An Eye for an Eye

by Leigh Brackett

  “S’matter?” said Bill, sitting up, startled.

  “Nothing,” said Ernie. “Not one damn thing.”

  He drove fast to the restaurant and brooded the whole time they were eating, trying to remember exactly where Ben had parked before. It was hard to do because the total arrangement of cars along the curb was now entirely different. He could not be sure. But he thought it was possible that the car had been there all night.

  He wondered if that was what he had been hoping to find when he drove by the building. If so, he wondered why he wasn’t happier about it.

  The afternoon was a blank, too. They ran out of prospects around three o’clock and trailed wearily back to the station, where they made a detailed report consisting of nothing to Packer and Lieutenant Feracchi of the Vice Squad, who was interested. Packer told them they might as well go home.

  Ernie said so long to Bill and checked out.

  It was now around four-thirty, and a dull dark afternoon. The No Turn signs were out at the corner of Market, so Ernie had to continue north on the east side of Courthouse Square. There was a light on in Ben Forbes’ office. This surprised Ernie and made him curious. He found a place to park up the block and walked back to the building.

  When he came into the office Grace Vitelli was putting on her coat and taking a last look around. She smiled at him and said,

  “Hello, Mr. MacGrath. Mr. Forbes isn’t here.”

  Ernie said, “How come you’re working so late on a Saturday afternoon?”

  She told him. “It’s taken me the whole day to arrange things. I wanted to be sure everything was right so that he could come back to a clean desk, you know, with nothing hanging on.” Tears came suddenly into her eyes. “Poor Mr. Forbes. I got the strangest feeling this morning that he didn’t really think he ever would come back.”

  “Oh,” said Ernie, “he’s just upset. Things will work out.” He wished Grace were not so fond of Ben, or else that she herself were a less likeable person. “Could I give you a lift home?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to take you out of your way,” she said, and he said that it would be no trouble at all. He waited while she made sure the files were locked and turned off all the lights. He tried to figure what Ben’s move in closing his office meant. Probably it meant quite simply that he was unable to do his job right now, which was understandable enough. But it would also give him freedom from the exactions of office hours and Grace Vitelli’s unprying but omnipresent eye.

  “What could have happened to her, Mr. MacGrath? I just don’t understand how a grown woman could simply disappear like that, into thin air.”

  Or as if the ground had swallowed her. Pick your own cliché.

  “I don’t know,” said Ernie. “But I expect she’ll turn up before long, somewhere.”

  Grace locked the door and put the key in her pocketbook. “I hope so. I certainly do. Carolyn Forbes was one of the nicest people I ever knew. I can’t bear to think of anything bad happening to her.”

  They walked together along the hall.

  “By the way,” said Ernie, “do you know a Mary Catherine Brewer?”

  “No,” said Grace. “Now wait. Yes I do. That is, I don’t know her but I know who she is. She’s the girl Mrs. Guthrie lives with.”

  “Mrs. Guthrie?”

  “Lorene Guthrie. A client of Mr. Forbes’.” There was a faint note, Ernie thought, of disapproval in Grace Vitelli’s voice. “He got her divorce for her.”

  “Pretty redheaded girl?”

  “That’s Lorene. Why?”

  “Oh, a friend of mine knows them and mentioned that they knew Ben.”

  They went down the stairs.

  “That’s funny,” Grace said. “I don’t think Mr. Forbes ever met the Brewer girl at all. I talked to her once on the phone.”

  “Well,” said Ernie, opening the door for her, “my friend must have been mistaken. I got the idea from him that they knew each other pretty well.”

  Grace shook her head. “I can’t imagine what would give him that idea. Of course Mr. Forbes might have had occasion to see Mrs. Guthrie on business, but otherwise, no.”

  On business. Yes. And if Ben had been in the office that morning, of course his car had been moved since last night.

  But it could have been moved as late as fifteen minutes before Ben got to the office. And he had certainly taken it back again in a hurry.

  They walked along the street to Ernie’s car.

