“Then, you do think he did it?” Gray asked.
Quentin slammed his palm down hard on the desk. Gray saw the muscles clench along his jaw. The violence in Quentin’s voice startled him.
“My God, how do I know? He must have done it. All the evidence—” Quentin paused. He put his hand to his eyes, and the violence went out of him as suddenly as it had arisen. “She did so much for him,” he said. “She was so good to him. And he— How could he do it? Cold-blooded, brutal—how could he do it!”
“Anybody can commit murder,” Gray said, “anybody.”
Quentin shook his head quickly. “No, you’re wrong. There has to be that—that hatred in a person first. I couldn’t kill. I know I couldn’t.”
Gray was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “You knew Mrs. Avery?”
Quentin flashed him a quick look. “Yes,” he said. “Eddie introduced us. We got talking—she wanted to know how Eddie was doing, what his prospects were. She…she was a very kind woman.”
Gray said, “Just what was her relationship to Eddie?”
Quentin looked at him again with a quick flash.
“How do you mean that?”
“I don’t know—no particular meaning. Should there be?”
Quentin said, “If you’re implying anything—wrong—you’re way off base. She knew he’d been in trouble—had a rough time—she felt an impulse to help. That’s all.”
Gray nodded. “Did Eddie trust her?” he asked.
Quentin looked blank. “I don’t follow that.”
“Here’s what I mean,” Gray said. “I just thought of it. Suppose Eddie was robbing the Avery apartment and Mrs. Avery came in and caught him at it. What would he have done?”
Quentin said with deep bitterness, “We know what he did. He killed her.”
Gray said, “Maybe he did. But why? Would she have reported him to the probation officer? Or anybody?”
“Well, she’d have to, wouldn’t she?”
“When Eddie smashed the equipment here, you didn’t report it.”
Quentin considered. “Well, that’s true. Let me think a minute.” He looked down at his hands. “No,” he said finally, “I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have reported it. She’d have known how serious it would be for Eddie.”
Gray said with sudden irritation, “I keep running into little things like this. Things that suggest Eddie wouldn’t do what the evidence says he did. None of them definitive. Any one of them could be explained away. But they keep adding up.”
Quentin interrupted. “I’ve been trying to think of a better answer to what you asked a minute ago. About why Mrs. Avery was interested in Eddie. For one thing, she wasn’t a very happy woman. Maybe she needed some outside interests. Her husband—” He stopped, then went on a little too hastily. “I shouldn’t make wild guesses. Tod Avery may be a—may be okay. I don’t know.”
“I’ve talked to him,” Gray said. “Nobody seems to have a very clear picture of what Eddie’s really like. Tod Avery seems like a man of pretty strong feelings. Conservative, but strong.”
“Priggish,” Quentin contributed. “From what little I know,” he added quickly. Gray gave him a quizzical look.
“What do you know?”
Quentin’s face went perfectly blank. “Only what Eddie mentioned now and then.”
Gray had to accept it. “What about Eddie’s own age group? How did he get along with them?”
“All right,” Quentin said.
“Did he go around with any particular girl?”
“There was one—Stella Ingram. That seemed to taper off, though. She goes with Matt Witczak now.”
“Any hard feelings?”
“Not that I know of.”
“What’s Witczak like?”
“One of the worst,” Quentin said bitterly. “One of the kids who can’t be salvaged. He’s got a gang of his own. And a record. Eddie used to belong to the gang. If that helps.”
Gray said thoughtfully, “I think it might.” A sudden idea struck him, and he said, “By the way, is there a boy in your school by the name of Whitey?” He described the height and weight of the figure he had seen, the face over the handkerchief mask. “A narcotics addict, I think,” he added. “Does that ring any bells?”
Quentin scowled in thought. “We’ve got too many users around here,” he said. “It’s bad. Worse than bad. I suppose the police do what they can, but—” He let it drop. “Whitey,” he said. “No, I don’t place him. Actually, by the time they’re hooked they’ve begun to move out of our jurisdiction. School just doesn’t mean much to kids like that. Why do you ask?”
