by Jerry eBooks
“I’m going for a walk,” he announced almost challengingly.
She reached for another chocolate from the candy box next to the sofa. “I thought it was raining.”
“So it’s raining,” he said. “What’s a little rain?”
Martha shrugged indifferently and turned back to her magazine. “Maybe you can remember to mail that letter of mine you’ve been carrying around all day with you.”
Automatically he reached inside his coat pocket and touched the envelope to make sure it was there. He was a little man, little not so much in size as in personality. The shabby suit, the stringy hair combed carefully over his bald spot, the apologetic stoop of his shoulders—all made him seem small and ineffectual.
Yes, ineffectual was the word for John Quigley, but behind his thick spectacles now there was hitter hatred and grim purpose as he took his last look at the drab apartment and the flabby, dowdy woman he had lived with for twenty years.
As he closed the door behind him, he wondered what her face would be like when she found the note on the bedroom dresser. But even that thought gave him little satisfaction. She would read it with the same contemptuous indifference; then she would be irritated that he had caused her this last inconvenience. But wait until she found he had cashed in his life insurance policy!
He chuckled vengefully as he came out into the street. The drizzle had stopped, but there was still the murky dampness that never seemed to leave the air in this neighborhood. As he turned left up River Street he shivered a bit and hurried his footsteps past the loft buildings and the ship-fitters’ shops that loomed dark along the waterfront.
Two blocks up, the light of a bar glowed forlornly through a dirty, rain-splattered window. Quigley paused for a moment outside. Big Joe was on duty, aimlessly wiping the dark-stained bar, and the only other customer was a drunk staring morosely into his glass at the far end.
So far so good.
JOE LOOKED up in surprise when he came in. He gave the bar an extra swipe and said formally, “Evenin’, Mr. Quigley. Didn’t expect to see you on a night like this.”
The “Mister” had always hurt John Quigley. Joe called all his other regular customers by their first name. Even Sloto, who owned the Produce Mart and was supposed to be worth a million . . . so it was something other than a mark of deference. It merely meant he didn’t belong, wasn’t quite accepted.
Tonight, after all these years, he found the courage to speak up. “My friends call me John,” he told the bartender.
Joe suddenly paused in his wiping. “Okay. . . .” he said, surprise in his voice. “What’ll it be? The usual?”
Quigley shook his head. “No. Whiskey. A double-shot of your best.”
Then he added, as the bartender looked at him, “This is an occasion, Joe. Pour one for yourself, too.”
The bartender made the drinks and raised his glass. “Here’s to a short life and a merry one . . . John.”
More than alcohol glowed inside Quigley as he downed his slug. Too bad it was the last time. . . . Too bad he had never offered Joe a drink before, even if he would have had to account to Martha for it. Anger rose in him again as he thought of the way she had doled out his pocket money so reluctantly . . . she and her boxes of candy, her cheap magazines.
Joe had set his glass down and was looking at him curiously. “What’re we drinkin’ to, John? Marriage, divorce . . . boy or girl?”
Quigley shrugged ruefully. “Nothing like that, Joe. Nothing like that at all.”
He was thinking of how Martha had never wanted a kid. Not until he was making twice as much, she had always said accusingly. Now he tried to think of something more to say, but the right words wouldn’t come. He made wet circles on the bar with his glass, while Joe waited curiously.
The drunk at the other end stirred, and the bartender went down to fill his glass again. When he came back, Quigley had figured out his approach.
“Joe,” he said carefully, “What the hell’s it all about, anyway?”
“I don’t getcha. What’s what all about?” Quigley made a broad gesture with his glass. “Life. People. You know, what does it all add up to?”
Joe shifted uncomfortably. Then his eyes lit happily on Quigley’s empty glass. “Here, have another.”
Quigley waited until the glasses were filled again, and then persisted in his question.
“Where does it get you, Joe? You work all your life, trying to do right . . . and where do you end up?”
