Most murders are routine affairs ... two men and a woman, two men and a bottle, two men and a few bucks ... but not the rifle murder of Cyrus Cartell in a Phoenix motel bedroom. Before Mike Williams, Chief Investigator for the Phoenix Police Force, unravels the murder, two others are dead and among the human impulses Williams must sift through are sadism, incest, sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, race persecution, illegal harassment and downright human bitchiness.
The cast of characters he must work with includes the brutal victim, his oversexed wife and nubile and pregnant nymphet daughter, two youths on the verge of a gay relationship, a pair of raffish cocktail waitresses and a sinister stray who may or may not be involved in what rapidly develops into an epidemic of death....
CHAPTER ONE
Captain Mike Williams, a criminal investigator for the Phoenix Police Department, pulled in behind a squad car in front of one of the units of the Bel-Plaines Motel on East Washington Street. There were about a dozen units in the compound, several facing the street, and the rest around a corner, well away from the sound of traffic. There were better motels on East Washington, but the Bel-Plaines was popular for certain purposes because it was out of the way and was not too expensive (seven dollars a night for two, which is cheap in Phoenix).
The captain walked along the gravel drive, around a corner, toward a small crowd of people who were clustered about one of the far-end units. He shivered as a cool breeze sent a blanket of dampness over the air from the irrigation canal beyond the buildings. Daylight was breaking through a grey mist that was cold and uncomfortable. As he walked he felt the dizziness that comes from too much coffee and not enough sleep.
He pushed through the crowd and stepped onto the small wooden stoop in front of one of the cabins. He pushed open the door, then shut it behind him. He looked at the officer who stood at the door, then looked at Bernie Evans.
He moved across the room to the single bed and looked down at the body that lay on it. It appeared to be a man sleeping soundly, except that the eye cavities were filled with blood that had oozed from a small puncture between the brows.
"Right between the eyes," the captain said, "Just like in the storybook."
Discoloration had already begun and the flesh around the eyes was almost black. The body had begun to swell because of gases escaping inside the frame, making the man look even bigger than he had been when alive.
Captain Williams glanced around the room. There were several whiskey bottles on the table beside the bed. One of them was empty, the other partly empty. There was still some liquor in a glass beside the bottles. On the floor beside the bed lay a wallet. The captain bent down and looked at it, not touching it. His eyes moved up to the large hand that dangled over the side of the bed. The fist was clenched and sticking out of it he could see the corner of a ten-dollar bill.
The captain finally turned to Bernie Evans.
"What happened here?" he said.
"I killed him," Bernie said. He was sitting in a chair near the door, his hands folded in front of him. His face was pale and his eyes were frightened, though he looked steadily at the captain.
Captain Williams moved to the officer who was standing in front of the door. He squinted at the man, weighing him, and the officer frowned uncomfortably.
"You must be Patowski," Williams said finally, glancing into his notebook.
"Yes, sir," the younger man said.
"Well, Mr. Patowski," the captain said, and he pointed at Bernie. "Did you hear what that boy just said?"
"Yes, sir," the officer said.
"Good. You remember it." He grunted and the officer nodded. "And I want you to take down everything we're going to say. Okay?"
"Yes, sir."
"You have a notebook?"
The officer nodded and produced a notebook from the blouse pocket of his uniform. The captain moved to Bernie again. He studied Bernie's face while Bernie stared down at his hands.
"You killed him, huh?"
"Yes."
"I see." The captain glanced at a .22-calibre rifle that was lying on the small bureau. "Where did you get the gun?" he said.
"It's mine," Bernie said. "I brought it with me."
"I see," the captain said. "Then you know who he was?"
"Oh, yes," Bernie said. He looked up from his hands and found the captain's eyes fixed on him. Bernie stared back for a moment, then looked down again. He shook his head in a futile gesture and his lips began to tremble. He clasped his hands together to keep them from shaking, but he couldn't stop them. The vibrations passed to his legs, which moved convulsively while Bernie cleared his throat, desperately trying to gain control.
"You realize what you're saying?" the captain said.
Bernie opened his mouth to speak, found he couldn't. His breathing was short and audible, and the trembling increased and spread to his shoulders. Through the convulsions he managed to nod.
Captain Williams put a hand under Bernie's chin and tilted his head back. He frowned into the large eyes that darted uncertainly, trying to avoid the captain's look. Then the captain pressed a hand against Bernie's forehead. Bernie shook his head in protest, but Williams hooked a hand under Bernie's arm and pulled him up, then guided him to the small bathroom and waited in the doorway while Bernie was sick.
"Feel better?" he asked when Bernie finally came out.
Bernie nodded. The captain took his arm again and guided him to the door.
"Better give this man your car-keys," he said to Bernie. Bernie frowned and shook his head as if he didn't want to. But he obeyed and handed the ring of keys to the officer at the door.
They moved out of the cabin then, pushing through the crowd toward the captain's car. Bernie stopped suddenly in the midst of the people crowding around him. There was quite a mob gathered, most of them attracted by the flashing red lights atop the squad cars. Men, women, children, even dogs. Some whispered, some pointed, some stood at the edge of the crowd and looked frightened. All of them stared at Bernie.
The captain felt Bernie going rigid and tightened his hold on Bernie's arm. But as he did so Bernie jerked free. Suddenly he was yelling, and he darted forward, throwing himself against the people, his arms flailing the air.
"I'll kill you!" he shouted.
He struck out blindly, catching a woman on the shoulder with one of his fists. She screamed and tried to run away, but was pinned in the crowd that churned without direction, striking back at Bernie. In-a moment the captain was beside him and grabbed his arm, twisting it behind his back. At the same time the officer at the doorway elbowed his way through the crowd and grabbed Bernie's other arm.
"Let me go, goddamn you!" Bernie yelled. "I didn't do anything! I didn't do anything!"
The captain held him while the officer reached into the squad car for a pair of handcuffs. He moved beside the captain to put the cuffs on Bernie's wrists.
When Bernie saw the cuffs, he frowned and suddenly he stopped struggling. He jerked around to face the captain.
"Please, don't!" he whispered harshly. "I'll be good! Don't put those on me! Please! I'll be good!"
The captain signalled the officer away, then let go of Bernie.
"Get in the car," he said and Bernie obeyed.
The car edged forward and the people gave way before it. Bernie looked back at them as the car moved along the gravel drive toward the turn that led to the street. How funny! he thought, and then he grinned.
He turned around again and stared at the street. He rubbed his wrists. He had avoided the handcuffs. It was a foolish thing he had done. Stupid! But it wouldn't happen again. He'd see to that. They mustn't tie his hands. It was important that his hands be free!
Bernie felt better as they picked up speed. He breathed deeply, catching at the cool, morning air that streaked in through the side wing of the car window. His trembling had subsided somewhat and being away from the murder room seemed to calm him down. In his mind he was still trying to think back, to re member, to fill in a blank spot. But it was useless.
All the while he had sat there staring at the big man, lying senselessly, harmlessly on the bed, he had tried to move back, to filter out the make-believe, to reconstruct as they do in murder mysteries. Once in a while he had laughed. Once he had even talked to the big man. As if the big man could tell him anything! He had pleaded with him, but the big man only lay there, his eyes clouded over with big red tears-as though he were sorry. Bernie felt sorry too.
Bernie thought about Mike. Why hadn't he stayed home? "I told him to stay there and wait for me! In one ear and out the other. Didn't I tell him to stay home? I would have done it!"
"It takes a man to pull a trigger," the big man had said. Then he'd laughed. "And I don't see no man around here!" He'd poked his head around the tiny motel room and it was a game. "I swear I don't!"
"Like hell!" Bernie said and suddenly he was aware of Captain Williams staring at him through the rear-view mirror over the windshield between them. Bernie smiled. It was a slight smile, but he had a reason for it. He rubbed a hand across his face, pushing himself up, gathering his strength for what he knew was coming.
He glanced out the window at the great desert buttes that chiseled away at the skyline, looming up at the edge of the city like giant watchdogs standing silent, trying to be cold, but giving in to warmth as the first rays of the desert sun streaked between them. He smiled.
He smiled because he was moving. At last he was moving ...!
CHAPTER TWO
Bernie watched the houses and the people whizz by him as they sped toward downtown Phoenix. The sound of the siren jarred his thoughts and Bernie winced uncomfortably at it.
"Can you turn that damn thing off?" he said finally.
The captain obeyed.
Bernie closed his eyes and settled deeper into the seat. Again he thought of the big man lying dead in the motel room. What a horrible thing that was! How could such a thing have happened? It was unreal, a nightmare. The whole week had been a nightmare and again he tried to remember how it all had happened. If he could only remember how it had started, at least. When did it start? He winced. Such a long time ago! But when did it really get bad?
That last night at the apartment-that was the worst. That last night ... when he didn't dare go home....
* * *
He had left the La Casita Restaurant, where he worked the four o'clock to midnight shift, and walked up Thomas Avenue to Sixteenth Street toward the Post Bar. Sometimes after work he'd stop in there for a beer before the bar closed. He usually only had time for one, but that was all right because Bernie wasn't much of a drinker. Sometimes he'd get there right at the wire, but Jan, the barmaid, would slip him one anyway and he'd drink it while she emptied ashtrays, restocked the beer coolers and hustled out the last hangers-on.
Jan winked at Bernie when she saw him coming in. She drew a beer and met him with it at the end barstool, then glanced at the clock and turned to her audience.
"Let's go, pretty people," she said, then leaned on the bar opposite Bernie. She reached out and brushed a hand over his arm.
"How you tonight, Bernie Babe?"
"Okay."
"You got the blues?"
"No, just tired, I guess."
"Mike and Sarah all ready for the trip?" Bernie nodded.
Jan studied Bernie's face while he stared down at his beer. Soon her smile faded and she began to feel the first tremors of anger that always followed the initial good feeling at seeing him. She ran a hand over his arm again, her fingertips bristling the reddish-brown hairs that grew like a soft mat on his skin. When he looked up, she made a face at him and finally he grinned.
"Give me ten to lock up and we'll have a coffee."
Bernie nodded. In a matter of minutes the place was cleared out, including Bernie. He waited in his car while Jan checked out her cash register. He watched the other cars pulling out of the lot until his was the only one left. In a way he wished he could take off, too. In a way he wanted to be home. But he knew he mustn't. Not tonight ... especially not tonight!
Finally, Jan came out of the bar and slid into Bernie's car. She breathed a deep sigh of relief, then suddenly clamped her hands against Bernie's face and kissed him.
"I want pancakes," she said with desperate urgency. "I want a double stack with lots of butter. Hurry, I can't wait."
"You'll get fat," Bernie said.
"I don't care."
"Well, dammit, how can I drive if you don't let go of me?"
"Try it," she said, tightening her hold on him.
"Come on, don't be ridiculous."
Jan drew away, releasing him. She stuck out her tongue at him, then fished through her purse for her compact while he started the car and pulled onto McDowell Avenue, heading toward downtown Phoenix.
"Got another letter from my mother this morning," she said, waving it at him, then dropping it back into the bag while she scooped things aside searching for the compact. "She wants me to come back home."
"Are you going back?"
"I suppose, sooner or later," Jan said. She slid forward into a more comfortable position, working on her mouth with a lipstick. "Life is full of times to go home," she said absently.
"Not me," Bernie snapped. "No such place."
"Oh, wow!" Jan said and laughed. "And what a frown!" She jabbed at him with her lipstick and caught him on the cheek with it. She laughed louder when he finally noticed it in the rear-view mirror and wiped it off.
"Don't wipe it off," Jan said.
"Why not?"
"People will think we're lovers."
"Well, aren't we?"
Jan shrugged and snapped the bag shut, tossing it onto the back seat. It made a terrific clunk when it hit, then found its own shape and settled down like a third passenger for the ride into downtown Phoenix.
When they finally pulled into the parking lot adjacent to the Pancake House on First Street, she caught hold of his arm as he started to get out of the car.
"We don't have to go in," she said.
"It's all right," Bernie said. He hated it when his mood affected Jan. He didn't mean to dampen her spirits, but he couldn't help it.
"You want to go over to my place?" Jan said.
Bernie shook his head.
"Maybe you'd rather just take off. You can drop me here and I can catch a ride with Madge."
Bernie jerked his arm free, then got out of the car. He stared at the empty sky for a moment, finally turned back and leaned down, staring at her through the car window.
"I'm sorry, Jan," he said finally. He tried to smile, but couldn't manage it. "I'm just sorry."
Jan slid over behind the wheel. She took one of his hands and put it on her shoulder. His fingers slid under the cloth of her collar and pressed against the cool skin of her throat. She bent her face against his hand and smiled.
"You don't have to apologize to me," she said. "You don't owe me anything."
"I'm not," Bernie said. "I just feel-"
"Listen," she said, cutting him off. "Get in the car. I wanna say something." Bernie obeyed and slid onto the seat beside her.
"I'm not chasing you, Bernie."
"I know that."
"Whether you know it or not, I'm telling you," Jan said. "I like you. I like being with you and I like sleeping with you. Maybe I'd like someone else better and maybe you're not so hot, but I don't have anyone better-"
"Oh, for-"
"Listen, Bernie, I'm thirty-three years old. Sometimes I feel like I'm drying up. You know what I mean? I'm five years older than you, but I don't care. You do something to me and that's all I care about. Your body fits me and you make me feel good. You don't try and hurt me and that makes me feel good. I know I don't do much for you, but I really don't give a damn-I really don't. So you can relax. Baby, you don't have to do anything but be there!"
She took a deep drag from her cigarette and blew the smoke in his face. "So there!"
Jan laughed. She grabbed his arm and squeezed it. "Hey, I just had a terrific idea," she said. "Let's forget all this true-confession crap and have some damn breakfast!"
Bernie grinned as he felt the tension released. Before he was even up she was already halfway across the parking lot and he had to run to catch up with her.
She slid into the corner booth and patted the place next to her.
"C'mon, Bernie babe," she said, and in the same breath, after scanning the room quickly, she shouted. "Madge, damn you, we need food!"
The waitress winced at the outcry, then came over, shaking her head in rebuke. "You want menus?"
"Hell, no, we want food! My God, we're in the middle of the desert!"
Madge grinned. "Okay. You want a double stack." She turned to Bernie. "How about you, Bernie?"
"Coffee," Bernie said. He glanced at Jan, who was already busy fishing through her purse again. He grinned, then looked at the waitress.
"I'll have a double stack, too, I guess."
CHAPTER THREE
When Bernie finally opened his eyes, the sun was pouring in through the half-drawn drapes and he knew by its brightness that the day was well under way. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was probably close to noon. He wasn't even up yet and already it was time to start thinking about going to work.
He glanced at the sleeping form beside him. He studied the outline of her face and the long expanse of her neck and her skin, coarse from the sun and already creased with the first wrinkles of age. He leaned forward till his mouth was very close to hers and looked at the thin line of her mouth. He thought about kissing her, but didn't do it. He looked at the shoulders that curved down from her throat in softer, lighter colored mounds. He thought about placing his hands on them. He looked at her breasts that were exposed among the tangle of bedspread. He frowned.
He moved away carefully so as not to wake her and eased himself up from the bed. He dressed quickly, then looked out at the patio through the large picture window beside the front door of Jan's apartment. He saw Madge on one of the patio chairs, sunning herself.
Bernie frowned. He was hoping to slip away quietly, but he knew he would have to talk with Madge when he passed her. He thought about waiting, but suddenly was in a hurry to get home. Even another minute was too long to wait.
"Hi," he said to Madge as he approached her. "Good morning," she said. "Nice day for a tan."
Madge smiled slightly and adjusted the top half of her suit. She'd pulled it down low so the sun could even out the color of her skin, but adjusted it when Bernie approached her.
"Jan still out?"
Bernie nodded.
Madge picked up her bottle of suntan lotion and handed it to Bernie, then turned onto her stomach. Bernie sat on the edge of the deck chair and began spreading the lotion over her skin. He tried to forget he was in a hurry.
"Feel good?"
"Uh-huh!" She groaned with pleasure. After a while she stopped groaning and Bernie thought she might have dozed off. But she hadn't, because suddenly she spoke.
"Mike and Sarah ready for the trip?"
"Tomorrow."
"I'll bet you're gonna miss him."
"I suppose."
Madge turned over again and Bernie handed the bottle back to her, watching-while she applied lotion to her neck and shoulders. He was aware she was much prettier than Jan. She was also younger.
Actually Bernie had known Madge longer than he'd known Jan. He'd frequented the Pancake House downtown ever since he'd first moved to Phoenix a year ago. It was through Madge that Bernie had met Jan when she became Madge's neighbor across the patio. Jan had taken to Bernie right away. But for some reason Madge and Bernie had never hit it off. It seemed all they did was fight.
"Are you going to take Jan back to the Post to pick up her car?" Madge said finally.
"I don't know," Bernie said. "I don't know how long she's going to sleep. I should really be getting home. It's almost time to start getting ready for work."
"So why drive all the way to your place? You can have lunch here. It's past noon already."
"I suppose I could."
"Why don't you go see if you can wake Jan up? I got some lunch meat and junk in the refrigerator."
Bernie started across the patio. Then he stopped. He turned back to Madge.
"Hey, you can drop Jan there, can't you?" Madge looked at him, but didn't answer. "I really have to get home. I have to stop at the store."
"Suit yourself," Madge gave him a look of disgust, then scooped up her lotion bottle and headed toward her apartment.
"Well, can you?" Bernie said.
"Sure I can," Madge said, turning at the doorway. "See you around."
"Well, what are you mad about?"
"Nothing," Madge said.
"Bull!"
"Look, Bernie, I don't have to take any crap from you! I said I'd take Jan to her car and I'll see you later. Okay?"
"If you've got something on your mind, why don't you just say it?"
"I have nothing to say," she replied.
"Listen!" Bernie tried to control his anger, but it showed as his face reddened. He followed Madge into the apartment, pushing the door shut. "I told you right at the beginning, I don't want to answer to anyone. I don't have to. I told you that right from the start. Jan is your friend-"
"Big deal!"
"I never-"
"Bull-oney, Madge! You know as well as I do. I like Jan. You know that. But we have an-understanding."
"You're screwing her, aren't you?"
"Oh, for God's sake!"
"Well, aren't you? Or what is it you do over there, play checkers?"
"So what?" He felt growing disgust.
"So, like I said, she's my friend. And she's got lots of friends. But she's no whore. She turns it down like you turn down drinks. But with you it's different and you know damn well it is. Maybe I been pushing it. Maybe I figured you could do something for each other. But if that's all you're gonna do, then goddammit get off the pot!"
"I don't think it's any of your business."
"The hell it isn't!" Madge's voice began to tremble as her anger increased. "Jan is a great person. I never met anyone before in this town I could even talk to. I been going nuts in this phony town with these phony bastards I have to kiss-ass with every day. I thought you were different. Maybe I was wrong. So, to hell with you!"
"I'll just disappear. Dammit, I'll just disappear!"
"Well, why don't you?" she screamed. She covered her face with the towel, trying to check the sobs, mumbling almost under her breath, "You son-of-a-bitch."
"Aw, Madge, come on," Bernie said harshly.
"Son-of-a-bitch, I don't wanna talk to you. Just get out of here. I don't know you."
"Madge?"
He reached a hand toward her, but Madge pushed it away. She got up and went into the bathroom, slamming the door after her. Bernie went to the bathroom door and stood for a moment. He listened to her crying. Moisture had been accumulating behind his own eyes, and finally it spilled over. Damn! He was glad she didn't see him. It was ridiculous, but he couldn't stop it.
"Hey, Madge? I'm sorry."
"I said, get out of here, you son-of-a-bitch!" He heard the sharp sound of glass shattering from the other side of the door, and after it the sharp scream of her voice. "You goddamn, queer son-of-a-bitch!"
"That's not true," Bernie said, but he said it under his breath. "Not true!"
He left the apartment and headed home. As he drove he thought about Mike and under his breath he said, "Not true!" But even as he said it his foot pressed harder on the accelerator, because he knew he was in a hurry to get home....
* * *
Madge sat down on the edge of the bathtub and stared down at the broken lotion bottle. She watched the little rivulet of yellow lotion crawl along the bottom of the tub, moving like a bloated caterpillar toward the drain. She picked up a piece of the broken glass and dropped it into the trash basket under the sink.
What a waste, she thought. What a goddamn waste!
She studied her reflection in the pier-glass that was part of the bathroom door. She cursed at the eyes that stared back at her from the mirror. She was furious at them because of her outburst. She remembered his pained look and his desperation and she scowled at the thought of him reaching toward her, pleading with her, trying to make everything seem all right when everything was all wrong.
God, how she would like to understand! How she would like to say, okay, see you later, and say hello to Mike for me! How she would like to be able to smile at him and joke and spend a night with him and let it go at that! How she would like to feel his hands on her skin without the suntan lotion as an excuse! She smiled and then she laughed and left the mirror.
Let's face it. She moved back into the living room. She stared absently through the window at the empty patio. Let's face it, she thought, it wasn't Jan she'd been arguing for, it wasn't Jan she was crying for. It never had been.
Bernie had been right. He and Jan had an understanding. She frowned in disgust. Jan had never really cared. She might have if she wanted to, but she never allowed it in herself. She'd been hurt too many times. That's the way she explained it. She would never allow herself to be hurt that way again.
Or, if she did care, she kept it to herself. If she did cry, she did it like Madge-in the bathroom with the door locked.
Poor pretty dumb bitch Madge! Why couldn't she be like her neighbor across the patio? Why couldn't she just reach out and grab? Why couldn't Madge grab anyone-like everyone grabbed Madge? Sure, Madge was easy. Any guy who came into the Pancake House could find that out. Practically anyone who made a pass could score with Madge. Why couldn't Madge be the same? Why couldn't she grab at something she wanted?
No wonder she was easy! No wonder she couldn't say no! She was learning from them all. She was nodding so she could hear the next question and memorize it and promise herself to practice it. Next time ... next time ... she was a student learning through practice. Next time she would try out what she had learned.
