The Comedy is Finished (35 page)

“Mark has already chosen to be in opposition to us.”

Liz shrugged; nothing ever surprised or baffled her for long, a trait Peter was frequently grateful for. “Then we’ll have to kill him,” she said. “If we just draw him away, he’ll make trouble later.”

“That’s right. What we’ll do, you’ll knock on the door, talk to him, get him to come out of the room. I’ll be partway down the stairs, where he won’t be able to see me until he’s completely out in the hall. When he comes out I’ll shoot him. Then it’ll be your job to keep the door open. I don’t want Davis locking it from the inside, forcing us to batter the damn thing down before we can get at him.”

“What if Mark won’t come out?”

“We need an inducement.” Peter frowned at her. “What about sex? Could you get him out that way?”

Laughing, she said, “Not a chance.” Her face and the sound of her laughter were both harsh. “Not with Mark,” she said. “He’s even worse than you.”

What did she mean by that? Choosing not to pursue it, Peter said, “Something else, then. Tell him something, I don’t care what. Get him to just step across the threshold, that’s all.”

“Let me think.” She half-turned to gaze out toward the glass doors and the deck. Peter looked in the same direction, seeing Larry slumped in an orange butterfly chair out there, like a TB victim getting a final infusion of sun. Beyond the deck, the beach and ocean were lightly peopled by swimmers, surfers, hikers, sunbathers. The amazing thing was that this place could at the same time be so public and yet so private. Hundreds of people moved up and down the beach out there, past the long row of dwellings, never guessing what this one beach house contained.

Liz said, “I’ll tell him you caught Larry trying to call the police.”

“You mean—to turn himself in?”

“To turn us
all
in.”

Peter looked out again at the despondent figure on the deck. “God knows it’s believable.”

“That’s the point, isn’t it?” With a lithe movement, Liz uncoiled herself out of the chair. “If we’re going to do it, let’s do it.”

“Wait. I have to get the gun.”

Peter’s luggage was in the room where he’d made the two tapes; the one they’d sent last night to the authorities, and the one he’d made this morning, to be left next to Davis’ body. Now, while Liz waited at the foot of the stairs, he went into that room and took from the bottom of his suitcase a small revolver; a .32 caliber Colt Cobra, with a two-inch barrel. Also in the suitcase were a Browning .380 automatic, a Ruger .357 Blackhawk revolver, and a .38 Colt Police Positive Special revolver; all larger, heavier guns than the Cobra. Peter had collected these guns over the last few years, buying them all legally, but he had no real interest in or liking for guns and had never become comfortable with any of them. He did not practice shooting, didn’t entirely trust guns, and whenever he felt the need for one he invariably chose the Cobra, being the smallest and lightest and therefore the least intimidating.

Liz had already started up the stairs, and was waiting now three steps from the top. Peter followed, stopped two steps below her, and whispered, “Go ahead.”

“Are you close enough?”

“Yes yes! Go on!”

It was necessary for Peter to clench his jaw to stop the teeth from grinding; he couldn’t afford that distraction now. Pressing his left side against the stairwell wall, he held the Cobra in both hands, out at arm’s length, his left arm braced against the wall, the revolver barrel pointed at a head-high spot directly in front of that bedroom door. Although Peter disliked guns, he knew himself capable of using them effectively at short range; twice before he had shot
people, once fatally and once wounding a policeman in the side. There would be no difficulty now with Mark and with Davis.

At the bedroom door, Liz paused and looked down at Peter, who nodded to her that he was ready. Without hesitation, she knocked sharply at the door, and a few seconds later Peter heard the rumbling voice of Mark; though he wasn’t near enough to make out the exact words.

“It’s Liz.”

Mark rumbled again.

“I have to talk to you. Come on, Mark, don’t make me yell through the door.”

Peter’s perceptions were so acute now that he could see the doorknob turn. He watched it disappear as the door opened inward, but Mark did not immediately appear.

Now, however, Peter could hear what Mark was saying: “What’s the problem?”

“It’s Larry.” Liz’s manner seemed to Peter offhand and mechanical; shouldn’t she sound more troubled? Or was this more appropriate to her style?

“What’s the matter with Larry?” Not a bit of Mark showed beyond the doorway, not even a shadow.

