Traitor to the Living

by Philip José Farmer

  "What happened?"

  She tried to tell him but could not get all the words out. He said, "Wait a minute," and then looked up at the top of the staircase. Mrs. Bronski was gone.

  "No, come with me," he said. "She may have gone after a gun."

  With the 7.92mm. in his right hand, he took Patricia's hand with his left and led her cautiously toward the door. He kept his eye on Mifflon because he might not be dead, and he could not see the 9mm. As they neared the door, the pistol came into sight. It was lying on the floor near Mifflon's outstretched hand.

  "Is Yohana dead?"

  She nodded and said, "I'm going to throw up."

  "You do that," he said. "I'm going upstairs to check on Bronski."

  "I don't want to go into the kitchen alone."

  She was very pale and trembling and obviously about to vomit.

  "He can't hurt you," Carfax said. "But stay here.

  Use that big bowl on the sideboard. Or the floor. I'll apologize to the host."

  .She looked at him strangely and then dashed for the bowl. He walked to the foot of the steps and examined Mifflon. Only one out of the twelve bullets Patricia had fired had hit him, but that had been enough. It had torn off his left shoulder, and knocked him back about three meters. The floor around him was a mass of blood and pieces of flesh and bone. Whoever he was, Miffion had gone back where he had come from. And the Carfaxes would be charged with murder. Who'd believe their story?

  He picked up the automatic, unloaded it, and noted that the clip was full. He dropped the gun in his coat pocket and ran up the steps. At the top, he paused, listened, and then stuck his head around the corner at the base of the wall. No one was in sight. He rose and went softly down the hallway, looked into Mifflon's room, which was lit with one lamp, and then put his ear to the door of Bronski's room. He could hear her talking excitedly, though in a low voice. He hoped she wasn't calling the police.

  No, she wasn't. She was speaking to Western.

  He tried the knob. It was locked. Bronski must have been watching the door, since she had now quit talking. At least, he could not hear her voice.

  Shooting out the key lock looks impressive on TV.

  But the bullet is liable to ricochet, and the lock mechanism may become jammed. Nor is it easy to slam against the door with a shoulder and burst it open. This door was of thick oak and opened inward. Carfax would rebound with no damage to the door and considerable injury to himself.

  He raised his foot and kicked hard. His foot hurt, and the lock remained locked.

  He stood to one side to consider the situation. A gun banged inside, and a hole appeared in the door at a level which would have caught him in the stomach if he had been in front of it. Its report sounded like that of an 8.1mm.

  He went back to the head of the steps and called to Patricia. She straightened up from the bowl and walked to the foot of the staircase. She did not look at Mifflon.

  Her face was drawn and was a pale green. An odor of vomit mingled with that of gunpowder.

  "Go into the kitchen and get some screwdrivers and a hammer," he said. "If there aren't any there, get into the garage, though you may have to break a window to do it."

  "What are you going to do?" she said weakly.

  "I'm going to remove the hinges to Bronski's bedroom door. We're not going to leave any witnesses behind."

  "You mean you're going to kill her? You can't do that!"

  "I won't if she'll come along with us peaceably," he said, but he was lying. It would be too difficult to get her to a hiding place, and they did not have much time. Western must have ordered his local agents to get out here on the run.

  He went back to Bronski's door and applied his ear to the extreme right-hand side. She was talking again, but he could not distinguish more than a few words. He stepped back and to one side and said, loudly, "Come on out, Bronski! I won't hurt you. I just want to ask you a few questions!"

  "Go away!" she screamed.

  She wasn't a fool, though she was scared. If he had been in her position, he'd be scared, too.

  Patricia appeared in the hallway with two screwdrivers, a hammer, and a small crowbar. He put his finger over his lips and motioned for her to come to him.

  When he had the tools, he whispered, "Wash that blood off your coat."

  "What about the blood on yours?"

  "Yeah, I forgot."

  He took his coat off and handed it to her. She disappeared into Mifflon's room, and he began working on the hinges.

