The stocky one dropped a half-burned cigarette. He turned from it, picked up a camera with a flash attachment and adjusted the lens opening. He focused from above, hesitated and muttered something. The tall one, his razor poised, twitched the corners of his mouth.
“Make it look good, huh?” he chuckled.
He stooped, then straightened, and while the other focused his camera again and triggered a blinding flash, the younger one wiped the razor carefully with a small rag, dropped the rag, folded the blade into the handle and slid it into a pocket.
“What about him?” he said.
The two of them looked across Kathy’s body at Mickey’s sagging form. The stocky one handed over the camera, drew a small automatic from his pocket and sighted. When he squeezed off, the sound was no more than a sharp crack in the high-ceilinged room. The impact of the slug caused the strung-up figure to lurch slightly.
“Get the handcuffs,” the stocky one said.
“What?”
“I said get the cuffs! They can be traced.”
The tall one went around behind and removed the manacles. Mickey Phillips’ body slumped to the floor in a grotesque sprawl.
The two of them prowled the room briefly, looking for other possible traces of their presence. Finally the stocky one bent and retrieved a crumpled cellophane-wrapped cigarette package and put it in his pocket.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They went out by the front door, pausing long enough to clean the knobs thoroughly. They went down the steps and across the yard to the drive and climbed into a late-model, medium-priced car. The motor came to life, spat once or twice, then settled down and they backed carefully onto the deserted country road.
They had done their job efficiently. Nothing had happened to complicate things; no unforeseen interruptions, no fighting back, not even any back talk. They vanished as they had appeared, in the empty night.
They had made one crucial mistake. They had managed not to kill Mickey Phillips. Mickey Phillips lived and, in the course of time, remembered.
CHAPTER 2
For six weeks he lived immobilized in a world of pain and sweat, half conscious. Because of the nature of his injuries, he was encased from neck to diaphragm in a plaster cast, with a cutout over his lower-right chest to permit treatment of the bullet wound. The cast held his arms in flexed position above his chest and was given added stability by suspension from an overhead rigging. The arrangement rendered him helpless to move except from the waist down.
The deadly, endless sameness of his existence was enlivened from time to time, always unexpectedly to him, by brief periods of forced feeding and evacuation; by disturbing inspections and adjustments of his position on the bed; and by a variety of sporadic voices, male and female, that drifted through his mind, occasionally making contact, more often not. What he managed to make comprehensible were snatches of speech, phrases, disconnected fragments.
A man’s voice speaking: “…apparently knitting…those ligaments though…what’s the latest blood count?”
A gentle, woman-voice close to his ear: “Come on now…just a little…there!”
A man’s voice fading, going away: “…the poor bastard…oh Jesus, the poor bastard…”
A conference among men in hushed tones: “…because it don’t make any sense; no motive…if it wasn’t for that neighbor woman down the road, probably would have died…has to be a motive…”
And another, the voice of a doctor, quietly forceful in the shaded room: “I’m sorry, Captain. If you press him too hard now he may crack permanently. You’ll have to give him time.”
“Time we haven’t got.”
“I’m sorry.”
* * * *
It was along in there that he began to emerge from the limbo of that odd, mixed-up world. The process was triggered by two things: first, that the doctor had spoken about his cracking up, and he wasn’t ready to crack up—not yet; and second, that he had recognized the other voice as belonging to Captain Andrews, his chief. He had to talk to Captain Andrews urgently. He didn’t know exactly why, but he would remember soon and, when he did, he would have to talk to the Captain right away.
Unknown to Mickey, his return to reality was a period of anxiety for the doctors and nurses who attended him. By the marvelous mechanism of repression, he had been protected against the reliving, even the memory, of what had happened to Kathy. But soon now, as he regained physical strength, he could be expected to remember. It was the probable shock of the memory that had the medical people on edge. Their anxiety increased day by day as the nurses reported no sign of shocked realization. One doctor remarked gloomily, “That bothers me more than an explosion. If he goes on and on this way—”
“You think he may develop permanent amnesia, Doctor?” a nurse asked.
“No,” the doctor said gruffly, turning away. “I don’t think he’ll be that lucky.”
Mickey lay quietly sweating in the cast, acknowledging by submission to the humiliating hospital routine that he was helpless to care for himself. They fed him by hand, spoonful by spoonful. They bathed him, changed his bed, massaged his legs and as much of his back as was accessible. And they chattered—God, how they chattered! He called them “the jolly girls,” and they took it in stride. He hated them passionately, and they knew and were sorry and sometimes miffed, though their studied cheeriness never flagged.
But there was one on night duty who truly helped him, one he couldn’t hate, even though her presence in moments of weakness shamed him. When she came, always at night, it was quietly; and she brought peace with her, a kind of tranquil strength, a meaningful compassion.
For some time, he had refused the sedation routinely offered. He pretended he didn’t need it, that it upset his stomach. The truth was, he was afraid—afraid of deep sleep, afraid of the Dream. He remembered the Dream and that the Dream was reality. He didn’t dare let it return, waking or sleeping, until he was free of the cast and could handle things, take care of himself.
