The Stand-In (18 page)

“Murdered! Oh, God!”

He began to tell Boy.

“But why, Cyril, why? Why should anyone kill poor Ronnie?”

“Come now, Boy, Ronnie wasn't exactly a saint! I don't know what game he might have been up to this time, and I was rather shaky with the police looking askance. Not that one isn't accustomed to that.”

Boy said, “Ronnie could be very naughty, but I was very fond of him.”

“I know you were, Boy. By the way, when the police asked me about Ronnie I gave your name as one of his friends.”

“Many thanks, Cyril, that was good of you.”

“But you've known him donkey's years, haven't you?”

“Yes. Well, Cyril, dear, one good turn deserves another. I hope you won't mind if, when I'm questioned, I refer them to your
protégé.”

“My protégé?”

“Desmond Carr.”

“But, Boy, he's no friend of Ronnie's.”

“Quite the contrary, I would say, wouldn't you, Cyril? Your protégé hated Ronnie, and that is precisely the point.”

Cyril had rushed directly to Desmond's flat from Stoke Newington because, until Monday, Desmond had been setting up rooms in the very house in which Ronnie had been killed, which had seemed merely to make the thing more interesting, as it were, to Desmond, but now he saw this in quite a different light and cursed himself for ringing Boy. “Desmond didn't
hate
Ronnie.” He tried to laugh. “How we do toss around words like
hate
!”

“Do we not, Cyril? And the way we toss about threats! I heard your protégé say he could murder Ronnie not four feet from where I'm sitting now, actually. I shall do more than mention him, Cyril. I shall report this threat to the police.”

“If Desmond ever said it, he didn't mean it
literally
, and you know he didn't!” Cyril considered telling Boy how he had seen Desmond in his flat at four-thirty, but decided not to. Wary now, he decided first to check the time the police believed Ronnie had been killed.

“Now I've made you nervy, haven't I, Cyril? I assure you your silence quite palpitates, dear!”

“You are preposterous.”

“Am I not?”

“I'm ringing off now.”

“Do. I have quite a lot to think about before the police arrive.”

Cyril immediately tried Desmond, but there was no answer, and he decided that he had been mistaken. Desmond had not been at home. Otherwise, he would have come to the window, as he would now pick up the phone were he there, girl or no girl. It was as false to overestimate the heterosexual thing as to underestimate it. Now he must get into Desmond's flat and leave him a note.

As he walked, Cyril decided on the wording:
Ring me up immediately. I must tell you about poor Ronnie
. If anyone else found it, it was perfectly noncommittal. Naturally, he would want to tell Desmond about poor Ronnie. (He liked the “poor.”) Then he would warn Desmond about Boy.

Hurrying, Cyril tried to remember the name of Desmond's landlady. It always helped when one used their names, but he was so frightened he couldn't think. Recalling that she lived in the basement, he walked down the area steps and with his gloves on—filthy hole—rang her bell. Wonderfully draped in rags of jerseys, she came to the door. There was a Persian cat under one arm and an aged Pekingese under the other.

Cyril tried to cajole her by praising her cat. He had rung up twice, but—“Such a beautiful pussy!”—would she be good enough to let him into Mr. Carr's flat? When she glanced upwards, obviously considering the stairs to climb if she did oblige him, the Pekingese actually wheezed and snuffed as if in sympathy. “You've seen me with Mr. Carr, Mrs. Prince.” (There, he'd remembered the name!) A ten bob note, or not? It was dicey. She might feel it was a bribe.

“He helped Hajib with a hair ball,” Mrs. Prince said and that, for she immediately went back into her den and emerged without the menagerie and with a ring of keys, seemed to settle it.

Whatever, Cyril asked himself, was a hair ball? Following her, Cyril wondered whether “Mrs.” was a courtesy title or whether some man actually had married those shaking mottled purple calves and mountainous buttocks whose ugliness made him remember Desmond's beauty so that he groaned and cursed himself again for ringing Boy. When she opened Desmond's door he gave her the ten bob note, and she gave him a smile in which a buried sweetness emerged on her raddled face so that he was sure there had once been a Mr. Prince. As Cyril closed Desmond's door he heard her going downstairs.

