I Wake Up Screaming

by Steve Fisher

  They drove me through the streets very fast and nobody said anything. There were three of us in the back, me in the middle. When I wanted another cigarette they gave it to me. I couldn’t see where we were. We turned a lot of corners and we might have been going around and around the block. I won’t say we were but that’s the way it seemed. But after a while we went straight. We went straight for miles and then I saw Hollywood Boulevard. It was about four in the morning. They stopped the car at an all night drug store and took me in.

  The pharmacist didn’t say anything either. He didn’t say yes or no or go to hell. He looked at me and then he went and got some adhesive and some iodine and other stuff and fixed me up. He worked on me for a long time. I tried to tell him my teeth ached but I was chattering.

  They put me back in the car and drove about two blocks and stopped again at a barbecue stand. A girl came out to the car. She looked very tired. She said, “Hello, Gus,” to one of the men. They ordered food for me. Soft eggs and coffee. I sat there in the middle in the back of the car and ate it. It tasted very good except that my teeth kept aching. Once one of the men flicked on a radio and I heard part of a police can and then he flicked the radio off again. Those two men in the front and the two in the back sat there smoking and waiting for me. Before we left they let me get out and took me around behind the barbecue stand and waited for me until I came out.

  Then we were all in the car again and drove some more. It was getting light. It was a tarnished nickel dawn and it was cracking holes in the sky. I could see tall palms blocked against it. I knew where we were going now. We were on Seventh Avenue and going down into Los Angeles. They stopped the car in front of the city jail and I had the queer feeling that this was where we had started from. But of course I was wrong. I know I was wrong. They all said so. I couldn’t be right about that. I couldn’t say anything for sure. I don’t know where I’d been the night before. These guys were all very nice to me. They joked viciously about Ed Cornell. They called me pal and asked me if I had the phone numbers of any movie stars. They asked me how my ribs felt and I said my ribs felt all right but my teeth ached. They took me into the building. We walked down halls and went up in an elevator. I think we were in some sort of a police barracks. I’m not sure. They didn’t say. But there was a room with a bed in it. The sheets weren’t clean but it was all right. They told me to lie down with my clothes on and take it easy. I lay down and went to sleep.

  The assistant D. A.‘s office was bright and sunny. He sat across from me in a swivel chair. He was tapping a pencil on the desk blotter and he looked upset.

  “There’s been a terrible mistake,” he said. I didn’t say anything.

  He got ingratiating. “You look a mess!” He smiled. “Do you know where you were last night?”

  “No.”

  “It wasn’t Los Angeles or Hollywood,” he said.

  “No?”

  “No. You were taken to a little nearby town.” He paused. “Do you want to know what town it was?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  He looked relieved. “Are you—interested in the names of the men who—who questioned you last night?”

  “No.”

  “I see. That’s sensible. Of course, they made a terrible mistake and they’ll answer for it. I can assure you that at least two of them will be demoted because of it.”

  “It makes no difference to me,” I said.

  “My, that’s very generous of you,” he said sarcastically.

  “It was just that the boys felt sure at first that you were guilty of Miss Lynn’s murder and they were trying to break you down.” He paused. “You shouldn’t blame them if—”

  “No, I don’t blame them.”

  “It won’t do you any good to be bitter,” he said. “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” I said. “I won’t raise a stink, if that’s what’s worrying you!”

  “It isn’t. Don’t worry. It didn’t happen in my jurisdiction. We don’t work that way in Los Angeles.”

  “No,” I said, “naturally.” My eyes were hot.

  “It seemed logical that you were the guilty one.”

  “Doesn’t it now?” I watched him. I held my breath and watched him.

  He put down the pencil and folded his hands. “No,” he said. “We think we know the identity of the killer.”

  “You—you know?”

  He was back like a cat. “Is it so unusual we should know?”

  I eased off. “Who is it?”

  “A man named Harry Williams, we believe. He’s missing. He’s been missing since five-thirty last night. He was around the apartment until then.”

