The Tiger Among Us

by Leigh Brackett

  "No," I said. "It's not. I get to wondering sometimes——"

  "What?"

  "Well, if they hadn't found me that night, just at the psychological moment. If they hadn't discovered then that beating somebody up was an outlet for everything that bothered them, if they hadn't found out they liked it. Would they have done these other things?"

  "Sure they would," said Noddy. "Hadn't been you, it would have been another guy, another time. You ever have a no good dog? He's maybe got brothers and sisters that are fine as silk, but he's no good. No matter how hard you work with him, he's still no damn good. He was born that way. Don't let 'em kid you people ain't, too."

  He turned into the alley and we were back again.

  I sat in the car a minute, too tired to get out. I remember Noddy looking in at me from his side, in the dim light that shone from over his back door.

  I said, "I don't care."

  "What don't you care?" he asked.

  "I don't give a damn why they did it, or what they want that they haven't got. I don't see that it matters one damn little bit. I'm just as—as messed up. Artie Clymer's just as dead, and neither one of us is responsible for any of it. I don't care why. I only care about whether they're going to get away with it."

  "Come on," said Noddy. "Let's get those drinks."

  We had them, and then I got my car and drove home, or rather to where Chuck and his pals had forced me to take refuge. Dad was still up, and so was Tracey, looking very woebegone and worried. The fate of Artie Clymer didn't seem like a cheerful bedtime story, but they pressed me so hard to know what had happened that I gave them a brief run-down, adding that of course they hadn't found the body yet, so it might be all a mistake.

  Dad said, "But you don't think it is?"

  "No. And the police didn't either."

  "And you're sure now that they killed the detective?"

  "I haven't a doubt."

  Dad shook his head. He was one of those gentle people to whom violence is as incomprehensible as it is upsetting.

  "Dreadful," he said, and shook his head again. "Dreadful. Surely they can make that boy confess now."

  "I hope so, Dad," I said. "I hope so! "

  I went to bed and dreamed of leaden water under a dark sky. I made a journey down a dead valley where a wind blew and a nameless thing pursued me, always out of sight. I hid under the leaden water, and it was cold, and the thing fished for me with three-pronged claws like grappling hooks.

  Around eight in the morning Quinn called. They had found the body. It had been identified as the body of Artie Clymer. There had not been an autopsy yet, of course, but the police surgeon said there was no doubt the man had been beaten. They wanted me to come down.

  I asked Tracey to call the office for me and explain why I wouldn't be in. Then I went down to Headquarters, in the hot bright morning.

  Quinn met me in one of the interrogation rooms. He had a sheaf of typewritten sheets on the table in front of him, reports on the case so far that Koleski had given him. There was a police stenographer, a young fellow with pad and pencil in front of him and his mind on the world outside the grimy window, where there were fishing and pretty girls.

  Koleski and Hartigan were out getting Everett Bush, to bring him in again for questioning.

  Quinn went through the papers methodically. He said he was pretty well filled in on the background, but there were still a few questions he wanted to ask. He asked them, and I answered, and the stenographer wrote them down. I kept looking at the door, waiting for Koleski to come in.

  It must have been close on two hours before he did. He was alone. He sat down at the end of the table and took his hat off and lit a cigarette. He didn't say anything.

  Quinn asked, "Did you get him?"

  "No."

  Quinn waited. I shut my teeth hard on my tongue and waited too.

  Koleski said, "He's in Cincinnati. With his parents. They're visiting her mother."

  "Oh," said Quinn. "When did they leave?"

  "Crack of dawn on Sunday morning. We checked it out with the neighbors."

  Quinn said, "What about Saturday night?"

  Koleski looked at me. "How are you this morning, Walt?"

  "Go on," I said, "get it over with."

  "Well," said Koleski, "the way we had it figured out, Finelli followed Everett Bush, and through him the whole gang. He could have put the finger on them, as we say, or the Clymer thing, and so they felt compelled to get rid of him as the only witness. Right?"

  "Right," I said. "One, two, three."

  "Yes," said Koleski, "only we do not have 'one' any more, which leaves two and three hanging in mid-air, looking silly."

