Something hit me in the cheek and for a moment I didn’t feel any pain. Only shock and a slight dizziness. But the blow whirled me around. Something hit me in the stomach. I bent way over, took a stumbling step forward, my legs apart, and almost fell. I’d never felt so sick to my stomach. Yet all I could do was make gagging sounds. I couldn’t seem to get any breath. As though from a great distance, down a long, wind-rushing tunnel I heard someone say: “Sign that letter.”
The sickness left. I straightened up. The girl behind me said: “Give him a chance, Smitty. Don’t bang up his face.”
I stood there sucking in breath, trying to focus my eyes. I leaned on the desk, with both hands, looked down at that letter. That letter! I couldn’t sign that, no matter what they did to me. I couldn’t take the rap for somebody else’s crookedness.
I thought of the whispering and sniggering there’d be at the Emcee offices, Monday, after news of that letter spread around . . . “That Kip Morgan,” they’d say. “Who’d ever have thought it? But they say those quiet guys are the ones you’ve got to watch out for. Listen, I’ll bet some dame got plenty of that dough, too!” . . . I could see the newspaper headlines, especially in the Wildwood Press:
LOCAL MAN CONFESSES $50,000 THEFT!
I thought of my neighbours, of my kids going to school and the other kids pointing at them, whispering. I knew how cruel kids could be about things like that.
I wouldn’t do it. To hell with them. I wasn’t going to sign it.
Smitty hit me again. His weighted, sharp-knuckled fist caught me in the kidney. I went twisting over to one side like a stagger-drunk. Pain ran all through me in little flashes of fire, then ran all together in a balled-up flame of aching agony all up my left side and back. I felt tears hot and blurry in my eyes, then running down my cheeks. I looked at Smitty. His wide-set gray eyes were crinkled at the corners as though he was grinning. But his little kewpie doll mouth stayed the same; it showed no expression.
“You’re a real hero, aren’t you?” he said. “That’s beautiful. I like heroes.”
He came toward me. And I suddenly didn’t care about the girl with the gun behind me. Let her shoot me. Let them kill me. At least the pain would be over. Then they could never make me sign that letter. I swung at him with every ounce of strength I had left. He picked the blow off with his left arm like a lovetap. He took hold of me with his left hand, by the shirt front. His right hand whip-snapped back and forth across my cheeks and mouth, stinging hard. I felt the salty blood in my mouth.
Then his balled, weighted fist hit me in the stomach again. I don’t remember falling. But I was on the floor, staring down at the green wall-to-wall rug. I saw Smitty’s feet in front of me. He wore patent leather shoes, like dancing pumps, with small black leather bows on them. Then his feet disappeared. There was pain – vast, searing pain all through my ribs as he kicked me.
I cursed. I called him every filthy word I’d ever heard. I was crying, sobbing with rage and pain. I said: “Why are you doing this to me? Why, why? I never did anything to you! Stop it! Please, please stop!”
“For a thousand bucks we’re doing it,” Smitty said. I could hear him quite plainly in the momentary lull between the end of a song on the radio and the commercial. “For a grand I’d kick hell out of my own mother. So it’s nothing personal, understand. But you’d better sign that letter.”
The radio music blasted out again. I felt somebody grab me under the arms, lift me. Somehow I got my feet together under me and stood. But not for long. My knees seemed to have no bones in them. I fell backward and sat down on the edge of the bed. I leaned over and put my face in my hands, then looked at the smear of blood on my fingers.
There was suddenly a terrible noise and excruciating pain in my ear. It wasn’t until later that I realized he’d slapped me over the ear with his cupped hand. For a moment, I couldn’t even hear the radio. I rocked in agony and blubbered. I called to Fran to help me. I kept calling her name. It didn’t do any good. Smitty kept slapping and cuffing me and when I’d fall over on my side onto the bed, his fist would wallop into my ribs or kidneys.
After a while there was just a void of pain. I got numb all over, didn’t think, didn’t react. And then I realized he wasn’t hitting me any more. I looked up through tear-fogged eyes at him and knew that as long as I didn’t react he’d ease up on me. At the same time, sharp thoughts seemed to flash suddenly through my brain. I felt filled with cunning. I told myself: “I can outsmart this guy. I can be crooked, too. I can double-deal him! Okay, I’ll sign their damned letter. I’ve been stupid. What difference does it make? This is only Friday night and I’ve got my office keys. I’ve got until Monday morning. I can prove my innocence. What good is that piece of paper? I can show my cuts and bruises, prove that I was forced to sign it. I’ll go right to the police and I’ll help them find out who it was really stole that money.
Leering at Smitty and Vivian, I got up from the bed. I reached out toward the desk. “All – all right,” I said. “I’ll sign.”
I started to walk toward the desk but my legs gave out. Smitty had to put his arm around me, hold me up until I got to the desk, could lean on it with one hand. I picked up the pen. I signed their confession for them. I had hardly put the pen down when Smitty hit me in the temple. There was an explosion of multicolored lights. There was darkness. Then blinding light again. On and off. On and off.
I wasn’t completely out. I was aware of being dragged along the floor by hands under my armpits. I could hear voices. I could hear that the radio had been turned off. But I couldn’t move. There was a tingling all through my arms and legs the same as you get when you lie on one arm and it goes numb. I heard Smitty swear. He said: “Shut the window again, Viv. We can’t do it, now. There’s a damn cop standing in that doorway right across the street.”
“So what?” she said. “He isn’t looking up here. We can get him dumped out and the cop won’t know anything about it until he hits the pavement. We’ll be gone by then.”
“Don’t be stupid. Suppose he does just happen to glance up while we’re easing him out the window. We’d never get out of the hotel.”
Oh, yes, I’d been very clever, very cunning, to sign that confession for them. So clever, so brilliant – so stupified with pain, I hadn’t realized they couldn’t let me live. I was going to be a “suicide”. That would tie in beautifully with the confession. How could they let me live to contest the thing?
Some of the numbness left my arms and legs. I realized I was huddled in a heap against the wall under the hotel-room window. I thought of the way it would look out that window, down fourteen – no thirteen – flights. I thought about air rushing past me, taking my breath away as I’d fall, wheeling, turning, over and over. I thought of the sound I’d make, hitting the pavement down there.
“Why doesn’t the fat fool go, get out of that doorway?” Vivian said. “Of all the fool places for a cop to stand around and kill time!”
Please, I begged, Please, God, don’t let him move. Don’t let him move, make him stay there. Right there!
“Listen,” Vivian said. “Turn the radio on again. You can shoot him. Make it look like he did it, himself. I’m getting nervous. I want to get this over with and get out of here.”
“Oh, sure,” Smitty said. “With this gun. It can be traced, you goon. That’s no good. There’s got to be some other way. That damned cop looks like he’s settled for the night over there.”