Killy

by Donald E. Westlake

  After a while, we found 1st Street. Hamilton lived on 4th Street, so Walker decided to go looking for him.

  This, we discovered, was still another section of town. 1st Street ran east and west, about ten blocks north of the river, and the numbered streets marched away northward beyond that, and beyond what should have been the city line but wasn’t any more. This was the low-in-cost housing ‘Bill’ Mclntyre had built for his loyal subjects, little square boxes with peaked roofs and brick doorsteps and storm fencing around the tiny yards. At 1st Street, Harpur Boulevard started to climb, and the slope rapidly became very steep as the street surfacing switched from concrete to blacktop. The blocks here were square, absolutely square, forming a grid on the steep slope, the numbered streets going across the slope up to the number twelve, and the slope-climbing streets designated by first names. There was Sarah Street, and William Street, and Frederick Street, and Marilyn Street, and it didn’t take much imagination to guess that they were the first names of members of the Mclntyre family.

  By 4th Street, the incline was so steep that the people living on the uphill side could look out their living-room windows across the tops of the houses on the downhill side and have a panoramic view of the city. The people on the downhill side could have their panoramic view from their kitchen windows.

  An aluminium-awning salesman had visited the four-hundred block of 4th Street, between George and Catherine Streets, and the awnings he’d sold had mostly been pink. 426 sported the complete set of two, one over the door and one over the living-room window. Being on the downhill side, I guessed a third awning shaded their kitchen-window view of town.

  Walter parked in front of the house, and we went down the six Concrete steps from the sidewalk to the level of the front door. Between the storm fencing and the front of the house, the lawn slanted steeply downward, and either Hamilton or his wife had carefully constructed a rock garden of it. A slate walk led around to the side of the house. Like all the rest of the houses up here, there was neither a garage nor room for one to be added.

  Walter had brought along his briefcase, and as he rang the doorbell I suddenly felt like a travelling salesman. A real one, not the one in the jokes. I noted the fact that most of the front doors up in this section were closed, as this one was, whereas most of them had been open in the middle-class section of town.

  After a minute, the door opened and released the thunder of airplane motors onto the air. A short, tired woman in a flower-print dress and a mismatched flower-print apron stood peering mistrustfully at us through the screen door. There was a metal H in the middle of the screen. She said, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Hamilton,’ said Walter. ‘Is your husband home?’ His business face was up, and I was suddenly embarrassed at the obvious phoniness of it.

  ‘He’s at work,’ she said. She glanced down at Walter’s briefcase, and said, ‘What do you want with him?’

  ‘We’re from the Machinists, Mrs Hamilton. Your husband sent us a letter some—’

  ‘Come in!’ A startled look on her face—almost a terrified look she peered past us upward at the empty sidewalk, and pushed open the screen door. ‘Come in! Come in! Hurry!’

  Walter stepped across the threshold, his business smile looking puzzled, and I followed him. Inside, a carpet-covered staircase pushed down into a narrow crowded hallway. The hallway was dark, with dark wallpaper and a dark rug and a dark-framed mirror on one wall. Down at the farther end was a glimpse of sunlight from the kitchen. At the head of the stairs was a landing, and beyond that a wall with cream-coloured paper on it and a closed pale-varnished door.

  The woman led us to the right, through a draperied archway, us a sudden burst of machine-gun fire lanced across the continuing roar of the fighter planes. We entered the living room, which was small and square and full of dark bulky furniture. There was an old small-screen television set in one corner, with a rose in a glass bowl atop it. From the television set came the roaring and the shooting, as some unidentifiable picture flicked upward in an unending series across the screen. On the wall above the sofa was a painting in sepia: The Return from Calvary.

  The woman crossed the room and switched off the television set, and the silence seemed to bulge toward me. She turned around, more in control of herself now than when she’d told us to come in, and said, ‘I want you to leave my husband alone.’ Anger and alarm were mixed in her voice, and in her expression. She looked at Walter when she spoke, correctly picking him as the leader, me the follower.

  I don’t think Walter expected a reaction like this; I know I didn’t. I looked at him to see how he’d handle it.

