by Ben Benson
“You must eat like a trooper,” she said.
“That’s what I am.” I grinned.
“That’s right, you are.” She laughed. It was the first time she had laughed naturally since I had known her.
“Do it again,” I said.
“What?”
“I want to see you laugh. You’ve never really laughed before.”
But she didn’t laugh again. She said, “That’s right. It seems like I almost forgot how to laugh.” Her hand brushed at her hair. “What did I ever have to laugh about?”
“Forget it,” I said. “That’s in the past. Don’t think of the past any more.”
“You’re a sweet kid,” she said. “You’re good for me. When I talk to you I forget you’re a cop.”
“You don’t like cops, do you?”
“What did they ever do for me? The one in this town called me a cheap whore.”
“He’s only one,” I said. “He didn’t know better.”
“That’s true,” she said. “You’re a cop and you never said I was an immoral person.”
“Because you’re not,” I said.
“Thanks, honey,” she said. “I keep thinking of the time in the living room when we were hugging and kissing.” There was a pleading look in her eyes. “You sure you didn’t do it for what you could get out of me?”
“No, Leta.”
“Maybe you pitied me. Maybe you feel toward me like you feel toward a stray dog on the street. You know what I mean, you feel sorry for him so you pat him.”
“Don’t keep apologizing for yourself,” I said. “It wasn’t that. I made love to you because you’re a beautiful girl. I wanted to do it. And I’d do it again if you’d let me.”
“How can you? You’re being married.”
I grinned. “That’s next week. This week I’m still single.”
“No, you wouldn’t do it again.”
“I’ve got until next Sunday. Try me.”
She came close. I stood up. She reached out with her hands and brought my head down to hers. Her soft lips clung to my mouth for a long time. Then she released me.
“I’d better get away from you,” she said with a flustered laugh. “You have me doing all kinds of crazy things.”
“It’s not crazy,” I said. I was thinking that Lieutenant Newpole had said she was fey. But he was wrong. Her life wasn’t over. She was young and desirable. “Listen, when this thing clears up, you ought to move away somewhere. Maybe to Boston. You’ll find a nice guy and he’ll want to marry you. You’ll see.”
“I used to think of doing that,” she said wistfully. “Oh, how I used to dream of it. If I thought there was one chance—”
“There is. Why not?”
“Tell me the truth,” she said. “Don’t lie about it just to give me hopes.”
“It’s the truth,” I said.
“There’s a brand on me, Ralph.”
“You’ll meet the right boy and he’ll say the hell with the brand. And if it makes you feel better, you can have the brand removed. A simple skin graft could do it.”
“I’d rather do it that way,” she said. “I’d be washed and scoured clean then.”
“Then do it,” I said. “Don’t talk about it. Do it.”
“If I come out of this alive,” she said. “If. It’s a big if.”
“You’ll come out alive,” I said.
The coffee was percolating. She went to the stove. I sat down in the chair again. She poured the coffee into cups.
“Cream?” she asked. “I don’t have real cream. But there’s condensed milk.”
I turned to answer her, to tell her condensed milk would be fine. I didn’t hear the back door open. It was only when it slammed shut that I turned around quickly.
Ken Osanger was standing there. He was wearing a wrinkled plaid suit. His oversized head was extended slightly forward. His eyes blinked behind the thick-lensed glasses. In his hand, pointing at me, was the .32 automatic.
I started to get up. As I did I knew how futile it was. I had made a bad mistake. I had gone against explicit orders and entered the house. Because if I had stayed in the vestibule I would have had him.
It’s human nature, I thought bitterly. Always the same. You do one good thing and your head swells and you think, from then on, you can do nothing wrong. So you get careless and make a mistake. And this was the bad one.
“Sit there,” Osanger said quickly. “Don’t move even an inch.”
I eased back slowly in the chair. I couldn’t jump him. He was at least four feet away. His myopic eyes focused on Leta. She stared back at him, her eyes wide with shock, her lips parted, her hand at her throat.
“Take a good look,” Osanger said to her huskily. “No, you didn’t expect me. You were too busy entertaining your cop lover. You didn’t think I’d come back.” He drooled a little from his mouth. “Filth. Dirty filth.”
“He’s not my lover,” she said.
“So you squealed,” he said. “And you’ve taken up with this stupid yap of a cop. You should have known better, Leta. After all I taught you, too.”
“Go ahead,” she said very quietly. “Kill me. That’s why you’re here. But leave him alone. He has nothing to do with it. Nothing but his job.”
“Oh, he’ll get it, too,” Osanger said. “You know I’m going to kill him. Two lovers. You’ll die with him, you filthy one.”
