If I Die Before I Wake Page 3

  For a minute they just stared at each other, Mrs Bannister getting more and more burned up each second.

  I guessed the fuse had been burning quite a while, that they’d been over and over this time and again before and were only taking the argument up where they’d left off.

  And there I was, watching the whole thing like a play. I wanted to get up and leave, but couldn’t.

  ‘You!’ she said. Her lips twitched. ‘Always thinking of yourself! What about me – what about my youth?’

  She was dripping wet and the white suit clung to her and her smooth brown skin glistened with drops of water. There didn’t seem to be anything the matter with her youth. Anger just made her more beautiful.

  With neither of them paying any attention to me, I took her all in… the full, pointed breasts, quivering now with her breathing; the slim brown legs and smooth bare back and shoulders; the small straight nose, brown eyes and large red lips, that made me want to crush them – hard.

  ‘Your youth!’ said Bannister. ‘If it hadn’t been for me, you’d still be wasting your youth in the chorus, three shows a day until you dropped. And before that, what were you? Nothing – you didn’t have a cent.’

  So that was it – she’d been a chorus girl. I saw it now.

  ‘Oh!’ she said. She could hardly talk. ‘You’re so bitter, your mind is all warped and distorted.’

  Bannister snapped a twig with a noise like a pistol shot.

  ‘Bitter!’ he said. ‘They wonder why I am bitter.’

  He laughed, but his face froze the same instant. His jaw jutted out. He began talking to the waves.

  ‘Because, knowing that each moment might be the last, I was eager to grasp the fruits before it was too late. And reaching out for them—’ Here he did reach out, a long, bony hand – ‘What happened?’

  He wasn’t asking us, but the waves.

  ‘A shell, a burst of red – the whole sky whirling red – blackness – a twisted leg – the fruits denied.’

  He snatched back his hand.

  ‘Bitter!’ he said.

  Mrs Bannister’s face was darker even than his.

  ‘If you’re so bitter,’ she ground out, taking her time. ‘I wonder you go on living at all.’

  That seemed to bring him out of the liquor a little.

  ‘What, exactly, do you mean?’ he demanded.

  She picked up her things and started toward the car. I thought for a moment that maybe she was crying, and jumped up to help her.

  Bannister half rose and then sank back, looking after her. You could tell his leg was paining him.

  ‘Elsa, for God’s sake!’ he called. ‘You don’t mean—’

  She turned very slowly and came back to look down at him. She wasn’t crying.

  ‘Has it honestly never occurred to you,’ she said quietly, almost sadly, ‘that you might be better – off – dead?’

  It all seemed crazy, somehow – Grisby wanting to be ‘killed,’ offering me five thousand for the job – Bannister brooding about his twisted leg, bitter and defiant – his wife, years younger, who hated him, I knew now, and who made me suck in my breath each time I thought of us out on the raft—

  I couldn’t help wondering what I was letting myself in for. And almost at once I knew.

  V

  ‘Well, did you think it over?’ Grisby asked. He was absolutely overflowing with enthusiasm and good cheer.

  I told him yes. Yes, I said, except that I couldn’t think of any motive I’d have for killing him.

  ‘Motive!’ he said. ‘Is that all that’s worrying you!’

  He laughed. He patted me on the back. He was feeling good about something, all right.

  It was dark – he’d stayed for dinner with the Bannisters. We were parked on a little hill just off the road leading to the station. Below was the swamp that ran beside the tracks and over the swamp was a purple haze, damp and sticky.

  I’d heard that the place was a breeding ground for rats, as bad as Rats Island off the Harbor. No one lived out at this end; Bannister’s was one of the last houses before you hit the swamp, and it was some way back. A few skeletons of buildings out on the dry places of the swamp showed where people had tried to make a go of it from time to time – small factories that had come out because the rent was cheap and the railroad near. They’d done everything to get rid of the rats and the ruins told who had won. It was some place.