  Bronski fired six times, but all were aimed at the door. After jumping away at the first shot, he worked on the hinges. The screws came out, though not easily.

  He dug the end of the crowbar into the space between the frame and the wall. Four more holes appeared in the door. That would empty her clip. She'd have to reload. That would only take a few seconds, if she knew what she was doing, and she probably did. He stepped in front of ths door and worked savagely. The door inched out on the right side and suddenly that edge was free. He would have to stand before the door to pull it out further. He could not get enough purchase to work from the wall side.

  He bent low, grabbed the frame with both hands, and heaved backward. The door came out with a screech, quickly followed by four more shots.

  He was, for a moment, half-under the door, and if Bronski had known the situation she could have killed him.

  He retreated a few steps and shouted, "Throw the gun out and then you come out with your hands up, Bronski! Otherwise, I'll set fire to the house and wait for you outside!"

  Not a bad idea, he thought, except that it would bring the police, and they would sift out the 7.92mm. bullets, and it wouldn't be long before they would know that they were from his gun. Western's men would be digging them out, but they wouldn't be notifying the police. And they'd have his and Pat's fingerprints as additional clues. He had no time to wipe their prints off.

  Let Western's men clean up. They'd be looking for him even if they didn't have the bullets and the prints.

  Bronski did not know who he was, but she must have described him and Pat to Western. They'd get rid of the evidence, and all the police would find would be two bodies and a lot of bullet holes. They might not even find the bodies. He wouldn't put it past Western to bury them somewhere m the desert.

  "O.K., Bronski," he said. "I've got some kerosene from the garage. I'm going to sprinkle some along the hall and throw some in the doorway and then throw the can into your room."

  He waited. There was no sound within her room. Either she was not going to fall for it at all or she was waiting for him to throw the can in before she decided. And then it occurred to him that, now the door was open, Patricia would be an easy target for Bronski when she came out of Mifflon's room. He cursed himself for getting so raided he had not foreseen it. A moment later, the light went out in Mimon's room. Pat must have finished washing off the coats and then had realized that she would be in the light when she left.

  She was trapped unless Bronski surrendered.

  "I've got the match, Bronski!" he said. "It won't be necessary to throw the can m. All I have to do is set fire to the hallway!"

  "I don't smell any kerosene!" she screeched.

  He swore again, but he had to admire her even if it put him in a bad spot. She certainly was a tough old biddy.

  "You'll see it quick enough," he said. "I'm counting to three! If your gun isn't out in the hall by then, I'm lighting this match!"

  He could hear her now, but she was evidently asking Western for advice. He wondered how close Western's thugs were by now.

  "One!"

  He could no longer hear Bronski.

  "Two!"

  He moved next to the doorway.

  "And... "

  He leaped through the door, firing at the silhouette outlined against the thin drapes across the window.

  Her gun boomed, and flame spurted, and the silhouette disappeared.

  His leap had carried him into a chair, and he fell hea
vily with it beneath him. He slid off it, vaguely aware that his trousers were soaked, and rolled away from the chair. He heard Pat calling from her room, but he could not answer. Bronski would shoot in the area of his voice.

  Silence fell. He was breathing so hard that he could not have heard Bronski if she were still breathing. He did not know whether or not he had hit her; she might just be waiting for him to reveal himself.

  He removed his wristwatch--it wasn't working now, probably had been damaged sometime during the action--and he threw it across the room. It crashed against something, but the expected reaction did not come. Surely she was not cool enough to have resisted firing at the sound.

  He didn't have much time left. He had to make a move or he would be caught by Western's men. Reluctantly, he rose. The light from the lamp at the end of the hall fell through the door, showing him nothing but the legs of the chair and the rug. It was moonless and cloudy outside, but a faint light came through the windows from a streetlight down Firebird Lane about a quarter of a kilometer. The room was mostly shadow. No, there was something gleaming palely on the floor near the wall by the windows. Bronski's naked body.

