Enough! (A Travesty and Ordo) Read Online Free PDF Page B

at the bank. Life, all in all, was not unpleasant.
    And what did the evening hold in store? A screening, a dinner for two? Checking my calendar, I saw
that today’s notation read, “Dinner, Laura, 7:30.”
    Well. Well, it looked as though I had an
unexpected free evening. Wonder what Kit’s doing tonight?
    I had nearly finished dialing Kit’s number
when it suddenly struck me that I had better keep that original date with
Laura. It was noted on my calendar, why wouldn’t it also appear on hers? At
seven-thirty tonight I’d better be in the lobby of Laura’s apartment building,
ready for our date, ringing her doorbell.

TWO
    The Affair of the Hidden Lover
    Somebody buzzed to let
me in.
    Laura? Laura , I
thought, and I wasn’t sure myself whether I was thinking of Laura Penney or of
the 1944 Otto Preminger movie. Either way it was the dead girl come back to
life, and a nasty shock. Gene Tierney moved in the shadowy recesses of my mind,
and I felt uncomfortably like Dana Andrews as I pushed open the door and
crossed the pocket lobby to the pocket elevator.
    When I emerged on the
fourth floor a man wearing an open black overcoat and a dark gray suit was
standing in Laura’s open doorway. A cop, obviously. He looked like Dana Andrews, so what did that make me? Clifton Webb?
    I know nothing , I reminded myself. I am here
to pick up my dinner date, and I have no idea who this man is .
    I stopped, just into the vestibule, frowning
and looking around as though thinking I might have gotten off at the wrong
floor. In fact, I held the elevator, in case I should want to reboard.
    The policeman, a black-haired fortyish Dana
Andrews with cold eyes and blue chin and dandruffy shoulders, said, “Can I
help you?”
    My outer self remained bewildered. “I’m
looking for Laura Penney.”
    “Would you be Mr. Thorpe?”
    So she had made a note. “Yes, I am,”
I said, and released the elevator door, which grumbled shut behind me. “Is
something wrong?” My hands hid themselves in my topcoat pockets.
    “Come in.”
    I crossed the threshold as he stood to one
side, watching me. I tried not to look at the spot where I’d last seen her, but
my eyes insisted, and it was with great relief that I saw nobody there. To
cover my eyes’ indiscretion, I turned my head left and right, looking at
everything in the room, continuing to fail to understand the situation.
“Where is Laura?” I turned to the policeman, who was closing the
door. “And who are you?”
    “Detective Sergeant Bray,” he said.
“I’m a police officer. There’s been an accident.”
    “An accident?
Laura?”
    “Did you know Mrs. Penney well?”
    “Did I know her? For God’s sake, man,
what’s happened?”
    “I’m sorry to break it to you this way,
Mr. Thorpe,” he said, “but I’m afraid she’s dead.”
    “Dead!”
    “Come along,” he said, taking my
elbow. “Come sit down.”
    I permitted myself to be moved, as though too
stunned to act from my own volition, and when he’d seated us, me on the sofa
and himself to my right in the chrome-and-leather chair, I said, “An
accident? What kind of accident?”
    “Frankly, Mr. Thorpe,” he said,
“there’s some question about that. When was the
last time you saw Mrs. Penney?”
    “Yesterday. We
had dinner together.”
    “You brought her home?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “At about what
time?”
    “Possibly nine, nine-thirty, I don’t know
exactly.”
    “And when did you leave?”
    “Oh, I didn’t stay,” I said.
“In fact, I didn’t come up, I simply saw her to the door.”
    “You didn’t come up?” He sounded
mildly surprised. “Wasn’t that unusual?”
    “Not at all. I
wouldn’t want to give the wrong impression about our relationship, we weren’t…lovers, or anything like that. I have a steady girl friend, named Kit
Markowitz.”
    “You and Mrs. Penney were just good
friends,” he suggested.
    Was there irony in that remark? His manner
seemed bland, unsuspicious; I took him at