Agreement to Kill

by Peter Rabe

  There was nowhere else to go. Fields, a farm, or a straight, slick road up to the roadblock. The red light on top of the cruiser got brighter.

  “Turn back,” said Loma. He was sitting as before, his back straight, but leaning forward.

  “They’ll see it. How about that farm?”

  “Turn back at their drive, but slow, now.”

  “It’s too damn close to that bunch up there, Loma.”

  Loma held out his hand but kept looking straight “Give me the gun.”

  Spinner gave it to him without any question.

  The car moved fast and in the only direction that was open, straight toward the roadblock. It looked unconcerned from a distance, like all mechanical motion, and when the car slowed, turned into the drive, it rolled toward the farmhouse like any car going home. The car stood there for a moment while nothing moved, just the fast, red wink from the light shooting through breaks in the hedge.

  There were rain-heavy trees, the damp farmhouse, and a dark barn further on. The farmer stood in the hall of his house and looked through the glass in the door.

  “Loma, you stay in the car and I go in alone.”

  “Do it right,” said Loma. “That’s all.”

  Spinner didn’t answer. He reached into the back and pulled up Loma’s overcoat.

  “Around your legs, like a blanket And then take a shirt or something, a towel — ” Spinner pulled Loma’s small canvas bag out of the back — ”and fix that arm. A bad leg or the clubfoot will give you away that much sooner, but a bad arm …”

  “Go in,” said Loma. “I’ll be ready.”

  Spinner got out of the car and went up to the house, where the farmer was standing behind the door. Spinner saw him. Then the door opened.

  “You want something?” said the farmer.

  He stood in front of his door and watched Spinner come up to the porch.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” Spinner started, and he tried to smile. “My friend and I …”

  “What?”

  He could have used any other word. He had only said something to show his dislike. He was dark and thin, his patched overalls much too large for him.

  Spinner came closer and said, “My friend’s in the car there and I’ve got to get to a doctor. Can I use your phone? He’s in a bad way — ” Spinner felt himself smile. He felt his smile begging the man to help.

  “What’s he got?”

  Spinner’s smile stayed, growing stiff, covering the hate he felt for the man. “He broke his arm and the pain is getting bad.”

  Spinner thought the farmer was thinking and said nothing for a while.

  The eaves dripped slowly and something turned in the dark barn.

  “I got wood in back,” said the farmer. “You can pick a right piece and make him a splint.”

  The red light from the highway kept flashing behind the hedge and each time the flash came it looked like small sparks through the leaves, small pin sparks that stung into Spinner.

  “Next to the barn,” said the farmer and stepped back, closing the door.

  Spinner did not think any more. He was through the door, and stood close to the farmer, holding him tight by the front He heard his own voice like a dry scrape in his throat “I need help, man, I need help bad, so don’t stop me. You hear? Don’t stop me — ”

  The other man’s face had changed from sudden shock to growing wonder. He wasn’t scared yet, but puzzled, with the fear growing slowly.

  “Where’s your phone? Come on!” Spinner gave him a shove.

  The sudden movement and the change to an understandable sentence broke the spell for the farmer. The phone. He understood that “This way,” he said, and walked down the dark hall. Spinner was walking behind him, out of sight, and the farmer said, “I want pay for that call. It’s fifteen cents if you’re calling the next town.”

  The kitchen was as dank as the rest of the house. A can was open on top of the stove and two dirty pots stood there. Spinner went to the phone and when he had the operator he asked for a doctor, any doctor. It took long enough for Spinner to feel the shock coming over him, remembering how he could have ruined the whole delicate plan, everything, because he disliked this man and was not going to take it — couldn’t take it! Spinner stared out the window at the barn and the fields beyond that. And then he heard a new sound. Sirens. The sound grew and Spinner had to clench his teeth. It was a sound and a waiting just like the first time he had listened this way, back in the mud where he had found the cripple, and when he made the switch.