Joe shook his head. “You got it bad, Mr. Quigley. It must be this lousy weather.”
“John,” the little man reminded him gently. Then he went on.
“I’ll tell you where it gets you. The same place it gets anybody. Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief . . . they all end up six feet under.”
Joe considered. He usually discouraged such philosophical discussions because they often led to fights and gave the place an unhappy atmosphere.
“Well, I dunno,” he said cautiously. “My philos’phy is make the best of it while you can. Here today, gone tomorrow. So why worry about the day after that?”
“Exactly,” answered Quigley. Then he added craftily, “The point is though, some people have fun. The ones with money. You and me, we just work and get pushed around and never get anywhere.”
“That’s right,” agreed the bartender placatingly. “It’s like the races, you can’t win. Whatcha think of the fifth today? I lost ten bucks on that damn Twinkletoes.”
But Quigley wasn’t going to have the subject changed on him. It was all part of his plan, and every bit fitted. First the note, then this. . . .
“Joe,” he said, studying the wet rings he had made on the bar, “what would you do if a doctor told you you only had a year, maybe two years more to live?”
The bartender looked at him sharply, but Quigley met his eyes with a bland stare. “How about it, Joe? Suppose that happened to you f”
“I’d have myself one hell of a time,” said Joe shortly.
Quigley nodded and shoved his glass forward again. He was already feeling the whiskey, but he was going to need it for what came next.
As he reached for his drink, the telephone jangled suddenly and his hand paused in mid-air. Joe ambled slowly down the length of the bar, out through the break in the end. Quigley twisted on his stool to watch him as he went to the phone on the wall.
“Yeah?” said Joe, and then he was raising his eyebrows significantly at Quigley. “Oh, yes, Mrs. Quigley?”
The little man at the bar fought down his impulse to flee, shook his head desperately at the bartender. Joe turned and lied into the mouthpiece with the ease of long practice. “No, Mrs. Quigley, he ain’t here. . . . No, not tonight. I’m sorry.”
Quigley was thinking rapidly as the bartender came back. The telephone was in the bedroom. That meant she had found the note already . . . sooner than he had expected.
“Your old lady,” Joe explained unnecessarily. “She sounded awful mad about somethin’.”
The drunk at the other end got up abruptly and lurched out.
Quigley gulped his drink down and looked at his watch. Then he pointed toward the bottle. “One more, Joe.”
The big bartender hesitated.
“The last one, Joe. We’ll have the last one together.”
Joe poured it reluctantly. “This is on the house, then.”
Quigley raised his glass. “You’re a good man, Joe. Bes’ damn bartender I ever knew.”
He tossed it down, put a bill on the bar, climbed off the stool. His feet seemed clumsy, but his head was clear as a bell. He knew just what he was doing, and it all seemed simple now.
“Good-bye, Joe,” he said sentimentally. “Good-bye and thanks.”
Joe took his hand automatically, but he was studying him closely. “You all right. John?”
“Sure I’m all right. What d’ya mean, am I all right?”
Joe said hesitantly. “Well . . . what you told me about the doctor and all that. . . .�
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“Hell, I was just supposin’. Just supposin’, Joe.”
He laughed, but his voice had a false note in it. The right note, he prided himself, seeing the worried frown on the bartender’s face.
At the door he suddenly stopped and raised his hand. An inspiration had just come to him, something buried deep in his memory from high school days.
“Morituri te salutamus,” he said dramatically. “You know what that means, Joe?”
Joe shook his head with the weary patience of all bartenders.
“It’s Latin,” said Quigley. “ ’We who are about to die, salute you.’ ” And with that he pushed quickly through the door.
Behind him, Joe watched him go. After a moment he muttered “What the hell!” and took off his apron. Then he began switching off the lights hurriedly. Quigley had turned up River Street, instead of in the direction where he lived. . . .
