by Jim Thompson
“Yes,” Dusty agreed warmly. “You were always swell to me, Tug.”
“Maybe it sounds like the old craperoo, now. But, well, I couldn’t’ve gone through with the first deal. The boys thought I was nuts knockin’ myself out to take you off the spot and put Bascom on it. It was risky as hell, y’know, and they gave me a pretty bad time about it. But I had to do it. I guess, kid—I know you probably won’t believe me—but I guess there probably wouldn’t have been any deal if you hadn’t agreed to come in. I’d’ve just taken what dough I had and skipped.”
Dusty murmured inaudibly, lowering his eyes to conceal their contempt. So this was the way a hard guy acted, this was the great Tug Trowbridge when the chips were down! Scared stiff, pleading. Whining about friendship.
“I…it’ll be all right, won’t it, kid? You ain’t—there ain’t no reason why it wouldn’t be all right?”
“How”—Dusty hesitated—“how do you mean?”
“I mean I won’t be walkin’ into a trap. You wouldn’t—”
“I couldn’t. You know that yourself.”
“Yeah, but I been thinkin’, kid. If that dame got away with all the money…” Tug’s hands came down on Dusty’s shoulders. They gripped fiercely, then gently, humbly. “Just tell me the truth, Dusty. That’s all the break I want. She didn’t get it all, did she?”
Dusty shook his head. He said, “Of course not. Why would I gave it all to her?”
“Don’t be afraid to tell me, kid. If that’s what happened, just tell me, for God’s sake, an’…”
“Afraid?” said Dusty, and now it was an effort to hide his disdain. “Why would I be afraid of you…Tug?”
19
Mr. Rhodes was in the kitchen when he reached home. His thin hair was damp from a recent shower, and his face was freshly shaved. He had done the little that he could to make himself presentable, someone not to be ashamed of, and now bustling about the cupboards and stove, he was demonstrating his usefulness, proving that here indeed, aged and ill or not, was an asset.
Dusty stood in the doorway watching him, grinning to himself. Contemptuously amused, his hatred challenged by what he saw. He had left Tug oddly exhilarated, elated and restive; he had been expecting an ordeal with the gangster and his nerves had been keyed for one. And there had been nothing to unkey them, no outlet for the building mass of nervous energy. Tug had been a virtual pushover, almost laughable there at the last. He was as bad as this old fool, still clutching at, fighting for, life— pleading for what he could no longer demand.
“Bill”—the old man kept up his brisk movements, spoke without turning around—“it was all my fault, this morning. You were tired and you’ve been under a lot of strain, and—well, anything you said, I know you didn’t—”
“I meant it,” said Dusty. “I meant every goddamned word of it.”
“B-But—no! No, you didn’t. Why would you—” A cup slid from Mr. Rhodes’ hands, clattered and shattered against the sink.
Dusty laughed, jeered. His excitement was fresh water for the old seeds of hatred.
“Would you like to know a little secret, Dad? Would you like to know how your name got on that petition? Well, I’ll tell you. I—”
“I—I—” Mr. Rhodes turned around at last. His eyes swept over Dusty, unseeing, blindly, and he moved dully toward the door. “I—I think I’d better lie down,” he said. “I—I—”
“Oh, no you don’t!” Dusty snapped. “I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time, and now, by God, I’m—”
“I already know,” the old man said absently. “Your mother—she and I, I think we both must have known right from the beginning, but we couldn’t admit it. Now…now, I think I’d better lie down…”
He entered his bedroom and closed the door.
Later that day, when he had gone to bed, Dusty heard his father wandering around the house, moving back and forth through the rooms, aimlessly at first, then still aimlessly but with a kind of frantic desperation. He heard him leave the house, and, falling asleep, he did not hear him return. But when he left for the hotel that night, the old man was back in his room. Dusty listened at the door for a moment, to the blurred, muffled sounds that seeped through the panels.