  The switch was over. There was no wish to run, but a growing coldness now that kept him immune. He was learning what Loma did, learning it step by step without knowing it …

  “… Yes, are you the doctor?”

  “Doctor Calvin,” said the instrument.

  “Doctor Calvin, I’m in a bad fix with a friend. His arm’s broken, bad, and I’d like you to come right away. I’m …”

  “Broken arm? He can walk, can’t he?”

  “Listen, I want you to come get him. I’m out — What’s the name here?” he asked the farmer. “Come on, hurry it!”

  “Ransom.”

  “The Ransom place,” Spinner said to the phone. “You know where?”

  “Bring him in, please. I can’t leave my office and in a case like …”

  “You refusing the case?”

  “Is it compound? Does the bone protrude?” Spinner heard, but his impatience made the conversation lose all meaning and his mind was skipping around madly, thinking of other ways.

  “No. We’ll be over,” he said and hung up. Then he called the operator and asked for an ambulance service, fast It would have been good to ride through that roadblock with a physician, but the ambulance might even be more impressive….

  “… will he there right quick,” said the mortician who ran the ambulance service, and Spinner hung up. He reached into his pocket and found a halfdollar coin.

  “I owe you thirty cents.” He held out the coin.

  “I got no change.” The farmer took the coin and stuck it into his pocket.

  Spinner left without saying a word. The farmer was no longer a sour man who revolted him, but only something he had finished with. Next, the shortest way from the house to Loma.

  He could see Loma in the car — his arm wrapped in a towel, his shirt made into a sling, and his cautious posture favoring one side. Spinner walked up and then gaped. The man with the sling wasn’t Loma, but with a face so terribly old that the smooth, black hair looked wrong and out of place. The face showed tired sagging and a worn look of pain.

  “Loma — ”

  “I took out my teeth.” His voice hissed, like some old mechanical gadget. And then: “What did you arrange? Hurry up, the farmer is coming.”

  Spinner turned, saw the tall man stand on the porch, watching them.

  “I couldn’t get a doctor but an ambulance is coming. Maybe five minutes. He’s rushing it.” Spinner looked at the porch, saw the farmer come closer. “Loma, listen to me. Once in town we’re going to play it all the way through. You’re going to see that doctor.”

  Loma’s eyes were closed. He nodded. He did it carefully and in obvious pain. “We’re splitting up.”

  “Once we get — ” Spinner stopped, put his hands on the door, hard. “What did you say?”

  “Shut up. He’s close.”

  “You son of a bitch, listen to me,” Spinner’s voice was a whisper. “We don’t split! Before I let you get away — ” He trailed off, watching the farmer. The farmer had gone to the hedge and stopped there. “And how in hell you expect to drive? Look at you sweat. You’re trembling. The pain’s killing you — ”

  “I’m seeing the doctor. You can join me there. Better not to cross the roadblock together.”

  “Like hell. I’m not letting you out of my sight!”

  “Ambulance coming,” said the farmer, and walked up to the car.

  Spinner felt like hitting the farmer, bashing him hard into t
hat miserable, glum face.

  “Can you drive a car?” Loma was asking. He was looking at the farmer.

  A long, black hearse swung into the lane. It moved silently, and the red light on the front did not blink.

  “Sure,” the farmer answered. He walked to the ambulance.

  “What was that for? Why’d you ask him?” Spinner was frantic, time pushing him.

  “In case you don’t get through,” Loma said. “I’ll need the car.” He shivered with pain, but none of that reached his clear, inhuman thinking.

  “Loma, I’ll kill you first I’m sticking. I’ll spill all I know. Those cops are two minutes from here. You son of a bitch, I can — ”

  “Why should you?” said Loma. “Your way, you’re in for murder. You have a chance my way.”

  The man from the ambulance had opened the doors in back and was coming over, smiling. Spinner ripped open the door of the car and picked Loma up. Loma was light as a ghost, and could disappear like a ghost Spinner wouldn’t allow himself to think about that. There was only one thing to hold to. Stick with Loma.

