“I was looking for you, Roy. I thought you might be here.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Roy said easily. “Nothing relaxes me as much as doing a little work on the wagon. You know how it is.”
“Sure, Roy. I know how it is.”
Every muscle tense, he walked closer. For a moment he had the idea that Roy was going to let him circle behind him. The urge to maim, to kill, was acid in his throat, was cold sweat and tensed muscles.
But Roy stood up without haste and moved back into the shadows away from the car. Matt could not examine the car without permitting Roy to get behind him.
It was a play where the lead actors circled each other on the dim stage, touched by the clever lighting, speaking in soft tones, the desire to kill carefully masked.
Matt kicked a piece of metal. It rang across the concrete. He stooped quickly and picked it up. Roy seemed to have moved a great deal closer to him during the moment his eye was off him. The metal had a familiar feel in his hand. It was wet, and there were serrations on the edge of it. It was too short to be a weapon, unless hurled with great force at too short a distance to be avoided.
He lifted it high so that he could look at it without taking his eye from Roy. It matched the piece that had been wedged into his grille.
“Funny-shaped piece of metal,” he said softly.
“All sorts of queer scrap in an old shop like this, Matt,” Roy said.
“This piece is damp.”
“The car is wet. Probably dripped on it.”
He still could not see Roy’s hands. The caged light was a blinding thing, making the shadows velvet black, making sparkling highlights on the metal skin of the car. The rubber cord on the light stretched back across the concrete near his feet.
“Why did you kill Alicia?” Matt asked, his voice almost tender.
Roy was silent, his face impassive. “You talk like that, Matt, and they’ll come and throw a net over you.”
“Over me? You’re the mad one, Roy. You couldn’t have Alicia. So you tried to kill both of us. As it worked out, I lived and she died. You liked it that way. You hoped I’d be crippled for life. You’ve squashed everybody in your path. You married Susan knowing that you would kill Patience. The method had worked once, so why not twice? Everyone knows how you did it, Roy. A pity you’re not more insane. If you were, you might end up in a nice institution. This way, they’ll shave the leg on the great Bedford and strap him down in a nice armchair and put a hood, a black hood over—”
“Shut up!” Roy screamed.
Matthew stood on the rubber cord with one foot and kicked it with the other. The sudden blackness was as violent as a shot. Noiselessly Matt moved toward the car. He stood, strained with the effort of listening, his fingers clenched around the piece of metal, his hand poised to throw.
Suddenly the car creaked, as though bearing someone’s weight.
There was a chance that he might be silhouetted against the lesser darkness of the open door. He moved away from the car, stepping cautiously. As he moved, his foot touched some tool on the floor. It shifted with an almost imperceptible grating sound.
He staggered and fell as Bedford leaped onto his back. He fell forward trying vainly to turn, his arms pinned, trying to avoid hitting his head on the concrete floor.
The dark garage exploded into pinwheeling lights, into nothingness …
He was being jiggled and it made his head hurt and something was digging into his cheek. He bit down on the moan, stifling it, as the vivid memory of the moment of falling flashed back into his mind. Slowly he realized that he was in a moving car. The thing against his cheek was the door handle. The inside of the car lightened briefly as they passed under a streetlight.
He knew that if he lifted his head and Bedford was driving, he would probably be pounded into immediate insensibility. It was hard to think clearly.
He felt as though one whole side of his head had been shattered.
When the car went around a corner he permitted himself to lurch, turning his head slightly. Through slitted eyes he saw Bedford, oddly relaxed behind the wheel, a small smile on his lips.
A confident smile, Matt thought. What has he got to smile about? What can he be planning to do? Matthew had no way of knowing where they were. Roy was driving slowly, so as not to attract attention.
Suddenly, out the window beyond Bedford’s head, he saw the high outline of a building, barely made out the white letters VALL. The Furnivall Company! The road passed the plant, then turned down across the sidings, down a gentle slope toward the main railroad tracks.
As they went slowly around the corner, Matt heard the distant huff of the train, the lonely call of the whistle. Why should Roy be smiling?
