He didn’t know Parker’s name, didn’t know his history, but it wasn’t necessary. He had seen Parker. He had tried once to frame Parker, and twice to kill Parker. He had taken an awful lot of money from Parker, money which must connect Parker with that robbery out at the stadium.
He was terrified of Parker.
At the beginning of it, he hadn’t really been aware of Parker at all. He’d known Ellen was living with another one, someone new, but his rage and hatred and sense of loss, all because of Ellen herself, had been so strong in him that he hadn’t had the thought or the inclination to wonder about this new one, or care about him, or even consider him in his plans.
Except to wait for him to leave the apartment.
For two days he’d snuffled around that building, loping and looking, waiting for Parker to come out of there. He’d been out of town for awhile, ever since Ellen had screamed at him that time, ranted and raved, cut him up with her tongue like slicing a piece of paper with a razor blade. She’d said things to him no one had ever said before in his life, things he would have killed a man for saying. She made fun of his triumphs, detailed his failures. She mocked his manhood, described the extent of his stupidity. She told him he was lousy in bed and worse out of it. She threw his electric razor out the window and told him to take the rest of his things and get the hell out of there. And when he went after her, driven beyond endurance, she’d run to the kitchen and grabbed a sharp knife out of the drawer there and held him at bay with it, screaming at him and taunting him all the time.
So he’d finally gathered up his gear and left the apartment, and she slammed the door after him. Standing in the hallway, he heard her slap the police lock into place. He had a key for the other lock, but not for that one.
He left town that same night, wound up in Mexico for a while. He knew Ellen would talk, would tell everyone how she’d routed him and why, and what she’d said to him, and how she’d held him off with a knife. He couldn’t face them, face anyone he knew in that city, knowing they would know, Ellen would tell them.
After months in Mexico, humiliation and rage gradually hardened into something colder and more dangerous than either, and he’d finally come north again, knowing he wouldn’t be able to rest until he’d paid Ellen back for everything she’d done to him.
He arrived Saturday afternoon. It was a cold fury that activated him, cold enough to make it possible for him to think, and to plan. He would even the score with Ellen, and he would do it in such a way that he himself would never be caught, because if he was caught and punished then that would negate the getting even, and Ellen would still be one up.
So he didn’t just attack. He reconnoitered first, studied the apartment, and saw Parker going in and coming out. He saw Parker drive off with the truck and later come back in a cab. He was waiting then to see the extent of Ellen’s perfidy. Was this stranger going to stay overnight?
Yes. Overnight and then some.
He waited. He’d taken a small room a few blocks away, and when he could stand it no more, when his eyes were dosing and he was weaving on his feet, he went back there and slept, fitful dozing, plagued by bad dreams. It was fully night when he went to sleep, and still night when he drove himself up from the bed and out of the room and back again to watch Ellen’s apartment.
He had begun by hating Ellen, but as the time went on, his hate expanded to include the stranger, too. Three days. Three days and three nights in that apartment there with Ellen. In bed with Ellen.
All the vicious things Ellen had said about his own prowess in bed came back to him, contrasting brutally against the silence of that apartment door and the slow inexorable moving of time.
Three days and three nights, and then at last the stranger came out. A big man he was, hard-looking, mean-looking. Alter all that time he didn’t even seem pleased or satisfied; his expression was flat, emotionless.
The stranger went down the stairs. He waited, listening to the stranger’s footsteps receding, then the door closing way down there at street level, and he was alone again.
His key still worked, and the police lock wasn’t on. No, and not the chain lock either. He went in, moving fast, moving silently.
He knew she’d be in the bedroom. Where else could she be, the slut? Where else in all the world?
He came in and she was there as he’d expected, sitting cross-legged tailor fashion on the bed, a cigarette dangling from her loose mouth. She was half-asleep. She looked up and frowned at him, and she wasn’t frightened. She wasn’t even angry. All she did was act weary, disgusted, this-is-too-much-to-bear. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ she said.
The details of his revenge had never been clear in his conscious mind. He had known only that he had returned to this city in order to even the score with Ellen. Now he was here, at the very core of Hell, at the brink of vengeance, and he felt an instant of utter panic because he had no idea what to do next.
He could see her eyes assessing his weakness, see her lips curling around the opening phrase of another cutting remark. He could see everything that would happen now; her verbal arrogance, his helplessness in the face of her, his clumsy, sullen, pathetic retreat.
Not this time.
His head turned this way and that, his eyes searched the room for something he didn’t yet remember he remembered and then he saw the silver X on the wall, sleek and sharp.
It was too late for thought. Words were slipping from her mouth, ready to cut him.
He reached up his band, and the silver X became a silver stroke, a diagonal slash separating the wall into metric feet, and the other slash was in his hand. He didn’t know yet what he would do with it - though the hilt felt so perfect in his grip, so natural, so inevitable — and for an instant he just stood there, holding it above his head like a Goth on the way to Rome.
If even then she’d been frightened, everything might still have been all right. Even at that point, he might have been able to convince himself he had only taken the sword down to frighten her with, he meant no physical harm; anyone could see he wasn’t the type.
