“It’s okay, son,” I said. “I’m going to help you.”
“I didn’t do it,” he said, very quiet. “It was a frame. A dirty rotten frame.”
“Sure it was, son,” I said. “I know it and you know it but the cops don’t know it. That’s why I’m here to help you.”
All the time I was measuring him, especially his face, with my eyes. I was relieved; it was going to be even easier than I had thought.
He was pretty suspicious at first, as I’d figured he would be, but I sat on the edge of the bed and talked to him for a long time and after a while he quieted down a little. Then I gradually worked it around to telling him that I was a plastic surgeon and that with a new face he could get out of town and go to Detroit or somewhere and start all over. The kid thought about it for a while and he was still scared, but he was grasping at straws and he saw what looked like an out.
“Okay,” he finally said. “I suppose you’ll want some money.”
“That’s not important.” I reconsidered. “How much have you got?”
“A couple of hundred bucks.” He fished in his pocket.
“That’ll do,” I said, and put the money in my billfold.
Then I got him out of there and back to the office and went to work on him. He was still pretty worried, but he felt better when he saw that I really meant to do the job. I raised the head of the table and got him on it. Then I washed his face and hands with the antiseptic and injected the local. It hurt him, but he didn’t say anything. He was a game kid. I went to the cabinet and got out the picture and propped it up where the kid couldn’t see it. Then I lost myself in the scalpels and flesh and gauze as I always did.
Three hours later I stepped back. It was beautiful. A little time to heal and it would be superb. I was an artist and I took an artist’s pride in my work. Even to the fingertips where the skin had been rolled back by my own special method to obliterate the prints, it was the work of a master.
“How is it, Doc?” the kid grimaced, the raw cuts burning as he moved his lips.
“Don’t try to talk,” I warned. “It’s fine. It’s swell.”
The kid tried to smile with his eyes. Then I put on the bandages and the adhesive and helped him to the cot in the corner.
“It’ll only take a couple weeks,” I said. “You can stay here while it heals.”
The two weeks went by very slowly. More so for the kid than for myself, I suppose. Two weeks of pain and itching and drinking through a straw and sleeping with the hands tied and then more pain and more itching. I took care of him as best I could and I think he appreciated it. He couldn’t talk, but he kept looking at me through the slits in the bandages, his eyes sort of big and round and scared. Always looking at me. After a while it kind of got on my nerves.
Finally the two weeks were up and I could cut away the bandages. I worked fast, impatiently, and eventually ripped off the last piece of gauze. I stared at the new face with the same awe I always felt when I saw my work unveiled for the first time. It was exquisitely done. And why not? I was the Michaelangelo and the Rembrandt of my profession.
The kid looked at himself in the mirror for a long time. He looked pleased, so I knew he didn’t recognize the new face, and I felt relieved. Couldn’t have followed the papers very closely, I thought.
At last he turned to me. “Gee, Doc,” he said. “Thanks. It’s swell.”
Sure it’s swell, I thought. Seventy-five hundred bucks worth of swell.
Then he grabbed hold of my hand and just hung on and gave me that hurt-dog look of his.
“Okay, kid,” I said. “Forget it.”
I gave him the new set of clothes with all the identification tags ripped out, and the wallet.
“Don’t open it,” I said. “There’s a little money in there. You’ll need it.”
He put it in his pocket. Then I handed him the small black automatic with the serial numbers carefully filed off.
“Just in case,” I said.
He put that in his pocket, too.
“Now,” I said. “I’m going to get you out of town. Go down to the drug store at Third and Broad and wait for me. I’ll be right along. It’s okay. Nobody will recognize you.”
He thanked me again, which I wished he hadn’t done, and left and I waited until I couldn’t hear him on the stairs any more and then I followed him down. Only I didn’t go to the drug store. Instead I went into a lunch cart a couple blocks away and changed a quarter and went into the phone booth.
“Give me the police,” I said. Then, “Don’t ask any questions. Just listen. Arney Vincent is in a drug store at Third and Broad. He’s armed, so don’t take any chances.” Then I hung up.
I went out of the lunch cart and up the street and leaned on a mailbox about a block away from the drug store. Pretty soon I saw the black police cars pull up in front and saw the coppers jump out and fan around the store. Very neat. Then came the shots, first one and then a lot of them, and in a little while I heard the meat wagon siren coming up the street.
I went back to the office and waited until the evening papers came out. I went down and bought one and took it back up with me. It was all over the front page in big black print. “Arney Vincent Killed,” it said. “Mysterious Phone Call... Drug Store at Third and Broad... Identification Through Photographic File and Papers in Dead Man’s Wallet...” I didn’t read any more. I didn’t have to. But somehow I didn’t feel as pleased as I’d thought I would.
I stuffed the paper in my pocket and went up to see Arney. He was still sitting in the easy chair with the drink in his hand. I threw the paper in his lap.
“I’ve seen it,” said Arney. “Pretty. Very pretty. You did a good job.”
“Yes,” I said. “It was a good job. All my jobs are good.”
I waited, but he just sat there looking at me.
“We had an agreement,” I finally reminded him.
“I changed my mind,” said Arney, still looking at me. “I only pay for things I’m going to have a use for. That lets you out.”
I lit a cigarette and took a long drag. “I don’t brush off that easy,” I said. “I made one phone call today. I could make another.”
“Yes,” he said, “you could do that.” He grinned at me. “You could if there was any way to prove it.”
I stood there and looked at the tip of my cigarette. I was, after all, the Michaelangelo and the Rembrandt of my profession. There didn’t seem to be anything left to say.