Pop. 1280

by Jim Thompson

  She came back in, slamming the door. I gave her a hug, and told her she’d done just fine.

  “Now, are you beginnin’ to get the picture?” I said. “Lennie never leaves town. He’s not only too danged lazy to do any real walkin’, but he’s scared to get very far off by himself. Myra knows this. She knows he’d be just about as likely to flap his arms and fly as he would to come way out here to your place. So what happens when he goes home and tells Myra he has been out here?”

  Rose said, “Mmm,” nodding her head slowly. “She probably won’t believe him, right? But what—”

  “She won’t believe him,” I said. “Leastways, she’ll have some awful strong doubts he’s telling the truth. Then, he tells her all the dirty things you said about her, about her and Lennie sleepin’ together and so on. And how can she believe that? How can she believe that her very best friend, a perfect lady, would all of a sudden start talking dirty about her?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Rose nodded again. “She can’t believe that he came out here, in the first place, and she can’t believe what he says happened here. The way she sees it, he’ll just have made it all up, and he’ll probably get his ears boxed for lying. But—”

  “Not just lying,” I said, “but god-danged dangerous lyin’. The kind that breaks up homes, and gets people killed. And Myra won’t want to chance the risk of it happening again. She’ll figure he’s taken a real bad turn for the worse, and she’ll have to put him away somewhere like she’s sometimes threatened to.”

  “Huh!” Rose gave me a startled look. “When did Myra ever do anything like that? Why she can hardly bear to let Lennie out of her sight!”

  I said Myra had threatened to put him away a couple times, when she got extra mad at him, and, yeah, she couldn’t hardly bear to let Lennie out of sight. “That’s why she’s never done anything about him, because she’d want to be with him wherever he was and she didn’t want to leave Pottsville. Now, though, she’s got no choice. He goes and she goes, too.”

  Rose said she just wasn’t sure about it. It sounded good but you couldn’t depend on it working out that way. I said that, well, of course we’d have to help things along a little.

  “Myra’s bound to tell us about it, and naturally, we get pretty blamed worried. And the worrieder we get the worrieder she gets. We’re real concerned about what Lennie might do next, you know, like maybe taking a meat axe to people instead of just lying about ’em. Or setting houses on fire. Or chasin’ little girls. Or—well, don’t you fret about it, honey.” I gave her a squeeze, and a pat on the bottom. “Everything’s goin’ to work out fine, but absolutely fine. I ain’t got a doubt in the world about it.”

  Rose shrugged and said, well, maybe so; I knew Myra better than she did. Then, she snuggled up to me and bit my ear. And I kissed her, and pulled myself away.

  “Lennie ain’t a real fast walker,” I explained. “I aim to cut cross-country and beat him back to town. Just in case, you know.”

  “Just in case?” Rose frowned. “In case of what?”

  “In case we need a clincher. Something that’ll sweep the last doubt out of Myra’s mind, if she should have a doubt. It ain’t even remotely likely that she will have. But when Lennie gets to the courthouse, just pantin’ to tell Myra about me bein’ out here, ain’t it a pretty good idea for me to be sittin’ in my office?”

  Rose had to admit that it was, much as she hated to have me leave.

  I promised we’d get together in a day or so. Then, I beat it out the door before I had to talk any more.

  Naturally, I didn’t go back to town. I already knew what was going to happen there. What I wanted to see was what was going to happen here, although I already had a pretty good idea, and maybe to help it along a little if it needed helpin’.

  I circled around through the fields until I reached the lane that came up from the road. Then, I hunkered down beside it in a clump of scrub mulberries, and waited.

  About an hour and a half passed. I started to worry a little, wonderin’ if I could have been wrong, and then I heard the squeak of buggy wheels coming on fast.

  I parted the bushes and peeked out. Lennie and Myra swept by, Myra clutching the horse’s reins, Lennie’s head lolling back and forth on his neck. He was carrying something on his lap, a black, box-like thing, and one of his hands clutched something that looked like a stick. I scratched my head, wonderin’ what the heck the stuff was—the box and the stick—and then the buggy had rolled past me, up and out of the lane and into the farmyard.