He had developed a system by which he could suppress the memory whenever it arose, gnawing and hateful. He found he could push the horror away into a special compartment. He made of it a caged animal, ferocious but silent, and once he got it locked away he could keep it there as long as he was conscious. He knew it was a makeshift, temporary and precarious; one minute’s letdown and it would be free and raging, destroying his sanity. But so far he had been able to keep it caged.
It wasn’t hard during the day. There were distractions to occupy his mind, annoying or humiliating though they might be. But the nights were hard and long, when he was alone on the rigorous watch. It was then that the good nurse helped. She would appear unbidden on silent feet, almost stealthily. He would wake from a light, fretful sleep to find her standing by the bed, watching him. She rarely spoke except to ask if she could bring him anything, make him more comfortable. Usually there was nothing to be done, but she would linger on with him, silent and watchful. It was as if there were something secret between them, something timeless, primitive, inexplicable in words.
At times, waking in a cold sweat, fearful because the beast of memory was about to break free, he would feel her hand on his face. She would stroke and massage his forehead and temples, rubbing peace into his mind with cool, dry fingers. These would be the times of weakness. With no conscious warning, he would find himself crying, helplessly, baby-like, silently but with tears, and inside he was mush. He was helpless even to wipe the tears away. He had one free, moveable hand, but with his arm imprisoned in the cast, he couldn’t reach his face with it. She would do it for him, gently, without comment. She would palm his eyes softly, absorb the wet with the palms of her own hands and stroke his closed eyelids with her fingers. “Go ahead and cry,” she said one night, “I’ll never tell.” Somehow he knew she wouldn’t, and because he trusted her and because it was time to stop crying and face what he had to do, it was to her he said, “I’ve got to see Captain Andrews, as soon as he can make it.�
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“I’ll see that he gets the message,” she said. “Try to rest now.”
When she left that night, it was as if they had said goodbye. He saw her briefly a few more times, but it was never the same with her again.
CHAPTER 3
In advance of Captain Andrews’ visit, a couple of the men in Homicide came with the mug books. It was a long, tedious job on both sides. It took two full days, and among the thousands of pictures Mickey failed to find the two they were looking for. He knew he hadn’t forgotten. He remembered all right. He gave full descriptions in minute detail to the two detectives and again, late in the afternoon, to an artist from the department. The artist worked long and patiently and Mickey sweated it out with him, line by line. When he finished Mickey shook his head. The guy was a good artist. He had come up with two good, professional portraits. But they bore little resemblance to the living faces Mickey remembered.
“Well,” one of the detectives said, “we don’t cover the whole country. There’s millions of mug shots.”
* * * *
They got him on his feet the morning of the day Captain Andrews came to see him. He was appalled at how weak his legs were. He had to be supported to the bathroom and back. But after a short rest he tried again and he could walk all right. It was awkward and oppressive in the bulky cast, but he got around pretty well.
Captain Andrews was a slight, scholarly man with shrewd, probing, gray-green eyes. He didn’t fit the stereotype of a veteran policeman, but few of his associates gave heed to stereotypes. The Captain was in charge and there was never any doubt about it, not for a minute. There had never been such a doubt in Mickey’s mind, nor was there now, as the Captain looked up from the stiff chair at the foot of the bed.
“You wanted to see me,” he said.
Mickey had a few bad moments. This was the boss, a busy man, and he, Mickey Phillips, detective second grade, had actually sent for him! What was he going to say? The Captain didn’t have time to sit around and talk about the weather, or make sure Mickey was comfortable and did he need anything.
“Yes sir, Captain,” he said. He hesitated a moment, then blurted, “I want to get to work on the case.” Captain Andrews’ eyes flicked over the bed and the cast and came to rest on the useless-looking lumps that were Mickey’s feet under the bedsheet. Aside from the glance, he gave no sign that there was anything unusual about the request.
“Glad to hear it,” he said. “Glad you’re feeling better.”
“I’ll be fine in a few days.”
The Captain let that pass.
“What have you got to go on?” he asked.
“Well, for one thing, I figure they were from the West—not East, like around New York. Maybe ’way out West.”
“Oh? Why?”
“They had suntans, you know? Deep ones.”
“You can get ’em with lamps, Mickey.”
“I know, sir, but these looked real, like they spent a lot of time outdoors in the sunshine.”
“All right. It’s good observation, Phillips. What else?” Mickey wet his lips with his tongue. He felt the sweat start, cold on his neck and forehead. He didn’t know if he could go ahead with it. The explicit horror rose in his gorge, inseparable from the mechanics of its perpetration.
“Well, sir—” he forced it out word by word—“I think the one—the tall one—was sometime a—barber.”
“Because he used a razor?” the Captain said quietly, watching.
“The way he handled it—the way a barber learns, you know?”
“It could be,” Andrews said carefully, watching the ravaged face of the young, bright, tortured man whom he wanted very much to save, for the force and for his own satisfaction and because he was a human being first and only after that a cop.
Mickey was twisting in the bed and Andrews could see the fine film of sweat on his forehead. He swung his legs over the side and tried to sit up but, overbalanced by the cast, failed to make it and remained sprawled awkwardly, his lean, naked shanks exposed, his face flushed with embarrassment.
