A Killer is Loose

by Gil Brewer

  He brought out a white nylon dress, underwear, stockings, a pair of white pumps, and a leather purse that closely matched the color of Lillian’s hair. The suitcase was empty.

  Carrying these things in a bundle, he went into the bathroom and dropped them on the floor.

  “There you are, Lil. Get dressed.”

  She stared at the pile of clothes on the floor.

  He came into the bedroom and closed the bathroom door. “Not much of a wardrobe,” he said. “But after all, utility is what counts.”

  I sat on her bed, wondering what he meant. Time was flying by and Ruby was at the hospital and here I was with a maniac.

  “Soon as she gets dressed, we’ll get out of here,” Angers said. He began pacing the room. Once he paused by the chair and flicked the big roll of paper with his fingers. “This is it, Steve.”

  “Where’ll we go?”

  “Why, to your house, of course, Steve. You have a house, haven’t you?”

  “Sure.” I talked to the floor now.

  “That’s where we’ll go, then. We need quiet.”

  “But they’ll—” I stopped.

  “But they’ll what?” he asked. “Who’ll what?”

  “Nothing.” I’d almost let it slip. If anybody had recognized me with him, they might go to the house. The law might be waiting there right now and I’d almost let it out of the bag. “There won’t be anybody there,” I said. “Ruby’s at the hospital.”

  I stood, walked over by him, and looked him in the eye.

  “Listen, Mr. Angers—”

  “Ralph, Steve—Ralph!”

  “Ralph. I’ve got to see how my wife is!”

  “Turn your head a little to the left, pal,” Angers said.

  “What?”

  “Look at me. Look straight at me, pal.”

  My stomach began to roll. I looked straight at him.

  “Now,” he said. “Just turn your head a little bit to the left. That’s it. Say, pal, something’s wrong with your right eye.”

  “Oh, Lord,” I said.

  “No, pal. Look up—up at the ceiling. That’s right. Sure, pal….” He reached toward me, fast. I backed away quickly, feeling scared. For the first time a dim light showed in his own eyes; a light that was indescribable and sadly insane. It was like seeing a candle flickering at the end of a long black tunnel.

  I kept on backing across the room, with him following me, staring at me, craning his neck. He kept nodding to himself and smiling kind of quietly with that crazy flickering light in his eyes, his face like slick marble. He reached out with his hand, feeling for my face.

  “Stand still, pal.”

  “Why?”

  “Just stand still. Let me look at that eye of yours. Listen, pal, does that eye hurt you at all? Ever have both eyes hurting you, pal?” He stopped walking, dropped his hand.

  “Some, a little. My right one, mostly.”

  He stood there nodding to himself with the light in his eyes brightening and waning, glowing and fading, almost as if he breathed with his eyes.

  “Sit down in the chair, there,” he said. “Here.” He grabbed the roll of paper and dropped it on the bed. “Sit down, pal. I want to look at that eye of yours.”

  “I’m all right.” I didn’t move. I had my back against the wall by the door now. I wasn’t going to sit down for this guy.

  “Traumatic, too,” he said. “I’d have to— Well, let’s see.” He scratched his head. Abruptly the light went out of his eyes and he turned toward the bathroom. “Lillian, you ready yet? Hurry up.”

  “Yes, Ralph. I’m hurrying. I’ll be right there, Ralph, honey.”

  “See that you are, Lillian.” He turned to me. “A man has to have a woman,” he said. “You’re married, you ought to know that.”

  “Sure.” I heard her scrabbling around in the bathroom, probably anxiously intent on dressing. The fan hummed and buzzed and Angers’ face was a white marble blank again. “Are you married?” I asked.

  “No. I like Lil, but now I’m not so sure she’d make a good wife. Lately she seems stupid, pal. Coming across the country she wasn’t that way at first. It’s only lately I noticed it.”

  “Oh. You came quite a way?”

  “Quite a way, pal.”

  I wanted to find out where he was from, what all this was about. But Angers didn’t look like the type you could pump much. He looked a little too wise for that. It might take time. I hoped it wouldn’t be long. So far I could imagine no way out of this. If we went to my house, things could come to a head quickly. The law might be waiting there now.