  He approached her swiftly, since it was too late for caution. He leaned over her and felt for pulse and heartbeats. There were none. No wonder. The bullet had hit her solar plexus.

  He was glad that she had fired at him. If she had surrendered, logic would have demanded that he kill her, and he was not sure that he would have been able to do that. Logic required it, but, like most human beings, he often found it difficult to obey logic.

  He went to the hall and said, "Come on out. Pat. We have to hurry."

  Five minutes later, having gotten the garage keys from Yohana's apartment, they were driving the Zagreus down Firebird Lane. Carfax had hesitated about taking it and so running into Western's agents. A better route might be over the back wall. He had decided to chance the former, since they desperately needed mobility. They would have to walk through the streets of North Pacific Palisades--he wasn't going to meet the taxi--and if Western's men were in any numbers, they might send some cars out to look for them.

  They drove past the taxi waiting for them, and when they were out of its sight Carfax stepped on the accelerator.

  It eased up to its maximum sixty kilometers per hour and held it while he sped for five blocks. He slowed down then because he did not want to attract the attention of a police patrol. Before they had quite reached the end of Vista Grange Road, four cars passed them. Each contained four men.

  They might be coming home late from a party, but he did not think so. As soon as they had searched through Minion's house, they would recall the lone car they had passed, and at least one carful would go out in pursuit.

  Carfax had enough time to shake them. Once he hit the freeway, he drove just under the speed limit to the INTO station, abandoned the car, boarded the express to Woodland Hills, transferred to the Sierra Madre express, and got off at the second stop. Twelve minutes later, they were in their motel.

  Carfax poured Pat and himself a tall bourbon.

  "Good for the nerves," he said, "and deadens the conscience.

  Now tell me what happened in the kitchen?"

  "It was terrible," she said, "just awful. I went out one of the kitchen doors, just like you told me to. But I saw Yohana coming down the steps outside the garage, and I ran back in. He had a gun, so I knew you'd be in a bad spot if he came in from the other door. I grabbed a big knife off the rack and waited in the hallway outside the kitchen. I was shaking so badly I was afraid I'd drop the knife, and I was so weak I was sure I wouldn't be able to hurt him much with it. I held the handle with both hands, and when he came through the door I drove it as hard as I could into his stomach. He dropped his gun and staggered back, holding onto the knife, but I wouldn't let go, and then he fell back, and the knife came out. He died without making a sound; he didn't even groan."

  "Good girl," Carfax said. "I suppose the safety was off?"

  "The what?"

  "The safety mechanism on the automatic. If he'd left it on, nothing would have happened when you pulled the trigger."

  She looked horrified.

  "I've read about such things but I never thought about it. I just held the gun with both hands, pointed it at Minion, and squeezed the trigger. I guess I was aiming too low when I first shot, but the gun just pulled itself right on up."

  "One out of twelve isn't bad under such conditions," Carfax said. "It only takes one."

  He downed the drink, and the acrid pungent odor of gunsmoke, which had filled his nostrils since the shooting began, cleared away.

  "I'm going to take off these stinking wet clothes and take a shower. You want me to leave the water on?" "Please do," she said. She had a dreamy faroff expression, which disturbed him. She was retreating from the horrors of the night. When he came from the shower, he found her lying on the bed, fully clothed, and sleeping. Her glass was empty. He poured himself another one and contemplated the future. Whatever happened, it would come swiftly, and he wasn't going to like it.

  Patricia awoke him just at dawn with her moaning and crying for help. He awakened her and held her in his arms while she told him of her nightmare. She had been in her bedroom in the house in which she had lived as a child. She had been happily playing with her dolls when she saw the door to the attic slowly opening. She had frozen with terror while the door continued to open, and then she had cried for her mother as something black and shapeless oozed out from the attic.

  "It's daylight now, and you're not a child, and you're safe in my arms," he said.

  "I'll never be safe," she murmured, but she went to sleep at once. Unfortunately, he was too awake, and after lying on his back for half an hour, he got out of bed.

