He awakened with a jump. It was a different awakening than he had experienced before—the slow drifting up out of black curtains of sleep. He tried to move and then remembered, slowly at first, and then with a rush that brought back everything—the white-faced blond woman—it was Jane, his wife. The late work on Friday. The mass of correspondence that had to be gone through, with countless dictations into the office tape equipment. Then he saw it. He shut his eyes and he could see the brown weight turning over slowly in the air as it hurtled toward his eyes. He could even see the glint of light on the shining roll of tape. Yes, it had spun slowly toward him and then a great blackness—a sense of spinning away into a black depth. But what had happened before that? His own hand around a slim, long-barreled gun—he could see his own index finger clenched around the trigger. Could even see the deep semicircular scar across the back of his finger as it tightened on the trigger. There was the crack of a shot and Sandy sliding down behind the desk, her eyes narrowed, quick blood matting her hair. Yes, he had done it. It was too clear—too vivid. It could have been no one else.
He felt helpless as he lay on the bed in the dark room. He couldn’t move. He heard the hum of traffic in a far street, and the click of heels in the corridor outside his room. Above all, he heard his own breath, shallow and quick. He smelled his own acid perspiration brought on by fear. He had nearly died. The great pain had been defeated and now he must get well only to give his life to the state. But why should they kill a man who had changed—a man who flinched at the thought of firing a shot at a human being? The small night light threw motionless shadows against the wall. One of them was the shadow of a chair. A freak effect of the lighting made it look as though there were straps on the arms of the chair. He knew that if he were standing he would feel faint. Nausea made the room spin slowly around him. Yes, his finger had pulled the trigger. The lead had smashed into the brain of the girl Sandy. He began to call, a feeble monotonous sound, more like a groan than a signal. It was many long minutes before he heard steps coming toward his room. A vague form walked in.
“Get the police! Get Kroschik! Tell him I can remember.” The figure left and he tasted blood, realized he had sunk his teeth into his underlip. It was an endless period of waiting. The temptation to tell Kroschik that he had seen Jones shoot the girl was impelling. Then there would be a chance. But if he won, then Jones would pay. And he knew that he had killed the girl. Maybe it would be better to say that he could never remember. But he had already sent for Kroschik to tell what had happened. He felt trapped by his own haste and weakness. He tried to move, to get out of the bed, but found that he couldn’t even lift his arms. The struggle made him sweat more profusely.
The lights clicked on with a blinding flash that sent sharp pains deep into his eyes. He squinted and saw Kroschik standing by the bed, a cigar stub in the corner of his wide flat mouth, his shirt open at the neck.
“Okay, Pete. Give it to me.”
Peter Warlow started slowly, his speech hesitant and fumbling. “I remember that somehow … when the thing hit me, I could see it coming through the air. Before that—before I was hit, there was a vision of Sandy sliding down out of sight behind the desk. But … the worst … I could see my own hand … a long gun, sort of thin, with my finger on the trigger. I could see the scar on the back of my finger, a scar like a new moon … I saw it squeeze the trigger. I must have done it. I don’t see how I could have, but I must have. And I’ll have to take whatever I’ve got coming to me.”
There was silence in the room. Peter couldn’t meet Kroschik’s gaze. Then the little man said, “So you saw your hand on the gun, with the scar on your finger? Saw that finger pull a trigger?”
“Yes. I remember it.”
Again the silence. He looked up and saw the small blue eyes narrowed. Saw the expression of satisfaction. “Okay, Pete. That cooks it. You’ll testify formally, won’t you?”
“Anything you want. All I want to do now is sleep and see if I can forget. I want to forget the look on her face …”
After Kroschik had left, Peter Warlow lived in a strange world of tangled dreams. A world where a girl named Sandy had two slim guns fastened to her wrists instead of hands; where he stood behind a chair with straps on the arms and tried to duck as dozens of brown tape holders came turning slowly through the air; where a spreading red stain matted blond hair and a trickle ran down a white part like muddy water down a clean gutter.