  I said: ‘It’s a cinch we can’t use robbery. And what else is there? I’ll have to tell them something, won’t I?’

  ‘The police? Sure. But who said anything about robbery?’ His heavy brows worked up and down. ‘You just leave everything to me, didn’t I tell you? Good old Lee Grisby – an answer for everything. And the answer here? Accident, my boy, accident.’

  ‘Accident!’

  ‘Sure. Why not?’

  I did some fast thinking.

  ‘Well’, I said, ‘it might be an accident, my plugging you, but what would I be doing throwing your body in the Sound?’

  ‘That’s simple. You’ve heard of hit-and-run drivers, haven’t you?’

  I blinked.

  I said: ‘Now I suppose I’m to run over you, too. And then put a bullet through you. And then throw you in the Sound. Boy, you sure would be dead!’

  He laughed again, really pleased. He said no, that wasn’t the idea at all.

  ‘The idea,’ he said, ‘is that you kill me accidentally. Then you get scared. You think maybe they won’t believe you, or that there’ll be hell to pay, or that even if you get off, you’ll lose your job because of it. It’s the same way driving, if you hit someone. Well, so you run. But in this case, you’re going to take the precaution of disposing of the body.’

  ‘So I throw you in the Sound?’

  ‘Right. You’re thinking this way, “If I don’t, the police will ask why I took him to that lonely spot, and not to the station, as ordered. They’ll say I tried to rob him, he fought and I killed him. No, better to get the body out of the way. Then no one will be the wiser.”’

  I was beginning to get scared all over again.

  ‘What lonely spot?’ I asked.

  ‘The beach – Bannister’s beach. Here’s what happens. I come out to see Bannister. When I leave, you drive me to the station, just as usual. It’s night, and we miss the train – we’ll time it so we do.’

  ‘So far so good. But I still don’t see how I happen to shoot you.’

  ‘I’m coming to that… Well, when we miss the train, we decide it’s too hot to wait for the next one there at the station, so we go down to the beach to cool off. While we’re waiting, we hear a sound. We think it might be a stick-up. You take the gun out of the side-pocket of the car – Bannister gave you one to carry, didn’t he? That was my idea; I got him to do that. That just shows how careful I’ve been.

  ‘All right. You start to get out of the car, to investigate, with the gun in your hand. The gun goes off, accidentally. It will, too, we’ll see to that. Then you find I’m hit, get scared, and dump the body off the pier.’

  ‘But not really,’ I said.

  He drew back and looked at me.

  ‘It better not be really,’ he said.

  I had him there.

  ‘But you said we’d have witnesses,’ I reminded him.

  ‘Sure we will. We’ve got to have. Otherwise how could we make it look like I was dead? Without a body, that takes a bit of proving. People have to see us go down to the beach together. We’ll make sure they do. Then people have to see you go back from the beach alone. That will be easy. There are always people around a beach on a hot night.’

  I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  I said: ‘How do you know it will be hot?’

  ‘We’ll pick a night that is… All right. They’ll hear the shot. When they come running, you’ll be alone. Why? Because enough time will elapse suppos
edly, for you to have disposed of the body. If not, if they come too soon, you can claim that you covered me over in the car and then disposed of the body after they left.’

  ‘And what was I supposed to be shooting at?’

  ‘The moon – a tin can – what do you care? You won’t be trying to prove anything at this time except that you’re alone. Later on, when the police start investigating, you’ll break down and confess the accident. They’ll check that. The witnesses will tell about us going down to the beach together and you going back alone. They’ll tell about the shot. And everything will be just dandy.’

  ‘And supposing they don’t believe it was an accident?’

  ‘Supposing they don’t? We went over that. They’ve got to produce the body… Well, does that answer the burning question of the hour? Or is there something else? Ask me if there is. There can’t be any slip up. This has got to go off like clockwork.’

  I felt pretty miserable.