  Myra whoa-ed the horse to a stop. She and Lennie climbed down from the buggy, and she trailed the reins over the horse’s head to keep it from wandering away. Then, she and Lennie crossed the yard and went up on the porch.

  She banged on the door. It opened after a minute, and the lamplight outlined her face, white and purposeful-looking. She started to go in, then she took Lennie by the shoulder and shoved him in ahead of her. And at last I saw what he was carryin’.

  It was a camera—a camera and one of them sticks that you explode flash-powder in for taking pictures indoors.

  23

  I jumped up and started for the house. About the first step I took, my foot caught in a root and I fell sprawling with the wind knocked out of me. For a minute or two, I didn’t even have enough breath to groan, and when I finally did manage to pick myself up, I couldn’t move very fast. So it was maybe all of five minutes before I got to the house, and found a window where I could hear and see.

  Well, sir, it was a funny thing, a funny-terrible thing, a strange crazy thing. Because what caught my attention wasn’t what you’d have thought it would be at all. Not Rose, scared and dazed and wonderin’ what the heck had gone wrong. Not Lennie and Myra, smilin’ and spiteful and enjoyin’ theirselves. Not something that was in the room itself. Not somethin’ but nothing. The emptiness. The absence of things.

  I’d maybe been in that house a hundred times, that one and a hundred others like it. But this was the first time I’d seen what they really were. Not homes, not places for people to live in, not nothin’. Just pine-board walls locking in the emptiness. No pictures, no books—nothing to look at or think about. Just the emptiness that was soakin’ in on me here.

  And then suddenly it wasn’t here, it was everywhere, every place like this one. And suddenly the emptiness was filled with sound and sight, with all the sad terrible things that the emptiness had brought the people to.

  There were the helpless little girls, cryin’ when their own daddies crawled into bed with ’em. There were the men beating their wives, the women screamin’ for mercy. There were the kids wettin’ in the beds from fear and nervousness, and their mothers dosin’ ’em with red pepper for punishment. There were the haggard faces, drained white from hookworm and blotched with scurvy. There was the near-starvation, the never-bein’-full, the debts that always outrun the credits. There was the how-we-gonna-eat, how-we-gonna-sleep, how-we-gonna-cover-our-poor-bare-asses thinkin’. The kind of thinkin’ that when you ain’t doing nothing else but that, why you’re better off dead. Because that’s the emptiness thinkin’ and you’re already dead inside, and all you’ll do is spread the stink and the terror, the weepin’ and wailin’, the torture, the starvation, the shame of your deadness. Your emptiness.

  I shuddered, thinking how wonderful was our Creator to create such downright hideous things in the world, so that something like murder didn’t seem at all bad by comparison. Yea, verily, it was indeed merciful and wonderful of Him. And it was up to me to stop brooding, and to pay attention to what was going on right here and now.

  So I made an extra hard try, rubbing my eyes and shaking myself, and finally I managed to.

  “—a goddam liar!” Rose was yelling. “I didn’t say any such of a goddam thing!”

  “Tsk, tsk.” There was a possum grin on Myra’s face. “Such language. I’m beginning to think you’re not a very nice girl, after all.”

  “To hell with what you think! Who wouldn’t cuss, hav
ing you and that idiot show up at this time of night!”

  “You mean you didn’t expect us?” Myra said. “Did you think I’d let you talk that way about me, and not do anything about it?”

  “But I didn’t talk about you! Lennie’s lyin! Lennie wasn’t even out here tonight!”

  “Wasn’t he? Then what was his handkerchief doing out there on the porch? One of the extra-big, double-thick kind I make for him because the poor dear’s always slobbering.”

  Myra went on grinning, watching the fear spread over Rose’s face. Rose stammered that she was lying, that she hadn’t found Lennie’s handkerchief on the porch. But she had, all right. I’d put it there myself.

  “Well?” Myra said. “Well, Rose?”

  Rose was caught, and she must have known it. The rough talk she’d been using was a dead giveaway in itself. But like a scared person will, she kept on trying.

  “W-Well…” She bobbed her head jerkily. “All right, Lennie was here. I caught him sneaking around the house and it scared me, and I guess I talked pretty rough to him. But—but I certainly didn’t say those dirty things that he says I did!”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No, I didn’t! How many times do I have to tell you?”

