He took out a cigarette, lit it, raised his hand at full arm’s length above his head and banged it down on the floor a moment afterwards. Then he took a kick at the chair he’d just been in, so that it swung around in a half-circle.
“Lindsey, this is my flat you’re in, not the back room at headquarters,” she remonstrated mildly. “I never saw you like this before, what’s the matter with you?”
He trod out the sparks on the rug. “I don’t know myself,” he grunted. “I felt all right until a few minutes ago. I’ve been plugging away too hard, not getting enough sleep, I guess. I’ve got a pip of a peeve on right now. I feel like busting someone in the face.”
“Not me, I hope.” She smiled as her fingers continued traveling over the keys.
He was stalking around the room behind her with his locked hands draped across the back of his neck. He looked over at her a couple of times, started to say something, clamped his mouth shut as though thinking better of it. Finally it got away from him. His voice exploded in an ungovernable shout that nearly hoisted her clear of the bench. “For Pete’s sake, can’t you quit playing that damn piano for a minute! It’s got me on edge, I can’t stand it any more!”
She turned and looked at him in undisguised astonishment. There was a sudden silence in the room.
He was already ashamed of the outburst. “Or at least play something else. What is that screwy thing anyway?”
“Ravel’s Bolero. It’s a long-hair number but we swing it once in awhile.”
“I didn’t think I could stand it for another minute.”
“It is a monotonous sort of thing,” she agreed. “The same theme over and over and over. You just change keys.”
“It sure is an irritant, I know that much! I’m sorry, Billie,” he apologized. “I didn’t know a little thing like that could get me that way. Shows you how jumpy I must be.” He grabbed for his hat. “I better get out of here before I put my foot in it any deeper, get some sleep. This case has me down. I guess. See you tomorrow,” he called back from the door.
She stared after him with a puzzled frown on her face. Then she struck three random notes of what she’d just been playing, with one finger. Suddenly the piano-bench toppled over and she was flying toward the door he’d just closed behind him. She tore it open. Luckily he hadn’t gone down yet, was still out there waiting for the elevator.
“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” she shrieked, as though she herself has gone insane. “Come back here!”
He came inside again. “What the hell—”
She was too excited to explain. “Have you got a gun?” she asked breathlessly, closing the door after him.
“Sure, I always carry one,” he said, mystified.
“Good! You’re going to need one if this works out the way I think it may.”
She’d taken him into the bedroom. “Here, get into this closet and keep your eyes open. Can you see me at the piano from in here?”
“No, it’s not in a straight line with the door.”
“Well, we’ll shove it over further. I want to make sure your eyes are on me every minute of the time, through the crack of this closet-door, or it’s going to be just too bad for me!”
They shifted the piano, then she jumped up on a chair, unslung a heavy framed mirror from the opposite wall. “Hang this from the molding over the piano, Lindsey. It’ll give you a view of the rest of the room, from in there. Now get back in there, leave the door open a crack, and have your gun ready. You’re going to have to listen to that thing steadily for the next few hours. Can you stand it? Your own nerves were pretty much on edge just now. Better take a good stiff drink before we get in there.”
He got what she was driving at finally. “You mean — that piece? You think—”
“I’m sure of it, and this’ll prove it. That’s our link, our impetus. We jammed it that night. I think we must have the other two times, too, although I can’t remember for sure now any more. We never play it for general dancing. You saw what it did to you just now, just from lack of sleep. It’s monotonous, insistent, frays the nerves the way it slowly builds to a climax, the same arrangement of notes over and over and over. And he’s off-balance to begin with. Conceivably it topples him over completely each time he hears it, starts the wheels going.”
“Gin with it, and a few puffs of weed,” he suggested, “to give it the same priming as at the jam-sessions.”
“There must be a couple of Frankie’s muggles still around the place somewhere. I’m going to test them out one at a time, to make sure they don’t show any inhibitions. I’ll be supposedly alone up here. For heaven’s sake, Lindsey, jump out as soon as you see anything. Don’t let anything happen to me. It’s going to be an awful feeling to sit here at the piano without being able to turn around, not knowing when I’ll feel a knife between my shoulders, or a pair of hands around my neck.”
“I’ll be watching, I’ll be on the job, just keep steady.”
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
She dialed a number on the phone. The closet door ebbed noiselessly back into its frame, without completely meeting it, in the darkened room beyond.
“Hello. Armstrong? This is Billie. Doing anything?... Neither am I. I feel kind of lonely. No one to talk to. Why don’t you drop over for a few minutes, see if you can cheer me up. Don’t bring anyone else, I don’t want a mob around me.”
Armstrong said: “Yeah, and do you remember that time we were playing that cruise ship, and ran into a norther down in the Gulf, and had to play fastened to our chairs by our belts, so we wouldn’t come flying down out of the box on top of the dancers’ heads every time she tipped over?”
“What about me? I wasn’t attached to anything. Right in the middle of the second chorus of I Married an Angel I go shooting across the ball room-floor and land square in the fat purser’s lap. What a night that was! Have another drink?”
“I’ve had two already.”
She sat down at the keyboard, lightly began the querulous opening measures of the Bolero. He was sprawled out in an easy-chair with his back to the bedroom doorway, drink in one hand, half smoked reefer in the other. He fell silent, listening.
She changed keys. It began to come in a little heavier now, but the same torturing sequence of notes, on and on and on. She glanced furtively up into the mirror on the wall before her. She could see him in it. He’d let his eyelids droop closed, but he wasn’t asleep, she could tell that. Just listening. He lifted his glass to his mouth, drank, lowered it again, all without opening his eyes. The closet door, dimly discernible in the shadowy interior of the next room, was slanting outward at more of an angle now. Lindsey probably had his gun out in his hand. Wouldn’t it be a joke if it got him on edge quicker than the suspect they were both testing? It wouldn’t, though, now that he was on guard against it.
The strain on her was terrific. She forced herself to keep her eyes down on the keyboard. She had to go on playing, just stealing an occasional glance upward. But any minute she might see a reared shadow loom on the wall and feel—
It was thundering toward its climax now. It was a good thing this place had thick soundproof walls, especially meant for musicians and vocalists. She stole another look via the glass. Eyes still closed. Wide awake though. He’d finished the marihuana cigarette and ditched it. Did she imagine it or had his hand twitched just then on the arm of the chair? No, there it came again. He’d given it a little spasmodic jerk, sort of shot his cuff back.