FOUR NOVELLAS OF FEAR: Eyes That Watch You, The Night I Died, You'll Never See Me Again, Murder Always Gathers Momentum

by Cornell Woolrich

  His face suddenly loomed out at Paine. His eyes bored into Paine’s with unmistakable intent. He didn’t look like one of those that come to get you. He acted like it. He thumbed his vest pocket for something, some credential or identification. He said in a soft, slurring voice that held an inflexible command in it, “Just a minute there, buddy. Your name’s Paine, ain’t it? I want to see you—”

  Paine didn’t have to give his muscular coordination any signal; it acted for him automatically. He felt his legs carry him back into the shelter of the courtyard in a sort of slithering jump. He was in at the foot of the public stairs before the other man had even rounded the building line. He was in behind his own door before the remorselessly slow but plainly audible tread had started up them.

  The man seemed to be coming up after him alone. Didn’t he know Paine had a gun? He’d find out. He was up on the landing now. He seemed to know which floor to stop at, which door to come to a halt before. Probably the janitor had told him. Then why hadn’t he come sooner? Maybe he’d been waiting for someone to join him, and Paine had upset the plan by showing himself so soon.

  Paine realized he’d trapped himself by returning here. He should have gone on up to the roof and over. But the natural instinct of the hunted, whether four-legged or two, is to find a hole, get in out of the open. It was too late now: he was right out there on the other side of the door. Paine tried to keep his harried breathing silent.

  To his own ears it grated like sand sifted through a sieve.

  He didn’t ring the bell and he didn’t knock; he tried the knob, in a half-furtive, half-badgering way. That swirl of panic began to churn in Paine again. He couldn’t let him get in; he couldn’t let him get away, either. He’d only go and bring others back with him.

  Paine pointed the muzzle of the gun to the crack of the door, midway between the two hinges. With his other hand he reached out for the catch that controlled the latch, released it.

  Now, if he wanted to die, he should open this door. The man had kept on trying the knob. Now the door slipped in past the frame. The crack at the other side widened in accompaniment as it swung around. Paine ran the gun bore up it even with the side of his head.

  The crash was thunderous. He fell into the flat, with only his feet and ankles outside.

  Paine came out from behind the door, dragged him the rest of the way in, closed it. He stopped, his hands probed here and there. He found a gun, a heftier, more businesslike one than his. He took that. He found a billfold heavy with cash. He took that, too. He fished for the badge.

  There wasn’t any in the vest pocket he’d seen him reach toward downstairs. There was only a block of cheaply print-ed cards. Star Finance Company. Loans. Up to any amount without security.

  So he hadn’t been one, after all; he’d evidently been some kind of a loan shark, drawn by the scent of Paine’s difficulties.

  Three times now in less than twenty-four hours.

  Instinctively he knew he was doomed now, if he hadn’t before. There wasn’t any more of the consternation he had felt the first two times. He kept buying off time with bullets; that was all it was now. And the rate of interest kept going higher; the time limit kept shortening. There wasn’t even any time to feel sorry.

  Doors had begun opening outside in the hall; voices were calling back and forth. “What was that—a shot?”

  “It sounded like in 3-B.”

  He’d have to get out now, right away, or he’d be trapped in here again. And this time for good. He shifted the body out of the line of vision from outside, buttoned up his jacket, took a deep breath; then he opened the door, stepped out, closed it after him. Each of the other doors was open with someone peering out from it. They hadn’t ganged up yet in the middle of the hall. Most of them were women, anyway. One or two edged timidly back when they saw him emerge.

  “It wasn’t anything,” he said. “I dropped a big clay jug in there just now.”

  He knew they didn’t believe him.

  He started down the stairs. At the third step he looked over the side, saw the cop coming up. Somebody had already phoned or sent out word. He reversed, flashed around his own landing, and on up from there.

  The cop’s voice said, “Stop where you are!” He was coming on fast now. But Paine was going just as fast.