  Myra laughed, a mean scary laugh that even made me shiver. She said that Rose didn’t have to tell her many times, because a lie didn’t gain anything by repetition.

  “Lennie’s telling the truth, dear. He doesn’t have the imagination to make up a story like that.”

  “B-But—but—”

  “And you don’t have the imagination either. You couldn’t have invented the story, any more than he could. Which means—well, I don’t know how you found out, but you obviously did. And that’s the important thing, isn’t it? That and making sure that you don’t do any talking to anyone else.”

  Rose stared at her, slowly shaking her head, her voice a harsh sickish whisper. “I—I d-don’t believe you. Y-You and Lennie. I just don’t believe you!”

  The fact was, I was pretty shocked myself. Because I’d guessed the truth; I’d been pretty sure of it. But that wasn’t nowhere near the same as knowin’ it.

  “I don’t believe you,” Rose repeated shakily. “Why—why would you—”

  “Oh, stop pretending,” Myra said. “You found out about us, and you were foolish enough to tell Lennie. As for the why of things, you’re going to find that out, too, and very shortly. That is, of course, if you’re similarly attracted to him.”

  She motioned to Lennie. He fastened the camera around her neck with a strap, and she fiddled with the settings for a minute, getting it like she wanted. Then he poured powder into the flashstick from a can in his pocket, and carefully handed it to her.

  Rose stood staring at them.

  Myra let out another one of her mean-scary laughs. “Don’t worry about your picture, dear. I’m really quite professional with a camera. In fact, I made quite a bit of money that way before I was married, quite a bit. You’d be surprised at the sums people paid me for certain pictures that I took of them.”

  Rose shook her head, seeming to shake off her fear for the moment. She said that Myra was going to get a surprise if she didn’t drag her ass out of there.

  “Now, beat it, you baggy old bitch! Take your buggy boyfriend and clear out of here before I forget I’m a lady!”

  “In a moment, dear. Just as soon as I take your picture—with Lennie.”

  “Take my picture! Why, goddam you—”

  “Mmm-hmm, take your picture. With Lennie. It’ll be much safer than killing you, and every bit as effective at keeping you quiet, and—tear her clothes off, Lennie!”

  Lennie’s hand darted out before Rose could move. It caught in the front of her dress and ripped downward, taking the underclothes along with the dress. Before you could blink an eye, she was standing in a puddle of rags, naked as a baby jay.

  Lennie burbled and choked on his own spit, and about a pint more spilled over his chin. Myra gave him a lovin’ look.

  “She looks very good, doesn’t she, darling? Why don’t you see if she really is?”

  “Guh, guh—” Lennie hesitated doubtfully. “M-Maybe she hurt me?”

  “Now, of course she won’t hurt you,” Myra laughed. “You’re big and she’s little, and anyway I’m here to protect you.”

  “Guh, guh—” Lennie still hesitated. He’d ripped Rose’s clothes off, but just doing that, just the one quick grab, didn’t take much guts. He wasn’t quite ready to go the rest of the way, even with Myra to nerve him up and tell him it was okay. “W-What—how I do it, Myra?”

  “Just grab her and throw her down,” Myra said, and then, sharply, forcing him to obey before he could think, “Grab her, Lennie!”

  Rose had been standin’ sort of stunned since her clothes were ripped off. Glazed-eyed, too stupefied even to try to cover herself.

  But then Lennie grabbed, hugging her to him, slobbering over her, and everything was changed. She came to life like a turpentined bobcat, screaming, clawing, kicking and pounding. Lennie got hit and clawed in about a dozen places at the same time, not to mention a kneein’ in his crotch and a kicking on his shins.

  He fell away from her, blubbering and clutching himself. Rose darted into the bedroom and slammed the door, and Myra hauled off and kicked Lennie in the tail.

  “You big boob, go after her! Break the door down!”

  “I’m a-scairt,” Lennie whined. “She hurt me!”

  “I’ll hurt you a lot worse!” Myra twisted his ear by way of demonstration. “I’ll beat you black and blue if you don’t do what I tell you. Now, break that door down!”

