The Man in the Net

by Patrick Quentin

  John’s first reaction was vague astonishment that, in a world which for him had turned completely insane, Mr. Casey could still be worrying about whether or not a hotel was built on the north shore of the lake. Then, merging with the astonishment, came indignation at the old man’s gall. There may have been a little misunderstanding between us the other night. That was his cynical token gesture of apology. Smooth him down. Probably what they’re saying about him is true. Probably he murdered his wife. But a vote is a vote.

  Before he said anything, Mr. Carey continued, “Of course, Hamilton, we’re not exacting any promise from you. I only want you to know that we’re relying on you.” The receiver at the other end of the wire clicked down. John went, at random, into the living-room and sat down on the couch. He tried to think of Linda. Where was she? What had become of her? But he seemed unable to have any feelings about her at all and even the memory of her face was blurred in his mind. It was as if she had never existed and was some almost legendary figure whose only function had been to create for him this new obscene world of unreality.

  The sensation of lethargy which had been growing on him all day was more potent now even than the anger. This, he realized, was going to be his greatest enemy—this feeling of hopelessness, almost of doom. What had come had come—submit to it. It was the victim psychology. The village had chosen him as a victim and, in choosing him, it was as if, ichneumonlike, it had injected into him a paralyzing serum that stultified all action. What was there to do anyway? Inch by inch, ever since he’d found the note on the typewriter, the net had been closing around him. The suitcase—the blue jeans …

  Now news of the blue jeans would be crackling through the village. He killed her. He was wearing the blue jeans. He tried to burn them. He faked the note. He slashed his own pictures. He packed her suitcase to make it like she’d gone away and threw it on the dump. He went to New York with Brad as his unwitting dupe to stage an alibi. He tried to make the troopers believe she was crazy …

  Those were the words. At that very minute, they were being spoken in the post-office, in the store. Groups were gathering in the street, under the maple trees. He thought of the town meeting in the Assembly Rooms at eight with everyone there, the whole village gathered together. Sudden terror of the mob—a mob of red faces, heavy, sweating bodies, a huge magnification of the men in the meadow— invaded him. For a moment it was as if he were actually there hemmed in by them in the Assembly Rooms.

  Get away, he thought. Get in the car, drive like hell. At least there was still space. Put space—miles and miles of it —between him and the nightmare.

  Oddly, that momentary yielding to hysteria saved him because the anger rose to challenge it, smashing through the lethargy. They wanted him on the run. Of course they did. Let the victim run. Then the hunt could begin. But why should it be on their terms? Why should he let them infect him with a guilt which they had invented for him? He hadn’t done anything. Was it so hard to remember that? Stand up to them. Defy them. Don’t run from that town meeting. Go to it. March right in there….

  The phone rang.

  Almost light-headed, he went to answer it.

  “John?” It was Vickie. Her quiet, ordinary voice belonged with his new mood of confidence almost as if by checking his panic he had willed it into being. “John, I’m absolutely disgusted. I just heard what Father did. He called you, didn’t he? He tried to bully you into going down to vote tonight?”

  “He called,” said John.

  “He’s certainly got his nerve. It’s just that he’s so hipped on the lake thing. He doesn’t even stop to think how other people might be feeling. John, I apologize for the whole family. Of course you’re not going to pay any attention to him.”

  “I’m going to the meeting,” said John, his mind suddenly made up.

  He heard her little gasp of astonishment. “But—but, I mean, do you realize how they are? Do you realize what they’re saying in the village? What…. ?”

  “I know,” said John. “That’s why I’m going. I’ve nothing to hide. Why should I act as if I did?”

  “But—gosh, you really mean that? You’re really going to stand up to them?”

  “I’ve got to.”

  “Yes. I do see. All right then. Go with us. With Brad and me. You might as well have some support.”

  A kind of incredulous gratitude and affection came to him. “But, Vickie, what about Brad?”