  The cop’s voice said, “Get inside, all of you! I’m going to shoot!”

  Doors began slapping shut like firecrackers. Paine switched over abruptly to the rail and shot first.

  The cop jolted, but he grabbed the rail and stayed up. He didn’t die as easy as the others. He fired four times before he lost his gun. He missed three times and hit Paine the fourth time.

  It went in his chest on the right side, and knocked him across the width of the staircase. It flamed with pain, and then it didn’t hurt so much. He found he could get up again. Maybe because he had to. He went back and looked down. The cop had folded over the railing and gone sliding down it as far as the next turn, the way a kid does on a banister. Only sidewise, on his stomach. Then he dropped off onto the landing, rolled over and lay still, looking up at Paine without seeing him.

  Four.

  Paine went on up to the roof, but not fast, not easily any more. The steps were like an escalator going the other way, trying to carry him down with them. He went across to the roof of the next flat, and down through that, and came out on the street behind his own. The two buildings were twins, set back to back. The prowl car was already screeching to a stop, out of sight back there at his own doorway. He could hear it over the roofs, on this side.

  He was wet across the hip. Then he was wet as far down as the knee. And he hadn’t been hit in those places, so he must be bleeding a lot. He saw a taxi and he waved to it, and it backed up and got him. It hurt getting in. He couldn’t answer for a minute when the driver asked him where to. His sock felt sticky under his shoe now, from the blood. He wished he could stop it until eight-twenty. He had to meet Pauline on the train, and that was a long time to stay alive.

  The driver had taken him off the street and around the corner without waiting for him to be more explicit. He asked where to, a second time.

  Paine said, “What time is it?”

  “Quarter to six, cap.”

  Life was awfully short—and awfully sweet. He said, “Take me to the park and drive me around in it.” That was the safest thing to do, that was the only place they wouldn’t look for you.

  He thought, “I’ve always wanted to drive around in the park. Not go anywhere, just drive around in it slow. I never had the money to do it before.”

  He had it now. More money than he had time left to spend it.

  The bullet must still be in him. His back didn’t hurt, so it hadn’t come out. Something must have stopped it. The bleeding had let up. He could feel it drying on him. The pain kept trying to pull him over double though.

  The driver noticed it, said: “Are you hurt?”

  “No, I’ve got kind of a cramp, that’s all.”

  “Want me to take you to a drug store?”

  Paine smiled weakly. “No, I guess I’ll let it ride.”

  Sundown in the park. So peaceful, so prosaic. Long shadows across the winding paths. A belated nursemaid or two pushing a perambulator homeward. A loiterer or two lingering on the benches in the dusk. A little lake, with a rowboat on it—a sailor on shore leave rowing his sweetheart around. A lemonade and popcorn man trundling his wagon home for the day.

  Stars were coming out. At times the trees were outlined black against the copper western sky. At times the whole thing blurred and he felt as if he were being carried around in a maelstrom. Each time he fought through and cleared his senses again. He had to make that train.

  “Let me know when it gets to be eight o’clock.”

  “Sure, cap. It’s only quarter to seven now.”

  A groan was torn from Paine as they hit a lumpy spot in the driveway. He tried to keep it low, but the driver must have heard it.

  “Stil
l hurts you, huh?” he inquired sympathetically. “You oughta get it fixed up.” He began to talk about his own indigestion. “Take me, for instance. I’m okay until I eat tamales and root beer. Any time that I eat tamales and root beer—”

  He shut up abruptly. He was staring fixedly into the rear-sight mirror. Paine warily clutched his lapels together over his darkened shirt front. He knew it was too late to do any good.

  The driver didn’t say anything for a long time. He was thinking it over, and he was a slow thinker. Then finally he suggested offhandedly, “Care to listen to the radio?”

  Paine knew what he was out for. He thought, “He wants to see if he can get anything on me over it.”

  “May as well,” the driver urged. “It’s thrown in with the fare; won’t cost you nothing extra.”