  Like a businessman. ‘Mrs Hamilton, your husband did write to us, asking—’

  ‘He shouldn’t have, I told him not to.’

  ‘But he did, that’s the point.’ Walter shrugged, and smiled politely. ‘And we really should talk to him, rather than you.’

  ‘I’m telling you to leave him alone! He doesn’t know what he’s—‘ She stared helplessly around the room, as though wanting to explain something to us and not knowing how. ‘Chuck is forty-three years old,’ she said. ‘He lost the little finger from his left hand in the war. No, that isn’t it.’ She ran a hand through her hair, distraught. ‘He’s a bitter man, Mr—’

  ‘Killy.’

  ‘Chuck thinks the world was unfair with him. Nothing he has is as good as he planned. The finger, his job, this house. Me. Not that I blame—‘ She turned away in distraction, looking helplessly around the room. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘I want to show you—‘ She went over to the small drum table to the right of the lumpy sofa. A table lamp, a white porcelain rabbit with a green plant growing out of its back, a white ragged doily, and a framed photograph, all were crowded together on its top. She picked up the photograph—a glossy black-and-white eight-by-ten behind glass—and handed it to Walter. ‘Do you see him? Can you see what he’s like?’

  I looked over Walter’s shoulder. In the foreground was a man In Army uniform, standing on greensward, and in the background was a castle. His mouth was fixed in a tight confident grin. His hands were in his pockets, and his feet were slightly spread, and the Army hat was canted jauntily atop his head. A youngish man, happy and self-confident. From what I could see of his face, it was handsome, with a kind of rough strong charm.

  ‘That was taken in England,’ Mrs Hamilton said. ‘More than twenty years ago. Before he lost his finger, before he knew that all his plans—before it all went sour for him. Wait, I want to show you—wait, please.’ She started to the doorway, then paused, not quite stopping, to say, ‘I want to make you understand.’

  She left the room, and I looked at Walker. He shook his head and shrugged, and put the framed photograph back on the drum table. As he straightened, Mrs Hamilton came in again, this time carrying a small snapshot. ‘He doesn’t know I have this,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t like pictures of himself now. Only that one there.’ She handed the small snapshot to Walter and said, ‘This in Chuck now. My brother took that picture last year.’

  Once again I looked over Walter’s shoulder. This time, I saw Charles Hamilton’s profile. The scene was an outing of some sort, people sitting at picnic tables in the background, against a deeper stand of trees. In the foreground, Charles Hamilton sat at one of the picnic tables, a soiled paper plate in front of him. His elbow was on the table, his other arm around a giggling girl with large breasts and a young empty face. Hamilton wore a short-sleeved polo shirt, and was leaning forward slightly, smiling at something to the left of the photo, partially blocking the girl. His bare arms were thin and wiry, as though he would be strong, and there was some sort of tattoo on the upper arm, impossible to make out. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth, and I he one eye visible in this picture was squinted against the rising smoke.

  It was the same man, now forty-three instead of twenty-three. The self-confidence was still there, in the position of the head and shoulders, in the same tight hard grin, but there wa
s no denying it had soured with the years. I looked at his face and knew he had never given up the dreams and self-image that had shone in the earlier photograph, that he was still a young man and always would be.

  ‘Can you see?’ Mrs Hamilton asked us. ‘Can you see what he’s like?’

  ‘I’d have to talk to any man to know him,’ said Walter. He handed back the snapshot.

  Mrs Hamilton took it. ‘He’s still very handsome,’ she said. ‘And he’s very strong. But nothing’s gone right for him.’ She lowered the hand holding the snapshot, and said, ‘We own a Do Soto. He hates it, he says, “They don’t even make the damn things any more.” And before that we had a Hudson. Never new, always third-or fourth-hand, and he has to park it out by the kerb, he—It isn’t the union, don’t you understand? It’s everything in his life. Don’t take advantage of him, Mr Killy, please.’