It sounded like he was praying. Or singing. Kind of like he was praying and singing together. And occasionally there was something like a sob…choked, strangling, rattling.
Dusty went on to the hotel.
At twenty minutes of one, he stepped into one of the lobby telephone booths and made a call to the police.
…They took no chances with Tug. They picked him up in their floodlights, from a mezzanine window of the hotel, from a second story window across the street. They shouted to him once. And perhaps he didn’t understand the command, perhaps he was too startled to obey it, or perhaps—for he thrust the shotgun through the car window—he was starting to obey it. But the police did not deal in perhapses where Tug Trowbridge was concerned; they were resolving no doubts in his favor.
Five minutes after he drove up to the hotel, he was on his way to the morgue. Within the same five minutes, two detectives were searching the checkroom and two others were escorting Dusty to the police station, and still another two were speeding toward Dusty’s house.
They found nothing there, of course; no trace of the loot from the robbery. Only the lifeless body of an old man, and a half-empty bottle of whiskey.
20
He had met most of the detectives before. They had talked to him at the hospital, visited him so often that they had become friendly, addressing him by his first name or nickname. But there was nothing friendly about them now. Curt and cold, they took turns at the questioning, asking the same questions over and over, making the same accusations over and over. Calling him you and bud and buster or, at best, Rhodes.
He sat on a hard chair under a brilliant light. Their voices lashed out from the shadows, impassive, relentless, untiring.
“Stop stalling…”
“We got you cold, bud…”
“Tell the truth and we’ll make it easy on you…”
“Why did Tug want to see you? Come on, come on! You didn’t have the loot stashed, why—”
“I told you!”
“Tell us again.”
“He—all I know is what he said when he called me. Just before I called you. He said he was broke, and he wanted me to help him and—”
“Sure he was broke. He’d left the dough with you, and you wouldn’t give him his cut.”
“Why’d he come to you for money? What made him think you’d give him any?”
“Come on, come on!”
“I’m trying to tell you! He’d always been pretty nice to me, a lot of big tips, and I suppose he thought—”
“He was a pal of yours, wasn’t he? You were like that. Ain’t that right? AIN’T THAT RIGHT?”
“No! I mean he was nice to me, but—”
“Yeah. Cut you in on that robbery, didn’t he? Made you his inside man, didn’t he? Gave you the loot to stash, didn’t he? Come on, why don’t you admit it?”
“No! I didn’t have anything to do with the robbery!”
“Why’d Tug want to see you then?”
“I told you why! I told you all I—”
“Tell us again…”
The door of the room burst open, and a man rushed in. “We found it, guys! We found the dough! Right where we thought it would be!”
“Swell. Attaboy!” The detectives congratulated him, turned back to Dusty. “Well, there you are, bud. Stalling won’t get you anywhere, now.”
“I’m not stalling! I just don’t—”
“You heard what the man said. They found the dough there at the hotel.”
“They couldn’t have! I mean—”
“Yeah, we know. Because you didn’t stash it there. Tug thought you did, but you’d sneaked it out.”
“I d-didn’t!”
“Leave him alone, you guys. Rhodes an’ me understand each other…Now,
look, kid (whispering), whyn’t you and me make a little deal, huh? You just give me your word you’ll take care of me, whatever you think’s fair, and I’ll make these jerks let you go. We can pick up the loot together, an’…What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?”
“I don’t know where it is! I didn’t have anything to do with it! I—”
“Aaah, come on…Why did Tug want to see you, then?”
“I told you!”
“Tell us again.”
…They gave up on him at seven that morning. Around ten o’clock, he was taken out of his cell and driven to the courthouse. The two detectives escorting him asked no questions, seemed almost indifferent to him. While he sat down on a bench outside the county attorney’s office, they wandered away to the water cooler, stood there chaffing and joking with a couple of deputy sheriffs.