Gray looked at him meditatively. Quentin was in an ideal position, it had suddenly occurred to Gray, to pick out a kid addict any time he needed one for a job. If he ever should need one. And he seemed to react very strongly to the whole Avery situation, far more strongly than Gray could yet understand. Quentin was worth wondering about.
“No reason,” he said aloud. “I happened to run across a kid named Whitey the other day and I’d like to ask him some questions. About this Witczak boy, it might help if I could talk to him, too.”
“I doubt if he’d talk to you,” Quentin said. “He’s in one of my classes—when he decides to show up. I don’t even call on him in class any more. It’s the only way to handle a kid like that. I let him read comic books and he knows I’ll flunk him, and there isn’t any trouble that way. He just doesn’t give a damn. But I don’t think he’d talk to you.”
“I have to try,” Gray said. “Where can I find him?”
Quentin gave the papers on his desk a restless push. “I’ll show you. I want to get out of here, anyway. Maybe if I get some fresh air I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”
“I’d appreciate it,” Gray said.
Quentin told him sourly, “It won’t do any good. I can tell you that much right now.”
The night was chill and clear. Street cars clattered from Mission Street, blocks away. Gray swung his light sedan through traffic at Quentin’s direction. Presently they pulled up at the curb.
Quentin said, “I’ll go on up and see if Matt’s home.”
Gray sat waiting, looking at the row of flats that were relics of old San Francisco. This was not a slum neighborhood, but it was a neighborhood of people who worked very hard and never made quite enough money to feel free from anxiety. Most of the houses needed painting. There were no front lawns. A child’s scooter, broken and stripped of its wheels, lay on the curb.
Gray flexed his fingers, stiff from driving, and thought of the tremendous complexity of his work. Clinical work, psychotherapy, were hard enough, but in this kind of investigation far too many cards were wild.
Footsteps grated on the concrete, and Quentin slid into the car. His thin, handsome face was haggard in the street lights. “No luck,” he said. “Matt’s out somewhere.”
“Too bad.”
Quentin slumped in the seat. “Matt’s a second-generation American. He’s caught between two ways of life. His father thinks the only way to handle a kid is to beat hell out of him.” The teacher rubbed his forehead. “This violence,” he said. “Everywhere. Well…” He glanced at Gray. “We might try Stella Ingram’s place. Matt’s there a lot. If there’s any redeeming feature about Matt, it’s the way he feels about Stella. Or seems to. With these kids you can’t be sure of anything. Turn right at the next corner and go straight ahead.”
Gray followed directions again. They entered a street a block from a business area, an overflow street with a few stores, a cheap hotel, a drugstore, a gin mill, a pool parlor. Through the drugstore windows Gray saw a group of teenage boys standing listlessly around a magazine stand.
“Wait a minute,” Quentin said. “Slow down. Maybe—no. He’s not there. That’s his gang, though. Wait—there’s Matt.”
Gray parked. Quentin hesitated. Finally he said, “Well, come along,” and got out. Gray followed him into the drugstore. A bored-looking man was perched on a stool behind the sod
a fountain, smoking a cigarette. The boys looked cautiously over the magazine racks at the newcomers.
“Hello, boys,” Quentin said. There was a mumbled response. Wariness had settled on the group. Gray counted seven boys, ranging in age from perhaps fifteen to eighteen, at a rough guess. But age meant nothing. As far as experience and background went, they had all reached the same point.
Quentin said, “Matt, I want to talk to you.”
There was a reorientation in the group, somehow. One boy became the new center. He was the smallest dark, with curly black hair and an almost girlish face, handsome, too handsome for a boy. And very slightly built. You might have expected the leader to be the tall, husky blond boy standing behind Witczak.
Witczak said, “Sure, Mr. Quentin.” He had a drowsy, high-pitched voice. He came forward casually, carefully ignoring Gray.
“Let’s go outside,” Quentin said. Witczak amiably drifted out the door, and Gray and the teacher followed. But when Quentin put his hand on the car door, Witczak said, “I’d just as soon stand up, Mr. Quentin. I sit down a lot in class.”
