A Killer is Loose

by Gil Brewer

  So what good did it do?

  Harvey counted the money in the wallet and said, “There’s two hundred and fourteen dollars here.”

  “Put it with the other and we’ll call it all right,” Angers said.

  Harvey did as Angers said. He looked at me sitting there and there was no expression on his face. He was scared all over again now.

  “See, pal?” Angers said.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Take the money, pal,” Angers said. “There’s four hundred and eighty-four dollars there. I figure that’s about right for a job of this kind, don’t you?”

  I didn’t want to take the money. Harvey watched me. He didn’t want to look at Angers any more. Only Angers wasn’t through with him.

  “That’s the kind of friend you have,” he told the people in the cabin. “Isn’t he a nice guy, though?”

  Harvey stood there with the empty wallet in his hand and swallowed. He looked around at them all and smiled a sickly smile and nobody smiled back. Then he had to look at Angers again, he had to, standing there with the wallet in his hand.

  “Now,” Angers said, “I want you to get a piece of paper and a pencil and write out on it that you paid Steve that money for the work you had him do. And I want you to sign it with your name.”

  “This is foolish,” Harvey said.

  “Is it?”

  The man in the booth, my friend, pushed a pad of paper across the table, took a pencil from the pocket of his sport shirt, and laid it by the pad.

  “Go ahead, Harve,” he said. “Do like the man says.”

  “Sure, sure,” Harvey said. He wrote fast on the paper and signed his name. Then he laid the pad down and tore off the top sheet and put it with the money. “There,” he said, looking at me. “But you couldn’t do it alone, could you? I threw you off the boat and now you’ve got to get a friend.” He pushed the money and the note over to me.

  I felt sorry for the guy. He couldn’t help getting his oar in.

  “Feel of your nose,” I said. “How did you cover up the swelling?”

  “Pick up the money, pal,” Angers said.

  I took the money and the note and shoved it all into my pants pocket in a wad. As I did that, I glanced up at the pier. The man out there was still watching us and watching the street out there. I was positive he had called the law. He’d heard what was going on and the cops could be here any minute. I prayed for that, but at the same time I didn’t know whether it was the right thing.

  If they came now and started shooting it would be plain mayhem.

  “Lillian,” Angers said. “Come here.”

  Lillian got up from the arm of the couch and went over by Angers. She acted as if she were in a dream. Everybody watched her cross the cabin. Harvey just stood there, staring at Angers, and I saw my friend look up at the pier again.

  Then everything went sour inside me, because Angers saw him look, too.

  And the guy out there saw it happening. He saw Angers turn his head and stare out the cabin window at him and he froze. Oh, it was grand. The guy out there froze solid and the cabin lights shone on his guilty face.

  You could almost see it come into Angers. The understanding of what was going on. I was glad it wasn’t me Angers had noticed.

  “Well,” he said. “Pal, we’re leaving now.”

  Harvey began to tremble. His throat and chin were fleshy, bloated, and the flesh trembled.

  The woman who had been sniffling fainted. She just collapsed, and spread back on the couch, and fell over against Wilma. Wilma began laughing again. It was a kind of snicker, from the side of her mouth. She tried to keep her mouth closed, but it wouldn’t work. The woman who had fainted finally sprawled down into Wilma’s lap, out cold. Wilma kept on snickering.

  “Look,” the man in the booth by me said. “Why don’t we all have a drink on it?”

  He was going to be brave. He had to. I suppose he felt it was the only thing to do. He was the one man in the whole room who understood the score. You could tell it in his face and now he was going to be brave.

  “Harve,” he said, “why don’t you fix these folks a drink?”

  “We have to go,” Angers said, looking at the man.

  I stood up and looked at the man, too. “Forget it,” I said.

  He understood, all right, but something inside him kept egging him along. “Hell,” he said, “we could make this a real party. We could take the boat out, couldn’t we, Harve?”

  I knew then that he’d been drinking a lot, this guy, and maybe that accounted for the way he was acting.

  “Come on, pal,” Angers said. “We’re leaving.”

  “Sure.”

  We’d only been here a few minutes and the guy who was trying to detain us knew that if we’d stay a little while longer, the cops would be here. I knew that, too. But he didn’t understand Angers. He hadn’t seen Angers work with that Luger.

  I didn’t dare look out the cabin window now. I didn’t know whether the man was still out there with his dog or not.

  Angers pulled the cabin door open and motioned us outside. Nobody said a word. It had been a bad time so far and I was drenched with perspiration.

  The guy in the booth knew Angers was wise and Angers kept looking at him as he closed the cabin door. It was a screen door, and everybody sat inside watching us. You could feel the breeze outside.

  “Lillian,” Angers said, “I want you to go back in there.”

  She looked at him. Her eyes were numb. She didn’t speak.

  “Go on,” he said.

  She walked back into the cabin.

  “All right, pal. Up on the pier. Go ahead now.”

  I went up the steps and jumped onto the pier. The man was getting aboard his boat with his dog in his arms. Angers came up behind me.

  “Out to the car, pal,” he said. “Hurry up.”

