I laughed, choking on the coffee I was starting to swallow. In spite of all I'd been through, I was beginning to feel nice and relaxed. Joyce was dead. Not even Rothman suspected me. And when you passed clean with that guy, you didn't have anything to worry about. It was sort of an acid test, you might say.
I debated calling up the newspapers and complimenting them on their "accuracy." I often did that, spread a little sunshine, you know, and they ate it up. I could say something-I laughed-I could say something about truth being stranger than fiction. And maybe add something like-well-murder will Out. Or… the best laid plans of mice and men.
I stopped laughing.
I was supposed to be over that stuff. Rothman had warned me about it, and it'd got Bob Maples' goat, But- Well, why shouldn't I, if I wanted to? If it helped to take the tension out of me? It was in character. It fitted in with that dull good-natured guy who couldn't do anything bad if he tried. Rothman himself had remarked that no matter how screwy things looked, seeing me as a murderer was even screwier. And my talk was a big part of me-part of the guy that had thrown 'em all off the trail. If I suddenly stopped talking that way, what would people think?
Why, I just about had to keep on whether I wanted to or not. The choice was out of my hands. But, of course, I'd take it kind of easy. Not overdo it.
I reasoned it all out, and wound up still feeling good. But I decided not to call the newspapers, after all. The stories had been more than fair to me, but it hadn't cost 'em anything; they had to fill space some way. And I didn't care too much about a number of the details; what they said about Joyce, for example. She wasn't a "shabby sister of sin." She hadn't, for Christ's sake, "loved not wisely but too well." She was just a cute little ol' gal who'd latched onto the wrong guy, or the right guy in the wrong place; she hadn't wanted anything else, nothing else. And she'd got it. Nothing.
Amy Stanton called a little after eight o'clock, and I asked her to come over that night. The best way to stall, I figured, was not to stall; not to put any opposition to her. If I didn't hang back, she'd stop pushing me. And, after all, she couldn't get married on an hour's notice. There'd be all sorts of things to attend to, and discuss- God, how they'd have to be discussed! even the size of the douche bag to take along on our honeymoon! And long before she was through, I'd be in shape to pull out of Central City.
After I'd finished talking to her, I went into Dad's laboratory, lighted the Bunsen burner and put an intravenous needle and an ordinary hypodermic on to boil. Then, I looked along the shelves until I found a carton each of male hormone, ACTH, B-complex and sterile water. Dad's stock of drugs was getting old, of course, but the pharmaceutical houses still kept sending us samples. The samples were what I used.
I mixed up an intravenous of the ACTH, B-complex and water and put it into my right arm. (Dad had a theory that shots should never be given on the same side as the heart.) I shot the hormone into my hip… and I was set for the night. Amy wouldn't be disappointed again. She wouldn't have anything to wonder about. Whether my trouble had been psychosomatic or real, the result of tension or too much Joyce, I wouldn't have it tonight. Little Amy would be tamed down for a week.
I went up to my bedroom and went to sleep. I woke up at noon, when the refinery whistles began to blow; then, dozed off again and slept until after two. Sometimes, most of the time, I should say, I can sleep eighteen hours and still not feel rested. Well, I'm not tired, exactly, but I hate to get up. I just want to stay where I am, and not talk to anyone or see anyone.
Today, though, it was different; just the opposite. I could hardly wait to get cleaned up, and be out and doing something.
I showered and shaved, standing under the cold water a long time because that medicine was really working. I got into a clean tan shirt, and put on a new black bow tie, and took a freshly pressed blue suit out of the closet.
I fixed and ate a bite of lunch, and called Sheriff Maples' house.
His wife answered the phone. She said that Bob was feeling kind of poorly, and that the doctor thought he'd better stay in bed for a day or two. He was asleep, right then, and she kind of hated to wake him up. But if there was anything important…
"I just wondered how he was," I said. "Thought I might drop by for a few minutes."
"Well, that's mighty nice of you, Lou. I'll tell him you called when he wakes up. Maybe you can come by tomorrow if he's not up and around by then."
"Fine," I said.
I tried to read a while, but I couldn't concentrate. I wondered what to do with myself, now that I did have a day off. I couldn't shoot pool or bowl. It didn't look good for a cop to hang around pool halls and bowling alleys. It didn't look good for 'em to go into bars. It didn't look good for them to be seen in a show in the daytime.
I could drive around. Take a ride by myself. That was about all.
Gradually, the good feeling began to leave me.
I got the car out, and headed for the courthouse.
Hank Butterby, the office deputy, was reading the paper, his boots up on the desk, his jaws moving on a cud of tobacco. He asked me if it was hot enough for me, and why'n hell I didn't stay home when I had a chance. I said, well, you know how it is, Hank.
"Nice goin'," he said, nodding at the paper. "Right pretty little piece they got about you. I was just fixin' to clip it out and save it for you."
The stupid son-of-a-bitch was always doing that. Not just stories about me, but everything. He'd clip out cartoons and weather reports and crappy poems and health columns. Every goddam thing under the sun. He couldn't read a paper without a pair of scissors.
"I'll tell you what," I said, "I'll autograph it for you, and you keep it. Maybe it'll be valuable some day."
"Well"-he slanted his eyes at me, and looked quickly away again-"I wouldn't want to put you to no trouble, Lou."
"No trouble at all," I said. "Here let me have it," I scrawled my name along the margin, and handed it back to him. "Just don't let this get around," I said. "If I have to do the same thing for the other fellows, it'll run the value down."
He stared at the paper, glassy-eyed, like maybe it was going to bite him. "Uh"-there it went; he'd forgot and swallowed his spit-"you really think…?"
"Here's what you do," I said, getting my elbows down on the desk and whispering. "Go out to one of the refineries, and get 'em to steam you out a steel drum. Then- you know anyone that'll lend you a welding torch?"
"Yeah"-he was whispering too. "I think I can borry one."
"Well, cut the drum in two, cut it around twice, rather, so's you'll have kind of a lid. Then put that autographed clipping inside-the only one in existence, Hank! — and weld it back together again. Sixty or seventy years from now, you can take it to some museum and they'll pay you a fortune for it."
"Cripes!" he said. "You keepin' a drum like that, Lou? Want me to pick you up one?"
"Oh, I guess not," I said. "I probably won't live that long."
11
I hesitated in the corridor in front of Howard Hendricks' office, and he glanced up from his desk and waved to me.
"Hello, there, Lou. Come on in and sit a minute."
I went in, nodding to his secretary, and pulled a chair up to the desk. "Just talked to Bob's wife a little while ago," I said. "He's not feeling so good."