The Running Man

by Ben Benson

  We chatted aimlessly for a few minutes, everybody smoking cigarettes. Then Karen poured the punch. The four of us drank. Lorelei Winchester poured herself another and leaned back on the sofa, winking at me again, as though I should expect something to happen. But nothing did happen except that Billy Nesbit commented on the excellent flavor. Lorelei giggled vapidly, thinking, I suppose, that she was becoming very drunk.

  A short time afterwards Billy Nesbit turned on the automatic record-player. It was straight fox-trot music. I started to get up to ask Lorelei to dance, but suddenly Karen was standing before me.

  “You don’t mind if I’m first, do you?” she asked. “I’m curious to see if you have the social graces, too.”

  “I can struggle through a fox trot,” I said. “But I’m nothing at all on rock and roll.”

  Her waist was soft and she was light and graceful on her feet. Her flowery perfume was heady and her breath was sweet. I was sorry when the number ended, even though we hadn’t spoken to each other once. Looking across the room, I saw Billy Nesbit had stopped dancing with Lorelei. He grinned at me without rancor.

  “You’re very good,” I said to Karen.

  “You’re better,” she said. “I’m glad you came tonight.”

  “Thanks, I’m glad, too. Which leads me to the next question. I’m not sure as to the protocol—if I ask you or Billy. Do you two go steady?”

  “We have an understanding, Ralph.”

  “Do you see anybody else?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer the question. Instead, she sat down on the sofa and patted the cushion beside her. I moved in next to her. She said, “Billy is serious about becoming a trooper. What do you think of his chances?”

  “Forty vacancies, over a thousand applicants. But most of them drop by the wayside. His chances are as good as any of the best of them.”

  “Can you help him, Ralph?”

  “You want him to be a trooper, Karen?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I want anything he wants. It would be his whole life, Ralph. He’ll need your help.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” I said. “Nothing’s that important.”

  “To Billy it is. If he wants it, it becomes almost an obsession.” She started to say something else. Rut Lorelei came over to us then, and there was malice in her sugary smile. I stood up.

  “Take off your jacket, honey,” Lorelei said to me. “We want everybody to be comfy.”

  “Oh, I’m comfortable,” I said.

  “Billy took his coat off,” Lorelei said. She kept her petulance hidden by the frozen smile. I didn’t know why she was angry except that perhaps Karen had monopolized both men and she resented it and was trying to strike back. “Come on, honey. I hate a spoilsport.”

  I said, “I was told never to take off my coat unless I was going to do some work. My mother taught me that when I was a little boy.”

  “No, seriously,” Lorelei said.

  “Seriously,” I said, feeling a slight perspiration breaking out over me. “I also have a hole in my shirt.”

  “Stop kidding, honey.”

  “Please don’t make me prove it.”

  “I know why you won’t take off your jacket,” she said very sweetly. “You’re carrying a gun under it and you’d be embarrassed.”

  Nobody said anything for a moment. A record changed on the automatic phonograph. Then Billy Nesbit, who was standing slightly behind and aside, came up behind her, grabbed her arms and twisted her around hard.

  “Why don’t you shut that silly mouth?” he said to her vehemently.

  She stood stock-still, her stupefied mouth making a round little O. Then Billy flashed his smile, rumpled her hair and said, “Dollface, I’m sorry I yelled like that. Come on, let’s you and I go into the kitchen and make some more of that terrific punch. Just you and I.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” she pouted. “After the mean way you talked—”

  “I’ll pick you up in my arms and carry you away, Dollface.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “But I would,” he said. “I had an uncle who once told me to make love to every pretty girl I met. Even a five per cent return made it a good investment.”

  “Oh, Billy.” She giggled. “You’re a devil.”

  A simper came over the rosebud mouth and the small unpleasantness passed. The two went toward the kitchen. Billy said something else to her and she giggled again and slapped him playfully.