Next time. But each time he got further away. Even the thing between him and Jan was starting to fade. She had pushed them together when she'd seen Jan's spark of interest. How else could she have kept him coming around? But even that was fading. Even that was giving way to something else....
Madge felt her face redden as she thought of herself in the patio chair. What a perverted mind! My God, what a twisted broad! Waiting in the patio chair that he would have to pass in order to escape her neighbor's bed. Pushing him into that bed on the strength of a cheap drunk because she didn't have what it took to pull him into her own. Using her neighbor as a battering ram to break down his fibre and then waiting around, hoping for seconds.
"Oh, mother I"
Using her neighbor with her ridiculous flat boobs and mannish laugh to sway his taste from a hard belly to a soft one.
"I've got to get hold of myself...."
Covering her own full breasts when she saw him coming-covering them and turning over so he couldn't see them because they might frighten him away.
I'm losing-my-mind!
Madge felt her face sting. She folded her arms in front of her as though she were ashamed of her beautiful body. She dropped onto the couch, pushing her knees tightly together. She pressed her hands down over her groin, as if to find something there that might miraculously have blossomed, and she shook her head. Suddenly she laughed.
It's not fair!
She knew the anguish of physical fulfillment. Many times and in the dark the pain was always the same. She'd fought and demanded and lain many times with the warm contentment of hard flesh enveloping her, making her aware that she was beautiful, that she was alive. And every time it was good.
It wasn't fair that she should be saddled with this-hunger. Like a child-like a high-school child's infatuations, as though expecting to find something for the first time, something new and exciting and wonderful. It wasn't fair that it was always good-but never good enough.
Maybe he would disappear. It would be better if he just went away, the son-of-a-bitch. The useless son-of-a-bitch! What good was a person like that? Like a cardboard cutout. Pretty to look at, a perfect reproduction of a man, but, inside-nothing I Why the hell was she so worked up about Bernie Evans anyway? Who the hell was Bernie Evans? The phony bastard-to hell with him! Worse than that, why didn't he just die?
Why couldn't he just be dead!
CHAPTER FOUR
Bernie shifted a bag of groceries awkwardly from one arm to the other, then propped it against the door, holding it up with a knee while he worked his key into the lock, catching the bag as the door gave way, then kicking the door shut after him.
He glanced at the two couches that doubled as beds and grinned.
"Isn't this a bitch?" he said. He moved behind the counter that served as a table and set down the bag and began unloading its contents on the black vinyl counter-top. He glanced at the couches again.
His own had been transferred from a bed already and the slip cover replaced. The other was still pulled away from the wall and covered with rumpled bed clothing. There was a great lump in the blanket and a bare foot sticking out one end, dangling in the air.
"What am I running here, a hotel?" he said loudly, setting out a large cereal package and a clump of bananas on the counter as though on display. Then he moved to the bed and sat on the edge. He reached out and ran a finger lightly over the bare foot. The lump in the blanket shifted slightly. "Is this Bernie Evans' Hotel, room and board and sleep till noon? Huh?"
The last word was very loud and caused a murmur from under the blanket, accompanied by a more violent move. Two brown hands emerged and clamped over the place where ears had to be. Bernie laughed and tugged at the blanket. It pulled back and finally the lump revealed its contents in an abrupt rise.
"C'mon, dammit," Mike said. His large dark eyes flashed in a gesture typical of his Spanish ancestry. "Can't a person sleep?"
After the statement he immediately went under again with a great flourish.
"Not till noon," Bernie said.
"It ain't noon," Mike said.
"Little friend, it is noon. It was noon two hours ago," Bernie said simply. "So, get up!"
The last two words were accompanied with good whacks, carefully aimed, and caused an eruption that made Bernie jump back and almost fall off the edge of the bed.
"Why do you have to do that?" Mike said angrily. "Every morning, every morning, every morning! Just because you get up early everybody has to get up early!"
"That's right," Bernie said. He grinned because he knew his grin was adding to the younger boy's irritation. "I make the rules," he added. "Everybody does what I say!"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" Bernie laughed loudly. "And when I say get up, you get up. See?"
"You can't make me. I can sleep all day if I want to."
"Not in this house, sonny boy," Bernie said. "When you get back to Chicago, you can sleep all you want to. Both of you. Together!"
"Knock it off," Mike said.
"I'll knock it off! And this!" Bernie pummeled playfully at the blanket, jabbing from all sides, but pulling his punches. "And this and this and this!" He knew a weakness and finally grabbed Mike's waist and dug his fingertips into the boy's sides. Mike began to writhe under the blanket, but finally his cursing evolved into laughter and he turned over and stared up at Bernie.
"Anyway, how come you didn't come home last night? You know this is my last night here?"
"Big deal!"
"Anyway, why get up? There ain't no milk left."
"Anyway, anyway, anyway!"
"And the Wheaties are all gone too."
"Good God! What the hell are we gonna do?"
"Oh!" Mike frowned, irritated at Bernie's game.
"Oh, oh, oh!" Bernie said, imitating his tone. "What do you call that?" He pointed at the counter. Mike looked past him at the groceries, and his eyes lit up with pleasure. Suddenly he was alive.
"Did you go to the store?"
"No," Bernie said rising, "It came to me in a dream. In fact I'm asleep and this is all a dream." He moved across the room, his arms extended, his head weaving in a strange dance. "A horrible nightmare. Oh, life is a curse. It's a curse to be old and ugly."
Mike laughed and sprang up from the bed. He jumped at Bernie's back, locking his arms around Bernie's neck.
"Come on," Bernie said. "You're choking me." He struggled to break free of the hold. Mike loosened the hold and Bernie turned, facing him. He put his hands on Mike's arms as though to push them off.
"Are you gonna miss me when I'm gone?" Mike said.
"I suppose."
"You're gonna be lonesome without the patter of my little feet around here, aren't you?"
"I've solved that," Bernie said. "I'm gonna buy me a cocker spaniel. Now, let go. What if someone should come in now? What the hell would they think?"
"They'd think we were lovers," Mike said.
He grinned and puckered his lips, making loud kissing sounds.
"You monkey," Bernie said grinning back. Then he felt a tinge of anger, and it crept into his voice behind the grin. "Now let go!"
Suddenly he was staring at Mike's body, the deep cream color of his skin contrasting vividly against the white cloth of his unbuttoned pa jama tops that hung from his shoulders. "You monkey," Bernie said, again, but this time his voice trembled. "You-bastard!"
Without warning he grabbed one of Mike's wrists and twisted his arm behind his back while he swung the other arm around Mike's throat, and clamped his hand on the boy's shoulder.
"You faked me out," Mike hollered, laughing. "That wasn't fair!" Bernie pushed Mike's arm higher behind his back and Mike winced. "You'll break my arm," he said, clawing with his free hand at Bernie's arm that was pinned across his chest.
"Now," Bernie said finally, "Who's got who?"
"I can get away."
"Not until I let you," Bernie said. "Not until I let you and that may be never!"
"I give up," Mike said. "Let me go. I think my arm is broken."
"I'll never let you go," Bernie said and he was trembling. "Never!" Suddenly his hand slid from Mike's shoulder and clamped over one of his breasts and he squeezed the flesh and his hand moved down the boy's body deliberately, angrily, his fingers pressing hard against the skin. "Never!"
Suddenly someone was screaming. "Rape!"
"Oh, my God!" Bernie released him, the word jarring his head. Mike was laughing and he ran to the apartment door. He pulled it open. He stood in the doorway and yelled as loud as he could. "Ra-aa-aa-pe!"
Bernie darted to the doorway and pulled him in, slamming the door shut. "Where the hell do you learn crap like that?"
"That's a trick I picked up," Mike said, tapping a finger against a temple, grinning. "That's how girls protect themselves."
"You damn little fool," Bernie said hotly.
"I told you I could get away, didn't I?"
"All right."
"I can get away any time I want, you know."
Bernie flashed a look at Mike and winced at the boy, who was still grinning.
"I know," Bernie said and he realized he was trembling....
* * *
Touch me, he said, and then he hollered rape. Bernie trembled with the anger of injustice....
"Hey," Mike said and Bernie opened his eyes, recovering from his thoughts. The sight of Mike, his black hair glistening, still wet from the shower, seemed to wash away his mood of depression and suddenly Bernie felt good. The sun was shining and Mike was there and to hell with yesterday and tomorrow.
"What's up?" Bernie said.
"Are you gonna go pretty soon?"
"Yes, sir," Bernie said. "I'm going downtown. I work there, you know. What about your packing? Finished?"
"Almost. But my new rifle won't fit in the box."
"I told you to leave it in the closet. I'll send it Railway Express with the rest of the junk," Bernie said impatiently. "I don't know why I bought that damn gun in the first place. It hasn't even been fired yet."
"I'll need it when I get home," Mike said. "I'll be going pheasant hunting with my dad."
"That'll be the day!" Bernie said bitterly. "You put your clothes in the washer?"
"Yeah, they're washing now," Mike said. "Hey, you don't suppose you could drop me off at Sarah's on your way?"
"Yeah, sure." Bernie cursed under his breath, not at Mike, but at himself and the fact that everything was choking him.
"Well, will you?"
"What do you mean, 'on your way?'"
"Oh, forget it," Mike snapped.
"No, I'll take you there," Bernie said, "Only, don't say on your way when you know damn well it isn't!"
"I gotta borrow ten dollars, too."
Bernie stared at Mike for a moment. He opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. "Boy, boy, boy...." he said finally. "You just don't know when to quit, do you?" It was almost a whisper.
"Can I?"
"What for?"
"I can't tell you," Mike said. "I just need it."
"I see," Bernie said calmly. "Well, I'm sorry, I don't have it."
"You do, too."
"I said I don't."
"Well, you do!"
"Goddammit, Mike, I said I don't. You're telling me what I've got and what I haven't got?"
"You got six hundred dollars left in the bank."
"That's right," Bernie snapped. "I have six hundred dollars in the bank-minus the rent I just paid, minus my car payment and minus the hundred-and-ten bucks I just drew out for your train tickets tonight! What else do you want to tell me I've got?"
"Well, it's important," Mike said finally.
"I'm sorry," Bernie said, and he put out his palms to show Mike they were empty. "I don't have ten dollars-one tenth of my weekly salary-to put out for something when I don't even know what it's for!"
"Well, I can't tell you," Mike snapped.
"Then don't," Bernie said. "Tell someone else."
Bernie knew Mike didn't like asking him for anything. He could see his awkwardness. It hadn't always been like that ... At first Mike had wanted everything, including the moon. He wanted it now! But lately things were different. Now he just wanted to be out of there. Bernie knew that and he hated Mike for it. Mike couldn't wait to be out of there!
Now that the bank was closed, why stick around? How stupid did he think Bernie was? The little bitch! Squeezing him, bleeding him, right to the end! The bitch! Scum! Rotten Spick scum! Bernie knew it now. That's all Mike had ever wanted-a soft touch, a pansy to pay the bills and feed him and make his bed in exchange for a grin and a nod.
Leading him by the nose, luring him with a ridiculous bit of flesh dangling like a worm, and he thought Bernie was the fish. Laughing because he thought Bernie was the fish. But he was finding out ... Bernie didn't bite! He had found that out all right. Bernie never bit and Mike and his child bride could peddle their respective wares somewhere else.
"It's for Sarah," Mike said finally. "I have to take her to the doctor."
"Bullshit!"
"I do. I took her last week and now she has to go again."
"What's wrong with Sarah?"
"I don't know," Mike said. "It's woman's troubles."
"Woman's troubles?" Bernie laughed bitterly. "Now I have to pay for woman's troubles! He gets married and I have to pay for it!"
"Oh, forget it," Mike said hotly. "Just forget it!"
"Oh, yeah, sure." Bernie bolted up and headed up the short hallway to the small dressing room, extracted a bill from a large envelope in the top drawer of his bureau.
"There!" he said returning, dropping the money onto the counter. "There's my budget for the week."
"I don't want it," Mike said. He picked up the telephone and started dialing.
"Who are you phoning?"
"I'm calling the doctor to tell him we're not coming."
"Will you hang up the phone, please? It's on the table."
Bernie dropped onto the leather chair, staring at the drapes. Behind him Mike moved to the counter, picking up the bill. He stood awkwardly for a moment, then pushed the bill into his pocket.
"I'll pay you back," he said.
"Okay."
Mike headed for the door, then hesitated at the doorway. "Maybe I won't need it," he said. "If I don't, I'll bring it back."
"I'm not worried," Bernie said to the drapes. "Now go finish your laundry."
"You're not mad at me, are you?"
Bernie shook his head.
"Then why don't you look at me?"
"I said, go finish your laundry-and your packing."
"Okay," Mike said angrily. "Anyway, after tonight, you won't have to hear me ask for anything again!" He pulled the door violently after him and it slammed with a crash that jarred the drapes.
CHAPTER FIVE
Bernie stared at the door. Under his breath he cursed Mike, using words he seldom used, some from his childhood, forbidden words that were suddenly remembered. He jumped up and moved swiftly to the door, kicking it violently, while the words spewed out, then turned, pressing himself against the door, slamming his fists behind him against the wood.
After a while he stopped. He passed a hand across his eyes. "What's wrong with me?" he said aloud. "What's happening to me?" He moved from the door, wandering about the room senselessly, pacing like an animal in a cage. "That's not the kind of person I am." He peered through his drapes as though to find someone out there who could give him an answer. "Is that the kind of person I am?"
Through the window he saw a familiar green-and-white Olds pulling up the driveway and coming to a halt in his carport. It was Sarah and her mother. Bernie turned from the window. Not now, he thought. Not now! I have to think.
He moved behind the counter as though looking for a place to hide. "I have to think," he said aloud. "Can't they understand that? Can't wait till this is over! Get rid of that little bitch, once and for all!"
Bernie nodded a greeting to the young girl who sailed into his apartment, beaming, fresh, with promiscuous eyes and long honey-colored hair that fell down over her shoulders.
It was easy to see why Mike had been attracted to her, just as he could see why Sarah was drawn to Mike. They were natural for one another, simple, enviably alive, preoccupied with each other and their mutual race against time toward maturity. Bernie had seen this the first time he was introduced to Sarah at the trailer park where she lived with her mother.
That had been two weeks ago. Now Mike and Sarah were married. Bernie frowned angrily as he remembered the shock when they'd told him, standing there, hand in hand, happy-and Rose, sitting on her tiny couch behind them, smiling nervously, trying to hide the anger behind her eyes.
"What could Ah do," she'd said later in that sickening Georgia accent. "Ah had to sign those consent papers. They said if Ah didn't they'd lie about her age and drive down to Yuma and get married anyway. If they just disappeared, or if he got Sarah in trouble, Ah don't know what Ah would do. Ah don't know what Ah could tell Sarah's father. You don't know that man."
Bernie shook the thought from his mind as he heard the car door slam and the click of Rose's heels on the concrete. He nodded a greeting to her. She was smiling, but Bernie could see she was upset. He didn't know her very well, but Rose's emotions were always clearly written on her face and in the way she used her hands. She had a trick of wringing them together that was almost melodramatic and would have been funny except for her eyes, which were always clear and tragic.
"Sit down," Bernie said.
"Ah can't stay," Rose said simply. "Sarah had to talk to Mike so Ah drove her here."
Bernie nodded, though he couldn't imagine Rose driving all the way over from Mesa, a suburb outside the city, just so Sarah could talk to Mike.
"Mike's out back," Bernie said. "He's doing some laundry."
"Well, go on, honey," Rose said. "And hurry it up. Ah gotta get on to work." Sarah started out, then Rose added, "And do your talkin' out back. Ah gotta talk to Bernie."
"Oh, Mother, you're not gonna talk about us, are you?"
"Go on, honey," Rose said sternly.
"Mother, now don't spoil anything," Sarah said.
"Ah won't spoil anything," Rose said. She waited till her daughter's footsteps on the pavement diminished, then she shrugged. "What is there left to spoil?" she said to no one in particular. "If there is, Ah would like to be the one to spoil that. Ah feel Ah deserve that pleasure-if there is any pleasure to be gotten from spoiling things." Rose sank onto the couch, turning to Bernie. "Ah suppose you know they're plannin' to go to Chicago."
"Yes," Bernie said. "They're leaving tonight." He fidgeted nervously. "They'll probably stay with Mike's folks till they get settled."
"I didn't know about it till this morning!"
"What?"
"Ah was informed by my daughter this morning of their plans."
"Oh, for-"
"Ah asked her why Ah was not told sooner. She said she was afraid Ah would try and stop them. She was right."
"That wasn't right," Bernie said. "I mean, they should have told you."
"If Ah had known this was going to happen, Ah would never have signed that paper!"
Bernie winced, but he couldn't hide the look of disgust that swept over him.
"What could Ah do?" Rose was saying. "Ah couldn't call that man. Ah couldn't tell him about Mike and Sarah. Ah was afraid to tell that man. Do you know what Ah'm sayin'? Not for that boy's sake. Ah didn't give a diddly damn for that boy's sake. Ah tell you that right to your face. It was me Ah was afraid for!"
Bernie frowned. He wasn't sure what she was talking about, but he could see she was genuinely frightened and it spread to him. It made his skin tingle like a warning, like the breath of a dead man he'd read about once in a book, and without realizing why he felt suddenly uneasy.
"Ah said Ah'm afraid," Rose shouted. "You don't know, Bernie." Her hands began to work nervously and Bernie found himself staring at them.
"There was a little colored boy," Rose was saying. "He was just a little boy. But that boy is dead. Do you understand what I'm saying? That boy is dead!"
"Dead?" Bernie blinked in confusion. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about. What are you talking about?"
"Ah don't know," Rose said, throwing her arms up in a futile gesture. "I'm just sayin' words, that's all. Ah'm just throwin' words into the air and if there's something there that makes sense, why, you just grab it, that's all. You just grab it and you tell me! Because Ah can't think any more. Ah haven't got any brain left. That's all Ah do at that General Electric plant for two dollars-and-thirty cents an hour, sit there and think. And Ah talk to the radio parts Ah'm workin' on, telling them what Ah try to tell you. But could Ah ever come over here and talk to you? Could Ah ever tell you anything without you sitting there looking at the ceiling like Ah was a crazy woman? Ah didn't even know how to get here. Ah didn't! Sarah had to show me the way and tell me which streets to take so Ah could talk to you. And now Ah'm sittin' here talkin' to the walls!"
"Rose, for God's sake...."
"Yes, for God's sake and your sake and the sake of that boy of yours!"
"Don't," Bernie said, raising a hand in warning, "Just, don't!"
"Oh, don't worry, Ah won't say anything," Rose said. "Ah'll just sit here and wait for my daughter. But Ah'll tell you one thing-there's nobody leavin' this town. There's nobody takin' that train to Chicago tonight. Ah'll tell you that!"
"All right," Bernie snapped. "So there's nobody going. I didn't tell them to go. That's their affair. It's no concern of mine!"
"All right," Rose said. "Everything is all right. Ah'll just sit here. That little boy is dead, but that's all right. Ah'll just sit here and wait for my daughter. Ah won't say another word."
"What are you talking about?" Bernie said, tired of the game. "Who's dead?"
"That boy of yours!"
Bernie felt himself grow pale. It was the way she said it. Again he felt the breath of the dead man and a wave of fear spread through him, chilling him, while he searched her face.
"You don't know the things he said to me on that telephone!" Rose said. "You have no glimmer of an idea what came over the wire of that little telephone. And my whole family! You should have heard them carrying on over that telephone. And my sister! My big sister who Ah love dearly! You should've heard the things she said to me! Ah don't think Ah could ever go back there! And now he's comin' here!"
"Who?"
"Sarah's father, that's who!"
"Sarah's-"
"What could Ah do? When Ah signed that paper, they promised they'd stay here. Ah treated Mike like he was my own. Ah didn't tell him he couldn't stay with us in the trailer till they could get a little place of their own. He didn't want to. So, what could Ah do? This morning, when Sarah told me they were leaving for Chicago, what could Ah do? Who could Ah turn to?
"Ah had to call him. Ah had to put in a long-distance call to Macon, Georgia, and Ah told him Sarah was married and they were leavin', and he said he was comin' out here by airplane. He said he'd be here tonight and they better be here when he gets here."
"Oh, for God's sake!" Bernie said.
"And you know what else he said? He said he'd kill that boy." Rose's voice trembled. "He said he would kill that boy!"
"That's ridiculous," Bernie said, trying to calm her. That doesn't mean-"
"Ah don't know what it means," Rose said, cutting him off. "That's what he said and Ah don't know what it means. But Ah know this. Ah lived with that man and Ah know him and Ah don't live with him any more! Why do you think Ah had to get away from him? Givin' up my home and my family to live out here in a two-by-four trailer? Ah'm not crazy, Bernie. You can dispense with the luxury of that thought from this point forward."
"I never said you were," Bernie said impatiently.
"Well, there are some people who would not agree with you. My dear sister, for one shining example. But she never had to go through what Ah did with that man. She never had to withstand the vulgarities and rudities Ah had to put up with for the sake of my daughter. She suffered under the delusion that a policeman is a big kind man in an olive-drab uniform who pats little children on the head. She just never knew! She never could forgive me for leavin'.
"And him, too! He thinks the world of Sarah, sometimes Ah think more than is natural for a father. And don't think he'd ever of let me take her away if the court hadn't made him. Don't think fo' a minute he would have if he didn't think Ah'd come back, if he didn't think Ah couldn't live without him." Rose laughed scornfully. "Ah really do believe he thought that."
Bernie felt some of the tension leaving him while he listened to Rose giving vent to her old hurts.
"But it was not a kind man in an olive-drab uniform who shot at those colored boys that were prowlin' around the wholesale tire store when he yelled at them and they started runnin'. It was no kind man in an olive-drab uniform that fired that gun, not over their heads to scare them but right in the middle of them, and one of them boys went down.