He shut his eyes as Roy turned and looked over at him, counting slowly in his mind to ten, then risking opening them again.
Roy took the car out of gear. They were on the slope headed down toward the main track. Roy opened the door on his side, stood up with his head and shoulders out in the night, one hand on top of the wheel, steering.
The roar of the train was closer. Much closer. The way Roy was standing he couldn’t see Matt. His mouth dry with sudden desperate fear, Matthew raised his head, saw the Cyclops eye of the pounding locomotive. The crossing signals flashed red.
Matthew, a hoarse cry in his throat, opened the door on his side. He grabbed Roy Bedford’s wrist, pulled with all his strength, pulled until Bedford was forced back in through the door, falling awkwardly across the wheel. Matt released his hold, rolled backward out of the door he had opened, thudded with sickening force against the steel upright of the crossing signal, hearing above the deafening roar of the locomotive one thin, high scream, cut off by a crash which sounded almost faint against the pound of the big steel wheels.
As the twin brakes screamed and slithered, steel on steel, Matt put his cheek against the wet gravel and began to cry like a heartbroken child.
Patience trudged over to the flat rock and sat down with a sigh. Her cheeks were flushed from the walk along the beach. At Matt’s urging, she had unpinned her severe hairdo. The wind whipped at her dark hair.
He gave her a cigarette, lit it, then sprawled on the sand at her feet, looking out across the gray sea.
“You were wrong, you know,” she said.
“About what?” he asked. “I’m wrong once a day like clockwork.”
“About Evan being in love with me. He went out to the rest home again this morning to see Sue. He’ll bring her back to life. He said she smiled at him the last time he went out. When he talks about her his eyes shine and he gets hoarse and funny.”
“Don’t laugh at men in love. I know they’re funny. You can reach out and kick one from where you’re sitting.”
She didn’t answer and he looked up at her. Her eyes were grave and steady.
“Matt, tension can do odd things. We were living in a nightmare. I don’t hold you responsible for anything you might have said.”
“Tonight I’m arranging soft lights and music and I’m going to say it again.”
“Isn’t it—too soon? After Roy’s death, and all that went with it?”
He laughed. “Roy was just pitiful, honey. As soon as he matched muscles with that locomotive, he became as extinct as the dodo. I can hardly remember what he looked like, even though I did just get the bandages off my skull yesterday. You’re trying to ask me if Alicia is out of my system. Right?”
He looked up at her. She looked away and said in a small voice, “I guess so.”
“In the fourteen days since Roy died, I’ve dreamed about her once. Want to hear about it?”
“If you want to tell me,” she said, her lips compressed.
“In my dream I was walking at dusk in a big city. The streets were empty of cars and people. I was going to meet Alicia. But I couldn’t remember the address. I was worried because I’d forgotten the address. All the streets looked alike. There were no signs, no numbers on the houses, no one to ask.
“Suddenly I heard someone calling me. It didn’t have that hollow, echoing sound that Alicia’s voice has always had in my dreams. It sounded as though it was right in my ear. I turned around and you ran into my arms. You, not Alicia.
“You were laughing and crying at the same time. Excited. I held you close and after a bit I asked you where Alicia was. You told me that she had gone away and that she had sent you to keep her date. I asked you what Alicia had been trying to tell me. You said that it wasn’t important any longer. I looked around then and all the sidewalks were filled with people and the streets were filled with cars and all the people were bustling by, paying no attention to us.”
He stopped talking, picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle through his fingers.
On the horizon a coastwise vessel left a smudge of smoke against the horizon. He looked up at Patience. Her lips were parted and she looked out at the ship.
“They say the best honeymoons are available on tramp ships in the South American trade,” he said, smiling up at her.
She moistened her lips and said, “Give me time to pack.”
I Accuse Myself
It was a siren buried under the flesh. Not the up-and-down roller-coaster kind of siren, but the constant wail—the steady shattering scream.
