A Killer is Loose

by Gil Brewer

  Lillian turned slowly, still staring, as if it were impossible to believe. It wasn’t.

  “They sent him,” Angers said. “That’s what they did. It was probably Dr. Bernstein. He sent him, no doubt. Bernstein always was telling me to take it easy, always telling me I had the wrong slant on the matter. He’s the one who said I was crazy when I talked about transplanting the whole eye. Just because it hasn’t been done successfully—because the books say no. Well, they don’t know. But I do.”

  We started back through the grass. He was through with looking at the property. It wasn’t even in his head any more.

  “So Bernstein sent him. Tom Bourney.” He shot some of that crazed laughter into the night. It was as if he spat it out of him. “He had me fooled, all right.”

  Lillian and I walked together, letting him talk.

  “The things we did out there,” he said. “We did things right there on the battlefield that you’d never believe possible. With nothing, nothing. We performed miracles. I did. I performed all sorts of miracles. Right in the mud there, with all the blood. And they say I can’t—” He stopped.

  It was becoming much worse. He hadn’t acted this way before. I was beginning to understand a bit more about Angers, but what good was that?

  “Pal,” he said, “we’ve got a car now. I’ll have to wire them soon for some money.”

  “Yes.”

  “They’ll send me all I need.”

  “Sure,” I said. “You’ll need plenty, won’t you?”

  We came out onto the sidewalk. We were all covered with beggar lice and sandspurs. A car rolled by along the street and a woman’s laughter trailed heady and rich in the soft winds coming across the bay full of salt and fish and freedom. We went on across the street toward the car.

  “You know,” he said, “I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what you told me about this fellow who owns the boat. What was his name? Aldercook?”

  “Yes. Forget it.”

  “Can’t forget him, pal. I’ve been through lots of that sort of thing, pal. I want to meet him. Bernstein was that kind of guy.”

  “Never mind,” I said. “Forget it. It’s nothing.”

  “I want to meet him. Now. You said he had a boat, didn’t you?”

  We reached the car. Lillian stepped up onto the curb and looked at me. I didn’t know what to do. I hoped she was going to be able to stand up under this a little longer. She looked numb, unreceptive.

  “Listen,” I said, turning to Angers. “Why don’t you show me the blueprints? We could go someplace and you could show them to me, tell me all about the hospital. Why don’t we do that?”

  He shook his head, grinning quietly. “No, pal. I want to meet your friend. Let’s go.”

  I looked over beyond him, across the street, at the silent stretch of choking weeds and jungle over there. I wondered how long it would be before somebody found Bourney.

  It might depend on the sun.

  Driving to the yacht basin where the Rabbit-O was moored was like rolling along in a trance. Lillian and I were in the front seat of Bourney’s car, with me driving again. It was somehow like earlier this evening. And we’d been on the same street, between the palms, with the bay and Tampa far across the waters, lighting up the night sky. Only that was long ago. It was before true consciousness; before you could understand reality and what you were really up against.

  I knew it was only a matter of time before he turned the gun on us. I couldn’t figure what had kept him from killing both of us long before. A whim. It would be little more than a whim when one of us finally faced the muzzle of the Lüger and saw the flame and felt the slug.

  There would be no warning. There had been no warning for the others. I don’t believe any of them knew what was going to happen. Except the cop. He knew. I still remembered the expression on his face; the suddenly patient return to memory because it was all up with him and he knew it. So he stood there and took his time. Remembering.

  I would never forget the expression on that cop’s face.

  Now we were returning on the outside of the vicious circle of events that had started with Harvey Aldercook on a morning so long ago. It was a morning when I had no more to worry about than the possibility of raising some cash so I could buy food, and assure myself that Ruby would have the very best of care at the hospital while she had our baby.

  What a Ruby she was! I didn’t like to think about it, but I couldn’t help it. I wondered if I still had her. I tried not to remember Bill Watts on the TV screen, saying I was needed at the hospital. What could it have been for? Whatever it was, the time was long past.

