The Deep End

by Fredric Brown

  I drove home because there wasn’t any other place to go. I wanted a drink badly, several drinks. But there wasn’t anything to drink at home and where can you get a drink or a bottle at five o’clock? Of course I could commit another burglary, a liquor store this time. But not right now, thanks. Some other time, not right now.

  It was getting light by the time I got home.

  Well, I’d found out what I wanted to know, and without having to confide in Nina so she’d get the information for me. The file on Obie plus the annual for the last year had given me the three facts I wanted. And I wished now that they had been otherwise. If I could have given Obie an alibi for, say, two out of the three deaths that he might have caused at the school, I might have been able to write off the whole thing and forget it. But things hadn’t been that simple for me.

  In his freshman year Obie had had a fifth-period algebra class; that meant his lunch period was the second one. He could have pushed Wilbur Greenough from the tower window. He had been in the same gym class as the boy who’d been killed in the gym locker room.

  And he’d belonged to the Drama Club. In fact, he must have been a very active member of it because the two pages of the school annual of last year given to the Drama Club had shown scenes from and listed the cast of the three plays the Drama Club had put on. Obie had played the lead in one and a supporting role in each of the others. There was every chance that Obie had attended the meeting that preceded the death of Constance Bonner and had known that she was alone in the school building after it.

  I’d noticed too that one of the three plays had been Shakespeare’s Othello and that Obie had played the role of Iago. Iago, murderer. Iago, almost the only villain in literature who knew he was a villain and gloried secretly in his villainy and his cleverness in concealing it. Had Obie chosen that role?

  I’d glanced back in the faculty section of the annual too and had looked at the picture of Constance Bonner. With a light tasteful black border around it and the date of her death. Just “Died, January 24, 1952”; whether accident, suicide or murder not specified.

  So Obie could have killed all three of them.

  All right, Sam Evans, what now? Where do you go from here?

  2

  Five-thirty in the morning is a hell of a time for it to be unless you’re sleepy or unless you’ve got something to do. I’d never felt wider awake in my life and there wasn’t any use in my going back to bed.

  There wasn’t any use in my doing anything else either. Particularly there wasn’t any use in my trying to think any more about anything. Nor in trying to read to pass the time; I did try that and found I couldn’t concentrate for two consecutive sentences.

  I wandered around like a lost soul for a while and then decided I might as well be doing something useful so I straightened up the house. Washed the few dishes and glasses I’d used, made the bed, did a little dusting in places where dust showed. Daylight by the time I’d finished all that. I remembered the coal bin in the basement that had broken last winter and which I had to fix sometime before we ordered more coal in the fall. And that sometime had might as well be now. I started to change into old clothes for the job and then decided what the hell, why get even old clothes full of coal dust? I went down to the basement wearing only a pair of shoes, the ideal costume for carpentering a coal bin. It was a lot bigger job than I’d thought; I didn’t finish until almost ten o’clock. I took off the worst of the dirt at the faucet in the basement and then went upstairs to the bathroom and shaved while I drew a full tub of hot water.

  I got in and it felt good. I made myself comfortable with my head on the end of the tub and the next thing I knew the water was cold and twelve o’clock whistles were blowing. I dried myself and dressed. I could have gone to bed instead and slept a few more hours except that I was ravenously hungry and there was nothing in the house.

  I went to a good restaurant and ate a big meal. When I came out it was a bright afternoon and I had a bright idea. There’s a small privately owned lake only twelve miles from town on Highway 71 where the fishing is fairly good and where you can rent a boat, a rod, full fishing equipment. Why didn’t I get away from everything I’d been thinking about and worrying about and have myself at least half a day’s fishing? Afternoon isn’t the best time, of course, but I still might catch a few and if I didn’t it wouldn’t matter too much.

  I got in the Buick and headed out of town west on 71.

  I was just a mile or so past the city limits when I began to be convinced that I was being followed. By a jalopy.

  I hadn’t been looking for a tail, nothing had been farther from my mind. But I’d happened to notice this jalopy–it wasn’t the topless one with the wolf’s head on the radiator; this one was a hard-topped coupe, vintage of about 1930–while we were still back in town. I’d noticed it because I’d come perilously close to running a red light and I’d looked in my rear vision mirror to see if a police car or motorcycle was coming after me. None was, but I saw that the car behind me was running the light too, taking more of a chance than I had. And it had stayed with me, dropping back to a little greater distance when we were out of town traffic, but passing cars when I passed them and yet not passing me, holding his distance behind me and not closing up, when I slowed down quite a bit to see what he’d do.

  He was good at it. I’d probably never have noticed him if it hadn’t been for what had happened at the stop light.