Quentin glanced at Gray, who said, “This will do fine. Want to introduce me?”
“Oh. Yes. Matt Witczak. Mr. Gray.”
Witczak had his hands in his pockets. He kept them there. Gray, without looking at Quentin, felt the tension in the air between the man and the boy. For a moment he regretted having asked Quentin’s help. Nothing showed visibly, but Gray felt certain the teacher disliked Witczak strongly, and that Witczak knew it.
Briefly Gray explained who he was.
Witczak said, “Oh, sure. I know what a psychoanalyst is.” Obviously he didn’t. “Anything I can do, just ask me. I cooperate like crazy. My old man send you?”
Gray said, “No, I’m here to find out a couple of things for myself. One is about Eddie Udall.”
“Eddie,” Witczak said without any expression whatever.
“You know what’s happened to him?”
Witczak considered. “Sure, I know,” he said. “I read the papers. Mr. Quentin don’t think I can read, but I can read all right.”
Quentin moved impatiently.
Gray said, “I don’t know what will happen to Eddie. That’s up to the court. But I’ve been asked to check up. My report will help the court decide what to do.” He was stretching the truth a little here, but there was no point in handicapping himself unnecessarily.
Witczak said, “Yeah?” with every appearance of fascinated interest. Gray recognized the mockery under the top level of politeness. He didn’t respond to it. He went on calmly,
“Would you mind telling me something about Eddie?”
“Why, I wouldn’t mind a bit.”
Quentin moved restlessly again. Witczak’s mockery was annoying him. Again Gray wished the teacher were not along.
He said on impulse, “Mr. Quentin, would you mind if I talked to Witczak alone?”
Quentin nodded stiffly and turned toward Gray’s car. He got in and sat motionless, staring straight ahead. Gray lowered his voice slightly.
“There’s no reason why you should tell me anything, of course. That would probably depend on how you feel about Eddie.”
Witczak merely waited.
Gray said, “I mean, on whether you like him or not. I saw him yesterday for the first time. He won’t talk much to anybody. If he would, I might be able to help him.”
“Oh,” Witczak said. “You want to help him.”
“I want to. Maybe I can’t. It all depends.”
Witczak’s voice was loud enough for Quentin to hear.
“You ask me questions, I’ll answer them. So far, you’re not asking anything. You’re telling me.”
Gray said, “So far, I don’t even know if you want to help Eddie or not.”
“That’s right. I guess you don’t.”
There was no way to break through the hostility. Gray suddenly decided to let it go. The conditions were wrong. He had broken the ice; that was enough. Tomorrow he’d try to see Matt Witczak again. Patience and acceptance, even of hostility, was the only way that might work.
He had wanted to ask about Whitey. He had hoped for more co-operation on the subject of Eddie. Right now, he would have to settle for a random question or two. He looked at his watch.
“It’s getting late,” he said. “I may look you up tomorrow, when there’s more time. One thing, though—if things work out for Eddie, I might be able to help him get some of the things he wants. If he’s happy at the Reiners, fine. If he’d rather do something else—well, if he could do about what he wants, have you any idea what it would be?”
Witczak, ready for almost any question, hadn’t expected this one. There was a second in which his guard seemed to go down. An almost childish look of wistful longing crossed his face very briefly. Then hardness and resentment flashed back. The boy moved his shoulders in a swagger of deliberate insolence.
“Well, now, what would you want?” he asked, still in the loud, yet casual voice with its undertone of derision. “Same thing everybody does. You know.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Have himself a ball,” Witczak said, smiling sweetly. His clear voice rang through the street. “Have himself a lay, every day, every hour on the hour. Try it all out, every way, you know?”
The bright eyes searched Gray’s calm face. Witczak said, “You don’t know, maybe? I’ll tell you.” And the mocking voice began to pour out a stream of obscenity, obviously aimed at arousing some reaction in Gray. Since the psychoanalyst heard nothing he hadn’t heard before, he wasn’t even surprised. He waited calmly.
