by Peter Rabe
“What did you tell him about the bridge?” The hand worked back and forth.
The bridge again. He had to tear her open again, to push her into remembering. Martha suddenly felt like crying.
“Say it!” His voice pushed.
“Say it?” she repeated. “Say what? Say what, Charley? What is there to say?”
He heard Martha’s voice again, tired now, asking him to let her be. It was the spell again that would soon make him forget what he had to find out if he wanted to stop running.
“You leaned over the bridge and saw me. What did you see?”
“Nothing, Charley. It was dark. I was only wondering — ”
“Wondering what?”
“Wondering what might be there. I had heard the moan. Nothing else, Charley, please believe me — “
“More. Remember more.”
“I can’t remember more. Believe me, Charley. I never think — I never thought of the first night when I thought of you, and when we — ” Then she could only cry.
It was Martha crying, and Charley could hardly remember the monster. And he would have to run forever, doubt forever if he thought of her now. If it killed her he had to get it out of his life. She would know nothing and tell him so and they would be free — so ask her! Her pain could not be more than his.
He looked away from her, watching his hand.
“You did see; you told me the first time. You saw me walking at first.”
“Please, Charley — ”
He clamped his hand on the stone to make a pain, a sharp, distracting pain from the palm through the hand and into his arm. “And you saw me walking! And you saw something else when I walked!”
“What, Charley? What did I see?” Once more she tried not to remember. “Me and what else? A man? A body?”
The crying was gone; once she remembered, the unbearable fear would be gone. So she shook back her shawl and screamed, “Yes! You and a body. Was the body dead? Ask me! The body was dead. You went to the river with a corpse on your back. Is it right? Do I remember it right?”
“Right as right!” he screamed back, because only a scream would keep him going ahead. The torture could not get worse. “Go on! What next?”
Now she needed no prodding. With her full hair making a shape like the very first time, making Charley remember, she screamed, “ — and down the embankment! He was dead. You killed him, and you went down to the bridge. I heard you there with the body, and you must have been stuffing his pockets. They always do. They stuff the pockets on the corpse with stones, and with another stone maybe kill him again to be sure, though you may not have done it. You kill well the first time so he was dead and full of stones and you rolled him over just to check if he was ready, to check if he was heavy enough. More weight. A chain from your car perhaps? It was so dark, but ask me, ask me and I will remember — ” She stopped for breath, very suddenly. It was like a jar to Charley.
“Yes, more,” he said, without screaming this time because it hardly mattered. “All of it!”
“Oh, all of it, all of it then. You pushed him into the Tiber, slowly to make no splash, but the effort because of his weight made you wince from the wound in your side. Then I heard you moan — like a cat, you said. Then you were there with the gun on me because I had to be killed, except the wound made you weak, something made you weak all this time, did it not? Weak all this time and that’s how you gave me time to live a little while longer — “
She was through. She did not even hope he would contradict her, because now she was through.
“You told this to Joe?”
“You care?”
His hand with the raw palm hung by his side and didn’t feel like his own any more. The pain didn’t feel like his own any more.
“And you went to the police?”
She put the shawl back over her head and took a step. Then she said, “Does it matter?”
“Why did you wait this long?”
“I am going away,” she said. “I am going now.” Only the simplest thing occurred to her then, and having taken a step she thought of walking.
“You can’t,” he said.
“You have more to ask?”
“No. You’ve said everything.”
“I have said everything. All you have asked me to say.”
They stood like puppets, they had talked like puppets, and then his right arm moved up because that’s how the puppet was built. The gun aimed low, a belly target that even a puppet could hit.
But his arm started to tremble. If he could see the monster now — not Martha — standing waiting again.
His voice was suddenly loud. “What else? What else is there, Martha?”
In the silence he saw how she shook her head. “Martha!”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Martha! What?”
“It doesn’t matter. You have killed me.”
He didn’t move for fear he would drop the gun.
“I didn’t. I didn’t before and if I kill you it is the first time.”
“I know. How could I have loved you?”
His gun arm moved and he was aware of his muscles. They felt as if they were seeking sleep.
“I know,” she said. “Except you would kill me twice. The second time with a gun.”
The gun was a weight, a useless weight, and his hand hung down, as if relaxing.
“I know,” he said. “I believe you. I believe everything now” But he had lost. She didn’t come to him, and he didn’t expect her to. He didn’t move towards her because she had said it right, he had killed her. He watched her raise the shawl, cover her head, and leave. He watched her leave. It seemed from a distance as if they had never known each other.
Chapter 27
It was dark at the end of the bridge where he had seen her last, and only the railing seemed to reach out into the darkness. After a while he put his hand on the railing and felt the stone with his fingers.
He could see the curve of light along the bay, and by turning his head a little he could see Vesuvius. The mountain itself was hard to see in the dark, but a red reflection was pulsing over the crater. The thin cloud over Vesuvius rose straight and still, reflecting the hot lava.