  I stood there watching him and it seemed almost as if he were trying to remember something. There was no expression on his face, but he stood very still, looking over at the wall.

  “Pal,” he said, “we’ll fix that eye up, don’t you worry.”

  I took the plunge. It might as well be now.

  “How do you figure?” I said.

  “Was your eye infected?”

  I quickly told him about that rummy up in Jacksonville with his lousy thumb. Right away I wished I’d said nothing, but it was a sore subject with me and one I talked too freely about. Also, it seemed to me that talk, right now, was important. It took up time. Talk about anything.

  He kept nodding, still staring at the wall. “I thought as much, Steve. But we’ll fix it, first chance I can get.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m a surgeon. An eye surgeon.”

  “Oh.”

  I began to fade right into the wall at my back. The fear that was already in me blew a big cold breath. Angers turned and glanced at me. But the crazy light wasn’t in his eyes; he wasn’t interested just now.

  “Maybe you could be the first patient at the hospital,” he said. But then he shook his head. “That might take a little while, though. And that eye needs tending to, pal.”

  He kept looking at me.

  “Hospital?” I said. It didn’t sound like my voice at all.

  He was nodding his head. “Sure. We’re going to build a hospital, pal.” He gestured toward the big roll of paper. “Those are the blueprints, right there.”

  “I see.”

  Just then the bathroom door opened and relief spread through me.

  “We’re going to save lives,” he said. His voice was flat and with no inflection whatsoever.

  Lillian came out into the room.

  “How do I look?” she said.

  “Fine,” Angers said, staring at the roll of blueprints. Then he went over and picked up the cumbersome paper. “Now let’s get going.”

  Lillian was wearing the white dress and she looked very brave and frightened, but quite pretty, too. I wondered how she’d ever got mixed up with him. I hoped to find out and inside I could feel all the helplessness welling up, because so far both our lives hung by a very flimsy thread.

  She glanced at me, then said, “Where we going, Ralph?”

  “Going over to Steve’s.”

  “Ralph,” she said, “I’ve got to buy some clothes. This dress is getting dirty and I haven’t another thing to wear.”

  He just looked at her. She tried to smile and it was a washout. Her dark blue eyes were sheened with terror of the man. He turned toward the door and she glanced at me again, then at the gun on top of the bureau. She didn’t move toward the gun, though. And neither did I.

  Angers paused with his hand on the doorknob, released it, went back, and put the roll of blueprints into the valise. I could tell right then that his mind wasn’t functioning in top form. There were moments of relapse and I had a cold feeling that he knew it. He capped the whisky bottle and put that in with the blueprints and closed the valise.

  “We’ll probably need the gun,” he said. “Better take it along, anyway. I like that gun, Steve.”

  “Sure.”

  He jammed the gun into the waistband of his pants and his jacket covered it.

  “We’ll go down the fire escape,” he told us, as we entered t
he hall.

  “In daylight?” Lillian said.

  “Certainly,” he told her. “I haven’t enough money to pay the bill. Certainly in daylight.” He shook his head at me again. Wasn’t she a dope, though?

  Chapter Six

  WE WENT DOWN the fire escape into an alley. All the time I kept feeling Lillian’s pleading, wild eyes on me. She was pleading and praying for a help I could see no way of giving her. I wanted to get out of this as much as she did, but I knew better now than to make a break for it. We’d be dropped in our tracks.

  “We’ll walk, Steve,” Angers said. “I want to see as much of the town as I can.”

  “Why can’t we just take a cab?” Lillian asked.

  He said nothing and we came out of the alley onto the street and Angers paused, touched my arm.

  “Which way, pal? Where do you live?”

  I tried to make my brain work. Angers had planted so much fear in me that he’d become an obsession and it was hard to concentrate on anything else. I didn’t know what he’d do next, and I had to stay one jump ahead of him. That was a laugh, because it was impossible. Already his actions worked on immediate impulse and there is nothing in the world that can beat impulse.

  “Right down here,” I said. “We can go this way.”

