“I’m afraid it’s out of our hands,” said the Chaplain sadly. He nodded to Darcy. “Go ahead, William, explain.”
In the background, the phone continued to ring. Darcy lit a cigarette, blew out the smoke leisurely, like he had all the time in the world.
“Like I was saying, Warden, I hold no malice toward anyone. Right or wrong, I was convicted and sentenced to die. Over and over again I’ve prepared myself for that finality. Nine times I’ve gotten ready, and nine times, at the last possible moment, I’ve been spared.”
“So why are you complaining?”
“Because suddenly death is easier to face, then living from vacuum to vacuum. That’s dying piecemeal, and I can’t go through it again. Don’t you understand, even murderers have their breaking point. Don’t doom me to another eternity of living hell. Give me the justice I was condemned to, not this torture rack of endless nothingness. I’m not a puppet. I won’t let myself be used by an ambitious governor in an election year to keep his name in the headlines. I want out. I want out the way it was decided by my peers. Please, Warden, don’t answer that phone. This time let the Governor dangle, let him know the meaning of a lost cause; let him wait, and wait...”
In the corridor the phone rang another four times, then went silent. For a long while no one moved or spoke, each seemed oblivious of the others, as if isolated by an inner wall of private thoughts and memories too personal to speak of.
“It’s over,” said Darcy, finally, lowering the gun. “He’ll call your office and a couple of other places before trying this line again. On the other hand, there’s the possibility he might call right back.”
He waited but still the others didn’t respond.
“Well, Warden? Do we proceed as scheduled?”
“You can’t mean it?”
“If I didn’t, don’t you think I would have used this on myself long ago?” He gazed at the gun, then, holding it in the flat of his hand, cautiously extended it toward his captives.
“I told you I was expecting help. Yours. For you see, in truth, I’m somewhat of a coward. Please, just say the right word.”
The Warden hesitated, rubbed again at his fat, glistening face, and tried to catch the eye of one of the others. No one turned; it was to be his decision alone. He took a deep breath and strode closer to the cell window. For a few moments he listened to the raging wind and watched a fleet of dark clouds sweep across an already black horizon. After awhile he turned.
“A bad night,” he murmured. “Wind’s like a sledge-hammer. Bet it’s knocked down phone lines all over the state.” He glanced at his watch, then up at Darcy. “Anyway, I never did cotton to our Governor. Not once in all the years he’s called here, has he ever asked who he was talking to.”
He winked, crossed back to Darcy, hesitated a second time, then quickly lifted the gun from his hand. In a moment he’d emptied the chambers and pushed the weapon deep into his own pocket. For a time they faced each other without speaking.
“So long, boy,” said the Warden, finally. “Gonna miss you. You played a good game of checkers.”
“There’ll be others,” said Darcy.
“I suppose.” Abruptly he turned, pushed open the cell-door, stepped into the corridor and signaled to the official inside the Execution Chamber to admit the impatient crowd of press and witnesses. He looked a last time at Darcy, saying, “Anytime you’re ready.”
Darcy straightened his clothes, kicked off his shoes. The two guards touched his shoulder as they proceeded him out the door. The Chaplain came forward, gently took his arm.
“Pray, Chaplain.”
“For your soul, William?”
“For my soul — and for that phone not to ring again,” said Darcy, and followed the others into the corridor.
The phone remained silent.
Politics Is Simply Murder
by Jack Ritchie
Politics is a word not ordinarily spoken in the presence of children. There are those who would even ban it from polite society. That it has a place in this fine bi-partisan publication is therefore quite obvious.
Hermione is a woman of noble proportions, resembling, in part, a grenadier sergeant who has not exhaled in twenty years. “I haven’t the slightest desire,” she said, “merely to exchange one blackmailer for another.”
“Of course not, Madam,” I agreed. “And your fears are groundless. I am. a man of honor and never, in my entire career have I resorted to blackmailing one of my clients. I confine myself strictly within my talents, inclinations, and profession. In short, I murder, and that is all.”
We had a table in Lustow’s, where the waiterships are hereditary and the ceilings distant. Hermione is the widow of the late Senator Abner Trotter. Three years ago she married Frederick Combs and he is now running for Congress in the sixth district.
She came to a decision. “Very well. I think you’re the man for the job. At least Mrs. Berling recommends you highly and that is good enough for me.”
The Mrs. Berling she referred to is a charming lady who has been deprived of three of her husbands in the last seven years. She is one of my more consistent and therefore profitable customers.
“The man I want you to dispose of is Edmund Pelletier,” Hermione said. “Or at least that is the name he uses. He has a suite in the Parkinson Hotel. Number 239.”
“Do you have any particular time preference for his death? Most of my clients like the protection of a solid alibi.”
“This isn’t going to be quite so simple,” Hermione said. “You’ve also got to obtain and destroy the evidence he uses for his blackmail. I leave the method to you.”
“Pelletier is blackmailing you?”
She almost snorted. “No one could do that to me and get away with it. My husband is his victim.”
“Ah, yes,” I said. “He’s running for Congress.”
“He ought to make it too,” Hermione said firmly. “He has a good speaking voice and he looks fine on television. That’s why I married him in the first place. He’s a little simple, but we manage to conceal that fact by having him talk slow. Gives voters the impression that he’s thinking every minute.”
The waiter brought Hermione her steak. Rare, of course. I myself prefer a steak so well done that the blood of the abattoir does not readily come to mind.
“Why is your husband being blackmailed?” I asked.
Hermione stated the fact without the slightest trace of embarrassment. “Frederick was a jewel thief before he married me. Of course I wouldn’t have married him if I’d known that.”
“Naturally not.”
“The morality of the thing doesn’t bother me a bit,” Hermione made clear. “But I am infuriated that the blundering idiot made the mistake of getting caught at it by this Edmund Pelletier about four years before I married him. I didn’t know that either until three weeks ago.”
I mellowed my tongue with a sip of wine. “May I ask how you happened to meet Frederick Combs?”
“He came to a great many of my parties when Abner was still alive. Probably to steal jewelry, I imagine, but I usually keep mine in a safe deposit box at the bank. After Abner died, I looked around for a suitable replacement and Frederick happened to be there.”
“A lonely woman needs love?” I suggested — a bit doubtfully.
“Love, nothing.” Hermione was emphatic. “I’m a woman with drive and I find that the best outlet for that sort of thing is through a husband. I worked Abner Trotter from the State Assembly into Washington. And if the fool hadn’t killed himself in an automobile accident four years ago, he would have been in the national convention this July as a favorite son, at least.”