“Peter caught him calling the police. He wanted to turn us all in.”

The familiar snarl of Mark’s laughter made Peter hunch more closely against the protecting wall. When would the damn man come out of there? The waiting was difficult; it was getting harder and harder not to grind his teeth.

Mark said, “That’s Larry, all right, always the wrong move at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. Did Peter stop him in time?”

“Yes, we think so. But Peter needs help, he wants you to come down and help him.”

“Help? With
Larry
?”

“Peter’s holding him,” Liz explained, “but we can’t trust Larry anymore, we don’t know what he’ll do next. Peter can’t deal with him alone.”

“You mean he wants Larry put out of the way, and he’s too much of a coward to do it himself.”

Oh, am I? You’ll soon learn about
that
.

“That isn’t it.” Liz sounded as impatient as Peter felt. “He can’t control Larry all himself, that’s all. Come down and
help
him.”

“This is all too stupid,” Mark said, but grudgingly, meaning he was about to give up. Peter could tell by the way Liz stepped back from the doorway that Mark was coming out now. Here he—

“Peter, there’s trouble out—”

Larry’s voice! Peter swung around, stunned, and Larry was at the foot of the stairs, gaping upward, bewildered: “What are you—?” Then, understanding: “Mark, look out!”

Swinging back, Peter saw Mark just stepping into the hallway, looking in this direction—beardless! That surprising naked face was also seeing this tableau, understanding it, and even as Peter was bringing the gun up Mark was flinging himself backward.
Damn!
Peter fired, knowing it was no good, too late, then fired a second time even more uselessly, as the door slammed shut.

Liz was shouting something, Larry was shouting something. Peter bounded up the stairs, twisted the knob, but the door was locked from the inside. Enraged, he emptied the Cobra into the closed door, hoping the bullets would go through the wood and glass, would hit
something
in there, and then he turned to fling the empty pistol in rage and frustration down the stairs at Larry, who merely sidestepped it, crying out, “Peter, have you gone
crazy
?”

“That son of a bitch,” Peter growled, and he wasn’t sure himself
whether he meant Mark or Larry. To Liz he said, “Does Mark have a gun in there, do you know?”

“What a mess
this
is,” Liz said, as though it was Peter she blamed.

“
Does he have a gun?
”

“How would I know?”

“We have to assume—Oh, Jesus, can’t
anything
go right?”

Larry by now had reached the head of the stairs, his expression astounded and disapproving. “You were going to
shoot
Mark!”

“Yes, by Jesus, I was, and you fouled it up!”

“But
why
?”

“Because we have to kill Davis, and Mark’s in the way.”

“But we don’t have to—”

“Don’t argue tactics with me,” Peter said, his finger poking out at Larry, his patience finally gone for good. “You’re a weak sister, you always
have
been a weak sister, and you won’t tell
me
how to run this operation.”

Larry’s face closed down; he made an obvious effort to attain dignity. “I’ll tell you,” he said. “I’ll tell you what I came in to report. They’ve cleared everybody away from our area of beach.”

“They? Who?”

“I don’t know. Lifeguards, police, what difference does it make?”

“Maybe somebody saw a shark.”

“They haven’t just cleared everybody out of the water, they’ve moved them away from the beach, too. It looks as though they’re setting up sawhorse barriers two or three houses away on both sides.”

“There’s got to be some—” But then it all overflowed, and Peter yelled, “You
did
call the police! You bastard, bastard, bastard—”

Liz got between them, preventing Peter from hitting Larry, while Larry stumbled backward, as angry as Peter himself, crying, “I didn’t call anybody! I should have, I should have, but I never—”

Liz turned on him, saying, “Shut up, Larry. Let’s find out about this.”

“Look for yourself,” Larry told her.

“I intend to.”

Peter watched Liz enter the master bedroom, followed by Larry, saying something to her, justifying himself in some way. Was it Ginger, then, who’d turned them in? The strange thing was, it didn’t even matter. Peter wished he still had the pistol in his hand, wished the pistol were still full of bullets; he would shoot Larry now, in the back, shoot him down and then put another bullet in his worrying head; not for any specific crime but out of years of frustration; and because
someone had to die.