  “Don’t be silly, my dear. If you’re going, Brad certainly wouldn’t want you to go alone any more than I would. Come over here right now. Have something to eat with us. Then we’ll go together.”

  He bathed and changed and drove to the Careys’. It was amazing how the balance had been restored. And when Alonso Phillips, smiling the way he always smiled, led him into the big living-room, he was back again in a world of ordinary, everyday dimensions. Neither Vickie nor Brad sympathized or made a point or acted in any wav differently from usual. Brad made them martinis; they drank them on the terrace where the sun, paling to evening, hung over the tree-tops above the glimmering smoothness of the lake; then they went in to dinner.

  This, John knew, was definitely Vickie’s decision. Brad, for all his good manners, was only going along with his wife. There was too much of his father in him for his imagination to stretch beyond a certain point. John knew too that even Vickie wasn’t necessarily endorsing him by this gesture. For all he knew, she had suspicions of him too. But that, for Vickie Carey, wasn’t the point. To Vickie, he was a man in trouble, a man not to be condemned before he had even been accused—a man entitled to asylum.

  They were drinking coffee in the living-room when a voice from the hall called, “Hi darlings. Ready?”

  Roz Moreland appeared through the doorway, chattering. “No dawdling now. What will Daddy Carey say if the old brigade is late and … ?”

  She saw John. Her voice stopped instantly and she stood looking at him with a mixture of astonishment and theatrical revulsion.

  “Oh, I. . . Gordon and I thought we’d all go together. We thought …”

  She retreated hastily through the door.

  John got up. “I’m sorry. If you were planning to go with the Morelands …”

  Brad looked unhappy.

  Vickie said quickly, “Don’t be silly. Of course we hadn’t planned anything. They just dropped in. Really, that absurd woman.”

  They finished their coffee, not hurrying. It was after eight when Brad put down his cup and, avoiding John’s eyes, said, “You’re set on going, John?”

  “It’s the best thing to do.”

  “Okay. Then we’re with you.” He turned to Vickie. “Ready, dear?”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Okay. The car’s outside. Let’s go.”

  They drove to the village. Automobiles were already parked for several hundred feet up the roadside from the church. As they left the car and started to walk through the darkness beneath the overhanging elm branches toward the Assembly Rooms, John could see people streaming in through the door or standing around in little groups, smoking. There was nothing to suggest his personal ordeal. The buzz of voices, an occasional laugh, a voice louder than the others, calling cheerfully, “Hi, Joe”—they were all ordinary sounds of a village summer evening. Even the extra activity of a community turning out to fulfil its democratic obligation gave no taint of threat to the atmosphere.

  A woman in a pale dress hurried past them. Vickie called out, “Good evening, Mrs. Seely,” and the woman, glancing at them abstractedly, replied, “Good evening, Mrs. Carey.”

  And yet, as they moved away from the darkness closer and closer to the lights fanning down from above the door to the church basement, John could feel the tension in himself and in the Careys. It was as if they were a lighted fuse creeping inch by inch closer to dynamite. They were almost up to the nearest group of loiterers. Suddenly, beyond them, in the center of the main street, John noticed a tall figure in a cop’s uniform, directing the traffic. Steve R
itter. In the same instant, the three of them came up to the lounging men. Brad was a little ahead. One of the men was laughing. He saw Brad and, still laughing, called, “Hi, Brad, how are … ?”

  Then he saw John. His voice stopped. All the other men stopped talking too. Automatically, as if imitating the men in the meadow, they drew a little closer, forming a semicircle barring the entrance. Some quality of tautness in them instantly infected all the other groups standing around near the doors. There was an abrupt cessation of sound and a sense of bodies moving very slightly closer. Then, beyond, John heard a woman gasp and little sexless half-whispers began to rustle in the air.

  “It’s him … It’s Mr. Hamilton … Mr. Hamilton … Hamilton …”

  It all lasted hardly more than a second. Brad was still in front of him. Vickie was at his side. Brad moved forward toward the unbroken semi-circle of men and, as he did so, the men stepped aside for him.