  He looked from me to Quinn and back again. "Somebody killed Clymer, and Finelli certainly died, but whoever did it and however it happened, two things are absolutely sure. Everett Bush had nothing to do with it, and Finelli was not following him. He couldn't have been, because Everett Bush did not go anywhere. He never left the house on Saturday night."

  17

  I DIDN'T say anything at all for a minute. Quinn carefully gathered all the report sheets together in the folder and closed it.

  "In that case," he said. "it looks like I've got a body, but nothing more."

  I said, "Don't get sore at me, Pete, but I've got to ask you. Are you sure? His parents lied for him once before."

  "Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. We don't know for sure. But this isn't his parents. This is his aunt and uncle. They spent Saturday evening with the Bushes. I got this from the next-door neighbor and I went to a lot of trouble to run it down. It's authentic. I've been doing this kind of thing for years, Walt. Believe me."

  "All right," I said. "I've already apologized."

  "Auntie had a lot of messages to send to Mama," Koleski said, as though he was determined to leave me no saving shred of doubt. "They stayed till after eleven. Both aunt and uncle state positively that Everett was there every minute. They remember particularly because there was a big row about it."

  "Row?" said Quinn.

  "Yeah. Everett wanted to go out, and his parents wouldn't let him. They were leaving early for Grandma's and they wanted him in bed at a reasonable hour. I guess Everett's language was scandalous, and the old man whacked him. He stayed in. He might have sneaked out after they left, I suppose, but that wouldn't do us any good. Artie Clymer was already on his way to the mine by then. So that's that."

  "Well," I said, getting up, "I guess you don't need me any more."

  "No," said Koleski, "I guess not."

  Quinn said, "Thanks for the body."

  "With my compliments. Have fun."

  "I'll let you know," Koleski said, "if anything new turns up."

  "No," I said. "Thanks, but don't bother. I have had it. If some day Chuck and the others walk in here and give themselves up, I will be glad to come down and sign the necessary papers. Until then, you can keep it."

  I went out. I didn't want to go home and I didn't want to go to the office. I didn't particularly want to go anywhere but I couldn't just stand on the corner. I went to Noddy's. After all, it had been more his party than mine. I owed him the explanation.

  I gave it to him. He shook his head, his eyes narrow and shrewd, his big hands splayed out on the bar.

  "I ain't no cop, but it don't sound right to me. Too much things happening just——" He made a gesture and shrugged.

  "Coincidence," I said. "Yeah. But things do happen just that way. I guess I've been doing too much wishful thinking."

  "There's a link," said Noddy. "Somewheres. You mark my words."

  I marked them and went home. It was almost lunch time now but I wasn't hungry. I was going to make an excuse and go sour and solitary to my bed, hoping that a sleep might make me fit to be around again.

  Tracey and her mother were waiting for me. Tracey looked pale and grim with her banged-up forehead. Mother looked simply and honestly frightened.

  "Walt," she said, "you're going to have to do somethi
ng. I think you should send Tracey and the children to Boston for a while, completely out of reach." She turned to Tracey. "I don't know what your father and I could do to protect you if——"

  It was dim and cool and pleasant in the old-fashioned living room. Through the windows I could see the garden blazing with late flowers in the sunshine. I could hear Bets and Pudge playing. I felt suddenly a little faint.

  I said, "What happened?"

  "We listened to the ten o'clock news," Tracey said nervously. "I don't suppose you heard it?"

  "No."

  "Well, it told about finding the man's body. It said the police were working on a theory that it was linked with a series of other crimes. It mentioned your name."

  "You've simply got to do something," Mother said. "It isn't right."

  "Don't worry," I said. "Go on, Tracey."

  "The phone rang," she said, and now the fright was becoming audible in her voice, tightening it, turning it to a raw uncertainty of tone, "about half an hour after the news broadcast. I answered it. I thought it was Mae. She was supposed to be coming to lunch. But it wasn't Mae It was a man's voice. He asked for you."

