is different." I saw Taggert start to get up and I said, "Sit down, Taggert. I'm not kidding." I cocked the revolver.

Taggert had sunk back in the chair. He looked sideways at Adrian. He asked, "Is this a bad joke, Adrian, or is he ... crazy?" There was a little sweat, not much, on Taggert's forehead.

Adrian was staring at me intently. He said, "I'm not sure."

I said, "You had the police short-wave on, Taggert. You know there's a pick-up order out for me. Let's take the gloves off. Even this one."

With my free left hand I took a man's right leather glove from my coat pocket and tossed it to the floor in front of me. I asked Taggert, "Ever see it before?"

He shook his head slowly.

I explained, to Adrian rather than to Taggert, "Lola had it in her purse, along with the gun. This gun."

Adrian stared at me, bewildered. I said "You're on the outside of this, Adrian. Taggert knows what I'm talking about, but you don't. I'll straighten you out. Don't move, Taggert.

"Tonight Lola suggested we take a walk in the park. It puzzled me a little, because it's a cool night, not the kind that makes you want to take a walk at eleven in the evening. But Lola wanted to--and she was sober tonight and very nice to me, so we went for the walk.

"There was hardly anyone else in the park at that hour. We were near the lake and suddenly Lola wanted to walk over to the bridle path--through a dark spot. She didn't give a reason; maybe she had one ready if I'd argued but I didn't argue. We were behind a big clump of bushes, concealed from the drive--if there'd been anyone on the drive. Out on Central Park West, a little past the bridle path, a car began to backfire."

I had them both now. They were staring at me and Adrian's eyes were wide.

I said, "It was nice timing. I remembered afterward that Lola had been glancing at her watch fairly often. Lola must have dropped a couple of steps behind me without my knowing it. After the first time the car backfired, she said 'Wayne' and I turned and there--it was just light enough to see her--was Lola with a pistol in her hand aimed right at me. She had a glove--that glove--on the hand that held the pistol. Shall I let that be the second-act curtain, Adrian, while we have another drink?"

Adrian was leaning forward. He said, "Go on. And don't corn it up."

I said, "I did corn it up, then and there. I guess Lola wasn't used to murdering people; she didn't move fast enough. And, for some reason, I did move fast enough. I had my hand on the gun, over hers, before she pulled the trigger.

"And then we were fighting for the gun, and Lola was plenty strong. And she must have been scared and thought she was fighting for her life, because she fought like a demon for that gun. She almost got it aimed at me again once, short as that struggle was. But it was turned back, pointing at her, when it went off.

"And the car, out on the street fifty feet away, backfired once more after the shot. I just stood there, too stunned to move or to know what had really happened. It didn't make sense; Lola couldn't have gone suddenly insane, because the fact that she'd had the glove along--a man's glove, by the way--and the gun proved she'd planned it.

"But first I was mostly worried about having killed her. I suppose I did silly things. I pulled off the glove and rubbed her hands I started to run for help and ran back because I didn't want to leave her there alone. And I touched her again and knew for sure that she was dead."

I looked at Taggert. I said, "One thing I remember out of that frantic first few minutes after I killed her. I heard the sound of footsteps on the cinders of the bridle path and I turned around and said, 'Hurry! Someone's hurt!' But no one came. Whoever had been on the bridle path turned around and went back to the street--when he heard my voice instead of Lola's. He got in the car--the car he'd made backfire a few times--and drove off. But that part of it I figured out afterwards, while I was walking around wondering what to do.

"And I finally figured it, Taggert, and I waylaid Adrian and had him bring me here. I hadn't meant him to know that Lola was really dead; I knew he'd think I was acting. But that didn't matter, since he played along anyway."

Taggert wet his lips. He didn't wear his voice quite straight when he asked, "What makes you think I was the man in the car or that he was an . . . accomplice of Lola's, if she really tried to kill you?"

"It makes sense that way," I told him. "She was in love with you. She couldn't divorce me because she had no grounds--in New York State--and anyway I still have some insurance I took out a few years ago during a prosperous period. A big chunk of insurance, Taggert, enough for you and Lola to take a chance to get."

I said, "And the plan was worthy of a detective story writer, Taggert, because it was so simple. You'd know how easily complicated plots and plans go astray. This one was so simple as to be foolproof once Lola had pulled the trigger. But even this went haywire--because she didn't pull the trigger soon enough. Am I right?"

Taggert said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Adrian said, "Maybe I'm being stupid, but--I'm not sure I do, either. How was Lola to get away with shooting you?"

I said, "The story was so simple that even the cops would believe it: We were held up in the park. I tried to jump the holdup man and was shot. And Lola had fainted. If no one had found her in half an hour or so, she'd have come to and screamed.

"They couldn't have disproved that story with a sledgehammer; it was so simple. There'd be no gun anywhere around that Lola could have used; there'd be no nitrate marks on her hand; my wallet and probably her purse would be gone. Taggert's backfires would have covered the sound of the shot; nobody would have thought anything of it. If there'd been people around, in the park, Lola wouldn't have done it tonight; there would have been other nights. The sound of the car backfiring had another purpose too, probably; it could have let Lola know that there was no one going by on the sidewalk immediately outside the park at that point.