  We turned down onto the pier by the yacht basin and I parked the car by the curb in front of the slip where the Rabbit-O was moored. A radio pounded from someplace, wild, throbbing music.

  “We here already?” Angers said.

  “Yes, this is it.”

  “Good.”

  Lillian stared straight ahead through the windshield. She had her hands folded in her lap and she seemed resigned now. She no longer spoke much and she seemed somehow disinterested.

  I looked over toward the Rabbit-O and I didn’t like what I saw and heard.

  Angers was leaning against the back of the front seat, and as I turned my head to speak to him, the gun wasn’t more than an inch from my face.

  “Listen,” I said. “They’re having a party.”

  “Fine.”

  “No. It’s not fine. There’ll be too many people there, Ralph. Suppose we go get a room someplace, get some sleep. We all need sleep.”

  He said nothing. Lillian just sat there, staring straight ahead. I had hoped she would join me in trying to persuade him.

  “We need rest,” I said. “We don’t want to go on the boat now. We could come back here first thing in the morning.”

  “Pal, first things first, and I want to meet him.”

  “But why? What the hell difference does it make?”

  “He owes you some money, you said.”

  “Forget that.”

  “He owes you two hundred and seventy dollars, doesn’t he?”

  I turned back and looked at my hands on the steering wheel. I had tried, hadn’t I? What else could I do?

  We opened the wooden gate on the slip and started along the wooden pier. Lillian hadn’t said a word for a long time. She just went along with it. Maybe that was a good thing; I didn’t know.

  Angers came along with his roll of paper under one arm, as always, and his gun in his hand.

  “She’s a nice-looking boat,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  They were having a party all right. And that’s where the music came from. Down there inside the Rabbit-O. Through the windows and out on the stern deck were several men and women, all in various stages of undress and alcoholism. Up on the bow in the shadows lay a man and woman close together, both holding glasses, both in swimming suits. They apparently didn’t notice us as we passed toward the stern.

  I caught a glimpse of Harvey Aldercook coming through the cabin with a bottle in his hand. There must have been about six couples.

  On the boat on the other side of the pier a man was sitting in a rocking chair, smoking, with a dog lying at his feet. He had figured probably that he wouldn’t get any sleep tonight. He looked at us, but it meant nothing. Even seeing the gun probably wouldn’t have bothered him any, because this was the way to the Rabbit-O.

  I didn’t see anything of Spindleshanks. You couldn’t tell about women. They might look like cardboard dolls and at the same time be the hottest nymph that ever backed into a mattress. But I could still remember how she’d cringed against the wheel of the Rabbit-O, frightened out of her wits because I was a nasty old man. What in hell was Harvey? That was a good question.

  “Let’s go aboard,” Angers said. His voice right there by my ear startled me.

  Just then a woman seated against the stern steps leading to the deck looked up and saw us.

  “Harvey,” she called. �
�Here’s somebody new.” She craned her neck, looking us over, and she saw the gun and called, “Bandits, Harvey. I mean pirates. They’re going to board the ship.”

  She stood up. She was the only girl aboard who was wearing a skirt. It was some skirt. Every color there was had been splashed on a very thin cloth, which she then fastened to her naked body. She wore a handkerchief of the same material around her breasts and she was a redhead.

  “What?” Harvey Aldercook said. He stepped through the cabin doorway with a glass in his hand. He looked up and saw us and the glass dropped from his hand and shattered at his feet.

  He knew.

  “No,” Harvey said. “No.”

  “Jump aboard,” Angers said. He gave Lillian a push and she landed on the gunwale. She leaped and went to her knees on the deck, by Aldercook. He stared at her, kind of shrinking back into the cabin doorway.

  “Go on, pal,” Angers said.

  “It’s them,” Harvey said. “It’s them!”

  “Who, Harvey? Who d’you mean?” the redhead said. Two men came up behind Harvey and looked over his shoulder.

  We went down onto the deck and Angers leaned against the stern of the boat by the bait wells that never got used and looked at them.

