The Tiger Among Us

by Leigh Brackett

  "Now, then," he said, "what's your trouble?"

  I told him, and it surprised even me how few words it took when you boiled it light down to the essentials. He listened, asking an occasional question, taking notes.

  "You want me to shadow the boy, find out who his associates are, and whether they fit these descriptions."

  "That's it."

  "Of course, the boy might play it smart. He might figure he'd be tailed and stay away from the rest of the gang for a while."

  "He might, yes, although he seemed pretty sure of himself. But if he doesn't see you——"

  "He won't."

  "Well, sooner or later, if I'm right about these other beatings, he'll go back to the others. I'm willing to wait."

  "How long, Mr. Sherris? I'm not exorbitantly expensive, but I do cost."

  "Any reasonable length of time. As of right now I am not worrying about the money."

  Finelli nodded. "Just don't expect results by tomorrow morning, that's all. And of course you know the boy may very well be innocent."

  "That's why I want to hire you, to find out."

  "Are these names and addresses correct?"

  I said they were, and also my telephone number.

  "All right, Mr. Sherris. I'll let you know as soon as I have anything to report."

  "Thanks," I said. "That's a load off my mind. Have a good time." He looked surprised, and I added, "At the golden wedding."

  He laughed. "Too much spaghetti and vino. I'll feel like hell in the morning."

  We all went out of the office together, and I told him I would send him a check for the retainer in the morning. Then I was out in the street again, at a hot five-thirty, wondering what to do.

  What I wanted to do was drive up to the lake and spend the night there. But when I thought it over I decided not to. If the Bush boy was one of the gang that had beaten me, the fact that I had managed to track him down and get him hauled in for questioning might have some repercussions.

  It would be hitting much closer to home than that foolish business of chasing the wrong car—about which Everett Bush had been very fully informed for a kid who had no personal interest in it. He knew I was still suspicious of him and, even though he had managed to talk his way out of it this time with the help of his parents, he might feel that something ought to be done to discourage me from going any further.

  The boys might make some overt move, something that would give them away, or at least make it possible for me to bring the police in on it again. One definite piece of evidence against any one of them was all I needed.

  This sounded rather dangerous, but I had no intention of exposing myself to any danger. And I couldn't see that I would be running any more risk than I was liable to run any night now.

  No risk at all, if Everett was as innocent as he said he was.

  I hoped the day would come when I could say for sure that somebody was definitely innocent or guilty of something.

  I went home.

  On the way I picked up some cans and a steak. It was still full daylight when I got to the house, with several hours more of it to go. The neighbors were out of doors in the shady places, trying to cool off, and there were children playing and cars going up and down the street. There was no sign that anyone but the mailman had been around.

  I went inside and bolted the door and looked carefully through every room, making sure the windows were locked as I went. There was no one there. There was no one in the cellar, either. I got a good heavy wrench from the toolbox and took it upstairs and laid it where it would be handy, just in case. Then I called Tracey.

  "You don't know how I wish you'd give this up," she said, when I had told her about Everett Bush and Finelli.

  I thought I did but I only told her not to worry, that I was taking very good care of myself. Pudge had been put to bed but Bets talked to me a minute, all about the lake and how she was learning to swim. After I hung up the house seemed awfully still and lonesome.

  While the steak was broiling I sat in the kitchen and drank a beer and listened to the quiet. The world was bright and normal outside the windows, and here I sat, in the stale, stifling silence, a prisoner in my own house.

  First I was furious and then I felt like a fool. Probably nothing would happen anyway. Probably I was dreaming things up out of whole cloth, basing conclusions on fears and guesses and wishful thinking. I opened the side door again and took my dinner out on the terrace and ate it there.

  It wasn't a bad dinner, but it reminded me at every bite that Tracey hadn't cooked it. When I had finished it and washed up there was nothing to do but wait.

  I went back out on the terrace and smoked and watched the shadows lengthening across the lawn. When it was dusk I would move into the house and sit with the lights out and watch.