  “Harry Williams!”

  “Yes. It’s our theory that he saw Miss Lynn when she came in. We have it on your word and the word of her sister that he was infatuated with Vicky Lynn. We believe he followed her up to the apartment and on some pretext entered. Of course, he had the pass key at his disposal and that wouldn’t have been very hard.”

  “You think it’s a sex crime?”

  “Yes.”

  “She wasn’t raped?”

  “No. We work it out in this way. He tried to embrace Miss Lynn and she fought him. He was a stupid and slow-thinking man and in his rage he picked up something and hit her with it. The coroner tells us that she was hit by something much harder than just a fist. Whatever this object was, Williams must have taken it with him. We can’t find it now.

  “After he hit her he regained his senses. He stared down at her, filled with terror. His previous intentions were gone. He knew he had to lam—and he did. Didn’t even stop by his room for clothes. And he’s probably holed up somewhere in town—scared and shaky. We put out dodgers on him. He’s being word-mugged on teletype all along the line—all state and local gendarmes. The little rat hasn’t a chance!”

  “I’m glad. Christ, this all sounds so familiar—”

  He nodded. “Murders run to form—just like anything else. This preyed on Williams’ mind. When the publicity started he knew she’d be moving to a better apartment— that he’d lose all track of her—he got panicky—”

  “I’d like to get my hands on him,” I said, “just once!”

  I remember that the fresh earth beside the grave was brown and wet, and that the black coffin was shiny in the sun. I remember that I did not cry, but just stood there, even when the men with the spades went away, and then, after that, I do not remember at all the things I did that day.

  6

  THE TOWN WAS hot, and it was dusty, and the palms were still; the air was stagnant and listless and the streets were empty but for lazy, slow-walking people who did nothing all day but walk, or sit on benches, or join pension groups, or feed the pigeons. This was Los Angeles. The pigeons were everywhere, strutting about, fat and greedy, and the pigeons liked this, but for us, the idle, the walkers, the hands-in-the-pockets desolates, every day was a separate world, every day was two hundred hours long, and only in the dusk when the buses roared by, fified with secretaries and stenographers from the downtown companies, did it seem to be a town, and then only for a little while; after that it was night and couples walked the streets, or lay in the grass in MacArthur Park watching the cars stream over the Wilshire bridge.

  I walked through the day and through the night and I saw these things and heard them; and after a few days I went downtown and walked on Main Street with the bums, and here it was always the same, the moochers and the two-bit merchants, and the blondes that taxi-danced with Gooks; they kept moving all the time in a stream and they didn’t look at you if you needed a shave, and you could get a breakfast with two eggs and bacon and coffee for ten cents. You saw burlesque shows and hock shops and the Army and Navy store; and down near the Plaza the gaudy red and green signs advertising movies in Spanish, and Mexicans and Indians standing around on street corners.

  Down here there was an old mission, so old that if you touched the ‘dobe wall it crumbled under your fingers. It was always open but in the daytime it was deserted, a
nd it was dark inside, the candles flickering beside the altar, throwing jagged shadows across the statues of Saints, reminding them of humble prayers. You could kneel down here on the wooden dieu, and it was very quiet, and sometimes you thought the old Padres were watching you.

  But after that the daylight didn’t seem quite real. Then you could go across from the Plaza to the cobblestone alley of Olvera Street, which is very Mexican and festive, and is kept up for tourists. It is only one short block but it is a whole country and you want to laugh. They try to sell you everything. You can buy a sombrero or a ‘dobe Saint or a painted turtle; you can have your fortune told, or a paper silhouette made while you wait, or you can sit in a little café and listen to a Mexican string band. It is like Mexico in the daytime because there are no tourists. You can sleep on a doorstep and no one will bother you.