  “Go ahead,” Paine consented. He wanted to see if he could hear anything himself.

  It made the pain a little easier to bear, like music always does. “I used to dance, too,” Paine thought, listening to the tune, “before I started killing people.”

  It didn’t come over for a long time.

  “A city-wide alarm is out for Richard Paine. Paine, who was about to be dispossessed from his flat, shot and killed a finance company employee. Then when Officer Harold Carey answered the alarm, he met the same fate. However, before giving up his life in the performance of his duty, the patrolman succeeded in seriously wounding the desperado. A trail of blood left by the fugitive on the stairs leading up to the roof over which he made good his escape seems to confirm this. He’s still at large but probably won’t be for long. Watch out for this man—he’s dangerous.”

  “Not if you leave him alone, let him get to that train,” Paine thought ruefully. He eyed the suddenly rigid silhouette in front of him. “I’ll have to do something about him—now—I guess.”

  It had come through at a bad time for the driver. Some of the main driveways through the park were heavily trafficked and pretty well lighted. He could have got help from another car. But it happened to come through while they were on a dark, lonely byway with not another machine in sight. Around the next turn the bypass rejoined one of the heavy-traffic arteries. You could hear the hum of traffic from where they were.

  “Pull over here,” Paine ordered. He’d had the gun out. He was only going to clip him with it, stun him and tie him up until after eight-twenty.

  You could tell by the way the driver pulled his breath in short that he’d been wise to Paine ever since the news flash, had only been waiting until they got near one of the exits or got a red light. He braked. Then suddenly he bolted out, tried to duck into the underbrush.

  Paine had to get him and get him fast, or he’d get word to the park division. They’d cork up the entrances on him. He knew he couldn’t get out and go after him. He pointed low, tried to hit him in the foot or leg, just bring him down.

  The driver had tripped over something, gone flat, a moment ahead of the trigger fall. The bullet must have ploughed into his back instead. He was inert when Paine got out to him, but still alive. Eyes open, as though his nerve centers had been paralyzed.

  He could hardly stand up himself, but he managed to drag him over to the cab and somehow got him in. He took the cap and put it on his own head.

  He could drive—or at least he’d been able to before he was dying. He got under the wheel and took the machine slowly on its way. The sound of the shot must have been lost out in the open, or else mistaken for a backfire; the stream of traffic was rolling obliviously by when he slipped into it unnoticed. He left it again at the earliest opportunity, turned off at the next dark, empty lane that offered itself.

  He stopped once more, made his way to the back door, to see how the cabman was. He wanted to help him in some way if he could. Maybe leave him in front of a hospital.

  It was too late. The driver’s eyes were closed. He was already dead by this time.

  Five.

  It didn’t have any meaning any more. After all, to the dying death is nothing. “I’ll see you again in an hour or so,” he said.

  He got the driver’s coat off him and shrouded him with it, to keep the pale gleam of his face from peering up through the gloom of the cab’s interior, in case anyone got too close to the window. He was unequal to the task of getting him out again and leaving him behind in the park. The lights of some passing car might have picked him up too soon. And it seemed more fitting to let him rest in his own cab, anyway.

  It was ten to eight now. He’d better start for the station. He might be held up by lights on the way, and the train only stopped a few minutes at the uptown station.

  He had to rejoin the main stream of traffic to get out of the park. He hugged the outside of the driveway and trundled along. He went off the road several times. Not because he couldn’t drive, but because his senses fogged. He pulled himself and the cab out of it each time. “Train, eight-twenty,” he waved before his mind like a red lantern. But like a spendthrift he was using up years of his life in minutes, and pretty soon he was going to run short.

  Once an alarm car passed him, shrieking by, taking a short cut through the park from one side of the city to the other. He wondered if they were after him. He didn’t wonder very hard. Nothing mattered much any more. Only eight-twenty—train—

  He kept folding up slowly over the wheel and each time it touched his chest, the machine would swerve crazily as though it felt the pain, too. Twice, three times, his fenders were grazed, and he heard faint voices swearing at him from another world, the world he was leaving behind. He wondered if they’d call him names like that if they knew he was dying.