  “Hamilton … Hamilton …”

  The vague whispers were still behind them.

  Brad, glancing quickly at John, murmured, “Maybe this isn’t so good an idea?”

  “It’s okay,” said John.

  “Yes,” said Vickie.

  They passed through the door and emerged into the brilliantly lit basement.

  13

  IN THE FIRST second, John saw the whole scene in exact detail as if it were a painting—the wooden voting booths along the rear wall, the long table at which the town officials, neat and self-important, in suits and neckties, sat on wooden chairs, and then, in front of them, the inhabitants of Stoneville—old men gnarled as tree roots, husky farmers, youths, housewives, girls in bright summer dresses —crowding the central area around the heavy wooden pillars which supported the church above. Over to the right, Mr. and Mrs. Carey, aggressively aloof, stood with the Morelands as satellites at their side. The Town Clerk— the dour old man who’d been sitting in the ice-cream parlor the night before—was on his feet, talking lamely, rustling papers and glancing down every now and then at them through steel-rimmed spectacles. There it all was, the placid New England scene, the congregation of the earnest partisans, the conscientious, the frivolously curious, gathered together to perform a civic function. It seemed the most temperate of climates, in which nothing more dramatic than a pompous speech from Mr. Carey against “innovations” could possibly flourish.

  But the people who had been outside were crowding eagerly in now behind them, pressing them forward, bringing excitement with them. John was pushed against a girl he had never consciously seen before who was standing by one of the pillars. She turned to glance at him. Her eyes narrowed in avid astonishment and then she gasped. Simultaneously, it seemed, every head turned toward them. The girl’s gasp was taken up all over the room as if there was some weird, distorting echo. For a moment that strange sound, the hiss of escaping air, fluttered and then dropped into a silence which was total except for the drone of the Town Clerk’s voice. Intent on his duties, the old man hadn’t noticed anything. He stood peering through his spectacles at his notes, and his voice, sounding almost grotesquely loud now, went on.

  “Well, I guess pretty near everyone of us knows what we’re here for and I guess pretty near all of us have made up our minds one way or the other. But before we put this to the vote, we’re throwing this meeting open so that any of us that feels he or she’s got something to say … that is …”

  His voice trailed off. He had become aware that there was something wrong with the silence. He looked up from the notes, peering around, not able immediately to locate the source of the disturbance. Then he saw John. His jaw sagged and his eyes became identical with the other eyes. To John, it seemed that there was nothing but eyes watching him, boring through him—steady, bright, menacing in their lack of expression. He was intensely conscious of the threat, but, now that he was exposed to it and returning the challenge, he felt an unexpected spurt of confidence, because he despised them. If he’d been one of their own, they’d never be reacting this way. It was because he was different, a “crazy artist”, something alien which had always been resented by their narrow, parochial minds. He knew it and, by defying them, his self-respect had come back.

  The voice of some child, invisible in the crowd, broke the silence. High and piping, it said, “Mr. Hamilton.”

  The echo effect came again, rippling round the room. “Hamilton … Hamilton … The sound was muted, hardly more than a whisper, but it suggested a restrained roar. The Town Clerk, recovering himself, tapped the table with a gavel.

  “And so,” he said, going on with his speech, “it’s up to me now as Town Clerk to declare this meeting open to any discussion maybe you folks want to put …”

  John saw Mr. Carey throw up his hand with a military swagger.

  “Mr. Carey…” began the Town Clerk.

  Then, before Mr. Carey could speak, a man’s voice from near the door yelled, “I got a question. Where’s Mrs. Hamilton?”

  Instantly the roar was unleashed.

  “Where’s Mrs. Hamilton?”

  “Where is she?”

  “Where’s Mrs. Hamilton?”