  Pudge began to bawl furiously. "Mother," said Tracey, "will you quiet him? Please. I'm so nervous I don't know what to do."

  Mother went out. I heard her cooing to Pudge, and Tracey went on talking.

  "I said you weren't here. It was a pleasant voice, Walt, that's the most dreadful part of it. Pleasant and polite. He said it was a business call and quite important and where could he reach you. I told him—Walt, I'm sorry, but I didn't dream—I told him you were with the police but you'd be back, some time this morning——"

  Her voice trailed off. I asked her what he said then.

  "It was as much the way he said it. His voice got——cruel. He said when you got back to tell you that you'd been warned twice and wouldn't listen, and now you were going to be sorry you'd ever been born. He said the police couldn't help you any more than they ever had. And he hung up."

  She looked at me. "It was Chuck, wasn't it?"

  "Sounds like him."

  "How did he get this number?"

  "It wouldn't be hard. One of the gang knew me, he might have told him. Or he could get it from the office if he asked right."

  "What are we going to do?"

  "Wait a minute. Let me think."

  I went over to the window and stared out at the marigolds and the brilliant zinnias. I thought, Boston is a good idea, yes, send them to Boston and I'll go to a hotel, and the folks won't be in any danger then. I thought, The link Noddy was talking about, I know it's there but I can't see it. Chuck wouldn't have called, he wouldn't have threatened me, if Clymer's body meant nothing to him. I was right, I knew I was right, and the link's there if I could only——

  Mother's voice, sharp and querulous with fear, and who could blame her? "Walt, you must think of Tracey and the little ones. You——"

  "Shut up," I said. "Please. Just a minute. Let me think."

  Everett Bush is the link, but he didn't go out that night. He wanted to go out but his parents wouldn't let him.

  He wanted to go out. He wanted to so much there was a fight about it and the old man hit him.

  He must have had a definite date, something planned, or he wouldn't have been so insistent.

  Something definite, something planned . . .

  I went for the phone. "In a minute," I said to Tracey and her mother. "In a minute."

  I called Headquarters and asked for Koleski.

  I waited a thousand years until he answered.

  "I was going out to lunch."

  "Lunch, hell. Listen, Pete——"

  "I thought you weren't going to bother me any more."

  "Something's happened. Will you listen to me? All right." I told him about the phone call. "Doesn't that prove he's mixed up in it? If he's worried enough and scared enough to hunt me out and threaten me about it——"

  "I'd say it was a strong indication," said Koleski. His tone had changed. He was interested. "But it's only an indication. It doesn't tie——"

  "Call them," I said. "The aunt and uncle. The people you talked to. Ask them if anybody stopped by the house for Everett that night."

  He was silent for a minute. Then he said, "I see what you mean. Yeah. Okay, I'll call you back. Oh, and Walt—I'll arrange for a guard."

  "Thanks, but I think we'd all feel better if I just get the family out of harm's way for a while."

  "Going to let him chase you right out of town?"

  "Not me. Women and children only."

  "Well, suit yourself, but I'm going to send some men anyway, so Chuck will have company if he does show up."

  He rang off. I went back in the living room to talk to Tracey and her mother, and then a car pulled up outside. We were all jumpy as cats, and the sound set us off. Mother screamed, Tracey ran for the kids, and I held up my stick like a club, and it would have been funny as hell except that it wasn't, at least not to us.

  Mae walked in with her three young ones.

  "Am I late?" she said brightly. "I've been all morning trying to get a sitter for——"

  Her voice faded out gradually into nothing. She looked from one to the other of us, and said, "What on earth is the matter?"

  "We've been threatened," said Mother.

  Tracey began to laugh. "It's only Mae," she said. "Of course." She laughed again and then stopped suddenly and took Mae's little girl and two littler boys out into the garden.

  I sat down. "Same old deal," I said. "You startled us, that's all." I explained about the call, and Mae said, "It does seem a damned dirty shame they can't catch those young hoodlums."

  "They're going to put a guard on this place," I said. I explained that all over again to Mother. "You'll be perfectly safe."

  Mae said, "Why don't you come and stay with us for a while?"