His right hand had started to tingle. He closed the fingers because he did not want to drop the gun. He left the bridge and went up the hill, up the twelve and thirteen steps, through the weeds, to the terrace, and into his house. Joe could wait one moment longer. Charley turned on the light and took a drink from the pump. Then he heard Joe, so he went back to the terrace.
Joe walked with a cane. He came slowly because the weeds were thick and he hurt. When he was close enough he couldn’t tell a thing that was different because Charley was looking at him and the mask was back on.
“You come back alone?” Joe craned his neck to see better.
“What do you want?”
Joe didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure how to start, so he first climbed up on the terrace, grunting. Then his cane thudded closer.
“I saw you from the kitchen.”
“That’s nice.”
Joe stopped close by and his breathing was making a sound. After a while, when Charley still didn’t move, he asked, “You took care of her?”
“Why? You come to view the corpse?”
Charley turned and went into the house. He turned by the door that went into the bedroom and waited for Joe. Joe’s mouth was open and he stopped by the kitchen table.
“So say something.”
“Sure. What?”
“What’s the matter, you sore or something?” Charley looked at him and his habit was back. He was smiling. “You come to view the corpse?”
“I said are you sore or something. You don’t see me being sore, and after all that crap you gave me back there!”
“I took yours, you take mine.”
“What’s that?”
“I said, you take mine.”
Then Joe got sore. “You don’t think so good, Chuck.
I just did you a favor, remember?”
“Sure.”
“So what is this, for chrissakes — ” Charley’s smile was starting to grate on Joe and Joe got meaner. “You got an idea you’re going to push me around? After you leave her a gun to cripple me, after that hero stuff slapping me around with me flat on my back, after I put myself out and save your lousy skin for you? Get this, Delmont, we don’t go for that lousy moody stuff and that slapping around you do, and that — “
“So?”
“So don’t get tough with me, because what she knew I know! And what I know Bantam knows! I got a message for you, Delmont. You don’t like running? Well, you better! You think you got a name? Like hell you do, Delmont! You think you killed her to save your skin, you stupid, grinning ass? You killed her because I told you to, because she never saw a damn thing under that bridge, never said a word to me, never crossed you except when I made her do it! That’s what you better learn, Delmont, and from now on when I say jump, you jump! Got that clear?”
“That’s what she said,” said Charley.
And then Joe started to shout because it kept the confusion out and perhaps Charley would break. “So she said it and I said it and now she’s dead and I’ve got you for sure! Make a bargain with the devil, she said; make a bargain and lose. Well, you lost, Chuck boy, and I’m here to tell you — “
“Want to view a corpse?”
“I’m viewing one!” While Joe spoke he took a step and hauled out with his cane.
“You missed, Joey.” The smile was gone and Joe saw the loser turn into something else. Like the devil himself. “Don’t miss again,” Charley said.
Joe saw he had gone the limit. He hauled out again and a bloody gash sprung open on Charley’s head. He didn’t see more because the stick yanked him hard and Charley had stepped aside. Joe got a push from behind, stumbled, hit hard on the bed in the next room.
Joe saw Charley standing in the doorway, and then Charley had the gun in his hand.
“Chuck! Chuck, listen — ”
“You came to view a corpse, Lenken — ”
“Chuck, you got a gun. Chuck, I can’t even move, I’m sick! I can’t — ”
“ — die even,” said Charley and tossed the gun on the bed.
Joe could be fast. He was firing before the gun was up and he thought he was still firing when the cane smashed his wrist, then his nose.
Charley was through then. He dropped the cane and turned away without caring to look. Joe made a stain on the bed.
Charley walked around the Judas tree so he could see the view. The bay was one way, and to the side was Vesuvius. The thin cloud over Vesuvius seemed to stand still, and it looked white. Charley went down the steps, first one way, then the other. He crossed the square and went down where the bridge was. Where Martha had been. He went to the place where he had seen her last.
THE END
Peter Rabe was born in Germany as Peter Rabinowitsch in 1921, immigrating to the U.S. with his brother in 1938 to escape the Nazis. He enrolled at Ohio State University and got his doctorate in psychology from Western Reserve in Cleveland. Married, he began his writing career by turning in a humorous story about the birth of his first son. Soon after, he began submitting hardboiled stories to Gold Medal where he found an enthusiastic editor and a ready market. After three divorces, health problems and the death of the paperback original, Rabe eventually quit writing and took up teaching psychology at California Polytechnic State University in the late 60’s. He died in 1990 at his home in Atascadero, California.
“Noir addicts looking for a fix of the good stuff will find it here.”
Keir Graff, Booklist
“This guy is good.”
Mickey Spillane
“… head and shoulders above most of his competition in the hard-boiled field.”
Nassau Daily Tribune
“As I’ve said before, Peter Rabe is one of the two major genre influences on my writing, Hammett being the other. His use of language, his handling of emotion, and his eye for the dramatic detail inside the normal were an inspiration for me.”
