Until You Are Dead Page 6

  Where before Eldon couldn't bring himself to look at Bernice, now he couldn't stop looking at her as he rehearsed in his mind the story he'd tell the police.

  My God, it was one of those freak accidents. She must have just happened to walk in to look around and. . . The room was going to be my office. I never intended to lock the door so when I hung it I never even noticed what side the lock was on. I never even knew the knob had one of those locks that held the outside knob firm while the inside one turned. Only this time the outside was the inside. One of those freak accidents ...

  Eldon was satisfied he could appear sufficiently grief-stricken for the next week or so. Still staring at Bernice, he straightened, and for a split second the distant snap and low hum that he heard meant nothing to him. Then there was a subtle movement of air, a low swishing sound ending in a soft click, and Eldon was standing in total darkness, the vision of Bernice's lifeless face still before him, a lingering image in his startled eyes.

  The air conditioner! She'd had the air conditioner repaired and the pull of air as it came on had closed the door! His mind refused to believe it, but his heart leapt.

  Cautiously Eldon's trembling fingers groped through darkness and tested the doorknob. It wouldn't turn. The door was locked.

  A hoarse cry broke from Eldon and he flung himself against the door, staggered back from the impact and his heel dug into something soft, tripping him to sit spread-legged on the cold tile floor. He drew back and with low, rhythmic sobs crept to a wall, crawled pressing cat-like against it as he explored the thick baseboard with futile searching fingers. Finally he came to the inevitable corner and sat whimpering, wedging himself firmly, violently, into the unyielding angle of the solid walls, and began his wait.

  The room was very dark, and soon it became very cold, and but for Eldon's desperate whimpering it was almost completely quiet.

  It wasn't so much the prospect of his own imminent death like Bernice's that drove Eldon to dig his aching heels into the floor, fighting to press ever backward into the corner. It was the madly irrational yet terrifyingly persistent illusion that, as the final darkness closed and the door latch had clicked, she had smiled at him.

  Double Murder

  "You are not leaving this house tonight except to go with me to the Hartmans'!" Henrietta Bartamer said to her husband. "They have a new hot tub in their back yard, and Janet and Phil want us to help them christen it. And we will!"

  Bartamer knew enough not to argue when Henrietta spoke in italics. He had intended to work late tonight, but now he wouldn't. He would instead sit nude in a wooden hot tub beneath a clear California mountain sky and trade mundane remarks with the Hartmans. Henrietta's friends.

  He did so, and found the next morning that something in the water had given him a rash.

  At breakfast he studied Henrietta. She was her usual blonde classically pretty self. She was thirty-five now but could easily pass for a tall lithe twenty-five. It was a pity she had such a grizzly-bear personality.

  Bartamer, in contrast, was short, dark, and somewhat weasely looking. He kissed his Nordic beauty of a wife goodbye and left, carrying his briefcase. He had done some paperwork late last night after Henrietta was asleep.

  Bartamer fumed as he drove his red Ferrari up the mountain road just outside Carmel. Life seemed always to be a trap. Bartamer was an acknowledged genius in bio-chemistry, but a genius with decidedly unconventional ideas. Ten years ago he had lost his position at Northwestern University and found that word had gotten around as to his supposed eccentricities. No other position worth considering was offered. So he had married Henrietta, the young widow of Norris Feeber of Feeber Fidelity Trust. Despite Henrietta's great wealth and considerable beauty, she had been somewhat in the same boat as Bartamer. So foul and aggressive was her disposition that no one else would have her.

  Bartamer used his bride's money to purchase an isolated house in the mountains. Then he had gone about building and equipping a more isolated mountaintop laboratory where he could carry on his research undisturbed. He was even incorporated, under the innocuous name of Research West Development. Money no longer was a problem, but Henrietta was.

  She had become almost impossible to coexist with, Bartamer thought, as he used his coded signal control to open the high iron gate at the laboratory entrance. He drove through, glancing in his rearview mirror to see the gate swing closed and lock behind him.

