Death Is the Answer

At last he laid across the bed, fully clothed; and caught an hour of restless sleep. When he awakened, his clothes were sodden with chill perspiration and his mouth tasted sour and dry. He sat on the edge of the bed, remembering how Mary’s eyes had said something entirely different from the sharp words that had come from her lips. Their relationship was like an intricate problem in a game of chess. Each piece balanced another, and then an unexpected move had eliminated Nick. The regrouping of pieces, the different pressures of forces and circumstances, had placed the pawn labeled “Mary” under the influence of the major piece labeled “Tom Schurtz.”

He took a long shower, and as he was shaving, the last words that Nick had spoken kept running through his mind. The belt had been explained. Not Margy. Stan began to repeat softly all the words he could think of that started with Margy: Marjorie, margarine, marjoram, Margin— Margin? What sort of margin? On what? He stopped shaving, his razor in midair, staring into the eyes of the troubled stranger in the mirror. Margin! It could be! It might be! It had to be!

He finished hurriedly and dressed, fumbling with the buttons in his excitement. As soon as the waiter arrived with the orange juice and coffee, Stan made his phone call. It took quite a few minutes to convince Lieutenant Bandred that he wasn’t delirious. And another five minutes to get Bandred’s cooperation.

By ten o’clock the arrangements were completed. Stan knocked on Tom’s door and walked in. Tom was sitting on the edge of his bed, in lurid pajamas, yawning and stretching his gray head. His cheeks looked sunken and mottled.

“I woke up, Stan,” Tom said, “and I couldn’t figure out why I felt so bad until I remembered Nick. It all seems like a bad dream, doesn’t it?”

“It sure does,” Stan agreed soberly. “Look, Tom. Get your robe on and come down to my room. I’ve got something I want to show you.”

“Sure, lad. But can’t you bring it up here?”

“I’d rather do it this way. I’ll tell you when you get there.”

“Okay, if you insist. A mystery, hey? I’ll be along in a couple of minutes.”

Stan was sitting on the bed when Tom came in, yawning, and shut the door behind him. The single armchair by the window faced the bed. Tom walked heavily over to it and sat down. He yawned again.

“Give it to me, Stanley boy,” he said then. “What’s the mystery?”

Stan lowered his voice and said, “I think I better get a little more dough. Say twice as much as I’m getting now. That’s for a starter.”

Tom lifted his lips in a painted smile, exposing his wet teeth. His eyes didn’t smile. “What makes you so valuable, son?”

“I know how Nick fixed the pool now, Tom.”

“Fixed the pool! You got a fever?”

“No. Let me give you the angle. Nick went ahead and checked the theaters, didn’t he? So what did he do each time? He went to a bar and selected a few smart looking guys. He took these citizens aside and showed them how to make a few bucks. He told them to get to the theater early and sit in the exact seats he selected for them. Then he selected those guys for the questions with the big payoff and gave them the answers so they could collect. But he never paid them the entire amount. He would bend over and count out about half the amount and pocket the rest.”

“You’re yammering like crazy, Stanley. How the heck could he tell them the answers?” Tom objected.

“Too easy. We do the act with the house lights on. The seats he picked for the wise guys are right under the ceiling lights. We all know the answers to the questions and we all know that as the program goes along, the payoff gets higher. Before the show Nick picked eight or ten short answers to the questions we’re going to use, and printed them on the margins of the crisp new bills, using a very soft pencil. He could always turn a printed answer into a smudge with his thumb. He had already told the guys he contacted to look at the margin of the bill he held in front of them for the answer. All he had to do was keep the bills straight in his hand, the ones with the answers.”

“That’s fantastic!” Tom exploded.

“You think so?” Stan asked with a thin smile. “Somebody always manages to knock off that jackpot question — nearly always. People aren’t that bright. Also, Nick always got more winners than I did. That’s against the law of percentages. And, to cap it off, Nick told me.”

“Told you!” Tom stared at him coldly.

“Certainly. You already knew how he was doing it. Maybe it was your idea. But you didn’t catch on when he mumbled something about Margy. He was trying to say margin.”

“What has that got to do with me, son? Suppose he was working an angle? Why should you claim that I knew about it?”

“Go ahead,” Stan said and shrugged. “Be tough, Tom. If I can’t convince you, maybe the cops can. You know, they might say that an old hand like you could sense whether or not a question was likely to be answered correctly.”