Donald Westlake
“Along with John D. MacDonald and Charles Williams, he was one of Gold Medal’s Holy Trinity. When he was rolling, crime fiction just didn’t get any better.”
Ed Gorman, Mystery Scene
“Peter Rabe was a kind of fictional surgeon. His novels are skillful operations performed with scalpel-like precision on the underbelly of American society – raw, bloody, filled with tension and emotion, culminating in powerful and neatly sutured final scenes. He had few peers among noir writers of the 50s and 60s; he has few peers today.”
Bill Pronzini
If you liked A House in Naples check out:
Anatomy of a Killer
1
When he was done in the room he stepped away quickly because the other man was falling his way. He moved fast and well and when he was out in the corridor he pulled the door shut behind him. Sam Jordan’s speed had nothing to do with haste but came from perfection.
The door went so far and then held back with a slight give. It did not close. On the floor, between the door and the frame, was the arm.
He relaxed immediately but his motion was interrupted because he had to turn toward the end of the hall. The old woman had not stepped all the way out of her room. She was stretching her neck past the door jamb and looking at him. “Did you hear a noise just now?”
“Yes.” He walked toward her, which was natural, because the stair well was that way. “On the street,” he said. “One of those hotrods.”
“Did you just come from Mister Vendo’s room?”
“Yes.”
“Was he in? I mean, I wonder if he heard it.”
“Yes. He’s in, and he heard it.”
Jordan walked by the old woman and started down the stairs. She shook her head and said, “That racket. They’re just like wild animals, the way they’re driving,” and went back into her room.
He turned when her door shut and walked back down the hallway. This was necessary and therefore automatic. He did not feel like a wild animal. He did his job with all the job habits smooth. When he was back at the door he looked down at the arm, but then did nothing else. He stood with his hand on the door knob and did nothing.
He stood still and looked down at the fingernails and thought they were changing color. And the sleeve was too long at the wrist. He was not worried about the job being done, because it was done and he knew it. He felt the muscles around the mouth and then the rest of the face, stiff like bone. He did not want to touch the arm.
Somebody came up the stairs and whistled. Jordan listened to the steps and he listened to the melody After he had not looked at the arm for a while, he kicked at it and it flayed out of the way. He closed the door without slamming it and walked away. A few hours later he got on the night train for the nine-hour trip back to New York.
There was a three-minute delay at the station, a matter of signals and switches. Jordan sat in a carriage close to the front and listened to the sharp knock of the diesels. There was a natural amount of caution and care in his manner of watching the platform, but for the rest he listened to the diesels. In a while the clacks all roared into each other and the train left.
Jordan never slept on a train. He did not like his jaw to sag down without knowing that it happened or to wake with the sweat of sleep on his face. He sat and folded his arms, crossed his legs. But the tedium of the long ride did not come. He felt the thick odor of clothes and felt the dim light in the carriage like a film over everything, but the nine-hour dullness he wanted did not come. I’ve got to unwind, he thought. This is like the shakes. After all this time with all the habits always more sure and perfect, this.
He sat still, so that nothing showed, but the irritation was eating at him. Everything should get better, doing it time after time, and not worse. Then it struck him that he had never before had to touch a man when the job was done. Naturally. Here
was a good reason. He now knew this in his head but nothing else changed. The hook wasn’t out and the night-ride dullness did not come. He set his tie closer and then worried it down again. This changed nothing. He saw himself in the black window, his face black and white and much sharper than any live face so that he looked away as if shocked because he did not recognize what he saw. The shock now was that this had happened. The thing with the arm had happened and he had never known that there was such a problem. Like a change, he thought. A small step-by-step or a slip-by-slip change following along all the time I was going, following like a shadow behind me. But it does not have my shape. The shock of seeing my shadow that does not have my shape….
He wiped his hands together but they were smooth and made no sound. He rubbed them on his pants, hard.
It was so bad now, he went over everything, the job, the parts of it, but there was nothing. All smooth with habit, or blind with it, he thought. So much so that only the first time, far back, seemed clear and real. Or as if it had been the best.
• • •
The small truck rode stiff on the springs and everything rattled. The older man drove and the younger one, behind in the dark, kept his hands tucked under his arms. The noise wouldn’t be this hard a sound, thought Jordan, if it were not so early in the morning and if it were not so cold.
The truck turned through an empty crossing and went down an empty street.
Gray is empty, thought Jordan. He was thin and pale and felt like it.
“I’m coming up front,” he said. “The draft is cutting right through me back here.”
“What about the antenna? I don’t want that antenna to be knocking around back there.”
They had a spiky aerial lying in back and Jordan pushed it around, back and forth, so that it would lie steady without being held. The whitish aluminum felt glassy with cold. He crawled forward and sat next to the driver.
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine. Just cold.”
“You should have worn more under those overalls. What you wearing under those overalls?”