"Do you know what Ah'm sayin'? Ah saw it! Ah saw the picture of him lying there in the street with a black spot on the front of his shirt where the bullet came out. Not the picture they ran in the newspapers, but the one he showed me, and he laughed and said, he fied 'em!"
Bernie winced.
"Do you know what Ah'm talkin' about? Have you any idea what Ah'm trying to say to you? Ah'm talkin' about a man who raises a daughter in one room while he lies in another, laughin' and sayin', 'Ah fixed them-now you fix me.' Ah told my sister! She said Ah was crazy, upset. Exaggeration-Ah always exaggerate. But Ah didn't, Bernie. And Ah tell you, Ah'm afraid. Not for that boy-Ah'm afraid for me!"
Bernie stared at Rose for a long time. Rose only stared back and the silence grew deafening. The only sound was the scraping of her fingers as they rubbed nervously over her skirt.
"My God!" Bernie said finally. "What the hell have we done?"
CHAPTER SIX
Bernie sat on the couch in Madge's apartment. He and Madge had just returned from dropping Jan off at the airport. She'd got a call that afternoon that her mother was in the hospital with a broken hip. She'd fallen while getting out of a taxi after a party. She was plastered, according to the neighbor across the hall who had called Jan, collect, and Jan had to take time off work to go home.
What next, Bernie thought. He closed his eyes, taking a sip of the drink Madge had fixed him and thinking about Jan's plane. In his mind he could see it coming in, reminding him of the plane that was due in just a few hours from Macon, Georgia. Bernie tried to push the thought from his mind. It had nothing to do with him. What the hell did it have to do with him?
He opened his eyes and caught Madge staring at him. She looked down. They had hardly spoken a word to each other the whole night. Not since that morning when she'd yelled at him through the bathroom door. The thing about Jan had sort of forced them upon one another.
Finally, as though reading Bernie's thoughts, Madge spoke.
"I've been meaning to say something about this morning. I guess I said some rotten things."
"That's all right," Bernie said.
"No, it isn't. I had no right to say what I did. I guess I was just upset."
"You only said what you think," Bernie said, realizing he was pushing the subject. But he wanted to because it was all such a damn lie. It was too ridiculous.
"So, maybe I did," Madge snapped. She bit her lip, aware they were on the brink of fighting again. She didn't want to. Not again-not ever again! Jan was gone now. Maybe now-maybe ... but she couldn't help herself. "And maybe I was right!"
"You can think what you want," Bernie said. "Everybody else does. It doesn't bother me."
"Like hell it doesn't!" Madge said. "Have you looked in the mirror lately?"
Bernie frowned at her and Madge winced, feeling her face turn crimson. My God, she thought. What the hell are you doing, girl? Trying to put the make on Bernie? Not Bernie-Not this way-Not like that! She was relieved when Bernie finally looked away.
"I don't have to prove anything to anyone," he said.
"You must think I'm a bitch," Madge said finally, sitting on the couch next to him.
With a grin she withdrew the challenge and Bernie shrugged. She stared into her drink, stirring the liquor in her glass with one finger. She was aware her face was still flushed and she knew Bernie was staring at her. She was also aware of the moisture building up in her eyes, ready to spill over.
"What's the matter," Bernie said.
"Nothing," Madge said, then she added. "It must be getting pretty late."
Bernie reached out his glass and placed it against her forehead. She flinched at first, uncertain what he was doing, but when she felt the cool moistness of the glass on her skin she closed her eyes. Her head fell back on the couch and she sighed, feeling good. And then it brushed her cheek and she laughed softly. She didn't dare open her eyes for fear it would stop, because it was warm and moist and it wasn't the glass.
"About what you just said before," Bernie whispered. "Do you-do you still want-"
"I didn't mean that," Madge said, feeling herself trembling. "Not the way it sounded."
She felt his hand on her arm and when she did open her eyes, she saw his eyelids shut tight, inches from her face, and she felt his hand searching up her arm and over her shoulder. She kept talking, whispering now, trying to say what she did mean even though he wasn't listening, while his fingers undid the buttons of her green waitress' uniform and pushed the material aside, then slid under the silk that was her slip. She stopped talking then, absorbing the feel of his hand as it searched and traced, moving deliberately, and it felt good. That was all she could think about.
Nothing else mattered because it felt good and she slid her arm around him, urging him forward until they found one another and she tasted his mouth and it was delicious.
She wanted to scream-because now he was trembling, too, and she told herself it didn't matter. It didn't matter. And her hands, seeming to move on their own, searched under his clothes and for the first time she found his body and he responded.
She fell back on the couch and he moved with her. His arms locked around her and his face probed deeply against the soft cup of her throat.
"Bernie!" Madge whispered harshly while her hands moved up and down over his back.
"You don't have to, Bernie! You don't have to prove anything to me."
"I'm not trying to," Bernie whispered. "It's just that I want. I really want."
"Then love me," Madge said and her arms stopped moving on his back. They fell to her sides, relaxed, inert, while he pushed aside the clothes that stood between them. Finally she felt his body press experimentally against hers.
Now he was laughing! She wanted to cry out because he was laughing and the laughter tickled her skin and burned into her pores. Her head moved from side to side as though with motion to drown out the sound. Her mind said, No, no, not this way, not this way, not like all the others, while she stiffened and felt the warmth of his mouth exploring her. Not this way!
"Bernie, Bernie," she whispered and it was a plea. She felt his body move on her until it covered her and when it found her, she strained to let him in and in the darkness she tried to tell herself it didn't matter. It was right! It was right! She felt his hand clamp on her shoulders. She felt his body stiffen-and she knew it did matter. It mattered more than anything else. It mattered more than the moment, more than life itself-and then she screamed.
She pushed him away and in response he rolled onto his side, suddenly inert, as though he had died, as though quick-frozen by the sound of her cry.
In the darkness she covered him with herself. Her arms held him desperately while she whispered. She kissed lips that didn't respond and his chest was suddenly cold and her lips brushed over his eyes to soak up the tears that were escaping. In the darkness he could weep.
"Not this way," she begged. "Please, God, just this once." He lay as though dead and she thought, Go to sleep, go to sleep, and tomorrow we won't remember. Tomorrow it'll never have happened and it won't be too late. Tomorrow you can tell me you love me and I'll believe you. And it'll be all right!
"Not this way!" she whispered aloud. She placed a hand on his face. "Please! Understand, Bernie."
In the darkness he nodded. She felt his face move against her hand. She felt his arm move up and slide over her back and he held her. She felt his breathing grow regular and the trembling stopped and she knew he understood.
While he stared at the ceiling, waiting for the morning, watching the night while it changed from solid black to tiny specks of grey that danced in front of his eyes, he smiled because he knew the difference between love and sinning and he understood.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The following morning, back in his apartment, Bernie met the big man for the first time.
"This is my daddy," Sarah said, beaming proudly, clinging to the man's right arm. Bernie nodded a greeting. He tried to smile, but found it impossible. He wished Madge were here. Why hadn't be stayed with Madge? Her couch was "cool and the sun was warm. He had awakened and stared at her sleeping form and then he had leaned forward, carefully, and had kissed her mouth half-open in sleep. Why hadn't he just stayed there until it was all over?
"This is Sarah's daddy," Rose said and she turned to the man beside her. "Cy, this is Bernie."
"Howdy do," Cy said, and he grinned. He stepped toward Bernie and Sarah moved with him. "Leggo mah arm, honey, so Ah can shake the man's hand."
Sarah obeyed.
"Ah heard plenty about you," Cy said. "You're Mike's-uncle?"
"How do you do," Bernie said, taking the hand that was extended. It was cold, and gripped his longer and harder than he wanted, while the man's eyes looked at him openly. They chilled Bernie. Immediately Bernie felt the weight of this man. He felt it too and his grin broadened when he felt Bernie's arm pulling away, trying to be free.
"Sit down," Bernie said, aware that he was nervous. He rebuked himself and tried to get rid of it. He had promised himself all morning that he wouldn't be nervous, that he would be casual, warm, at least, indifferent. He had told himself that none of this was his concern, that it had nothing to do with him. He wished now he had taken a few more swallows from his secret bottle before stashing it back in the cupboard.
"Well," Cy said, at last when they were all seated, "Ah'm wondering now where that boy might be that I been hearing so much about." He looked about the room like it was a game. "Where could he be? Ah come a long way to meet that boy."
Sarah laughed at the game.
"You don't suppose he flew the coop before he could meet Sarah's daddy now," he said and he squeezed Sarah's arm playfully. "You don't suppose that's what he did?"
"Mike will be right back," Bernie said. "I sent him to the store for some stuff."
"You shouldn't've bothered," Rose said.
"He should be back any minute," Bernie said, trying to sound casual. His mind raced for something to say. Something about Georgia, he thought. He wondered how the weather was in Georgia. He wondered if they grew anything in Georgia besides peaches and peanuts and little colored boys.
"Ah'm lookin' forward to meeting that boy," Cy said to Bernie.
"He's a very nice boy," Rose said.
"Well now, Ah'm sure that's a fact," Cy said almost in a rebuke and Rose's smile faded. Bernie felt a wave of sympathy for this woman, this stranger who sat on his couch, crammed into a sweater to accent a bosom that was mostly fat, pouting under a mane of hair that was black and dull, too dull to be natural, insignificant now, trying to maintain her place, her stature-plump and funny, like a cartoon drawing.
"Isn't this a nice place?" Rose said to Cy.
"Looks real nice." Cy scanned the room. "Looks like the place Ah'm stayin' at-the BelPlaines Motel. Course, there ain't no rug on the floor and it ain't as fancy, but they make all these places a-like out here. They make everything outta cement blocks and they paint 'em up and they all look a-like."
Bernie agreed, feeling slightly sick from his bourbon. He glanced toward the door, wishing to hell Mike would get back.
"Course, they're old-fashioned folks back home," Cy said. "You know, plain ordinary folks. Nothin' like this." He gestured widely to include the whole town. "Hell, we got a garage out back made outta the identical same cement blocks. Ah believe that's a fact, ain't it, Rose? Ah believe some day we could paint it up and make it into a playroom just like this." He laughed loudly.
"And you should see the nice dressing room, Daddy," Sarah said. "It's got a big mirror and a bureau with different colored drawers."
"A dressin' room!" Cy said while Bernie reddened, cursing under his breath. "Well, that is fancy! Ah see you got a bar too. Now, that's handy."
"It's a counter," Bernie said hotly.
"Ah see," Cy said. He met Bernie's look and held it until Bernie finally looked down at his hands. "You're from Chicago," Cy went on, "Is that right?"
Bernie nodded, not looking up.
"Ah was in Chicago once. Passin' through on a train, heading for Keokuk, Iowa. Me and another fella." Cy slid forward on the couch into a more comfortable position. "We were lookin' for a third fella. Country boy-robbed the Macon Building and Loan of fourteen hundred dollars on his way through town."
"Oh?" Bernie tried to appear interested.
"How about that?" Cy laughed. "Took the Macon Building and Loan for fourteen hundred dollars. And with a water pistol too!"
He laughed heartily until Bernie finally smiled.
"A water pistol," Cy said. "Ah guess he didn't know we don't like folks messin' around with what belongs to us, 'cause you wanna see a boy's eyeballs pop right outta his head when he's settin' there big as life, shuckin' corn in the feedshed, and he looks up and sees ole Cy standin' there right in the middle of Keokuk, Iowa.
"Ah says, 'Boy, we don't mind you robbin' our bank. We got insurance coverin' things like that. But when you use a water pistol, boy, you're makin' a fool out of us'!" Cy grinned at Bernie. "Do you get my meaning? Ah don't think there's anything we don't like less than that."
Bernie nodded automatically.
"Honey," Cy said, turning his attention back to Sarah, who was on the couch next to him, "You better leggo mah arm there. You're gonna cut off my circulation."
Sarah laughed, releasing him.
"That's a powerful grip you got there, girl." He turned to Bernie. "How about this little girl? She's really filling out in the right places, huh? Ah do believe she's as good-lookin' as her maw was when I first met her."
"Oh, she's prettier," Rose said, blushing slightly.
"What do you think, Bernie," Cy said. "Ain't that something real nice?"
"Daddy!" Sarah said, embarrassed.
"She's very pretty," Bernie said.
"Pretty?" Cy frowned. "Why, that's enough to make even a man my age get right down on the ground and move."
"Daddy, you're a fool!" Sarah laughed, grabbing his arm again.
"A man can't help it, honey," Cy said. "When you see something as pretty as you, it's only a natural re-action." He suddenly turned to Bernie again. "Ain't that the truth?"
"Yes."
"Honey, Ah'd say down in Macon a pretty thing like you would cause quite a stir." He laughed loudly at his joke. "Yes, sir, quite a stirrin' sensation."
Bernie felt Cy's eyes on him again. Damn! he thought. He felt as though the room were closing in on him. Suddenly music jarred him. He winced at the sound.
Sarah had picked up a record from the stack on the coffee table and had put it on the phonograph, a small portable Bernie had bought for Mike some months ago.
"Sarah honey," Rose said, "Maybe Bernie don't want the record player on."
Bernie shook his head. Senselessly, funnily, faster and faster, the room began to spin and he had to hold onto his chair to keep from being thrown off.
"Nice layout," Cy was saying. Bernie turned. Cy had gotten up and was roaming about the room, moving into the kitchenette. "Electric range, hot-and-cold running water. Just like a home. And all nice and clean too. Ah expect you do a lot of cookin', being in the cooking business."
"It's all right, Mama," Sarah said, "It's Mike's record player."
Bernie tried to keep things in order, trying to sift out what was being said.
"C'mon, Mama, let's show Daddy that new step I taught you."
"Why, Cy!" Rose said. "How did you know that?"
"That's my line of business," Cy said, leaning on the counter, grinning across it at Bernie. "Knowin' things."
"What did you say?" Bernie said, the music jarring his ears. It was a rock-and-roll tune, harsh and imposing, and it was driving him crazy!
"C'mon, Mama."
"Oh, honey!"
"Hay, we gonna have a floor show?" Cy laughed, moving from behind the counter until he stood beside Bernie's chair and Bernie trembled because he didn't like people close to him ... especially people who said things he didn't hear. Damn the noise! Damn the bourbon he had gulped down like a fool to calm his nerves. And damn that dead man he'd read about once in a book who breathed on him and made him afraid!
He wondered if they'd mind if he got up and left the room. He wondered if he could get past the big man who stood between him and his bathroom door. He wished Mike would come in. Maybe Mike could help him. Maybe together they could push over this big tub of a man and Bernie could kick his face while Mike held him down and if he kicked hard enough and fast enough the man would be dead before he could free himself and everything would be all right.
"Ah feel so silly," Rose said. She stood beside Sarah, her arm around Sarah's waist, laughing, watching Sarah's feet, imitating the step.
"Ah can't dance," Cy said to Bernie, "But Ah sure like to watch."
"It's hard to do on a rug," Rose said.
"C'mon, you gals, shake it up!" Cy was laughing, keeping time with the music, clapping his hands together. "C'mon, shake it there!"
The music seemed to swell, but it was drowned out now by Cy's thick breathing next to Bernie's ear.
"Look at that stuff go!" He nudged Bernie with an elbow while he continued to clap with the music. "Will you look at that stuff?"
Now he was whispering in Bernie's ear.
"Look at them two gals! Will you look at them two gals? It's a toss-up! Ah swear it's a toss-up."
Cy's eyes were glued to the dancers. They seemed hypnotized by the movement and suddenly the face that surrounded them went hard. The thick brows edged together. "Shake it, goddammit!" The words came out harsh, demanding, insistent.
Bernie stared at the man beside him. Cy was leaning forward now, his clapping hard, like cracks of a whip. Bernie turned to the dancers and he watched them as they jumped, twirled, side by side, then, crossing, exchanged positions, replacing one another.
My God! he thought, and suddenly he wasn't dizzy any more. The tremors were gone and he felt instead that he was going to be sick-but not from the bourbon.
He looked at the big man's eyes again, at the man's face. The mouth was trembling and tiny bubbles of moisture were escaping from it.
My God! Bernie thought, as he became aware it was Sarah the big man was looking at.
He got up suddenly and bolted past the big man and locked himself in his bathroom.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When Bernie came out of the bathroom, Mike had returned and was sitting on the couch next to Sarah. The big man was talking.
"Sarah has probably told you her daddy here is a policeman. Ah been on the force of the department of law and order for the city of Macon, Georgia, for twenty-two years. Ten of those years Ah been a captain on that force and the last two years Ah been a private investigator for the citizens' patrol of that city. So when Ah talk about laws and what's legal, you can be sure Ah know what the hell Ah'm talkin' about."
Bernie wasn't listening. He was busy watching Mike. He studied the boy's face, the liquid eyes that were alive as though they actually saw things. He looked at the boy's mouth that grinned so easily. There's so muck you don't know, he thought, and so much I wanted to tell you.
"What are you saying?" Rose said suddenly, and Bernie snapped back to reality.
"Ah ain't sayin' nothing, Rose," Cy said, raising a hand in a magnanimous gesture. "Ah ain't sayin' nothing about signing papers with false ages on them or anything like that. Ah'm only sayin' that Ah'm stayin' at the Bel-Plaines Motel for one more day. Ah'm sayin' that at three-thirty A.M. of that day Ah'll be checkin' out of the Bel-Plaines Motel and stepping onto a direct flight to Macon, Georgia. And Ah'm sayin' that this little gal here will be on that plane also in a direct flight to Macon, Georgia. That is the statement of fact Ah'm making!"
"Daddy you can't!" Sarah said.
"You just sit there and be quiet, Sarah baby. Ah know what Ah can do."
"I won't go!"
"Ah believe you will."
"You can't make me go!"
"Ah don't make statements unless Ah know what Ah'm talkin' about," Cy said, suddenly angered. "There ain't no marriage here. There ain't nothin' legal here. And there ain't no reason why we couldn't get a nice simple annulment-even if we needed it."
"Yes, there is!"
"What d'you mean?"
"I mean we gotta stay married," Sarah shouted. " 'Cause I'm gonna have a baby. That's what I mean!"
Bernie winced. Suddenly the game was over. Woman's troubles! That's what Mike had called it and Bernie remembered what he had said in return. Why couldn't you confide in me, he thought. There's so much you wanted to tell me. Why didn't you tell me? Bernie knew why, and he felt ashamed.
"Honey," Rose said, "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Are you sure about that, girl?"
"Honey, why didn't you tell me? They don't tell me anything!"
"Yes, I'm sure!" Sarah had stopped playing too. She sat rigid, oblivious of her mother's arms holding her and her mother's hand stroking her long honey-colored hair. She was the goddess of fertility, carved of stone, smug, obese with life, and she smiled in the knowledge of this weapon inside her-a weapon they had planted together, she and Mike, while the plump partridge cackled to her radio parts and the child-man Bernie sat in his kitchen watching the world go by.
"Mike took me to the doctor and he said I was pregnant," Sarah said. "And I was happy about it. And Mike was, too! And the doctor shook hands with Mike and he said he was happy for us."
"Well now," Cy said finally, "Ain't that nice? Ain't that real nice and simple!" He chuckled. "Gonna have a baby. Don't seem like they been married hardly long enough. What is it, three weeks now? 'Course, Ah ain't much good at figuring-" He turned to Mike. "You ain't been doin' a little playing around, maybe? Kinda warmin' up for the honeymoon, like they say?"
"Ah don't think that's necessary," Rose said.
"'Course, it's necessary!" His eyes suddenly seared her. "Ah like to know the facts, that's all!" He turned his attention back to Mike. "Ain't that right? Hey, I'm talkin' to you!" He pointed to Mike who only stared back at him from the couch. "That boy don't say much, but he sure is eloquent in other ways!"
"Cy!"
"Not that Ah blame him. Hell, that's the nicest little piece a man could find in a month of Sundays." He grinned hard at Mike. "Ain't that right, Son?"
"Ah won't stand-"
"And where were you when all this punchin' was going on, huh?" Cy suddenly spat the words at Rose, cutting her off. "Huh? With your hair all painted the color it used to be and that fancy garage with the fancy lamps, what kinda mother-daughter act you been runnin' in this town? Huh?"
Rose choked off a cry with her hands that covered her face and shrank back on the couch. But Bernie heard the cry. It went through him and made him shake with fury. Suddenly his fists doubled and his knuckles went white.
"That's enough!" Bernie said and his voice was a command. "Enough!"
The big man looked at Bernie's fists, then his eyes moved up Bernie's arms and over his chest and up over the cords in his throat that strained against his skin and into his eyes-and he grinned. Then his mouth formed a single word and Bernie was horrified. The man turned from him, still grinning.
"Ah swear," the man said and suddenly he was laughing, pointing at Rose who huddled on the couch, her hands pressed against her face. "Boys, it's been a long time since Ah seen that woman so riled up. Ah swear, it takes nothin' but ole Cy to get that Georgia blood poundin'!"
He threw up his arms. "Hell, you know me, honey, Ah'm just blowin' off steam. Ain't Ah?" He laughed. "But Ah know when Ah'm licked. Don't Ah always? And Ah'll tell you what we're gonna do. Yes, sir, before Ah get on that plane and leave this old town, we're gonna go out on this town and have ourselves a big feed! How's that sound?"
Bernie shook his head, horrified. His fists suddenly felt ridiculous and he couldn't keep them tight.
"Yes, sir, we're gonna have that feed right now." Cy turned to Mike. "Now, come on, boy, stop that little woman from cryin' before she shakes that baby out before it's due!"
Mike grinned at this, feeling the tension break. He glanced at Bernie, who stared at him in silent warning, but it was lost.
"And how about you, gal?" Cy said to Rose. "You got all that poison squeezed outta you? Huh?" He laughed.
"Oh!" Rose gasped, beginning to melt.
"Then suppose you turn that energy to motion, Rose honey, and pile those two kids in the car while Ah shake the hand of this gentleman here."