  A hell of a way to spend an evening.

  I was just getting up to go inside, somewhere between seven-thirty and eight o'clock, when the phone rang.

  I thought it might be Tracey calling back and I jumped for it, not stopping to lock the door behind me. But when I had my hand on it I suddenly thought that it might be one of the boys checking to see if I was there. My heart began to pound, and I let the phone ring three times before I answered. I was ashamed of myself but I couldn't help it. And I found out right there that I did not, under any circumstances or for any reason, want them coming around to see me.

  It was not Tracey on the phone, and it was not one of those silences, pregnant with menace and ending with a click as soon as you have said hello. It was George Warren, head of the Credit Department at Valley Steel. The voice of God. In short, my boss. And it was queer how far George Warren and Valley Steel had slipped away from me in these past weeks. From filling most of my waking hours they had dwindled to a memory of something interesting and important, but long ago superseded, like a game you used to play as a child. I suppose it's like that when you start taking dope. The dream and the sensation crowd out reality. Five boys and a broken leg had done that for me.

  "Are you busy tonight, Walt?"

  "No," I said. "I'm not doing anything."

  "I was thinking I might run over and see you, if you're feeling up to it."

  The reality began to make itself felt again.

  "Of course," I said. "Matter of fact, George, I was just going to call you and——"

  "Fine, fine," he said. "Around eight-thirty?"

  "Great," I said, and he hung up.

  No matter who hits you over the head or how mad you get about it, the living has to be made, the wife and kiddies fed.

  I got another beer and sat on the terrace drinking it, close by the door and ready to jump as the light got dimmer and the shadows began to shape up under the trees. I was thinking about Valley Steel and accounts, and regretting to my soul that I had got rid of the Luger I brought back from Germany, as a concession to Tracey's nerves and the prying fingers of my eldest.

  I had the yard lights on, and from where I sat I could see the driveway. There was a light at the garage, one at the front of the house, and one here on the terrace. This last one I did not have on, for obvious reasons. The others gave broad circles of illumination, but there was quite a lot of yard, and plenty of dusk and darkness in between. I thought that if this went on much longer I would have lights installed to cover the whole grounds.

  Then Warren's car turned into the drive, and I thought of my job and the inadvisability of letting George get any idea that my mental balance was in any way upset. The business of the convertible was going to be enough to explain away. As I went to the front door to let him in I shoved the wrench down out of sight behind a chair.

  George was a pretty nice fellow as bosses go. If I lived long enough and kept my head on straight, I would one day fill his fancy swivel chair in the inner office. He was beginning to develop a fine executive-type bulge in front, and a smaller one running laterally between the ears. These back-of-the-neck bulges seem to be in the nature of service stripes, adding one at each promot
ion so that the boys at the very top may have several of them. George was on his way.

  He stayed with me for an hour and a half, sitting on the terrace because it was far too hot inside, drinking a couple of modest drinks. He asked all about my health and how the case was progressing and how the family was, and then he switched to general topics of office gossip and shoptalk. He was as friendly as anyone could be and never once did he come baldly out and say it in so many words, but the implication was absolutely plain. If I wanted my job I had better quit fooling around and get back to it.

  I didn't blame him. As long as I was legitimately laid up it was one thing, but they couldn't carry me forever while I played detective and chased shadows.

  "Take it easy at first," said George. "If you find yourself getting tired, go home. We'll try not to load you down too much."

  "I'm feeling pretty good," I said. "A little slow getting around, but that's all."

  "Fine," said George. "Now of course it's up to you, Walt——"

  "This is Thursday," I said. "Fag end of the week. How about Monday morning?"

  "Great," said George. "Splendid. Believe me, Walt, we'll all be glad to have you back."