“I’ll go away with you. Honest, Ken. Anywhere you say. Just leave the kid alone.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said. His mouth was wet. There was no cigarette in it this time. A drop of saliva oozed onto his chin. “You’re going to die. Why are you arguing with me, Leta?”
“I wouldn’t argue with you,” she said. “I never argued with you, not once. I always did what you said. But you’re not so smart as you think, Ken. This trooper isn’t here on a social call. He’s been waiting for you. Across the street there’s another detective. Carlton is surrounded. You’re in a trap, Ken. Sometimes these cops are smart, too.”
“No,” he said. “They’re yaps. I always beat them. There’s no cops around. Only one. And he’s at the farm.”
“They’re all around you, Ken,” she said quietly. “They’ve cut off this whole area.”
“No,” he said, his voice rising. “I’d smell one a mile away. I made sure. I checked here this afternoon.”
“They were in the yellow bungalow across the street,” she said patiently. “What did you expect? Did you think they’d park outside in a police car?”
“You’re lying,” he said, his nostrils twitching. “I saw a police car at the farm.”
“Sure, at the farm. But they didn’t expect you at the farm. They knew you’d come here, Ken.”
“Oh, you filthy liar,” he said. “When I get through with this cop, I’m going to mash your face to a pulp.” He motioned the pistol at me. “Stand up, trooper. You’re first.”
“No,” she said frantically. “Not him.”
“Stand up,” he said to me again. “Get over near her.”
I looked up at him, my heart beating so fast and hard I thought he could hear it. I knew with cold certainty what the next thing was. This was a pathological killer whose mind hovered in the twilight between sanity and insanity. There was no reasoning with him, not now and not ever.
And I knew with just as much certainty what I would have to do. I would stand up quickly, half-turning, showing my left side. The gun was now trained at my heart. As I jumped and turned, the gun would fire from the same position. But I would be rising and the bullet would hit lower. In the arm, if I was lucky. In the gut, if I was not. The gun was a .32. The shock power was great enough, but it wasn’t a .45. It made no difference, anyway, about the shock power. There was nothing else to do.
“Stand up, cop,” Osanger said again.
I pushed my right foot down hard, my rubber heel firm against the floor so I wouldn’t slip. I jumped up. I turned swiftly, my arm streaking back to my hip holster.
The gun went off in Osanger’s hand.
I felt the impact of the bullet as it numbed through my left arm and plowed into my side. I coughed involuntarily. My own gun was out as I went down on one knee. I fired up, squeezing the trigger of the service revolver spasmodically, once, twice, three times.
Osanger grunted, the breath whooshing out of him. He faded back to the door. He crashed into it. The gun dropped from his hand. He sagged down and hit the floor. He looked up at me once, his eyes almost unbelievably large with surprise. Then his head dropped to his chest.
I lay twisted on the floor. The revolver slipped from my fingers. I tried to get my legs under me, to get to my feet. I couldn’t. My legs wouldn’t function. I groped for the chair with my good arm, gripping one of the rungs hard. My mouth was terribly dry.
Leta Nofke was down beside me. “Easy, honey,” she said.
I turned my head slowly. I saw her eyes were wet.
“Easy,” she said. “Just lie there. You’re bleeding like a pig.”
There was a hazy blur over my eyes. I felt a bad, fainting weakness inside. I wanted water something fierce. Her voice had sounded far away.
“Are you all right?” I asked her.
“I’m fine,” she said, wiping her eyes quickly. “Just lie there, honey. It was a brave, foolish thing you did.”
“I had to do it,” I said. “There was nothing else to do.”
“I know. But lie there. Please. Don’t move.”
I closed my eyes. I thought I heard the front door open. There was a sound of running footsteps. When I opened my eyes again Lieutenant Koniat was bent down before me, doing something with a handkerchief.
“He needs a tourniquet,” Koniat was saying to her. “That arm is bleeding bad.”
“Please, sir,” she said. “His side, too.”
I heard a tear of cloth. Then there was a sharp skewer of pain.
“It didn’t go in too far,” Koniat said. “It’s lodged in against his lower rib. His arm absorbed the shock. Run across the street, Miss Nofke. The telephone there is a direct line to Lieutenant Newpole. Tell him to send the nearest doctor and an ambulance.” There was a pause. Then his voice came to me again. “Yes, and a hearse for Osanger.”
Now I heard the tap of her high heels as she left the kitchen. I had trouble with my breathing. Each intake sent a stab of sharp pain through me. My head was muddled, too.
“I’ve got a wedding tomorrow,” I said to Koniat.
“Not tomorrow,” Koniat said. “Next Sunday.”
“I’ve got to live at least until then, Lieutenant.”
“Just lie still,” Koniat said, doing something to my arm. “You’ll live forever.”
“I can’t disappoint Ellen, sir,” I explained carefully. “The wedding is costing her family a pile of money.”