  Karen picked a cigarette from a glass box. As I lit it for her, she said, “I apologize for Lorelei. She’s really a nice person and doesn’t mean anything by it. Only, sometimes she thinks it’s cute to be rude.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said.

  “You needn’t be disturbed any more. Billy can handle her.”

  “Billy can handle everybody, can’t he?”

  “Yes,” she said matter-of-factly. Then she changed the subject. “You must have had a terrible day. I was reading how you found Eugene Somers this morning.”

  “Yes, I found him.”

  “He had been lying there five days. It must have been a horrible sight, Ralph.”

  “Yes,” I said. And the image of Somers came back to me then. With it was the terrible smell of death. I shook it off and said, “Have you known Billy long?”

  “All my life. Ashendon is a small town.”

  “How well have you known him?”

  “He lived down in the estate section. I lived in the Pines. We traveled in different circles, and he was away in boarding school a lot. So we didn’t meet too often. But when he came back from the army last year and walked into the drugstore, I was there. He asked me who I was. I told him. He sort of took over.”

  “From then on?” I asked.

  “Well, Billy is the type who takes possession of things.”

  “How do you feel about it?”

  She reached out and squeezed my hand. “Are you trying to find out if it’s proper to ask me for a date?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m very flattered that you’re interested, Ralph. Both Billy and I think you’re a wonderful person.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question.”

  She laughed. “Try me again some other time.”

  “When?”

  She mashed her cigarette in the ash tray and stood up. “Come,” she said. “Let’s see what those two are up to in the kitchen.”

  We had coffee and sandwiches shortly afterward. Outside of Lorelei’s prattling there wasn’t much conversation. A little later Lorelei and I wandered outside to the yard and sat in a swinging love seat. She was completely mollified by now and, to break the ice, she told a little off-color joke. I laughed dutifully. I made no passes.

  Billy and I left before midnight. We said good-by to the girls. I shook hands with Lorelei and felt a little foolish being so formal. Because Billy was kissing Karen Morgan long and lingeringly. When she separated from him, she looked over at me without saying anything.

  When we got into Billy’s little car and he backed it out of the driveway, he began to speak. But it was only some desultory remark about the warm June night.

  We drove into Ashendon Square without conversation, passing the town hall, where a light now burned in the window. He stopped in front of the drugstore. My car was the only one at the curb.

  He said, “I hope you had an enjoyable time, Ralph.”

  “I had a good time,” I said. “Thanks for asking me.”

  “I was happy to have you.”

  I opened my door and said, “They were two nice girls.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t be disappointed.”

  “I might ask Karen for a date one of these days.”

  “Not Karen,” he said in a slow, deliberate voice. “Lorelei, you mean.”

  “I didn’t mean Lorelei,” I said.

  He laughed suddenly. “Naturally, I don’t blame you for your choice.”

  “Good night, Billy.” I left him then, going to my sedan. He swung his
little car around and I watched the twin taillights disappear down the road.

  I got into the black cruiser and drove it across the square to the town hall. I stepped out. The little white card was off the bulletin board. I looked in through the screen door. Chief Amos Rawlins was seated behind an ordinary pine table, writing laboriously. I knocked.

  “Come in,” he said, without looking up.

  Chapter 7

  He was a big, fleshy man, not so much fat as broad, not so much paunch as muscle. He was sixty-seven years old and owned a chicken farm on the outskirts of Ashendon. He had a wife, a son, a daughter-in-law and four grandchildren. The son ran the chicken farm, and Amos Rawlins spent most of his time as chief of police, which was supposed to be a part-time job and paid him two thousand dollars a year. He had been chief for a long time and he liked the job, and the Ashendon people liked him. He was a good police officer, perhaps a little too easygoing. Perhaps a little short on technical training, but long on common sense. I had met him only once before on my first trip through Ashendon, four weeks earlier, making the customary courtesy call of a newly assigned trooper.

  This time, being in civilian clothes, I identified myself, showing my I.D. folder. He nodded and said he remembered me. I pulled up a chair and offered him a cigarette. He took it. I lighted up for both of us and we chatted and he asked if I had been to see him earlier in the evening.

