by Jim Thompson
At first I couldn’t see a thing; it was that dark. But gradually my eyes became used to it. I could see all I needed to see. I opened the trunk compartment and located a tire tool. Taking a rusty spike from my pocket, I drove it into the right rear tire. There was a poof! and a whish-ss! The springs squeaked and whined as the car settled rapidly.
I got a jack under the axle, and raised it a foot or so. I rocked the car and slid it off the jack. I left it that way and headed up the lane.
It took maybe five minutes to reach the house and pull a plank from the porch. I leaned it against the gate post where I could find it in a hurry, and headed across the fields to Joyce’s house.
“Lou!” She stood back from the door, startled. “I couldn’t imagine who—where’s your car? Is something wrong?”
“Nothing but a flat tire,” I grinned. “I had to leave the car down the road a piece.”
I sauntered into the living room, and she came around in front of me, gripping her arms around my back and pressing her face against my shirt. Her negligee fell open, accidentally on purpose I imagine. She moved her body against mine.
“Lou, honey…”
“Yeah?” I said.
“It’s only about nine and Stupid won’t be here for another hour, and I won’t see you for two weeks. And…well, you know.”
I knew. I knew how that would look in an autopsy.
“Well, I don’t know, baby,” I said. “I’m kind of pooped out, and you’re all prettied up—”
“Oh, I am not!” She squeezed me. “I’m always prettied up to hear you tell it. Hurry, so I can have my bath.”
Bath. That made it okay. “You twisted my arm, baby,” I said, and I swept her up and carried her into the bedroom. And, no, it didn’t bother me a bit.
Because right in the middle of it, right in the middle of the sweet talk and sighing, she suddenly went still and pushed my head back and looked me in the eye.
“You will join me in two weeks, Lou? Just as soon as you sell your house and wind up your affairs?”
“That’s the understanding,” I said.
“Don’t keep me waiting. I want to be sweet to you, but if you won’t let me I’ll be the other way. I’ll come back here and raise hell. I’ll follow you around town and tell everyone how you—”
“—robbed you of your bloom and cast you aside?” I said.
“Crazy!” she giggled. “But just the same, Lou…”
“I know. I won’t keep you waiting, baby.”
I lay on the bed while she had her bath. She came back in from it, wiping herself with a big towel, and got some panties and a brassiere out of a suitcase. She stepped into the panties, humming, and brought the brassiere over to me. I helped her put it on, giving her a pinch or two, and she giggled and wiggled.
I’m going to miss you, baby, I thought. You’ve got to go, but I’m sure going to miss you.
“Lou…You suppose Elmer will make any trouble?”
“I already told you,” I said. “What can he do? He can’t squawk to his dad. I’ll tell him I changed my mind, and we’ll have to keep faith with the old man. And that’ll be that.”
She frowned. “It seems so—oh, so complicated! I mean it looks like we could have got the money without dragging Elmer into it.”
“Well…” I glanced at the clock.
Nine thirty-three. I didn’t need to stall any longer. I sat up beside her, swinging my feet to the floor; casually drawing on my gloves.
“Well, I’ll tell you, baby,” I said. “It is kind of complicated, but it has to be that way. You’ve probably heard the gossip about Mike Dean, my foster brother? Well, Mike didn’t do that. He took the blame for me. So if you should do your talking around town, it would be a lot worse than you realized. People would start thinking, and before it was all over…”
“But, Lou. I’m not going to say anything. You’re going to join me and—”
“Better let me finish,” I said. “I told you how Mike fell from that building? Only he didn’t fall; he was murdered. Old man Conway arranged it and—”
“Lou”—she didn’t get it at all. “I won’t let you do anything to Elmer! You mustn’t, honey. They’ll catch you and you’ll go to jail and—oh, honey, don’t even think about it!”
“They won’t catch me,” I said. “They won’t even suspect me. They’ll think he was half-stiff, like he usually is, and you got to fighting and both got killed.”
She still didn’t get it. She laughed, frowning a little at the same time. “But, Lou—that doesn’t make sense. How could I be dead when—”
“Easy,” I said, and I gave her a slap. And still she didn’t get it.