  The laboratory was housed in a low brick building invisible from below. There were several high narrow windows on each side of the glass front door, and very expensive and sophisticated heating and cooling equipment on the roof. Bartamer noted with satisfaction that his assistant Melfore's gray sedan was parked in its slot.

  Melfore was already at work when Bartamer entered the lab. He was a youngish man with large, intense dark eyes. Melfore had been a juvenile delinquent before discovering that he had an exceptional brain. Bartamer had met him at Northwestern, where he had been impressed by the young man's inquisitiveness and willingness to explore any hypothesis. Melfore had seemed intelligent and opportunistic, but not the type that would steal university laboratory equipment, then physically assault the dean when confronted with the crime. But a jury had decided that Melfore was that type, and a judge had handed down a five-year sentence. When he was paroled after two years, Bartamer had looked him up and employed him. And for the past seven years Melfore had made an ideal assistant.

  It was cloning that Bartamer was working on, that consumed him. And his experiments were gradually showing him the avenue to success. He already had succeeded with some of the higher primates, and when his techniques were perfected he would be ready to show, and then to snub, the rest of the scientific community. That was important to Bartamer. That was why he stayed with Henrietta.

  Melfore smiled at Bartamer. "There have been no significant changes other than the usual."

  "The usual?"

  "Chimp Two is in every way identical to Chimp One, except that already Chimp Two is showing overall better health, strength, and aggressiveness. The aging process accelerated and then leveled off as anticipated, and the intelligence and comp-tech transference of the brain's programs and responses has been repeated."

  What Melfore was saying, in short, was that the chimpanzee that had been cloned now had an exact duplicate that was in all respects the dominant of the two.

  Bartamer looked at Chimp Two. Chimp Two glared back at him from behind the wire of its cage. Chimp Two was mean and getting meaner. That was a problem for which Bartamer was sure he already had the solution. After a delicate and unfortunately risky adjustment of the clone's chemical balance, Chimp Two would be as docile and compliant as a newborn kitten. But first Bartamer had in mind another experiment. He placed Chimps One and Two in the same cage.

  A week later, after Chimp Two had killed Chimp One and then been reduced by chemical modification to an amiable pet, Bartamer was sure he had the answer to his problems with Henrietta.

  In human nature it is to an extent true that opposites attract. By the same token it is no secret what familiarity breeds. Bartamer knew that another Henrietta, slightly larger, slightly healthier and stronger, increasingly aggressive, would not be able to tolerate the original Henrietta for long. And after Henrietta One had been dispatched, Bartamer would see that Henrietta Two was altered to become as mild-mannered and agreeable as any woman could be. All that was needed was a microscopic tissue sample from Henrietta, which was easy enough to obtain. The beauty of the scheme was that if, by some remote chance, the authorities did discover that Henrietta One had been murdered, Bartamer technically would be innocent of the crime. He had to hand it to himself.

  Six months later Bartamer brought Henrietta Two home from the lab. Henrietta One was mildly astonished, even a bit complimented, that her husband should create another her. But of course she was too pea-brained to realize the significance of Bartamer's accomplishment.

  "We can have her do the housework around here," Henriett
a One said. "It will free me to go into town more often."

  Henrietta Two, glowing with health and strength, heard that and glared. Bartamer recognized that glare.

  At first things seemed to go smoothly. Henrietta Two became the maid that the Bartamers' chosen isolation had prevented them from employing. She followed Henrietta One's orders literally and thoroughly, even moving furniture and appliances with seeming ease to clean behind them.

  The sprawling ten-room house that previously was always in disarray now was almost a showplace of neatness and cleanliness. Henrietta One was obviously enjoying her new environment and leisure. She took to going for long drives or sunning herself most of the day by the pool, while Henrietta Two toiled.

  Occasionally Bartamer would see his wife's blue sportscar on the road to the laboratory. Melfore told him that Henrietta One had visited the lab several times, asking questions, showing an interest she'd never shown before. But they were not intelligent questions.