  She’d come as close as she could to telling us her husband was unfaithful to her, showing us the snapshot, and telling us Hamilton was dissatisfied with all of his life, but still she pleaded with us and wanted to help him. Or at least thought she was helping him.

  I said, ‘Why did he write to us, Mrs Hamilton?’ The man she had been describing, I thought, wouldn’t be the one to write that letter.

  ‘Mclntyre,’ she said, ‘the old man, he made promises to Chuck. They got along together, I think he liked Chuck more than almost anyone else he knew. But he made promises, or at least Chuck thought he heard promises, and then he died. And this new man, this Mr Fleisch, he doesn’t even know Chuck’s alive. Chuck would go up on Fridays, and I think he saw himself getting a job in the office some day. But now there isn’t any chance of that any more.’

  Walter said, ‘Mrs Hamilton, I don’t think you understand what Paul and I—’

  ‘You don’t think I understand? He’s a bitter man, Mr Killy, a bitter angry man, and he doesn’t care how much he risks because he doesn’t have anything he values at all. Can’t you have the decency not to—to—use him?’

  ‘Twenty-five people signed the letter,’ Walter said gently. ‘It wouldn’t be fair to them—’

  ‘It wouldn’t be fair to Chuck! Do you think—don’t you realize—?’ She stopped, gasping for breath, fighting to control herself. ‘Do you think you can win? Do you think you can take anything away from the people who run these things? All you’re going to do is make trouble, for Chuck and all the others, and imperially for Chuck. I’ve told him and I’ve told him, I begged him not to send you that first letter, and then when he got the answer, it was worse. But it won’t do any good, don’t you know that?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Walter. But the words sounded faint; I knew he was thinking about something else. This was supposed to be I lie ideal situation here, where the workers would strew roses in our path. That’s why I’d been brought along. But Mrs Hamilton didn’t belong within the framework we’d been expecting.

  Walter hefted his briefcase, and said, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t have any choice. I’m an employee too, Mrs Hamilton. I have to at least talk to your husband, and to some of the other men who signed the letter. If it looks as though this area isn’t ready for a national union yet, we’ll go back to Washington and say so. Is that fair?’

  ‘If they see you talking with him—’

  ‘Who, Mrs Hamilton? If who see us talking with him?’

  Her brow furrowed, and she glanced at the curtained window. ‘I don’t know. Anybody. Anybody at all.’

  Walter sighed. He himself made sure that he was always in the best possible shape, physically and mentally and emotionally. People who were run-down and flabby in any of those ways sooner or later got on his nerves, making him impatient and bored, and Mrs Hamilton, with her photographs and her vague fears, was run-down emotionally, her feelings loose and undefined. Walter said to her, his voice sterner than before, ‘What lime does he come home?’

  She held the snapshot so hard it creased. ‘Then you won’t leave us alone?’

  ‘We can’t.’ Walter sighed and shook his head. ‘I’ve already explained why. What time does your husband come home, Mrs Hamilton?’

  ‘What if I don’t tell you?’

  ‘Then we’ll wait outside, in the car.’

  ‘No! Please!’

  Embarrassment forced me to speak up again: ‘What if he came to us instead? Then your neighbours wouldn’t know.’ Anything to end this uncomfortable and useless interview.

  Walter glanced over at me, smiling, and nodded. ‘That’s an idea,’ he said. To Mrs Hamilton he said, ‘We’re in the Wittburg Motel, on Harpur Boulevard. Until seven. We’ll talk to your husband there if you want.’

  ‘But I don’t want you to talk to him at all.’

  ‘We have to.’ Walter half-turned to the archway, then paused to say, ‘If he isn’t there by seven, we’ll come back and talk to him here.’ He glanced at me. ‘Come on, Paul.’

  She was stony-faced. Her head lowered, and she watched her fingers try to smooth out the crease she’d made in the snapshot. I hesitated, and mumbled, ‘Nice to meet you.’ And then, hearing the inanity of it, I hurried out after Walter.

  We got into the car, and Walter drove back down into town. He was silent, and he gazed bleakly out through the windshield at the street. After a block or so, I said, ‘What do you think, Walter?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I hope she’s just a nagging wife, one of these women who sees disaster every time her husband takes a deep breath, but I don’t know.’

