I said a short, vicious word and managed to do three things at once: jammed the gearshift lever into reverse with my right hand, found the headlight switch and flicked it on with my left hand, and brought my left foot down on the high-beam button on the floor. The car leaped backward, yawing a little. The VW was almost on top of me by then, a hurtling black-and-red shape; its rear end missed my front bumper by a foot or less, then veered off toward the fence bordering the cemetery on the left. The guy behind the wheel had to fight it around, straighten out again, and that gave me a couple of extra seconds.
Hunched around on the seat now, I leaned over the back to look through the rear window and pushed the accelerator all the way down. The high white glare of my headlights, the crimson wash from my backup lights, bleached the darkness enough so that I could see the road behind me. It was pretty straight, and I had a white-fisted grip on the wheel. I kept my eyes on the road, not looking to see where the VW was; the metallic taste of fear was sharp in my mouth. I wasn't armed — I had not carried a gun since I'd been on the cops years ago — and these characters had at least one and probably two weapons. I had nowhere to go if I lost control of the car or they managed to get me off the road.
The intersection with Hillside Boulevard came up quickly, less than a hundred yards away now. Sweat half-blinded me, but when I dropped below the screen of trees I could see there were headlights approaching from the direction of South San Francisco — two sets of them. Relief dulled the edge of my fear. The nearest set of lights was maybe five hundred yards off: enough time, just enough time.
There was a sudden, glancing impact: the VW had rammed me, but not hard enough to do the job for them. I managed to keep the rear end straight as the intersection rushed up, held off using the brakes as long as I could; then I touched them lightly and laid my other hand on the horn ring and swung the wheel hard to the right. The tires screamed as I slid sideways, rocking, out onto Hillside Boulevard.
Another horn blared; there was more shrieking of rubber. The first of the oncoming cars swerved to the left, nosing off the road, to avoid a collision with me; the second braked hard and skidded around to the side of the first one — and in the next second a red light began revolving on its roof, sweeping the darkness with an eerie pulsing glow. It was a county police cruiser, a traffic unit that patrols Hillside for speeders at night.
I turned my head to see where the VW was, saw it right in front of me. They had swung out in the same direction I had, but the red light on the cruiser had made them quit worrying about me. The little car rocked as the transmission was thrown into a forward gear; rubber howled again. They had been half turned around on the road, as I had been, and they tried to come out of it too fast, with too much power. The rear end fishtailed and they started to slide one way, then the other. And then the VW spun around twice in the middle of the road, like a toy car in the hands of a playful kid; tilted and went over, rolling; finally settled on its top in the culvert between the road and the cemetery fence.
The county patrol car slid around mine and cut diagonally in front, blocking me off. One of the two cops who came out of it ran to where the VW lay in the culvert like a huge beetle on its back, wheels spinning lazily in the light-spattered darkness; the other cop came over to me with his service revolver drawn. He looked in through the open window. "What the hell's going on here?" he demanded.
I told him — as much as he needed to know right away. It took him a couple of minutes to believe me, but when I showed him the photostat of my investigator's license and told him what he would find in the wreckage, he was convinced. He left me to use his car radio, because the other cop was still at the wrecked VW and yelling for an ambulance and a tow truck; Paige and his partner were wedged inside, and he couldn't tell if they were dead or alive.
I was pretty shaky for a while, but by the time the ambulance and the tow truck arrived I was all right. A couple of guys went to work on the VW with blowtorches. When they got Paige and the other one out, they were still alive but cut up and unconscious; Paige had a broken leg, too. The ambulance took them away to the nearest emergency hospital.
The county officers escorted me to the police station in South San Francisco, where I made a formal statement. None of the cops was too pleased that I had given chase after the robbery, instead of notifying the law like a good citizen was supposed to do, but they didn't make an issue of it. They let me go on home after a couple of hours.
I had bad dreams that night. But they could not have been any worse than the dreams Judith Paige would be having . . . .