  He hoisted Loma into the back of the ambulance while the mortician was pattering. “Yes sir, that’s the way, let me give you — Ah, you got it. Yes sir, in no time at all you’ll be right as rain. Are you going to come along too? Ah, I see you are,” he said when Spinner got into the back. Then the mortician started closing the doors.

  “Leave them open,” said Loma.

  Spinner started to climb into the back of the ambulance when Loma said, “I left my grip in the car. Go get it for me.”

  Simple enough. Simple way to get Spinner out.

  Then Loma whispered, “The gun. It’s under the seat”

  They needed the gun, but the farmer stood near the car, watching. Spinner jumped from the ambulance and ran to the car. He heard Loma call to the farmer to get him away from the car — and then Spinner found the gun under the seat There were no more tricks left in Loma, because he needed the gun and Spinner had it in his pocket He also picked up the grip and went back to the ambulance, to ride with Loma.

  “Start driving,” he said to the mortician and jumped into the back of the hearse. The farmer was walking away, folding some bills into his pocket Spinner paid no attention. He looked at Loma once and then turned away. He held himself by the hinges of the open door because the hearse would start moving now.

  “What — ”

  “Quiet,” said Loma.

  “What in hell — ”

  “I told you. I might need the car,” said Loma.

  The ambulance started rolling. Spinner held on, swaying, then got his balance and let go his hold. Then a touch, just a touch between his shoulders without any force or speed but right enough, decisive enough to make Spinner lose balance and fall through the open doors of the ambulance and hit the lane.

  He rolled for a moment, stopped, reared up to shout But he couldn’t The ambulance was in the turn and to shout and run after it would mean they would look up at the roadblock and want to know why he was calling after a hearse.

  His way, it could mean murder. Loma’s way, he had a chance.

  Spinner walked down the lane, brushing the dirt off his pants.

  CHAPTER 12

  He had hitched a ride at the end of the lane and he had driven through the roadblock with no trouble at all. At the roadblock they had a minute description of the man they wanted. He was fifteen, blond, and wanted for hit-and-run driving.

  All the way into town Spinner sat in his seat with arms folded, clamping his hands under his arms. He had the shakes. All the tension and straining for nothing — except to show once again that Loma came out on top.

  When Spinner got off at the doctor’s he was not shaking any more. He did not look like the man in the lane any more. If Loma was gone, he would find him and tear out his brains. If Loma was here, that would be even better.

  Spinner saw the car then. It stood in the lot next to the doctor’s office, half hidden by a garage. Loma must have told the farmer to do that Loma, half dead with pain, had taken one of his little precautions.

  The waiting room was the glassed-in porch of the house. There was nobody there. Spinner walked to the door where a sign hung saying Doctor In. He heard nothing. He knocked. When he knocked a second time the door jerked open and a pale young man in a white coat stared out at him.

  “What? What do you want?”

  That was Doctor Calvin. Spinner remembered the same tone from the telephone.

  “Your patient there.” Spinner saw Loma sitting on a couch. “He’s a friend of mine. I’d like to come in.”

  “I’ll be through shortly. When I’m done you can …”

  “Let him in,” said Loma,

  Doctor Calvin frowned. Then Loma said it again, exactly like the first time, and Calvin still didn’t know how to take it Spinner saw that Loma had the same effect on other people.

  Calvin let Spinner pass, closed the door, and came into the room with hard little steps.

  “Are you the one who phoned and told me this man had a broken arm?”

  “That’s right.”

  “There is no damaged arm. There is a damaged ankle.”

  “Well — ”

  “Precisely. And you thought I’d come out to that farm on your diagnosis.”

  “It turns out,” said Spinner, “the patient is worse than I said over the phone. Maybe you should have come.” He stared at Loma, hating the man, not knowing what he could do with his hate.

  Doctor Calvin walked up to Loma, and they seemed to be continuing something that started before Spinner came in.

