by Ed McBain
He started the truck and drove across the bridge and into the next state. He drove about a mile past the toll booths, and then made a U-turn and headed back for the city. He dropped the truck off at the garage and walked to Mrs. Dougherty's. There was no one outside the building or in the hallway. Everyone was asleep. He went up to his room and got into bed.
He fell asleep almost instantly.
Amelia opened the door.
She had washed her face, and washed the lipstick from her mouth and now she entered the room and closed the door behind her, and carefully and slowly locked it. She put her bag on the dresser, and then turned to face him, leaning against the door with her hands behind her back.
"Hi," she said.
He looked up at her. "Hello."
"Did you miss me?"
"Yes."
"Tell me."
"I missed you."
"You've got some fancy bathroom down the hall there," she said. She did not move from the door. She kept staring at him, a faint strange smile on her face. "Blue toilet paper, very fancy."
"I didn't notice," Roger said.
"You're not a very observant person, are you?" She tripped on only the one word, observant, saying it a little thickly and almost missing it entirely. She wasn't really too drunk, she'd just had a few too many, and she stood inside the locked door with her hands behind her back and that very strange, mischievous, somehow evil smile on her face. He looked at her and thought how beautiful she was and then thought I'd better get her out of here before I hurt her.
She moved away from the door.
She came to where he was sitting on the edge of the bed and she moved very close to him, with her knees touching his, and then she reached down seriously and solemnly, with a drunken dignity, and spread her hands on either side of his head like two open fans. She tilted his face up and then bent down and kissed him on the lips, with her own mouth open. He reached up behind her to cup her buttocks in his huge hands, thinking how much he wanted to love her, and thinking how his mother would of course object even though she was very beautiful. His mother would of course point out that she was a colored girl. He wondered when it had begun to matter just what the hell his mother thought about the girls he went out with, who the hell cared what his mother thought? And then he realized that he'd been caring what his mother thought for a long long time and that last night when he had finally said to hell with her, when he had finally let himself go with Molly, why that was the bad part, that was why he'd had to do it to her.
To kill her.
I killed her, he thought.
Amelia's mouth was covering him, her tongue was insistently probing, her lips were thick and soft and wet and he felt himself falling back onto the bed with her on top of him, and feeling the softness of her breasts against his chest, his heart beating wildly. He began trembling. She had taken off her bra in the bathroom, he realized she had taken off her bra. His hands moved swiftly up under her sweater and over her back. He rolled onto her suddenly, moaning, and kissed her breasts, the dark swollen nipples. "Oh, Roger," she was saying, "oh Roger, I love you, I love you."
He was lost in the aroma of her and in the warmth of her and in the dizzy insistence of her mouth, but at the same time he was thinking more clearly than he had since late last night when he had dropped the refrigerator in the river. He was thinking that he had to get her out of here because he was sure he would hurt her. He had hurt Molly without even having liked her at first, had hurt her only later when she somehow got him angry, but he felt a lusting rage now for this girl who was beautiful and "She is colored," his mother would say, "Why are you bringing home a little colored whore to me," he loved her lips and the way her hands she was dangerous if he did not get rid of her they would find out about Molly. If he hurt her, if she allowed him to love her, if she allowed him to enter her the dark pulsing interior of her in his hands now warm and moving against him the smooth dark smothering breasts if she allowed him to love her you're the man in the family now he would have to kill her there would be no other way he would have to kill her, they would find out about Molly, get away from me he thought.
He drew away from her sharply.
She stared up at him.
Her sweater was pulled up over her naked breasts, her skirt was high on her thighs. He crouched over her trembling with love for her. She reached for him tenderly. Her hand came up to him slowly and with infinite gentleness, touching him, assuring him "No!" he shouted.
"What?"
"Get No," he said.
He moved off the bed. He turned his back to her.
"Go," he said. "Go home. Get out of here. Get out!"
"What?"
He was at the closet. He opened the door and took out her coat and brought it to the bed and put it down beside her without looking at her again, knowing she had still not pulled down the sweater, loving her and afraid he would hate her, please, please, go, please, not knowing whether he said the words aloud.
She got off the bed silently. She adjusted her sweater, and silently got into her coat. She picked up her bag from the dresser, went to the door, and unlocked it.