In the morning I learned, through my friend Eberhardt at the Hall of Justice, that Paige was an ex-con — four years at San Quentin for armed robbery — who'd figured that his job as a real estate salesman wasn't paying off and wasn't likely to. Two months ago, he'd reestablished contact with another armed robber he'd met in prison, and they had worked out the liquor store heists. The other guy's name was Stryker.
The rest was about as I'd figured it. Stryker, alert and strung out after the holdup, had spotted me coming out of the lot after them. They'd figured me for a heroic-citizen type, and at first they'd thought of trying to outrun me; but the VW didn't have all that much power, they had no idea how good a driver I was and they didn't want to risk alerting a cop by exceeding the speed limits. So they'd hit on Cynthia Street — and although they refused to admit it to the police, they would have killed me if they'd succeeded in forcing me off the road.
As for why Stryker had been on foot that night — and why they'd used Paige's VW, with its distinctive WALLY P license plate, instead of Stryker's car — the reason was so simple and ironic that it made me laugh sardonically when I heard it. Stryker lived down the Peninsula, near South San Francisco, and he was married, and his wife had insisted on using their car to attend an audition: she was a singer, and there was a job she badly wanted in the city. So he'd given in, notified Paige and then had her drop him off at the shopping center on her way into San Francisco.
Crooks, I thought. Christ!
There was irony, too, in the fact that Paige had apparently been faithful to Judith all along. He had married her because he loved her, or had some kind of feeling for her. If she hadn't suspected him of playing around, and come to me, he and Stryker might have carried on their string of liquor store heists for quite a while before they screwed up and got themselves caught.
The police had been the ones to break the news to Judith Paige last night; better them than me. But I knew I had to see her again anyway: it was one of those things you have to do. So I drove out to the Parkside district late that afternoon and spent twenty minutes with her — twenty long minutes that were not easy for either of us.
She told me she was going to file for divorce and then go home to Idaho, which struck me as the wisest decision she could have made. She would meet another guy there someday, and she'd get remarried, and maybe then she would be happy. I hoped so.
I would never see her again in any case, but the future would still bring another Judith Paige. There is always another Judith Paige for somebody in my business. One of these days she would walk into my office, and I would hear the old story again — the old, sad, sordid story.
Only that next time it would probably be true.
I Didn't Do It
Well, I keep telling you I didn't do it. I don't care how much evidence there is. You got to believe me. I didn't do it.
Sure, I was out there that night. I already admitted that, didn't I? I went out there to see Mr. Mason about a job. He gave me a dollar in town that day. I told him I was homeless, down on my luck, and he gave me a dollar and said come out and see him and maybe he could put me to work doing something on his farm. He told me his name and where he lived, said it was only about half a mil outside of town. So I walked out there that night. It was a hot night and I didn't have nothing to do in town, nowhere to go, no place to sleep, so figured why not go out there and see Mr. Mason instead of waiting until the next day. I figured m
aybe he'd give me something to eat and a place to sleep. SO I went out there. How was I to know he'd gone off to Springville on business and wouldn't be home until after midnight?
Well, I come onto his property about nine o'clock. Just after dark, so it must have been about nine. Wasn't nobody around, but lights was on in the house. It was a hot night, quiet, and when I got up near the porch I heard them sounds plain as day. Did I know right off what they was? Well, not right off. They was just moaning sounds to me at first, like maybe somebody was hurt. So I went around the side of the house, through the garden, to see if that was what it was, somebody hurt. That's how come you found my footprint over by the bedroom window, where I stepped in the mud from the sprinklers. I never said I wasn't in the garden, did I? But I never went up close to that window. No, sir. I'll swear it on a Bible. I never went close to that window and I never looked inside that bedroom.
I recognized them sounds, that's why. I knowed then what was going on. Him and her in there, making all that moaning noise, making them bedsprings squeak and squeal like a soul in torment. I knowed what they was doing. So I beat it right out of there, you bet I did. Fast.
