Blackmailer Read online

  “Whose neck?”

  Max Shriber clutched his side and held on for a minute. Then he said, “You’re slow. You’re slow on the uptake. Walter’s neck. That’s whose neck. She thought she knocked me off this afternoon. Little Sure Shot came pretty close. But she didn’t quite. She should have stayed around a little longer to make sure.”

  I shook my head. My knees felt weak.

  I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand anything. “Why was she calling Walter?” I said.

  “She wasn’t calling Walter. She was calling you.”

  “Me?” I said.

  “Look, it’s easy,” Max Shriber said. “While she was in the bathroom-you thought she was sick. But she wasn’t sick. She was on the phone calling Walter.”

  “The bathroom?” I said. “There’s a telephone in the bathroom?”

  He nodded. “There’s a phone in every room in the house. She was in there talking to Walter down in the library.”

  “But why?” I said again.

  “The frame,” Max Shriber said. “The frame. She calls Walter and she uses my voice. She tells him he’s got to come to my place right away. It’s only a few blocks so he goes. He leaves his guests for ten minutes and he goes. He rides up in the elevator. He rings the bell. No answer. He waits. He rings the bell. No answer. So he rides back down in the elevator again and he comes home. O.K.?

  “Only three days from now, bright and early Monday morning, they find Max Shriber on the bed with bullet holes all over him. So it’s all set. The elevator man remembers Walter going up and he remembers Walter coming down again. He don’t know Walter never got inside. All he knows is he saw Walter come up and go down.

  “And they can prove good old Max was still alive when Walter got there because you were talking to good old Max on the phone just as Walter came in.

  “And Little Sure Shot. She’s got the perfect alibi. She’s in there in the next room, passed out. From too much to drink.

  “She’s a great actress. The toughest thing you can play is a good drunk scene.”

  That reminded me of something. I walked to Walter’s liquor cabinet, took out the brandy bottle and tilted it. I didn’t bother with a glass, I tilted it. And then I handed it to Max.

  He coughed and choked, but he swallowed three or four times.

  “Why?” I said. “Why?”

  Max looked at me. “Why did she do it?” His voice was quieter. It was harsh and guttural, but it was lower.

  “I guess that’s what I mean,” I said. “She has everything. She’s beautiful and famous and rich. Why did she have to louse it up?”

  “Sick,” Max Shriber said. “Everybody is sick. The whole damn world is sick. She’s sick like everybody else, only more so.”

  He motioned for me to give him a cigarette. I lighted one and handed it to him.

  “She’s an actress,” he said. “The greatest. But she’s in musicals, see? And that’s all she’s gonna be in. She’s got a term contract. Seven years and no outside pictures. Her musicals make money so they keep her in musicals.

  “You’ve seen the pictures she makes. She’s not dumb. She knows how lousy they are. And look-she’s thirty-one. That ain’t old, but in seven years she’ll be thirty-eight. If she wants to do something else, it’s gotta be now.

  “So look. We get a chance to buy this book. This is the way to do it. She owns a piece of the book. If they want to make a picture out of the book, they gotta take her with it. It’s the only way she could ever get the part.

  “So she buys into the property. It takes every bit of dough she can raise. She hocks everything she’s got to raise the hundred grand.”

  “She raised a hundred thousand dollars?” I said. “I thought it was a three-way partnership.”

  “It was. She put up the dough. Walter and I put up our services.”

  “You mean both of you were getting a free ride on her dough?”

  He ignored me.

  “So she buys in for one hundred grand. Walter was tough. He makes her buy in sight unseen. He says it ain’t quite finished and Anstruther won’t let nobody see the book yet. But Walter guarantees there’s a great part for a girl.

  “Walter’s a great little salesman. He tells her this is going to be the picture of the year. This is going to be the dramatic part of the decade. Like Scarlett O’Hara in ‘Gone with the Wind,’ or Maria in ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls.’