Bernie backed away, still frowning. He looked past the big man. They were leaving. He thought of calling out to them. He thought of giving his warning even though he didn't know what the hell he wanted to warn them about. He thought of shouting, but even while he thought of it they were gone. He reached out instead and accepted the hand that demanded his.
"Ah'm doing this now because I may not be seeing you again," Cy said. "But it's been a pleasure meetin' and talkin' with you."
Bernie nodded.
At the doorway, the man turned back. He was grinning. "Ah hope the next time we meet it'll be under different circumstances. Ah believe you can count on that to be a fact."
Bernie nodded because he believed it. When his doorway was finally free, he moved to it and snapped the lock. He looked around the room, feeling the panic that had started from the man's single unspoken word to him.
Finally he dared leave the door and found the bottle in his cupboard. He poured some liquor into the glass and drank it quickly. He poured another and stared into the glass and suddenly he was talking to Madge. It was a long time ago, but it was now and he stared into the glass and he was horrified.
"It's not true," Bernie said desperately. "It can't be!"
CHAPTER NINE
The lights came back slowly, very blue and very dim, irritating because of their persistence, and lack of illumination. Bernie squinted angrily into them, trying to focus, trying to pinpoint some object that might be familiar, trying to break through the mist of intoxication that rode the air around his face like swirls of cotton candy, thick, sweet, sparkling and awesome, distorting everything into a world of make-believe. A fantastic world suspended somewhere between here and reality, blending colors together into gentler contrast and softening corners so they were less brutal, less demanding. He sighed with gratitude.
"Who-eee!" he said at last and he didn't know why he said it. Someone behind him laughed and said it too and then hands with fingers clamped over his waist, kneading his flesh and pushing him forward through the doorway into the apartment.
"Hey, man, where are you?" someone said and Bernie shrugged. He squinted through the maze of things. Shapes and placement of furnishings helped him get his bearings, and he moved instinctively to the right, and, trusting on memory, he eased himself down through space until he was on his couch. He searched over the slip cover to find the edge so he could lie down without the fear of falling off into nothingness.
"Man, it's nothing but dark in here!" someone said to him.
Bernie let his head fall back against the couch and closed his eyes. Things were clearer that way. He moved his head from side to side, trying to keep his breathing even, but it was impossible. Breathing in was no problem, but pushing the air out seemed to take all his strength.
"Whoo-eee!" He fought it desperately. The sugar mixed in the air was making him sick and he tried to avoid it, to filter it out by pursing his lips and letting in just a wisp at a time. But it only made him dizzy. He laughed and suddenly a splash of vinegar spilled up from the back of his throat and he swallowed it back and cringed.
"Oh, God," he said between breaths, "I'm sick!"
Someone laughed.
Bernie heard the laugh and he laughed too. He didn't know why. It had just become easier than talking. At first it had irritated him, like the hand that had moved along the underside of the bar and dropped onto his leg and pressed against his thigh. The music from the juke box had irritated him too.
Even now he could still hear it in his mind. It irritated him the more now because it was barely discernible, yet it persisted and he wished it would either come or go, be or not be, instead of in suspension, an in-between condition that confused him and made him fight for breath while he waited for the sickness to pass.
"Where's the lights?" he heard someone say.
"Don't turn on the lights," Bernie said. "Please!" He managed to cover his eyes in case his plea was unheeded. "I'm sick!"
"You're just a little stoned."
"More than that."
"I know how it is."
Who are you and how the hell do you know anything? Bernie tried to peer through the blue-and-silver strands that floated in front of his eyes. It was too much. It was too thick. Soon he would be asleep and the tide would pass.
"I just wanna find that bottle you were talking about."
Bottle? Well, now, tall-in-the-saddle, Ah believe it's on the counter where Ah left it, Podner. And the glass too! Ah believe you can count on that to be a fact. Bernie grinned.
What's a cowpuncher? He laughed and sure as hell someone else laughed too.
"Hey, man, lookee here-all set up and waiting for me!"
Yeah, man! How about that?
"That's good stuff," someone said and Bernie frowned because someone was coming toward him. "Wanna swig?"
Bernie shook his head. There was someone in the shadows. He tried to see past the bottle that was in front of his face, but he couldn't focus. No more, he thought. I'm sick!
The shadow slid into a big, grey ball over the black, upholstered chair. Soon it would go away. Soon the blackness would shatter into tiny specks of grey and filter out and disappear.
"Hey, don't go to sleep on me."
"I'm not asleep," Bernie said, though he was lying.
"Sure you don't wanna swig?" Bernie shook his head.
"Neither do I," someone said, "but I'm gonna need it."
It was followed by a laugh. Bernie knew it was his turn to laugh back, but he couldn't manage it. He dug his hands deeper into the couch, pressing them against his thighs. He fought back a new tide of vinegar that was pushing up into his throat. He swallowed desperately. Soon it would be conquered and he could breathe again. Soon....
"You all right?"
"I'm all right."
"Yes, sir, this is real nice." It was the cowpuncher from Texas who was talking. The rodeo boy, and Bernie wondered why he'd been so confused. It was so silly! He could have wept with relief. Why, it was a party! It was like the Wild West on television, and it was real nice! "Yes, sir, this is real nice. You must do pretty good."
"Pretty good."
"What you say your name was?"
"Bernie."
"That ain't your real name, is it?"
Bernie frowned. Wasn't it? He tried again to focus on the glob of grey that was sprawled on his armchair. Wasn't it? What a ridiculous question! He peered at the figure, following the outline of his shadow, remembering more than seeing the denim shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders, the bulbous, chocolate-stained arms with biceps that swelled out, the face with the piercing eyes that seemed friendly, yet that hinted at times they could as easily be venomous.
"Sure it is," Bernie said and he wondered if he had missed something again. This was his day for missing things. He looked around, wondering if there were someone else in the room.
"Mine's Jack."
Bernie nodded. That was Jack. Terrific! "See, here's my I.D."
Bernie winced at the hand and the wallet that pushed through the darkness and brushed against his face. He drew back, twisting away from it. Who the hell can read in the dark? I'm not that drunk. What's your game? What?
"What?"
"I just wanna show you I'm not lying."
Bernie shrugged. His hands twitched under the slip cover, simulating a gesture, and he thought, how ridiculous ... How ridiculous! and the couch suddenly dipped and he slid against something that was coarse like cloth, scraping his face as it jerked away. Then his face brushed against a cool surface that was firm and hard and felt like skin.
"C'mon," Bernie said, angrily. He strained against the arm that locked around his neck and half-scowled, half-grinned. "C'mon, Mike, dammit!"
"What's the matter," someone whispered.
"I got a headache, dammit!"
"What you need is a drink. How about a swig?"
"No, dammit, I'm sick!"
"Hey, I got something for you. I got something you'll like," someone whispered.
Bernie swung out in the darkness at the figure that was upsetting his couch. He pushed it and it laughed. He pushed it again, trying to free himself of it.
"You damn little fool, let go!" he said hotly.
"What's the matter, baby?"
"I'm sick!"
"What you need is a drink."
"No!" Bernie felt the bottle pushed against his mouth. "I said, no!" Strong fingers clamped over his head, grabbing his hair and tilting his head back.
"Come on, hen, swig!"
"No-please! I'll be sick!"
"Drink up!"
"Honest to God!"
"One more!"
"I'll be-"
Bernie forced the liquor down because he was too tired to fight. Surprisingly it didn't come back up. In fact it warmed him and he thought maybe he did need it. He slid forward on the couch, lying on his back, and covered his face with an arm. So tired ... tired....
A vise gripped his wrist, pulling it away from his face. Bernie turned his head from side to side as he felt a great weight crushing him, jabbing at him, pinning him down on the couch. Why didn't they just go away and let him sleep?
"So tired."
"Hey, you asleep?"
"So tired."
"Hey, I got something for you, baby. Lookee here!"
"Tired."
"That's all right. Just relax."
The voice became a whisper and it lulled him. He was suddenly freed and looked up at the figure that stood over him, peering through his drapes. Bernie frowned. Why was he looking through the drapes? Was he looking for help? The damn fool! There was nothing out there. He could have wept with pity for this fool who peered through his drapes for help.
"Don't go," Bernie said suddenly.
"Just relax," someone said. "I'm coming."
"I said come here!" Bernie said and his voice was a command.
How funny that he would say that! How dare he be left alone! Things began to spin and he spun with them, deeper and deeper, as he felt himself drawn down. He let his body go limp while he was swept away and under his breath, he said, "It is, it is, it must be . .
* * *
Madge looked at the clock again. It was ten minutes to one. She frowned impatiently. Why the hell didn't he call her? All day she had waited around her apartment, waiting for the telephone to ring. With each hour her irritation had increased. She'd waited till the last possible minute before leaving for work.
Maybe he got tied up with Mike and Sarah. She wondered if Sarah's father had arrived. He must have. And Bernie probably had to go somewhere with them or entertain them. But he could have called. He could have slipped away sometime. It would only take a few moments ... unless he didn't want to!
Bastard! He'd nodded his head as though he understood. Shallow hollow imitation of a man! Pathetic whimpering child-man! He had played the game until he could get away. In his mind he must have been laughing at her, leading her to think she had given him something wonderful, something more than just her flesh, something deeper.
Madge glanced about the dining room of the Pancake House. It was almost deserted now. She tried to forget the clock. She glanced at the guy sitting at the far end of the counter. She was aware he'd been watching her. When their eyes met, he grinned. Madge turned away, taking a deep drag from her cigarette. Not now, she thought. Not any more.
Madge stared into her coffee cup. She tried to free herself from thoughts that were stupid and trite. She tried to think, how funny it was, how funny she was. What would anyone say who could look into her mind and her thoughts? Poor, stupid girl, she thought. Poor, stupid, dumb bitch, Madge. Perverted, she thought. She had to be to love a person like Bernie. How else could she explain the reasons for everything ever since he had grinned at her with those hollow eyes that had fascinated her, drawing by their hunger a hunger deep inside her that she hadn't even known existed. Lying in her bed from that night on, whispering into the thick cushion of her pillow, saying, "I need, I need...." and not knowing why, but knowing it was true.
"I don't!" Madge said suddenly, under her breath, but aloud so her ears could hear and understand. She clenched her hand and fought an impulse to smash the cup with it. "I don't, I don't!"
She didn't need him or anyone else. If she wanted someone, she could grab him. She could have anyone she wanted. As if she wanted anyone!
Hey, you ... Yes, you, you beautiful son-of-a-bitch, what are you staring at me for? Why do you just sit there? Why don't you say what you want? Haven't you got a tongue, you son-of-a-bitch? You want me? Why don't you ask? ... five, six, seven, eight ... Hey, dark-eyes, come on over here.
You don't have to look at the door. There's nobody better coming in. Come on over. You wanna screw me, honey? ... seven, six, five, four ... You wanna go over to my place or your place or somebody's place and get naked? Just say the word, honey, because I'm easy. Anybody'll tell you that.
Don't let this pretty face fool you ... four, five, six, seven ... You wanna put it to me? You wanna screw me and I'll screw you right back till all hell breaks loose because I'm perverted. I'm so damn perverted you'll think you're in heaven. And you can thank him, the son-of-a-bitch! Blame him, because it's his fault, the dirty goddamn useless son-of-a-bitch!
Madge got up suddenly and hurried across the dining room, heading for the restrooms. The words were still racing in her mind and she leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath and suppress the thoughts. She looked at her face in the mirror above the washbasin, and it was all suddenly funny. She laughed until the trembling played itself out.
When she came out of the restroom, the guy at the counter was gone. She didn't care. She fished through her tip money for dimes while she headed for the phone-booth. She dialed a number and waited.
"Post Bar-we're closed," a voice said. It was the owner's wife.
"This is Madge," 'she said. "Jan's neighbor?"
"Oh, how nice!" the woman said. "We were just closing up. We have a relief man, you know, till Jan gets back and Pete likes to check out himself with new help."
Madge nodded impatiently, then answered questions about Jan, Jan's mother and the trip.
"I wondered," Madge said finally. "I'm trying to locate Bernie, Bernie Evans? I thought he might have stopped there."
"Who?"
"Bernie. The fellow that works at the Casita?"
"Oh!" the woman replied, "Jan's boyfriend."
"That's right."
"He was in here for quite a while."
"Oh?" Madge frowned. "Are you sure? The tall boy with reddish hair-Bernie Evans?"
"Oh yes, because I asked him about Jan....Just a minute, Pete," she said, away from the phone, then, "Honey, I have to go. We have to check out and the kids are waiting in the car. You know how they fuss, especially at this hour. You'll have to come over some time. But I suppose you do, only I'm never here." She laughed.
"Did he say where he was going," Madge said impatiently.
"No, they just left when we closed. I'm afraid they were pretty drunk, though."
"They?" She tried to keep her voice casual. "Was Bernie with someone?"
The woman laughed. "If you're keeping tabs on him for Jan, don't worry. He's not stepping out on her. He was with another boy."
"Oh, I see," Madge said.
"One of those rodeo people I think. You know, they're in town because of the rodeo this week. We get lots of them. They practically take over Phoenix. Pete was kinda worried about this guy, though. He was an awfully big fellow, and he kind of looked like trouble. You know, you can sometimes tell. He just sat in a corner and looked at everyone who came in. Like he was waiting for someone. Kind of good-looking, I might add"-she laughed in a rough sort of way ... I'm coming, Pete-"
Madge carefully set the receiver back into its cradle while the woman was still talking. She stared at the phone for a long moment before leaving the booth. She finished her shift, working automatically, then left the restaurant, heading across the parking lot to her car.
"Hey, what's the rush?"
She looked at the red convertible pulled partway into one of the parking stalls. The guy from the counter flashed a broad smile as though he expected she'd know he'd been waiting for her.
In the dimness of the shadows Madge looked at him coldly, then forced a smile, moving toward his car.
"Got a date?" he said.
"That's up to you," Madge said, and in her mind she added, "Goddamn Bernie Evans-Goddamn him to hell!"
CHAPTER TEN
The liquor was strong and the water was warm, but she swallowed it hungrily. She didn't like the taste, but the effect was right. It helped her to keep from screaming as she felt his hand move down over her blouse and close over one of her breasts, squeezing it demandingly. In the bright moonlight that sifted through the blinds she saw his eyes sparkle with anticipation as they searched her face, trying to coax the same response from her.
"Wow!" he said, "I think they're real!" He laughed slightly at his joke, born out of nervousness, and then retracted it with a frown as she scowled at him.
Madge finished her drink and handed him the glass. He quickly mixed her another, not bothering with measurements. He finished his own, then stood for a moment, awkwardly, and looked at Madge, who sat rigidly on the edge of the bed.
"Hey, are you sure you've done this before?"
Madge laughed. Little boys and big men, and how do you tell the difference? She grinned at her drink and it was half gone already. How do you tell the difference? she thought. What does it matter?
Like a high school child searching in the dark for something new and different and wonderful, listening and memorizing and later repeating in a similar darkness. And it would be good. It would be wonderful. She knew it would be good-but not quite good enough. Suddenly she wanted to be away, to turn her rage in the right direction, to let it spend itself in motion until it was gone and he was destroyed, completely destroyed-the way she was destroyed.
"Nobody like me before, though," he said finally and he grinned. He started unbuttoning his shirt. "Baby, I'm the most."
She watched him strip, letting him think she was impressed. She stared openly at his chest, caked with muscle, blackened into silhouette by the moonlight behind him. He grinned at her look, reassured by her show of interest. He flexed his breasts.
"You like?"
"Oh, yes," Madge said flatly.
He slid down beside her and kissed her demandingly. Madge forced herself to-respond. She felt the slight stirrings inside her and tried to quicken them. While his arms drew her in, she felt out his body and the muscles that moved with his breathing and it was starting inside her. She was glad it was starting and she was forgetting. Already she was forgetting and she wanted to laugh.
She drew away and laughed while she found her glass. She laughed softly into the glass while his fingers slipped the buttons of her green uniform and pushed away the pink slip, guiding out a breast. She peered at his face through the tumbler. She regarded his grin, distorted by the liquid between them, and tried to copy it.
She tried to empty her mind, to erase everything except the warm moistness of his mouth drawing her nipples out, suckling against her, greedily, desperately trying to communicate. She thought of humming while his lips burned a path up over her breasts and under her throat and she felt his breath splashing on her skin.
"Let's do it," she said finally.
"What's the rush?" he whispered. He guided her down on the bed and eased himself beside her. His lips brushed lightly over hers.
"I think you're beautiful," she heard him whisper. "I almost wish we'd met some other way. I mean-"
"I'll tell you what," Madge said, suddenly cutting into his words. "Let's play drug store. I'll show you my prescription and you see if you can fill it!" She laughed loudly and looked at him. Her face was animated. He drew away.
"Hey!" he said, frowning.
"Hey, what?"
"Well, I mean ... Christ, you're turning me off, Baby."
"Am I?" Madge said. "You're the one who wants to talk. What do you want me to say? I love you?"
No!"
"Well, then, shut up. Just pay me and let's do it."
"Pay?"
Madge raised herself on an elbow. "Honey, you don't think I do this for kicks?"
His face suddenly went hard and he drew farther away. Even in the dark she could see the color gathering and finally his anger materialized.
"Why, you two-bit whore," he said. His voice shook. "I got a good mind to slap the shit outta you!"
"Pay me, honey, and you can do anything you want."
He got up, trembling with anger. He grabbed up his shirt and started pulling it on.
"Seven bucks for this place and three bottles of booze at after-hours prices! You could've let me know."
"It's your party."
"Yeah, it's my party all right!"
"So what's the difference?"
"You figure it out!" He grabbed up the bottles and headed for the door, turning at the doorway. "Believe me, if I had the dough, I'd do you. So help me, I'd do you!" He fumbled through his pocket with his free hand and drew out a coin.
"Here!" He tossed it to her. "That's all I got left. That's your tip!"
Madge picked up the coin that landed on the bed beside her. She looked at it, then closed her hand over it.
"All right," she said, "I'm paid."
"What?"
"I said I'm paid." She held up the coin. "This is my price. You called it yourself." Her voice trembled with anger. "Now, shut up and do it or get the hell outta here." She threw the coin at him and laughed. "Who needs your goddam money?" She got up and when she was naked she ran a hand over her body. "Come on," she said harshly, "Or isn't there anything here you want?"
He winced.
"What's the matter," she said. "Aren't you man enough?"
"You bitch!"
She laughed and dropped down on the bed. Her legs strained apart and her body moved violently. Come on, you son-of-a-bitch, you useless phony son-of-a-bitch. Who needs you? Who the hell ever needed you? Come on and want me, and suddenly she felt his hard body slap against her and it took her breath away. She grabbed at him. Who needs anybody else? Just you!
She heard his curses. She felt his body move in anger, drawing from it desire, mingling the two, and suddenly she cried out. His hand clamped over her mouth while she gasped. My God, what is this, what is this? and her breath stopped. She suddenly opened her eyes and she saw his grin, angry, brutal, and she felt his body moving. She moved too, desperately, reaching out, clawing at his back to hurt him, to return the pain, and, she thought, My God, what is this? and finally, Thank God! and she lay back, trembling, held fast, suspended, while his flesh searched inside her....
* * *
She stared out the window at the electric light over the sign and watched the dots of light that were cars creeping by, spaced at even intervals between the buildings. The night air cooled her body and the pain at the bottom of her stomach seemed to subside. The throbbing was steady and dull now, almost as though she could hear it instead of feel it, and she finished the whiskey in her glass.
She moved numbly across the room and picked up the bottle on the nightstand. She held up her glass in a silent toast to the sleeping form on the bed. She looked at his body, inert now, harmless-looking, deflated. She turned away.
In a moment she would come back and put life back into that body. She grinned at the world that waited outside the window. In a moment she would come back and whisper a word that would erase the sight of his face, and make beauty out of ugliness. She closed her eyes and she could see him and the word called back to her, Bernie, Bernie, and she could see him.
She opened her eyes and she could see him and she knew she had waited a moment too long.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Howdy, friend."
Bernie opened his eyes, awakened by the voice. For a moment he stared blankly at the figure on his black leather chair.
"Who are you?" Bernie said, but even as he said it he realized the question was unnecessary.
"Ah hope you don't mind, Ah helped myself to a little drink here," Cy said, gesturing with a glass. He smiled warmly. "Looks like there mightta been a little party here earlier tonight. Little celebration, huh?"
Bernie didn't respond, but pushed himself to a sitting position on the couch. Even as he moved he felt the blood rush to his head and surge through, beating dully, steadily, against the back of his neck. He rubbed his temples. He had hoped the morning would be back before he came to. He couldn't remember why, but he knew he'd wanted desperately to avoid the night.
He got up and moved cautiously down the hallway to the bathroom to pour water on his neck and cool the blood that seemed to be pushing faster with each moment.
"Little tipsy, eh?" Cy chuckled. "Boy, Ah should be too. We had some celebration!" He continued talking after Bernie disappeared into the bathroom. "Say, you shouldda come along with us. We had ourselves a time. You shouldda seen them gals living it up. Made a day of it. Regular family outing." Cy laughed loudly. "Yes sir, you shouldda seen that gal go!" He took a sip of his drink. "Ah almost forgot how good that stuff was. Almost makes a man forget what he came for.
"We had a big feed at one of those spots on the main drag. Them kids had chicken." He laughed. "Boy, you shouldda seen 'em go after that ole bird! That's fun to watch." His grin broadened and his thick brows slid together as he talked. "Yes sir, you shouldda seen them tear after that stuff. Enthusiasm, that's what Ah call it-real enthusiasm!
"'Course, back home we get so damn much chicken. Man comes away, likes to try something a little different."
Bernie emerged from the bathroom, passing Cy, and headed into the kitchenette. His face was still wet and beads of water streaked down his cheeks. He began searching his refrigerator for some milk.
"Hope you don't mind my busting in like this," Cy said. "Door was open so Ah just came right on in."