  We started out. I was on the outside, with Lillian in the middle. It was good to have her there. She was sane and solid and she wore the faint traces of a perfume that told me sanity still was someplace in this suddenly crazy world.

  Somehow I had to reach Ruby. I didn’t even know how she was. Betty Graham had said I was needed at the hospital.

  People passed us on the street and we were just three friends walking along, with that fine, manly-looking fellow carrying a suitcase. It would seem he might be rather warm in that suit, though, wouldn’t you think?

  “I’m glad we chose this town,” Angers said. “Aren’t you, Lillian?”

  She’d been walking along, gnawing at her lower lip. Quickly she looked at him.

  “Oh, yes, Ralph. It’s a nice town!” Her eyes flicked toward me and I felt the sharp lash of fear again.

  We walked along and he didn’t know it but we were going to pass the hospital where Ruby was. Somehow I had to reach her. Something might have gone wrong. First childbirths can sometimes be bad.

  “Yes,” Angers said. “There’s something about this town. It’s homey. What I mean is, it’s not industrial. That’s important. Isn’t it, Lil?”

  “Yes, Ralph.”

  We rounded a corner and I saw we were walking straight toward the gas station up there, where Angers had killed the cop. I held myself together. Somebody would see us, recognize us. They had to.

  Only Angers could be sharp, too. “All right if we cut over another block, Steve?”

  “This is shorter.”

  He grinned across at me and jerked his head toward the gas station. He and I had a fine secret, didn’t we? “We’ll just cut over another block, pal. It won’t take us out of the way, will it?”

  “No. It won’t take us out of the way.”

  We crossed the street, returned to the corner, started along toward the next intersection.

  “No use tempting fate,” Angers said. “No point to that. Somebody might get mad. I couldn’t stand that.”

  I nodded, listening to the sharp rap of Lillian’s heels on the pavement. Somehow she didn’t look like an ordinary pickup. Where had she come from? How had she ever got mixed up with this guy?

  “Florida’s the place, all right,” Angers said. “I’m glad we settled on that, Lil. Climate means an awful lot and industry can destroy climate.” He looked over at me. “That’s why I couldn’t see building in Seattle. The climate’s not right, not right at all, pal.”

  “Seattle?”

  Lillian turned to me and nodded, with her eyes scrunched up and her teeth in her lower lip.

  “Those damned fools back there wanted to build in Seattle. They were fools, that’s all. They’re blind. They don’t really want to save anybody, they don’t want to help. They only think of their own pockets, that’s all.”

  We were coming along by the parking lot beside the hospital when Angers realized where we were. He paused, glanced up at the new building shining in the sun. Palm trees, freshly planted, helped the landscape. But the building itself looked somehow new and raw. It had been finished only recently.

  Ruby was in there someplace….

  We walked along toward the front entrance.

  “Now, take that, for instance,” Angers said. “Indian Park Hospital,” he read the inscription above the glassed doors. He shook his head. “I can tell you about it without ever having heard of it, or ever having been inside.”

  We stood on the walk before the main entrance and I began to sweat. Perspiration dribbled down my sides and it seemed almost as if I could hear her calling to me in there.

  “Mongers,” Angers said. “That’s what I call them. Hospitalmongers. Build new hospitals. How long has the town had this one, Steve?”

  “There’s old Indian Park, over there through the trees,” I said. “This was just finished a few months ago. The town’s rather proud of it.”

  “I’ll bet,” Angers said. “I’ll bet.” That light was beginning to show in his eyes again. I saw it and all hope left me.

  “Ralph,” I said, “this is where my wife is. I want to go in and see her.”

  He shook his head. “Not a chance, Steve. There’s no time for things like that.”

  I stepped in front of Lillian and faced him. “I’m going in there,” I told him. “She’s in there. She’s having a baby. Did you ever have a baby?”

  “Stop kidding, pal.”

  Lillian’s voice was urgent. “Is your wife in there, Steve?”

  “Yes. It’s our first kid.”

  “Oh, God,” she said. She touched Ralph Angers’ arm. “Honey,” she said, “you’ve got to let the poor guy go in and see his wife. You must, Ralph!”

