Man Drowning

by Henry Kuttner

  I made myself turn my mind away from that.

  Then my thoughts circled back to the memory that had been waiting for me all evening, and I lay there picturing the rug, and the floor safe under it, and the safe stuffed with dough. Seven grand—Sherry.

  It was about thirty feet away from me, horizontally, and maybe a foot straight down. It might as well have been in Fort Knox. But it wasn’t so much the locked steel door that was holding me back—I could see ways to get around that, one way or another. The real reasons why I couldn’t touch the money didn’t have a thing to do with safes or combinations. Suppose I did get hold of it? The police were watching me already, and even if they hadn’t been, the Count wasn’t a fool and neither was his wife. What good would it do me to give Sherry the dough if I landed in prison? That way, I’d lose her too.

  I couldn’t see any answer. So, thinking about Sherry, I turned over and got ready to worry some more. But somehow I fell asleep right away.

  Then I started to dream.

  I was looking at a bulging white shirt front and watching my fist moving slowly toward it. I concentrated on my fist. I tried to ignore the creased shirt and the pink, contorted face I knew would be above it if I looked up. Ed Gavotte faded away as I watched my hand, and then my index finger was hooked inside a trigger guard and the warm, smooth stock of a Garand was against my cheek and the familiar pressure braced against my shoulder. Take it easy, relax, watch and sight. Look at the bushes and wait for a movement.

  There was a movement.

  Then I felt myself falling, and I was splashing around in saltwater that got in my throat and stung like the Count’s cigarette smoke. I had on fatigues and GI shoes and a rucksack and an ammo belt and I couldn’t let go of my rifle. I tried to swim, but I went down once and twice and three times, and the last time I didn’t come up. Then I realized I was drowning and I’d never see Sherry again. I couldn’t face that. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t go on living without her.

  But you’re not going to go on living, I thought.

  I had to. I had to swim up, somehow. Only I couldn’t swim; I’d forgotten how. All around me there must be plenty of fish swimming along like experts, but I couldn’t manage it; there was too much weight dragging me down. And I’d never learned to swim, anyhow.

  Then somebody threw me a rope. But when I grabbed it, it broke. That didn’t matter; somebody else had thrown me another by then, and I started hauling myself hand over hand along it. The guy at the other end was Ed Gavotte. He didn’t hate me any more; in fact, he was pulling me right into his gin-mill so he could offer me a partnership. But just as I was nearly on dry ground, he let go of the rope.

  Other people kept throwing me ropes, and then letting go of them…

  I sank down in cool, dark water. It wasn’t too bad. It kept getting darker and quieter. The roaring in my ears was fading. I stopped dog-paddling. I noticed the back of my hand, floating in front of my face. The skin was getting lighter, changing from tan to white. And my clothes were dissolving off of me. I was going back a long ways, I thought, and the water was getting into my brain and washing out memories. I began to feel better. I was still holding my breath, but I almost decided not to. The water had to soak all through me, inside and out, before…before—

  Count De Anza threw me a rope. I grabbed it.

  He hauled me up through the water. My clothes stopped dissolving and got solid against my skin again. If De Anza let go of the rope, the way the others had…if I couldn’t manage to keep on holding my breath long enough…

  The pain in my throat woke me. Only it didn’t, because now I was standing in the De Anza living room, wearing my dripping wet fatigues and holding my rifle at parade rest. The Count was sitting opposite me, and the Countess lay on the sofa working crossword puzzles. Coiled in a heap on the carpet, right over where the safe was, I saw the king snake.

  The Count patted rouge on his cheeks and nodded in my direction.

  “My wife tells me,” he said, “that she found you asleep in the patio this morning. I don’t recommend sleeping in an uncomfortable chair, or in the hot sun. It’s apt to give a man unpleasant dreams.”

  He hadn’t noticed the rifle yet. I didn’t dare move, for fear I’d call his attention to it. But I didn’t want to stand there holding it, either. The damned thing might go off.

  The Count was still waiting. Staring at him, trying to hold his eyes, I said. “I got back late. I didn’t want to wake anybody up.”