  “So she buys in. You gotta understand ambition. How sick you can get with ambition.

  “She reads in the columns, they’re talking about Hayworth for the new Anstruther. Or she reads Bergman is going to make it in Europe. And all the time she knows she owns it. It’s hers. She’s gonna make it. Her. She’s going to make it and be so great that they give her an Academy Award. In her mind she’s figuring out what she’ll wear at the dinner when they give her the award.

  “So when she finds Anstruther and she finds there’s no book-she goes off her trolley. It’s not the money. She gets most of the money back. It was lying all over the floor when she shot him. It wasn’t that. She’d decided that if there was no book, they’d fake one. Nothing was going to stop her.

  “So everything goes all right. Till Jean Dahl comes into the picture. She comes to me and tries to blackmail me. I give her a grand or so to stall things along. Then I go to Janis and tell her I know what happened.

  “Then everything explodes…”

  Max Shriber grabbed his side again.

  “Sick,” he said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what to believe.”

  “Talk to her,” Max said. “If you don’t believe me, talk to her.”

  In a daze I started out of the room.

  “Wait,” Max said.

  I stopped.

  He nodded down at the gun I had left on the floor.

  “In case you find out I’m right,” he said. “Take it.”

  I reached down and picked up the gun.

  Then he slid forward, off the chair and onto the floor.

  I stood for a moment, undecided. I started to help him. Then I stopped. “The hell with you,” I said.

  I left the room without looking back.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I went back into the room.

  I had the gun in my hand.

  Janis was lying on the bed as I had left her. She was covered by the sheet. She was sleeping like a baby. Breathing gently. Her face in repose was beautiful again.

  But I couldn’t forget how she had looked on the telephone.

  I walked over and picked up the telephone.

  I picked up the phone but I kept my finger on the button so that the phone was completely dead.

  I dialed three numbers. The way you do to get one of Walter’s inside extensions.

  “Is Mr. Heinemann there?” I said into the dead telephone. “All right. I’ll wait.”

  I kept my eyes on her face while I was talking. Her eyelids didn’t move. Not a flutter. She could have been completely asleep.

  Silently, I eased the receiver back onto the hook.

  Then I sat down on the foot of the bed holding the gun waiting for her to open her eyes.

  I sat there watching.

  She looked very beautiful.

  “Hello, Walter,” I said. “This is Dick Sherman. I’m here in Janis Whitney’s room. She’s asleep. Walter, I want to talk to you. There’re a few things that are bothering me. I want to talk to you about them.

  “Walter, what I want to ask you is this. Do you think it’s possible that Janis Whitney killed Charles Anstruther? Do you think she killed Jean Dahl? Do you think she tried to kill Max Shriber? Do you think that’s possible?

  “You see, Walter, I just got through talking to Max. He’s in the next room with a bullet in his shoulder. He says Janis shot him. He says Janis murdered Anstruther and Jean Dahl. And the funny thing is, Walter, it could have happened that way. She could have arranged to meet Jean Dahl at your cocktail party. I don’t kn
ow why she wanted to meet her. I have an idea about that, but we can talk about it later.

  “Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that Janis met Jean Dahl at your party, and let’s just say that Janis fed her a loaded drink.”

  Janis Whitney slowly opened her eyes. She saw that I had no phone in my hand. She saw that I did have a gun. You couldn’t tell from her expression that she had seen anything.

  She just looked at me.

  I went on talking. “Jean Dahl was supposed to go home and pass out. When they examined her they’d find that she had taken an overdose of sleeping pills and that would be the end of that. Only I happened to come along and spoil it. I kind of put Janis on the spot.

  “The only thing she could do was follow us upstairs. Then she phoned me from the room across the hall. She used Max’s voice when she called.

  “I’m glad I didn’t see her. She doesn’t look so pretty when she does her imitation of Max. The cords in her neck stand out and her face takes on a strange expression.”