In one part of his mind he heard the ward noises, heard the clink of a spoon in a glass and the snap as sheets were drawn drum tight. But they wouldn’t become familiar noises. Always he turned mentally away just as he was about to listen carefully and remember where he was. There was also the prick of a needle, but it was dull beside the grind of the siren. He would fade away and the siren would become a screaming woman, or a hot white light—bringing him back to the restless muttering.
On some days he could see the pain. That was when the siren was not so loud. The pain looked like the edge of a razor held close to the eye. It stretched off for miles toward a Dali horizon, each bitter blur on its edge grating like teeth on crushed glass.
Then there was a heavy bearded face close to his own. He saw it vaguely and then it was gone. He was handled, moved. He felt a sense of movement and it looked as though a long wall was slowly passing his bed. Then sharp lights and suffocation …
On one hot summer between grade school and high school he had gone with Tom and Rod out to Corey’s Creek, to the black pool. They had often dived from a high limb down into the center of the blackness. But they had never touched bottom. On this day Rod had started to ride him about his diving. And finally he had gone out onto the limb, exhaled most of the air in his lungs and dropped straight and clean into the black depths. He had gone down until his ears had throbbed, but his outstretched hands touched nothing. Then, in the deep blackness, sudden fear had sent him struggling up toward the surface. The little air in his lungs contributed no buoyancy. He had fought his way upward, seeing above him the dim light of the sunny afternoon. He had seemed to rise so slowly, fighting the involuntary sucking of his lungs by keeping his throat tightly shut. And when he thought he could fight no more, he had burst through into the bright light, his chest aching, his throat making a rasping sound as he sucked in the sweet air. The sun had felt warm on his face …
But this time when he broke through it was all different. Rod and Tom swirled back into the far past, remote and sweet. And he was on crisp sheets in a hard bed in a large white room. It seemed suddenly silent—and he realized that the siren was gone. The sharp pain had left him and it was as though the turning world had stopped on its axis. With a long spent sigh he shut his eyes and drifted off into a velvet sleep.
It was daylight again. Somehow he knew it was a new day. He turned his head weakly, feeling the pull of adhesive on the skin of his forehead. There were two other beds in the room, but they were empty. The window showed him a square of gray sky and the green tops of trees. There was no clue. He wondered, but was content to rest.
It must have been a half hour later when a nurse brought the woman in. The woman was tall, with pale hair and colorless eyes. Her face was wide and white. She chewed at her underlip as she tiptoed across the room and sank gently into a chair by the bed. He stared at her, knowing that he had looked at her ten thousand times. Her face was familiar and unfamiliar. It frightened him to look at her and feel the pull of long association combined with strangeness. He looked into her pale eyes, wondering who she was, and saw the quick tears brim up. She crouched with her forehead on the edge of his bed and he felt her soundless sobbing shake him in dull rhythm. Her hair was parted and with the clarity of weakness he could see tiny flecks of scurf along the gleaming whiteness of her skull. He remained motionless, dreading the moment when she would lift her head and he would have to find out who she was, what their relationship had been. He felt too exhausted to puzzle over it. He wanted to hold back his questions until he had rested again. Until he was so strong that the answers he might get would not bring back the siren shriek.
The man in white walked in, the nurse following respectfully a few steps behind. He ignored the woman, stopping a few feet behind her and looking down at the face on the pillow. There was an intent expression on his long heavy face, a look of curiosity in his eyes.
“How do you feel now?” he asked. It wasn’t a question of compassion. His high sharp voice was medical curiosity—like a question written in a case history.
His lips felt dry and his voice sounded rusty in his own ears as he answered, “Better.” He had tried to speak loudly, but the tone sounded as though he were speaking through a mass of cotton. He wanted to tell them all to go away—tell them to leave until he could find the strength to wonder, to question. But he couldn’t find the words.