  I said I would be glad to be back and I meant it. It was right, it was normal, it was the world I used to live in. It would be good to get out of this atmosphere of violence and skulking fear. You could get mired too deep in it. You could get lost in it. Let Finelli worry about the case now. That's reality to him, that's what he's paid for. Get back to your own, for a while at least, until something comes up that will end the whole ugly business for good.

  I was glad George had come. I had needed a breath of dull conventional sanity to blow the cobwebs out of my brain. I walked him back to his car, the short way, across the lawn from the terrace to the drive. It had clouded over, and there was a flicker of lightning in the south. George said it looked like rain, and I said we could use some to cool things off. He drove away, and I walked back toward the terrace.

  It was only a little way, twenty-five or thirty feet.

  I didn't make it.

  9

  THERE were only three of them this time. The tall skinny boy, the elusive Bill who knew me but whom I could not find, and the boy who might have been Everett Bush were not there.

  But Chuck was.

  He got me around the neck from behind, and when I tried to turn and hit him the others caught my arms. They wrestled me in under the boughs of a maple tree, where the shadows were thick and heavy to hide them, and they held me there. I had heard them, perhaps a fraction of a second before they grabbed me, but not soon enough to do anything about it. They must have left their car out of sight down the street and come creeping in among the shrubs at a time when both George and I were in the house, avoiding the lights and then lying patiently in wait until my guest should go and give them a chance at me.

  Chuck said, "Stand still."

  The bend of his elbow was just under my chin, forcing my head back into his chest, shutting off my wind. The short stocky boy with the loud laugh had hold of my right arm. He was twisting it more than he needed to. The other boy had my left. I had dropped my stick. I stood still, in a sheer cold panic of fright. I hadn't started yet to get mad.

  "That's good," said Chuck. He let up a bit so I could breathe. There was something almost caressing, almost friendly about his voice, as though we were old buddies and understood each other. "Not so hard there, goof, you don't want to break his arm, do you?" The goof laughed, and Chuck said rather sharply, "Not now, remember? We just came to talk to Mr. Sherris."

  I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. I hated him. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to get him down on the ground and stomp him and tear him into pieces and throw the pieces away.

  I said, "You want to talk to me about Everett."

  "Everett?" said Chuck. "Who's that?"

  "Everett Bush," I said. "The boy who isn't here tonight. Or one of them. He'd be afraid to come, naturally, but where's Bill? Did he wash out on you?"

  "Mr. Sherris," said Chuck, in that oddly caressing tone. "I came here to do you a favor. Don't make it hard for me."

  He tightened the vise around my neck. Stars swam in front of my eyes and my ears boomed.

  "I don't know any Everett Bush," said Chuck. "And Bill's none of your business. Now will you listen?"

  He relaxed his arm again, and I said I would.

  With his free hand he took a piece of paper out of his pocket and held it in my face. I couldn't see what it was, but he told me. It was the piece about how I had chased the convertible.

  "You're lucky," said Chuck, "that it was the wrong one. And you better not do that any more, Mr. Sherris. You know what would happen to you if you caught the right one?"

  He dropped the paper suddenly and hit me on the side of the head, just hard enough to make it ring.

  "I know you, Mr. Sherris," he said. "I've got an interest in you, a kind of special interest. You were a mistake. I don't often make mistakes and I don't like to be reminded of them. Don't remind me any more."

  "Oh, that's fine," I said, "but it isn't so easy. You gave me something to make me think of you every time I move, and more than that you——"

  You threatened my family, I was going to say. You wrote my wife a letter. I couldn't say it. I couldn't give Tracey the lie out of the mouth of this wretched pervert. I couldn't even mention her to him. She would tell me about it herself or nobody would.

  It was very strange. I had lived this minute over several thousand times, only in my visualization I was the victor and the boys were safely in custody. Now, with this one difference, the moment was here and all I had to do was ask Chuck, Did you write my wife a threatening letter. And I couldn't.

  "More than that I what?" he asked politely.

  "I was going to say," I said, "you made me mad."