  I reached into my pocket and took out my cigarettes.

  “Just a minute,” I said. “Let me get a cigarette.”

  I did not let go of the gun.

  I lighted a cigarette for me. Then I lighted one for Janis. I handed it to her. She reached up, took it, and continued to watch me, not smiling, and with no expression at all in her green eyes.

  “I didn’t see her when she slugged me as I came out the door,” I said. “And I didn’t see her doing her stuff in the dark at Walter’s. I’m glad I couldn’t see her face when she came up on Jean and me and stuck that flashlight in our faces. Then she did her imitation of Max again. I’m especially glad I didn’t see her during those few seconds when everything went crazy and the light fell on the floor and someone got hit on the head with a lamp.

  “What’s that, Walter? You want to know if Janis was the person holding the light, who did she hit on the head? She hit Jean Dahl. That’s who she hit. She hit her very hard and very fast a couple of times. She hit her hard enough to kill her.

  “How did she move the body? First to in front of the door where it was when the lights went on? And then to the foot of the stairs where it was found?

  “Now, Walter, really, that’s a silly question. She didn’t have to move the body to the door, because that’s where we were standing when Jean Dahl got hit. I didn’t know it then because I was lost in the dark. But Janis knew it. She knew the layout of the house and she had a flashlight. She belted Jean Dahl and left her lying right where she was. Then she grabbed my hand and off we went.

  “Janis herself is still wondering how the body got from the door to the foot of the stairs. You could tell her, couldn’t you, Walter? You moved it yourself. Not because you murdered her, but because you wanted to hide the fact that a murder had been committed.

  “You played right into her hands because you didn’t want an investigation right now. There was too much going on. There was too much at stake. You saw a chance to make it look like an accident and you took it. When the body was found at the foot of the stairs it was just as much of a surprise to Janis as it was to me.”

  Janis sat up very slowly, without taking her eyes off my face. There was still no expression in her eyes.

  She held the burned-down cigarette in one hand. With her other hand she held the sheet in front of her.

  I took the cigarette out of her hand and flicked it across the room into the open fireplace.

  “Well, goodbye, Walter,” I said. “I think I’d better hang up now.”

  Janis sat up on the bed.

  She held the sheet in front of her.

  “Darling,” she said very softly, “help me.”

  I looked at her, waiting.

  “Help me, darling,” she said again.

  “Is it true?”

  “You know some of it,” she said. “You don’t know all of it. It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

  “It’s bad enough.”

  “It’s pretty bad, darling.”

  I looked at her, and I realized I was crying. “Help you? How can I help you?”

  “They had me in a trap. Max and Walter. They cheated me out of everything I’d saved. I was desperate. When Anstruther died it was an accident. I was there. I lost my head. We were arguing and I lost my head. I started to hit at him. First with my fists and then with an empty bottle. All the time we were talking he was playing with the gun. I don’t think he knew it was loaded. We were half wrestling. I was screaming and swearing at him. I’m very strong and he was drunk. Then the gun went off. I didn’t kill him. It was an accident.”

  She stopped and looked at me.

  “I love you, Dick. Do you believe me when I tell you Anstruther was an accident?”

  I shook my head.

  “No good, darling. A nice try, but no good. Jean Dahl wasn’t lying when she talked to Walter. She said she heard you come in. She heard you arguing with Anstruther. Then she heard the doorbell ring. Max came in. Then she heard Max threaten to kill him and she heard you beg him not to. And then she heard the shot. I believe she heard all those things. Just the way she told them.”

  Janis began to cry very softly.

