The Axeman's Jazz

Shadows seemed to form on white expanses of neck and chin, faint blue ones that were probably illusions caused by the outlines of veins.
    If only she wouldn’t open her mouth.
    “Hey, gorgeous,” he said, and congratulated himself on remembering the Southern “hey” for “hi.” “You want to be in a movie?”
    When she had let him in to discuss the situation, he said, “Did I ever tell you I’m a filmmaker?”
    “A producer?”
    She had sat him on her Victorian settee and he felt large and awkward, beset by pillows. She sat next to him, with a decent amount of air between the two of them, but not so much that he couldn’t smell her perfume. Why would she be wearing perfume on a quiet Sunday at home?
    She wasn’t. She put it on while I was coming upstairs.
    That should have heartened him, made him sure of his success, but he felt uneasy about what he was doing. Fraudulent.
    And I was once a reporter. How times change.
    “Not a producer,” he said. “That’s far too grandiose a title for the kind of films I do—small ones. Twenty-minute, thirty-minute masterpieces that make the rounds of the festivals and even win occasionally.”
    One will win sometime
. He had made only three.
    “I’ve decided to do an Axeman film—if I can get the money for it. Anyway, that’s what I meant about being in movies: I’d love to interview you when the time comes.”
    “Is that really why you’re here, Steve?” There was no mistaking her tone. It was that of a woman who was used to being appreciated. He ignored it.
    “Not really. I’m here because I heard about your typewriter.”
    “My typewriter? But I don’t have a typewriter.”
    “The one you called the police about. I started talking to some cops for the film, and they told me the Axeman’s letters were typed on it.”
    She gasped. “Oh, my God. He was in here!”
    “How did he get in, Di?”
    “I must have left the door unlocked.”
    “And if you didn’t? Does anyone else have a key?”
    “No! Well … I don’t know.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Oh, nothing. I don’t know.” She was starting to fall apart.
    “Know what else they told me? He didn’t strangle Jerilyn with his hands—he used a scarf.”
    She gasped again, and this time he could see she was frightened. The scarf meant something to her.
    “It was a cotton scarf made in India, a long striped one they said, in reds and pinks.”
    “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”
    “What is it?”
    “I have one like that.”
    “Di, are you okay? Do you want me to get you some water or something?”
    “Oh, my God.”
    “Hold it. Are you afraid you’re a suspect? Listen, if you’ve got a scarf like that, you can’t be the Axeman, right? Because his scarf’s around Jerilyn’s neck.”
    “I lost it. I left it somewhere.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “With my lipstick.”
    “With your lipstick? You left your scarf and lipstick somewhere?”
    She nodded.
    “Where?”
    But Di didn’t answer, just sat there as if in shock. He had to hand it to Skip, she was definitely on to something. He got up, as if pacing, went straight to the book Skip had mentioned, and plucked it from the shelf. “I have this too,” he said. “I got it because it has the Axeman story in it.”
    “What is it?” she said.
    He handed it over to her.
    “This isn’t my book.”
    “Whose is it?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t know how it got here.”
    He made his voice very concerned, nauseatingly sanctimonious: “Have you been having blackouts, Di?”
    “No! Listen, you have to go now.” She rose to emphasize the point.
    But he had an odd feeling that if he did, she would phone the person she was protecting, give him a chance to wriggle out, and probably endanger herself. He stood, but instead of going, he walked to the French doors, the ones that led to the balcony.
    “Steve? Steve, what are you doing?” There was fear in her voice. Perhaps she thought he meant to close them, had decided
he
was the Axeman.
    He stepped onto the balcony and signaled Skip in the bar across the street. She stepped into the light.
    “There’s Skip,” he said. “Were you expecting her?”
    “Skip? Oh, my God. Skip?” Di joined him on the balcony.
    “Skip!” called Steve. “Come up.”
    Di rushed to let her in, apparently having decided her presence wasn’t the worst idea in the world—perhaps she was still afraid of him. Or perhaps she just wasn’t thinking clearly.
    Steve didn’t give her a