She put a hand to her face and rubbed it slowly. “Y-you’d better not do that, now, Lou. I’ve got to travel, and—”
“You’re not going anywhere, baby,” I said, and I hit her again.
And at last she got it.
She jumped up and I jumped with her. I whirled her around and gave her a quick one-two, and she shot backwards across the room and bounced and slumped against the wall. She staggered to her feet, weaving, mumbling, and half-fell toward me. I let her have it again.
I backed her against the wall, slugging, and it was like pounding a pumpkin. Hard, then everything giving way at once. She slumped down, her knees bent under her, her head hanging limp; and then, slowly, an inch at a time, she pushed herself up again.
She couldn’t see; I don’t know how she could. I don’t know how she could stand or go on breathing. But she brought her head up, wobbling, and she raised her arms, raised them and spread them and held them out. And then she staggered toward me, just as a car pulled into the yard.
“Guhguh-guhby…kiss guhguh-guh—”
I brought an uppercut up from the floor. There was a sharp cr-aack! and her whole body shot upward, and came down in a heap. And that time it stayed down.
I wiped my gloves on her body; it was her blood and it belonged there. I took the gun from the dresser, turned off the light and closed the door.
Elmer was coming up the steps, crossing the porch. I got to the front door and opened it.
“Hiya, Lou, ol’ boy, ol’ boy, ol’ boy,” he said. “Right on time, huh? Thass Elmer Conway, always right on time.”
“Half-stiff,” I said, “that’s Elmer Conway. Have you got the money?”
He patted the thick brown folder under his arm. “What’s it look like? Where’s Joyce?”
“Back in the bedroom. Why don’t you go on back? I’ll bet she won’t say no if you try to slip it to her.”
“Aw,” he blinked foolishly. “Aw, you shouldn’t talk like that, Lou. You know we’re gonna get married.”
“Suit yourself,” I shrugged. “I’d bet money though that she’s all stretched out waiting for you.”
I wanted to laugh out loud. I wanted to yell. I wanted to leap on him and tear him to pieces.
“Well, maybe…”
He turned suddenly and lumbered down the hall. I leaned against the wall, waiting, as he entered the bedroom and turned on the light.
I heard him say, “Hiya, Joyce, ol’ kid, ol’ ol’ ol’ k-k-k…” I heard a heavy thump, and a gurgling, strangled sound. Then he said, he screamed, “Joyce…Joyce…Lou!”
I sauntered back. He was down on his knees and there was blood on his hands, and a big streak across his chin where he’d wiped it. He looked up at me, his mouth hanging open.
I laughed—I had to laugh or do something worse—and his eyes squeezed shut and he bawled. I yelled with laughter, bending over and slapping my legs. I doubled up, laughing and farting and laughing some more. Until there wasn’t a laugh in me or anyone. I’d used up all the laughter in the world.
He got to his feet, smearing his face with his big flabby hands, staring at me stupidly.
“W-who did it, Lou?”
“It was suicide,” I said. “A plain case of suicide.”
“B-but that d-don’t make—”
“It’s the only t
hing that does make sense! It was the way it was, you hear me? Suicide, you hear me? Suicide suicide suicide! I didn’t kill her. Don’t you say I killed her. SHE KILLED HERSELF!”
I shot him, then, right in his gaping stupid mouth. I emptied the gun into him.
Stooping, I curved Joyce’s hand around the gun butt, then dropped the gun at her side. I went out the door and across the fields again, and I didn’t look back.
I found the plank and carried it down to my car. If the car had been seen, that plank was my alibi. I’d had to go up and find one to put under the jack.
I ran the jack up on the plank and put on the spare tire. I threw the tools into the car, started the motor and backed toward Derrick Road. Ordinarily, I’d no more back into a highway at night without my lights than I would without my pants. But this wasn’t ordinarily. I just didn’t think of it.
If Chester Conway’s Cadillac had been traveling faster, I wouldn’t be writing this.
