He said, “Her back was to the camera. Couldn’t recognize her.”
Her fingers moved again and he felt the deepness of the breath she took.
“A man’s habits are funny. You notice that sort of thing in prison. You think about them a lot. Now, some men, when they’re ready for bed, they stand in front of the bureau and empty every last thing out of their pockets and hang up their suits all right and proper. Me, I just toss things around. I guess I told you that once. Warned you about what an awful guy I’d be to live with. That was before — before they caught me.”
She stopped stroking his hand, put her hand down at her side. When the light flicked on again, he saw that her eyes were wide, that she looked up at the dark ceiling.
He continued. “I always had a good head for liquor. Never believed in mixing my drinks. I guess the only time I ever did was the night out with you, Sally. The night before they came and got me.”
“Why are you talking about this, Jim?” she said loudly.
“Shh! You don’t want to wake up the people. I’m talking because it’s nice to talk to people when you haven’t been alone with anybody for a long, long time. That’s the worst of those places. The fact that you’re never alone.”
Her breathing was easier, but he saw in the next flick of the light that her lips were compressed.
“You know, Sally, Besterson is a coward. Never fired people himself. Always had somebody else do it. Scared to death. Afraid of going broke. Afraid of getting sick. Always worrying. I figured he was going broke a week or so before I — went to jail. You know, it was funny. For the month before I went to jail, he spent a lot of time out of the office. An awful lot of time. Let me see, it started about the time you lost your job, didn’t it?”
She moved quickly away from him.
He caught her shoulders and pulled her back beside him. “What’s the matter, dearest?” he said.
“Get it over with!” she demanded, her voice hoarse.
“Sure, dearest. I’ll get it over with. You met Besterson when you used to wait for me outside the office. You always had your eye on the best chance. All that time Besterson was out of the office, he was with you. You got me tight. You knew my habits. You planted those big bills in my pocket, knowing that I didn’t keep money or cigarettes or keys in that pocket. You made me a sitting duck, darling. They still wonder where I hid the rest of the money that I didn’t take.
“And then Besterson got scared. You were the link. He knows I’m smart. If you moved out of here and moved into the big time, I’d know the answer. So he bought you your pretties and told you to stay here. Expensive writing paper. Fancy nightgowns like the one you’re wearing. Sure, the girl in the picture had her back turned to me, but I recognized the back.
“I know. Besterson is hiding and trembling someplace and waiting for the word from you. You’re supposed to get in touch with him and tell him whether I’ve gotten wise to what you two did to me. Only you could have planted that money on me. Only you, darling.”
She drew a deep and shuddering breath. The light flicked on and off, on and off. In a husky tone, she said, “You’re sick. You’re talking crap.”
“You’re right. It was rotten.” His hand slid past her face, and his hard fingers fondled her throat.
“No! No, Jim!” she gasped, as his fingers tightened. Then she could say no more. Her nails tore at his face, at his hand. She strained her body up in a hard arc like some strange bow and dropped back. Again and again. Her wide eyes bulged. There was no sound except the tiny tearing noises of her nails in his flesh.
He put his lips close to her ear. “Tell me where Besterson is.”
He released the pressure gently. She sucked the air into her lungs and tried to scream. He tightened down again, careful of his anger, nourishing it, knowing that if he released the anger his fingers would crush her throat and she’d never breathe or speak again. He turned his head away as she dug for his eyes.
“Where’s Besterson?” he asked, lips close to her ear.
Slowly he released the pressure. Her breath rattled as she coughed, holding her throat. “Mountain Lodge. Near Star Lake,” she gasped.
“This is it,” he said softly. His fingers closed on her throat again. “Good-by, Sally. Good-by, dearest. Good-by, you female Judas.”
She found new strength in her terror. But his fingers were tight. Tighter. Tighter...
He stood by the window and the light from the sign flashed across his face. Staccato. Pulse of a mechanical city. Pulse of a heat-sodden city, counterpoint for the littered sidewalks, the stains of sweat under the arms of the doughy women, the foam wiped from lips with the back of a hand.
He seemed to hear the voice of George, close to his ear, “But you won’t have the guts to get even, boy. You wait and see.”
He turned toward the bed, full of a bleak weariness, as though a spring, wound one notch tighter during each day of imprisonment, had suddenly spun free of the ratchets, lay sodden inside him, without tension.
She sat on the edge of the bed, still coughing, gasping and massaging her throat. When the light hit her face he saw the silver streaks of tears across the soft cheeks, the disordered froth of pale hair. With each inhalation, her breath made a rattling sound in her throat, like a parody of a snore. He picked up his coat, stood by the bed, the coat slung over one shoulder, looking down at her as the near-death noises slowly stopped.
She looked up at him and, in the light, her face was cold — the face on a silver coin, the face on a billboard in winter. “You’re going after Besterson,” she said. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement and said in the way she would have said, “He is dead.”
He considered her statement. He thought of his hard fists smashing Besterson’s soft face, the blood gouting from the split flesh, the eyes puffing shut, the broken mouth working in a froth of red.
“No,” he said softly.
She straightened her shoulders and there was contempt in her face. “You couldn’t kill me,” she said proudly. “You know why? Because you still love me.”
He stared at the pale oval of her face, shocked by what she had said. “Love you?” he exclaimed. “You!”
It came then. It started as a small spot of delirium deep inside him, spiraling up through his chest, exploding into laughter at his lips. Loud, raucous, pealing laughter.
Somehow he found the doorknob, let himself out into the dark hall. The hoarse wonderful sound of his great laughter boomed along the corridor, blasted the silent air of the stairwell. He clutched his middle with one hand and caught at the railings with the other.
Slowly he managed the stairs, whooping and gasping in an odd glee that was almost too much to bear. The door slammed behind him and he was out in the night heat of the city, weak and panting.
James Forbes walked off through the night streets, a pain in his side, his lips still twisting, and in his heart he knew that he was at last free.
He could hate the two of them no longer.
Hate was a prison with walls that touch the gray sky.
He was finally free.
Unmarried Widow
(“A Corpse-Maker Goes Courting,” Dime Detective, July 1949)
He was sitting in a place called Stukey’s on Primrose Street, and he had been there most of the afternoon, alone at a table for two, a table with wire legs and the black scar tissue of cigarette burns. At the far end of the bar, a little clot of beer drinkers were making a two-dollar investment cover a whole afternoon of TV. Max dimly realized that they were so hard up for conversation they even watched the puppets on the late-afternoon kid shows.
He wasn’t drinking hard and heavy. But he was working on it. Somehow it had become important to achieve a state of remoteness. Whenever he felt himself sliding back into the uncomfortable reality of the present, he raised one finger and Stukey came out from behind the bar with another shot.