  ‘She seemed almost terrified, you know it?’

  ‘I know.’ A traffic light stopped us at the base of the slope, and he looked over at me and grinned. ‘If this really is one of the sewed-up towns, we’ll be back in Washington before you can say Taft-Hartley. We’re not up here to be heroes, Paul, or martyrs either.’

  ‘Do you think that’s what this is? A sewed-up town?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s the way she talked, but it doesn’t figure I’ve seen towns like that. The factory keeps the town alive, the way it does here, the way it does in half the towns in the count iv Hut you get a real son of a bitch running the factory, and he decides to run the town, too. He owns the newspaper and the radio station, the police chief and the most prominent minister, the bank and the supermarket and the hospital and most of the private homes. When you run into a town like that, you just turn around and go home again, and give the name and forget it.’

  ‘Give the name?’

  ‘Oh. I forgot to tell you about that.’ The light turned green, and Walter accelerated across the intersection. ‘We have an office,’ he said, ‘keeps an eye on really tight plants. Subscribes to the local papers, and stuff like that. You see, a sewed-up town is a powder keg, and sooner or later it blows up. All of a sudden the workers have had enough. Until that happens, there’s nothing we can do, but the minute it does happen we send a flying squad in armed to the teeth with leaflets, and before that town knows it, it’s organized.’ He grinned at me, and winked. “You ought to see a job like that sometime,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe I will, right here.’

  ‘Not on your life. I don’t think this is a bad town, that was just a bad wife. But if it is, we clear out. For now, let’s go back to the motel and wait for Hamilton.’

  Four

  At quarter after six, a knock sounded at the door. Walter was sitting in the room’s one armchair, reading a paperback book, while I was sprawled on my bed and reading a pamphlet entitled ‘What is an AMERICAN Union?’ We both looked up at the sound of the knock, and I bounced from the bed, wanting to be useful, saying, ‘I’ll get it.’

  ‘Right,’ said Walter. He tucked the paperback away in the drawer of the night table, and I went over and opened the door.

  Two men with drawn guns bundled into the room, shoving me backward, and one of them shouted at Walter, over by the night table, ‘Hold it right there! Just stop right where you are!’

  No one had ever pointed a gun at me before. I stared at it, the one in the hand
of the man nearest me, and my stomach seemed to shrink in on itself, as though trying to make a smaller target, while a trembling started in the back of my legs. My mouth was suddenly dry, and cold dampness lined my forehead.

  I saw Walter, his face expressionless, slowly raise his hands over his head, and I did the same. My forearms were trembling, and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to keep standing. I made no guesses in my mind as to who these men might be or what they might want; I didn’t think at all, but simply stood and hoped I could keep on standing.

  A third man came into the room. He was fiftyish, very tall and still muscular. His head was square, with a seamed tough-skinned face, and he wore a hat pushed back to show a high widow’s peak of grey hair. Like the other two men, who were younger and slightly smaller versions of himself, he wore a wrinkled suit and a white shirt and a dark plain tie. He came into the room, looked at me and then at Walter, and reached into his hip-pocket. He pulled out a cracked alligator-skin wallet and flipped it open with a gesture that somehow reminded me of Walter’s trick of popping just one cigarette halfway out of the pack. A badge was pinned to the inside of the wallet, and behind a square of clear plastic there was some sort of an identification card with a photo on it. He showed us this for just a second, then Hipped the wallet shut again and put it back in his pocket, saying, ‘Police. Frisk them, Jerry.’

  One of the other two men put his gun away, in a small black holster up under his coat tail, and came over to me. ‘Spread your legs,’ he said.

  I stood spraddle-legged. Jerry went around behind me and patted my chest, my sides, my back, my belly, my hips, and my legs. Then he went over and did the same with Walter, while his partner still held the gun on us, and the older man shut the unit door and stood leaning against it, arms folded, watching us.

  The man named Jerry came back into my line of vision, saying to the older man, ‘They’re clean.’