The pale morning sun was slanting into his room when he awakened. He felt the bed shake and saw the same blond head in the same position on the edge of his bed. Once again he felt the tremor of the quiet sobs and realized that it was Jane, his wife, and he knew that she was mourning the wreckage of her life and the ruin of her husband. He tried to think of something that he could say which would convince her of his love and his own sorrow.
But the only words that would come were a halting “I’m sorry, darling.”
She lifted her head and in her eyes there was a strange light of joy and triumph. It startled him. She should be mourning him! Wasn’t he as good as dead?
Then with the words dancing over each other she said, “Oh, Peter. Mr. Kroschik told me. Now the case is over.”
“It’s over, certainly. I’ve confessed.”
“But, darling, your confession proved it wasn’t you. The scar on your finger.” He tried to lift his right hand and couldn’t. She sensed what he was trying to do and lifted it for him. The fingers were like a fragile bundle of gray twigs. There was no scar. His world reeled around him.
“You see, Peter,” she continued, “you are still mixed up. Your memory will play tricks for a long time. But you’re still the same sweet guy. You saw Jones’s finger on the trigger and some part of your poor mind made it seem to you that you had seen your own hand. Then he tried to kill you and blame the girl’s death on you. But when you spoke of the scar, Kroschik remembered seeing it on Jones’s finger. He understood. With that clue, he broke Jones down after he left you last night. Now they won’t want you—but I do. I want you to be well again.”
After his wife left, Peter lay for a long time in delicious relaxation. All the pieces were beginning to drop into place. He felt bemused at the memory of the alarm he had felt during the night.
Memory was still fragmented. It was like riding a bus through the night, looking out rainy windows at fleeting glimpses of unknown towns. Bits of memory had no relation to time. He could not tell if a vivid scene had happened ten years ago or ten months.
Suddenly he was in a motel room, propped up in bed, lights from the parking area shining in, lighting the room. Sandy stood naked at the window, looking out, hair tousled. There was an old black-and-white movie on television, the sound off. Cowboys rode down a long slope, firing silent guns at invisible foes.
Sandy said, her voice listless, “Fat Jones told me if I don’t go back to him, he’ll fire you.”
The scene faded away, dwindling to a bright white dot.
So that’s the kind of man I am, he thought. Or was. And Sandy hadn’t gone back to him. Did Jane know about him and Sandy? Was that the reason for some of the triumph in her eyes, knowing the girl was dead?
When he was on the edge of sleep, another scene flashed bright in the back of his mind. He was in a pine woods on a cool day, walking silently, carefully on the soft carpet of brown needles. Ahead, through the trees, appearing and reappearing, he saw a woman in a red-and-black-plaid wool jacket, strolling slowly. He leaned his left shoulder against a pine trunk and raised the rifle and looked through the scope at Jane, his wife. She would reappear in a few seconds on the other side of a deadfall. He aimed the cross hairs at that height where her pale head would reappear.
He was wide awake. The scene faded. The sense of delicious relaxation was totally gone.
What had happened? Had it been some sort of game?
The neurological surgeons had scrambled his brains. Was this the sort of man he had been? Was this the sort of man he was now?
A Place to Live
The red neon flickered, making bloody glints on the wet sidewalk. Sometimes the rain-filled wind paused for a moment, and he heard the hoarse chuffing of the switch engines in the freight yard. He walked endlessly, his raincoat belted tightly around him, his brown felt hat pulled low over his eyes, leaning into the gusts of wind. He shielded his cigarette from the swollen drops that would have hissed it out.