  At 09:00, she sat up in bed and looked at him as if she did not quite place him. He offered her a cup of coffee and while she drank it told her what he had seen on the early morning news.

  "The cops got an anonymous call about 06:30," he said. "The informant told them that three people had been killed at Mifflon's house. The cops went out there and found a lot of blood and bullet holes, but no corpses."

  "But why would Western tell the cops?" she said.

  "What does he care?"

  He smiled and said, "He didn't. I went down to the booth on the corner and phoned the North Pacific Palisades PD. I figured that Western's men had cleaned the place up by then and taken off. But I was dying of curiosity. I wanted to find out if Mifflon and the others had been left behind. It might have been several days before the cleaning women and the gardeners showed up.

  "We know one thing. Western can't turn us in now without implicating himself. Not that I expected him to. He'll be looking for us himself.

  "And now we can present some solid evidence to Western's enemies. The main difficulty there will not be finding them. The list of candidates is very long.

  What we have to do is pick the most powerful and the most ruthless."

  "You mean, an underground war?"

  "Essentially. In the beginning anyhow. They can start collecting evidence and when enough is assembled, then it can be brought out into the open."

  "Yes, if Western isn't so powerful by then that he just crushes us and nobody dares do anything about it."

  "I hope your middle name isn't Cassandra. Have another cup of coffee."

  17.

  After breakfast. Carfax went to the booth on the corner and phoned the agency. He arranged to meet an operative at a coffee shop which he designated by a code name. Since it was possible that Western had tapped Fortune and Thomdyke's lines, he had been using a code name for himself. He took the recording of Mifflon's voice, passed it on to the agent, and gave him a message in a sealed envelope.

  Two hours later, the waitress told him that he had a call. He answered it and heard Thomdyke's English accent.

  "Hello, Ramus?"

  "Here."

  "It's definitely not he."

  "That's what I thought. C
ould you mail me the phonograms at the designated address?"

  "I'll do that. Sorry I won't be hearing from you again."

  "I didn't say it wouldn't be again. I said for a long time. Well, thanks a lot. You've been very helpful. You know where to send the bill."

  "Of course. Good luck."

  "I'll need it," Carfax said, and he pressed the OFF button.

  Anywhere in the world was unhealthy for them, but Los Angeles was the unhealthiest. At 14:05, they walked out of the motel without signing out. Carfax, however, had arranged for the agency to pay the motel for them. The agency had also picked up the Zagreus at the INTO station and returned it to the rental company. After a short ride in a taxi, they boarded various INTO's, ending up in Sacramento. From there, using I.D. cards provided by Fortune and Thomdyke, they flew to St. Louis. Carfax wrote a letter to the agency, dismissing them. He thanked them for their invaluable services, but he thought it best that not even they know where he was from this point on.

  He and Patricia took the INTO to Busiris, Illinois, where he checked them in at a suburban motel under fake I.D.'s. To avoid the processing of the cards, he paid for their rooms in cash. This caused an odd look from the desk clerk, but looks never hurt anyone, according to Carfax's philosophy. He spent one day in Busiris arranging for the further care of his house and lawn and talking over the phone with the president of Traybell University. Chambers was understandably upset because Carfax would not be returning for the fall quarter. Carfax said that he was sorry, but he had to quit for personal reasons. If Chambers wished to blackball him, then he would have to do so.

  He almost gave in to the impulse to enter his house while he was in town. It had all the attractiveness of the womb: safety, warmth, coziness, relaxation, and an opportunity to become comparatively mindless for a while. But he resisted. Though it did not seem likely that Western had a man watching the place, he could not afford to take the chance.

  He and Patricia got off the INTO at Dayton, Ohio, where he called Richard Emerson of Manhattan and Guilford, Massachusetts. Mr. Emerson was a very rich and well-known Roman Catholic whose opinions of Western were legend. Carfax got through to him without identifying himself. The magic word was MEDIUM. He had some information which would reveal Western to be a murderer and a threat to the world. No, he Just could not say who he was at this time because Western would kill him if he discovered his whereabouts.