Death Is the Answer

Stan glanced around. No one was watching him. He slid the zipper back, disclosing two flat packs of bills folded the long way. Hundreds. A couple of five hundreds. He picked the bills out of the belt and crammed them into his pocket. He rethreaded the belt through the trouser loops. Odd that Nick should have so much money. Several thousand by the feel of it. And apparently Nick wanted the money sent to somebody named Margy. Margy who? And where? An odd setup.

It was gray dawn when the taxi pulled up in front of the hotel. A man in the hotel uniform pulled himself out of a lobby chair and yawned as he took Stan up in the elevator. The transom over Tom’s door showed an oblong of yellow light. Stan knocked lightly, turned the knob and walked in. Tom was still dressed, slumped in the wicker chair. His red face looked tired and drawn, his gray hair rumpled. Mary, in a maroon robe, sat on the edge of a bed, her face puffed and streaked with tears. She was through crying. Her eyes were calm, and dead.

“Sit down, Stan. Sit down. Have a drink,” Tom said.

There was a bottle of rye and a glass on a table by the window. Stan walked over, poured out an inch of rye and threw it down. It bit his throat and nearly gagged him. He sat on the bed several feet away from Mary.

“This sort of breaks things up, my boy,” Tom said.

“How so? You’re going on with the show, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes. We’ll go on. But losing Nick has made me realize what an empty life I’m leading. I looked on that boy as a son. I’m getting old, Stanley, and I get lonelier every day. I need someone. I’ve been talking to Mary. She has consented to be my wife.”

Stan held his face rigid and then forced a slow smile. He looked at Mary. She was staring at the floor, the smoke from her cigarette winding up in a pale gray thread, as gray as the dawn outside.

“You have my congratulations, Tom. You know that. I hope you’ll both be happy. Let’s talk about Nick in the morning. I’ll see you then.” He felt shocked and unbelieving, but he couldn’t let them see it. Either of them. He managed to walk to the door, say goodnight to them and shut it softly behind him. When he got back to his own room he sat on the edge of his rumpled bed. To take his mind away from Mary, he took Nick’s money out and counted it. Six thousand, six hundred dollars. Too much. Something wrong somewhere. But where?

He lifted his head as he heard Mary’s soft footsteps in the hall. He heard her door close. He got up and went down to her door and knocked. She opened it, saw him, and said, “What is it, Stan?”

“Could I come in for just a minute, Mary? I want to talk to you.”

She held the door open and he walked in. The room was identical with his own. She sat near the window and he sat on the edge of the bed. She looked defeated, completely and utterly tired.

“Why are you doing it, Mary?” he asked, gently.

Her head snapped up, and her eyes widened. “Aren’t you a little out of your area, junior? I’m marrying him because he needs me. Because this thing has nearly licked him. You, bright eyes, don’t know what it means to a woman to be needed.”

“Suppose I told you that I needed you, too?”

“Hah! A lovely thought. You and Nick. Both self-sufficient. You, because you’ve got the brains. Nick, because he knew all the angles. You two needed me like I need holes in the head.”

“You’d like to think you’re hard and tough, wouldn’t you, Mary?” he asked.

Her face crumpled a little. “Not me, Stan. There’s no toughness in me.”

“Why are you doing it?” he asked again.

Their eyes met. Hers, bright with anger, shifted and changed, as he watched. He suddenly knew that he loved her, that it was a desperate, aching love that had been growing under the surface for months. He looked at her and knew that she saw it in his eyes.

Her voice was almost a sob. “Stan, why did you have to wait until now? Until too late. Couldn’t you see? Couldn’t you tell long before this?”

“Go back now and tell him that you won’t marry him.”

She stiffened. “Get out of here. I gave my word. He’s my sort and you’re not. Get out.”

Back in his own room he pulled a chair around until it faced the window. The sky was growing lighter. He smoked cigarettes until there was a staleness in his mouth. He sensed that there were factors in his mind that could be added, if he knew how. A master quiz with a giant jackpot. Things that seemed disconnected, disassociated. Tom standing up there on the platform, dipping his left hand into the bowl held by Mary. Nick out in the audience, giving the customers a look at the money they might win. Nick winning the five-dollar pools. Nick making the arrangements. Nick and Tom and Mary sorting out the questions for the next week’s program. Trick questions. Quick questions.

He sensed that there were conclusions that could be drawn, if he could only sort out the pertinent factors.

And who was Margy?