Desmond's mac was still on the back of the chair and his coffee cup and saucer were unwashed. Cyril decided a bit of action was in order. (Penance?) He removed his jacket, hung it carefully over another chair, and unfastened his carnelian cuff links so he could roll his sleeves to do the washing up. It was then that he noticed the round pillbox and must have known immediately what Desmond had done, because his fingers automatically did up the cuff links before he opened the box and saw it was empty. Certainly he knew before he pushed open the closed bedroom door what he would find on the bed.

20

Cyril didn't have too long to listen to that reluctant breathing or feel too many times how cold Desmond's skin was—the shock of that—because his doctor (and friend), Julius Finney, had come so quickly.

Cyril got the pillbox to discover what Desmond had swallowed, and by that time Julius had his jacket off and all the horrid tubing out of his kit. While he was feeding it down Desmond's throat, he told Cyril what was needed from the kitchen. After washing out Desmond's stomach, Julius set up an apparatus and now there was this big bottle with liquid draining out of it through a tube with a needle at the end stuck into Desmond's arm and held in place with adhesive tape.

But Desmond didn't look any better. His breathing was as slow, and when he touched Desmond's forehead it felt as cold, but Julius said that wasn't important. He said that although fifteen Barbitone capsules was a fatal dose (they must assume he took all fifteen), it was a slow-acting drug, and since Cyril had seen Desmond only three hours before, he had an excellent chance provided he had proper attention. Julius said Desmond might be unconscious for as long as three days and that now the greatest danger was from pneumonia. Julius wanted to pack the boy off to a hospital.

“But you say there's nothing medical to be done, Julius, and you can attend him here, can't you?”

“I can give him the penicillin injections, yes, but I do have
other
patients, Cyril. I can't
nurse
him. Someone has to watch to see that the saline and glucose is dripping, someone has to turn him every two hours. He needs more than an admirer sitting by and
worshipping
!”

But Julius admitted that a hospital would list Desmond as an attempted suicide, and Cyril didn't want that. He wanted no one to know, which meant no nurse, either. “I'll take care of him, Julius. I will do exactly what you tell me. Surely I can manage?”

“I suppose so.” He sniffed. “I daresay you'll be a more
devoted
nurse than most.”

“Then he stays here. Dear Julius, I am asking you to do this for me.”

Dr. Finney sniffed again. “
Are
you asking, Cyril? You are doing a good deal more and you know it.”

Cyril was touching his faded eyes with his brilliantly white handkerchief. His voice was very low because he was ashamed. “I am blackmailing you, my dear. I am taking advantage of an intimate friend's intimate knowledge, but you must know I don't do it lightly.”

It was difficult for Julius to believe that a boy who looked like that would attempt suicide because of Cyril. (Now if it were the other way round!) “Very well, he stays here. I must go now, I have patients waiting, but after evening rounds you can reach me at home if there's any change. Otherwise I'll be here in the morning.” He told Cyril again what must be done for the patient, Desmond, his name was. Desmond Carr.

21

Millie shifted Coral's sable coat on her arm and wiped the damp off her cheek where, just for a moment leaving Kitten in the tub, she had rested it against her small wet shoulder, and saw the make-up smears on the tissue. Remembering how she had begun to remove it in the car with Desmond she panicked, but there was no reason why Coral or Bran or Mr. Ossian should connect her smudged face with Desmond. It wouldn't make them see him in the Ferrari in that nurse's uniform just because she did.

She pressed the elevator bell, telling herself that they would only think she hadn't wanted to waste time cleaning up before she came to put them out of their misery. (Millie was terrified they might not wait, might call in the cops.) When she had got back to the St. Georges she had rushed Kitten up to their room, stripped her, and stuck her in a warm bath with all her floating toys. She had to do that because nothing was going to make her bring Kitten to Coral's room. Kitten would play forever in a bathtub. (She would say Kitten had been filthy.)

Her plan was to tell them
nobody
was going to see Kitten. No one was going to question Kitten, because the poor kid might let something slip. Of course, she would simply say that Kitten had taken just about enough.

