Jimmy Hake was tops as a radio comedian � and this last night, though it never showed on his Hooper rating, his show was the most killing of all!
The swimming pool, under the moon, was like black ink in a white stone tray. Beyond the fringe of trees, blatant and gaudy, were the lights of Los Angeles, that painted lady of the Pacific.
Up on the night hill, by the pool, it was a time of silence, of quiet voices and blessed peace. Jimmy Hake, that round and comical man of radio, that owl-faced, elfin, blundering character, in whom every man saw his own image, reclined on the wheeled redwood couch and watched the way the faint light from the windows of the house made mysterious the face of his beloved.
Jimmy Hake needed all of his talent to keep his voice and manner relaxed. Murder makes the breath short, the palms sweat, the voice tremble, the neck rigid.
Murder is something that is two years a growing. Murder is the answer to a question that couldn�t otherwise be answered.
It was Sunday night. Tomorrow rehearsal, then the program itself at eight. Jimmy Hake, proudly presented by the makers of Shaynaline products, the cosmetics that bring out your natural beauty. Go to your nearest drugstore...
Three people by the pool that belonged to Jimmy Hake.
Jimmy, Bob Morrit, his best writer � and Anna, wife of Bob. In the early part of the evening they had gone over the script for the last time. In the morning Bob would get the right number of copies made and then, at rehearsal, last minute changes would be made in all copies.
Bob Morrit was saying: �...and now we�ve got the thing pinned down strong enough so we can stay right in the same groove. Character established. Type of incident. Just switch the cast around from time to time.�
Jimmy knew that Bob had been largely responsible for the program pattern that had made him a success. Sure, Bob was clever, but what did he know about how to make a million bucks the hard way? That start, thirty years ago, eighteen years old and already a baggy pants specialist in the burlesque circuit. Coffee money for years and years. Small clubs. Rough. Rough all the way.
Then one day you hit the top and what have you got? Weariness that feels like you have putty instead of marrow in your bones. High blood pressure. Shortness of breath. Dyspnea, to be exact. Technically you are forty-eight, but you feel seventy-eight.
Oh, that jolly, jolly Jimmy Hake! That comic fellow!
You have everything except the one thing in the world that you want. Anna.
Funny, sort of. There were always lots of women. Eager to help you spend the bankroll. Laughing women. Tender women. Bitter women.
Not one like Anna.
He watched her. He had watched her for three years. A deep, strong, calm, incredibly beautiful woman. Safe harbor for the rest of his years. Straight and true. And loyal to Bob Morrit. Married to Bob Morrit. All bound up in Bob Morrit. And time for Jimmy Hake only as a friend. A good friend.
When Jimmy Hake remembered the times he had tried to tell her how he felt about her, he flushed. She had handled him so easily. �Please, Jimmy.�
Just that. A tone of voice. The tone of voice said two things. It said,
Silver blond hair and sea-grey eyes and a face that would be beautiful when she became sixty. That sort of a face. You could tell by the line of temple and jaw, the set of the eyes.
You get to the top and have everything you have ever wanted. Except Anna. And the need for her makes everything else worthless, tasteless.
There is no way out. No answer. There can be no deviation in her loyalty � except if there is no longer anyone to whom she could be loyal.
And like the simplest equation written on a school blackboard, the answer becomes... Murder.
In amusement parks there are small, silvery, streamlined boxes in which one sits and is strapped in. They hang at the end of a long bar. The silver cockpit goes around and around in a vertical circle. Jimmy Hake felt as though he had a very tiny such apparatus in his heart. It went around endlessly. Strapped in the seat, holding the crossbar in brittle fingers, sat a miniature skeleton. The shape of the skull was oddly like that of lean, serious Bob Morrit.
During the two years that he had thought of murder, he had thought of many ways. Many methods. To murder and go free. Conviction would make the murder pointless.
At night Jimmy Hake would awaken, cold sweat oily on his body, his fists tightly clenched. Then, in the silence of the night he would think of Bob Morrit.
Not of Anna. Of Bob and of death.
Ten months before, without the faintest idea of how he would use it, he had acquired, in Rio, a small amount of curare. Vegetable base poison. Instant paralysis of the heart and lungs. A few words whispered to a ragged guide. A large bill. A small tin aspirin box pressed into his hand. Inside, a greyish sticky substance.
He knew that there was no way it could be traced.
He realized that Bob had just asked him something.