"When he heard the shot in the park, Taggert would have come in--as he started to do, until he heard my voice--got the gun and the glove and my wallet and Lola's purse, and ditched all of them on the way home. Maybe he even had an alibi rigged, just in the remote chance that the cops would doubt Lola's straightforward story and go nosing around."

I shrugged my shoulders. "As simple as that, except that Lola didn't pull the trigger quickly enough."

Adrian said, "I'll be damned. When I told you Lola was vicious, I didn't guess she'd--"

"I told you you didn't know the half of it, Adrian."

"But, Wayne," he asked, "how can you prove it?"

I stood up and backed around the chair I'd been sitting on until I was behind it, with a little more distance between me and them. I rested the gun on the back of the chair, still pointing between them.

I said, "I can't, Adrian. I can't prove it in a thousand years, so I told you what the third-act curtain was going to be. I shoot both of you. And myself."

Adrian's face started to turn the color of the white window curtain just behind him. He said, "Me? But why? Surely, on account of ten years ago--"

"It's been more recent than that, Adrian. Taggert is the most recent, but you weren't ancient history. Maybe she even tried to blackmail you a bit, Adrian, and that's why you were so glad to learn I'd killed her that you were willing to help me beat the rap or make a getaway. Anyway--"

I turned my eyes back to Taggert. His face didn't look much better than Adrian's.

I said, "Adrian's right, Taggert. I can't prove a thing. I'm not too sure I want to bother. But you might talk me out of this, with a pen and a paper and full details-- including things like where you and Lola bought the gun, and little details you'd have a lot of trouble changing your mind about if you decided to claim the confession was under duress."

Taggert said, "You're crazy, Wayne. I didn't have anything to do with whatever Lola did or tried to do tonight. Even if you're telling the truth about that."

"Okay," I told him, "that's fine with me. I didn't think you would, so--"

"Taggert!" Adrian Carr was leaning forward in his chair. "Taggert, you fool! He means this. And what are you confessing to if you write it? Accessory before the fact to a murder that never came off! With a good lawyer--"

I said, "Don't argue with him, Adrian. I'd just as soon he didn't. Taggert, get up and turn that radio on. Loud. A regular program, not the short-wave band."

I had to swing the muzzle of the gun dead center on his chest and let him see my finger pretend to tighten slowly on the trigger, before he got shakily to his feet. He backed over to the radio and turned the switch; I thought he was going to try to do it without looking away from my face, but he didn't. He turned to face the console to push the button for a broadcast station, and I looked quickly at Adrian and winked.

A little of the color came back into Adrian's face after that wink and I saw him let out his breath slowly. The radio started to blare as the tubes warmed. Taggert turned back and began to edge toward his chair, and Adrian started to look scared again, though not quite so convincingly this time. But he didn't really ham it up; there was enough of the real stuff left to carry over.

I waited till Taggert was back standing in front of his chair, and I didn't bother telling him to sit down; that was up to him. I asked, "Any last words, either of you?"

"You can't get away with this," Taggert said, but he didn't sound as though he was convincing even himself. His voice slid upward almost to a question mark.

I said, "I'm not expecting to. All three of us are going out the same door, remember?"

Adrian started to say something, but I was afraid he might say the wrong thing. I said, "You're first, Adrian, because you came first with Lola, and besides I want to save Taggert for the last. Are you ready?"

I lifted the gun and sighted it. The radio came to the end of a number and the announcer's voice cut in with a commercial. I said, "As soon as the music starts again." I lowered the gun a few inches.

The announcer's voice shouted on--it was a shout, with the radio that loud. The commercial went on almost interminably, but it finally ended.

I lifted the gun again, but this time Taggert yelled, "Wait! Don't. I'll--I'll write it."

I said, "Don't bother. To hell with you. I'd rather--" but Adrian came in, begging me to let Taggert write and sign. Weak and shaky inside, I let myself be talked into it. Taggert was sold by now; he was almost pathetically eager in wanting to get to the desk and write out that confession. I let him, finally.

He signed it and I said, "Hand it to Adrian," and I kept the gun on him while Adrian read it rapidly. Adrian said, "It's fine, Wayne. It's all here. The only sad part is they can't send him up for long. A little while in jail--and if this play goes over he'll have money when he comes out. They can't do much to him."

I said, "There's one thing I can do." I put the gun back in my pocket and took the four steps that took me to Taggert, who was still standing by the desk. He made only a half-hearted effort to get his hands up and went down and out cold with the first punch I threw. There wasn't much satisfaction in that, but there wasn't anything more I could do about it.

I picked up his phone and called the police.

While we waited, Adrian said, "Damn you, Wayne, did you have to scare me to death after we got here? Couldn't you have tipped me off in advance? How'd I know, for a while there, that you really weren't going to shoot both of us?"

I said, "You might have hammed it up, Adrian. You can't act, you know."

He grinned weakly. He said, "I guess you can. Well, with him in jail or out, Taggert's play goes on. Only I won't consult him about who gets the lead. You still--I mean, did and do you really want it?"

I said, "I guess I do. I don't really know right now. I'll let you know after the police get through with me and I get over the hangover I'll have from what I'm going to do after that. I'll let you know. I feel like--"

I remembered the radio was still blaring; we'd both forgotten it. I went over and shut it off and then turned to Adrian. I asked him, "What will the job pay?"

He laughed out loud. He said, "You'll be all right, boy. You're coming out of it already."