“You crazy kid,” Koniat said. “You’ll be there. You’ll be there if I have to carry you down the aisle piggyback. Now be still.”
“You’re sure?” I asked.
“I’m sure,” he said. “I promise I’ll carry you down myself. So just relax.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant,” I said. I could no longer keep my eyes open because my consciousness was slipping away rapidly. I kept thinking of the wedding and the last thing I knew Koniat was covering me with his jacket.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I DIDN’T MAKE THE WEDDING. LIEUTENANT KONIAT HAD been optimistic enough, but even if he had been willing to carry me down the aisle piggyback, the doctors would never have allowed it. I had lost a great deal of blood and there was shock. They had cut the bullet out of my side. My arm was in a plaster cast. As a result, I was in the hospital over four weeks.
Ellen had to call off the wedding indefinitely. It was tough on her because of all the preparations. But she was decent enough about it, coming to my room at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston every day, holding my hand, nubbling over me like a mother cat over a hurt kitten, and planning for another date when the church was available.
The troopers from my barracks came to see me when they had time off. My mother came, and my father in his wheelchair. Also, the Captain of Detectives, Lieutenants Newpole, Tileston and Koniat, and my troop commander.
Major Carradine, the executive officer, came, too, inquiring anxiously about my health. After he found out I was going to be fine, he proceeded to bawl hell out of me. After that he felt better. So did I because I could see things were getting normal again.
In spite of all the company, I had a great deal of time to myself. I read a lot and I did a lot of thinking, too. Mostly, I’ll admit, the thinking was about Leta Joyce Nofke and her tortured eyes and haunting face.
Two of the weeks went by and, one day, one of the boys from my neighborhood in Cambridge was visiting me. His name was Elliot Richardson, a year or two older than I, and a chemist with Monsanto. We were talking about old times, the way you usually do, asking each other what had become of this one and that one, and who was marrying who. Just when he was getting ready to leave Leta Nofke walked into the room.
She stopped hesitatingly when she saw Richardson and I thought for a moment she was going to get panicky and run away. But then she saw me grinning from ear to ear and she came hurrying to the bed. She bent down and brushed my forehead with her lips. She was holding a carton of cigarettes for me and she put them on the bedside table. Elliot’s mouth was wide open as he held out a chair for her. Then he said good-bye and walked out. But he kept looking back at her as though he liked what he saw very much. I think she noticed it because, unconsciously, she preened a bit and smoothed her hair like women always will do.
Then she sat down, folded her hands in her lap and asked questions about my wounds. When that was over, she said, “I have a job.”
“Good,” I said. “Where?”
“At the Raytheon plant in Waltham. I moved there two weeks ago. I’m working on assembly.”
“Fine,” I said. “You see, Leta? It worked out.”
She nodded her head. There was animation in her eyes, a soft glow. “I met a man,” she said suddenly. “He’s an engineer there. He’s a sensible, broad-minded, older boy. He’s been so kind to me and I’ve been seeing a lot of him. Of course, it’s too soon yet, but—”
She stopped, looking down at her hands.
“But what?” I asked.
“I didn’t tell him anything about myself, about Ken Osanger.” Her eyes came up. “Should I?”
“I think so,” I said. “Don’t carry it inside any longer. If this man is what you say he is, he’ll understand. If not, you don’t want him. Some other decent guy will come along. Hundreds of them. Even that chemist who just walked out. He couldn’t take his eyes off you and I don’t blame him.”
She smiled and squeezed my hand impulsively. “Thanks, Ralph. You always did make me feel good. I’m going to do as you say. I’m going to tell Henry.”
“Is that his name?”
“Yes.” Then she began to tell me all about him, the things he said, and the places they went. I listened.
My bed was propped up a little so that I could look out the window and see the sparkling blue water of the Charles River, the brightly colored sails of the little boats in the Basin and the stone arches of the old Prison Point Bridge. My wounds were aching and I was a little tired, but while she talked I was thinking of how the job had turned out. We had broken up a stolen car ring and that was good. I had killed Kenneth Osanger, but he was a murderer and his death was inevitable. I had killed Scott Cluett and that was not good. He was a boy who was too young to die at the end of a cop’s gun. Something should have been done a long time ago to save him. It would take me many years to forget it.
But a girl had been released from a cage, from mental and from physical bondage, and that was good. That was the biggest entry on the credit side of the ledger. And when you totaled them up, the good and the bad, it seemed like the job had come out on the plus side.
So when she left me, her heels tapping happily
and buoyantly on the shiny, waxed floor, I closed my eyes and dozed with tired contentment.
Because a postponed wedding was a small price to pay for all of it.
The M. S. Mill Co. and William Morrow & Co., 1954
Jacket art by Hedley Rainnie