  I said: ‘Well, they might send me to jail just to make sure I didn’t go around killing anyone else.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I told you they couldn’t hold you. Any dumb lawyer could get you out. But we covered all that, too. What else is there?’

  ‘One big question is: When?’

  Grisby took off his glasses and began wiping them with a crisp white handkerchief.

  ‘When?’ he said. ‘Soon. Very soon. Maybe tomorrow night.’

  He looked out where the moonlight ripped the haze over the swamp, thinking.

  ‘You mean it?’ I asked.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I hadn’t figured—’

  ‘Why wait? Once I hit on a plan and see that it’s air-tight, I go ahead. Yes, sir,’ he said, ‘I think tomorrow night!’

  ‘But why tomorrow night, especially?’

  ‘The papers say it’s going to be hot tomorrow night. We’ve got to be sure of our witnesses.’

  I didn’t trust him. Something was wrong somewhere.

  ‘As far as that goes,’ I said, ‘it’s plenty hot tonight. Why not tonight?’

  He squirmed around to look at me in the light from the dash. Something in the way he looked chilled me. Gooseflesh stood out on my arms.

  ‘Something’s itching you,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  His voice was as raw as the mist that crawled beside the car.

  I said: ‘Nothing at all. Why?’

  ‘You aren’t still worrying about the motive?’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘Then what is it?’

  ‘Why—’

  ‘Come on, out with it!’

  I had to say it then: ‘It just doesn’t seem that you’ve told me everything.’

  He kept on looking at me for a minute and then sank back. That gave me a chance to light a cigarette and pull myself together. I’d been scared for a minute there, I’ll admit it. Now I felt all right again, and he seemed just like he always did. I might have imagined that he’d been different.

  He stroked his big full jaw, holding his eyeglasses in the other hand and tapping them on his knee, thinking. He was pretty good-looking with his glasses off. His short, wiry gold hair, actor’s profile and powerful build probably had made him a devil with the women when he was young. Maybe still, for all I knew.

  ‘I can’t think of anything I’ve left out,’ he said. ‘Unless – yes, of course. The five thousand. I don’t blame you! Well, let’s see. Bannister and his wife are going into town tomorrow. She’s going shopping – you can drop her somewhere, leave him at the office and then run over to the bank with me. You can see me draw the money out. In fact, I’ll give you some in advance. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, that part of it is all right. I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘No? Then—’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s the reason for all this. You said it was to get rid of your wife. You want her to think you’re dead. That’s all right; she won’t give you a divorce, and if you want to get away from everything, anyway, like you said, why not?’

  ‘That’s your answer, isn’t it? I tell you, Laurence, a man can stand only so much. Some jump off buildings, some join the Foreign Legion, but I have more imagination. I adopt a new and exciting identity and come up in the South Seas!’

  ‘I know, and I’m all for it. I just don’t see why you should go to all this trouble, and give me five thousand dollars, just to do that. What’s to stop you from just going, I mean? She couldn’t stop you, that’s a cinch. And there’s no law against it, that I know of.’

  He smiled.

  ‘I said you were smart. You are. But do you suppose she’d let me desert her without a struggle? She’d follow me to the ends of the earth, just to make life miserable for me, if nothing else. No, better to make it final. Let her think I’m dead. Let everyone think I’m dead. Do the job up right.’

  It still seemed fishy to me, somehow, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  He went on: ‘Don’t you suppose I’ve thought it all over, nights lying awake when I couldn’t sleep for worry? Don’t you see that it’s worth something to me in peace of mind to know that my whole past is finished? You’re young; maybe you don’t see. Let’s hope you never do!’

  ‘Well—’

  He couldn’t figure me out. I couldn’t either, but there was a red light flashing in front of me that said, ‘Stop!’

  ‘I guess you don’t want that five thousand very badly,’ he said. ‘I guess you get offers like that every day.’

  I said: ‘No, I don’t. I want the money, all right, who wouldn’t, but I think you better count me out.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘I don’t think I want to go through with it,’ I said.