"I don't mind," Bernie said blankly. He was still too drunk to give a damn about anything.
"Man gets kinda lonesome sittin' in the BelPlaines Motel. Ain't like back home, you know, where you know a lot of people and can get things done quick. Here, you gotta walk around and look in all different places. 'Course, in my line of business, you learn lots of tricks, you know."
Bernie nodded slightly, though he didn't have any idea what the man was saying. He was only aware of a new tide of vinegar threatening just behind his throat. If he just waited, the man would go away. If he could just hold out....
"You learn to spot what you're looking for," the big man continued. "There's signs, you know. Ah can tell. Ah dealt with 'em all my life." He laughed loudly. "Hell, they might as well be wearin' 'em in big neon lights."
Bernie blinked his eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said simply.
"Just gassing. Just gassing about my line of business," the big man said and he w-edged himself into one of the wrought-iron barstools.
"I'm sorry," Bernie managed, "I'm afraid I'm not very good company. I don't feel well."
"That's all right, fella," Cy said laughing. "Ah know how it is. Ah been down that road, hell, how many times?" He pointed a thick, red finger at Bernie. "But you're smart. You do your drinkin' at home. That's smart. If you wanna play around, you get yourself a nice place like this, nice and cozy-like, and you ain't got nothin' to worry about. We got a sayin' in my line of business. We say, two is hearsay-three's a fact."
Cy laughed at this and looked at Bernie for response.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Bernie heard himself say.
"Just gassing, boy," Cy said with a gesture. "Oh, Ah run into all kinds in my time. Sometimes, just for a kick, we'd cruise around the downtown area-me and another fella-and we'd pick up some of these guys. You wanna see something funny, you wanna see some white-faced scared boys when old Cy steps outta the car and says, 'All right, fella, let's see some I.D.'"
Bernie frowned. I.D. You wanna see my I.D.? You wanna see my-Hey, lookee here! All set up and waitin'! Enthusiasm, real enthusiasm ... Bernie winced, confused, and tried to remember.
"Hell, it ain't only back home," the big man said, "Like, last night, for example. Ah took me a walk downtown, kinda lookin' around. A man gets restless sittin' in the Bel-Plaines Motel. Ah see them all standin' on the street corners or settin' on the bus-bench like they're waitin' for a bus. Standin' in their white pants, waiting for some rich bastard in his fancy car to come circlin' around. Settin' there with their knees spread apart-settin' there like they just don't give a damn for nothin' and waitin' for that ole car to come circlin' back sure as hell!
"Course, back home, you know 'em. You want somethin' done you use 'em. Just takes the right amount of cash. And that amount don't have to be much. They got neon signs flashin' on and off just like the rest of the come-on-and-buy signs flashin' up and down the street!"
"Ah do believe," Cy said and he laughed. "Ah do believe this liquor is workin' mah tongue right off its hinges." He picked up the bottle. "You don't mind if Ah just kill this bottle?"
"I don't mind."
"Care for a snort?"
"No."
"You go downtown very much?"
"Sometimes."
"Do a little shoppin', eh?" He laughed.
Bernie opened his mouth to speak.
"Oh, no," the big man said, cutting him off. "You work downtown, don't you? In the restaurant business, if Ah'm not mistaken."
"Look-Cy," Bernie said, trying desperately to keep control. "I don't know what you're driving at, but I wish you would go! I'm sorry, but I wish to hell you'd leave!"
"Well now," Cy said, moving as though to rise, "As a matter-of-fact, Ah was just about to. Ah didn't mean to rile you up with my gassin' here. Ah guess Ah didn't realize how sick you are, boy."
"I'm not-sick!"
"Well now, Ah don't know about that," the man said. Ah wouldn't be too sure. Ah might know a little more about these things than a lot of folks, being in my-"
"I'm not sick!"
"-line of business, and it seems to me you might be better off back in Chicago." He nodded sagely. "Yes sir, Ah believe you might be better off there where your folks can kinda look after you." He got up, finishing the last of his drink, then turned back to Bernie again. "And Ah believe it might be best to take that boy of yours back there with you. Ah believe that might be best for everyone all the way around!"
"I'm not sick!"
"Ah say you are!" the big man roared. "Ah say you must be sick. Ah say, a man who would take that boy-a seventeen-year-old boy across the state line outta the state of Illinois into the state of Arizona is sick. Ah say a man who ain't no legal guardian, who ain't no uncle, who ain't no blood relative at all, who takes a seventeen-year-old boy into his house and feeds him and buys him presents and keeps him lock, stock, and barrel is sick! Ah say that man, he damn well better be sick."
"That's a lie!"
"No, boy, that's a fact!"
Bernie shook his head wildly. He felt the fury raging inside him. He clenched his hands together and realized his strength.
"I never in my life touched that boy!"
"That may be the fact," the man said, grinning.
"It is!" Bernie searched the face that smiled at him and shook his head at the thick lips that curled upward, deliberately saying something with their silence.
"I never in my life-touched-anyone-that way!"
"Is that a fact?"
"It is!" Bernie turned away finally, unable to stand that grin any longer. "I swear to God!" He backed away, into the kitchenette. "I swear to God!" He moved along the cupboard, desperately touching things, speaking to the cupboard doors, to his refrigerator, to his range and the glasses and the water faucet and the ceiling. "I swear to God!" And he suddenly spun around and slammed his fists on the counter top.
"What are you trying to do to me?" he said harshly, "My God, what are you trying to do to me...?"
* * *
Rose stood her full height in the doorway and there was strength in her eyes. She stared at the big man, her face white with anger. The big man only frowned, openly showing his displeasure at being interrupted.
"What are you doing here," he said and Bernie's question was left unanswered.
"You said you'd stay with me," Rose said, trembling with anger. "Ah called the Bel-Plaines Motel and you weren't there. So Ah came here."
"Well, you go back there and wait, hear?" Cy said.
"No, Ah'm not going back there. Ah'm never going back there. Ah want to talk to you, Cy-right here and now. Ah want to know what you told those children."
"Ah didn't say nothin'," Cy said. Then he frowned because her strength, such as it was, had evinced a denial from him. He scowled impatiently, trying to regain his advantage. "Now, you get outta here," he said.
"Ah want to know what you said to that girl." Rose said, suddenly grabbing his sleeve and jerking it violently. "Do you hear me? Ah want to know what you told that child."
Cy spun around, freeing himself, and he raised an arm.
"Don't grab at me, goddammit, or Ah'll slap you on your ass! Ah told her facts, that's what Ah told her!"
"Lies!" Rose screamed.
"Ah told her facts," Cy hissed. "Ah know what the hell Ah'm talkin' about!" He flashed a look at Bernie and suddenly Bernie remembered his question. What are you trying to do to me? What? What? What did you tell that girl? Oh my God!
"Now, you get outta here, or shut up-hear?" Cy said. "You had your chance. Now Ah'm takin' over!"
He pushed Rose away and she sank on the couch, defeated.
"What kind of dirty man are you?" she said and her hands moved up, covering her face.
"Don't call me dirt," the big man said, paling. Ah'll tell you what dirt is." As he spoke, he looked at Bernie. "Ah'll tell you what dirt is, Rose. There's things goin' on in this place that would make your hair turn back to its nat'ral color. That's what Ah'll tell you about dirt."
"That's not true," Bernie snapped.
"Ah don't say nothin', boy, unless Ah know it for a fact!"
"Not true!"
"Maybe it is and maybe it ain't," he said. "There's some folks that might believe it is. There's a fella Ah happen to know, for example, who might believe it is. A young fella from Odessa, Texas, who Ah happened to make an acquaintance with while Ah was walkin' around downtown last night. You might know this fella. A real operator-took me for a chunk of cash to find out something. He found out all right. He found out for hisself whether it is or whether it ain't-You know who Ah'm talkin' about? Fella named Jack? You know anybody named Jack? You know any Jacks, boy?-Ah'm askin' you a question about r boy named Jack who might believe it is a fact!"
For a moment Bernie stood rigid, his breath lost somewhere deep inside him as realization rushed in, suddenly, horribly clear. Bernie cried aloud. It was an animal cry, foreign even to his own ears, and with it spewed out his strength. His fists were gone and instead his fingers curled like talons, raised in front of him harmlessly and they struck out while the big man laughed and stepped aside and watched him move blindly up the hallway for escape.
"Ah figured you might recollect that particular boy," Cy called after him.
"Why?" Rose said wearily, "Just tell me why!"
"What d'you mean, why? You didn't think Ah was gonna stand by and watch, did you? Did you think Ah was gonna stand by and watch while that punk kid moved into my little gal?" He laughed bitterly. "You don't know me too well, Rose."
"What are you saying?"
"You think that's what Ah worked for? Worked my ass off for twenty-two years on the police force of Macon, Georgia, to produce a good lay for some wide-eyed Spic kid to get his rocks off on? You don't know me too well. Ol' Cy don't smile and say, 'ain't that nice' when some little gutter-rat from the south side of Chicago says to me, 'Ah'm gonna make you a grandpa. Yes sir, Ah'm gonna make you a grandpa whether you like it or not!' "
"You promised me," Rose said. "You promised you wouldn't make trouble!"
"Yes you did," Rose shouted. "While Ah was layin' in your arms you promised me! That was the only reason Ah let you-"
"What are you talkin' about?" He said sharply.
"That was the only reason!"
"A lie!" He spat, his eyes suddenly narrowed. "You wanted it. That was the reason."
"Ah never did," she said. "Why can't you understand that? Ah never in my life wanted you!"
She turned and bolted out the doorway. She heard his footsteps behind her and she yelled, stupidly, wildly, and ran down the drive to her car parked at the curb.
"You come back here, gal!" he shouted. "You hear me, Rose?" He moved forward down the middle of the street, following the diminishing red taillights of her car, his arms stretched out toward it while he trembled with humiliation and mounting rage.
"Ah'm telling you to come back here!" he screamed....
* * *
In his dressing room Bernie tried to recapture his balance or at least his breathing. In his madness things were distorted, ordinary things, and he stood for a long time as though he had discovered some new place. He looked about, wondering, his distraction causing the blood to ebb, making room for the air that slid audibly into his throat.
The sound of his breathing held him suspended while his eyes slowly scanned the walls, the bureau, seeing as though for the first time the tangle of clothes and boxes and the wire hangers and the suitcase carefully packed.
Suddenly he kicked it with his foot, scattering the clothes. He reached past them through the debris into a corner of the closet, pushing things aside until he found the rifle.
"Now!" he said and he was laughing. "Now I'll kill you." Even as he emerged from the dressing room he realized he was alone. "So help me God, I'll kill you!"
He sank to the floor, repeating his vow and the rifle lay harmlessly across his lap.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A man named Billings came into Captain Williams' office on the second floor of the Municipal Building. He handed the captain several sheets of typewritten pages held together at a corner by a large staple.
"Cyrus Cartell," Billings said and sat down in the chair opposite the captain's desk, talking while the captain glanced over the pages. "He worked for the Citizen's Patrol in Macon, Georgia."
"What the hell is that?"
"Door-checker."
The captain shook his head. "Not quite. It's one of those semi-private 'security' organizations that crop up everywhere race relations get hot. He used to be with the regular police force as a matter-of-fact. But I guess he was too trigger-happy. Anyway they got rid of him quick after some kind of a stink ... kind of a sadist mess, I think."
"That's a rough town," the captain said.
"Yeah, but the captain, it seems, was a little too rough. Shot up a bunch of kids once-killed one of them. Accident, according to the report. But it seems the papers there never got along too well with Captain Cartell. Wrong politics. They raised a fuss. Wire service got hold of it and the thing kind of mushroomed and the old boy took the ax."
Captain Williams nodded as he read the details for himself.
"What was he doing in Phoenix?" the captain said finally.
"His ex-wife and daughter live here. They've got a trailer home out in Mesa." Billings consulted his notebook. "Sun Valley Trailer Court. It's near the General Electric plant out there.
"It seems she quit the old boy the same time the department did. Copped a mental-cruelty plea. Under the circumstances she didn't have any trouble getting free of him and she got custody of the girl. They've been out here ever since."
"This ex-wife of his-" the captain said, trying to organize a maze of ideas that suddenly crowded his mind.
"Rose Cartell, nee and now Bianca."
"What sort of woman is she?"
"Pretty hot dish, I guess, if you can believe everything those gals at the General Electric plant have to say. Of course, you know how women talk about women-especially women on the job. I guess she had quite a string of 'em. She's no spring chicken, but it seems she hasn't been letting any grass grow under her trailer."
Billings grinned at his witticism.
"I'm not interested in guesses," the captain said impatiently.
"These things take time, Mike," Billings said, shrugging. "We're working on it."
"Good. And while you're working on that, I also want some dope on a guy named Mike Alvarez. Or Miguel, or whatever it is. His little story will start in Chicago, I think."
"The kid that married the daughter?"
The captain nodded. It was his special nod of finality rather than a response to the question and Billings knew the interview was over. He closed his notebook and left the office.
Captain Williams picked up the fingerprint report and read it again. There were plenty of prints all over the room. The dead man's, Bernie's and some yet to be identified. But it was the rifle that bothered the captain. It bothered him because there were no prints on it. He wasn't quite sure why, but he had expected their absence.
"I wiped them off," Bernie had said.
"Why?"
"Well-at first I was going to run away. Then, afterwards, I changed my mind. I decided to take my punishment."
Nonsense! The captain pushed the report aside. To kill a man is possible-to confess is possible-but to refuse even a chance of a lesser charge ... especially when such a man as this was involved. It formulated another crime.
It was like a dying man refusing help. A dying man, the captain thought, and again he recalled the look on Bernie's face as he sat in one of the detention rooms on the basement floor of the police station. A strange look of satisfaction, as though he had some secret or some plan already set into motion.
Captain Williams left his office, heading across the street to the police station. At the bottom of a wide stairway that led to the detention room he talked with a uniformed guard, then entered one of the small rooms. Bernie was sitting on one of the benches that -lined the walls. His eyes were closed, but he was awake, and he looked up when the captain came in.
"Feel better?"
Bernie nodded.
"I've made arrangements for a psychiatrist to look in on you this afternoon," the captain said. "I'm thinking of having you moved to a hospital."
Bernie nodded.
"You don't object?"
Bernie shrugged.
"If it was me, I'd scream like hell," the captain said.
"I just don't care," Bernie said. "Not any more."
"I want to know what the hell happened in that motel room!"
"I confessed, didn't I?"
"It's not that easy," the captain said. "If I believed everything everybody told me, I'd still be writing tickets for parking violations."
"But I did it!"
"And on the way out of that cabin you said you didn't do anything."
"That was-something else."
"Like what?"
"None of your business!" Bernie said hotly. "I said I killed him and that's it."
"I don't believe you," the captain said just as hotly. "My job is to find out the truth. If not from you, then from someone else. I'm very good at my job ... and when I do find out, I'll come back here and tell you."
"I told you the truth," Bernie said, suddenly agitated.
"You haven't told me anything."
"I took the gun...."
"Whose gun?"
"It was Mike's. I'd bought it for him for his birthday. I drove out to that motel and I shot him."
"Why?"
"Because he was bugging me."
"How was he bugging you?"
"I don't...."
Bernie started to speak, then paused. For a moment he stared at Captain Williams as though weighing the man. Then he made a decision and suddenly he was talking.
"He was a nut," Bernie said, beginning to lose control. "A lewd, vicious nut. He was trying to turn her against him by suggesting there was something going on between me and Mike!"
"Who?"
"Sarah. Why do you think he came down here? He was trying to break them up. They'd faked the papers, you know. But now she's pregnant, and he's madder than hell. He was going to get me in trouble if I didn't take that kid away from her. Don't you see? He was trying to say-"
"Take it easy," the captain said, breaking into Bernie's words, which had grown to shouts. The captain moved to Bernie, put a hand on his trembling shoulder. "Just keep it cool," he said. "Just relax."
"I won't relax!" Bernie looked at the captain and his eyes blazed. He frowned at the hand on his shoulder.
"Just relax," someone said, and then he said, "I'm coming. Hey, lookee here! Man, oh man!"
"Take your hand off me, you son-of-a-bitch!" He reached out and, with a cry, pushed the captain's hand from his shoulder. "Don't touch me!" His breathing was harsh, and suddenly he jumped up, swinging at the captain. "Don't you touch me, you son-of-a-bitch!"
The captain dodged Bernie's fists. He struggled to pin Bernie's arms down, but Bernie proved surprisingly strong. The yelling alerted the uniformed guard outside the door, and in a moment he was in and behind Bernie, pinning him. Bernie's screaming increased and he fought desperately to free himself.
"Give me back my car-keys," he yelled. And then the words gave way to noises that reverberated through the small room, piercing, insane, and his head thrashed from side to side.
Suddenly the captain slapped Bernie across the face.
The screaming stopped and Bernie stared at the captain blankly for a moment. Then his head dropped and he began sobbing quietly. The captain signaled the man to release Bernie and the man obeyed, leaving the room again.
When they were alone, the captain sat down on one of the benches. He took out his cigarettes and lit two of them, then moved to Bernie and handed him one. Bernie accepted it. He took a deep drag, forced out the last sob, wiped the tears away with the back of his hand.
"I'm sorry," Bernie said at last.
"Is it that bad?" the captain said.
"I guess so," Bernie said wearily....
* * *
"I've had doubts. I've always had doubts myself. I guess everybody does. But mine stay with me and they pile up. Ever since I was little-especially when I was little. Sometimes I think I'm still little-inside."
Now that Bernie was talking, he talked incessantly. And the captain listened. Outside the sun had reached the top of the building and was already moving down the other side, causing little shadows like black fingers on the window ledge. They seemed to grow as the captain watched them, slowly spreading over the wall, reaching for the ground.
"It's just doubt, you see, and I could live with it. As long as I have doubts I can live with them. I can live with myself. But what if I lose them? What if someone turns on a light and takes the doubt away? How can I live then?
"That's what that man was doing to me. Don't you see what he was doing to me? He hired this guy, you know, to get me drunk and then he says things happened! I don't know what happened. But he says I did things and I don't know. Even now I don't know. I don't know anything for sure."
Bernie leaned forward, drawing a hand across his face.
"Let's talk about Mike," the captain said, realizing Bernie was beginning to lose control again. "He seems like a hell of a nice kid."
"Yeah."
"How did you meet him?"
"Does it matter?"
"Not especially. I just thought you might want to tell me about it."
"He was just there. I was lonesome and he was there, I guess. I met him in an alley behind a bar. I was heading for my car and he was removing the hub-caps from it. It was as simple as that. It was either turn him in or take him in-or be taken in...."
Bernie laughed and turned away from the captain. "Anyway, he kept hanging around and I kind of got used to him. Then, when I decided to come out here, he wanted to come along.
His mother said it was okay, so I brought him with me. For the summer, I supposed."
"His mother agreed?"
"Oh, sure. She was glad to have him off her back. He was what they call a juvenile delinquent. He stole things-and sold things-and no one ever told him right from wrong. Even I didn't get around to that."
"Was there anything between you?"
"Well, of course," Bernie said sharply. "It was like father and son. No, it was more than that. It was more deliberate. His own father was too busy getting drunk and making more babies to worry about Mike. So I just took over. Hell, I didn't have anything else to worry about."
"Was there anything between you?" the captain said again.
"I already told you."
"I'm talking about sex."
"Well, how can you divorce sex from anything," Bernie said. He scowled and got up, moving to the opposite wall, facing it. "We weren't having any relations if that's what you mean!"
"Tell me about the guy who got you drunk," the captain said. "Where did you meet him."
"At the Post Bar. That's near where I work. I don't remember much except I was talking to him and he kept buying me drinks."
"Do you remember his name?"
"Just 'Jack'," Bernie said.
"Do you remember what he looked like?"
Bernie shook his head. "I never saw him too clearly. But he was a big guy. He was from Texas, you know. But I never really saw his face. It was always so dark. I just remember he was big. And I remember his eyes. They had a fierce look, as though he hated me. Even when he laughed he had that look." Bernie winced, remembering. "I didn't know what it was at the time."
"Tell me about Sarah," the captain said. "Had Mike been going with her long?"
"How do I know," Bernie said crisply. Suddenly he was agitated. "Why don't you ask him? I was working-he was living it up. How did I know what was going on? All of a sudden he drops this bomb ... getting married! So what do I do? I play hurt and bow out. 'Don't tell me-tell your mother!' "
Bernie shrugged futilely, recovering from his outburst. "I don't know her at all. Or Mike either for that matter. I guess I didn't give them a chance to know me. I hurt them pretty bad, I guess."
Bernie moved back to the bench and sat down wearily.
"When I heard her old man was coming out here to break them up, I was glad. Then he started saying things to Mike and Rose and Sarah and it made me sick because I realized I'd been thinking the same things. I realized we were a-like. He was saying them, but I was thinking them!" Bernie covered his face with his hands. "I even thought-he might kill Mike. My God...?"
"Take it easy," the captain said and it was a command.
"My God!" Bernie said. "How ugly can a person be!"
"I said that's enough!"
"I'm all right." Bernie drew his hands away. His face was calm. Suddenly he grinned. "You know, it's a funny thing."
"What's funny?" said Captain Williams.
"I had a dream once. One of those over-and-over dreams. I was running up a hill. It was all green like one of those full-page cigarette ads in a magazine. At the top, I felt free and apart from the whole world. And I kept getting lighter and lighter. I didn't know why. Then I looked back and it was all red. And I realized the reason I was getting lighter was because I was-bleeding."
Bernie looked at the captain as though seeing him for the first time. "Isn't that funny?" Bernie said and he laughed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Captain Williams stared at his image in the mirror over the back bar at Jako's Cocktail Lounge, a small bar around the corner from the Municipal Building. He looked at the coalblack hair streaked with silver and the face, still somewhat youthful, strong but tired-looking, with eyes that were soft. He frowned. They were that. Everybody knew it. Even though he made a lot of noise, everybody knew the captain was soft. It showed through his eyes. He shrugged disgustedly and focused on his drink again. Why the hell did they put mirrors in bars?