Captain Andrews gave him a lift to a position where he could sit in manly fashion and have his pride.
“So, if he was a barber, he probably went to a barber college somewhere, see? And they keep records, don’t they?”
“Sure they do,” the Captain said. “We’ll check ’em all out, coast to coast. Now let’s talk about something else. Motive. That’s where you can help the most. Where was the motive?”
Mickey looked at him blankly.
“Yeah, motive. Captain, I’ve been going over and over it, trying to think of everybody involved in that case. I can’t—”
He broke off at the Captain’s quizzical look, then blushed hotly. He had certainly dragged that into the conversation, like a poor little kid showing off his only toy. The “Maroney case.” The one Mickey had broken, virtually singlehanded, by a combination of circumstance, opportunity, guts and headwork, not to mention some sheer, adolescent heedlessness of danger. The case that had made him a detective second grade while he was still a uniformed patrolman and after less than three years on the force, at the age of twenty-eight. Captain Andrews must have the idea he was going to try and get by on the one case for the rest of his career.
But the Captain only shook his head thoughtfully. “We checked into that,” he said. “Maroney is locked up for at least ten years. He had no underworld connections, no family, no money and no friends to raise it for him. Nobody, in short, cares a damn about Maroney. So there is practically no likelihood that Maroney had anything to do with this—attack.”
“I’m sorry,” Mickey said numbly. “The only reason I mentioned it—”
The Captain nodded.
“I know,” he said. “You’re thinking. Keep thinking.” After a moment he said, “We’ve also checked into every case you’ve had anything to do with. They get us nowhere. I doubt it was a matter of revenge.”
“Then what, Captain? What? There has to be a motive.”
“Think some more, Mickey. Think ’way back. Did you ever injure anybody? During Korea maybe?”
“No. Hell, I was never in any position to injure anybody—not even the enemy.”
“What about—” the Captain hesitated—“What about your wife? What about Kathy?” he asked quietly.
“Kathy? No, Captain. Kathy—she couldn’t hurt anybody. She didn’t know how.”
The Captain had seen a lot of pain in his time, but he had never seen the kind of anguish that was in Mickey’s eyes at that moment. He turned from it.
“I didn’t mean that exactly,” he said. “I was thinking of—disgruntled suitors—somebody she dated before she knew you, who might bear a grievance.”
He got no answer and when he turned around, Mickey’s mouth was moving soundlessly and he was crying. The Captain had to turn from that, too, from the helpless, unmanned bulk, half human, half plaster and wire, like a house with legs.
“Kathy—” he mumbled brokenly, and the Captain would have wiped the tears away, but he knew it would be the worst thing he could do—that the only thing he could do that would be a true service to Mickey was to get out of there and leave him alone.
“Keep thinking, son,” he said, picking up his hat. “We’ll break it all right, with your help. But you got to take it easy, conserve your strength. So long for now. I’ll come back.”
He lifted one hand for a parting slap on the shoulder, but held back in time, confronting the bulge of the plaster cast. He was in the doorway on his way out when Mickey said, “Captain…”
“Yeah, Mickey?”
“There’s something else. I don’t think I told this before. I just thought of it.”
“What is it?”
“Another reason I think they’re from out West—they talked like it; not like New York or Chicago. Anyway the one did, the young one.”
The Captain held his hat very still in both hands.
“From all we could learn,” he said slowly, “they didn�
�t talk at all when you could hear them. We didn’t know either one of ’em said a word to you.”
“Only right at first,” Mickey said. “When I opened the door. They were standing out there and the one looked at me and he said, ‘Does Mickey Phillips live here?’ Then they came in. That’s all he said, but the way he spoke the words—it wasn’t East—it was like Western—”
He broke off. His head stiffened in an odd attitude above the engulfing cast. He sat rigid. The Captain’s scalp tingled. There was a period of almost palpable silence, deep and horrific, like the empty silence of a deep chasm after the screams of the fallen have faded away.
“Captain…” Mickey said softly.
“Yes, Mickey.”
“He was looking right at me and he asked if Mickey Phillips lived there. They didn’t know me. Or Kathy either. All they had was a name and address. They could get it out of the phone book. They didn’t know, Captain!”
His voice had risen stridently and Captain Andrews glanced into the corridor. Far down, a nurse was approaching and he beckoned to her. Mickey’s voice rode the edge of hysteria.
“It was a mistake, Captain! They got the wrong people! It was all a lousy, stinking, goddam mistake!”
The nurse reached the door.
“How bad is he?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Will you need help?”
“I might.”
But Mickey gave them no trouble. The nurse spoke to him gently. He looked at her without recognition; then he allowed her, with Captain Andrews’ help, to settle him on the bed and cover his legs. He was no longer crying or sweating. His eyes, fixed on memory, stared past them. Only his mouth moved.
“A mistake,” he muttered. “Nothing but a mistake.”
On his way out of the hospital, the Captain stopped at a public phone and called into headquarters.
“Start checking out all guys in the city named Mickey Phillips,” he said.
The Noir Novel Page 3