  “Tell those folks up front to come back here. That man and woman up front—on the bow,” Angers said. He said it to Harvey Aldercook.

  Aldercook looked exactly as he had this morning. In the same pants and sweat shirt, with the yachting cap.

  “Wilma,” he called. “Wilma and Jack—come on back here.”

  “Ah, go take a leap,” a man said from up there.

  “Hurry up,” he said. “Something’s happened.”

  “Something’s happened up here, too.”

  “Get him back here,” Angers said. “And turn off that radio.” He turned to me. “That is him, isn’t it, pal?”

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s right.”

  Aldercook hadn’t moved from the cabin doorway. He turned his head and said, “Somebody shut that damned radio off.” Then he looked at Angers again. It was as if he were mesmerized.

  Angers stood leaning there against the stern by the bait wells with the gun in his hand. Somebody shut the radio off and it was very still. Jack and Wilma came around and jumped down into the stern.

  “What the hell is this?” Jack said.

  Wilma just grinned behind smeared make-up, her blonde hair tousled. She was a little crocked.

  “Now,” Angers said. “Everybody get inside there.”

  Somebody laughed. First a man laughed from inside the cabin there, then a woman began laughing. They both laughed. It was very funny and Harvey stood in the cabin doorway watching us. He didn’t know what to do or say.

  I didn’t enjoy it. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t.

  Jack and Wilma caught the fact that there was something in the wind, but they didn’t know who we were. Neither did the redhead, but she knew something was up, too. All three tried to get by Harvey into the cabin. The rest of them inside were by the door, trying to see what was going on. The man and woman kept on talking and laughing.

  “Get inside,” Angers said quietly.

  “Steve,” Harvey said. “What do you want?”

  I didn’t say anything. Just then I heard her squeal. It was Spindleshanks. She was peering through the screened window looking aft from the cabin.

  She said, “It’s that Logan!” She whirled from the window and started frantically telling everybody who we were. Harvey and she must have spent a nice day, following us around by radio. Reading the newspapers about how I was probably dead must have been a pleasure. He wasn’t happy, now, though.

  The place in there got very quiet all of a sudden. Lillian pushed by Aldercook and went into the cabin. Angers didn’t move.

  “I wanted to meet you,” he said to Harvey. “Go on inside,” he told him. He stepped toward Harvey. Harvey faded back into the cabin.

  There were six couples, as I’d thought. The redhead was nearest the door, sitting on a couch. Two men were very drunk, but conscious of what was going on, and they were sorry they were drunk. One stood over by the wheel housing, the other by the companionway leading into the foreward cabin where the bunks were.

  Everybody was quiet and nobody spoke. But they looked plenty.

  Two men sat with their women in a small booth, a kind of breakfast nook. They avoided our eyes. Harvey faded on back until he was in the middle of the main cabin. The rest of the women, with Jack, were on the couch, stacked together in a welter of flesh. Lillian went over and sat on the arm of the couch and stared at the floor. Spindleshanks was beside her and one of the women began to cry.

  “You know who we are, don’t you?” Angers said, looking around.

  I sat down on the edge of one of the benches in the breakfast nook and looked up at him. He stood in the cabin doorway with his roll of paper and the damned gun. Well, he couldn’t shoot them all. If he started shooting now, somebody would get him, because the shells would run out. He wouldn’t have a chance to reload. My God, I hoped he wouldn’t start to shoot.

  “You owe my friend some money,” Angers said to Harvey.

  “I—I do? Do I?” Harvey began smiling all over. “Well, now, is that it?” he said.

  “That’s not it,” I said. “But for God’s sake, use your head.”

  “He just stands there,” one of the women whispered.

  “He’s crazy,” another whispered. “He’s going to kill us.”

  The one that was crying began wailing. She was a large woman, very lush and sexy-looking, dressed in a tight white two-piece bathing suit. She had an enormous quantity of jet-black hair. Her breasts swelled and she wailed and it looked very silly, somehow. She had her eyes wide open, wailing.