�What was that?�
Bob laughed. �It is getting late. I was asking you if you didn�t think this nogood wife of mine could be of more help in the programs.�
�How?�
�He�s got the idea,� Anna said wryly, �that I ought to listen to the programs. Isn�t listening to you two chew up the script enough?�
�You�re a good girl,� Bob said, �and we both love you, but you�re no dam help to us. You don�t even laugh any more at the script.�
�I used to laugh to make you feel good.�
�If you listened,� Jimmy Hake said, �you could tell us what sounded flat to you. You are our most unforgiving public.�
She sighed. �I always forget until after the program is over. Life is so full of a number of things. Besides, I hate the commercials and I hate the opening patter before you get into the meat of the script.�
�Then tune in late,� Bob said.
She yawned. �All right, you humorous people. Tomorrow at eight ten I will be your ardent listener. I will sit home and laugh like mad.�
She stood up, clean and straight in the faint light. She said, �Bob, darling, you are such a collector of gadgets. Why don�t you find a gadget that will get me home and into bed at night without any effort on my part.�
�I�ll look for one like that,� he said.
As Jimmy Hake stood up, she said, �Jimmy, what a life I lead! In the car, lighted cigarettes pop out at you. In the apartment, the windows open and shut at regular hours. Things go off and on. Civilization, they call it.�
�It makes life easier,� Bob said firmly.
Jimmy Hake was suddenly anxious for them to go. He was afraid of the conversation. He was afraid of the turn it might take. Because murder had already been consummated, at least as far as he was concerned.
Bob Morrit was standing there by the pool, talking, his arm around Anna�s waist. And yet he was dead. It was queer. His life was over. Finished.
Anna would be broken up over it, of course. She would weep. But there would be the handy and familiar shoulder of Jimmy Hake on which to weep. Then, it would be only fitting that the two people who were the closest to poor Bob should themselves be married. He would make her happy. Far happier than Bob had made her. Of that he was sure. And that was, in part, his rationalization.
He stood in the drive, and the headlights of Bob�s car swept across him. He waved, shouted good night and watched the tail-lights diminish and suddenly disappear as they rounded the curve.
Suddenly sweating, he hurried back to the bath house near the pool. He clicked on the inside lights, and stood for a moment, conscious of the fact that these next few minutes might mean life or death.
It was the men�s side of the bath house. The two shower stalls were on the left, the lockers on the right.
Bob Morrit had been in the shower when he had done it. He had been prepared. He had timed Bob in the shower a dozen times, and found that four minutes was the minimum time he would have. While Bob had splashed and sung tonelessly, he had pulled open Bob�s locker. Bob�s favorite gadget, the trick Swiss alarm watch, was on the shelf. It was a clever thing, actually. It was a wrist watch. Once the alarm was set, a blunt brass plunger jabbed out of a small hole on the wrist surface of the watch at the proper time.
When it was new, Jimmy Hake had borrowed it once. It was remarkably effective. The pressure of the little plunger was sudden, strong and startling.
With fumbling fingers he had set the alarm for the moment while Bob was in the shower. The little plunger clicked out. With a triangular file, he carefully and quickly sharpened the little plunger. Then he smeared the tip with the grey, sticky curare, forced it back into the recess and turned the alarm off.
Closing the locker door quietly, he had placed the file and the aspirin tin in the bottom of his own locker. When Bob came out of the shower a minute or so later, Jimmy Hake was out by the pool, talking with the fair Anna.
All evidence had to be removed. Three items. The little tin box, the file and the minute brass filings. He had filed the brass while holding the watch inside his own locker. In the harsh light he saw the tiny yellow glints of brass.
Locating the tin box, he opened it and carefully brushed the filings into it, snapped it shut. He was sweating as he undressed, pulled on his swimming trunks. The servants would see nothing odd in a midnight swim.
The file and box clutched in his hand, he pulled himself under the water by means of the metal ladder at the corner of the pool. His groping fingers found the drain, unscrewed the mesh cover. He dropped the file and box down, replaced the cover.
With slow strokes he made two lengths of the pool, climbed out, and, incredibly weary, walked back to the bath house.
Bob Morrit walked about with death on his wrist. It was as though he wore a coral snake coiled there. Sooner or later, Bob would set the alarm to remind himself of an appointment. When the alarm went off, the blood would carry the poison to his heart and Bob would be dead. Instantly.
And there would be no basis on which to try the famous Jimmy Hake. Opportunity, yes. Motive, no. Would a comedian kill his best writer? Of course not. And, of course, there was a good possibility that the death wouldn�t be properly diagnosed.
As he went up to his bedroom, he fully expected not to be able to sleep. He put water and sleeping tablets on his bedside table. But moments after his head touched the pillow, he dropped off into a sleep that was like death.
Last minute script changes were made by Jimmy Hake. Because such changes were usually to fit the show into the schedule, there was no need for Bob to attend. He seldom did. When Jimmy Hake got to the studio just before rehearsal, he picked up the dozen copies that Bob had arranged for.