  It scared me a little. Obie? Apparently he didn’t have a car of his own, but he could have borrowed one from a friend–and the jalopy following me was the kind of car a high school kid would be likely to have. But why would Obie be following me? I thought back and couldn’t figure any way in which he could have learned that I was interested in him. I hadn’t asked many people questions about him and none of the people I’d even mentioned his name to had been close to him or likely to tell him about it

  Dr. Wygand? I’d come nearer to talking frankly to him than to anyone else but it was ridiculous to think he’d have called Obie or even Armin Westphal to say I’d been asking questions. Doc is a right guy. The only person I’d talked to about Obie who could have felt close to him was Grace Smith, his classmate, but that had been while she and I and everyone else had thought Obie had been killed by the roller coaster and my questions had been the legitimate questions of a reporter at work. No, that was out.

  But who else would be following me in a jalopy? Police or private detectives don’t use conspicuously ancient wrecks like that one for tailing.

  All I could tell at the distance it kept behind me was that there was only one person, the driver, in it.

  Did I have nerve enough to force the issue and find out who he was? I decided that I did but that I’d rather do it in a town, where there’d be other people around, than out here on the open road. Barnesville, a town with a wide main street, good for making U-turns, was only a mile or two ahead and I’d do it there. I drove at an even speed and the jalopy kept an even distance behind me. It dropped back a little when we entered the town.

  I made my play when we were a little way into Barnesville but not yet to the business section. I went to one side of the street and drove along slowly and pretended to be watching street numbers. I made a point of not looking back but the jalopy didn’t pass me.

  I stopped in front of a house and got out. I managed to glance back without seeming to do it deliberately as I closed the door of the car. The jalopy was parking about half a block behind me. Still too far for me to see the driver or read the license plate.

  I did what I thought was a nice bit of acting, a double take on the house number, as though I’d read it wrong the first time. I made a pass at going back to my car and then pretended to decide that there was no use moving it and that I’d walk back to the right number. I started walking briskly back toward the jalopy, pretending to watch the house numbers to my left but able, since it was in the general di
rection I was walking, to keep a watch on the jalopy too. I figured that by the time he could do anything I’d be close enough to get a look at him and to read the license plate.

  But maybe my acting hadn’t been so hot or maybe he was smarter than I’d given him credit for being. Apparently he’d kept his engine running and I hadn’t taken more than a dozen steps before he shoved his car into gear and got the hell out of there. He U-turned right from the curb and headed back the way we’d come.

  He must have had a good lead on me by the time I got back to my car and got it started; I hadn’t been smart enough to leave the engine running. And a stream of traffic materialized and kept me from U-turning for another minute or two–and that was too long. I drove back to town as fast as I dared but I never caught him. Maybe he’d played safe by turning off just outside Barnesville somewhere. Or maybe the jalopy was a hot rod and he’d simply walked away from me.

  Well, there was one thing I could do, anyway. Find out whether Obie was home. I parked and went into a drugstore, used the phone booth to call the Westphal residence. A female voice answered and I asked if Obie was there.

  “Just a moment, please.”

  I wanted to be sure; she might think he was somewhere around when he wasn’t. But a minute later Obie’s voice said, “Hello.” I recognized the voice; I’d heard him talking to his friends in the railroad station a couple of days ago. But he’d never heard my voice and I didn’t want him to. Nor the click of a phone being hung up on him. I just waited until he’d said “Hello” a few more times and then replaced the receiver on his end.

  It hadn’t been Obie in the jalopy that had followed me. His home was on another side of town, a good five miles from here. And the jalopy couldn’t possibly have done ten miles while I’d chased it five, not unless it had averaged over a hundred and twenty miles an hour for ten miles, five miles of which was on city streets. And that was ridiculous.

  I drove back out on Highway 71 and spent the afternoon fishing at the private lake but I didn’t enjoy it very much. I kept wondering and worrying about that jalopy. I tried to tell myself I might have been mistaken about it and that its U-turn and getaway just when I was walking back to it had been coincidence. But I knew damned well it hadn’t been.

  I caught three pike but when I stopped home to dress for dinner with Nina I gave them to a neighbor. If I’d taken them with me to Nina’s she might have insisted on cooking them for us and I’d decided definitely that I wanted to take her out this evening and didn’t want any argument about it.

  No car, jalopy or other, followed me between home and Nina’s. I made sure of that because if whoever had followed me before wanted to pick me up again he’d have been waiting somewhere near my house to do it.

  3

  I got there a few minutes early but, miraculously, Nina was ready. She was beautiful in a white silk dinner dress that fitted her like a coat of paint and set off her slightly olive skin and dark hair and eyes.

  I kissed her and it was as though I hadn’t kissed her for weeks and had been missing her every minute. Her lips were hungry against mine and she clung to me. Then she put her head back but kept her arms around me and looked at me, her eyes a little misty.

  “I’m so glad you came tonight, Sam.”

  “I am too, darling.”

  “There isn’t much more time, is there?”

  I knew what she meant and I wanted suddenly to tell her there was all the time in the world and that I loved her to pieces. But I didn’t know for sure whether that was true or not and so I couldn’t say it.

  “I don’t know,” I had to say. “All I know is that right now I love you.”

  She smiled. “Thanks for that, anyway. And I’m sorry–I didn’t mean to sound so serious. It’s been wonderful.”