  As we went past the Rabbit-O, I glanced down into the cabin, and they were all sitting there, just as we’d left them. Harvey and Lillian were standing in the middle of the cabin. Their eyes followed us along the pier.

  “Run,” Angers said behind me. “We haven’t much time, pal, and this can’t be botched now.”

  We went past the guy with his dog and Angers didn’t even look at him.

  On the street there was no sign of the police.

  As we reached the stretch of grass by the curb, Angers grabbed my arm.

  “We may run into some trouble, pal. Stick by me, will you?”

  I looked at him. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. After all, he believed in all the things he was doing and he at least half believed in me.

  Down there in the cabin it had meant a lot, momentarily, to know that I had a friend in the crowd who understood what was going on. Well, I got to thinking how Angers must be with his mucked-up mind and everything.

  “What about Lil?” I said.

  “To hell with Lil,” he said. “Get in the car.”

  I got in beneath the wheel of the car and Angers slammed his door and turned to look at me. He set the roll of paper on the floor between his knees and sat there with the gun in his fist.

  “I think somebody called the police,” he said. “I just feel it. I saw something.”

  I didn’t say anything. I tried to stall as long as I could. I didn’t start the car. Maybe we were both wrong.

  “You’ve got to stick with me, pal,” he said.

  “Sure.”

  “Start the car, then. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  I stepped on the gas and knew the fellow on the boat next to the Rabbit-O had missed his chance. He should have fixed this car. He hadn’t. It ran fine.

  “Turn around right here,” Angers said.

  I thought of Lillian back there with them and what she would do now. She was out of it, anyway. She was safe.

  “I didn’t like letting Lil go,” Angers said. “But what could I do? Anything could happen and I don’t want her hurt.”

  I glanced at him.

>   Somebody yelled nearby. It was the man with the dog. He was running out on the wooden pier toward the slip gate as I made a U turn. He ran out into the street, waving his arms and yelling as loud as he could. The dog bounded along beside him.

  “I was right,” Angers said.

  Up at the head of the pier, a police car turned off the intersecting street and started down toward us, moving slowly. The man was in the street, yelling and pointing at us.

  “Step on it,” Angers said. “They’ve seen us.”

  I heard a shot and saw it was Angers with the Luger. He was leaning out of the window and he had fired just once at the man back there. I didn’t know whether he’d hit him or not. I couldn’t see back there.

  The police car kept coming and I saw fire leap from the window and heard the sound of another shot. Then we were past them and they were turning. Another police car came around the corner up there.

  “Turn to the right,” Angers said. “And drive as fast as you can, pal.”

  He didn’t have to tell me. I didn’t want to get it, not yet. Not while there was still a chance. I was in the middle and I knew it and I didn’t like it.

  “We’ve got to get away from them,” he said. “We’ve got to, Steve. You hear?”

  “I’m doing all I can.”

  We went around the corner fast and the sirens were beginning now. It was a sound I’d been waiting for a long time. Now that I heard them, really close, I didn’t want to hear them. I knew Lillian was listening back there. I wondered what she thought.

  I began to drive, let me tell you.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I DID NOT WANT IT to end this way.

  It wouldn’t be right if they got me, too. Because they would, I could feel it. But that wasn’t the only reason for the way I felt. It wasn’t sudden, either; it had been coming on me for a while now and I knew it was the right thing. Two of us were against all of them and I knew that’s the way it was going to be. But all the time I knew how wrong that was.

  It was wrong for him. He was trying to accomplish something he believed in. He had an aim, a deep-seated one, and to him it was as right as the sun in the morning. Maybe you can’t grasp that, understand it. But it was how I believed.

  He was doing something he thought was right.

  And I wanted to see Ruby. God, how I wanted that! Things had changed, blurred. I wanted to see her just once more—alive, happy.

  I don’t know. I’d been going along with this guy, wanting to get him if I could, wanting to get away from him, and I hadn’t been understanding it right, either. Sure. But he hadn’t killed me. Had he? Well, I’d be happy if he could get away from them. I knew that now. Maybe he’d taught me something I couldn’t put into words; I don’t know.

  I settled down to driving as I’d never driven before. It wasn’t wild; it was determined effort to get away. I’d flash a glance at him and he’d be sitting there, watching me, kind of nodding, with the gun on his knee.

  He half believed in me, as I say, and it was hell knowing that. Maybe he believed in me all the way. I was his pal. And you could never explain it to him now. There was no straightening this out.

  They were after both of us.

  “You’re doing fine, Steve,” he said between the wails of the sirens not far behind us. “Just don’t get rattled. You got nerve, pal.”

  “Thanks. We’re going to need it.”

  We came down past the Vinoy Yacht Basin and I wheeled her left around in front of the Vinoy Hotel sitting up against the paler night sky like a huge black monster without eyes, wearing a top hat. We headed straight for town.

  They came along back there, three of them, three cars, all with their sirens moaning and wailing, and it was fine.

  Nobody but Lillian and I would ever really know how it was. We were the only ones, and how could you explain it? It came on you slowly.

