Agreement to Kill

by Peter Rabe

  Spinner didn’t realize it, but very soon after his man had lost the gun there wasn’t really any fight Then Spinner noticed an odd passivity, a yielding as if nothing Spinner did could matter. The man stumbled and fell into the ditch, and Spinner stopped because there wasn’t any more resistance. He walked up to the ditch and wondered if the man were still alive. He was. He was breathing slowly.

  Spinner bent down and picked him up. The man was small and frail. A hiss of pain came out of his mouth, but he said nothing. Spinner let him down to the ground, again aware of the man’s frailness. It made Spinner think that there ought to be something warm, a blanket maybe, or something soft to put under the head.

  Spinner stepped back to the ditch and lifted the man’s feet to the level ground. One leg, then the other. He held the leg and then — with a hasty shake of the hand — he dropped it. He had touched a clubfoot.

  CHAPTER 6

  The man wasn’t marked up very much. It made no sense to Spinner but there was hardly a mark. The man’s face was long and white. Spinner stepped back and said, “Get up, killer.”

  The man rose on one elbow and then no further.

  “Get up!” Spinner was angry, impatient, and kicked at the man, hitting his leg.

  The killer didn’t get up. He laid down slowly with a constrained breath in his throat He raised his hands and put them over his mouth. Spinner saw he was wearing black gloves of tight leather, the fingers tensed into the white face like hooks. When the man relaxed again he said, “I can’t My foot The good one.”

  There was a swelling over the ankle. It had pushed over the shoe and tightened the laces. When Spinner touched the foot the man gasped.

  “Lie back while I do this,” said Spinner, “and bite on this.” He picked a piece of wood off the ground and held it out to the man.

  “Just go ahead,” said the killer.

  “I’m taking the shoe off. Bite.”

  The man lifted his head and tapped his teeth.

  “They are false. They would break,” he said and lay back again.

  Spinner took the shoe off and felt the heat under the sock. It might he broken, he thought, but he didn’t know. He thought of wrapping the foot when he suddenly stood and listened.

  “Sirens,” said the killer.

  “Christ, yes — ” Spinner shouted, and then, with a shock that was stronger than the high grating sound, he stopped.

  “They are not coming for me,” said the killer. It was dark where he lay. He was just a voice.

  “Shut up,” said Spinner, and the siren grew in his head and images spun and flailed at him; blank walls, men with saps, blank faces, walled cells, Dixon dead, run, police, run, police —

  “Are you turning me in?”

  A question. A question of taking on a new role, to go to the police of his own free will and to let them decide for him.

  “They won’t believe you,” said the killer.

  His voice was flat There was no doubt or emotion of any kind. The killer was sure and Spinner was not The killer had planned and Spinner had nothing. He had a hope that they would decide in his favor.

  “What makes you think they’ll believe you?”

  Spinner started to breathe fast and shallow, with the sirens beating at him and the voice sifting at him, bland and impersonal, from the ground.

  “I will tell them I saw you on the street. I will add that to the rest of my alibi. I have …”

  He could run away. He could run and be without past and — The sirens were reaching closer.

  “Are you taking me to the police?”

  Same question. It meant, “Are you going to let them decide? For you?”

  “They scare you,” said the voice from the ground. “You must know them.”

  A frail cripple lay on the ground, a killer who could not move any more, but was not scared.

  “Have you decided?”

  Spinner was going to let the men with the saps decide for him — that’s why he was scared. That’s why he was more crippled than the man on the ground, all his life crippled from one loss to the next and then the last loss because he had never broken the rules, only suffered from them.

  “Are you going back?”

  “Like hell!” Spinner suddenly felt the difference. He felt free as a man’s thoughts in delirium, and he lifted the killer off the ground, put him into the car and slammed the door. The sirens were shrieking in town and Spinner felt the sound like a goad. The more they screamed the clearer his new intent He was going to make his last try, and a new one.

  “Hold on!”

  The car lurched and bucked and Spinner never had any doubt he would make it. The Garand was on the floor. He threw it out, for more room.

  “Now! You and me, killer, we’re going to make this a break!” and Spinner shot free.

  CHAPTER 7

  The killer sat in his corner and didn’t talk except to give directions. He knew the terrain well. Spinner took country lanes, crossed fields, and followed highways for short stretches and then turned off into the country again. There were no more sirens now and the fields under the moon looked as if nothing had ever happened there.

  “Stop after the turn,” said the killer.

  Spinner stopped to one side of the lane, where the bushes reached toward the road. They scraped the car and made black patterns against the windshield.

  “Do you know where you are?” said the killer.

  “To the north of town,” said Spinner. “I’m not sure how far.”

  “About ten miles. To the south.”

  Spinner looked at the man without saying anything because the remark had lacked something. There had been no flavor in it; no reprimand, no bragging, not even a real wish to correct.

  “You cross this field,” it went on, “and follow the lane on the other side till we get to the woods. Park there; it’s about five minutes on foot back to the place where you found me.”

  Spinner stared at the man, who had stopped and was concentrating on shifting his leg.

  “You left my shoe there,” said the man. “Bring it back here.”