IT HAD started drizzling again. The little man hurried along, instinctively huddling close to the dark buildings for protection from the rain. Suddenly, he laughed out loud to himself, seeing the irony of it. Here he was trying to keep dry—and in five minutes he would be in the river. Then it would be all over for John Quigley.
At the next block he turned right and crossed the street toward the approach to the Second Avenue Bridge. A couple of cars splashed by him, and then he heard a shout behind. He looked around.
Half a block down the street a big figure was hurrying after him. It was Joe, the bartender. He hadn’t counted on this; he must have overplayed his hand.
Joe shouted again, but Quigley hurried on into the shadows of the drawbridge. There was an overhead light in the middle of the span, and when he came within its range he stopped and looked back again.
Joe had already reached the end of the bridge and was running now. He had to hurry. Part of the plan had been to take off his coat and leave it behind, but that didn’t matter now. An eye-witness would be even better.
Quigley climbed over the rail and walked gingerly out on a wet girder. Then, when he reached the end, he looked down at the water for the first time. The current swirled in a black torrent below.
It was only twenty feet down. He had checked that carefully and he had also practiced off the high board at the “Y” on the nights when Martha thought he was working. In fact, Martha didn’t even know he had learned to swim . . . but these angry, swollen whirlpools were something he had not counted on.
Now his courage failed him. A little man, huddled fearfully on a narrow beam above the river, the chill air had robbed him of even the confidence his drinks had given him.
“Quigley, you damn fool. . . . Don’t! Come back here, you fool!”
It was Joe yelling at him, as if from some great distance. But Joe was right there at the rail, and his escape Was cut off. He looked down at the river again, but fear held him powerless. He stood there, shivering, his knees trembling, with all his plans, all his dreams, vanishing in dismal defeat.
Joe had stopped shouting and was climbing carefully over the rail, edging out on the beam, stalking him. Joe had a grip on his arm now. Joe was big and strong, and his other hand was gripping the rail behind him. In that moment of failure Quigley felt a quick hatred for himself, a bitter scorn for the coward he was and had always been. This was to have been the start of a new life . . . but now he was being drawn relentlessly back into the old one by a bartender’s strong arm.
As Joe pulled him to the rail he swung out hysterically, frantically, kicking at his rescuer. For a moment they struggled, and then Joe lost his grip. Quigley felt him go, felt the sickening feeling of falling himself.
Only sheer instinct made him hang on, dangling by one arm; only blind terror gave him the strength to pull himself up . . . up until he had the other hand on the rail, and then up still more, until his flailing feet had found a hold and he had tumbled back to safety.
For a moment he lay there, panting, his legs rubber, his heart pounding weakly. Then for the first time it occurred to him that he had just sent a man to his death in that swirling water below.
He, John Quigley, was a murderer! He looked up and down the bridge, shaking his head like a trapped animal, but he had lost his spectacles in the struggle and couldn’t see well.
All he had to do, he told himself, was to remember his plan. John Quigley was the man who had murdered Joe the bartender. So he would become someone else. The man he had planned to become. His schedule would still work. It had to work, even more now. He was sorry about Joe—as John Quigley. But as Mark Stanton he would have no time for regrets.
He started toward the far end of the bridge, glancing furtively over his shoulder as he ran.
CHAPTER TWO
Man With the Suitcase
TWENTY minutes later, a man carrying a suitcase walked quickly out of the deserted park grounds which lay on the city side of the river below the Second Avenue bridge. He hurried toward the boulevard corner and then paused for a moment in the shelter of an awning over the drugstore there. The rain was coming down strong now, and he would be conspicuous if he walked.
As he straightened, pulling his shoulders back, he looked suddenly taller. A grey homburg was perched at a jaunty angle on his head, a finely tailored gabardine top coat protected him from the rain. His name was Mark Stanton, man of leisure, and in his pocket was a ticket on the Special for New Orleans. A compartment ticket, a key and a trim little automatic pistol.
True, in the expensive saddle-leather suitcase were the shabby clothes that had belonged to John Quigley, but those would be destroyed at the first opportunity that presented itself.