  “I believe she heard all those things. But she couldn’t see what was going on. She could only hear. If she could have seen what was going on, I think she would have seen something like this. I think she would have seen you arguing with Anstruther. I think maybe you did hit him with a bottle. But I think you probably hit him so hard you killed him. Then I think maybe you heard a noise. Or you saw something. I don’t know which. I think maybe, some way or other, you suddenly got the idea you weren’t alone in the apartment. So what I think you did was this: I think you rang the doorbell, and then started talking in Max’s voice. You had a pretty good idea there was someone listening. So you made sure whoever was listening heard you begging Max not to kill him. Then you shot him. But he was already dead when you shot him. You killed him and you framed Max. Now, how did you know there was someone in the apartment?”

  Janis looked at me and, after a moment, she spoke. Her voice was very low. “I was outside the door for almost ten minutes before I rang the bell. I heard them talking. I knew there was a girl with him.”

  “Well. Now we’re getting someplace.”

  “You’re right, Dick. It happened just like you said. Except for one little thing. One little thing. I didn’t mean to kill him. We were fighting. He was very drunk. I did hit him with the bottle. I hit him very hard. But I didn’t mean to kill him. He was a sick man. It wouldn’t have killed him if he wasn’t. I killed him, but it was an accident. Then I got frightened. And I did what you said. I knew someone was listening, so I tried to make it look as if I hadn’t done it. It was a terrible thing. I know that. But I didn’t mean to kill him. You have to believe that, Dick. It was crazy and foolish and terrible. But I didn’t mean to kill him. Do you believe me now? Do you believe me when I tell you it was an accident?” she sobbed.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what to believe.”

  “Do you believe I love you?”

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  “Try me.”

  “Go on,” I said. “What about Jean Dahl? What about her? Was that an accident, too? And what about Max? Another accident?”

  “It wasn’t me in the dark. It was Max. If he says it wasn’t, he’s lying. Jean Dahl was blackmailing him. I don’t know what with. But she was blackmailing him. He tried to get her twice before. And then in the dark he did it.”

  She let go of the sheet.

  She sat on the bed, naked to the waist.

  “I love you, Dick. You say you love me. You say nothing ever changes. If you love me, believe me.”

  “You tried to kill Max.”

  “That’s the bad part. I told him this afternoon I wouldn’t marry him. He’s a gangster, Dick. You don’t know anything about it. This isn’t the book publishing world. This isn’t nice people who read the Saturday Review of Literature and ma
ke witty remarks at cocktail parties about people they hate.

  “You don’t know anything about this. This is the jungle. You have to fight and lie and cheat to get where I am. You have to knife your friends and go to bed with your enemies. You’ve got to be hard. You’ve got to be so tough they can’t hurt you. When you’re trying to make it the people on the top are kicking you, trying to keep you down. And when you get there, the people below are trying to pull you back down. It’s a jungle, Dick. And it’s been my life for ten years.”

  I watched her. I could feel a pulse in my temple throbbing.

  “Max wanted me to marry him. I told him I wouldn’t. He said I had to. He said I had no choice. He’d tell about faking the book. And he would have. He was just as desperate as I was. He would have ruined me forever. He’s a gangster, Dick. You don’t understand him. I tried to kill him. I thought I had. I wish I had. I’d do it again.”

  She stood up slowly.

  “Look at me, Dick. Look at me.”

  I looked at her.

  Her arms were at her sides. Her body was firm but soft. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

  “I belong to you, Dick. I always have.”

  I didn’t speak. I couldn’t.

  “Help me, Dick.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Tell me you believe me.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I love you, Dick. You believe that, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Kiss me. You’ll know. You’ll have to know.”

  “Janis…”

  “You’ll know. You’ll know if I’m lying or not. You’ll be able to tell. I love you, Dick. Kiss me.”

  I looked at her. I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t tell at all.

  “Darling, I don’t know…”

  “You’ll know.”

  I dropped the gun onto the floor and moved toward her. I took her arms at the elbows and drew her close. She lifted her head. Her eyes were open. They were very serious and very deep.

  I kissed her.

  Only our lips touched. Her mouth was soft and warm.

  “All right, darling,” I said. “We’ll see. But wait a minute. Just a minute. I have something to do first.”