He was tired, exhausted—weary to the bone with the events of the past two weeks. Just a little while longer. Not even an hour now. And it could be turned over to someone else. The whole dirty burden could be flung to someone used to that sort of thing. And then he would have to look for a new place to live. The city of Amberton would be far too unfriendly. There would be people left around the town who would like to see him on his back in an alley with his eyes wide open. But until the train arrived …
He looked nervously behind him. The street was deserted. A taxi roared by, the springs and shocks smacking hard against the holes in the road. Holes in all the roads. Amberton was a stupid city. A fat, complacent, poorly run little city, full of bland, greedy politicians. The tax rate had climbed above fifty-five dollars a thousand, and factories stood idle along the river. New industry wouldn’t come in.
And still the politicians smiled, the citizens paid their taxes, the slum sections widened. The death of America, he thought. Right here in Amberton. And in the heart of every other fat little city where nobody cares—but the politicians. Well, he was doing what he could. And then it would be time to get out.
Time to get back to the station. He turned and began to walk more rapidly. He walked through the echoing station, across the dirty white marble, past the scarred wooden benches. He bought another pack of cigarettes at the newsstand and waited.
In ten minutes the train came in, and a few passengers walked listlessly out the gate toward the taxi line. Anxious to get to a bed. They looked crusted with sleep. All except one. A slim man who carried a briefcase.
Bill Davo walked over to him and said, “Berman?”
“Right. You’re Davo, hey? Where’s the sack?”
“Hotel Amberton. Half a block. One thing, though. They may grab me in the lobby. That’s okay with me—it just means I won’t be able to give you the dope until you can get to me tomorrow. Don’t try to make a fuss.”
Berman was slim, dark, alert. When he spoke he didn’t change expression. “That way, hey? Let’s go.”
They walked side by side diagonally across the street and up the block to the side entrance to the Amberton. Bill Davo felt so tense that he couldn’t manage to swing his arms naturally. In spite of his casual words to Berman, fear tensed the muscles of his stomach.
He stood near Berman while he registered, not daring to look around the lobby. They rode up together in the elevator. It was only when Berman tipped the hop and the door clicked shut as the boy left that Davo let his breath escape in a long sigh.
It was a bitter, antiseptic little room. Davo looked around and said, “Notice the smell of this shack? Dry rot and dust. Just like the rest of this town. Just like the rest of this stinking town.” He heard his own voice climb up and up.
Berman put a hand on his arm. “Take it easy, Davo. Relax. Hold it a minute, and I’ll get my pint out of the case. Yeah, there’s two glasses in the john.”
Bill Davo sat on the edge of the bed, the glass cupped in his hand, the bite of the liquor sharp in his throat. Berman sat at the small desk, a pad open, a pencil in his hand. He grinned at Davo. “Let’s have it, friend.”
“Okay. I’ll make it short and you can ask questions later. Two years ago I got out of the service and went to work as a junior engineer in the city engineer’s office here in Amberton. I used to live in Santon, a few miles up the river. I know a few people around, and this seemed like a good place to go to work.
“The work went okay until a month or so ago. I felt like an outsider, but I did what I was told. Then I made a survey and found out that a retaining wall that holds up a mile and a half of Western Boulevard ought to be condemned. I made a report in writing, had the girl in the office type it and sent it through my boss, Stanley Hoe, to Commissioner of Public Works Wescott. One other guy in the office, a fellow named Jim Danerra, son of the city treasurer, knew about it.
“Nothing happened. Then, three and a half weeks ago, I found out that a contract had been let to tear up and repave two miles of Western Boulevard. The low bid was put in by Benet Brothers Construction Company. Five hundred and ninety thousand. I went around and got hold of the specifications and couldn’t find out anything about the wall being fixed. Finally I went to Arthur Wescott and asked him what the hell. He told me to mind my own business, only he used bigger words than that.
“I don’t know whether you know anything about road construction, but it’s plain damn foolishness to put in a new road over that faulty wall. I couldn’t figure it out. It didn’t make sense. Then, two weeks ago, I went down on my own to see how Benet Brothers were making out. I figured maybe I could show them the wall. I found out that instead of doing the job they bid on, they’re just spreading a thin coat over the old road. It’s a four-lane job. Then I got the angle.