  The little bar was here, on Olvera Street, and I sat in it, drinking. I sat up to the bar and there were two Mexicans at the other end, talking volubly, and behind me there were two more at a sman table, playing cards. It was just a crumby little place and everyone was talking Spanish. I sat very still and didn’t move except to lift my arm. Outside the daylight was gray and there were shadows and red streaks of fire in the sky, and pretty soon it would be dark. I pushed my whiskey pony forward again. The boy filled it up. I put two bits on the counter and he took it, and stuck it in the cash register.

  I looked at myself in the mirror. It was a bad, unwashed mirror, and there was steam on it, and an uneven row of half-empty bottles lined up at the bottom of it. Then, suddenly, I saw him.

  He was sitting beside me. It must have just happened. I didn’t remember looking down or away but now here he was. At first I didn’t believe it. I just thought I was looking at pain. But it breathed and I could see that I was wrong, it was Ed Cornell. He was wearing the derby and it was pushed back on his head. His sideburns were red and his skin was thin and white and unhealthy. He asked for a glass of water, and kept watching me in the mirror.

  “How’d you find me?” My voice was thick and low.

  “I can find anybody,” he said.

  “Jesus! You’ve been ten days hunting me down!”

  “The studio said you were on lay-off; you never appeared at the hotel. But we meet just the same, mister.” I was silent. He was like the ghost of my agony sitting there. My fingers trembled against the whiskey pony. I lifted it to drink and he spoke again.

  “Doing this won’t help you forget you killed her.” My hand jerked and I splashed the whiskey straight into his white face. He took out a handkerchief and wiped it away. He was unexcited: except for the light in his eyes. He looked like something embalmed by a medical student who’d done a bad job. He soured my guts. “What’s the matter,” I said, “you yellow? I’ve heard something about you, I—”

  “Shut your mouth and listen to me. Have you seen the papers?”

  “For what?” I said. “The last thing I read was an obituary column and that fed me up. Shall I tell you about it?”

  “Harry Williams hasn’t been found,” Ed Cornell went on. “You can find anybody,” I said.

  “I can find anybody in town. A guy that gets paid like you do could get any man out of town very easily.”

  “I see. I got him out of town.”

  “Sure. He was around when you killed the girl. You paid him off. You threatened to kill him if he came back.”

  “Very sweet,” I said. “That’s very sweet.”

  “That’s what I figured,” said Ed Cornell. “It’s very sweet, and you’re very specific.”

  “I have my own ideas.”

  “Another whiskey,” I told the bartender. I looked over at Ed Cornell. “They didn’t demote you in rank, did they?”

  “They might have.”

  “You’re a liar,” I said. “You’re a stinldng, two-bit liar.” I opened my hand and showed him the blisters his cigarettes had made, then I pushed the hand into his face. He rocked back. He grabbed my wrist. I said:

  “Let go of me or I’ll kill you.” He let go of me.

  I drank my drink. “So the cops don’t think Harry Williams killed her? They changed their minds.”

  “I don’t give a damn what the cops think,” Ed Cornell said.

  “Oh. Oh, I see. They still believe Williams is guilty. You’re the hold-out. You’re the bright boy. Everybody’s out of step except you.”

  “I’m off duty now. When I’m off duty I can think what I want. I hunted you down only during the hours I was off duty. I have my personal opinions. I’ve never been wrong yet.”

  “Never?”

  “Never. I know types. They say sex crime. It’s easy. It’s off the books that way. But he isn’t the type.”

  “There’s no way of telling types,” I said.

  “Yes, there is. Not by the face. I never saw his face. I asked questions about him. I went through his room. He wouldn’t have done it.”

  “Why?”

  “What’s the difference why? It happens I know. These things run to pattern. I’ve been through dozens of them. But there were no nude pictures in his room. No hot magazines or books. The guy was a vegetable. He bolted his door nights. He wouldn’t have gone near her. Not him!”

  “But you’ve no physical evidence that it wasn’t he?”

  “We have no physical evidence that it was. Are you worried about it? We don’t need that.”