  “Does Mrs. Guthrie work?”

  “Are you asking me in an official capacity, Mr. MacGrath?”

  That startled Ernie. He hesitated for a second, thinking of the best answer, and she beat him to it.

  “I don’t know what Lorene Guthrie has been saying or what impression she’s trying to give. But I can give you the exact facts, and in this case I don’t care whether I violate office ethics or not.”

  She was standing beside Ernie’s car, refusing to get in even though he had opened the door and was holding it for her. Her big dark eyes were flashing.

  “Lorene Guthrie was a poor little girl married to a big brute who treated her dreadfully. Mr. Forbes got her divorce and let her take as long as she wanted to pay for it, because he knew she was having a hard time. Yes, Lorene is working, she has a good job now at Blackstone’s, and she hasn’t paid a nickel on her bill in six months. You can tell her I said so. You can tell her if it wasn’t for Mr. Forbes’ generosity she’d have the collection agency after her right now. And you can tell whoever is interested that if she has implied that Mr. Forbes is anything more to her than her attorney she is lying. There. Does that answer your questions, Mr. MacGrath? All of them?”

  “Yes,” said Ernie. “Yes, it does.”

  “I’m glad. And I’ll tell you something else, Mr. MacGrath, You’d be better off spending your time looking for Carolyn than listening to cheap gossip about one of the finest men that ever stepped. And thank you very much but I’ll take the bus home.”

  She pushed past him and went off down the street. Ernie looked after her. Jesus, he thought. Like a tigress defending her cub. He had never seen Grace Vitelli blow her top before. It was an impressive sight.

  And she had answered his questions, all of them.

  But only from her point of view.

  thirteen

  Ben Forbes did not go anywhere that Saturday night. He sat in the living room and listened to the silence, and one whole day of his precious five was gone.

  The search for Al Guthrie was over before it had ever really got started.

  His hands had stopped shaking now, he noticed. He was not surprised. Everything in him had stopped. He had had a sort of frantic hope that he would learn something useful from the people Guthrie had been with. Now that was gone and there was nothing.

  Count them, name them over. Sunday. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Four days.

  A lifetime.

  And it was so cruelly tantalizing. Guthrie had spoken to the woman. What was her name? Selma. He had mentioned a house. He had mentioned a part of town where nobody knew him. One word more would have done it. Just a single word more. And he had not spoken it.

  There were sixty thousand people in Woodley and they all lived in houses. There would not be time enough in four days to knock on every door.

  But you had to do something. You could not simply sit and wait. Wait for Guthrie to call at eight-thirty on Wednesday night—“and be there,” Guthrie had said, “and don’t have anybody with you, because there won’t be a second time.” Wait for Guthrie to ask if you have arranged it with Lorene and tell him no. Tell him that Lorene is going to marry a man named Vernon Kratich. Then hang up the phone and wait again. Wait to see how many Guthrie can kill before the police get him. Carolyn is the only one that’s certain.

  Ben walked up and down and tried to think, and his brain was as inert as a stone.

  But you had to do something.

  He could call Ernie MacGrath. It would be signing Carolyn’s death warrant but tha
t was signed anyway, and it might save other lives. Lorene’s. Vernon Kratich’s. Possibly his own, if that mattered any more.

  And who worries about Lorene’s life? Or Vernon Kratich’s?

  Or my life, Ben thought. What the hell good is it to me now.

  Still, you had to do something.

  He walked heavily out to the phone and sat down and started to dial Ernie’s number.

  He could not finish it. He put the phone down and sat looking miserably at the floor. Then he got the whiskey bottle from the kitchen and turned out all the lights and went to bed.

  Sometime during the middle hours of the night he woke and saw a bar of moonlight falling across Carolyn’s bed, and the voice of the woman in the Lanternman spoke in his mind.

  He only said it was in a part of town where nobody knew him.

  How many parts of town were there where Al Guthrie was known? If you took those away, how many would be left?