  “Yes,” I said. “But it’s okay.”

  “There was some neighbor trouble,” he said. “You get two women talking at once and it takes time.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I was with Billy Nesbit on a date.”

  “Oh,” he said. “You know Billy?”

  “We met a couple of days ago.”

  “Sure, you were bound to meet him. Billy’s always hanging around the Concord Barracks. He’s a good boy.”

  “Yes, he seems to be.”

  “He has a couple of little quirks, that’s all.”

  “What quirks?”

  Rawlins looked at the smoking tip of his cigarette. “Anybody mention Billy’s mother to you?”

  “Come to think of it, no.”

  “She’s dead. Died twenty years ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” I said. I paused. “Then Billy was too young to remember her.”

  “Yes.” Rawlins hunched his tired old shoulders. “An awful tragedy. The Nesbits were living at the time in an old rambling house over on Pembroke Street. Billy was a year old. There was a fire in the upstairs bedroom. Mrs. Nesbit passed out either from smoke inhalation or lack of oxygen. John Nesbit had to rescue two people. His wife and his son. He brought his son out first. When he went back for his wife, it was too late. She was dead. Billy lost his mother, and John Nesbit his wife.” Rawlins let a wreath of smoke curl from his nostrils. “Nesbit never married again. Might have been better if he had. Because they made a shrine out of Mrs. Nesbit’s memory. And that’s not always healthy.”

  I smoked my cigarette and listened. There was more. There was now a big, white, southern colonial house on West Elm Street. There were two servants, a cook-and-gardener couple, who lived in and who took care of the father and son. When the son grew older, he was sent off to private school. The father doted on him, giving him more freedom than most boys because he was trying to make up for the vacuum created by the mother’s death.

  “Where are the quirks you were talking about?” I asked.

  “The boy feels guilty he’s alive instead of his mother. It’s a bad complex. He blames his father for saving his life.”

  “In what way has it affected Billy?”

  “He keeps thinking of joining his mother. I’m no brain doctor but I think they call it the death wish. He even tried suicide a couple of years ago.”

  “It was as bad as that?”

  “Yes.”

  I shook my head slowly. “It doesn’t show on him.”

  “No, neither does this other quirk,” Rawlins said. “All his life he wanted to be somebody.”

  “Hell,” I said. “He is somebody. The richest kid in town, isn’t he?”

  “Only on account of his father. Not on his own. He always wanted to be important on his own. He went to Phillips Exeter Academy. When he got out, his father would have started him on any kind of career he’d have wanted. But instead of going to one of those fancy eastern colleges, Billy enlisted in the army. Served in Germany in some infantry division.” Rawlins sighed heavily. “A rich, spoon-fed kid like him. But the funny damn thing is this. He said he liked the army better than anything else in his whole life. You know how I figure it?”

  “How?” I asked.

  “For the first time in his life he was doing something without his father’s help or money.”

  “But he didn’t do anything big like he wanted.”

  “No,” Rawlins said sadly. “Billy was born too late for World War II or Korea. He’d have been good, too. The hero type, the kind who’d have made a big show. He’d have come home covered with medals. But he was in the peacetime army and he came home with nothing. No show for him. Not even a teeny-weeny little war. Too bad, I guess.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the army didn’t change him much. When he came home he was at loose ends again. He brought back this little foreign car and he rides around. His father is in Japan on business right now. The boy don’t go near the foundry.”

  “Well,” I said, “he came out of a swanky New Hampshire boarding school and went into the service as a plain, dogface infantryman. That’s a big transition. Give him a little time to get straightened out.”

  “He’s been out of the army a year and he hasn’t done anything yet.” Rawlins looked at me bleakly. “And even in the army. He came out as a private first-class. Why didn’t he make a try?”

  “Don’t ask me,” I said. “I don’t even know why he wants to become a trooper. Or didn’t you know that?”