The rehearsal was like a program in a dream. Jimmy Hake could hear his own words without understanding what he was saying. It was hard to keep from looking at the doorway through which they would come to tell him Bob was dead. In his heart the little carnival toy went around and around, the body of Bob Morrit strapped to the infinitesimal seat.
The band music seemed much too loud, the voices of the supporting characters much too shrill. He wanted to hold his plump hands over his ears and run from the studio. But somehow he got through it. Some mechanical part of his mind ordered the script changes, made the pencil corrections on his copy. The program finished exactly thirty-five seconds before the allotted half hour. Thirty seconds for the closing commercial, and five more seconds for Jimmy Hake to sign off in his unforgettable manner.
Close of rehearsal allowed the cast a half hour to get coffee before returning to the studio to get set for the actual broadcast. Jimmy Hake had coffee downstairs with the guest star. He knew that he was making the right comments, smiling in the right places. But he didn�t know how he was managing to do it so unconsciously.
At any moment he expected to get word that Bob Morrit was dead.
The elevator took them back up to the proper floor and he walked with the guest star to the stage. He looked up and saw Bob Morrit standing, talking with the band leader. Somehow Jimmy Hake kept smiling, kept walking. Not dead yet. Not dead yet, but soon.
He forced himself to go over, grin at Bob and say, �Not many changes in the script, boy.�
�Good. About ready to roll?�
�Just about.� He glanced up at the big clock. The studio audience was hurrying in, struggling for seats. Jimmy Hake turned and gave them his famous smile, a wave of his hand.
He looked back just in time to see Bob Morrit pull up his cuff, glance at a bare wrist and then grin. �Habit, thy name is Morrit.�
Jimmy Hake�s voice sounded hoarse. �Where � what happened to your watch?�
�That fine absent-minded wife of mine. I set the alarm for ten after and strapped it on her so she wouldn�t miss the show this time. Hey, you better get on the ball and start warming up the studio audience, Jimmy.�
Jimmy Hake walked with leaden steps toward the front of the stage. A routine done so many times. Automatic. He did not know what he was saying. But he could hear their laughter, see their open mouths. The smile muscles of his cheeks were tight.
Everything was lost.
He looked back over his shoulder. Three minutes to eight. Thirteen minutes for Anna to live.
They gave him a signal. One minute to eight. Eleven minutes before Anna died. What could he do about it? Leave the studio? He couldn�t get to Bob�s apartment in fifteen minutes. How could he explain, even if he could get there in time?
�...that man with no future, a sad past and no presence � Jimmy Hake!�
He shook his head. The lines of the script wavered so he could hardly read them. On the air. The mike a few inches from his mouth.
He licked dry lips.
�I�m trying to get up the courage to read the jokes my writers have just handed me.� They laughed. That was a good sign. He realized he was throwing the timing off. But still he couldn�t read the words. He glanced over to the side. Bob�s face was white. He was biting his lips. The rest of the cast had odd expressions.
Suddenly it was unbearable that Anna should die. She had eight minutes to live. No. Seven minutes.
The script fluttered to the floor. The mike shaft was cool in his sweating hand. His voice was thin and tight. �A matter of life and death. To anyone in the Foster Apartments on Wiltshire. Go to apartment six-B right away and take a gold watch from the wrist of Mrs. Robert Morrit. A matter of life and death��
His throat tightened up and no more words would come.
It had been the only answer. The only way to save Anna from death. They would have nothing on him. He could quit. Go away. Retire. Nobody would prosecute.
The studio seemed to swing around him as though he were standing in the center of a garish phonograph record.
Suddenly he was in a corridor. Bob Morrit had him by the lapels and was shaking him. Bob�s lips were drawn back from his teeth and his eyes were wild.
�What were you trying to say, Hake? What is this all about? Answer me, you rubber-nose comic! You fat little fake! What about Anna?�
Jimmy Hake fought for self control. He was alone with Bob for a moment. �I had to do it. I � fixed the watch so it would kill you. I wanted Anna. I�m... I�m quitting the business.�
Bob slowly dropped his hands to his sides and his eyes went dead.
His voice was as dead as his eyes. �So you fixed everything up.�
�Yes, Bob,� Jimmy Hake said eagerly. �I must have been crazy. I... I couldn�t let her die.�
�Do you know what time it is?�
�No. Why?�
�It�s twelve after eight, Jimmy. Twelve after.�
Bob walked heavily away from him, turned and said, �You better start running, Jimmy. You acted funny. As soon as you said Foster Apartments, the control booth took you off the air.�
Jimmy Hake stood alone in the corridor.
His wide lips were still spread in the automatic, lovable smile that had made him famous.
Wearing that same smile he walked toward the window at the end of the corridor.
He walked with the comic, jerky little shuffle he had learned thirty years before.