Millie threw the tissue into the ashtray in front of the elevators and pushed the bell again, picturing Coral waiting upstairs. Coral would have lighted a hundred cigarettes, and Bran would have come over each time she stubbed one in the ashtray because she never really put them out. Bran would say, “Coral, can't you?” And Coral would say, “I'm sorry, Bran.”

Finally the elevator came.
Money!
She had forgotten to bring up the B.O.A.C. bag. Damn! Well, there was no rush about the money, was there?

Millie smiled and knocked firmly at the door. Her concern for Desmond had given her confidence.

“Who is it?”

“It's Millie, Coral.” Coral had locked herself in and was having trouble getting the door open, and when she did, she looked down the corridor as if expecting crowds.

“Millie,” she whispered, “Millie, Millie … oh, Millie.”

Millie went in, closed the door, dropped the sable coat and the alligator purse, and held Coral the way she held Kitten when something scared her. She hadn't held her sister like this since they were kids and Coral used to come running to her because she was two years older. She hadn't held Coral like this since Coral got that first child modeling job, because then the two years stopped counting and Coral was the big one. “Okay, darling, I'm back, sh!”

“I thought you were them. Oh, Millie, am I glad to see you! Am I glad to
see
you!”

Coral was alone. No Bran to hold her hand. This was supposed to be a man! The kidnapper in the uniform and wig and all was more of a man than Bran in his four-hundred-dollar suits. He was more man than any man she'd ever met. “Sh, Coral, honey.” She shoved her sister onto the sofa and felt three crumpled packs before she could find a cigarette to put between Coral's trembling lips and light.

Coral dragged in, down to her heels. With her mouth loose and messy hair she looked like she used to before they taught her what to do with her face.

“What am I going to do, Millie?
What
? Since Nube called—Oh, my God, Millie, what am I going to do about Bran?”

So he had left Coral? Millie remembered how sore Bran had been when Coral said they would get the money for Kitten from Mr. Ossian, so, with Coral climbing the walls, he walks out:
“You think more of your sister than you think of me!”
“Get hold of yourself, Coral.”

“Yes I have to get hold of myself; that's the best thing I can do for Bran. When Nube told me about the dead man in the house, he said the best thing I could do was get hold of myself and shut up.”

“What dead man in the house?” Millie felt dizzy. There couldn't be two dead men in two houses. “What's Bran got to do with a dead man? I'm your sister; you may not be my investment, but you're my sister. Forget that Mr. Ossian told you to clam up, you tell
me
!”

“I want to, Millie. I've been sitting here—You
are
my sister! Millie, Nube went to the house where we start shooting tomorrow to look it over, and there was this dead man.” She wailed, “Millie, what will I do?”

“What's it got to do with Bran? Coral, go on!”

“Bran killed him, Millie.”

“Bran says he killed this man?”

“Of course not. Bran's gone. He didn't come back.” Coral suddenly grabbed Millie's knee. “I can't wait for the lawyers! I want to tell you the whole thing. The dead man was Ronnie. It's my fault Bran killed Ronnie!”

Millie said, “Ronnie.”

“You said his name as if you knew, as if I told you about him.”

“You never told me, Coral.” Be careful. Be careful.

“I know I didn't. I only wish I had! I never told anyone. Millie, if I'd only told Bran in the beginning, then Ronnie couldn't have blackmailed him. That's why Bran did it, Millie, blackmail! Ronnie's Cornie's real father, Millie. An Englishman, Millie.”

“Cornie's father? Ronnie is Cornie's father?”

Coral half stubbed out one cigarette and reached for another. “I met him when I was doing a TV thing in New York in '62. I was crazy about him, Millie. He drove me nuts because he didn't give a damn, and I'd never had that before, you know that, Millie; I couldn't handle that. I even used other guys to try to make him jealous! That was why I started dating Bran, but it didn't work, nothing worked, so then, did you ever, I
decided
to get pregnant—I figured if I got pregnant—A star couldn't mean less to Ronnie, but I thought, well, if I was having his child—Crazy? I told you. I never stopped thinking about Ronnie. I was like a dog crawling on my belly after him, dragging my tail. Dragging my
tail
—that's a funny!