But she wasn’t frightened. Or if she was she made no sign of it. Instead she said with utter scorn, ‘You moron, what are you going to do with that? You never could slab me, not with -‘
Knowing what she was going to say, knowing in advance all the ways she now meant to hurt him, he also knew he had to stop her. There wasn’t any choice, none at all.
He lunged forward, and his right arm pushed ahead of him, and he impaled her forever on that red instant of time. The words remained unspoken, would remain unspoken ever after. The world tick-locked on, and Ellen remained back there in that blood-red second, slowly slumping around the golden hilt.
It was as though he had stabbed her from the rear observation platform of a train that now was rushing away up the track, and he could look out and see her way back there, receding, receding, getting smaller’ and smaller; less and less important, less and less real. Time was rushing on now, like that rushing train, hurtling him away.
That’s what death is; getting your heel caught in a crack of time.
He had to get out of there, get away, but he couldn’t turn his back on her. It was as though the sword wasn’t enough to impale her there; she was being held also by his eyes, as though once he stopped staring at her she would live again, move again, speak again. As though, should he turn his back, catlike she would leap on it and bear him down under her weight.
Police. There would be police now. Had he left any clues?
He was wearing gloves; that was a lucky thing. He’d worn them because of the cold outside, not to cover fingerprints, but it came to the same thing. So he was safe there.
Anything else? Anything of him in this apartment, anything he hadn’t taken away with him last time?
He studied the room and saw nothing, and then opened the closet door and saw the suitcases and all the guns.
All those guns.
And when he opened the suitcases — given the pre
sence of the guns, he had to open the suitcases — when he opened them they were full of money. Bills and bills, green and green.
For a minute or two he forgot Ellen completely, sitting over there on the bed in a posture of contrition. He closed up the suitcases again, he grabbed one of the handguns at random and stuck it into his pocket, and he lugged the suitcases out of the bedroom, out of the apartment, out of the building.
His Ford, still grayed with the dust of Mexico, was across the street. He stowed the suitcases in it and clambered in behind the wheel, and looked out through the windshield to see the stranger across the way at the intersection walking back to Ellen with a package in his arms. He had a heavy, solid way of moving, as though he were made of metal. He looked inexorable, like’ fate.
These must be his suitcases, his gun. The closet had been full of the stranger’s guns.
The stranger reached the building and turned and went up the steps and inside. He would go upstairs, find Ellen, and find the suitcases stolen and he would come looking.
In the rearview mirror he could see a telephone booth on the corner, all glass, held together by strips of green metal. He climbed out of the Ford and ran back to the phone booth, fumbling for a dime, fumbling for a plan. The thoughts clicked through his head like numbers through an adding machine. He was like a man on a bob-sled; later on he would have leisure to wonder just how he’d gotten down that bastard hill.
‘Operator. May I help you?’
‘Operator, there’s a woman been murdered.’ His voice was a hush. ‘At 106-12 Longmans Avenue, apartment fourteen.’
‘What?’
‘Get the police. Hurry! He’s still there, the killer’s still there.’
‘Sir, would you —’
‘It’s 106-12 Longmans Avenue, apartment fourteen.’
‘Your name, si —’
He hung up.
Returning to the Ford, he sat in the back seat, feeling clever. In the front seat he might be seen, but back here in the shadows and the darkness he could observe without fear.
Barely two minutes after his phone call a green-and-white prowl car shot around the corner and braked to a stop in front of her building. It stopped so hard it rocked a while on its springs, and two uniformed policemen clattered out and hurried into the building and out of sight.
His imaginings took him thirty times around the world.
The stranger came out, alone. He looked this way and that, and walked off down the street.
In the back seat of the Ford, he stared and ground his teeth and punched his hands together. What was wrong, what was wrong? Why did they let him go? With the dead body there, with all those guns in the closet, surely he hadn’t been able to explain it all away so readily. Why had they let him go?
Or had they let him go?
What was this stranger? For the first time, it occurred to him to wonder what sort of man would have two suitcases full of money hidden carelessly in a closet, what sort of man would have pistols and machine guns on that closet floor, what sort of man would move with that square inflexible gait.
He followed because he was afraid to let the stranger out of his sight. He followed on foot because the stranger was on foot. Hurriedly he locked the doors of the Ford and then went off after the stranger, watching from a block back how the stranger planted his feet, how his arms swung like lead weights at his sides.
He trailed the stranger to the taxicab garage and beyond, until he saw that someone else was following the stranger too, a short, heavy man in a mackinaw, and then he hung farther back to wait and see.
When the stranger and the man in the mackinaw had their eerie conversation, he was close enough to hear without being observed. He heard them mention the name Kifka, and it seemed to him he could vaguely remember Ellen having mentioned that same name at one time or another. But aside from that lone name, the conversation had little meaning or interest for him.
Then the conversation ended, and the stranger went on, and the man in the mackinaw followed, until the stranger got into a taxi and went away and left the man in the mackinaw standing on the curb.