  With increasing frequency now, Bartamer would overhear Henriettas One and Two arguing. Then one afternoon Henrietta One approached him on the patio.

  "I think you should take it back to the lab."

  "It?" Bartamer asked.

  "The — other me. I mean, it — she — is becoming too much of a problem. She objects to everything I do, and when it comes to any difference of opinion she's more and more stubborn. Then there's the way I sometimes catch her looking at me."

  "Looking at you? How?" Bartamer asked.

  Henrietta One shivered. "I don't know how to explain it, but there's something in her eyes — as if she's not human."

  "Well, strictly speaking -"

  "I don't want to hear!" Henrietta One interrupted. "Take her back tomorrow! That's settled!" And she flounced away.

  Bartamer happened to glance toward the patio doors and saw Henrietta Two staring after her prototype.

  That very evening he found the body of Henrietta One in the den, stretched backward over the stereo console. Her neck had been broken.

  Bartamer removed her left shoe and examined the sole of the bare foot to make sure it wasn't marked with the tiny star he'd tattooed on Henrietta Two. He smiled and replaced the shoe.

  Henrietta Two had murdered. She was learned enough to know that her freedom depended on Bartamer not reporting her. And after he'd used her to help dispose of Henrietta One's body, she would be given treatment to remove her aggressive tendencies. To the outside world, she would be Henrietta One, and life would go on as before — only much more agreeably.

  After summoning Henrietta Two over the intercom, Bartamer mixed himself a drink and sat waiting on the sofa. Henrietta Two arrived almost immediately.

  But she wasn't alone.

  Melfore was with her. Melfore was grinning the same grin he'd displayed after assaulting the dean. And Henrietta Two was smiling a carnivorous smile. Neither of them bothered to glance at the remains of Henrietta One.

  "I'm afraid Henrietta Two and I have struck a bargain," Melfore said.

  Bartamer stood up from the sofa, feeling the cold weight of fear drop through him.

  "Melfore has a brilliant scientific career ahead of him," Henrietta Two said fervently.

  "I think I can guarantee that," a third voice said, and Bartamer Two stepped into the room.

  He was slightly taller than Bartamer One, slightly more muscular and virile. His face was not so weasely, though his eyes glittered like those of a wolverine. He was holding a revolver.

  "Imagine," Melfore was saying, "just try to imagine the future -"

  "Pull the trigger," Henrietta Two instructed, and Bartamer Two did.

  Bartamer One felt a powerful jolt. A fiery pain erupted in his chest and its heat began to spread. He was on the carpet. The room was whirling, fading.

  "Shoot him again," he heard Henrietta Two say calmly. "We ought to make doubly sure he's dead."

  "I'll second that," Melfore said.

  Bartamer Two made it unanimous.

  Fair Shake

  They were in the commissioner's office at headquarters. Snodman, B.S. in liberal arts, number one in his police academy class, ex-debating team captain and regional chess champion, adjusted his black horn-rimmed glasses with his little finger and peered down at the slip of paper the commissioner had handed him:

  I know everything about my marks

  At least I know enough

  To catch them always unawares

  They're never up to Snuff

  "Crude," Snodman said. "What does it mean, sir?"

  "I've seen them before," Commissioner Moriarty said. "They're the work of a man the underworld calls 'The Snuffer'."

  "A professional assassin, sir?" Snodman asked, looking at Moriarty through emotionless blue eyes. It had always intrigued Snodman, the fact that a man named Moriarty would be decreed by fate to be a police commissioner and look so like the fictitious Sherlock Holmes would have looked, with lean hawk nose, shrewd gray eyes, even smoking a pipe the stem of which was at least slightly curved.

  "Possibly the greatest hired killer the police have ever run up against," the commissioner said. "Rumor has it that he works for the syndicate no more than once a year and receives at least fifty thousand dollars a job. I personally know of six jobs he's definitely completed in various cities."

  Snodman, who smoked a pipe himself, placed the stem between his thin lips and reached for his tobacco pouch. "How can you be so sure they were all the work of this Snuffer, sir? Modus operandi?"