  “Your — your shoe?”

  “It’s custom made. They might trace it.”

  At first Spinner didn’t know what to do with his voice. It had taken Spinner a lifetime of pressure to make his decision that night, and the killer was already taking the step for granted.

  “Go back?” said Spinner. “Go back there to get you a shoe?” Then the anger broke out “Your lousy lousy custom-made clubfoot is on the other leg, you ugly creep!”

  “They are both custom made.” No change in voice, no change in manner, only more information.

  Spinner had to do something, so he hit the man.

  The killer had tears in his eyes from the blow They looked like water. The man blinked once, to clear his eyes, but otherwise made no move. He was oddly passive and his lack of resistance defeated Spinner, as if the killer were constantly out of reach.

  The man said, “You don’t understand — ” but then he stopped, seeing Spinner’s face.

  “Understand!” Spinner roared. “You understand why I’m here? Why a hick like me jumps in the car with you and drives …”

  “I don’t,” said the killer. “But you said you would drive me. So if you’re …”

  “Shut up! I ran after you because you killed Dixon. You killed Dixon and I got the blame for it I’ve been getting the blame for everything I never did till it looks to me there must be a better way. I’m trying it now! I’m sticking to you and I’m not going back! That clear in your mind?”

  “Yes. You’re afraid to go back.”

  “You’re damn right, killer.” It seemed to make no impression. “And you need a driver, right? So the hell with your shoe.” Spinner threw the car into gear.

  “Better go back first. You left the Garand there.”

  “Garand? So what? That’s your gun.”

  “That gun can’t be traced, or the forty-five, either. But they have your prints
on them.”

  He turned his head to watch how Spinner would take it, but he didn’t wait for an answer. Spinner had set his teeth so the shock wouldn’t touch him, and stubbornness showed in the set of his head. The killer looked ahead again while Spinner shifted, because there was no point arguing with a man who acted by hate.

  “Don’t cross the field,” said the killer. “Follow the road.”

  They drove without talking and after an hour or so, when Spinner recognized the north highway at a point beyond Stone Bluff, he began to relax. But there was no change in the man next to him. Spinner thought he was like stone. Spinner tensed up again, unable to form a meaningful picture. They were driving straight and fast now, with no need for directions, so the killer sat silently and sometimes didn’t even seem to be there.

  “What’s your name, killer?”

  “Loma,” said the man.

  On a turn they touched briefly. Was that Loma? He was like skin, with a ghost inside. Any other man with a name like Loma would explain more. Is Loma the first name or the last name? What kind of name is it?

  “Loma?” he said aloud. “What kind of name is that?”

  “Just a name.”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  It seemed to surprise Loma, unless he hesitated because he didn’t think an answer would be important Then he said, “What’s the difference? I’m using it now.”

  They had talked and Spinner knew nothing. Skin with a ghost inside called Loma.

  “How’s the foot?” asked Spinner.

  “Bad. Keep driving. We have to make time.”

  He answered but it always turned into an answer about something else.

  “All right,” said Spinner. He kept his voice even, trying to get used to the way Loma acted, but controlling himself only made Spinner more edgy. “All right. I want to know a few things.”

  There was no immediate answer, since Loma was waiting to hear the rest, but Spinner was silent He was still listening to the sound of his voice which had come out flat, empty, reminding him of Loma’s voice.

  “You want to know what?” said Loma.

  Spinner coughed.

  “Why’d you kill him? Dixon, I mean.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know why. I was hired.”

  Spinner cursed under his breath, then kept still. If Loma had heard it he didn’t show it. The highway rolled up and down without curving and the end of the headlights sealed off Spinner’s vision at a fixed distance.

  “Who hired you?” Spinner asked.

  “St Louis.”

  Spinner remembered what Moss had said, that Dixon had tried getting too big.

  “Who in St. Louis?”

  “A St Louis contact hired me.”

  Did Loma think Spinner knew how it was done? St Louis hired me; I don’t know why he was killed. A death had never seemed so mechanical to Spinner, not even at the worst times on the Islands when there were more corpses than living things and killing had become a day’s work. But never like this: a final act for no final reason, a business decision, not a matter of life or death. Dixon had been killed because he no longer fitted into somebody’s enterprises.

  It was the wrong way of thinking. Now, having switched, either think of death, the way Loma did, or don’t think of it at all, the way Loma did.

  “I didn’t know,” said Spinner, “that Dixon was in that deep.”

  “Neither did he,” said the killer.

  Done with it Pushed out of the way like a small stone pushed out of the way with the foot.

  Loma was back with himself, or wherever he went when he said nothing. He was leaning into the seat but he wasn’t sleeping. His eyes were open. Once Spinner jerked the wheel to avoid a raccoon crossing the road and Loma turned his head. Then he looked front again. No, thought Spinner. He faced front but didn’t look. There was nothing to see. His eyes were open the way a box is open. That’s how he had looked at Spinner. There was nothing to see.

  Suddenly Spinner said, “I’m Spinner, Jake Spinner.”

  “I see.”

  A lie. The bastard saw nothing he didn’t care to see.