He swarmed out of his car cursing, saw who I was, and cursed harder than ever. “Goddammit, Lou, you know better’n that! You trying to get killed, for Christ’s sake? Huh? What the hell are you doing here, anyhow?”
“I had to pull in there with a flat tire,” I said. “Sorry if I—”
“Well, come on. Let’s get going. Can’t stand here gabbing at night.”
“Going?” I said. “It’s still early.”
“The hell it is! It’s a quarter past eleven, and that damned Elmer ain’t home yet. Promised to come right back, and he ain’t done it. Probably up there working himself into another scrape.”
“Maybe we’d better give him a little more time,” I said. I had to wait a while. I couldn’t go back in that house now. “Why don’t you go on home, Mr. Conway, and I’ll—”
“I’m going now!” He turned away from the car. “And you follow me!”
The door of the Cadillac slammed. He backed up and pulled around me, yelling again for me to come on. I yelled back that I would and he drove off. Fast.
I got a cigar lit. I started the motor and killed it. I started it and killed it again. Finally, it stayed running, it just wouldn’t die, so I drove off.
I drove up the lane to Joyce’s house and parked at the end of it. There wasn’t room in the yard with Elmer’s and the old man’s cars there. I shut off the motor and got out. I climbed the steps and crossed the porch.
The door was open and he was in the living room, talking on the telephone. And his face was like a knife had come down it, slicing away all the flabbiness.
He didn’t seem very excited. He didn’t seem very sad. He was just businesslike, and somehow that made it worse.
“Sure, it’s too bad,” he said. “Don’t tell me that again. I know all about how bad it is. He’s dead and that’s that, and what I’m interested in is her.…Well, do it then! Get on out here. We ain’t going to let her die, get me? Not this way. I’m going to see that she burns.”
7
It was almost three o’clock in the morning when I got through talking—answering questions, mostly—to Sheriff Maples and the county attorney, Howard Hendricks; and I guess you know I wasn’t feeling so good. I was kind of sick to my stomach, and I felt, well, pretty damned sore, angry. Things shouldn’t have turned out this way. It was just plumb unreasonable. It wasn’t right.
I’d done everything I could to get rid of a couple of undesirable citizens in a neat no-kickbacks way. And here one of ’em was still alive; and purple hell was popping about the other one.
Leaving the courthouse, I drove to the Greek’s place and got a cup of coffee that I didn’t want. His boy had taken a part-time job in a filling station, and the old man wasn’t sure whether it was a good thing or not. I promised to drop by and look in on the lad.
I didn’t want to go home and answer a lot more questions from Amy. I hoped that if I stalled long enough, she’d give up and leave.
Johnnie Pappas, the Greek’s boy, was working at Slim Murphy’s place. He was around at the side of the station when I drove in, doing something to the motor of his hot rod. I got out of my car and he came toward me slowly, sort of watchfully, wiping his hands on a chunk of waste.
“Just heard about your new job, Johnnie,” I said. “Congratulations.”
“Yeah.” He was tall, good-looking; not at all like his father. “Dad send you out here?”
“He told me you’d gone to work here,” I said. “Anything wrong with that?”
“Well…You’re up pretty late.”
“Well,” I laughed, “so are you. Now how about filling ’er up with gas and checking the oil?”
He got busy, and by the time he was through he’d pretty much lost his suspicions. “I’m sorry if I acted funny, Lou. Dad’s been kind of nagging me—he just can’t understand that a guy my age needs a little real dough of his own—and I thought he was having you check up on me.”
“You know me better than that, Johnnie.”
“Sure, I do,” he smiled, warmly. “I’ve got plenty of nagging from people, but no one but you ever really tried to help me. You’re the only real friend I’ve ever had in this lousy town. Why do you do it, Lou? What’s the percentage in bothering with a guy that everyone else is down on?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. And I didn’t. I didn’t even know how I could stand here talking to him with the terrible load I had on my mind. “Maybe it’s because I was a kid myself not so many years ago. Fathers are funny. The best ones get in your hair most.”