  If you can’t feel it, you can’t, but there was a sadness there. It kept coming up on me, getting into my mouth, like the taste of bright metal, dry and cold….

  Stop lights didn’t mean anything, and probably the whole town knew about it by now. We came whispering up the street from the bay side, passing through a residential section, and you could see the people on the lawns, flashing by like white-faced posts with stiff arms.

  I took another left, then the first right into an alley beyond a store front. We went through that alley bouncing on the bricks and sliding a little in wet places and ‘way ahead you could see it was a dead end, but a driveway turned right, so I took that and boomed along rutted shell and out into a street again.

  We were on one of the main streets, heading west, and I opened her up, right down the middle of the street, with cars peeling off to the right and left as we came along.

  “You’re never going to be able to build the hospital in this town,” I said, not looking at him. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I know that now.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know, Steve, but I’m going to build the hospital.”

  I drove a while, getting through some thick traffic that was trying just as hard to keep out of the way. Behind us the wail of sirens began getting loud again. That alley had flipped them for a moment and I knew I could lose them. If I drove her right and used my head and didn’t lose my nerve and didn’t get rattled. Then I could lose them.

  We weren’t going awfully fast.

  “They’d get us outside town,” I said.

  “I know it.”

  “You don’t want them to get us, do you, Ralph?”

  “No. I’m just thinking about Lillian.”

  You can say what you want about cases like this. They’ve got feelings. It’s just they’re cockeyed on one thing and killing is a blind means. Or maybe like when you brush that fly off your arm next time. Remember it.

  Well, it’s perspective. It’s seeing things one way or seeing them another. I knew. It’s believing. It’s believing so hard in one thing that you become blind except in one direction. And it doesn’t matter whether the direction is good or bad, because it’s what you’re blind to that really matters.

  It’s a funny thing, but that’s the way it works. Try it and see.

  Only he was affected by criticism, too.

  Only what would have happened if Ralph Angers had been allowed from the very beginning to build his hospital and attempt to satisfy himself about transplanting the human eye?

  We came onto Ninth Street and I turned left into traffic and went along the middle of the street. It was a good bet, because of the traffic. It would slow us, maybe, but it would slow them still more.

  “Steve,” Angers said, “I’m counting on you. I can’t drive, you know. Never learned. I was always too busy. Even during the war.”

  “We can’t head into the country,” I said. “They’d get us sure, so we’ve got to lose them here in town.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “I know the town pretty good,” I told him.

  “I can’t help thinking about Lillian,” he said.

  “She’ll be all right.”

  “I know it.”

  “Then don’t worry.”

  We both saw the police car on the corner up ahead. It was nosing out into the street from a cross street, only some cars were in the way because of a stop signal. I went right on by and you could see them looking at us. They couldn’t shoot, either, because of the other cars and the people on the street.

  “I’m not worrying,” he said. “I’m thinking about your eye, too, Steve.”

  “Never mind that.”

  I was driving carefully and easily. If you get in a sweat, things don’t go so well. Bourney’s car was swell and for an instant I saw him back there, in my mind, lying on the grass with his cigar.

  “I want you to know something,” Angers said.

  I wheeled right, off Ninth, and the sirens got faint because of the buildings. I knew they were back there and that they’d seen w
here we turned. I took it sharp into an alley, then right into another alley, then left again, and we were on a dirt road right in the middle of town, bouncing all over the place, downhill. I opened her up and we stuck in the ruts fine going down through there and the sirens were very faint now and I heard them going on up the street. They had missed the alley.

  We came out of the dirt road going uphill, and over a bridge by some big trees, and the car lights swirled on the trees among the leaves and it looked peaceful, like driving on a summer’s night in the country.

  Then we came out onto a main street again, bounding up off the dirt onto the pavement. A police car went by, going like hell, and they saw us.

  I slammed the car out of there with the sound of the police car’s screaming tires, and as we went off away, I saw them coming around in a wild U turn that took them over the curb and across a funeral parlor’s front lawn and under a canopy by the sidewalk. Their siren started.

  I went left off the street and we were in a residential section again. I really rode it now, hanging on, and letting Bourney’s car do whatever it could.

  “Steve?”

  “Sure, sure.”

  “Tell you something.”

  I shot a glance at him and he hadn’t moved. He was still sitting like that, with the gun on his knee, as if he were dreaming. Sure, I was afraid of him. Right now he might shoot me, just like that.

  “What?”

  “That eye of yours.”

  “Forget the eye!”

  “No, Steve. If something isn’t done about that eye of yours, you know what’s going to happen?”

  I didn’t answer. I was too busy with the wheel on this brick street. The street had been laid perhaps twenty-five years before and the bricks were loose and it was pocked with potholes and it was bad. The car drummed like a machine gun, the wheel going in a tight mad staccato.

  “You’ll go blind in one eye,” Angers said. “I’m not kidding you, pal. That’s the way it is. I know. Maybe both eyes. Sympathetic reaction.”

  I heard him but it didn’t touch me. Not then, anyway. I didn’t feel sympathetic, so I kept quiet, and he didn’t say any more, either. Not about that.