  Spinner was behind the wheel, a part of the car, and the car was running. So why bother with Spinner.

  “Understand this, Loma. You listening to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you got it clear what goes on here. I’m driving you and I’m not going back. You need me and I need you and that’s our bargain.”

  “What bargain?”

  “My driving you! How far do you think you can get with those feet you got?”

  “That’s why you’re driving me.”

  Spinner frowned. He wanted to back away from his confusion but then had to stop. Where would he back to? It was clear that he could not go back. He had gone through all that But the rest was clear to Loma, that Spinner was driving him because Loma himself couldn’t drive.

  “Anything else?” Loma said.

  Spinner hadn’t wanted to see it yet, but it had been clear all the time. He could not go and find work, because he had no past If he had a past, if he told it, there was his record, and worse, the new crime hanging over him. Whether it was an indictment for murder or as an accessory after the fact, it hung over him and would ruin him. It would ruin him, if he tried living again by the rules. There was no other way out.

  And with a gentle switch, which Spinner noticed just barely, he made up his mind. It did not feel like a decision but like something he had known a very long time, ever since his father had lived wrong, in spite of his homey savings, ever since Dixon had been in his life, living high, wide and wrong, and ever since prison.

  There was no other way out.

  “Loma,” said Spinner. “You’re my in.” And after a pause. “I’m switching sides.”

  It happened that simply.

  “I can’t be of much help,” said Loma, but Spinner did not seem to hear. If he heard, he was not ready to answer. The full weight of his decision kept him silent and he was absorbing the weight so that he would never have to feel it again.

  “I can’t be of much help,” Loma said again.

  “Why? You got friends and contacts.”

  “My contacts wouldn’t do you much good.”

  “Bull. You’re going to show me how.”

  “I have only two kinds of contacts,” said Loma. “The ones that pay me and the ones I get paid for.”

  Spinner started to curse when Loma interrupted again.

  “I don’t give advice much, but …”

  “So don’t”

  Loma turned his head slightly and Spinner could see the goat eyes looking at him. There was a moment’s recognition, a brief impatience with an object, and then the eyes went blank again.

  “Because it can save me trouble later.” said Loma. “You want to become a — what would you call it — a hood? Don’t do it.”

  “Leave that to me. You just …”

  “How can I? You asked me to give you an in.”

  “And that’s all I asked. Not advice.”

  “You’re not fit,” said Loma.

  “Loma, my old man was in with St. Louis and if he could do it, I can …”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s dead. But …”

  “Uh,” said Loma and whether he meant it or not, it sounded like a conclusion to Spinner. “You’re still alive.”

  Loma turned his head, but Spinner didn’t see Loma look at him. Then Loma looked away, saying nothing.

  “Understand this,” said Spinner. He was not straining about it, he was just telling Loma. “I set this up like a bargain.” He lit a cigarette and then said, “You don’t do what I say and I make you regret it.”

  Spinner left the thought vague, but Loma answered it to the point.

  “They are looking for you, not me. You keep forgetting that.”

  Nothing got to him. Loma stayed untouched and Spinner’s skin prickled with irritation
. Kick his foot. That’ll make him take notice. Kick him hard and watch if he’s human. Spinner let the thought warm him but left it there. Then he said, “I don’t care who they’re after. There’s one man can set them after you.”

  Now Loma would have to take notice. He would have to deal with Jake Spinner.

  “You?” said Loma.

  “Yeah, me!”

  “Don’t try it,” said Loma.

  “More advice? I couldn’t do it, you think?” and Spinner heard the rasp in his voice and felt revolted. He hadn’t meant it to take this turn. “What about that shoe you left behind. Doesn’t that make you anxious?”

  “No. A very long chance they can trace it That’s why I let it go by.”

  “To hell with tracing, killer. I mean me fitting the shoe on the foot, me telling them whose special-made shoe it is.”

  “My clubfoot is on the right,” said Loma. “The shoe I lost could fit anybody. Even you.”

  “I’m twice your size, Loma.” Spinner thought this would be the place to laugh, loud and hard. But he didn’t feel like laughing.

  “I use my left foot more than the club foot,” said Loma. “My left foot is big.”

  It had started to sound like a conversation to Spinner, a casual, empty conversation between two people who meant nothing to each other. Everything that touched Loma seemed to turn into nothing. Spinner distracted himself by gunning the motor. He raced and let go, raced again, let it go. He would keep his temper, the way Loma did, and make his point again.

  “Like I said.” He sounded as casual as he had imagined, and felt as empty. “You and me got a bargain.”

  Loma said nothing.

  “What, Loma? You got another solution?”

  Nothing from Loma. He was holding his breath while shifting his foot.

  “Shoot me dead, maybe, once I got you out of this?”

  Spinner didn’t see it, but Loma was closing his eyes. It could have been from the pain, or — this being the first time he had closed his eyes — it could have been his kind of sign which showed emotion.

  “Thinking about it, huh, Loma?”

  “No. I wasn’t,” said Loma. He stroked his hand over his hair slowly, and said, “I’ve never shot anyone for personal reasons.”