  “You are in no position to argue the point If you think such heroics will help you to imagine that the damage is less severe than is actually the case — ”

  “Just go ahead, as I said.”

  Loma sounded different without the teeth in his mouth but the coldness was there as always, and the impersonal tone which made the listener into no more than an ear. It made Doctor Calvin shout at Spinner.

  “You talk to him. The leg needs a cast and he refuses an anesthetic!”

  Spinner looked at Loma and then away again, quickly. He shrugged and said, “He’s your patient, Doctor Calvin.”

  Doctor Calvin pursed his mouth but said nothing. He sat down at his desk and tapped a spatula into his palm. It made fat little smacks.

  “I’m not in the habit of arguing with laymen on matters like this.” He spoke quietly and with an air meant to convey his detachment It made him look mean. “As a professional — as your physician,” he said, “I refuse to assume responsibility for results limited by your lay — ”

  “Just put on the cast, will you, Doctor Calvin?”

  “I was speaking to the patient”

  “All right, but I heard you too.”

  Doctor Calvin got up and went back to the couch.

  “Perhaps this will clear it up for you. I don’t have adequate restraints on that table for anyone who’s going to get your kind of pain. Does that make more sense to you?”

  Loma sighed and looked at his hands. His new features kept the meaning of the sigh unclear. He said, “I’ll pass out, probably. That should help you.”

  Neither Spinner nor Calvin knew what to say next. Calvin turned on his heel and went to the far end of the room. He started preparing the plaster.

  “Put him on the table,” he said without turning.

  Spinner did that Loma seemed now a very small man, frail built, with eyes that wouldn’t tell what was behind them. Spinner put him down on the narrow steel table and wondered why the pad on top was so thin. Because nobody lies here and is conscious, he thought, so the hardness doesn’t matter. He said, “Loma, you know what happened?” He mumbled it “The roadblock is off. They got their man.”

  For a moment it looked as if Loma would spring off the table. Then he closed his eyes and lay still. His eyelids had a small tremble.

  “They were looking for a hit-and-run driver. A fifteen-year-old kid.”

/>   Loma didn’t blink, didn’t move. If Spinner had hoped for some sign of anger from Loma, anger over the wasted effort, none came.

  Loma said, “Good.” Nothing else.

  Doctor Calvin put down his dish with the plaster and laid out bandage and instruments. Spinner kept looking at that and wondered what kind of a pain it would have to be before Loma’s cold mind would boil over. Or what kind of a poison the doctor would give him and what impossible stresses would show in Loma’s face.

  Spinner stood behind Loma’s head so that if Loma should start to squirm Spinner could hold him down on the table.

  Doctor Calvin cleaned the leg and the foot with a wet swab and then he laid out the leg the way he wanted it. Spinner wasn’t looking at Loma but he felt the table make a small move.

  “No anesthetic?” said Doctor Calvin.

  Loma shook his head.

  Then Calvin started the bandage. It meant he had to position the foot.

  How Loma kept still is hard to know, but a short while later his eyelids fluttered. With a long sound of air from his throat he seemed to flatten out on the table.

  Doctor Calvin let go of the foot Loma knew it and Loma could hear. There was the faint clink of glass, and Doctor Calvin became busy with something.

  Spinner watched the syringe suck up the clear liquid. He heard Loma’s breathing, a thin sound which could almost talk. The thin sweat was on Loma’s face, on the white forehead. Loma did not move, did not blink, but his eyes were suddenly open and staring up into Spinner’s face. The eyes were no longer blank but open in a way which Spinner had never seen. Anything Loma would say after this wouldn’t mean much.

  Then it was gone because Loma did not have the strength to keep his eyes open. But he could still hear, through a sick fog.

  “What’s in that hypo?” Spinner’s voice came from directly above him.

  And from the end of the table, where his foot was screaming with pain, came Doctor Calvin’s voice like a thin bark.

  “No more interference. I will not be responsible unless this patient, like any other case, receives adequate preparation.”