  “It’s still wonderful,” I told her. “Don’t make it sound like a valedictory.” But I was thinking: This is Friday evening. Millie will probably be home the day after tomorrow. And what will happen then?

  I knew one thing that wouldn’t happen. I wouldn’t live with Millie and keep on seeing Nina, clandestinely. There’d have to be a clean break one way or the other.

  Nina stepped back from me. “Let’s have one drink here before we leave. Like a Martini?”

  “I’d love a Martini.”

  “As much as you love me?” Her tone was light.

  “At least as much.”

  “Good. You break out the ice cubes while I get the rest of the things.”

  The Martinis were excellent. We sat together on the sofa to drink them and my arm went about her as naturally as though it belonged there, which it did. And you need only one hand to drink a cocktail; not always even that if there’s a coffee table in front of you to put it down on.

  After we’d finished our drinks I drove us out to the Club Caesar. It’s small and pretty expensive, I’d heard. But I could stand the expense for one evening and the expensiveness had one advantage; there was little likelihood that anyone I knew would be there. And no one was.

  We each had another cocktail and then a good dinner, a damn good dinner. T-bone steaks, if it matters. It did matter then because I was starving by the time the steaks came.

  After dinner we danced, and not to a blaring orchestra but to music made by one man on one piano. A good man, a good piano, and good music. Music that you could talk against easily when you wanted to sit at your table and talk, as we did about half of the time. I’ve often wondered why the less you pay at a place the more music you get, in volume.

  We talked about her jobs, the school one and the social service one, about my job, about old times–our classes at high school and our teachers–and Nina could tell me which ones of them were still teaching there–and it was as though Nina and I hadn’t until then really got around to talking much. And somehow we seemed closer to one another than we’d ever been before–even in bed.

  After a while Nina said, “Let’s go back to my place, Sam. We can have a nightcap there.”

  I looked at my watch. “It’s early, only eleven. And tomorrow’s Saturday. No school.”

  “I’ve got to get up early just the same. My other job–I’ve got a nine o’clock appointment.”

  “All right,” I said. “If you won’t kick me out too soon after we get to your place. You had a good night’s sleep last night. Or did you?”

  “Ten hours, yes. Did you get to bed early?”

  “Eleven o’clock.” I didn’t add that I’d slept only about three hours then and another hour or so in the bathtub at around noon.

  “Good. Oh–what was it you wanted to talk to me about last night, Sam? Sorry I didn’t feel up to letting you come around, by the way.”

  “Nothing important,” I said. Then I remembered I’d said last night that it was important. “Something I wanted you to find out for me from the school files. But I got the information myself.” And then I realized what I’d said and added quickly, “Today, from the newspaper files.” Damn, that had been a silly thing to say. I thought that I’d covered all my tracks at the high school last night, but if I hadn’t, if Nina knew that the offices there had been entered last night, I was giving myself away.

  But apparently everything was all right. She asked, “Something in connection with your article on accidents?” And I nodded and she let it go at that and I didn’t have to think up any further evasions.

  I called for the check and it wasn’t as stiff as I’d expected.

  Driving back, I watched closely for headlights that might be following me, but there weren’t any. Once in town I took a route that used little frequented streets and for blocks at a time there wasn’t any other car in sight.

  We made Martinis again. We were getting to be a good team at it. Fast and efficient, each of us having his allotted part in the operation. It just couldn’t be, I thought, that this was the last or almost the last time we’d make them t
ogether.

  And again we sat on the sofa with my arm around her and I felt at peace and unworried. Which worried me. It’s one thing when a married man feels excited about a woman other than his wife; he can get over that. But when he feels at peace with her, it’s serious.

  And suddenly I wanted to level with Nina. Not about our personal relationships, not about that until I was sure and it would be wrong for me to be sure until after I’d seen Millie again. I mean about what I’d really been investigating, or trying to investigate, this week. About Obie, and what I thought he was. It was something I’d have to talk over with someone, sometime, if only to see how it sounded when put in words. And would she laugh at me or take it seriously?

  “Nina, how well do you know Obie Westphal? What do you think of him?”

  She pulled away far enough so she could turn and look at me and there was surprise in her face. “Sam, why on earth are you interested in Obie Westphal? You asked me questions about him earlier this week.”

  I thought, not yet; tell her in a minute but first get an unbiased opinion, what she thinks of him now before I tell her anything. Or maybe evasion had become a habit by now, too strong to break suddenly. I said, “I told you why I was interested, then. I spent last Saturday morning working on him, writing an obituary, a sob story, before it was known that the boy who was killed was Jimmy Chojnacki and not Obie. I read about him, what there was in our files, and I talked about him to one of his classmates who had a crush on him, and I wrote about him. I got interested in him, say, like you get interested in a character in a book.” I took a sip of the drink in my free hand and pulled Nina back against me with the other. “Only with a character in a book all you can ever learn about him is what’s in the book. But Obie’s not only real, he’s still alive after I wrote an obit on him. So why would it be strange that I’m interested in him.”