Dusty looked down at the floor dismally, listening to them, half listening. He raised his head, startled, then casually moved down to the end of the bench. The door to the county attorney’s office was slightly ajar. He could hear two men talking inside. Arguing. One of them sounded irritable and stubborn; the other—the one who apparently was winning the argument— as placatory and resigned.
“Now, you know I’m right, Jack. We both know that kid is guilty as hell. He had to be, and the fact that the money has been returned—”
“Every nickel of it, by mail, Bob. And there’s no clue to the sender. Under the circumstances, and regardless of our personal feelings, we have no case. Our only chance of sticking Rhodes was in tying him up with the money. Now that it’s been returned…”
Dusty blinked. The money returned? It must be some kind of trap. This conversation was for his benefit; they meant him to hear it, so that—So that?
“He had an accomplice! When the accomplice saw Rhodes was in trouble, he—”
“But he wasn’t in trouble at the time. The package was post-marked yesterday afternoon.”
“He mailed it himself, then. That’s it! Tug was turning on the heat, and…and, uh…”
“You see, Bob? You’re talking in circles. If Rhodes had had the money, he could have paid off. Tug wouldn’t have been turning on the heat, as you put it.”
“But—but this just doesn’t make sense, Jack. It leaves everything up in the air. Aside from the money, a man was murdered and—”
“You can’t separate the one from the other, Bob. And who cares about that clerk, anyway? He was a crook, a fugitive from justice.”
“Yes, but goddammit, Jack—”
“I know. There are a lot of loose ends. But they don’t lead to Rhodes. They don’t, and we can’t make them.”
“Well…”
“The hotel is satisfied. So is the insurance company. As long as they don’t want to prosecute, why should we knock ourselves out? We can’t win. Ten to one, the thing would never go to trial. He’d get a dismissal before—”
“Yeah. Well (grudgingly), all right. But I’m telling you something, Jack. Maybe we can’t stick him on this, but I’m telling you. If that bastard ever pulls anything else—if he even looks like he’s going to pull anything else—he’s a dead pigeon! I’ll hang him, by God, if I have to pull the rope myself!”
“Sure, ha, ha, and I’ll help you. I feel the same way.”
21
He no longer had a job. He did not have to be told that he could not return to the Manton. And he did not care particularly—he felt dead, inside, uncaring about everything. But the fact remained that he was now without income, and practically broke. As for that reward on Tug, well, he grimaced at his foolishness in ever expecting to collect that reward. He had started to mention it to that county attorney, just started to. And the guy had blown his top. He’d yelled for the other guy to have him thrown back in the can, to throw him in and throw the key away. And the other guy had jerked his head at the door, and told him to beat it while he was still able to.
“You’re a lucky boy, Rhodes, but don’t lean on it too heavy. The next time we pick you up…”
So Dusty had got out of there fast and, now, a dozen blocks away from the courthouse, he was just slowing down. It was almost noon. The humid heat poured over him stickily. His shirt was sweat-stuck to his back, and he felt that he stank with the stench of the jail.
He walked two more blocks to the railroad station, and bathed in one of the men’s room showers. He got a shave in the station barber shop, and, afterwards, coffee and toast in the grille. The food stuck in his throat. He was hungry, but it seemed tasteless to him.
Leaving the grille, he moved out into the waiting room, stood uncertainly in its vaulted dimness staring up at a bulletin board. Not that he was going anywhere, of course. How could he? Where would he want to go? He simply stood there, staring blindly, looking not out but inward, puzzled and pitying himself much.