He finished his drink and ordered another. "Scotch and water?" the bartender said. "Please," said the captain and he scowled. If that man didn't know what the captain drank by now, what the hell was he doing behind the bar? He fished his last cigarette from the pack and lit it. He glanced at the clock again. He frowned. He didn't usually drink in the daytime, but sometimes he needed a bracer. Actually he shouldn't drink at all. It just made things more difficult, even though he drank to make them easier.
He finished the drink, then got up and started back to his office.
At the corner he glanced across the street toward the police station. The ambulance was gone and he felt somewhat relieved. The last attack had been a bad one. Bernie had gone into convulsions, then stopped breathing. Even the sedative hadn't helped and the man who guarded Bernie's door had worked over him until the respirator arrived. Then they took him to the State Hospital on Twenty-Fourth Street, where he could be kept asleep.
But for how long? It was a hell of a way of putting it, but that's what it amounted to. People who sleep must wake up. If they are to stay awake, they must be given a reason to do so. They must be told-but told what? The captain frowned. That's what he had to find out. He had to learn what had happened in that motel room. He had to find out the truth-and hope it was a truth that perhaps even Bernie didn't know.
It was a lot to ask of chance. Captain Williams scowled. Too many thoughts-too damn many thoughts ... He entered his office and collided with a corner of his desk as he moved around it. Too damn many thoughts! He should never have stopped at Jako's. He knew better! He wasn't tight, dammit, but it did mar his thinking. It sharpened it and too many things came at once.
He dropped into his chair and picked up the fingerprint report again. New names had been added. Prints belonging to Rose had been identified in the motel room, also some of the daughter, Sarah's. There were none belonging to Mike.
That didn't matter. Whoever came in didn't have to touch anything except the gun and of course that was wiped clean. Where was Bernie at the time? Caught in the same surprise as Cy? Too late to stop the killer. So why did the killer let Bernie live? Because the killer knew Bernie would never give him away? Nonsense! What killer could be that sure?
Mike?
Even Mike. For all Mike knew, Bernie hated him. Bernie gave him cause to think that. He went out of his way to give him cause to think that.
Perhaps the killer didn't see Bernie. That was possible, but not probable. The killer saw Bernie, but maybe Bernie didn't see the killer. That was more likely. The killer had knocked him out. No, Bernie would have seen him first. Perhaps he was out when the killer arrived. That was more likely. The big man knocked him out or pushed him or something, and Bernie was out cold when the killer arrived.
When he came to, Bernie saw the big man was dead. And he thought Mike had done it.
The captain fished for a cigarette. Damn! He had forgotten to buy a pack before he'd left the bar. How had Mike put it?
"He took the rifle and left. He told me to stay here."
"And did you?"
"Yes, sir," Mike said.
Did he? He may have. But Bernie didn't know! He might have thought Mike did go there. And if he didn't know for sure, then the chance of a truth that Bernie didn't know was multiplied.
It could have been someone else.
Jack ... the drifter hired to compromise Bernie....
Why would the drifter kill the big man? He was getting his money. Cy's wallet was on the floor and there was a ten-dollar bill in his hand. It was clenched there long after death. No, the captain thought, you don't kill a man for ten dollars-then leave the money in his hand.
But the gun was Bernie's-or at least Mike's. It was still plausible. Bernie was probably telling the truth about that. He might have brought the gun with him, probably in a rage, to threaten the big man, to try and frighten him off. It would be a stupid move against such a man or one made in sheer desperation. The latter was possible in Bernie's case.
The captain's thoughts were interrupted by Patowski entering with a large index folder which he handed to Captain Williams.
"I had to wait for the lab report," the younger officer said, sitting in the chair opposite the captain's desk. "It was the same gun, all right. The bullets matched."
The captain grunted. "And what about this guy Jack? Has he been picked up yet?"
"Not yet. But we'll get him," Patowski said, grinning.
"You seem very confident."
"Well, that's what Mr. Billings said," the officer added quickly, the grin disappearing. "We have a good description from the people at the Post Bar. We have a pick-up on him in Houston and Dallas, too."
"I doubt if he went that way," the captain said. "Probably headed for California. That's where they usually go from here."
"There weren't too many people registered at the Bel-Plaines," the officer continued. "The front part had some tenants, but the back row of cabins was almost empty. That's probably why no one heard the shot-or thought it was traffic. There was only one old couple from Illinois in the section-vacationers. But they checked out before morning. We got the dope on them from the desk clerk, though. We'll catch up with them."
"Good," the captain said. He looked up from the folder.
"You know where the Sun Valley Motor Court is in Mesa?" Patowski nodded.
I want you to go over there and nose around that park. Never mind the mother and daughter right now. I want you to talk to the neighbors, the people across the way and the people who run the place. You know what I mean?"
"Yes, sir," the officer said rising. Then he added, "What am I suppose to find out?"
"How the hell do I know?" the captain said. "Just go."
The officer obeyed and the captain went back to the index folder.
"And another thing," the captain said as the officer was leaving. "Get rid of that damn uniform!"
Captain Williams growled under his breath.
Monkey suits ."..'I
* * *
Captain Williams slid into the corner booth at the Pancake House, which was on First Street diagonally across the street from his office. He'd intended to have a sandwich before heading out to the Mesa suburb, but decided not to take the time and settled for a quick coffee instead.
The pretty waitress in the green uniform hesitated after she set the cup in front of him. Finally she spoke.
"I wondered," she said, and she frowned, trying to sound off-hand, but the captain could see that she was nervous. "I just wondered about that motel thing last night. I read about it in the paper this morning."
"Oh?"
"I mean ... I wondered if you were working on that."
"A lot of people are," the captain said.
"I was wondering about Bernie-Bernie Evans. I saw them taking someone away in an ambulance across the street. It was Bernie, wasn't it."
"Yes," the captain said. "He's at State Hospital."
"State?" she said, "That's the mental hospital."
"He's had a pretty bad shock, I'm afraid."
"Is he-all right?"
"It's hard to tell yet," the captain said and he watched the girl curiously as she started to leave, then turn back.
"I wondered," she said, "When you find out how he is-I'd certainly appreciate if you'd tell me." She tried to smile, then shrugged. "I mean, if you can."
The captain smiled. "I'd be glad to," he said, then he added. "Are you a friend of Bernie's?"
The waitress frowned, as though it were a difficult question.
"I don't know him too well," she said at last, and her voice had grown distant. Then she recovered as she became aware the captain was staring at her. She managed a slight answering smile. "He used to come in here quite a bit."
Captain Williams nodded. He watched the girl as she disappeared behind the heavy doors that led to the kitchen of the restaurant.
How many lonely people there are in the world, he thought. He glanced toward the doors again. Behind them she was crying, he supposed.
When she stood in front of him, he could see that she had been crying. And when she left, heading toward the kitchen, he knew she was about to cry again.
The captain finished his coffee, then left the restaurant.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bernie opened his eyes and stared up at the small light fixture that hung from a chain directly over him. He looked about the small room wonderingly. His throat felt very dry and his whole body seemed to be floating on the narrow bed. He looked down at the sheet that covered him. It was like a morgue. He'd never seen one, but it was as he would imagine it.
He tried to move his arms, but something held them at his sides. He didn't know if it were something real or just something in his mind. At any rate, they wouldn't move. He tried to turn his head. That worked all right. His arms must be strapped. How funny! He smiled at the thought. It didn't really matter, since he had nothing to do with his arms anyway. And he didn't blame them for tying him down.
His face reddened slightly as he remembered. God, what a fool he'd made of himself! No wonder they tied him down.
But he was always doing that. How foolish he must have looked, for instance, laughing at the dance and nobody paid any attention to him because they knew he was drunk. What a silly fool! And what must Mike have thought later that night when he'd come in and found Bernie sitting in the middle of the floor with the rifle across his lap. What a fool, he must have thought.
Rose, too. He remembered how she'd looked at him, wild, still trembling, as though the big man were still chasing her down the middle of the street.
It seemed like a long time ago. But it was only yesterday.
"I gotta use your car," Mike had said. His breath was rasping, his eyes were wide with fear.
"It's Sarah," Mike said. "We gotta find her!"
"Sarah?" Bernie looked at the two people who stood over him, and he frowned in confusion. "Sarah?" He stared wonderingly at the rifle, like a child's toy across his lap. He pushed it away.
"She's gone," Mike said. "She took off somewhere and we gotta find her."
"Ah'm worried sick," Rose said. She dropped down on the couch. "Ah don't know what he told that child, but Ah'm worried sick, Ah tell you. Ah don't know what to do."
"What?" Bernie said. He shook his head in confusion.
"What, what, what, what!" Rose said. "You just sit there, Bernie-you just sit there! You don't understand anything. Did you see that man grab at me? Did you see him chase me right outside your door and grab at me? Because Ah told him the truth. Ah finally told him in words what he shouldda known, because Ah told him the same thing every day of his rotten life. And now she's gone and Ah'm worried sick, Ah tell you."
Mike suddenly turned to Rose. "I'll use your car," he said and it was a command.
"Wait," Bernie said. He got up off the floor. He didn't know why, but he had to stop Mike. He knew this by instinct and he grabbed Mike by the shoulders and pushed him down on the couch next to Rose. "Just wait!" He fought desperately to clear his mind.
"Ah can't keep up with it," Rose said. "Ah just can't keep up with it any more. Ah called all her girl friends and checked all the trailers in the court where she might be. Then Ah thought she might've come here. Even though that man might still be here, Ah came back."
"We gotta find her," said Mike.
"Ah should never have left her alone while that man was in this town," Rose was saying. "That's what happened to her. Ah know it!" Her hands began to work desperately. "If he took that child away, if that's what happened to her...."
"I'll kill him," Mike said, almost under his breath. His eyes blazed with strength.
"Now listen," Bernie snapped, suddenly finding his voice. "Now listen, Mike, you stay here. You hear me? You stay here and wait till I come back."
"Where are you going?" Rose said.
"There's something I have to do," Bernie said.
But while he was still talking, Sarah appeared in the doorway and the words died on his lips.
She was wearing her Sunday dress, the one she'd been saving for the trip. But it was wrinkled now. She clutched a small beaded purse in her hands while she looked from one to the other.
"He's gone," she said finally.
"Thank goodness!" said Rose. She ran to Sarah. "Thank goodness you're all right! Ah was so worried! You gave us such a scare, honey." She ran her hand over Sarah's long hair, fussing stupidly with it. "Ah was so worried, honey. It's past three A.M. Do you know that?"
"He's gone," Sarah said again.
"Who, honey?" Rose said, and suddenly her hands tightened on Sarah's shoulder. "Honey, what happened?"
"Nothing, Mama," Sarah said simply. "Nothing happened."
"Baby, what are you talkin' about?" Rose shook her daughter roughly. "Where did you go, Sarah?"
"I went to the Bel-Plaines Motel."
"Sarah!"
"I went to see my daddy." She spoke calmly. "He wasn't there, but I waited for him. I went to tell him to please go back home and leave us alone. I went to tell him I was happy and to please be happy too."
"Oh baby, baby!" Rose led her daughter to the couch and sat down next to her.
Bernie watched them in wonder. "I was going," he said and he pointed at the door. "I was going." But he said it under his breath and no one heard him. "Baby, you shouldn't have gone there."
"I had to, Mama. Don't you see. Someone had to."
"If that man hurt you, honey ... If that man laid a hand on you...."
"He didn't hurt me," Sarah said, twisting and untwisting the chain of her purse. "They stopped him. They were gonna call the police!"
"They?" Rose frowned, searching her daughter's eyes. "Who, honey?" Suddenly Rose's voice was strong. "Sarah, Ah want to know what happened there! Now you tell me!"
"He wanted me to go away with him. When he came in, I was afraid because he didn't look like my daddy. He said I was trash. He said he knew all about what was going on in that trailer, and I was trash!"
"Oh, baby!"
"And he said I wanted it!"
"Honey!"
"He said I always wanted him-"
"Oh, my God!"
"He grabbed at me and tore my new dress-"
"He tried to kiss me! He tried to kiss me. Mama! Not his way! The way-the way-" and she looked at Mike and there was terror in her face.
"Ah shouldda known," Rose cried. "All along Ah shouldda known." Suddenly she hugged Sarah tightly, and her hands worked desperately through Sarah's golden hair, trying to smooth it out, to put the long strands back in place. While she worked, she said over and over, and it was a cry, "Ah shouldda known!"
"I'm all right," Sarah said, recovering slightly and pushing away from her mother. "Honest I am!" She tried to smile. "I screamed and people came in and they pulled him away and the held him and they were gonna call the police and I said, it's all right, he's my daddy!" She laughed suddenly, wildly. "He's my daddy!" The laughter died as quickly as it had been born. She stared forward, not looking at anyone. "They let him go and he went away. And he'll never bother us again."
"Honey, you shouldn't have. You shouldn't have."
"I had to, Mama!" Sarah said angrily. She withdrew a small handkerchief from her purse and wiped the tears from her eyes. "Now I have to go home and finish my packing."
"Sure you do, honey," Rose whispered, moving to her daughter again. "But first you're gonna have a nice bath and a nice nap."
"I have to finish my packing," Sarah said sharply.
"All right, honey," Rose said, drawing away. She followed her daughter out of the apartment. At the doorway, she turned back.
"Bernie," Rose said, "about Cy...." Her voice was touched with nervousness. "Ah don't think we need the police. Whatever he did, Ah guess he couldn't help it."
Bernie nodded, agreeing. After Rose left he looked at Mike, who was staring at him, and Bernie knew he was staring because Bernie had agreed.
Finally Mike got up and moved up the short hallway to the dressing room. After a moment he came back with a small red carton of shells he'd been saving in one of the bureau drawers and Bernie watched while Mike began to load the rifle.
"Get out of the way," Mike said to Bernie, who had moved to the door, blocking it.
"Put the gun away," Bernie said. "Put it back in the closet."
"Get out of my way or I'll have to shoot you, too."
"Listen to me, Mike," Bernie said and suddenly his mind was clear. "You've got to be happy. Do you understand that? You owe that to me. Otherwise what was it all for?"
"Aw, Bernie, for-"
"Shut up! I'm telling you something. You've got to live a long, long time. You've got to live two lifetimes-yours and mine! Do you understand that? Whether you know it or not, you owe that to me and nothing can change it-not even you."
Bernie reached out and took the gun from Mike.
"You just stay here," he said. "Do you understand that?"
Bernie stared up at the light fixture and it seemed to sway while he watched it. In one ear and out the other. The little bastard, Bernie thought, and he grinned. But it was Bernie's fault, because Bernie had never taught him to obey. He'd taught him to do some tricks that were real cute, but he'd never taught him to obey.
It didn't matter. He closed his eyes again. He must lie still. They were watching him and he must lie still and breathe evenly so they'd see he was all right. Then they'd have to free his arms.
He smiled a secretive smile.
Sooner or later they'd have to let him go and then he could move and everything would be all right.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Captain Williams pulled out of the wide four-lane entrance of the Sun Valley Motor Court and headed south on 52nd Street toward the older section of town. Ahead of him the famed South Mountain marked the edge of the city, beyond it lay the desert, flat spreads of tarnished yellow sand broken only by little clumps of desert plants and the tall cactus, ancient, fading, stretching their arms toward the sky.
He glanced down at the address scrawled on the clipboard that hung on his dashboard. At South Road he turned west and headed for a through street that would take him to the foot of the mountain.
As he drove he thought back to Rose Bianca, whom he had just left sitting beside her daughter in the tiny trailer. He recalled the look on her face as she told him about Sarah's encounter with her daddy at the Bel-Plaines Motel. Sarah herself had said very little, but the story checked with Billings' report from several guests at the motel.
"Must have been quite a row," Billings had said, "Old couple in the next cabin were up. Vacationers-packing to leave, actually. They thought someone was getting raped in there. They called the night clerk who lives behind the office and he came in and broke it up.
"She was in a pretty bad state according to the old couple. They drove her to Evans' place on their way out of town. That was about three A.M."
Captain Williams frowned. What a time the girl had picked to see her father! He thought about Rose's description of the big man chasing her to her car. Funny to think about, but at the same time sad. A mountain of strength, toppled suddenly, drunk with scotch and smashed pride, blubbering like a child in the middle of the street.
Sometimes strength is just a front for weakness, the captain thought. The big man made a lot of noise, but he didn't really do much else-to Rose. Everyone, it seemed, fell victim to the big man-except Rose. And that was curious. Even innocent children, guilty perhaps of some transgression, but nothing to match the magnitude of the punishment being dealt out.
Perhaps because the punishment was Rose's in his mind. Perhaps, in his mind, there was no punishment dreadful enough to reciprocate for what she might have been doing to him. The captain thought about the police record on the big man. His brutal methods, growing, building-and now this. An attack on his daughter, somewhat outshining in magnitude a long-range bullet fired into a crowd of street vandals.
Trying to protect what was his ... a rationalization of something deeper. Perhaps trying to get back something that was lost. Seeing through the haze of bitterness and humiliation, not the little girl who was his daughter but someone else, someone from the past-a young Rose, perhaps, or at least a willing Rose who, just a few hours before that, had led him to believe he was still in command-a willing Rose who had almost distracted him from his purpose.
Sometimes, the captain decided, a show of weakness is just a cover for strength. He was thinking of Rose again. He remembered the woman sitting next to her daughter on the miniature couch in the tiny trailer home. He remembered the slumped figure, a portrait of softness to match her plumpness, fussing over the girl like a mother partridge over her chick, smoothing back her long golden hair, looking frightened and yet incongruous in the mother role.
Too much the mother, the captain thought ... too much affection ... More than the girl needed or wanted. As though It were a means on Rose's part, perhaps to justify a deficiency that she recognized within herself. An excess of decorum used by people who sin too much.
He thought about the comments from the women who worked with Rose at the electronics plant. Exaggerated, maybe, but exaggeration of something that must exist.
A hungry woman, the captain thought. Clinging to youth, manifesting it in herself, in her appearance and in her dress, clinging to it in the form of her daughter, copying her, moving with her side by side, playing the game of youth along with her and, as payment for the nights she played alone at being young, a forced maternity that in her mind was as real and as vital as the feel and weight of a lover's arms.
How much mother love would it take, the captain wondered, to counterbalance her weakness? Would it be enough to make her move to leave that tiny trailer and race with the dawn toward that motel room where in one righteous move she could equal a hundred years of fussing and primping and hiding-and crying?
What must she have thought as she stared down at the sleeping form of her daughter in the tiny bedroom of that trailer? How much of her own guilt could she have passed on to that hideous bulk that was as much responsible in the making of this child as she was? How those eyes must have burned as she stared down at the little girl, a carbon copy of herself, and listened to the breathing that was agitated with terror and hurt and disillusion!
Captain Williams remembered Rose's eyes. He had watched them while she talked, he had seen the fury that flashed behind them, well-guarded but breaking through at times.
It was strength. Behind the fury it was strength the captain saw in Rose's eyes.
How much strength, he wondered, does it take to cover guilt? On the other side of the balance, how much guilt does it take to unleash that strength-in the guise of righteousness...?
* * *
Captain Williams pulled his car to a halt in front of a duplex, ancient, greyed, one of many in the tract at the foot of South Mountain.
He pushed the doorbell. While he waited for an answer, he watched a group of Negro children pushing an old wheelbarrow over the flat brown sand in the vacant lot across the street. One of them had spotted the captain and quit the game to stare at him.
The child, whose spindly sun-browned legs looked like poles sticking out from the mass of denim of his cut away jeans, edged forward cautiously till he was just across the street. The captain watched him out of the corner of his eye and, as the boy grew bolder and stepped off the curb, the captain turned suddenly.
"Bang!" he said, and the boy's eyes widened. Then he turned and ran to join his own group again. The captain grinned.
"Kids!" he muttered. He turned back to the door and scowled impatiently at it. He rang the bell again, then knocked on the dry, blistered wood.
Finally he heard someone approaching.
"Is this the Banderro residence?" he said to the small heavy-set woman who finally had answered his knock and was frowning at him in the doorway.
She nodded. She was typically old-country, with the usual built-in fear of strangers, especially strangers on her front porch. Her eyes were small and dark and they darted past him to see his car. She reacted as he would have expected at the tell-tale cream finish with the familiar blue shield and emblem on the door.
"Is Tony Banderro in?" the captain said. He tried to sound casual so as not to frighten the woman even though he knew it would do no good. She looked uncertainly back into the house, then pulled the door wider.
"Come in," she said. "I call him."
The captain followed the woman into a small parlor that was crowded with furniture, old but neatly kept, and watched while she climbed the stairs to the second floor, moving slowly, labored, taking each of the stairs separately.
He looked about the room. It was dim, facing the shade, and crowded with religious pictures and statues and small studio pictures of people in cardboard frames on the mantle. There was no air-conditioning, only a large window fan that whirred loudly.
Finally two legs emerged from the landing on the stairs and as they descended into view the captain replaced a small statue he had been examining, and turned to face Tony Banderro.
"Yeah?" the man said, and the captain nodded a greeting.
"Are you Tony Banderro?"
"That's right," he said. "Why?"
The captain dropped into one of the large overstuffed chairs, even though he wasn't invited to sit. "I'm Mike Williams," the captain said. "I work for the Phoenix Police Department."
"Oh?"
"I have a small problem and I thought you might be able to help me out-if I'm not imposing."
"What kinda problem," Tony said skeptically. Then he grinned slightly and shrugged. "Sure. I mean, what can I do for you?" He sat down on the couch opposite the captain. He was nervous and it showed because he tried to hide it. "I'm always glad to help the law. You know, I got a friend on the force. In fact I was thinking of being a cop myself once. I got the right build for it."
"Well, we could certainly use more fellows like you in this town," the captain said and he smiled warmly. "By the way, what do you do, Tony?"