Liz slid open one of the glass doors on the far side of the bedroom, leading out to the upper deck. Cautiously she looked out, to left and right, while Larry nattered behind her. Peter moved forward, his eyes and attention on Liz, waiting for her to say the word, and after a minute she turned back into the room, looking at Peter in a closed and somber way, saying, “It’s them, all right.”

“We haven’t run in luck this time, have we?” Peter felt cold, remote from himself, aloof from the consequences of the world around him. There was no fear or panic in him, no thought that he personally was in danger; whatever happened, he remained convinced he would end the day in Vancouver, he and Liz, prepared to await a more propitious moment, a more fortunate operation, a more successful plan. A miserable humiliating failure (which could be risen above) was the worst he visualized in his own personal future.

Again Liz and Larry both spoke to him; again he didn’t listen. Stepping around Liz, he carelessly slid the glass door completely open and stepped out onto the upper deck, squinting against the bright sunlight as he moved unhesitatingly across the deck to the
rail. The blinding pain in his cheeks seemed to belong to someone else.

Directly below was the cantilevered main deck, empty but for the orange canvas butterfly chair in which Larry had been doing his brooding. The width of sand between here and the water was, as Larry had said, empty of people, as was the immediate vicinity of ocean. Joyce is buried, just about
there
, Peter thought, his eyes glancing off the spot, and then he turned to look to the right.

A crowd of people, gaping this way. The sawhorses, perhaps a hundred fifty feet from here, stretched from house-line to water-line, damming up a flow of curious humanity. There were no obvious policemen visible, but they were undoubtedly close by. “If we had rifles,” Peter muttered aloud, staring from under his sun-shielding hand at the people beyond the sawhorses, “we could pot a few of those gawkers.” Then, with merely a quick establishing glance at the similar barrier-plus-spectators down the beach in the opposite direction, he went back into the house.

The bedroom was empty, but Larry was vacillating in the hallway; when Peter emerged, Larry said, “Maybe we could still make a run for it. Malibu Canyon Road is just down that way, we could—”

“Don’t be foolish,” Peter said. “We hold out till dark, then we slip away. Probably down the beach, swim around behind the police line. Where’s Liz?”

“She went downstairs for guns, but I don’t—”

“She’s right. Good girl.” Then Peter noticed Larry staring at him in a peculiar horrified way. “What’s the matter?”

“There’s blood coming out of your mouth.”

Peter swallowed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I cut myself.” Then he turned his attention to the bullet-pocked door protecting Davis and Mark. “We have to break that door down.”

“What for? Before the police are set up, we still could—”

“They’re already in
place
, get that through your head. Besides, whatever else does or does not happen, Davis dies.” Peter saw Liz coming up the stairs, pistols in her hands. Speaking over Larry’s objections, he said, “Good. We finish Davis now.”

Ginger’s bank was in Woodland Hills, down in the flat part of the Valley, not far from his house. However, he was barely a quarter mile up Topanga Canyon Boulevard from the Coast Highway when he saw the flashing red light in his rearview mirror.

Was he speeding? No; but there were cops who liked to hassle expensive or unusual cars just for the hell of it. Irritated, thinking of this as simply more of the bad luck dogging him lately, Ginger pulled into a gravel turnout and rolled to a stop. The Sheriff’s Department car stopped behind him, its red warning lights still revolving, and the driver—deliberately intimidating in his crease-ironed khaki uniform and dark sunglasses—came striding forward in the unhurried fashion of traffic cops everywhere.

Ginger already had his window rolled down and his license and registration waiting in his hand; the object was to get this interruption over with as quickly as possible. The policeman arrived, Ginger wordlessly handed him the documents, and the policeman wordlessly took them. He studied both with glacial slowness until Ginger, hunching his neck so he could look out the window at a steep angle upward to see the policeman’s blank tanned face, finally said, “What’s the trouble, officer?”

“You’re Mr. Merville?”

“Yes, sir.” Ginger was always very polite when under the direct gaze of Authority.

“And this is your vehicle?”

“Yes, sir.” Ginger was faintly aware that another car, a maroon Buick Riviera, had also pulled off onto this turnout, and was stopping ahead of the Thunderbird; but his primary attention remained on the policeman.