  For the first time, just then, I noticed Harvey’s nose. It wasn’t bandaged, he probably couldn’t stand marring his beauty with a bandage, and there were no bruises that showed. But his nose wasn’t right. It was a little off center, and I remembered how it had felt against my knee. He was running around with a broken nose, without any bandage, for the sake of a party.

  “My friend here,” Angers said, “wants two hundred and seventy dollars. That’s what you owe him, isn’t it?”

  “Sure, sure,” Harvey said.

  “Come up here,” Angers said. “Come here.”

  Aldercook walked slowly up to Angers and Angers stood there looking at him.

  “Why didn’t you pay Steve what you owed him?” Angers said.

  “Why …” Harvey tried to keep his voice level. It didn’t look as if anything was going to happen to him. This guy Angers wasn’t so bad, after all. A little pale, maybe, that’s all. Maybe most of these stories were the bunk. Who really knew? I could see that’s how his mind was working. He couldn’t help it because he was born like that.

  “Tell me about it,” Angers said. “I want to know. You see, Steve saved my life today, and he’s my pal. We’re buddies and buddies stick together. I want to know why you didn’t pay him the money you owed him.”

  A woman laughed. It was Wilma. It wasn’t funny laughter, it was the tense laughter of nervous release. She sat there very tight and stiff and sober-looking now, and the laughter simply burst out of her face. It was the same kind of laughter that erupted from Angers once in a while, only not quite so mad.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  She did it again. He looked over at her and she looked at him and she laughed right in his face. It was pretty bad. She was trying to control herself but it didn’t work. She kept looking at him and laughing. She roared with it. It rocked her and the other woman kept on crying while she sat there looking at Angers, trying with all her might not to laugh.

  “It’s real funny, isn’t it?” Angers said.

  I felt Lillian’s eyes on me. Her eyes smiled a little at me, wrinkling up at their corners. And I knew something. She had given up. All the way.

  Harvey wasn’t as scared as he had been because Angers seeme
d so calm.

  “I think this money business should be between Steve and me,” Harvey said.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. Why are you here?”

  “I wanted to meet you. I want that money. I want you to give it to Steve, so your friends can see. I want your friends to see what kind of a man you are.”

  That got him a little. He didn’t like it and it scared him just a little.

  He took out his wallet and counted out two hundred and seventy dollars from a wad of greenbacks that swelled the wallet so much it didn’t close right. That’s the kind of guy he was. He laid the money on the little table in front of me and the two men and the two girls looked at it. Everybody watched Harvey now.

  “There,” Harvey said. “There’s the money.”

  “It’s not enough,” Angers said.

  Harvey looked at him.

  “It’s not enough for the kind of job he did,” Angers said. He turned to me, holding the gun. “Is it, Steve?”

  I didn’t answer him. I just sat there. I could feel all the tension and I looked up at the cabin window and the man who had been sitting in the rocking chair was standing up there on the wooden pier. He was trying very hard to act nonchalant, as if he were just out walking his dog. Only it wasn’t that. He stood up there kind of watching us through the cabin window. Then I got it. He was watching the street out there, too.

  I began to perspire.

  The man took two steps toward the street, watching, then two steps back again, still watching. He was very nervous, trying not to show it. He was a big man, dressed in shorts, smoking a pipe. Every time he took a step, the dog took a couple and sat down. The dog was a cocker.

  The woman who had been crying was sniffling now.

  “How much money have you there?” Angers said.

  Harvey looked at his wallet, just held it in his hand and looked at it.

  “Take it out and count it,” Angers said.

  One of the men in the booth where I was saw the man up on the pier. He looked away immediately, then glanced at me. I nodded my head slightly.

  I had a friend. It felt great. It was a fine sensation. The best in a long while. This bird in the booth knew what was going on, he’d got it straight, and he wasn’t brave and he wasn’t a dope, either. He was my friend. I could depend on him if anything happened.