Westlake, Donald E - Novel 41 by Levine (v1.1) Read Free Book Online Page B

"Where did you hear about me? From Larry?"
                   "No, he didn't mention you at all. The
gentlemanly instinct, I suppose. I talked to your teacher, Professor
Stonegell."
                   "I see." She stood up suddenly, in a
single rapid and graceless movement, as though she had to make some motion, no
matter how meaningless. "Do you want some coffee?"
                   "Thank you, yes."
                   "Come on along. We can talk while I get
it ready."
                   He followed her through the apartment. A
hallway led from the long, narrow living room past bedroom and bathroom to a
tiny kitchen. Levine sat down at the kitchen table, and Anne Marie Stone went
through the motions of making coffee. As she worked, she talked.
                   "They're good friends," she said.
"I mean, they were good friends. You know what I mean. Anyway, they're a
lot different from each other. Oh, golly! I'm getting all loused up in
tenses."
                  "Talk as though both were still
alive," said Levine. "It should be easier that way."
                   "I don't really believe it anyway,"
she said. "Al —he's a lot quieter than Larry. Kind of intense, you know?
He's got a kind of reversed Messiah complex. You know, he figures he's supposed
to be something great, a great writer, but he's afraid he doesn't have the
stuff for it. So he worries about himself, and keeps trying to analyze himself,
and he hates everything he writes because he doesn't think it's good enough for what he's supposed to be doing. That bottle of poison, that was
a gag, you know, just a gag, but it was the kind of joke that has some sort of
truth behind it. With this thing driving him like this, I suppose even death
begins to look like a good escape after a while."
                   She stopped her preparations with the coffee,
and stood listening to what she had just said. "Now he did escape, didn't
he? I wonder if he'd thank Larry for taking the decision out of his
hands."
                   "Do you suppose he asked Larry to take
the decision out of his hands?"
                   She shook her head. "No. In the first
place, Al could never ask anyone else to help him fight the thing out in any
way. I know, I tried to talk to him a couple of times, but he just couldn't
listen. It wasn't that he didn't want to listen, he just couldn't. He had to
figure it out for himself. And Larry isn't the helpful sort, so Larry would be
the last person anybody would go to for help. Not that Larry's a bad guy,
really. He's just awfully self-centered. They both are, but in different ways.
Al's always worried about himself, but Larry's always proud of himself. You
know. Larry would say, I’m for me first,' and Al would say, 'Am I worthy?'
Something like that."
                   "Had the two of them had a quarrel or
anything recendy, anything that you know of that might have prompted Larry to
murder?"
                   "Not that I know of. They've both been getting more and more depressed, but neither of them blamed
the other. Al blamed himself for not getting anywhere, and Larry blamed the
stupidity of the world. You know, Larry wanted the same thing Al did, but Larry
didn't worry about whether he was worthy or capable or anything like that. He
once told me he wanted to be a famous writer, and he'd be one if he had to rob
banks and use the money to bribe every publisher and editor and critic in the
business. That was a gag, too, like Al's bottle of poison, but I think that one
had some truth behind it, too."
                   The coffee was ready, and she poured two cups, then sat down across from him. Levine added a bit of
evaporated milk, but no sugar, and stirred the coffee distractedly. "I
want to know why," he said. "Does that seem strange? Cops are
supposed to want to know who, not why. I know who, but I want to know
why."