  He repeated that to himself three or four times. When it had penetrated all the way through he jumped up and blundered out into the hall, turning the light on. He could not remember Lorene’s phone number and it was not listed under her name. He tried Brewer, found it, and dialed.

  The phone rang and rang. Finally it stopped and a woman’s voice said, “What is it?”

  “Lorene?”

  “No. This is Mary Catherine. Who are you and what do you want?”

  “Is Lorene there?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Me. Ben Forbes.”

  “Good God, Mr. Forbes, don’t you know what time it is? It’s twenty minutes to three.”

  “I know, but—please, is Lorene there?”

  “No, she is not.”

  “Do you know when—”

  “No, I do not. Mr. Forbes, what’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing,” said Ben. “It’s just—I had an important question to ask her.”

  “Well, you call again tomorrow. Not too early.”

  She hung up before he could say anything more. He went back in and lay down on the bed again. He wondered if Carolyn was sleeping, or whether she too was awake and staring at some unresponding ceiling.

  Of course she was still alive. Guthrie wouldn’t lie about that. He wouldn’t kill her before the time was up.

  Unless his own safety demanded it.

  The nights were always the worst. They held you prisoner with your thoughts and there was no escape even in sleep. Because even your sleep was different now, a strained uneasy thing, a half-world peopled with reflections from the waking day. You dreamed about Guthrie and Carolyn, Lorene and death.

  But morning came and you were still there. And you washed and shaved, dressed and breakfasted, held together by the thin glue of habit.

  Johnny Pettit came over with some special hot rolls Louise had made out of a new mix. He sat and made cheery small talk until Ben’s unresponsiveness and the general air of the house daunted him and he went home.

  Ernie MacGrath called about ten. He asked Ben how he was and Ben said he was fine. Ernie said he had heard nothing new and Ben said that he had not either. Ernie said how about coming over for the day and Ben said no, he wasn’t up to it. Ernie did not insist. When he hung up, Ben felt vaguely that something had been lacking in Ernie’s voice and conversation. He did not care enough about it to try to think what it was.

  He restrained himself until eleven and then he called Lorene.

  “Listen,” he said, not giving her a chance to do more than say hello, “I want a list of all the places where you and Al lived in Woodley. The neighborhoods where you used to go to shop, or to bars or garages or restaurants, the places where Al worked.”

  “You want it right now?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But, gee, Mr. Forbes, there were a lot of them. Al never was one to stay put, always fighting with the landlord or the neighbors. I just got up and I don’t feel like—”

  “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to have it.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I have to find Al.” He caught himself, softened the tone of his voice, made it casual. “I thought I explained that to you.”

  “Well, I don’t see how that’s going to help, a lot of places where we used to live.”

  “Please, Lorene. Never mind that. Just give them to me.”

  She hesitated, so long that he thought she was going to tell him to go to the devil and hang up. But finally in a sulky ill-natured tone she began to recite addresses. She could not remember all or even most of the numbers, but that did not matter. The streets, the neighborhoods, the places of employment were the important part. He wrote them down as she gave them.

  It was quite a long list. Longer than he had hoped.

  “You’re sure that’s all?” he asked when she had finished.

  “Yes, that’s all.”

  “Thank you,” he said, and hung up. He got the street map of Woodley out of the car and brought it in and spread it on the dining table. He got to work.

  In about half an hour the phone rang. It was Vernon Kratich.

  “I’m glad I caught you in, Mr. Forbes. I want to talk to you. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  “But,” said Ben, “I’m very busy.”

  “This won’t take long,” Kratich said, politely inflexible. “I’ll be right there.”

  Irritated and uneasy, Ben put away the map and the list and waited.

  Kratich came in something less than fifteen minutes. Ben let him in but did not ask him to sit down. “I really am very busy,” he said. “What was it you wanted?”

  Kratich regarded him steadily with a shrewd hard gaze. “I want to know what you’re up to with Lorene.”

  Ben tightened up. “I don’t think I understand you.”