"Me? Well, I'm kinda between jobs right now." The captain nodded.
"I usually work on construction, you know. That's my trade. But they all lay off in the summer. Too damn hot."
"You've had quite a few jobs in the past year, haven't you?" the captain said. "You move around quite a bit, it seems."
"So what?" Tony frowned uncertainly at the captain. "I don't like working inside. I told you I'm a construction man."
"So you did."
"Anyhow, how do you know so much about me?"
"According to my information," the captain said, ignoring the question, "Your last place of employment was the General Electric plant in Mesa. That was for two weeks. Is that correct?"
"Hey, what is this?" Tony said, and suddenly he lost his grin, replacing it with an angry frown. "What are you leading up to?"
"Nothing much," the captain said. "I just wondered how well you know Rose Bianca, formerly Rose Cartell."
"Now listen, cop, and get this straight! I didn't have anything to do with that-see? I didn't have anything to do with that!"
"Call me captain," the captain said, and the younger man retreated. He moved nervously toward the window. "Son-of-a-bitch," he said under his breath, and he slammed his fist into his palm and he turned back to the captain. "Just call me lucky," he said and he jabbed a thumb against his chest. "That's me."
"Take it easy," the captain said. "I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm just looking for information. Actually I'm seeing quite a few people who knew the Cartells, also a guy named Bernie Evans who I think might be the man we're looking for."
"I never heard of him."
"But you do know Rose."
"Yeah. We're friends. So what? She's got lots of friends."
"You're more than friends, aren't you?" the captain said.
"She likes me," Tony said hotly. "So what?-I like her!"
"You met at the plant."
"That's right."
"Two weeks later you quit your job and you haven't worked since."
"So what?"
"I haven't got time to play games," the captain said. "As a matter-of-fact I just left a trailer park in Mesa. On my way out I stopped to talk with a young fellow in a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses. Nice fellow. He tells me that according to the neighbors you've been spending quite a few evenings at that trailer park."
"Who told you that? He's a lying bastard if he told you that."
"I don't think so," the captain said. "I know him pretty well. He works for me."
"Well, so what?" Tony said. "Hey, if you guys think I killed her old man, you're barking up the wrong tree! I mean, let's face it! I been going around with Rose. Sure. She likes me, so what the hell? But it's not thick-I mean she's all right. She's generous and, I mean, I look after myself. But...." Tony shook his head, suddenly lost for words, and he laughed to cover his nervousness. "Geez, you guys really scrounge around for a pigeon!"
"I'm not looking for a pigeon," the captain said. "As a matter-of-fact I've got one. It's a killer I want.
"Well, I ain't your man," Tony said.
"When was the last time you saw Rose?"
"Two days ago," Tony said. "Honest." He raised his hand in an oath. "She told me her old man was coming to town and she wanted me to fade. She was afraid of him. She said he was some kind of a nut." Tony shrugged. "I didn't give a damn. I mean, she was divorced, you know. But that's the way she wanted it. So I stayed clear. That's the truth."
"What have you been doing?"
"Nothing," Tony said. "I been sticking around the house. You ask Ma. She'll tell you."
"How about last night?" the captain said.
Tony's fists worked nervously, tracing over the edge of the slip-cover on the couch. The captain watched him closely and finally Tony looked up.
"I can't stay home all the time," he said angrily. "I mean, just look at this dump! So I went out-so what?"
"Where?"
"Everywhere." Tony got up and crossed the room, talking more easily as he gained distance from the captain, whose eyes never seemed to let up. "I stopped at Jack's for one. Then I went over to the Seven Seas and Jako's-I was just cruising, you know? You can check. I was in all those places. And I went to the Round-Up, too. Yeah, and the Red Mill on Adams Street."
"And then where?"
While Tony talked, the captain had risen and moved to the window. He was looking out at the lot behind the house.
"That's a good-looking car you've got out there," he said, turning back to Tony. "You should park it on the street instead of hiding it out back."
"I'm not hiding it out back!" Tony said hotly. "I always park it there. It's shady."
"Red convertible." The captain nodded. "I like red convertibles. You don't see many of them around."
"There's lots of them," Tony said.
"Not with your license plates, though. That always checks out no matter what name you put down on a hotel register. Didn't you know they always put down your license-plate number on motel registers?"
"Of course, I know it," Tony shouted and then he slammed a fist into his palm again. "I'm telling you, you're looking at Mr. Lucky. That's me, boy! For two days I stay out of his wayI don't call, I don't come around and what happens? Boy, it couldn't happen to anyone else!"
Tony moved back into the room, his palms turned out in a futile gesture. "How did I know he was staying at the Bel-Plaines Motel? I didn't know the guy. I didn't even know what he looked like.
"So, what am I suppose to do-knock around the house for two days? I went out for some laughs, that's all. I had some drinks, then I picked up this chick and we had a few laughs. That's all!"
"Who was the girl?"
"How do I know," Tony said. "I just met her. She gives me the nod. I was drinking, so what the hell!"
"And you don't know her name?"
"Who asks?" Tony said. "She's a waitress. One of the girls at the Pancake House."
Tony dropped down on the couch again, scowling angrily as he remembered Madge. Two-bit whore! he thought. Dirty, perverted bitch! If they thought he was such a goddamn pig, they should learn about her! Damn broad! And, he thought, it wasn't worth it. He looked up at the captain, who was staring at him from the window, and he thought, It damn well wasn't worth it.
"Mr. Lucky," he said and he smiled bitterly, "that's me."
Captain Williams moved away from the window. Suddenly he was thinking of a pretty waitress in a green uniform who had been crying, and he knew instinctively this was the girl Tony was talking about.
The captain sat down in the chair opposite the couch, drawing out his pack of cigarettes. Tony looked up at him, defeated, and the captain grinned.
"Tell me about this waitress," the captain said and he offered Tony a cigarette....
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A man named Jack sat slumped on one of the benches in the detention cell on the basement floor of the police station. He looked up and grinned with one side of his mouth when Captain Williams stepped into the room, followed by an officer in uniform.
The captain winced at the sight of the man, massive in proportion, thick-chested and powerfully built, giving him the illusion of a giant, even though he was actually not much taller than-the captain. It was the man's eyes that startled the captain. They were fierce and they were venomous. But they fascinated and, complimented by his easy grin, it was difficult to look beyond them.
They were the source of his strength and they seemed to control even his slightest movements, movements cat-like, liquid, easy as his grin, as he slid forward on the bench, settling his shoulders back, preparing to meet the captain's eyes, to match them, to overpower them. The grin was an outward sign of his confidence and it was touched with contempt which the captain recognized-yet the captain only smiled.
Under the open denim jacket, Jack's dark skin glistened, stretched over heavy muscular breasts matted with black hair that continued over thick upper arms that bulged from his sleeveless shirt. His skin was dark, not from the sun but from a mixture of antecedents, giving him the look of a Latin, Mexican or Spaniard despite facial structure and thick bluish lips that were unmistakably Negroid.
"John William Marshell?" the captain said. The man winced slightly at hearing his name. He recovered immediately, however, and the grin returned.
"They call me Jack," he said and then he gestured slightly with one hand toward the bench opposite him. "Sit down, man."
"Thank you," the captain said. He moved to the bench. The officer remained by the door. Jack flashed him a look, but the officer did not respond. He only stared at Jack, his thumbs hooked under a wide belt that held the holster of his police revolver.
"They tell me you had a little drinking party last night," the captain said.
"I did have a few," Jack said, and he shrugged slightly.
"And then you skipped town."
"Skipped?"
"You were picked up in Indio," the captain said. "Where were you heading-L.A.?"
"Goin' to Californ-i-a," Jack said, grinning, gesturing, mimicking a song, "where everything is green."
The captain frowned. How well he knew the type! All his life he'd dealt with them. The typical small-town hood. The quick-buck artist with the smooth answers, showing a sort of brilliance when caught-but usually only when caught. And they were always caught.
How could they help but be caught? The clothes, the look, the manner, the outward contempt and the pride-especially the pride. Wearing it like a neon sign, displaying their trade. Yet there was a sort of honesty about it, a stupid honesty, this deliberate throw-off of respectability or rather the show of it.
But it was wrong nonetheless. He thought of the report he'd just read on John William Marshell. Half his life spent behind bars-how brilliant can one person be? Everything from petty thievery to prostitution. Only a week ago he'd been released from the prison at Fort Worth where he'd served five years for armed robbery. Five years-a gas station outside of town and the take not much over fifty dollars. How brilliant can a person be?
"You just got out of prison a week ago," the captain said, "Are you ready to go back now, Mr. Marshell?"
Jack stirred uneasily, but his composure was not shaken. He shrugged one shoulder slightly. "I ain't done anything," he said.
"How much did the big man pay you for your services?"
"Who?"
"You know who."
Jack shrugged. "Like I said, I met this guy Bernie at a bar. We got talking. We get a little high. The bar closes so we go over to his place and have a few more. Then he craps out and old Jack takes off."
"How much did the big man pay you?"
"I don't know what you're talkin' about."
"Where did you meet Cy Cartell?"
"I don't know where."
"Downtown?"
"I don't know."
"Maybe at the Round-Up? You know, that little bar across the street from the Post Office? Maybe you met him there. Maybe you sat at the end of the bar and drank bourbon-"
"Look, mister, you got-"
"-and seven-up, then moved to a back booth and had two more and a cheeseburger and french fries. Is that possible?" The captain tilted his head and grinned slightly. "I mean, it is possible, isn't it?"
Jack frowned and drew himself up. He rubbed a hand slowly over his thigh. The captain watched him and he knew that behind the complacency a brilliant mind was at work.
"It was a gag," Jack said finally. "There was no money changed hands-nothing like that. This guy wanted to play a joke, that's all. Man, I love a good laugh."
"It didn't turn out very funny, I'm afraid," the captain said. "Not for the big man and not for you either."
"You can't pin that on me."
"I just want the truth," the captain said. "I want to know what happened in Bernie Evans' apartment."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Maybe nothing," the captain said. "Maybe I just want to know. What happened between you and Bernie Evans?"
"Nothing."
"That's not true."
"I don't lie, Mister," Jack said, and suddenly his grin was gone.
"That's not true either, is it?" the captain said. "Now, tell me the facts. How much did the big man pay you?"
"Nothing," Jack spat, and his eyes narrowed as he met the captain's look.
In a moment the captain was across the room. Before Jack realized what was happening, the captain had seized the front of his shirt, twisting the denim tightly, choking him, and pulled him up off the bench. "How much?"
Jack's face registered surprise at the force that suddenly pinned him against the wall. His hands snapped into fists and his arm cocked automatically, ready to strike.
"Come on," the captain hissed, "Try it!"
"Lemme go!" Jack's eyes flashed. His tone was a warning. His fists shook from the tension as his arms swelled and went hard, as though wanting to spring but unable. The cords in his neck jutted against his skin and his face became hideous, not only with fury but with repulsion at being touched, being handled, being challenged.
"I mean it," Jack whispered. "Don't touch me!"
"How much?" the captain said, and he deliberately pushed his palm against the man's face, rubbing his hand hard across his skin. Jack twisted his face away, trying to avoid the captain's touch.
"How much?"
"I said, nothing!" Jack suddenly screamed. "You're lying."
"I said nothing!"
"What happened between you and Bernie Evans in his apartment?"
"Nothing...!"
* * *
Captain Williams pulled onto the shallow apron in front of the Granada Apartments on Twentieth Avenue. He hesitated a moment before getting out of his car. His mind was still on the man he had just left sitting on a bench in the small basement room of the police station. He sat a moment, thinking of the man's face. He had stared at it for a long moment after he asked his final question. But it hadn't flinched, the look never wavered.
"What happened between you and Bernie Evans in his apartment?"
"Nothing."
The captain hadn't asked anything after that. He had only stared at the man, sleek, vicious, contemptuous-a mark of his race more significant than the color of his skin-as fierce and as crudely awesome as a panther, charged with animal beauty at once compelling and repulsive, and, like an animal governed by instinct, incognizant of moral values. Yet, even while the captain searched the man's face, he had known there was nothing more to find out. It was simple truth and the captain realized it.
He realized, too, that was all he'd wanted to learn from Jack. It was the only reason he'd entered that basement room to talk with him. Everything else he had known already. He wondered now if this were the truth he was looking for. He wondered if this were the truth that Bernie didn't know.
Captain Williams rang the doorbell of Madge's apartment. What the hell was he looking for? He wondered what the hell he wanted with Madge. Perhaps he already had a killer and had known it all along. Perhaps Bernie had known it, too. How simple it was!
Bernie had taken the rifle from Mike, had gone to the motel to find Cy Cartell, had shot him and then called the police. It was as simple as that.
Perhaps the captain was a fool for refusing to believe this was the truth. Perhaps his instincts were giving out. Perhaps he was falling into the trap that people sometimes do, believing only what he wanted. He believed Jack, but he didn't believe Bernie. Why? It should be just the opposite. Bernie had every reason to tell the truth. He didn't have to wait for the police. He could have run away.
Even if Jack were lying, what did that have to do with the big man's death? It was a separate crime. The big man had no further business with Jack. He had used him and he had paid him-or would have. Didn't he have the money in his hand? Wasn't he willing to pay? Wasn't it worth it to watch that boy crawl? He had the money in his hand....
The captain frowned. He was back to that again. He had dismissed the idea once and now he had to dismiss it again. You don't kill a man for ten dollars, then leave the money in his hand....
"All right," she said, "I'm paid!" And she threw the coin at him and laughed....
It was Madge! Suddenly he was thinking of Tony Banderro's terrible confession about his escapade with the pretty waitress in the motel room.
"Just pay me and let's do it," and she threw the coin at him and laughed.
As if it were a joke, a terrible joke about the money-Because it wasn't the money she wanted! It was something else and the money was only a means. Something else-suddenly the captain had a thought, a wild thought. It didn't fit and it didn't make sense, yet....
"Hi," someone said. The captain turned and saw a figure moving toward him across the patio. He recovered from his thoughts, pushing them aside, and nodded a greeting at Jan.
"You looking for Madge?"
"That's right," the captain said, realizing from the description by the people at the Post Bar that this was Jan, the barmaid, Madge's neighbor, Bernie's friend.
"You must be Jan," the captain said.
"Check," said Jan and she switched the drink she was holding from one hand to the other, extending her free hand to the captain. "And you must be the Law."
"How are things in the big city?" the captain said, accepting a hand damp from holding the glass. "I understand you've been in New York. Your mother, wasn't it?"
Jan nodded. "Poor old thing. She almost took the count." Jan laughed. "She's okay now, though. So, how about all the excitement? It seems like all hell broke loose for my little Bernie, didn't it?"
"There's been some trouble," the captain admitted.
"I figured there was gonna be a row when that old bastard got here," she said. "But I never dreamed it would end this way. It's kinda scary, isn't it?"
"Why do you say that?"
"You just don't think those things happen with people you know. You read about 'em in the papers. But they're just stories. You know what I mean?" Jan shook her head sadly. "I just never would've thought Bernie had it in him. I suppose he figured it was something he had to do."
"Do you believe he did it?"
"The papers say he admitted it," Jan said. "And if Bernie says he did it, then he did it. I don't know Bernie long, but I know him good, Mister. If that old son-of-a-bitch needed killing, then, by God, Bernie had it in him to do it." She smiled, but it was a sad smile. "I knew he had something-I used to wish it was for me."
"You're fond of him, aren't you?"
"Sure I am," Jan said, "But not the way you think. I haven't got time for that. I've been stung too many times. It's too expensive, if you know what I mean." She grinned suddenly and took a long drink from her glass. "That's a tip I have for young people," she said. "Don't love people who can't love you."
"Are you talking about Bernie?"
"Hell no," she said and suddenly sounded angry. "He's too smart for that. He only loves that kid and he knows the little bastard loves him. Not the way people might think, but the way Bernie wants it. He's probably in his glory now because he pulled the plug on that guy. He probably thinks he did something great and it doesn't matter if the kid knows it or not. That's love, Mister."
Jan laughed suddenly. "Poor Mike doesn't know what the hell's going on."
"But you do."
"I always did," Jan said simply. "I knew he was hot for that kid. Bernie didn't even know it himself. But I did. There's lots of nights when I knew it. That's what's driving him buggy, you know." She laughed. "You know he's a screwball, don't you?"
The captain nodded.
"He'll do anything with anybody else, but he'll never touch that kid." She shook her head. "Kinda sad."
Jan looked into her glass, then she grinned at the captain. "I guess I'm a little tight." She finished the drink. "Hey, I just had a great idea. Let's go over to my place and I'll fix you a drink."
"Thank you," the captain said, "But I'm afraid I don't have time right now."
"Hell, it's early."
"I'm afraid I'm here on business."
"Oh, that's right, you came to see Madge."
"Yes," the captain said, "but apparently she isn't in."
"Sure she is," Jan said. "She's probably still asleep. "I gave her some stuff. She's in pretty bad shape, you know."
"Oh?"
"It's what I was talking about," Jan said. "Didn't you know about her?"
"What about her?"
"Oh, that's right," she said, and she grinned. "It was me Bernie was always with. You didn't know about Madge."
"What about Madge?" the captain said, suddenly alert.
"I thought everybody knew by now," Jan said. "It wasn't me that was being hurt. I told you I was too smart for that."
The captain frowned and turned back to the door. He remembered the look in a waitress' eyes. He had known then, even though he hadn't been able to label it. He had known when he sat in that dingy parlor at the foot of the mountain and listened to a story of perversion, a story of obscenity that had repulsed even the small-time gigolo with a yen for thrills. He had known when he'd stared at Jack and Jack had said, "Nothing." He didn't know why he knew it, but he did. And now he knew something else.
"What did you give her?" he said to Jan. "What?"
"What kind of stuff did you give her?"
"Just some sleeping pills," Jan said. "I bought her a bottle this morning-"
The captain pushed himself against the door, at the same time twisting the doorknob roughly.
"Oh my God!" Jan said.
The captain stepped back, then threw his shoulder against the light, panel door. The flimsy lock gave with a sharp screech as the wood around it splintered. He stepped into the living room. From where he stood he could see her in the next room.
"Madge, Baby!" Jan cried and she ran past the captain into the small bedroom. "Madge, baby, wake up!"
Jan bent over her neighbor who was lying on the bed, her face buried in the crumpled bedspread. She turned her over and shook her roughly.
"Madge, baby, wake up, Goddam you...!"
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Captain Williams sat on the window ledge in his office, staring down at the street. How different people were in the daytime, he thought. He glanced across the street at the restaurant bathed in sunlight and watched a white-haired waitress in a green uniform as she scurried past the window, juggling her plate lunches through the busy dining room jammed with noontime shoppers.
How different, he thought, and he was thinking of the girl he'd just left lying on the bed, bathed in sunlight, looking suddenly very young and smiling, as though a great burden had suddenly been lifted from her. He wondered what she must have been thinking as she lay there waiting for sleep.
"Don't love people who can't love you...."
That's what Jan had said and she'd been talking about Madge. What could come of that kind of futility, the captain wondered.
He remembered his talk with the people at the Post Bar. What must Madge have thought when the woman told her Bernie had been there all evening? And with Jack? What must she have been thinking when she got into that red convertible?
What might she have thought if she had suddenly seen Bernie at that motel?
It was possible ... she could have seen Bernie. The unit she was in was not too far from Cartell's place. Bernie would have had to drive by it to reach the big man's cabin. Suppose she'd been at the window and had seen him ... what might she have done?
What might she have thought he was doing there? Half-drunk, hurt, furious, not only from the pain of her debauch with Tony, her self-inflicted punishment, but with the pain of what he was doing to her, still hearing the ring of the woman's words in her ears-" ... if you're keeping tabs on him for Jan, don't worry. He's with another boy."
Perhaps she had only meant to confront him. Perhaps she had only meant to stand in that doorway and laugh. But when she saw them together-Bernie and Cy-SITTING ON THE BED, LAUGHING, CY'S WALLET IN HIS HANDS....
The captain winced at the idea that was going through his mind ... sitting on the bed ugly, obese, laughing, a ten-dollar bill clutched in his hand,....
"No!" the captain said aloud.
Yet it was possible. She would have seen the rifle. The instinct to hurt, to destroy, taking over, ruling out thought. Had she grabbed up the rifle and, while he stared at her in disbelief, fired it?
It was Bernie she was trying to hurt!
A wild shot, a senseless move, something that happened in a nightmare. No more real than the rest of the night, or the other nights when she had done the same thing-worse things to him in her mind-and Bernie knew it, too.
It was Madge that Bernie was protecting!
He had felt the guilt of what he was doing to her when he saw the hatred in her eyes. Was it possible? Could he suddenly have realized it-or could he have known all along how she felt? Perhaps he had the same feelings-but wasn't able to surrender to them.
Perhaps he realized how he'd wronged her, that all he could do now was try and protect her. He had wiped the gun clean and called the police and, in that way, told her that he did love her. It was the only way he could say it and it was eloquent, more eloquent than he'd ever been in his life.
Captain Williams sighed wearily. Too many thoughts ... Too many thoughts. To hate that much ... to hate at all ... to take her own life and let Bernie keep on paying ... He remembered her face as she lay on the bed. He remembered the smile.
No, he thought, she would have done any thing for him-even if he were never to know it. That's what love does, mister. Jan had said it. It cries out to destroy, but it never does. The big man loved Rose and struck out at everything except her-and Madge loved Bernie. She could have fired the rifle in a moment of madness.
But after the madness had passed she would have been sorry. She would never go away and allow Bernie to carry that burden for her. If she had, there would have been a different smile on her face, a wicked smile and it would show after death and would repel.
No, the captain thought. He would have seen it, because he'd been looking for it especially, when he broke down her door. But it wasn't there ... not a trace of it.
