by Jada M Davis
He ordered a cup of coffee in a café and asked to use the telephone.
A woman answered. Ree’s landlady.
“I’ll knock on his door,” she said, “but I know he isn’t here. I’d have heard him come in.”
She left the phone for a minute.
“He doesn’t answer,” she said. “I knocked and called and he doesn’t answer.”
“Thank you,” Byrd said. “Thanks a lot.”
Ben Halliday packed a bag. He didn’t want to talk to Martha, though he felt she was awake. He left a note saying he was called out of town on business, then picked up his bag and left the house.
After he put the bag in the car he went back, found a check book and an envelope.
He wrote a check for five thousand dollars, payable to Martha’s church, addressed the envelope and put it on Martha’s dressing table. He added a postscript to the note.
“Please mail this for me,” he wrote.
He drove two hundred miles and checked in at a hotel. Though he stayed in bed eight hours, he slept only in cat nap snatches.
The mayor turned on the desk lamp in his study, found paper and pen, sat down and wrote his resignation as mayor.
He gave failing health as his reason for resigning. When he had finished writing, he found envelope and stamp and left the house.
He walked three blocks before he found a mail box, but when he dropped the letter in the slot he felt better. When he returned home, he went into the bathroom and vomited.
And then he went to sleep.
Arthur Fry scraped a fender against the garage door, but it didn’t matter.
“Where have you been?” his wife asked.
“Something came up at the courthouse,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”
Because she was awake—and because he wanted privacy—he went into the bathroom and closed the door. He stayed a long time, on his knees, trying to pray.
Sam Byrd stripped.
Nora was still up, reading.
As usual, she wore a sheer negligee. The black bra and panties were sheer, too, so that he could see the blacker black than the black panties beneath the black panties, and he marvelled that he hadn’t noticed the blacker black before, though he had seen it night after night and sometimes day after day just as he was seeing it now.
She let the book fall to her lap. “Where have you been, Sam?” she asked.
He didn’t answer, just stripped, and a puzzled frown crossed her face.
“You might pull the curtains,” Nora said. “After all, we do have neighbors.”
He stripped, and then took off his shoes, standing up.
“Stand up,” he said.
“Why?”
He caught her by the hand and pulled her up, ripped the negligee from her body, then the other clothing;,until they fell around her ankles. He put his arms around her legs, buried his face in the soft warm flesh of her thighs.
“You’ve been with Halliday,” he said. “I should hate you but it’s my fault. I’m sober, Nora, cold sober, for the first time in a long time, but that’s the way it’ll be from now on and from now on I’ll give you all you need and all you want and if I catch you even thinking about another man I’ll leave you.”
“Yes, Sam,” she said.
He stood up and turned her around. Three times he spanked her, as hard as he could, until his hand burned.
“Now let’s go to bed,” he said.
Martha Halliday heard her husband come in. She watched as he packed a bag, wondered what he was doing when he left the room, and closed her eyes when he looked her way.
When he left the first time she got up, turned on the light and read the note. She heard his footsteps on the walk, switched off the light and jumped back in bed. When he left again she got up and opened the envelope he had left.
Five thousand dollars, to her church.
Ben’s conscience must be bothering him, she thought. A hell of a lot.
At first, when he was packing the bag, she had thought he must have found out about her and Ree—or someone else.
She thought of Ree, wishing he would come, knowing he wouldn’t because how would he know Ben had left town at this hour and wondering if he would come if she called and knowing she wouldn’t call.
Sam Byrd got up and went to the bathroom.
He dressed.
“Sam?” Nora called. “Where are you going?”
“I’ve got some business to see to.”
“At this time of night?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of business?”
“I’ll be back in an hour or two,” he said, turning off the lights.
Arthur Fry made a pot of coffee and smoked. His hands trembled, and there was a lost and gone feeling in the pit of his stomach and in his chest.
After a while he called the sheriff’s office, but there was no answer. He let the phone ring and ring, but there was no answer.
He went back to bed and couldn’t sleep.
Martha Halliday heard the car pull into the driveway and thought Ben had returned.
She heard footsteps on the walk and was sure of it.
The door opened, the front door, and the click of the living room light.
Maybe I should get up, she thought. After all, it might not be Ben.
“Who is it?” she called.
“Sam.”
“Sam? Is something wrong? Are you drunk?”
“I’m cold sober and there’s nothing wrong.”
She got out of bed, found her robe and slippers.
Sam appeared in the doorway.
“I came to sleep with you,” he said.
“Sam Byrd!”
“Maybe I’d better tell you why I’m going to sleep with you, Martha. Ben has been sleeping with Nora, for several weeks now, and I’ve come to get even.”
She gasped, audibly, and then wanted to laugh. Not that it was funny, except Nora was so pretty and Ben had a paunch and she wondered how Nora could have stood Ben’s paunch.
“Get your clothes off,” Sam said.
She stood up, slipped out of the robe, and stood still and straight while Sam pulled the gown over her head.