  “There isn’t time. Besides, I want to tell you about this place.”

  “Maybe it would help you to see the inside,” I said. “You could come in and wait for me. All I want to do is find out how—”

  “Mr. Logan?”

  It was one of the Gray Ladies. She was a friend of a neighbor of ours and I knew her slightly. She must have just been getting through work. She came along the entrance walk toward us in her gray dress with the little cap, carrying a plastic raincoat and something that looked like an overnight bag. She was stout, gray-haired, and wore glasses. She seemed concerned.

  “Mr. Logan. I’m so glad you’ve finally come. We’ve been waiting for you. The doctors simply don’t know what to do.”

  “Come on, pal,” Angers said. He caught hold of my arm and began pulling at me. I had gone sick inside. These Gray Ladies knew what went on inside a hospital, and she obviously knew something about Ruby.

  “Wait, Ralph! Wait!” Lillian said.

  The woman looked at us, frowning. She didn’t know what it was all about.

  I tried to pull free of his grip, but he held on and looked at me. “We haven’t any time for this,” he said. “Come on, pal.”

  “Mr. Logan,” the woman said, “I’m at the desk, inside. I’m just going home now. But you should hurry in there. As I said, the doctors—”

  “Please go away,” Angers said to her. “Please, just go away, will you?” His voice was quite kind.

  “Ralph!” Lillian said. She went up to the woman and said, “Is Mrs. Logan all right?”

  “No. She’s not all right,” the Gray Lady said. “I hardly think this is any way to act. She’s been calling for her husband and Dr. Amory needs to talk to him about something.”

  “Lillian,” Ralph Angers said. “Come on with us. I won’t ask you again.” His voice was soft and dead.

  The older woman was trying to look over Lillian’s shoulder at me. Her glasses glinted in the sunlight. Then I felt Angers move and saw him reach beneath his coat.

>   “All right,” I said quickly. “All right, Ralph. Let’s go.” I was sick inside. I grinned at him, banged his shoulder. “You’re right, we haven’t got time for this. Let’s go, eh?”

  He stared blankly at me, a sheen of perspiration covering his pale face. His grip slowly relaxed on my arm and we started walking along the sidewalk.

  “Well!” the old woman said. “I never!”

  “Come on, Lillian,” I said. “Please come on.”

  But Lillian had seen Angers reach for the gun. She hurried along behind us. Back there the woman stood on the walk and slowly shook her head. Maybe eventually she would find out how very close she had come to never leaving that spot.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Steve,” Lillian said, beside me.

  I didn’t say anything.

  We walked along. Angers’ tread was solid and he stared straight ahead. “It’s people like that,” he said. “They stand in my way. Ignorance. It’s always been that way. I should have killed her. I knew I should have. She’ll go around, spreading her ignorance, standing in the way of progress. They say it’s not the individual, but they’re wrong. You know that, pal?”

  I nodded.

  “Yes. It takes individuals to make a mob, remember that. And then the mob becomes the individual. With but a single thought. Destruction. They destroy whatever is good.”

  Lillian took my arm. “She’ll be all right, Steve. Don’t think about it. There’s nothing you can do. In a hospital like that, she must have the very best of care. I’m sure it’s nothing serious.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Thanks, Lil.”

  Something kept telling me to make a break for it. But I knew it wouldn’t be any good. He’d drop me before I’d gone ten feet and that wouldn’t help Ruby a bit. It wouldn’t help anybody. I’d been picked for a job, all right, whether I wanted it or not. If he killed me, he’d go right on his merry way killing anybody else that crossed his path.

  Only what was the matter with Ruby? Why did they want me in there? Maybe she was dying. Maybe there was some kind of operation that was needed and they were unable to go ahead without my consent. It seemed to me I had heard of such things happening.

  We walked along. Angers looked cool again. The sheen of perspiration covering his face had dried, and save for that pallor, he looked quite normal. I wanted very much to get Lillian alone and talk with her. Maybe she knew something, could tell me something. But that was a laugh. It wouldn’t matter what she knew. Nothing mattered save the moment itself.