  “I see. I’m applauding dismal brilliance. But listen, Cornell. Have you ever been to a dentist?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “It’s very nice,” I said. “I spent three days with one last week.” I was opening and dosing my fist. He looked down at it.

  “That won’t do any good.”

  “Quit saying that!”

  “It won’t stop you from inhaling that gas when the pellet drops.”

  I shoved him back off the stool. I got up, swaying unsteadily. I bunched up the front of his coat and held him by it and cocked my fist. But I couldn’t hit him. He was frail. He looked sick. I heard him wheezing for his breath. He began to cough. I had his coat up and I didn’t see any gun holster. I pushed him back.

  “Get out of here!”

  The Mexicans had stopped talking and were looking at us. They didn’t want any part of it. I had bumped the card table. Ed Cornell’s voice was bitter. He was like a straw in the wind.

  ”You claim you loved Vicky Lynn!”

  ”Shuddup!”

  His voice dripped with scorn. “You claim you loved her! But I tell you Harry Williams didn’t kill her and it doesn’t phase you. If you loved her you wouldn’t want to rest ‘til you’d found out who it was. But you don’t. You sit here sopping up whiskey because your conscience is festering with big broken sores that hurt your guts!”

  There was a terrible ring in what he said and I could suddenly see him walking through the streets looking for me, going from place to place, making telephone call after telephone call, with his own dimes, all the time his mind churning, churning, churning, like a hurdy-gurdy, rehearsing the things he was going to tell me, the essence of nothing, wrapped in macabre bitterness; the acid spew of a warped hatred, for it was not a murder he was prosecuting, but a personal obsession; this now was obvious. He hated me. For ten days and nights he had hunted me, and now he had me, I was found, but he could do nothing, and his tongue rattled with prepared words, while the real fury shrieked all through him and was soundless.

  “I’ll tell you something else. I’m not married. I don’t chase.”

  “You said that that night.”

  “I stay in my room. I don’t have a girl. I’m a sick man and I’m no good to any woman. But I can wish, see? I think how it must be. Sometimes I do. I wish about women. But none of them were ever worth it, and it didn’t affect me much.”

  “What the hell do I care what affected you?” I said.

  “But this one was worth it,” he went on. “I found out. I’ve seen her parents. I’ve talked to everybody that knew her. Eve
rybody, see? I know her history. I know her better than she ever knew herself. I’ve been living in her echo. I’ve got pictures of her … and some of her perfume. I’ve got a little lace handkerchief she used. And stockings and a brassiere. I’ve got some of her letters, snapshots with writing on the back, and theater programs, and a telegram you sent her once when you couldn’t take her to dinner. There was lipstick on it because she kissed it, and I guess she must have cried. I guess—”

  ”Shuddup!” I said. “I don’t want to listen. The cops told me about you. You impotent bastard!”

  He stopped on the word impotent. It was as though I’d hit him with my fist. He stared at me. His cheeks were blotchy red. The wind was gone out of him. For a moment it looked as though he wanted to crawl away. Now he sucked for his breath and his eyes came up. He seemed to be choking.

  “Well, why don’t you laugh? It’s a big joke, isn’t it? The impotent cop. Ain’t that a funny thing? Impotent and about to die at thirty. Anybody could laugh, see? The way I sit in my room at night and cough and spit and look at the pretty pictures of Vicky Lynn.”

  I couldn’t look at him. I was sorry for what I said. I didn’t want to hurt any man the way Ed Cornell was hurt. He was talking.

  “Pictures … all around the room. You see them wherever you look. A sickly guy who can only love a girl that’s dead. Ain’t that a laugh, mister? But, listen. In the end you won’t laugh, and you won’t push me around any more. You’ll end up in the gas chamber and it’ll be Vicky and I that’ll laugh … that’s exactly what we’ll do, mister! We’ll laugh at your stinking corpse!”

  For a moment there was silence and then I heard a door slam. Ed Cornell was gone.