“Somebody from my office will approve it and they’ll finish the job at a cost of maybe a hundred and fifty thousand. It’ll be opened to traffic, and then the wall will be officially condemned and torn up again. This time, the second time, they’ll fix the wall. With the big profit on the first deal, Benet will be able to bid low on the second job, and thus cover their own tracks. They ought to make a clear profit of about three hundred and fifty thousand—at a minimum. I got mad. I went—”
Berman broke in. “Hold it a minute. Let me get this straight, Davo. What they’re doing is botching a job because they know it won’t have to stand wear. When they get it down, it’ll be torn up again within a few months?”
Davo grinned wryly. “Right,” he said. “Somebody got the idea when they read my recommendation to condemn the wall. I went back and saw Arthur Wescott and threw the whole thing in his face. He called me a damned visionary, an impractical dreamer. I made a few threats about spilling it all to the public and about not being a party to that kind of thing.
“When I went back to my desk, I was just in time to have Stanley Hoe find a bottle of liquor that had been planted in the drawer. There’s an old ordinance about liquor on city premises. I was out of a job and out of the building in twenty minutes. But not before I grabbed this. My copy of the original memo on the retaining wall, dated and with Jane Fay’s initials. She’s the girl in the office.”
Berman looked at it and frowned. “This won’t be much help with just your bare word, Davo.”
“What if she is willing to swear as to the date and the contents?”
“That makes it good. Does this Wescott know about the girl?”
“I hope not. But he knows I have this. I mailed it to myself, care of General Delivery. That same night some of the boys came around and beat me up, but good. They went through my room looking for it. Spoiled a lot of my private papers. I spent six days in bed. My ribs are still taped.”
Berman whistled. “They love you in Amberton, don’t they?”
Bill managed a twisted grin. “Looks that way. Anyhow, as soon as I got out of bed I paid a visit to the newspaper. Talked to the managing editor, a quiet little man named Johnson Vincens. He took me into his office, listened to the story, wept on my shoulder and told me that it would mean his job to mention it. The city political boss, an ex-brewer named Stobe Farner, owns fifty-one percent of the paper.
“Vincens told me that if I want to snitch, to get hold of you people at the state capital. And he told me not to let the machine know that he’d told me, or he’d be fresh out of business. That’s when I phoned and talked finally to you and we made the arrangements.”
Berman said, “Let me check now. Stanley Hoe an
d James Danerra in the city engineer’s office know of this deal. Also Wescott, Jane Fay and this editor fellow—Vincens. There are others, but you don’t know who.” He paused a minute, thinking. “How come this girl is willing to testify to back you up? A little gone on each other?”
Davo grinned. “I am. And I’d like to think she is … Hey, I forgot the most important thing, almost.”
Berman started as Davo pulled a small wad of fifty-dollar bills out of his side pocket. “This is a thousand dollars. I just happened to check my bank statement and found it had been deposited. The bank says somebody came in and deposited it in cash. These boys play safe. They figured I wouldn’t notice it maybe, or if I did I might keep quiet, thinking the bank had made some mistake. Then they could discredit me by making me explain where it came from. And here’s a photostat of the deposit slip. Typed. Maybe you can find out what machine it was typed on.”
Berman took the money, counted it and stuck it in his pocket. He made out a receipt in pencil and gave it to Davo. He lit a cigarette and stared at Bill Davo oddly.
At last he said, “Have you got any angle you’ve left out? What I mean to say is—what is your motive in all this? Why are you trying to buck these people?”
Davo studied the floor. He said, “It sounds silly, but I just guess they made me mad. First of all, they didn’t let me in on a thing for a long time. Then they insult my intelligence by letting that road contract without a word to me. Maybe I’m no more honest than the next guy. I think sometimes that if they’d buttered me up before they let the contract, I might be right in there with them, skimming off a little cream. But they didn’t. And when I yawped, they had me fired and then had me beat up.
More Good Old Stuff Page 15