But Quentin didn’t. The car door snapped open, and the lean figure of the teacher stumbled forward in a rush. Quentin’s face in the light from the drugstore windows was gray-white. Too late Gray moved to stop him. Quentin hit Witczak hard across the mouth.
“Shut up with that filthy talk!” he snapped.
Witczak’s slight figure rocked back. He got his balance with a stagger, and a new light of anger brightened in his eyes. Blood started to trickle down his lower lip. But he still smiled and talked on, more obscenely than before. Quentin, trembling with rage, seized Witczak’s narrow shoulders and shook the boy until his teeth rattled.
Gray stepped quickly forward and broke the teacher’s grip. But he was too late. The boy, clenching his hands together, drove them into Quentin’s belly. And as he did it, he whistled shrilly.
There was an answering clatter of stampeding feet. The door of the drugstore burst open with a clash of breaking glass. Young voices yelled hoarsely.
The next moment Gray found himself in the middle of a fight as vicious as he had known since his Army days.
The violence had exploded. It was too late to stop it. Too late for words.
Quentin was lurching in the middle of a shadowy clot of boys. Gray started toward them, and then sensed a presence behind him and spun fast without taking time to look. A savage punch at his kidneys lost most of its force because of his quick movement, but another boy was rushing at him, his arm swinging up in an edge-of-the-hand blow at Gray’s throat. Gray threw his own arm up and caught the chopping hand. A blow across the side of the head rocked him, and he jolted forward straight into somebody’s ready fist.
Things moved too fast to think or plan for. It was dirty fighting, but so far there were no weapons in sight. Gray lurched sidewise among a hurricane of hard, thudding blows, trying to get his back to the wall. He couldn’t make it. The boys swarmed over him, punching and kicking.
Gray got the heel of his hand under a chin and shoved hard. One of the boys hurtled away. But it only made room for another to move in, swinging. Gray felt a violent shock in his leg, another in his side. The street tilted dizzily. Someone began to scream, a long, undulating shriek that rose louder and louder…
Without the slightest warning, the street was suddenly empty around him. Gray felt the hardness of cement under his skinned palms. He seemed to be down on the pavement. He staggere
d up, shaking his head hard. His vision was a little blurred. The scream still went on.
He looked around for Quentin. The teacher was on his hands and knees in the street, swaying. Gray saw him lift his head and look blankly around. Blood ran black-red down his forehead under the graying hair.
Gray could hear the receding hammer of footsteps running. The scream was very near. Then a police car swerved in and came to a quick stop at the curb. Two uniformed officers jumped out, their holsters unsnapped.
“What’s the matter here?” the foremost asked sharply.
Quentin staggered upright. “Those God-damn kids!” he shouted. “They jumped us, the bastards! What are you waiting for? Go after em!”
Another squad car was pulling up behind the first.
Gray said, “Wait a minute. It wasn’t—” There was the taste of blood in his mouth.
“See if you can catch some of ’em,” an officer said, and the second squad car promptly pulled out from the curb.
Gray still felt dizzy. He touched the back of his head gingerly, feeling the rising bump. But the feeling of sick disappointment in him was more painful than the bruises. This was the worst thing that could have happened right now. There was bound to be publicity—bad publicity. Bad for Eddie Udall and everyone who cared anything about the boy. Another door had slammed shut in his face.
Unless he could do something to stop it.
He forced himself to relax. He needed time to think. He answered questions absently, saying as little as he could. Dimly he realized after a while that the second squad car had returned, without any captives. The boys had got away.
9
Over the emergency hospital table the lights were harsh and bright. The room had the impersonal, mechanical coldness of a room built by robots to service robots. Even the doctor bending over Quentin had the protective, mechanical remoteness a doctor has to assume when he handles too many people in trouble.
Only Quentin’s tense, pale face with the cut across the forehead looked human and vulnerable. Gray was putting his ripped coat back on. There seemed to be nothing much the matter with him in spite of a few bruises.
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