Did I know it wasn't Mr. Mason in there with Mrs. Mason? Well, I guess I did. I guess I knowed it, all right. I heard the fellow's voice plain, some of the things he was saying to her . . . no, I ain't going to say what them things was. I don't even want to repeat them things in my own mind, let alone out loud. But I heard his voice plain and it wasn't Mr. Mason's voice so I guess I knowed it wasn't Mr. Mason in there. But I didn't know who it was. She didn't call him by his name. No, sir, not by his name.
No, I didn't go back to town right away. I told you that. It was a hot night and I didn't feel like going back to town right away, on account of what was I going to do once I got there? I didn't have no money or no place to go. What I did, I walked down by the river. River runs close to Mr. Mason's farm—runs right through a corner of it, didn't you say? Well, it was a hot night and I thought maybe I'd go for a swim.
But before I got there I seen this car parked in amongst the trees betwixt the river and Mr. Mason's house. Big fancy car, parked right in there under the trees, off the road so you couldn't see it unless you was walking by like I was. Well, I knowed it was his car, the fellow in the house with Mrs. Mason. Who else's car was it likely to be?
Sure, I looked inside. Door was unlocked, so I figured I might as well. But it wasn't my intention to steal nothing, even if there'd been something to steal. Which there wasn't. Big fancy car like that and not a thing in it that anybody'd want to steal. Not a thing you could of got fifty cents for at a hock shop, let alone a few dollars to buy you a decent meal and some new shoes and maybe a room to sleep in for a few nights.
I sure didn't wait there for him to show up. No, sir, you're wrong about that. I went on down to the river just like I said before. I went on down to the river and took off my clothes, all except my underpants, and I went for a nice cool swim. Then I lay on the bank a while and dried off. It was peaceful there on the bank, and I thought I'd stay right there the whole night. No point in going back to town, I says to myself. Might's well just stay right there for the night and then in the morning go and see if Mr. Mason had come home from wherever he was and ask him for that job he promised. I didn't have no intention of telling him about his wife fornicating with some other man. Not if he give me a job like he promised, and a place to sleep. I wouldn't hurt a good man that way. No, not a good man, I wouldn't.
Why didn't I spend the night there? Why'd I go on back to town instead? Well, I told you—I found that money. Eighty-nine dollars. Lying right there on the river bank. Way I found it was, I decided to take a walk along the bank, after I dried off from my swim, and see could I find some soft grass for a bed. And there that money was, in a little cloth purse that somebody must of dropped. Some fisherman or somebody. Dropped it right there on the bank and never realized it. There was a bright moon that night, you remember? That's how I seen the purse with the money in it lying there in the grass.
After I took the money out I throwed the bag in the river. I told you about that too. What did I want to keep an empty for? It didn't have no identification or nothing in it. Finders keepers, losers weepers. So I walked back into town with that found money. I figured I might's well spend some of it. I figured I was entitled, being as how I'd been down on my luck so long. So I bought myself a good meal and a bottle of bourbon whiskey and a room for the night, where you fellows found me the next morning.
What's that? No, sir, I sure didn't steal that money from Thomas Harper's wallet. I told you where I got that money. I found that money in a cloth purse lying on the river bank—
No, sir, I didn't hit Thomas Harper over the head with no chunk of willow limb. I didn't kill Thomas Harper. I never even knowed his name until you told me, or that he was a bigshot lawyer, or nothing about him except he was sinning with Mr. Mason's wife.
My fingerprints? Not just on his car but on one of them little window things in his wallet? Well, I don't know how they could have got there. You sure them fingerprints is mine too? Well, I don't know how they could of got there.
No, sir, I didn't rob and kill Thomas Harper.
No, sir, I didn't.
I tell you, I didn't do it . . .
All right. All right, all right. I guess it's no use. I guess I might's as well tell you.
I done it.