  “It might be preferable to bad dreams. You were talking in your sleep, the Countess tells me.”

  I heard myself say, “Yes? What was I saying?”

  “Nothing very clear. Something about killing someone.”

  Time went slow. It took me hours to turn my head and look toward the Countess. I could see her sharp profile and the tight blue turban. Her pencil lifted, hung in the air, and jabbed down at the crossword book. She wasn’t listening, apparently.

  I started to turn my head back toward the Count, but my eyes wouldn’t do what I wanted. They slipped down from Mrs. De Anza to the carpet and across it till I was looking at my own feet. I wanted to run. But my feet looked too heavy to move, somehow, in their wet, heavy shoes.

  Army surplus shoes.

  I said, “That was in the Army. I still…I—” My tongue stuck. My thoughts had run aground.

  “Whom did you kill?”

  I was looking at a bulging white shirt front again and watching my fist move slowly toward it. I stared at my fist, trying to see the twisted pink face of Gavotte. But he wasn’t there; there wasn’t anything there except the smooth stock of the Garand against my cheek and the butt pressing against my shoulder. Relax your muscles, control your breathing, take it easy. Look at the bushes and wait for a movement.

  There was a movement.

  I woke up. The Countess was in bed with me.

  “I can’t help it,” she said, in a fast, breathless voice. “I can’t help it. I’m not a nymphomaniac. It’s only at times like these. Then I’ve got to do something, something, something. Always different. Always fast. There’s too much energy inside of me.”

  I don’t know how long she’d been talking. I sat up, and she got hold of my arm with fingers that bit in hard, like metal.

  “I can’t help it, Nick. I tell you I can’t. Don’t pull away. Leopold wanted to ask you to leave. I wouldn’t have it. He’s keeping you on because of me. He’s terrified of people and the things they can do. He’s seen too much of it. He thinks human being are devils, Nick, all of them. Just pretending to be civilized.”

  “Wait—” I said. “Wait.” I couldn’t stand the thought of that bony mummy beside me, with its red wire eyelashes and its skull-face. I didn’t know what I was saying. There was only one crazy certain thought that kept popping back into my head, regular as clockwork. It wouldn’t be any good. Not with you. Even if I could make myself do it, it wouldn’t be any good, I can tell that right now.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said rapidly. “He does what I want. When I feel this way, I—it’s only that I can’t sleep without dreaming. And I can’t stand those nightmares any more, I can’t—you don’t know. I’d rather be insane. That’s what will happen, unless…Nick, you’ve got to help me. You’ve got to.”

  “Listen,” I said. “Your husband’s in this same house. I—”

  “He’s old, he’s too old. This doesn’t mean anything to him any more. He’s got his own ways, with—Nick, I can’t help it, all I want is to get to sleep. I haven’t slept for two days. I want to sleep.”

  Another thought slipped in and joined the first crazy one; it had a label that said gigolo, and it had something to do with the floor safe. One way to get three thousand dollars, I thought, while my throat closed and tightened.

  No. Even if I would, I couldn’t. Not with her.

  I said, “Look, I…I want a drink. I’m not even awake yet.” I reached out in the dark to touch her and drew my hand
back without doing it.

  “Don’t go away. Don’t.”

  “I tell you, I’m not awake. I need a couple of shots. That’s what you need too, I’ll bet.”

  “Nick!”

  I pulled myself out of her grip and got out of the bed as fast as I could, my skin crawling. I was glad it was too dark for her to see me. Fumbling in the blackness—the moon must have gone down—I found my pants and pulled them on. I didn’t bother with shirt or shoes. I said, “I’m going to get a bottle. Understand?”

  There was a silence in which I could hear her breathe. Then she laughed, a harsh, cracked sound.