As soon as he was sure the taxi was out of sight, he came forward and talked with the man in the mackinaw and found he was unimportant, ineffectual, and harmless. But he did know the man Kifka’s address; in that he had been lying to the stranger.
‘Show me where he lives,’ he said.
‘Sure. Sure.’ He was a weasel in a mackinaw, and his name was Morey.
He and Morey rode another taxi, and left it two blocks from Kifka’s address. It was awkward bringing Morey along, but he was afraid Morey might otherwise go to Kifka’s place himself and warn the stranger of the man who was following him. It was best to bring Morey along.
Morey was full of questions until he showed him the gun and said, ‘Shut your stupid face.’ Then Morey was quiet. They crouched together in the driveway across from where Kifka lived, and waited. Morey had pointed out Kifka’s windows, and they were all lit up.
The stranger had to be taken care of and then everything was done, and it was back to Mexico forever, this time with two suitcases full of money. It might be a little tricky getting the money across the border, but ways could be found. The spare tire full of cash instead of air, for instance. There were always ways.
He was dreaming of Mexico, and money, and didn’t at first see the stranger come out the doorway across the street and start down the steps. When he did, he jerked his arm up, the heavy gun pointing, and Morey, the stupid one, shouted, ‘Hey!’
He turned the gun and blew Morey’s loud head off. He didn’t think about doing it, he just did it..
But it was too late to change anything. Across the way, the stranger was leaping for cover. He pushed Morey’s falling body away and fired twice at the stranger, but missed both times.
And then the stranger shot back, and something stung his earlobe, like touching it for just a second with an electric wire.
He’d never had anyone shoot bullets at him before. It was terrifying. It was more frightening than he could have imagined.
He ran.
When he finally calmed down, he realized he shouldn’t have run, that was the last thing he should have done. He’d lost the stranger now; the hunter could very easily at this point become the hunted.
He had to know where the stranger was, he had to. It was necessary that he be behind the stranger, able to see without being seen, because the alternative was horror. If the stranger was not at all times in front of him, he would never know if he was behind him.
He thought of fleeing to Mexico, right now, forgetting everything and only getting away from here, but he just couldn’t do it. In Mexico, in Europe, anywhere on earth it would be the same; he was too afraid of the stranger to permit him to stay alive.
But the mistake had already been made. He went back, and Kifka’s windows were now dark. The stranger bad gone, of course, no telling where.
Behind him? He kept looking over his shoulder. Tendrils of ice kept creeping inside his coat to touch his spine. The back of his neck ached. His hands wouldn’t stay still.
He went back to the rented room, taking a devious route, doubling back time after time, making wick-detours around all pools of darkness. It didn’t seem he’d been followed, but there was no way to be sure.
In the room, he arranged glassware on the window sill so it would fall and break if anyone opened the window. He pushed the dresser against the door. Even then, he slept only fitfully, his dreams chaotic, full of scarlets and ebonies, glinting with swords and guns, a-sting with bullets.
Most of the next day he spent in the room, wailing. He dozed sometimes, and stood staring out the window sometimes, and paced the floor sometimes. When, late in the afternoon, he finally understood that what he was waiting for was the arrival of the stranger, he forced himself into action. He couldn’t just lock himself away in this cube on the edge of the world; he had to be out and around, he had to be doing. Whether or not there was anythin
g to do.
He went past the place where Kifka lived, but didn’t see the stranger there at all. The body of Morey was gone, too, with nothing now to mark the place where he had fallen.
He couldn’t really encompass the concept that he had murdered two people and tried to murder a third. He did these things because in their moments they were the only possible things he could do, but at no time did it seem to him that these actions were a part of the fabric of his personality. He was sure he wasn’t the type; he did these extraordinary things because he had been thrust into extraordinary situations. In the normal course of events he would no more murder anyone than he would spit on the flag. His having killed Ellen, and then Morey, and then having tried to kill the stranger, were all atypical actions which he would not want anyone to have judged him by.
He went past the place where Ellen had lived, and saw no sign here either that murder had been done within that building last night. On impulse, he parked the Ford in the next block and walked back.
The stranger had been living in there. Would he? be in there again?
He went in, and up the stairs, and too late saw the policeman sitting on the kitchen chair outside the closed door. He couldn’t go back down any longer, so he took the remaining alternative; he went on by the policeman and continued up the stairs. The policeman, reading a tabloid with huge black letters on the front, hardly gave him a glance.
There was no place to go but the roof. He emerged onto a flat deserted world with black tarpaper underfoot and the gray sky of late afternoon overhead. He walked cautiously across the roof, plagued by the idea that it wouldn’t support his weight, that he’d crash through into the apartment below, and when he got to the front edge with its knee high wall he squatted and looked carefully over, staring down at the street far below.
Would the stranger come back here? It seemed to him somehow necessary. Besides, there were only two locations where he knew the stranger might be, here and the Kifka place, so it was sensible that he should wait in one of these locations until the stranger should pass by again. Of the two, this was the better place to stay.
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