  “I know. I gave him a reference. That’s different.”

  “Why?”

  “He’d be the show again. Out there on the road he won’t be beholden to anybody. He’d be king of all he surveyed. Oh, he’d feel important then.”

  “What does his father think about it?”

  “Jack Nesbit wouldn’t mind at all. And the boy would make a good trooper, too. Did Joe Constanza tell you how Billy helped break the Robertson case?”

  “No,” I said.

  “It was six months ago. The Robertson estate here in Ashendon was broken into while they were away in Florida. Billy’s house is a full half-mile away. One morning he drove by the Robertson place and saw a car parked nearby. He took down the license number. Nothing wrong with the car except that it didn’t seem to belong in Ashendon. I know it’s something a cop does automatically all day long, and it breaks a hell of a lot of cases. But you wouldn’t expect a civilian to do it. Later, when the burglary was discovered, Billy came to me and Joe Constanza with the license number. From that we rounded up four men and a woman, broke seven other burglaries and recovered about a hundred thousand bucks’ worth of stuff.”

  “I remember the case,” I said.

  “Instinct,” Rawlins said. “The boy’s got instinct for police work.”

  “All right, so he has instinct. What about the rest of it?”

  “He’s a likable boy. We all like Billy.”

  “You don’t know how stable he is,” I said. “Maybe he’s plain lazy.”

  “No,” Rawlins said. “He’s not lazy. Sometimes I’ll be damned if I can figure the boy.”

  I took a deep drag on my cigarette. “What about the girl?”

  “You mean Karen Morgan?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s something, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, she’s really something,” I said.

  “Karen’s a damn good girl. Not from fancy stock like the Cartwrights or the Nesbits. But it makes no difference to Billy. He wants her. It’s a real heavy romance.”

  “How heavy?”

 
“Heavy enough. She belongs to Billy. Once he never knew she was alive. Then he came home from Germany, saw her and just took over. No nonsense about it. She’s Billy’s. You can look and admire, but you can’t touch.”

  I took another deep drag on the cigarette and thought about that. Then I said, “All right, so he’s been out of the army a year and any time he needs some dough he probably writes a check. But someday he has to bear down and start pitching. What does Karen think about it? Doesn’t she mind that he’s a playboy?”

  “Karen’s a fine girl. But she’s a little blind to his faults. Young people in love are like that. I guess you met Karen, didn’t you?”

  “I just came from her house. I was double-dating with Billy.”

  “Who was the other girl?”

  “A Lorelei Winchester.”

  “Sure, sure. Came last Friday noon to stay with Karen. I saw Billy and Karen drive down to the lake to pick her up. You going to be friends with Billy?”

  “We’ve made a start,” I said. “But I don’t know.”

  “Billy’s not one for making friends easily. I guess you’ve made an impression on him. A boy like you could do him a lot of good, Lindsey.”

  “I’ll try my best,” I said.

  “If you could really get interested in him,” Rawlins persisted, “you could steer him right.”

  “A kid like him ought to have a lot of friends.”

  “He doesn’t have any.”

  I said, “He mentioned a friend. Ernie Congdon.”

  Rawlins frowned. “Not exactly a friend.”

  “Then what?”

  “Nothing,” Rawlins said. “I understand Ernie Congdon, so we don’t have too much trouble.”

  “What trouble, Chief?”

  “Well, Ernie is a local boy and he has a record. It’s one of those broken-home affairs. Father deserted the mother some years ago. Just lit out and left her with four kids. The family is on town welfare and Mrs. Congdon works part time at the foundry. Ernie is the oldest. He’s twenty.”

  “What kind of a record does he have?”

  “Not very good, to tell the truth. Petty larceny—three, four counts. Stolen car twice. Lewd and lascivious conduct. Statutory rape a couple of years ago. The girl was fifteen and willing. He was eighteen and randy. Ernie’s always had a hard time keeping his hands off the girls. Trouble that way. He’s been out of the can about six months.”