But I didn't mean to kill him, nor even to rob him. I come walking back from the river, back toward that fancy car of his, and I had that chunk of willow limb in my hand. I don't know why I picked it up down on the river bank. I just did, that's all. And here he comes from Mr. Mason's house where he'd been fornicating with Mr. Mason's wife, all cheerful and whistling, real pleased with himself, and I don't know . . . I don't know, I just stepped up behind him and let him have it. I didn't mean to hit him so hard. I truly didn't.
Sure, I took the money afterwards. Eighty-nine dollars is a lot of money to a fellow down on his luck. But that ain't why I hit him. I don't know why I hit him.
Yes I do. He had it coming, that's why. Sinning with Mr. Mason's wife like that, saying all them things to her right there in Mr. Mason's bed in Mr. Mason's own house. That Thomas Harper had it coming, all right.
But I didn't do that other thing. I swear I didn't.
I never looked through the bedroom window when I was in the garden, I never watched them two in Mr. Mason's bed. It's a mortal sin for a man to fornicate with another man's wife, and only a person with lust in his heart would gaze upon what he's moral certain is a act of fornication. God knows I don't have no lust in my heart and He knows I didn't watch them two committing their mortal sin. You got to know it too. You got to believe me.
I didn't do it!
Quicker Than the Eye
(with Michael Kurland)
When I returned from the dressing area at the rear of the Magic Cellar nightclub, the houselights were dimming for Christopher Steele's grand finale. I sat down quietly at the corner table I shared with four of the top brass of Lorde's Department Store ("Serving San Franciscans Since 1927"), and watched Steele raise his hand to cut off thunderous applause.
He waited until the room became completely silent. Then he said, "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. You have been very attentive to my small displays of illusion, and I feel you should be rewarded. I shall show you something that is impossible, something that cannot be done. You are about to witness an effect that you will wonder about and talk about for the rest of your lives. You will tell people about it, and they will not believe you; but you will have seen it with your own eyes." He paused, smiling enigmatically. "I would appreciate your silence for the next ten minutes."
Steele bowed and stepped back to center stage. Ardis, his assistant—who had been with him longer than I had been his manager—joined him. They stood facing the audience, fingertips touching, while two stagehands brought in an ornate golden chair and placed it at the rear of the stage.
"T
he greatest mystery of all," Steele said, "is the mystery of time. Time and its effect on Man. The mystery of aging, of life and death. I present to you now a visual allegory and, if I may, a miracle!"
He stepped forward, and Ardis, at his nod, walked to the high-backed chair and sat. The lights dimmed to a single spot.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Steele intoned, "please keep your seats and do not be alarmed at what you see here now. I invoke the aid of Osiris, Egyptian God of Life. Oh mighty Osiris, keeper of the mysteries, guardian of the keys, make your presence felt—on this stage tonight. Come forth, come here, come—now!"
Slowly, so slowly that you weren't really sure that it was happening, Ardis began to change. She slumped over in her seat and her arms and hands became lined and wrinkled. Her legs grew twisted, gnarled. Her face became ancient beyond the ages of Man, as old as Time.
She straightened up and stared out at the audience, this incredibly old hag, and her eyes flashed, even sunken as they were in the parchment of that ancient face. As we watched, the very flesh became transparent, the white dress she wore grew evanescent—and both disappeared, revealing the skeleton beneath. Finally the skeleton was all that remained. Then it collapsed in on itself, leaving only a pile of bones and a handful of dust on the chair.
"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your attention," Steele said, as the lights went up and broke the spell. "That ends my show for tonight."
The audience stared. The chair, with bones and dust, remained. Finally one man began to clap and again everyone broke into thunderous applause. As it died down Steele smiled and clapped his hands twice, sharply. There was a flash of light, a puff of smoke, and Ardis—young and beautiful—stood once more beside him. This broke up the audience completely. They whistled, stamped and screamed while Steele and Ardis bowed low and then walked off the stage.
The houselights came up and the waitress appeared by the table with a fresh round of drinks. I gave my attention to my guests.
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