"I'll never as long as I live understand," she said and went out.
It was about seven o'clock when he went down for the truck and drove it over to the police station.
He parked just across the street, pulling up the hand brake and then cutting the ignition and glancing over to where the green globes were lighted now, the 87 showing on each of them, flanking the entrance doors.
He knew he was about to do the right thing.
It seemed very good to him that he had not harmed Amelia. That seemed like a very good sign. He didn't know why he hadn't done this right from the beginning, why he simply hadn't brought Molly here last night, right after he'd killed her, instead of putting her in the refrigerator and throwing her in the river where they'd never find her. He could have told it to someone right then and spared himself all the fear and Wouldn't they?
Find her?
He sat quite still behind the wheel of the truck with darkness covering the city and with the precinct globes feebly glowing across the street, throwing a pale-green stain on the snow banked along the precinct steps. There was the sound of shovels scraping the sidewalks, tire chains rattling on snow. His breath plumed into the cold cab interior, the windshield was getting frosted.
She had only been in the city a week, no one knew she was here, except of course the hotel she was staying at. She would have signed a register, yes, what was the name of the hotel, a Spanish name. It didn't matter. They would think she'd skipped without paying her bill, that was all. They'd maybe report it to the police, or maybe not, depending on what she'd left behind, didn't she say she'd come here with only a suitcase and a little money, sure. But even if they did report her missing, even if they said Molly Nolan who was staying here at the hotel has just vanished without taking her clothes out of the dresser, well, okay, let's say they did that. Let's say they told the police.
She's at the bottom of the river, Roger thought.
She's not going to float up to the top because she's locked inside a heavy refrigerator, I could barely lift it onto the tailgate of the truck, I dropped that refrigerator maybe a hundred and fifty feet from the bridge to the water, maybe more, I was never good at judging distance. It must have sunk ten feet into the river bottom, or at least five, or even three, it didn't matter. Even if it was just laying there exposed on the bottom it was never going to be found, never. It was just going to sit there forever with Molly Nolan dead inside it, and nobody in the world would ever know she was down there. Her parents were dead, her only friend was in Hawaii, nobody had noticed Roger and her in the bar, nobody had seen them go up to his room together, no one would ever know.
All he had to do was drive away.
No one would ever know.
If he did not go into the police station across the street and tell them he had killed her, why they just would never know about it, they just woul
d never find out.
He looked across the street.
I'd better go tell them, he thought.
He got out of the truck.
He was about to cross the street when the door opened. Two men came out of the station house. He recognized the taller one as the detective he'd followed to the restaurant that afternoon, and he thought, Good, he's the one I wanted to tell this to in the first place. The man with him was bald. Roger supposed he was a detective, too. The green precinct lights shone on his bald head. They gave him a funny appearance.
The men had reached the sidewalk.
Go ahead, Roger thought. Go tell him. He's the one you wanted to tell.
He hesitated.
The one with the bald head ran to the curb and made a snowball and threw it at the taller detective. The taller detective laughed, and then picked up a pile of snow and just flipped it at the bald-headed one in a big lump, without packing it, and they both laughed like kids.
"I'll see you tomorrow," the taller one said, laughing.
"Right, Steve. Good night," the bald-headed one said.
"Good night."
The men walked off in opposite directions.
Roger watched the taller one until he was out of sight.
He got back into the truck and turned the ignition key, starting the engine. He looked at the station house one more time, and then began driving home.
To mother.
He was a big strong country boy, alone in the big bad city.
Staying in a cheap rooming house till his business was finished. Really, he should have been on his way back home to his mom and his brother. But there were things he had to do.
First he had to send a Valentine's Day card to his mother.
Then he had to go find the police and tell them something.
And the coloured girl from the drugstore, who'd smiled at him. He needed to see her again. Talk to her and maybe forget the other girl. The one he'd met in a bar. Who'd been nice and warm as well.
The other girl he really had to tell the police about.
Who would never ever be able to be nice and warm to anyone else again ...
FB2 document info
Document ID: 12a61509-9f90-4ac5-af1b-0e7102572f04
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 10.10.2013
Created using: calibre 0.9.22, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software
Document authors :
Ed McBain
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