Why didn’t I spend the night there? Why’d I go on back to town instead? Well, I told you — I found that money. Eighty-nine dollars. Lying right there on the river bank. Way I found it was, I decided to take a walk along the bank, after I dried off from my swim, and see could I find some soft grass for a bed. And there that money was, in a little cloth purse that somebody must of dropped. Some fisherman or somebody. Dropped it right there on the bank and never realized it. There was a bright moon that night, you remember? That’s how I seen the purse with the money in it lying there in the grass.
After I took the money out I throwed the bag in the river. I told you about that too. What did I want to keep an empty for? It didn’t have no identification or nothing in it. Finders keepers, losers weepers. So I walked back into town with that found money. I figured I might’s well spend some of it. I figured I was entitled, being as how I’d been down on my luck so long. So I bought myself a good meal and a bottle of bourbon whiskey and a room for the night, where you fellows found me the next morning.
What’s that? No, sir, I sure didn’t steal that money from Thomas Harper’s wallet. I told you where I got that money. I found that money in a cloth purse lying on the river bank—
No, sir, I didn’t hit Thomas Harper over the head with no chunk of willow limb. I didn’t kill Thomas Harper. I never even knowed his name until you told me, or that he was a bigshot lawyer, or nothing about him except he was sinning with Mr. Mason’s wife.
My fingerprints? Not just on his car but on one of them little window things in his wallet? Well, I don’t know how they could have got there. You sure them fingerprints is mine too? Well, I don’t know how they could of got there.
No, sir, I didn’t rob and kill Thomas Harper.
No, sir, I didn’t.
I tell you, I didn’t do it...
All right. All right, all right. I guess it’s no use. I guess I might’s as well tell you.
I done it.
But I didn’t mean to kill him, nor even to rob him. I come walking back from the river, back toward that fancy car of his, and I had that chunk of willow limb in my hand. I don’t know why I picked it up down on the river bank. I just did, that’s all. And here he comes from Mr. Mason’s house where he’d been fornicating with Mr. Mason’s wife, all cheerful and whistling, real pleased with himself, and I don’t know... I don’t know, I just stepped up behind him and let him have it. I didn’t mean to hit him so hard. I truly didn’t.
Sure, I took the money afterwards. Eighty-nine dollars is a lot of money to a fellow down on his luck. But that ain’t why I hit him. I don’t know why I hit him.
Yes I do. He had it coming, that’s why. Sinning with Mr. Mason’s wife like that, saying all them things to her right there in Mr. Mason’s bed in Mr. Mason’s own house. That Thomas Harper had it coming, all right.
But I didn’t do that other thing. I swear I didn’t.
I never looked through the bedroom window when I was in the garden, I never watched them two in Mr. Mason’s bed. It’s a mortal sin for a man to fornicate with another man’s wife, and only a person with lust in his heart would gaze upon what he’s moral certain is a act of fornication. God knows I don’t have no lust in my heart and He knows I didn’t watch them two committing their mortal sin. You got to know it too. You got to believe me.
I didn’t do it!
Quicker Than the Eye
(with Michael Kurland)
When I returned from the dressing area at the rear of the Magic Cellar nightclub, the houselights were dimming for Christopher Steele’s grand finale. I sat down quietly at the corner table I shared with four of the top brass of Lorde’s Department Store (“Serving San Franciscans Since 1927”), and watched Steele raise his hand to cut off thunderous applause.
He waited until the room became completely silent. Then he said, “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. You have been very attentive to my small displays of illusion, and I feel you should be rewarded. I shall show you something that is impossible, something that cannot be done. You are about to witness an effect that you will wonder about and talk about for the rest of your lives. You will tell people about it, and they will not believe you; but you will have seen it with your own eyes.” He paused, smiling enigmatically. “I would appreciate your silence for the next ten minutes.”
Steele bowed and stepped back to center stage. Ardis, his assistant — who had been with him longer than I had been his manager — joined him. They stood facing the audience, fingertips touching, while two stagehands brought in an ornate golden chair and placed it at the rear of the stage.
“The greatest mystery of all,” Steele said, “is the mystery of time. Time and its effect on Man. The mystery of aging, of life and death. I present to you now a visual allegory and, if I may, a miracle!”
He stepped forward, and Ardis, at his nod, walked to the high-backed chair and sat. The lights dimmed to a single spot.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Steele intoned, “please keep your seats and do not be alarmed at what you see here now. I invoke the aid of Osiris, Egyptian God of Life. Oh mighty Osiris, keeper of the mysteries, guardian of the keys, make your presence felt — on this stage tonight. Come forth, come here, come — now!”
Slowly, so slowly that you weren’t really sure that it was happening, Ardis began to change. She slumped over in her seat and her arms and hands became lined and wrinkled. Her legs grew twisted, gnarled. Her face became ancient beyond the ages of Man, as old as Time.
She straightened up and stared out at the audience, this incredibly old hag, and her eyes flashed, even sunken as they were in the parchment of that ancient face. As we watched, the very flesh became transparent, the white dress she wore grew evanescent — and both disappeared, revealing the skeleton beneath. Finally the skeleton was all that remained. Then it collapsed in on itself, leaving only a pile of bones and a handful of dust on the chair.
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your attention,” Steele said, as the lights went up and broke the spell. “That ends my show for tonight.”
The audience stared. The chair, with bones and dust, remained. Finally one man began to clap and again everyone broke into thunderous applause. As it died down Steele smiled and clapped his hands twice, sharply. There was a flash of light, a puff of smoke, and Ardis — young and beautiful — stood once more beside him. This broke up the audience completely. They whistled, stamped and screamed while Steele and Ardis bowed low and then walked off the stage.
The houselights came up and the waitress appeared by the table with a fresh round of drinks. I gave my attention to my guests.
Old Mrs. Lorde herself sat opposite me, straight as a mannequin despite her eighty-plus years. She wore a severe black dress accented only by a massive gold choker. An ebony cane with a solid-gold handle cast in the shape of an elephant was her only other adornment. On my left were Victor Schneider, manager of Lorde’s Department Store — a tall, stately man with a small moustache — and Lillian Royce, buyer in the women’s clothing department and a very attractive brunette in her mid-twenties. On my right was a thin nervous man with a voice that just managed not to squeak: Lewis Thorp, the store’s assistant manager.