  Lennie began to shoulder the door. Myra stood right behind him, urging him on, telling him what would happen if he didn’t mind her.

  The lock gave. The door banged open, Lennie following it with his rush and Myra following him. And…

  And so I reckon I never will know what was in Myra’s mind. Or what wasn’t in it. Whether she’d forgot about that pistol she’d helped Rose buy, or whether she thought that Rose wouldn’t dare use it. Or whether she was so danged mad and determined to put Rose in a fix that she just wasn’t thinking.

  No, sir, I’ll never know what she thought or didn’t think. Because just about a second after the bedroom door busted open, she and Lennie were dead.

  They came stumbling backward into the living room when Rose started shooting, falling over each other, going down to the floor together in a tangled heap. They were already dead then, I reckon, but Rose kept on firing—like she was shooting fish in a barrel—until the gun was empty.

  I climbed in the buggy and started for town, ponderin’ over the strange workings of Providence. What I’d really sort of figured on was that Myra would kill Rose, and then Myra and Lennie would have to skip town, because I would be absolutely impartial even if they were sort of kinfolks and I’d do my dangdest to see that they were punished even if I had to shoot ’em while they were trying to escape. Which would probably be the best way of winding things up.

  But this would be all right, I reckoned. It would work out just as well with Rose killin’ Myra and Lennie.

  I put the horse and buggy in the livery stable, listening to the hostler snore away in the hayloft. I went back across town to the courthouse, and everyone was long-gone in bed of course and it was like there wasn’t no one on the earth but me.

  I went upstairs to the living quarters, and drew the shades down tight. Then, I lit a lamp and got myself a cup of cold coffee from the stove, and eased down on the lounge to drink it.

  I finished it, and carried the cup back into the kitchen. I toed my boots off and stretched out on the lounge to rest. And the downstairs door slammed open and Rose came pounding up the steps and busted in on me.

  She’d run all the way into town on foot, I reckon, and she was wild-eyed and crazy-lookin’. She sagged against the door, heaving for breath, pointing a shaking accusin’ finger at me. It was all she could do for a moment, just p
oint.

  I said howdy-do to her, and then I said it was all right, me and her bein’ friends, but it really wasn’t perlite to point at people.

  “I thought you ought to know that,” I said. “It not only ain’t polite, but you might poke someone in the eye.”

  “Y-You!” she said, fighting for breath. “You—you—!”

  “Or if they was real tall folks,” I said, “you might poke ’em in some other bodily orifice, which could be plumb embarrassin’ for you, not to mention the danger of getting your finger caught.”

  She took a long, shuddery heave. Then she came over to the lounge and stood over me. “You you you son-of-a-bitch!” she said. “You you you rotten stinking bastard. You—you goddamned whoremongerin, double-crossing, low-down, worthless, no-good, mean, hateful, two-timing onery—”

  “Now, god-dang it, Rose,” I said. “Danged if it don’t almost sound as if you was mad at me.”

  “Mad!” she yelled. “I’ll show you how mad I am! I’ll—”

  “Better not holler so loud!” I said. “Folks might be roused into coming up here to find out what’s going on.”

  Rose said to let ’em come, but she lowered her voice. “I’ll damned well tell them what’s going on, you dirty bastard! I’ll tell them just what happened!”

  “And what would that be?” I said.

  “Don’t you play dumb on me, damn you! You know what happened! You were outside all the time, because I heard you when you drove away! You let it happen! You stood by watching while I had to kill two people!”

  “Uh-huh?” I said. “Yeah?”

  “What the hell do you mean, ‘Uh-huh yeah’? Are you saying that you didn’t do it, that it didn’t happen that way? That you didn’t plan the whole thing, an’—an’—”

  “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ like that at all,” I said. “All I’m saying or rather askin’ is what you’re goin’ to tell folks. What kind of a believable explanation are you going to put together for them two dead bodies you got in your house and the blood all over the floor, and the fact that even an idjit could prove they was shot with your gun? Because no one’s goin’ to believe the truth Rose; they just ain’t goin’ to believe no such wild story. You just think about it a minute, and you’ll see that they won’t.”