“Yeah. Well…”
“What hours do you work, Johnnie?”
“Just midnight to seven, Saturdays and Sundays. Just enough to keep me in pocket money. Dad thinks I’ll be too tired to go to school on Mondays, but I won’t, Lou. I’ll make it fine.”
“Sure, you will,” I said. “There’s just one thing, Johnnie. Slim Murphy hasn’t got a very good reputation. We’ve never proved that he was mixed up in any of these car-stripping jobs, but…”
“I know.” He kicked the gravel of the driveway, uncomfortably. “I won’t get into any trouble, Lou.”
“Good enough,” I said. “That’s a promise, and I know you don’t break your promises.”
I paid him with a twenty-dollar bill, got my change and headed toward home. Wondering about myself. Shaking my head, as I drove. I hadn’t put on an act. I was concerned and worried about the kid. Me, worried about his troubles.
The house was all dark when I got home, but it would be, whether Amy was there or not. So I didn’t get my hopes too high. I figured that my standing her up would probably make her all the more determined to stay; that she was a cinch to crop up at the one time I didn’t want any part of her. That’s the way I figured it, and that’s the way it was.
She was up in my bedroom in bed. And she’d filled two ashtrays with the cigarettes she’d smoked. And mad! I’ve never seen one little old girl so mad in my life.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled off my boots; and for about the next twenty minutes I didn’t say a word. I didn’t get a chance. Finally, she began to slow up a little, and I tried to apologize.
“I’m sure sorry, honey, but I couldn’t help it. I’ve had a lot of trouble tonight.”
“I’ll bet!”
“You want to hear about it or not? If you don’t, just say so.”
“Oh, go on! I’ve heard so many of your lies and excuses I may as well hear a few more.”
I told her what had happened—that is, what was supposed to have happened—and she could hardly hold herself in until I’d finished. The last word was hardly out of my mouth before she’d cut loose on me again.
“How could you be so stupid, Lou? How could you do it? Getting yourself mixed up with some wretched prostitute and that awful Elmer Conway! Now, there’ll be a big scandal and you’ll probably lose your job, and—”
“Why?” I mumbled. “I didn’t do anything.”
“I want to know why you did it!”
“Well, it was kind of a favor, see? Ch
ester Conway wanted me to see what I could do about getting Elmer out of this scrape, so—”
“Why did he have to come to you? Why do you always have to be doing favors for other people? You never do any for me!”
I didn’t say anything for a minute. But I thought, That’s what you think, honey. I’m doing you a favor by not beating your head off.
“Answer me, Lou Ford!”
“All right,” I said. “I shouldn’t have done it.”
“You shouldn’t have allowed that woman to stay in this county in the first place!”
“No,” I nodded. “I shouldn’t have.”
“Well?”
“I’m not perfect,” I snapped. “I make plenty of mistakes. How many times do you want me to say it?”
“Well! All I’ve got to say is…”
All she had to say would take her the rest of her life to finish; and I wasn’t even halfway in the mood for it. I reached out and grabbed her by the crotch.
“Lou! You stop that!”
“Why?” I said.
“Y-you stop it!” She shivered. “You s-stop or…Oh Lou!”
I lay down beside her with my clothes on. I had to do it, because there was just one way of shutting Amy up.
So I laid down and she swarmed up against me. And there wasn’t a thing wrong with Amy when she was like that; you couldn’t have asked much more from a woman. But there was plenty wrong with me. Joyce Lakeland was wrong with me.
“Lou…” Amy slowed down a little. “What’s the matter, dear?”
“All this trouble,” I said. “I guess it’s thrown me for a loop.”
“You poor darling. Just forget everything but me, and I’ll pet you and whisper to you, mmm? I’ll…” She kissed me and whispered what she would do. And she did it. And, hell, she might as well have done it to a fence post.
Baby Joyce had taken care of me, but good.
Amy pulled her hand away, and began brushing it against her hip. Then she snatched up a handful of sheet, and wiped—scrubbed—her hip with it.
“You son-of-a-bitch,” she said. “You dirty, filthy bastard.”