“Now undress me,” he said.
Her fingers trembled, fumbled, but he wouldn’t help. She felt silly.
He even made her take off his shoes and socks, and she had to get down on her knees.
“Now get in Ben’s bed,” he said.
“That’s taking things a bit too far,” she giggled.
“Just the same,” he said, “get in Ben’s bed.”
He wondered, later, why Ben wanted anybody’s wife but his own.
The mayor’s wife listened to him snore.
I wonder, she thought sleepily, where the old fool has been?
She went back to sleep, but came wide awake when the mayor screamed.
She sat up in bed and called to him.
“What’s the matter? Are you sick?”
“Just a nightmare,” he said. “Go back to sleep, my dear.”
“I told you to stop eating so much,” she said.
Swing left the courthouse alone. His feet hardly seemed to touch the pavement. He felt he was twenty feet tall and that nothing could hurt him, touch him, bother him.
He was in.
He’d taken their crap, listened to their orders, had done as he was told.
Now he’d be in the driver’s seat, and there’d be money, and he’d run this town and squeeze it like a lemon.
Ree was finished.
All this business about killing Ree was screwy, of course, because by now Ree would be far away and long time gone.
Swing drove home, fast, sliding around the curves and pushing on the gas to take the kinks out.
Ree would be gone by now.
Of that he was sure.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Messner was alone in the courtroom, sitting at the press table.
He heard Fry’s footsteps fade away on the stairs,
clatter down the ground floor hallway. The squeaky old door slammed shut, and the courthouse was empty. Except for Messner—and a couple of Negroes in the jail upstairs.
Deliberately, he spat.
A window was open and he closed it, then clicked off the lights and walked down the stairs in the darkness. In his office, with the door closed, he sat at his desk and thought of what he must do.
Must do?
He didn’t have to do it. No. It was of his own choice.
Hell, yes, he told himself, his image behind his eyes facing him, talking, hell, yes, you made the choice.
Messner stood up, took in a notch in his belt, hunching at the middle in that peculiar way soldiers and officers, men who carry guns, have of hunching in at the middle to take up a notch in the belt. He patted the gun at the hip, tugged it down, pulling the belt down from the waist to the hips, slapping the gun butt until he was satisfied it hung just where he wanted it to hang.
He tipped his hat down over his right eye and left the office.
It was time for a showdown, past time, and he was looking forward to it and dreading it a little, anticipating it and afraid of it, but not scared.
As yet, he hadn’t decided how he would handle it. He wasn’t even sure he could make a plan, because Ree didn’t seem to be the kind of man to allow a plan to be made. The guy went off at tangents, unexpectedly, so that you could never figure what he was going to do next. As far as that went, he wasn’t sure Ree hadn’t skipped town. He didn’t think so, but it was possible. Maybe it would be just as well if he had....
He drove slowly, but it wasn’t far and he was there before he expected to be there, parking the car and getting out in the darkness and circling away from a street light and crossing a street.
The rooming house was bulky in the darkness, squat and ugly in the darkness, but that was good, too.
He knew Ree’s room, for he’d been there before. Once, just once, he’d been there before on the hunch that Ree had something lying around, papers or something, that would tell something or prove something.
The porch, old and creaky, was dim and shadowy, half dark and half light in the dim refracted rays of the distant street light.
The front door was open.
There was no light in the hallway.
He flicked a match with his thumb nail and moved swiftly down the hall to Ree’s door.
Something was wrong.
He heard something, or didn’t hear it, felt maybe, but whether he heard it or not he knew there’d been sound in that room moments before.
No sound.
He stood, tense and still, but there was no sound. His hand moved to the knob, turned it, and he threw the door open.
There had been sound.
Now he could hear the sound of breathing, heavy and labored breathing. He closed the door behind him.
“Ree?”
“Yeah. Swing?”
He stood with his back to the door and fumbled for the light switch, found it, and flooded the room with light.
Ree stood in the middle of the floor with blood streaming at his chest, dripping to the floor.
Wesley was on the floor. Not dead, just on the floor. Unconscious on the floor.
Ree had a knife in his left hand, but his right hand hung limply at his side.
“The crazy fool slipped in here to kill me,” he said.
“Where’s he been?” Messner asked. “We figured you’d killed him.”
“No. I should have, but he got away. He was waiting here for me tonight, in the dark, and he knifed me.”
“I half figured you’d be gone by now.”
Ree smiled a wry smile. “I would have been, but I passed out. I managed to club the bastard and then I passed out.”
“Let’s go, Ree.”
“I need a doctor.”
“We’ll see a doctor. Let’s go.”
“What are you doing here, Messner? What do you want?”
“You know well enough. I want you. As of now you’re under arrest.”
“What for?”
“Murder.”
“Listen, call me a doctor and stop talking silly! I’m bleeding, man, bleeding!”
“You’ll notice I’m wearing a gun, Ree. If I have to, I’ll wrap the barrel around your head. Now, let’s go!”