Bascom? Well, Bascom’s life was forfeit anyway, wasn’t it? Having nothing to lose he could lose nothing. And his father, Mr. Rhodes—well, he too had been a dead man already. Death had simply put an end to futility. And as for Tug Trowbridge, a mass murderer, not worth a second thought, deserving exactly what he had received. And Marcia Hillis…
Why? Why, in the name of God, had she done it? What had she hoped to gain by doing it?…He had a feeling that long, long ago, he might have understood. But, then, naturally, back there in time, there would have been nothing to understand. The situation would not have been posed then; he would have been incapable of bringing it about. Back there, so long ago, yet such a short time actually, he had been just another college student, and if he had been allowed to go on, if he had been given the little he was entitled to without being impelled to grab for it…
He left the railroad station, and walked quickly back toward the business section. He couldn’t think about Marcia Hillis—face the riddle and reproach which she represented. He couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Why? Why had he been singled out for this black failure, this bottomless disappointment? Why not, for example, some of those loud-mouthed clowns, the office holders and professional patriots, who had advanced themselves by ruining the old man? Mr. Rhodes had said that time, that history, would take care of them. But they had not been taken care of yet; they were still riding high. And he, he who was basically guilty of no more than compromise; he who, instead of fighting circumstance, had tried only to profit from it—
He was no better off than the old man. Alive, yes, but robbed of any reason to live.
…He got his car off the parking lot, drove it to a nearby sales lot. It was a good car; the dealer readily admitted its quality. But it seemed that there was just no demand for this particular make and model any more. The public, for mysterious and unreasonable reasons, just didn’t want ’em at any price. Of course, if Dusty wanted to get rid of it bad enough…Dusty did. He accepted five hundred dollars without argument, and caught a bus homeward.
The money would just about take care of the old man’s funeral, he supposed. Maybe he could get out of paying for it, but it would be troublesome, no doubt, and he’d had enough trouble for a while. Better get the old bas—better get him buried and forget him. Get it over with the fastest and least troublesome way possible. Probably it would have looked better if he’d gone by the funeral parlor this morning—but to hell with how it looked. He didn’t have to care about looks. He was through pretending, and if people wanted to make something out of it, let ’em try.
He got off the bus, started past the little lunchroom-bar which his father had used to patronize. And inside he heard the creaking of stools, sensed the unfriendly eyes staring out at him. It was the same way when he passed the neighborhood grocery store, the barber shop and filling station, the open windows and doors of the dingy houses. Bums, loafers, white trash, scum floating from one day’s tide to the next. And they were giving him the cold eye!
It couldn’t be because he’d been in jail, a prime suspect in a quarter-million-dollar robbery. Jail was no novelty for the habitues of this neighborhood.
So it must be because of the old man—they must think that…It was unreasonable. They hadn’t the slightest grounds for thinking that he had brought about Mr. Rhodes’ death. But still, obviously, they did think that. Rather they knew that he had.
He began to walk faster. He was a little breathless when he reached the house, and he almost ran up the steps and into the living room. Relieved, and suddenly ashamed of the feeling, he sank down into a chair. He mopped his face, leaned back wearily with his eyes closed. The room seemed to echo with the beating of his heart, faster and louder, louder and faster, running a deafening race with his breathing, and suddenly frightened, he opened his eyes again. Now he was looking into his father’s room—in at the bed. And something was…something wasn’t, of course, it was only a shadow, but—
He stood up. He backed out of the room, turned toward his own bedroom. And through the half-opened door, stretched out on the bed, he saw another shadow. He closed his eyes, reopened them. It was still there. A shadow, only, only an illusion born of the dimness and his imagination. But he backed away again. He entered the kitchen, and the shades were drawn high there and the sunlight streamed in. But somehow it was worse than the other rooms. He could see too clearly here, and the seeing was worse than the imagining…The cupboards, recently rearranged so neatly. The sink, still half filled with dishwater. The shattered cup on the floor…
But there was no place else to go. He was will-less to go elsewhere. He stood self-deserted, abandoned to a wilderness of the unbearable. For the wilderness would be everywhere now. It would always be everywhere.
Only she could have taken him out of it, filled the yawning emptiness, imparted meaning, and aroused desire. She could have done that, but only she. Pursuing her, he had climbed deeper and deeper into the pit, only to find nothing at the bottom but…but the bottom.
Blindly, he stumbled into a chair. He dropped down at the oilcloth-covered table and buried his face in his arms.