But Frank didn’t hear. He seemed to be alone with himself. Then gradually his eyes opened and he was staring up at the ceiling. His hands were lowered, his arms loose at his sides. He spoke to whatever he saw there on the ceiling. “It’s straight now,” he whispered. “I finally got it straight.”
Then it was quiet again. Kerrigan had his mouth open but he couldn’t speak. He was trying to get hold of his thoughts, the hollow thoughts that wouldn’t add and wouldn’t fit and had him trapped somewhere between icy rage and the misty abyss of puzzlement.
And finally he heard Frank saying, “It comes back. All of it. Comes back on all four wheels.”
“Spill it.”
Frank’s voice was level and calm. “The night it happened I was plastered. Couldn’t remember where I went or what I did. And all these months it’s been like that, getting worse and worse until it reached the point where I gave up trying. I told myself it was me who did it. I really believed it was me.”
Kerrigan spoke slowly, the sound edging through his tightened lips. “You sure it wasn’t you? You absolutely sure?”
“It couldn’t be me,” Frank said. And then, completely certain of what he was saying, not trying to force it, just saying it because it was true, “I spent that night in a joint on Second Street. Went in before dark and didn’t come out till the next afternoon.”
Kerrigan’s eyes narrowed. He was studying Frank’s face.
Frank said, “I been sick with this thing a long time. It’s been like a spike jabbing into my head. I ain’t been able to sleep, and couldn’t eat, and there were times I could hardly breathe.”
Kerrigan didn’t say anything. He could feel the truth coming out of Frank’s eyes.
He heard Frank saying, “A spike in my head, that’s what it was. And every time you looked at me, that spike went in deeper. As if you were telling me what I was telling myself. It got so bad I couldn’t take it any more.”
“Is that why you hired the gorillas?”
Frank nodded. “I musta gone haywire, just crazy enough to want you out of the way. Musta figured the only way to get rid of that spike was to use it on you.”
Kerrigan took a deep breath. It was more like a sigh, as though a tremendous weight had been eased off his chest.
Frank said, “You sure as hell choked it outta me.” He grinned weakly and rubbed his throat. “You squeezed just hard enough to loosen that spike. So now it’s out.”
Kerrigan smiled. He put his hand on Frank’s shoulder. Frank grinned at him with a mouth that didn’t twitch and eyes that weren’t glazed.
“I’m all right now,” Frank said. “You see the way it is? I’m really all right now.”
Kerrigan nodded. He gazed past Frank. The smile gradually faded from his lips as he thought of Catherine. And he was saying to himself, You still don’t know who did it.
And then, very slowly, he felt the answer coming.
17
He stood there and told himself he was getting the answer. He knew it had no connection with any man’s face or any man’s name. His eyes were focused through the window facing Vernon Street. He peered out past the murky glass and saw the moonlight reflected on the jutting cobblestones. It was a yellow-green glow drifting across Vernon and forming pools of light in the gutter. He saw it glimmering on the rutted sidewalk and going on and on toward all the dark alleys where countless creatures of the night played hide-and-seek.
And no matter where the weaker ones were hiding, they’d never get away from the Vernon moon. It had them trapped. It had them doomed. Sooner or later they’d be mauled and battered and crushed. They’d learn the hard way that Vernon Street was no place for delicate bodies or timid souls. They were prey, that was all, they were destined for the maw of the ever hungry eater, the Vernon gutter.
He stared out at the moonlit street. Without sound he said, You did it to Catherine. You.
It was as though the street could hear. He sensed that it was making a jeering reply. A raucous voice seemed to say, So what? So whatcha gonna do about it?
He groped for an answer.
And the street went on jeering, saying, Your sister couldn’t take it, and the same goes for you. And it chose that moment to display its hole card. It opened the door of Dugan’s Den and showed him the golden-haired dream girl from uptown. As he stared at Loretta, he could hear the street saying, Well, here she is. She’s come to take your hand and lift you from the gutter.
Loretta was walking toward him. Something quivered in his brain and he thought, She reminds me of someone. And then it was there, the memory of the hopes he’d had for Catherine and himself, the hopes he’d lost in a dark alley and yearned to find again.
But taproom noises interfered. Two dimes clinked on the table as Dugan poured a drink for Frank. At the table Nick Andros poured gin for Dora. “Say when,” Nick said. But Dora said nothing, for gin had no connection with time. As the gin splashed over the edge of the glass, Kerrigan looked toward the table. He saw Frieda getting up from the floor. Mooney was doing the same, and they almost bumped heads as they came to their feet. Then Frieda staggered backward and bumped the humpbacked wino off his chair. Channing caught hold of Frieda and tried to steady her and she said, “Let go, goddamnit, I can stand on my own two legs.” There was a shout of approval from Dora. It inspired Frieda to a further statement of policy. She said to Channing, “Don’t put yer hands on me unless I tell you to.”
Channing shrugged, preferring to let it go at that. But Nick Andros frowned and expressed the male point of view, saying, “You’re wearing his engagement ring, he’s your fiance.” Frieda blinked, looked down at the ring on her finger, and then with some energetic twisting she pulled it off. For some moments she seemed reluctant to part with the green stone. She held the ring tightly, frowning at it. Then suddenly she placed the ring on the table in front of Channing. Her voice was quiet as she said, “Take it back to where you got it. This pussycat’s a self-supporting individual.”
For a moment Channing just sat there with nothing in his eyes as he thought it over. Then, with another shrug, he lowered the ring into his jacket pocket. So that took care of that, and then he was smiling at Frieda and saying, “Have a drink?”
Frieda nodded emphatically. She sat down beside him and watched him pour the gin. She lifted the glass and said loudly, “This juice is all I need from any man. Even if he wears clean shirts.” But then, as though using her right hand to make up for a left-handed swipe, she patted the side of Channing’s head and spoke in a softer tone. “Don’t take it to heart, sweetie. You’re really cute. It’s nice to sit here and drink with you. But that’s as far as we can take it. After all, it’s every cat to his own alley.”
So true, Kerrigan thought. He looked at Loretta, who stood there waiting for him to say something. His eyes aimed down to what she had on her finger, the hinged ring from the Greek’s loose-leaf notebook. His brain said, No dice. She’ll hafta take it off. And his heart ached as he gazed at her face. Her face told him that she knew what he was thinking and her own heart was aching.
He said, “I’ll have a talk with the Greek. He’ll get rid of the license. All he has to do is light a match.”
She didn’t say anything. She looked at the ring on her finger. She started to take it off and it wanted to stay there, as though it were a part of her that pleaded not to be torn away.
He said, “It’ll come off. Just loosen the hinge.”
Her eyes were wet. “If we could only—”
“But we can’t,” he said. “Don’t you see the way it is? We don’t ride the same track. I can’t live your kind of life and you can’t live mine. It ain’t anyone’s fault. It’s just the way the cards are stacked.”