“Bleeding like this?”
“Stop bleeding if you want to. Just come with me.”
“To hell with it! I’m calling a doctor and to hell with you! If you think I’m going....”
Messner had drawn his gun.
“Do you mean it?” Ree asked. “Do you really want me for murder? Are you nuts?”
“We found the preacher in the well, Ree.”
“The hell you did! I don’t know what you’re talking about! So you get me a doctor and stop me from bleeding to death!”
“We looked in the well tonight, Ree, and found the preacher. We thought we’d find Wesley!”
“You’re nuts! Get me a doctor!”
“Your girl friend says you killed him, Ree. And she found your gun in the church.”
“Call me a doctor!”
Messner stepped in, fast, and Ree tried to step back, bringing the knife up, but not quickly enough, and Messner hit him on the forehead with the gun barrel.
Ree fell to his knees, shook his head, slinging blood, and then stood up.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay, you bastard, there’ll be another day.”
“Drop the knife, Ree.”
Ree flipped it, end over end, and it stuck in the floor, quivering.
“Let’s go,” Messner said.
Ree staggered and half fell on the bed. He breathed deeply, shook his head and wiped the blood from his eyes. The gun had left a gash, slightly longer than wide, edge bruised and bluely swollen, dripping blood thickly.
“I think you would kill me,” he told Messner. “I think you could do it.”
“I’m just putting you under arrest.”
“Maybe. I doubt it. You wouldn’t want me to stand trial.”
“Hurry it up.”
“We’ll soon know, anyway,” Ree said.
Messner shepherded him down the hallway, across the yard, across the street, into the car.
“Don’t try anything,” he warned Ree. “Don’t try to jump me while I’m driving.”
Ree didn’t answer.
Messner drove away from town, left the asphalt roads and drove swiftly on graveled lanes, the gravel tinkling against the inside of the fenders.
“So you’re going to kill me,” Ree said.
“You’re talking too much.”
“Have you ever killed a man, Messner?”
“I have.”
“In cold blood?”
“You talk too much.”
“I think you have.”
“Just don’t start anything, Ree, because I can kill you before you got started good.”
“I know that. I’m not stupid. I’ve lost too much blood.”
“It’s pretty and quiet out here, isn’t it?” Messner asked. “I always liked to drive out here and watch the flares in the distance. Sometimes jackrabbits jump up and run in front of the car.”
Ree had felt someone there in the darkness. He’d opened the door to his room and stepped inside, and felt someone there in the darkness.
“Wesley?”
“Yeah. How’d you know? Guilty conscience?”
“Take it easy, Wesley.”
“Oh, I’m taking it easy, Ree. You’re going to die but you’ll have your chance! I wouldn’t kill you in cold blood, but nobody could blame me if I did!”
“You’re talking like a kid.”
“Well, think like that if you want to, pal, but I’m not playing. I’ve got a knife for you and a car outside and we’re going out in the country and play for keeps.”
He felt Wesley move in, and that’s when he lunged, grabbing at where Wesley should be, at the sound of his voice, the arms spread wide.
The knife was like
a red hot poker, starting beneath his left arm and raking across his chest and digging deeply into the arm above the muscle.
He struck wildly and moved in. Wesley went down and Ree started kicking with both feet. As hard as he could.
Finally, at long last finally, Wesley was still.
Ree searched for the light, stepped on the knife, stooped to pick it up, felt himself falling and didn’t know when he hit the floor.
Someone was at the door when he regained consciousness.
The door opened.
It must be Swing.
“Ree?”
He stood up, Wesley’s knife in his hand.
“Yeah. Swing?”
The lights clicked on, and it was Messner, and he knew his number was up. He should have skipped. By now he should have been long gone.
Messner meant to kill him, that he knew. He tried to bluff, but it was no use. Messner herded him to the car. When they left the city limits there was no longer any doubt.
Messner stopped the car, finally. Ree was glad, because he was sick at the stomach. The blood had spurted and spurted, but now it oozed, and he was weak and dizzy and sick at the stomach.
“Is this the spot, Messner? Is this where you pull the job? Have you consulted Halliday about this?”
“Get out of the car and shut your mouth.” The sheriff’s tone was mild, only the words hard, but the sheriff wasn’t mad and he could be mild.
Ree opened the door.
Luck was with him.
He stepped on a rock.
It was a round rock, round and smooth and fist sized, just right, and Messner, the fool, was getting out of the car on the far side and walking around.
He stooped down, fought off the dizziness, and picked up the rock.
With his left hand.
He switched it to his right hand, feeling the numb fingers close around it, and wondered if he could throw, if he could even lift that right hand, much less throw. Nothing else for it. He had to throw.
Messner was a blob, walking slowly, but the gun in his hand glinted.
Ree threw.
The gun went off and a firecracker exploded in Ree’s chest. The world upended crazily and he was flat on his back, looking up at the stars, and he was numb all over. Things went black, snuffed out, for a while, and then he was looking at the same stars.