  “Calling up in the middle of the night. Asking all these crazy questions about Al Guthrie. You’ve got her very upset, Mr. Forbes. I want to know why.”

  “I told you why. It’s necessary for me to find Guthrie—”

  “I know that’s what you told me. I also know that you’re Lorene’s lawyer, not his, and there isn’t any reason under the sun why you should have to find him. And if you did there are better ways of doing it than calling up at 3 A.M. to find out where he lived a year ago.”

  “Mr. Kratich,” said Ben harshly, “will you allow me to handle my own affairs? Please.” He put his hand on the door.

  Kratich shook his head. “Don’t rush me, I’m not through yet. Where Lorene is concerned I’m concerned too. In plain English, Mr. Forbes, I want you to stop hounding her.”

  “Hounding her,” said Ben bitterly. “That’s fine.” He opened the door. “I think you better go.”

  Kratich refused to stir. He took out his wallet and removed a check from it.

  “I found out from Lorene how much money she owes you. She has a great deal to learn, Mr. Forbes, and I understand her faults probably better than anyone. But I also understand why she has them. For the first time in her life she was able to buy some of the things she always wanted.” He held the check out to Ben. “This covers it, I think. And any further business you have with Lorene you can refer to my attorney, Jacob Lender. He’ll take care of it.”

  Ben stared at the check. Then he stared at Kratich.

  “Take your check,” he said, “and get out of here.”

  Kratich looked at him, narrow-eyed. He hesitated, then shrugged and put the check back in his wallet. “Very well. I’ll handle this through Mr. Lender.”

  He walked to the door and stopped close to Ben, facing him.

  “I don’t know what your angle is, Mr. Forbes. Maybe you’re a sick man. Miss Brewer thinks so. But you’re not too sick to understand what I’m saying. If you bother Lorene any more I’ll make trouble for you.”

  “Lorene,” said Ben savagely. “Damn Lorene.”

  He shoved Kratich bodily through the door and slammed it after him. Hounding Lorene, indeed. The bitch. Answering a few questions was too much
for her, but it didn’t matter what happened to Carolyn. And Kratich. The hell with Kratich. If he gets in my way, Ben thought, I’ll tramp him under.

  He went back into the dining room and pulled out the map and the list. And then he thought, Good God, what’s happening to me? Lorene doesn’t know anything about Carolyn, and Kratich is only trying—

  If he gets in my way toward what, will I tramp him under?

  Never mind. It isn’t important. The map is the important thing.

  He bent over the map, marking, checking, figuring.

  The list of Al Guthrie’s past residences and places of employment and recreation was not as extensive as it had looked at first. A number of the addresses overlapped, being on different streets but in the same neighborhood. Even so, Woodley was not a big city and its businesses and shopping centers were not infinite in number. By the time he had eliminated all the areas where Al Guthrie was sure to be known, Ben was left with a section in the northeast, the whole of the west side, and the South Flat.

  The northeast section, on the borders of which he lived himself, was Woodley’s current Millionaire’s Row and not a likely area for Guthrie to choose. That still left a lot of territory, a hopeless amount of it if you went by forgotten things like hope.

  But if Al Guthrie had taken a house—bought or rented? Rented, surely—he must have rented it from somebody, and that usually meant a real estate agent. If you went around to the agents in the different neighborhoods, you might find one who remembered renting a house within the last three weeks to a man of Al Guthrie’s description.

  In some areas Sunday was the big day for real estate because families had the time then to look at houses together. Some of the agencies might be open. And Ben could not afford to waste even a few hours.

  He stuffed the map in his pocket and left the house.

  The west side was the biggest and the most populous area. He started there. He worked carefully and methodically, beginning at the northern edge of the district and moving south. He found several agencies open, chiefly on the outskirts of town where Woodley was running off again into subdivided farmland, where small pastel structures sat in rows on the raw new-graded ground with little flags fluttering in the November wind. None of the people he questioned remembered anyone of Guthrie’s description. When Ben drove toward home again all he had succeeded in doing was to eliminate half a dozen agencies.