  “I’m not insane,” she said. “Don’t you know the difference between—All right. Get a drink. But—”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  She didn’t answer. I could hear her fingernails scratching on linen slowly. I went out, crossed the patio, went through the kitchen into the living room, and switched on a lamp. I looked quickly at the couch. The Count wasn’t there. I don’t know whether or not I expected him to be. I went over to the bar and hung on to it with both hands, trying to think. If only Mrs. De Anza looked just a little bit less like a living mummy, I might have been able to take it, for three thousand bucks. But I knew when I was facing something impossible, and I was glad I didn’t have to go through with it.

  But I had to think of something. I kept listening for her footsteps.

  When I looked around the room, trying to find the answer, my eyes stopped at one place on the rug. That would be the answer, for me, if I could only work it out the right way.

  It wasn’t the Countess’ answer; money didn’t mean a thing to her. She wanted something else. She wanted to go to sleep, that was all—and sleep without dreaming. And, with her dough, she couldn’t even manage a simple thing like that. Just as I couldn’t get what I wanted, even though it was only a few feet away from me. As for the Countess, an idea began to stir at the back of my head. Something I’d forgotten till now.

  I uncorked a bottle of brandy and poured stiff shots in two glasses. Then I doubled the amount. I put the bottle back and finally remembered another bottle, the one I’d got at the Phoenix drugstore, with the Countess’ sleeping caps in it.

  I found it in her bathroom.

  I had no way of knowing whether or not the Count was awake, or where he might be. I took five capsules, in my hand, back to the living room. I opened one and let the powder sift down into the brandy. I put the empty capsule in my pocket and opened another.

  Then the thought hit me: Suppose it kills her?

  Was that what the Count had been talking about? The time when a man first kills unnecessarily? The time when he becomes a murderer, a guy who can’t stop, who’s gone down for the third time, and never comes up again?

  I opened two more capsules and put the contents in the brandy.

  Carrying the glasses, I went back to my room.

  I sat on the bed beside her.

  “Listen,” I said, “I’m worried about your husband.”

  “Don’t be. It isn’t necessary.”

  “Why don’t you take a sleeping pill?”

  I heard her laughing harshly in the dark.

  “Gallant bastard.”

  “I’m sorry. Remember I’m working for you. You told me to take care of details. And you said what you want to do is get to sleep.”

  “Go on, say it.”

  “I said I’m worried, didn’t I? Guys get shot for things like this. How do I know your husband won’t come after me with a shotgun? Maybe you need a drink.”

  “No. I don’t…Nick.”

  Her hand touched me. I got her wrist and shoved the glass into her hot fingers.

  “Come on. Drink up. Where are you?” I clinked my glass to hers. “Drink up.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” she said. I heard glass tap softly against her teeth and I heard her swallowing. I sipped at mine.

  “Finished?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “Nick—”

  “These nightmares. Do you get them all the time?”

  “No. Only when I’m…once in a blue moon. I keep thinking they’ll stop. I go along for months—nothing matters at all. I don’t want to do anything. But I don’t dream. Then I—things begin to matter. I can feel the dreams coming back.”

  “What are they?”

  The bed moved.

  “Something that happened to me once—it happens again. It keeps on happening, over and over. It was—I’m not going to remember, I’m not going to dream about it again…. Finished?”

  “Wait a minute. What about a doctor? They can cure things like that, can’t they?”

  “Doctors can’t help everybody,” she said. “There’s only one way. For me. Once I get past it, it’s over, for a while. But…I can’t stop going as fast as I can. I don’t want to stop. If I’m exhausted, body and soul, the dreams can’t get through…I don’t know what I want. Leo’s a vampire, and yet I can’t just go away and leave him. He wouldn’t have a dime without me. If only he’d be satisfied to take just money!”

  She stopped. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer.

  “I can’t get away. So I’ve got to do something. Got to. Nick, put your arm around me. I think I’m relaxing.”

  “All right. That better?”

  “Better,” she said, sighing. “You’re strong. You’ve got a hard core, down inside. It can’t bend. It may break, but it won’t bend. You remind me of Leo, the way he used to be, years ago. But it was all sham, with him…I waited too long.