  VI

  I had to see where I stood, for one thing. I wasn’t half as sure of myself as I sounded. And as for that, I knew pretty well where I stood, too. Right behind the eight ball.

  ‘Why, you can’t back out now,’ he said.

  He wasn’t trying to scare me. It was a plain statement of fact, the way he said it.

  I looked out over the swamp. The corners of my mouth were twitching. I didn’t want him to see me that way.

  ‘Why not?’ I asked. My voice shook.

  ‘”Why not?”’ he echoed. ‘Jesus! Use your head. Where would I be? You’re in this thing and you’ve got to go through with it.’

  ‘I know, but—’

  He laughed, but not like he usually did. This one gave me the shivers all over again.

  ‘I thought you were tough. I thought you had your eye on the main chance. You’re not going to break down and cry, are you? I’m not even asking you to do anything for the five thousand, just make it look as though you’d killed me. Why, I could get the real thing done for a century note, or half that much.’

  ‘That’s just it. It’s like you said. You can get someone else to do it for nothing, almost. Why give me five thousand?’

  ‘Why not? I’ve taken an interest in you, I’ve got plenty of money to last me, you’re doing me a favor, and after tomorrow night we’ll probably never see each other again. So why figure there must be a catch to it?’

  ‘I don’t. I’m just not sure that’s all there is to it.’

  He gave a snort. I was getting him mad, but I had to find out.

  ‘You mean you’re scared,’ he said. ‘A hell of a fine sailor you make! What kind of a ship were you on, anyway, a ferry boat? Look at your hands. They’re shaking!’

  I stuck to the point: ‘You haven’t told me all of it.’

  ‘Why should I tell you anything? You’d break down and cry when the time came. You’d blab it all. You’d spill your guts the first chance you got.’ He looked me up and down. ‘Boy,’ he said, ‘you’re a pip. How I ever came to think you had guts in the first place is a mystery to me.’

  ‘Nuts. You’d shake too, if someone started that kind of talk wit
h you. What is this? Of course I’ve got to know it all. I’d be in a sweet jam if I didn’t and something went wrong. So would you be. But if you really feel that way about it, all right!’

  I slammed in the clutch.

  ‘No, wait a minute.’

  He put a hand on my arm to stop me, and then I saw that he was smiling.

  ‘Now you’re talking sense,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think I’d made a mistake in you, but I had to test you out, didn’t I? All right. Now I’ll give it to you – both barrels.’

  When he did I almost collapsed.

  ‘Everything I told you stands,’ he said. ‘I disappear. You go back to your work as though nothing had happened. The police come for you. They don’t know about me yet, don’t even know I’ve disappeared. It’s too early for that.’

  ‘Then what are they coming after me for?’

  He lowered his voice.

  ‘They’re coming for you for another killing, not mine.’

  I sucked in my breath. My ears were ringing. So that was it! Another killing. I knew there was a catch somewhere. This was it!

  Grisby ran on:

  ‘They question you – accuse you of the murder. You break down under their grilling. As far as you’re concerned, it’s anything to get out of the rap. You take a long chance. You prove you couldn’t have done the other by confessing to killing me. I said you’d be anxious enough to prove it when the time came. Here’s why. By proving you killed me – accidentally, just as we planned it – you prove you couldn’t have done the other.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because that will be twenty miles away, at about the same time. Well, then they’ll drop the other – they’ll have to, you can see that – and try to get you for killing me. Do you follow? And of course they can’t get to first base there because they can’t produce the body. So you’re free and you’ve got five thousand dollars salted away that they can’t touch.’

  I said: ‘Why would they figure I’d killed someone twenty mile away?’

  ‘Because I’ll see that they do. I’ll see that they think it’s a lead-pipe cinch that you did it. That’s what you’re getting your five thousand for. First, to throw them off the track. Second, to establish the fact of my death.’