  "Thanks," I said, "but you're not using your noodle. If Chuck could find us here he could find us there, and then you'd be in trouble too. No, Tracey and the kids are going up to Boston for a while, out of reach, and I'm going to a hotel. It's me he wants, and if I——"

  The phone rang, and again there were white faces and wide eyes. But it was Koleski.

  "You were right," he said. "A car did stop by the Bush house that night. They didn't see it but they heard it and heard the driver honk for Everett. Everett went out to explain that he couldn't go. He was awfully sulky about it. He said he'd had a date with 'these guys,' and they'd think he was a baby if he told them his mother wouldn't let him go. Seems the old man got up and said he'd tell 'em himself, and Everett went scuttling out. He wasn't gone more than five minutes."

  "You can see what happened," I said. "After all, I hired Finelli to find the gang, not just hold Everett's hand. If he figured this was the car I described, and the boys, he'd follow them whether Everett went with them or not."

  "It figures," said Koleski. "I'll see if I can scare up a witness, somebody who actually saw the car and can describe it. Maybe even somebody who saw Finelli. Keep your fingers crossed, kid. And the guard is on the way."

  "Thanks, pal," I said, and hung up. I felt better. Much better. Thanks, Chuck, I thought. Thanks for making the phone call. Thanks for being stupid. No, not stupid, really. How were you to know that you were almost in the clear?

  All at once Chuck began to seem human and fallible, and not a sort of night demon beyond the reach of mortal hands. I remembered the way he had acted when he threw the stones. He's human, I thought, and he's afraid. He feels us closing in.

  And I thought—ominous commonplace —that when a man is frightened is when he's most unpredictable and dangerous. Like any other creature. Like a tiger. Like a rat.

  The women had gone out into the kitchen. Mother had a "girl" but apparently it was her day off, because they were getting the lunch themselves. Their voices sounded edgy and shrill and the pots rattle more loudly than usual. I joined them.

  "Was it good news?" asked Mae rather sardonic
ally.

  "It might be."

  "Well, it seems to me," said Mae, "that if you had minded your business and let the police mind theirs in the first place, you wouldn't be in this spot."

  I didn't get mad. She was right. "The only trouble with that was that the police had so much more pressing business. And this was sort of personal. Suppose somebody hammered Vince to a pulp?"

  "I'd track them down and kill them," said Mae. "I don't blame you. I just think you're crazy." She bustled her three kids into chairs beside Bets and Pudge and helped Tracey make peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for the lot. There was a gooey-looking casserole of some sort in the oven, but the kids knew better than to have anything to do with that. "I can help you pack, Tracey."

  "I'm not going anywhere," Tracey said.

  "But——"

  "That was Walt's idea, not mine. If he's going to get himself killed, I'm not going to be in Boston when it happens." Her voice became loud, strident, almost threatening. "I don't want to hear any more about it, Mother! We'll leave here, that's only right. But I'm not going away."

  She turned to Mae. "If we're not there, there wouldn't be any danger. How about letting the children stay with you?"

  "But," said Mae, "I——"

  "That's silly," I said. "They'd be safer here, under police guard. So would you, if you're set on staying. Oh, hell, we've been over this so many times I'm dizzy. I only know I'm the one he wants, and I'm getting out. So that ought to leave everybody else in the clear."

  There was a moment of silence, and then Mae said in a hesitant voice, as though she felt guilty about intruding such a picayune difficulty,

  "I will gladly take the kids tomorrow, Tracey, if you want me to, but I'm stuck tonight. Vince has that banquet, and I simply have to go, and at the last minute I can't get a sitter. You certainly won't want to be bothered with my three, so I'll have to leave them with Mrs. McGrath's sitter, double up——"

  I didn't think I could take any more of this. I got up and started toward the door.

  Tracey said, "But I thought you had that all fixed up with your Mrs. Liebendoffer. What happened to her?"

  "Her boy ran off," said Mae, dealing out the sandwiches, "last Saturday night, and she hasn't heard from him since. She's too hysterical even to answer the phone, poor thing, but her daughter called me."