  Shout clashed with shout until all sound was merged into a zoo-like, unintelligible babble. The old Town Clerk was banging with his gavel. Two of the selectmen, one on each side of him, had risen and were shouting for order. But no one paid them attention. In the sea of faces, all turned in John’s direction, stretching up from the jostling, lurching bodies, he caught a glimpse of Emily and Angel’s mother from the post-office. Mrs. Jones was hardly recognizable, her eyes gleaming like the other eyes with the predatory mob excitement. A man at his left just beyond Vickie was hollering something. John could see his mouth open in a wide “o”, but in the cacophony he couldn’t distinguish a word he was saying.

  He glanced at Vickie and Brad. The skin around Brad’s nose had gone whitish grey. Vickie caught his eye and smiled encouragement. That helped, and his anger and the new feeling of contempt for them all. He could handle this. He was sure of it. Just as the roar faded from its peak, he threw up both his arms above his head.

  The effect was extraordinary. Instantly the tumult subsided back into silence—the earlier hard, brittle, watchful silence. The Town Clerk’s gavel banged down once more. The two selectmen, looking outraged and important, glanced around and then sat down heavily.

  “All right,” said John. “I didn’t come here to answer questions. I came because it’s a town meeting and I’ve as much right as anyone else to come to a town meeting. But if anyone wants to ask me any questions about my wife—okay, go ahead.”

  They hadn’t expected that. For a moment they were thrown back into a mood of awkwardness, almost of embarrassment. In a loud, booming voice, Mr. Carey began.

  “This is an outrage. We are a civilized community. We have come here …”

  Suddenly the ringleader by the door yelled out again, “Where’s Mrs. Hamilton?” and the words, like a rallying cry, brought the antagonism back to fever pitch, obliterating Mr. Carey.

  “Where is she? … Where’s Mrs. Hamilton?”

  A woman close to John clutched his arm. He could feel her nails digging into his flesh.

  “Where’s Mrs. Hamilton?”

  Silence came again—silence completely concentrated on John. He pulled his arm away from the woman’s nails.

  “I don’t know where she is,” he said.

  “He doesn’t know … He says he doesn’t know …”

  Over the clamor a young man in a yellow sports shirt called, “Why was the suitcase on the dump?”

  John turned to him, “I don’t know that either.”

  “Why did you burn your blue jeans in the meadow?” It was the first man again, his voice loud, jeering, deliberately goading the frenzy.

  The uproar was almost out of control now.

  Over it, John started to shout, “I didn’t burn the blue jeans. Someone …”

  But the tumult engulfed him. Dimly he could sense that not all of them wer
e against him. Someone shouted, “Leave him alone.” The words were just distinguishable. Over in a corner, two rival groups had formed. Men were pushing and jostling each other. But the division of opinion only heightened the pressure. A woman’s voice, thin and piercing, shrilled above the others, “Mr. Hamilton, did you murder your wife?”

  The room went mad then. One of the men near John lunged at him. Brad hit him before John could. The crowd was a pitching, lurching, chaotic mass. A woman screamed,

  John heard the hard slap of a body hitting against a pillar.

  Brad was grabbing his arm. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  In the grip of his savage, exasperated excitement, John wanted to stay and fight them all, but he knew Brad was right. He’d stood up to them. He’d shown them he wasn’t scared of them. He turned toward the door. Vickie was immediately in front of him, jammed against him, her face only a few inches from his. With a ferocious effort, she managed to twist around. A man grabbed at John again. John shook him off. Brad was lost somewhere. Vickie battled forward toward the door. Then three men lumbered toward John and instantly Vickie swung around throwing her arms around him, turning herself into a shield.

  Grotesquely carrying Vickie in front of him, John pushed toward the door. As they inched their way forward through the hot, hostile bodies, he saw Steve Ritter ahead of them, coming in from outside. His eyes under the cop’s peaked cap were gleaming and he was brandishing his night-stick. The sight of him had an instantaneous effect. Almost immediately John heard the clamor behind them subsiding and, in a few seconds, the room was quiet again. It had all collapsed as precipitously as it had flared up.