“You will feel strange for a time. Maybe a year. Maybe two. The technical name for what was done to you is a frontal lobotomy. Used on manic-depressives in extreme cases. First time it was ever done on a sane man to relieve the internal pressure of a complex skull fracture. It will play tricks with your memory and might even effect minor changes in your personality. But don’t be frightened. It was a long chance, and we saved you. You will recover rapidly, Mr. Warlow.” The tall man leaned forward and touched the still-crouching woman on the shoulder. She looked up at him through a shine of tears. He made a small motion toward the door and she stood up obediently. They both smiled at him before they walked quietly out. His was a smile of professional pride. Hers was a smile of bravery and uncertainty. In a few moments he felt sleep drifting across him. All of the other words had faded, except his name. Warlow. He would cling to that. Yes, he would remember that. It was a stone on which to anchor the odd, shifting memories. He slept.
On the third day the little man came. He sighed wearily as he sat on the bedside chair, and brushed with a fat white hand at the gray ash on his dark blue lapels. His nose was long and fat, with the tip covered with little wandering red veins like a miniature road map. He squinted little blue eyes and looked down his nose at Warlow, like a man aiming some strange weapon. He sighed again.
“Now, Pete,” he rumbled, “it’s time we got some of the answers. Jackson says your memory is going to be mixed up, so I got to help you. My name’s Kroschik. I’m a cop. Do you remember anything about what happened in the office?”
“Office?” Peter Warlow felt the strangeness of it. Of course, there must have been an office. He must have worked in an office. And then he saw it. Saw the rows of desks, heard the clatter of the typewriters and the ringing of many phones. His desk was on the end, near the windows. He could even see the small black sign with his name—Peter J. Warlow—printed in discreet gold.
“Yeah. Benson and Coward, where you worked.”
“I remember, but I don’t know what happened. Was I hurt?”
“All we know is that four of you were working late on a Friday night about a month ago. Three guys and a girl. She was a little blondie named Clarissa Paine, but everybody called her Sandy. I’d say she was a cute little piece. The other two guys were J. Howard Jones, a fat guy who is your boss, and Trent Welch, a red-h
eaded college kid who does part-time stuff for Jones.
“Jones says he heard a big argument going on out in the big room. He stepped out of his office and you and this Sandy were yelling at each other. He heard her screaming something about telling everybody. Then he says you pulled a gun out of your desk drawer and shot her in the head. He grabbed one of those heavy gadgets that hold Scotch tape and flung it at you. It caught you smack in the forehead and he called up and reported both of you as dead. But you’ve been lucky. They fixed your bashed-in head and stirred up the front half of your brain with some kind of a stick or knife or something. This Welch came back from the men’s room just as Jones was calling us. Now, do you remember shooting the little lady?”
Peter could hear his heart thudding. The horrible words seemed to belong to some other situations, to other people. It didn’t fit his slowly returning concept of himself. It was like a puzzle that he had read in a magazine, or the first half of a TV play. He couldn’t feel that he had done such a thing. He could remember the faces of the others, but they seemed far away and unreal. He couldn’t remember working late. He couldn’t even remember the sound of Sandy’s voice. He rolled his head from side to side on the pillow and stared at the veins on Kroschik’s nose.
“Can’t remember a thing, hey?”
“But, if … if I … why do you ask …?”
“You mean if we got you hooked why do I ask you questions? The reason is that we like to know reasons and background. We can’t figure why you should knock her off. Your books are all in shape. You got money in the bank. But you could have been in love with her and she wouldn’t play. You’re our killer, but we need some more blanks filled in. Like where you got the toy gun. We can’t trace the twenty-two target job you used, and the surface of it is too corrugated to leave any prints. I don’t like to bother a guy who is just getting well, but this thing has been dragging on for a month now, and I want to get it off the books. You understand?”
The mists in his mind wouldn’t clear. He tried to force his mind back to the office, tried to imagine the sound of a shot in the office. But no stimulus of the imagination would give him any clue to what had happened. At last Kroschik left, with the promise to return on the next day. Peter lay motionless in the bed, forming countless pictures in his mind—trying to fit the shifting impressions into a coherent self-history. But all he could get was a series of quick snatches of past events. In no one of the scenes was there a shot fired. He couldn’t imagine himself shooting anyone. And yet, what if in his previous mental life he had been the type of person who could take a life? What if he had deliberately …?
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