  The commissioner smiled. "It is his M.O. that he is proud of. It varies with every job. In Chicago, concerning the sports fixing racket, it was an exploding basketball; two years ago Hans Greiber, the passport forger, was found drowned in one of those little German cars filled with water; and surely you remember when Joe Besini, who was going to turn state's evidence against the syndicate, was found smothered by a hot pizza."

  "Gruesome," Snodman said.

  "Anchovies, too." Commissioner Moriarty shook his head reminiscently. "The fact is that in each of these cases the victim knew he was marked for death and had police protection. In each of these cases The Snuffer warned the victim with one of these little poems. A highly developed sense of fair play, if you ask me."

  "Yes," Snodman agreed, shifting position in the leather office chair so that his trousers wouldn't become too wrinkled. He was one of the best dressed detectives on the force, and he was proudly aware of it. "I suppose every attempt has been made to trace him through the poems," he said.

  The commissioner nodded. "As you can see, they're in hand printed ink on cheap stationery. The paper is too common to mean anything and Handwriting Analysis can't make anything out of the simple printing except that it's the work of a careful, precise individual, which I could have told you."

  Snodman wrinkled his still youthful brow. "But why on earth does he send the poems? Doesn't he realize they merely increase his chances of being caught?"

  The commissioner leaned over his desk. "Fair play, Snodman. The psychologists say that he's so clever and supremely confident that his conscience compels him to give his victims warning. They say that The Snuffer wants to preserve his anonymity yet boast about his work, so he writes poems. Some of them are quite good."

  Snodman, who fancied himself something of an expert on literature, wanted to disagree with his superior but thought better of it. Besides, he was curious as to why the commissioner was filling him in on this subject, so he sat patiently and waited for his boss to get to the point.

  "The point is," Moriarty said, biting on his curved stem pipe, "that a man named Ralph Capastrani has agreed to testify next month before a Senate Subcommittee hearing on organized crime. We thought it was a hush-hush thing, but kept Capastrani under protection anyway. Then, this morning, I received this poem in the mail."

  "Does Capastrani know anything about it, sir?"

  "No. We don't want him to die of worry before the hearings. We're taking every precaution to keep The Snuffer from earning anoth
er fortune from the syndicate. Capastrani is under guard in a room at the Paxton Hotel, just two blocks from here. We moved him in this morning." The commissioner paused for effect and pressed his fingertips down onto the glass desk top. "Starting in ten minutes, your job will be to guard him."

  "I'm honored you have the confidence in me, sir," Snodman said, actually rather insulted that the commissioner should think he would have a hard time outwitting the composer of these jingling trivialities.

  Commissioner Moriarty smiled his Holmes-like smile. "You are one of the most highly educated men on the force, Snodman, and in the few years you've been with us you've proven yourself to be an efficient and hardworking policeman. Few men of your caliber choose policework as a profession, and your dedication is unquestioned. I can think of no man on the force who would have a better chance of outwitting The Snuffer."

  Snodman took this deluge of compliments with aplomb.

  The commissioner picked up a silver letter opener and neatly opened one of many letters on his desk. "Capastrani is in room twenty-four on the third floor," he said by way of dismissal. "I'll be over later myself to check on things."

  Snodman rose casually and took his leave.

  Suite 24 was small and sparsely but tastefully furnished. Shades had been pulled over the third floor, ledgeless windows; heating and air conditioning ducts had been blocked and the comfort was being inadequately supplied by a rented window air conditioner; food was brought up three times a day by a room service waiter who was duly searched before being admitted. Outside the door to the hall stood an armed patrolman; outside the door to the bedroom sat Snodman; inside the bedroom lay Capastrani, sleeping peacefully. Suite 24 was invulnerable.

  Obviously Capastrani, a squat, hairy individual, had faith in his police department, for almost all of his time was occupied by sleeping and eating; but then, besides listening to the monotonous watery hum of the air conditioner, there really wasn't much else to do in Suite 24.