  “But Leo won’t leave. He won’t let me leave. He won’t have a thing changed. Everything’s got to stay the way it’s always been. Something happened to him in Morocco. He tells everybody who’ll listen. All about how everyone else is a fool and the rest of it. But he’s afraid. He’s locked himself in. Nick, does everybody want to die?”

  “No.”

  “Then what do they want?”

  “Another chance, maybe. A chance to start over again, without having all the odds against them.”

  “Even if I never leave him,” she said, “he’ll lose me. Because there won’t be anything left. I’ll be quite dead. Walking around like a zombie, you know. If this goes on, it’ll happen. It isn’t a spiral, it’s the same circle, over and over. Each time there’s a little less left inside of me. A little less what?”

  “Forget about it. Don’t—”

  “Strength,” she said. “I haven’t much left now. But that’s the part of me Leo needs. He hasn’t any, not any more. He lives off mine. And yet he keeps trying to destroy what’s left of it. I know why. He’s afraid I’ll leave him. And I will.”

  She moved a little.

  “If I don’t, you know what? We’ll stay here, forever and ever, world without end. Just sitting across from each other, not even talking, breathing a little, doing the same things over and over but not for long…pretty soon, not doing anything at all. Sitting and breathing. Rafael and Benita will take care of us. If you go, like Callahan, there’ll be somebody else for a while…and then somebody else, until even that stops. Then we’ll be alone together, Leo and I. Quite damned. Doing nothing but wait and be afraid. Afraid the other will die first. Because we’ll be one flesh by then.”

  She stopped, waiting. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t think. There was too much coming at me, too fast.

  “Nick?” she said, after a while.

  There were two things I could do. I could say no and get fired. Or I could say yes, and then what? As nearly as I could figure out, I wouldn’t be sure till her lawyer phoned whether or not she had a cent. Maybe she’d borrowed money, or arranged on tick, to grease the wheels of the right people on a sanity commission. Maybe such wheels can’t be greased. I didn’t know. It seemed to me that Mrs. De Anza’s chances with a commission that was on the level were pretty lousy. But I wasn’t a psychiatrist. And maybe it was all a pipe dream she’d had. Who could say?
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br />   What did she want? Well, she wanted a lay. I knew that, all right. And I knew why, too. It would prove something to her. But what else? Did she want me to take her to New Orleans or somewhere? How the hell could I? McElroy might take off to Chicago with Sherry any time now, and…okay, suppose the Countess and I did head for New Orleans. I remembered the seven thousand in the floor safe. Nice money. But not a damn bit of good to me in New Orleans.

  Maybe I could stall her along, somehow. If she just wanted me to take her into Phoenix again, to the casino, then there we’d be, with the seven thousand in her purse. Well?

  God damn it, I thought, even a whore gets paid. And what does this bitch expect? That I’ll sleep with her for the fun of it? I heard myself breathing hard; I was tense all over. I felt her hand touch my arm, and instantly all the tightness went away. It drained off, leaving me empty. There was nothing I could do. I was in another trap. Little by little, I was being pushed somewhere, somewhere I didn’t want to go. I suppose I knew then that it was too late.

  But there was Sherry. And there was the seven thousand in the floor safe. Seven thousand dollars. It could be mine. With a break—and all I’d ever needed, really, was a break.

  Seven thousand dollars.

  “Nick—” she said. Her voice had begun to get fainter. “Nick, what are you thinking? There isn’t much time left, Nick.” She sounded drowsy. “Not any more. So you’ve got to help me, Nick. I’ve got to get away this time. I’m afraid if I die without breaking the circle, it’ll go on after I’m dead, in hell. Hell will be just like this. I’m afraid of dying while I’m still alive. Whenever I get sleepy now, I’m afraid it isn’t real sleep that’s coming. That I’ll wake up—not really waking—and find myself sitting in the patio and not caring any more. So I’ve got to keep going. I can’t let go. Not until…”

  She stopped for a while, and I thought she was asleep. I started to draw my arm away, but she murmured: “It’s like the moment before you die. That’s why I’m afraid. I’m afraid I won’t wake up. There’s still time, isn’t there?”