Captain Williams moved away from the window. Perhaps Bernie's truth was the real truth after all and there was nothing more to learn. Madge must have thought what Jan had thought-that Bernie had committed an act of supreme sacrifice, but not for her. She knew it. Jan knew it. Even Bernie knew it, and Captain Williams wondered if he didn't know it, too. Perhaps he'd known it all along.
Yet ... the captain found himself considering an idea he'd had earlier, one that had crossed his mind while he stood at Madge's door, that had been interrupted by Jan's appearance, then by the tragedy of Madge's death. What was it that had bothered him? Something about Jack ... something Jack had said....
"What happened between you and Bernie in his apartment?"
"Nothing!"
Captain Williams suddenly realized it was not what Jack had said that bothered him, but the way he said it....
* * *
Bernie looked up when he heard the key turning in the lock. He smiled when Mike came in. The captain had kept his promise and arranged for Mike to visit him. He opened his mouth to speak, waited till the white-uniformed guard was gone and listened for the key to turn again in the lock. Then he sat up and laughed at Mike, who stood awkwardly in the doorway.
"Well, come on in," Bernie said. "I'm not going to bite you."
"How are you?" Mike said.
"Great!" Bernie pushed the covers aside and swung his legs out onto the floor. "Now don't laugh," he said. "This is what everybody wears in a hospital." He was referring to the long hospital gown that fell almost to his ankles. He hoisted the overlong sleeves up to his elbows. "It's like being in drag."
"The captain said you were pretty sick," Mike said and moved hesitantly toward Bernie. Bernie could see he was embarrassed.
"Well, I was," Bernie said. "You should've seen me. I about killed a dozen nurses-and they're big guys too!"
Mike laughed.
"They had to strap me down, too."
"They did?" Mike's eyes widened.
"Yes, they did," Bernie said, imitating Mike's wonder. He showed Mike the strap that hung from the underside of the bed. "But I got an itch and they had to untie me." He grabbed Mike, pulling him closer. "Damn you!" he said, "don't be so scared of me."
"I'm not," Mike said, reddening.
"The hell you're not." Bernie said. "You look like you're gonna faint."
"I am not!" Mike said, frowning. "I was just worried about you."
"You were?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'll tell you when to start worrying about me, okay? Now sit down here and tell me how you are."
Mike obeyed and sat on the bed next to Bernie.
"We're fine."
"And how is Sarah?"
"She's okay now." Mike grinned, losing some of his awkwardness. "Hey, Bernie, Sarah and me are staying at your apartment-till you get back. Is that okay?"
"I guess so." Bernie laughed softly. "What else do you want to tell me?"
"Well, I brought your car keys. I thought maybe you might want them."
"You did, eh?" Bernie took the ring of keys. He looked at them for a moment. How can you go anywhere, he thought, when you don't even know who you are? His fingers worked over the keys, pushing them along the chain like the beads of a rosary.
"Of course, if you want, I can take care of your car for you," Mike said. "Till you get back, I mean...."
"Well now," Bernie said finally, "I certainly appreciate that." He looked at Mike, wincing, as though it were a stranger sitting next to him. "And the baby," he said. "How is the baby?"
"Well, it ain't been born yet."
"I know that," Bernie said. He picked up one of Mike's hands and studied it, tracing the lines in his palm with a fingertip. "I see that you're going to be a father."
"Hey, if it's a boy," Mike said, "We're gonna name him Bernie after you."
"Don't you dare," Bernie said harshly. He pushed Mike's hand away. "Call him Frank. That's your papa's name."
"I can call him anything I want," Mike said hotly, showing his disappointment at Bernie's reaction to his gesture.
"Anyway, you're going to be a father," Bernie said, ignoring him, "and that means you'll have certain responsibilities."
"I know that."
"I don't know what you know, so I have to tell you everything," Bernie said. "As soon as you get to Chicago, you have to start looking for a job. Is that clear?"
"We can't go to Chicago."
"Why not? I gave you the money for the tickets."
"Yeah, but they won't let us go."
"Oh!" Bernie shrugged. "Well, that's no big problem. I'll fix that up. And you might as well take my car too. Drive it to Chicago."
"No kidding?"
"You can save the train money for when you get there." Bernie looked uneasily toward the door. "And remember, soon as you get there, you start looking for a job."
"Hey, but what'll you-"
"Never mind," Bernie said, cutting him off. "They're gonna throw you outta here in a few minutes, so just listen to me."
"Yeah, but-"
"Listen," Bernie said sharply. "No more running around the streets, okay?"
"Well, natur-"
"And no more sleeping till noon."
"Oh-"
"Say it!"
"Okay."
"That's the biggest thing in the world your little girl is making for you, Mike. Do you realize that?" Bernie grabbed Mike's hair, tugging it roughly. "Do you?"
"Ooow!"
"Tell me."
"Yes," Mike hollered. "Now let go."
"And she'll probably make you a dozen more like your mama did. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"I dunno."
"Well, I do," Bernie said, releasing him. "And here's something else I know. If they all resemble you, they're going to have a hell of a job growing up."
"How come?"
"How come?" Bernie smiled sadly. "You bug! What can you give them, huh? What can you give them that your papa didn't give you? Huh? All you have is instinct. Do you know what that is?"
Mike shook his head.
"There's so much I wanted to tell you," Bernie said. "I hold my hand out so-" He extended a hand, touching Mike's face, and Mike's face moved against it. Bernie grinned. "I'm gonna tell you a story. You wanna hear it?"
"I guess so."
"Well, you're going to hear it, whether you like it or not?" Bernie said. "It's about a little dog I used to have."
"I didn't know you had a dog."
"Shhh! I'm telling a story. It was just a mutt I found in an alley once, but I took him in. And I fixed a bed for him in a corner to sleep. In the mornings I'd pour his breakfast in a bowl. I didn't teach him anything. I just let him play and cleaned up after him. Then one day he got too big to play and decided he needed other dogs. He all but scratched my door down till I finally put him in the car and took him back to the alley where I found him. He didn't even look back."
"When was that?" Mike said. "Oh, not so long ago," Bernie said. Then he smiled, recovering from his thoughts. "Now you better get going. Okay?"
"Okay, but...." Mike stammered, looking at the key chain in Bernie's hand.
Bernie laughed. "Oh, yes." He refastened the chain he'd been toying with while he'd been talking. "Here you are. Now you better beat it."
"You sure they'll let us go?"
"I told you I'd fix it, didn't I? Don't I always fix everything?"
"I guess so," Mike said. He got up, pausing at the door. "Well," he said, then shrugged awkwardly.
"Well, what?" Bernie said impatiently. "Just go!"
"I have to say good-bye, don't I?" Mike said.
"Okay, say it."
"Well, good-by, I guess."
"Good-by."
Bernie stared at the door for a long time after Mike had left. There was so much I wanted to tell you, he thought. It was all true what the big man said. None of it was real, but it was all the truth!
"You damn little fool," he said aloud. He went to the door, but it was locked. "You lay down with fire and never once got burnt!" He turned away from the door, searching around the room for another way out. "I gave you glory and you'll never know it!"
His fingers trembled as he watched them. They moved almost on their own and he stared at them, horrified.
"It's all right, baby," he whispered. "Don't cry, baby!" He was frightened. "It's all right! It's all right!" And he knew it was all right. It's coming! It's coming! Thank God! It's coming now and it's all right!
Suddenly it was, and he closed his eyes. Suddenly he wondered why he'd been afraid. It was beautiful. Like a cigarette ad in a magazine. He smiled and wondered why he'd been afraid.
He opened his eyes and Madge was there. What are you doing here? He frowned because he was surprised. Then he smiled because she was there. But the smile died on his face. He saw right through her, and the smile died, and suddenly there was terror.
Oh my God! He drew his arms across his face, shutting out the light. It was too late. Deeper and deeper he felt himself drawn into the black water that crept over his face, pouring out of his wrists, burning him. He let it carry him. He let his body go limp while he was swept away and, under his breath, he said, It is, it is!
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Captain Williams stared at Bernie for a long time and Bernie stared back. It was the captain who finally turned away. He glanced at the white-uniformed guard who stood in the doorway.
"What happened?" the captain said.
"The kid must have slipped it to him," the guard said. He was referring to the miniature jackknife that lay beside Bernie, almost invisible in the shallow pond of blood that crept over the tile floor, spreading almost to the wall. The captain picked up the little knife, wiping it clean with a handkerchief. It was only tin, a key chain ornament, a child's toy.
He moved around to the other side of the body to avoid the blood and crouched down beside Bernie. He extended a hand toward Bernie, then drew it back. He looked at the guard impatiently.
"Well, don't just stand there," he said. "Go find someone to clean up this mess."
The guard obeyed and withdrew.
When they were alone, the captain got up and moved to the window. He stared out for a moment, then turned back and looked at Bernie again.
"You had to do it, didn't you?" he said, and his voice was harsh. "You had to play God!"
He dipped his handkerchief into the plastic basin of water on the night-table beside the bed, then moved back to Bernie. He removed the arm that lay across his face, and began to wipe away the blood that had spilled over it from the little gash on his wrist.
"You damn fool," he whispered, "Did you think you were the only one who had troubles?"
When the guards returned, the captain left the room. He returned to the hospital lobby where he'd left Mike sitting on one of the chairs that were -lined up opposite the main desk.
The captain sat down in the chair next to Mike, who stared straight ahead, his face blank, emotionless, the weight of what had happened clearly visible in his large eyes. His brown hands worked absently over the key ring. The captain watched his hands. Finally he spoke.
"Did you know he was going to do this?"
Mike shook his head.
"Do you want to see him?"
Mike looked at the captain, confused. He opened his mouth to speak, then pressed his lips in a thin line and shook his head again.
The captain stared at Mike uncomfortably. Finally he reached out and put a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Come on," he said. "Let's get some coffee."
Mike rose, moving automatically, and followed the captain outside to his car.
When they were in traffic, Captain Williams glanced at Mike through the rear-view mirror. He felt his irritation growing. He gripped the wheel sternly and his foot pushed down hard on the accelerator. Finally he spoke.
"That guy thought a lot of you," he said. "Did you know that?"
"He loved me," Mike said simply.
"Yes," the captain said, "And what about you?"
Mike looked at the captain. The look of confusion was gone from his face.
"I was going away, wasn't I?"
The captain weighed this, then he nodded. "That's true," he said finally, and his foot eased up on the accelerator. "That's certainly true...."
Captain Williams dropped Mike back at the State Hospital parking lot where Bernie's car was parked, then headed back to his office downtown.
"Do you think it was my fault?" Mike had asked the captain. "What Bernie did?"
"Don't even think about that," the captain said sternly. "It had nothing to do with you."
Captain Williams knew this was true. Mike was only an excuse. Bernie's was a crime that had begun a long time ago. It had been planned and rehearsed until it was almost reality, gaining facility each time, becoming less and less a dream, until all it needed to materialize was an excuse, a justification, less than that, a mere means to make the hands actually move and strike out at his enemy-a self he couldn't accept.
The captain thought about Bernie lying on the hospital floor, drained of life, a look of terror behind his eyes, perhaps realizing in his final moments, the horror of what he had done.
"You had to play God," the captain had said and he'd moved to the window, trembling with anger. He had found a truth that Bernie didn't know and had run through the streets like a fool to tell him, even before confirming what he'd found, but knowing it was true.
But Bernie only stared at him. As the captain stared back he felt his fury rise. He'd been made a fool of, and anger scorched his face while he stood at the window regaining his breath and pushing out the excitement-the child-like bubbling enthusiasm that accompanies victory, as he had run up the steps to deliver his news.
But you didn't want the truth, Bernie. You never gave a damn about the truth. That was part of your crime and it was a crime. You knew Mike wasn't guilty of that terrible act upon the big man. You must have known it if you knew Mike at all. But you pretended he did because you wanted to believe it. You needed an excuse for your hands to move and in that way you used him and it was wrong....
But Bernie had demanded sympathy as well as to be put down for his act. The captain was aware of that too. At some point his labors must have ceased to be positive and become instead responses to something that commanded him. When the guilt he'd invented had taken over and come into its own, turning on its creator, then it was no longer sinning but illness, as real as physical illness. Because of that, he had demanded sympathy.
Just as Madge had demanded sympathy ... not only in the end, but when she'd taken her coin and said, "I'm paid." It was more illness than sinning when she had begged for self-destruction, just as she had probably done so many times in the past-grabbing for perversion, using it, with the money only an excuse to strike out and destroy her enemy-an emptiness inside her that couldn't be filled. And because it was illness she demanded sympathy.
There was someone else who demanded sympathy. Even though he'd done wrong, he was neither more nor less guilty than Bernie. The captain was thinking of the man who was waiting for him in one of the detention rooms at the police station.
"Nothing," Jack had said, and the captain had believed him. Because, just as with Madge, the money had only been an excuse to strike out and destroy his enemy-Cy Cartell....
* * *
The captain swung his car into the parking area beside the Phoenix Police Department and walked slowly across the soft gravel lot toward the side entrance. He'd been in a hurry when he'd left his office, but there was no reason to rush now. It had become just a sad business-like cleaning up the hospital floor after the tragedy.
Of course, it was Jack. There were no surprises. It had always been Jack just beyond the doorway, standing in the shadows, or at the edge of a crowd, but he had always been there and it was his crime.
The captain might have sensed that when he'd first met the man. It was in his eyes, in his look of contempt and in his smile, a smile of hate, the kind of hate the captain had looked for in Madge, the kind of hate it would have taken to kill Bernie, the kind of hate it took to kill the big man.
The captain might have seen it, but he had been preoccupied with another drama, a separate drama that had nothing to do with Jack. Consequently, Jack had only been a drifter, a small-time thug, a stereotype-just a type.
The captain hadn't confronted him yet and he had no proof-but he knew he was right. He would play a hunch and he would win-because he was right.
Captain Williams entered the station and passed through the mesh gate behind the lobby desk toward Billings' office. He unlocked a large metal cabinet and withdrew Bernie's rifle from among the many items stored there. Then he carefully wrapped his handkerchief around the muzzle, gripping it by that end.
How brilliant can you be, he thought as he headed for the basement room.
He felt some of the excitement returning. It was something he couldn't control nor did he try to. It was part of winning. It had begun at Madge's door. It had been just an idea, a question, and when he had finally answered it, then all the other questions could be answered.
He should have asked it earlier. But he'd been so anxious for one truth he'd let the other slip by unnoticed.
While he'd stood at Madge's door, waiting for an answer from her that would never come, he'd suddenly found himself thinking of Jack. He was remembering something Tony Banderro had related about his night with Madge....
She held the coin in her clenched hand, then threw it at him. "Who wants your goddam money," she said and she laughed....
"What happened between you and Bernie Evans in his apartment?" the captain had asked Jack.
"Nothing." It was the truth. The captain hadn't asked anything after that. It was what he had wanted to learn. So much so that he had let another truth, a more important truth, slip Dy unchallenged. It was the answer to the question he had asked just before it.
"What did the big man pay you?"
"Nothing!" Jack had said, and, in his eyes, he had said, "Who wants your goddam money!" And the Captain knew it was the truth....
What did he want, then? What could he possibly want from the big man if not money? When the captain answered this, he found he could find answers to everything else. At least, possible answers....
The big man thought he had found Jack. Actually, it was Jack who had found the big man.
That was the reason Jack had come to Phoenix. He wasn't a drifter-he was a hunter. He had had but one purpose in mind, to find and destroy his enemy-an enemy he didn't even know.
He'd been released from prison only a week ago-enough time to locate Cy Cartel!, to find out what he looked like, to find out where he could be found. Jack had come to Phoenix. He hung around the bars and the downtown street corners, watching for the big man.
Blind luck had played into his hands. He had spotted the big man as the big man spotted him.
"A man who knows the ropes don't have to look long," Cy had said. What a joke it must have been to Jack as he listened to the big man outlining his plan and offering him his few dollars, pleased that he knew how to find what he was looking for at the price he wanted to pay-never suspecting he was not the villain but the victim, his sentence passed when the gates of a prison in Texas swung open for John William Marshell, a stranger, someone Cy had never seen before and had no came to fear.
The big man's hoax fitted perfectly into Jack's purpose. He could eat the man's food, drink his drinks and sit quietly and grin, because he knew his turn was coming. He could go along with Cy's plan. He could go to the Post Bar, get acquainted with Bernie Evans, then meet Cy at Bernie's apartment. Bernie was a perfect fall guy. When he woke up, drunk, confused, the big man would be dead and Jack, the drifter, would drift on.
How simple-even for a brilliant mind!
He got Bernie home and forced him to drink more. That was all he wanted to do-get Bernie drunk and let him pass out. Then he would wait for Cy Cartell.
That's when the murder was suppose to have taken place ... but Cy Cartell hadn't arrived at the appointed hour. He'd been distracted. He had lingered with a Rose, a willing Rose who had almost made him forget what he had come for.
Jack didn't know why Cartell had failed him. But his instincts told him not to wait, not to chance it. He had found the big man once and he would find him again-this time on his own terms.
Luck was still with him when he got to the Bel-Plaines Motel. He hadn't even had to search out Cy's cabin. There was Bernie's car parked in one of the driveways pointing the way.
It had been a repeat performance-almost identical. He pushed open the door and there was the big man. And there on the floor, passed out-almost as if he hadn't wakened since Jack had left him-lay his fall guy. And on the floor beside him a rifle.
The big man had grinned at a friend and extracted a bill from his wallet. He had looked up, holding out the money to his employee, then suddenly was dead.
That's the way it had happened, the captain thought as he entered the detention room.
Jack looked up at Captain Williams from the bench, then looked at the gun the captain held out toward him.
"Do you want to add some more prints on this," the captain said, "Or do you think we have enough?"
It was a silly game, but the captain played it-just as in the storybooks. Jack looked at the rifle butt thrust at him, then looked at the captain and knew it was over....
* * *
How brilliant can you be, the captain thought. Cy might have seen Jack before, but not have recognized him. Without the grin, wearing only a frightened look, he might have been merely one of many at the edge of a crowd.
But Bernie had recognized him. Through the confusion and the shock of what had happened he had recognized Jack in the crowd outside the cabin when he left with the captain. He hadn't stopped to wonder why Jack was there. He only knew that he saw him, as in a dream, and he struck out at the crowd, screaming, plunging into it, to reach him.
"I'll kill you!" Bernie had screamed and it was Jack he was talking to....
"I didn't do anything," Bernie had cried, and it was the night with Jack he was referring to....
The captain wondered. If his hunch were right-if it had been Jack in the crowd, then why had he come back to the cabin-unless to recover something left behind that might prove damaging. He wasn't too bright. His prison record showed that, and the captain wondered what he might have left behind. There was nothing there that could connect him with the crime-except, maybe, his fingerprints on the rifle.
He couldn't have known that Bernie had wiped the rifle clean.
He'd come back to recover them, but he'd come back too late. The police were already there, so he could only slip away. But he knew he was caught. He'd only been waiting in the detention room for the captain to come back. And when he saw the rifle butt thrust at him, he knew it was over.
Captain Williams handed the rifle to the guard at the door, then sat on the bench opposite Jack. He wouldn't tell Jack that Bernie had wiped the rifle clean. He would spare him that. He would let Jack think that the captain was no more nor less brilliant than he.
He reached for his cigarettes, extracted one, then offered one to Jack.
"You want to tell me about it?" he said....
* * *
"I'm a man," Jack said. "And there's some things it takes a man to do." He paused. "That's what the big man said, you know. I watched him through the window. Bernie had the gun and the big man was moving on him. 'It takes a man to pull a trigger', he says, 'and I don't see no man around here.' And the son-of-a bitch fainted-fainted dead away."
Jack took a deep drag on his cigarette.
"That's all there was to it, man. I said, 'You owe me ten dollars, mister. I come to collect it. And there's another debt I gotta collect-for Robert Joseph.' And I shot him."
"Robert Joseph?" The captain frowned. "Who the hell is Robert Joseph?"
"Just a name," Jack said. "Just a name on a graveyard marker. But he used to be ... somebody." Jack shook his head. "He was just a little fella, you know. And he used to cry because he was hungry. And I says, Don't cry, Robert Joseph, 'cause Jack'll take care of you.
"I guess I didn't do a very good job. Nope-I got caught. I always get caught, man." Jack smiled sadly. "He was only eleven the last time I went in. That was five years ago. Five years, man! How could I take care of him?
"I'm sittin' there in a cage and I says, 'You wait till I come out, hear?' But he wouldn't wait. In one ear and out the other! He ran all over this ol' country tryin' to do what I was doin'. And that man out there in Georgia wouldn't let him wait for Jack.
"No, man. I'm sittin' there in the middle of Texas and he's layin' in the street with a bullet in his back. Layin' like a clump of dirt in the middle of the street....
"It was an awful big bullet for. that little back," Jack said and the liquid that had been building up in his eyes finally spilled over and he turned out his hands in a futile gesture. "It was an awful big bullet, man! Lots bigger than the one I used!"
Suddenly his fists clenched and a power came into his eyes that made the captain wince.
"Someone gotta pay for Robert Joseph," he said.
"Someone will," the captain said and he moved to the officer who stood at the door.
"Have him booked," he said and left the room....
Captain Williams sat on the window! edge of his office on the second floor of the Municipal Building and watched a familiar bronze-colored car as it slipped into traffic, then headed in the direction of the twin buttes that marked the edge of the city.
His eyes lingered on the buttes, almost purple now in the blazing afternoon sunlight. Ironic, he thought-identical in size and shape, mirrors of one another.
He caught sight of the car again as it disappeared at the end of the block.
He smiled, admitting to himself he was pleased Mike and Sarah had stopped in to say good-by before leaving for Chicago.
What a difference there was between the young man who had just left his office and the street urchin from Chicago's South Side described in Billings' report. It was amazing how much of Bernie had rubbed off on Mike. It was too bad Bernie hadn't been able to see that.
The captain thought of Bernie again, also on his way to Chicago. The body was being shipped at the request of Bernie's mother. That was good, the captain thought. It was as it should be. Sooner or later Bernie had to go home.