  They had a good laugh over that. "Hey, Chuck, you hear that?" cried the goof. "We made him mad." He hit me in the pit of the belly. "I'll bet that makes you even madder, doesn't it, mister?"

  "Shut up," said Chuck. "Don't distract him. I want him to get this clear through his head. Mr. Sherris ?"

  "Yeah."

  "You understand. I'm warning you. Leave us alone."

  "What'll you do, kill me?" A slow heat was coming up from where the stocky boy had hit me. It spread all over me, burning out the fear. You get to a certain stage. After that you're not responsible.

  "I might," said Chuck, very softly. "We haven't tried that yet. We might like it."

  "What do you think gives you the right?" I asked him.

  "I feel like it."

  "You feel like it. Who do you think you are—God?"

  "As far as you're concerned, Sherris," he said, "I am."

  And he snapped my head back, just to show me.

  I jerked my arms with all my strength, and at the same time I kicked back as hard as I could with my bad leg, weighted with the heavy steel brace. It hit Chuck solidly above the ankle. He roared with the unexpected pain, and his arm loosened around my neck. I threw myself forward, yelling at the top of my lungs for help. It was a quiet suburban neighborhood, but it was not deserted like Williams Avenue. I saw my stick lying on the grass just beyond the shadow of the tree and I went for it. Somebody, I don't know which one it was or whether it was more than one of them, knocked me down flat. I was groggy, but I heard a voice calling my name and I answered it. "Here!" I shouted. "Here, Joe, quick! "

  A light came on in Joe Thompson's yard next door. I got my hand on my stick and rolled over and began to lash out with it at the poised and startled shapes of the boys. I could see the paler blurs that were their faces, but they were just blurs, without features. Chuck was calling me a foul name, over and over in a flat vicious monotone. He was out of reach, but I hit the stocky boy a good solid belt. He cried out and jumped back, and I made a whistling cut at the third one, but he had already started to run away.

  Joe Thompson had now come around the end of the fence that
divided our properties and was in my yard, calling to know what was the matter.

  The stocky boy muttered about getting out of there. He started to run too. Chuck had stopped his cursing now, but I could hear him panting in the dark and feel him looking at me. "Come on, yellowbelly," I said. "Come on, where I can get at you." I was not thinking very straight. I just wanted to kill him.

  He didn't answer. He breathed, like an animal. Lights were springing on in White's yard, my neighbor on the other side. I was trying to get up.

  "I'll get you," I said. "If it's the last thing I do."

  I could see his head turn quickly, looking toward Joe Thompson, looking toward White's.

  "If you ever come here again I'll kill you," I said.

  He turned and ran.

  "I'll kill you," I shouted after him. "I'll kill you. I'll——"

  Joe Thompson put his hand on my shoulder. "They've gone now. Are you all right? Sit tight till I make sure."

  He went after them, not as though he had any real desire to catch up. I could hear somebody, probably Chuck, thrashing his way through the line of shrubs that hedged the street. A minute later I heard a car start up, around the curve. It roared away. Then I heard Joe Thompson talking to Andy White, and presently they both came back to where I was.

  I was standing up now. I told them I wasn't hurt, which was true, but my leg was killing me. It was still tender for all this banging around. They helped me back to the house and Andy poured me a good stiff drink. He was a lawyer, and Joe Thompson was sales manager for a steel firm. They were both good friends of mine in a casual sort of way. They looked excited and upset, and Joe kept asking if he should call the police first or a doctor.

  "The police," I said. I kept thinking how good it had felt to lay my stick across the stocky boy's legs. I hoped I had really hurt him, but from the way he ran I doubted it. "You didn't get a look at them, did you?"

  They both shook their heads. "Not more than just a glimpse of them running away," said Joe. He picked up the phone.

  I sat there, trying to remember what I had said to Chuck, not being very sure about that except that it hadn't been exactly wise to threaten him, but remembering very clearly the way he had looked at me there in the dark, the way he had felt, like a hungry thing prowling beyond the light.