He caught sight of a taxi approaching and smiled to himself. The new contact lenses were fine, even better than his old glasses. A bit uncomfortable, perhaps, but he’d get used to them. He stepped to the curb and raised his hand with an imperious gesture. The cab went past, then stopped and backed up for him. Mark Stanton smiled again to himself.
But the smile froze as he opened the cab door and started to get in. In the dark corner of the seat was another man, a big man who looked like Joe. His voice was loud and hearty, too.
“Going to the station, friend?”
Stanton nodded uncertainly, and for the moment he looked like John Quigley again, despite the clothes.
“Well, hop in! That’s where I’m going, too.”
The big man chuckled as Stanton sunk down on the seat next to him. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Saw you standing there with that suitcase, and I says to myself, ‘Fred, old boy, there’s a man bound for the same place you are.’ So I made the driver stop, and sure enough. Hell of a detective I’d make, eh?”
“Thanks,” said Stanton. “Thanks a lot for stopping. It’s a bad night to be walking.”
He tried to make his voice sound as he had pictured it, but it wasn’t quite right. This bothered him; it was another thing that hadn’t been on the schedule, but he had to stop worrying. Mark Stanton wasn’t a man to fret over trifles.
“Yes, sir.” the other man was agreeing amiably. “It’s a hell of a night, all right. And I say it’s gonna be a lot worse before morning. You know how I know that?”
“I suppose you’re right.”
His new friend chuckled heartily. “I’ll tell you how I know. I just came across the bridge and the old river’s really running tonight. Means they’re having rain up north, lots of rain, and that means we’ll get it before morning. See?”
“You’re right,” said Stanton, and he shivered in his corner of the seat. He was seeing the river again, seeing a dark figure disappearing below a black, seething current. The man he had killed. . . . No. not he, Mark Stanton, but another person named John Quigley who was also dead now.
His stout acquaintance had given up and was looking out the window at the rainswept boulevard. But not for long. As the cab turned right on Carson Street he tried again.
“Where you going, friend? Headin’ south?”
“Yes, south,” said Stanton and then regretted it. He had to
be alert, watch things like that.
“New Orleans?” suggested the stranger. “Swell place, New Orleans. Wish I was going there myself.”
Stanton protested quickly . . . too quickly. “No, not New Orleans. Not that far.”
“Oh?”
Stanton desperately searched his memory. But not a single city came to his mind, nothing except the name of a place he had never even heard of before he saw it on the timetable.
“Marton,” he said.
The big man in the corner seemed to expand even more with friendliness. “Well, say now! Pick a man up off the street, and he’s going to Marton, too! Good old Marton. Haven’t been there for two years, but I’ll bet it’s still the same old one-horse town.”
He paused and then added jovially, “Well, since we seem to be making the same trip—my name’s Fred Pendergast. Travel for Thompson Products, St. Louis. You know old Bill Hatterly down at Marton? Runs the biggest general store there.”
“No,” said Stanton shortly. “I’ve never been there before.”
“You’ll have to meet Bill,” the big salesman assured him. “Man, you haven’t lived ’til you’ve met old Bill Hatterly! I’ll introduce you to him.”
The man chuckled reminiscently while Stanton squirmed. If there was one thing he wanted to do, it was get rid of this fat talkative fool. He would lose him at the station. . . .
THEY WERE already turning into the approach ramp, into the bright lights that seemed to be reaching into the cab to spotlight his guilt. But there was no turning back now. A Red Cap had already opened the door and was taking out the two suitcases. The big man shifted his bulk, forward, waiting for him to get out first.
He remembered to hold himself erect as he stepped into the bright entrance. Pendergast had eased himself out with a grunt, and was pulling out his wallet. Stanton reached for his, and then panic struck him again.
He had forgotten that, too! There was a nice new sealskin wallet with two hundred dollars in it—but the wallet was in his suitcase. And the Red Cap was already loading the bags on his hand cart.