  Another thing: he couldn’t maintain a steady flow of pressure on the accelerator. The pressure would die out each time, as when current is failing, and the machine would begin drifting to a stop. This happened just as he was leaving the park, crossing the big circular exit plaza. It was controlled by lights and he stalled on a green out in the middle. There was a cop in control on a platform. The cop shot the whistle out of his own mouth blowing it so hard at him. He nearly flung himself off the platform waving him on.

  Paine just sat there, helpless.

  The cop was coming over to him, raging like a lion. Paine wasn’t afraid because of what the back of his cab held; he was long past that kind of fear. But if this cop did anything to keep him from that eight-twenty train—

  He reached down finally, gripped his own leg by the ankle, lifted it an inch or two clear of the floor, let it fall back again, and the cab started. It was ludicrous. But then some of the aspects of death often are.

  The cop let him go, only because to have detained him longer would have created a worse traffic snarl than there was already.

  He was nearly there now. Just a straight run crosstown, then a short one north. It was good he remembered this, because he couldn’t see the street signs any more. Sometimes the buildings seemed to lean over above him as though they were about to topple down on him. Sometimes he seemed to be climbing a steep hill, where he knew there wasn’t any. But he knew that was just because he was swaying around in the driver’s seat.

  The same thing happened again a few blocks farther on, directly in front of a large, swank apartment house, just as the doorman came flying out blowing a whistle. He’d caught hold of Paine’s rear door and swung it wide before the latter could stop him, even though the cab was still rolling. Two women in evening dress came hurrying out of the entrance behind him, one in advance of the other.

  “No—taken,” Paine kept trying to say. He was too weak to make his voice heard, or else they ignored it. And he couldn’t push his foot down for a moment.

  The foremost one shrieked, “Hurry, Mother. Donald’ll never forgive me. I promised him seven-thirty—”

  She got one foot on the cab doorstep. Then she just stood there transfixed. She must have seen what was inside; it was better lighted here than in the park.

  Paine tore the cab away from her, open door and all, left her standing there petrif
ied, out in the middle of the street in her long white satin gown, staring after him. She was too stunned even to scream.

  And then he got there at last. He got a momentary respite, too. Things cleared a little. Like the lights going up in a theater when the show is over, before the house darkens for the night.

  The uptown station was built in under a viaduct that carried the overhead tracks across the city streets. He couldn’t stop in front of it; no parking was allowed. And there were long lines of cabs on both sides of the no-parking zone. He turned the corner into the little dead-end alley that separated the viaduct from the adjoining buildings. There was a side entrance to the station looking out on it.

  Four minutes. It was due in another four minutes. It had already left downtown, was on its way, hurtling somewhere between the two points. He thought, “I better get started. I may have a hard time making it.” He wondered if he could stand up at all.

  He just wanted to stay where he was and let eternity wash over him.

  Two minutes. It was coming in overhead, he could hear it rumbling and ticking along the steel viaduct, then sighing to a long-drawn-out stop.

  That sidewalk looked awfully wide, from the cab door to the station entrance. He brought up the last dregs of vitality in him, broke away from the cab, started out, zigzagging and going down lower at the knees every minute. The station door helped pull him up straight again. He got into the waiting room, and it was so big he knew he’d never be able to cross it. One minute left. So near and yet so far.

  The starter was calling it already. “Montreal express—eight-twenty!—Pittsfield, Burlington, Rouse’s Point, Mon-treyall! Bo-o-ard!”

  There were rows of lengthwise benches at hand and they helped him bridge the otherwise insuperable length of the waiting room. He dropped into the outside seat in the first row, pulled himself together a little, scrambled five seats over, toppled into that; repeated the process until he was within reach of the ticket barrier. But time was going, the train was going, life was going fast.