The Cry of the Owl

by Patricia Highsmith

  “Because I want to. How far away is he from here?”

  “Oh—fifteen miles.”

  “Is that all? What’s his number?”

  Greg thought for an instant, found he remembered it. “Milton 6-9491.”

  “Have to get the operator?”

  “Well—get her, yeah.” Greg watched Nickie uneasily. She’d probably been drinking all night, too, he thought.

  “Milton—Mil-ton,” Nickie was saying to the operator. “Is that strange to you? Milton 6—What was it, Greg?”

  He repeated it, Nickie repeated it, then looked at Greg and said, “Milton, Miltown, what’s the diff? Hello. Bobbie? This is your loving wife. … Well, I’m in Humbert Corners, of all madly gay places, and I’m with Greg. … Yes, and we wondered if you’d like to come over for brunch.” She laughed.

  Greg wandered across the room, drifted toward the sink, and added a bit to his drink.

  “Oh, ‘busy.’ Not too busy, are you? We’d like to see you, wouldn’t we, Greg?”

  Slowly, sadly, Greg shook his head.

  “Greg says no, but I say yes. … Oh. What’re you running from now, Bobbie?” she asked through a laugh. She held the telephone a little away from her ear, clicked the bar a couple of times, then put the telephone down. “Hung up. I’ll try him again in a minute,” she said with a wink at Greg. “Meanwhile, I think I’ll try my husband and tell him—tell him about that,” she said, pointing to the paper on the bridge table.

  Ralph was not in. Nickie tried another number where she thought he might be, and could not get him there, either. It annoyed her.

  26

  Nickie’s call came at ten, and after Robert hung up, he went back to his sweeping of the balcony, one of the last chores before he left the house. He swept slowly, because his arm had begun to hurt. They had changed the bandage for him at the hospital last night, had probed it or scratched out the penicillin the doctor had put in, and it had hurt him ever since. It made him a bit giddy, maybe a little delirious. He had the feeling the call from Nickie hadn’t really happened. It was so unlikely, so unbelievable she would be at Greg’s place in Humbert Corners, drunk at ten in the morning—that Greg would be there with her, presumably drunk and merry also.

  When he had finished upstairs, he sat down on the couch with a cup of coffee. The telephone rang again, and Robert did not move to answer it. Then, after ten rings, he thought it might be someone else besides Nickie, so he picked it up.

  “Bobbie, darling, we’d like you to come over,” Nickie said. “Brunch—if you bring the eggs.”

  Now Robert heard Greg’s laugh. “Come on, I’m sure you can do fine without me. I’m just about to leave the house, just walking out the door.”

  “Oh, you are not,” said Nickie teasingly. “Don’t you want to see Greg? The man you—you defeated?”

  “Thanks, I’ve seen enough of him lately.” Robert put the telephone down in anger. It was ten-seventeen. He had told the Nielsons he would come by around eleven with the two suitcases and the cartons they had offered to keep for him, but he decided to take them over now. The sooner he left the house, the better. If he didn’t answer the telephone for half an hour or so, Nickie might give it up.

  He loaded the suitcases and the cartons into his car and drove off. So Greg was back in his apartment, getting drunk with Nickie. It didn’t make any sense. Nothing seemed to make any sense. Greg was out on bail, Robert supposed, and he wondered if Nickie had put up the bail for him. It all seemed so easy for those two, to Robert. The police, the neighbors, ordinary people seemed to cooperate with Greg and Nickie to make things easier for them. The police had not bothered, for instance, to tell him that Greg had been found last night. Robert had been at the hospital beside the doctor’s bed from just before eleven until after twelve, but when he got home, it was not the police who called to tell him about Greg, but the Nielsons, who had heard it on their radio at midnight, they said.

  Betty Nielson was baking something when Robert arrived. The sight of their small, sunlit living room, the smell of baking from the kitchen, put a smile on Robert’s face, a smile that he felt nearly cracked it.

  “Where’s Kathy?” Robert asked. Kathy was the Nielsons’ little girl.

  “Sunday school. Then she’s having Sunday dinner with a friend,” Jack said, smiling. “Are you still planning to take off today?”

  “Only for Rittersville. I’ll stay in a hotel there—until the doctor—”

  “What’s the latest about him?”

  “The same,” Robert said.

  “Um-m. You look a bit peaked, Bob. Sit down, sit down.” He pressed Robert toward the sofa, as solicitous as if Robert were an invalid. “Boy, that news last night—Betty and I were just about to turn the light out upstairs, and she said, ‘Let’s get the twelve-o’clock news and see what the weather’s doing tomorrow.’” Jack laughed.

  Here Betty made her entry from the kitchen, one hand in a mitten potholder. “Bob, we were so—excited. It was like something that was happening to us. Do you know what I mean?”

  And it was, Robert thought. The finding of Greg had erased all her little doubts about Robert Forester’s innocence—at least in regard to murdering Greg. The prowling story remained, though. He felt it between himself and Betty, even between himself and Jack. Betty poured coffee for him and Jack.

  “How’s Dr. Knott?” Betty asked. “I didn’t hear what you said to Jack.”

  “No change,” Robert said. “I called around ten.”

  “Still in the coma?” Betty said.

  “Yes. He—” Robert felt suddenly weak, as if he were going to pass out. He saw the doctor’s staring blue eyes, his parted lips that looked a little bluish now despite the oxgyen tent. Now, last night, Robert thought the eyes looked kind and sad, not accusing any more, not frightened. He had had an eerie feeling that the doctor, through his coma, could hear and see everything that was going on around him, that he knew death was coming, had already taken ninety per cent of him, and it was as if the doctor, already in the territory of death, looked at life through a little window that was slowly closing.

  “Here, this won’t hurt you,” Jack said, pushing a glass of whiskey into Robert’s hand.

  Robert took it and sipped it.

  “You’ve probably been knocking yourself out packing and all that,” Jack said. “Boy, I’m glad you’re not starting off on that drive today. Where’re you going to stay in Rittersville?”

  “Something called the Buckler Inn.”

  “Oh, sure, I know it.” Jack sat in a chair near the sofa. “Well—they should know about the doctor in—twenty-four hours or less, shouldn’t they?”

  “I’m sure they know now,” Robert said. “He’s not going to make it.”

  “He’s an old man after all, Bob,” Betty said. “It wasn’t really your fault. You shouldn’t take it as if—as if you’re responsible for his dying, if he does.”

  Robert didn’t answer. That wasn’t exactly how he was taking it.

  “Somebody told me—or I read it in the papers—that his wife died just a couple of weeks ago,” Jack said. “Is that true?”

  “Yes,” Robert said.

  “There’s such a thing as not having a will to live, you know. I imagine the doctor doesn’t want to live—particularly. He’s not putting up a fight.”

  And how would he himself die, Robert wondered. As an old man, lying in a coma? Still a young man, suddenly on a highway? Or by a bullet meant for him or not? Or struck by lightning? Or smashed into the earth in a falling, burning plane? And would there be time in those last seconds to think of the things he had not done and should have done, that he had done and should not have? Would he be able to remember any kindnesses that he had done for others, by way of buoying his courage, by way of finding a meaning for the thirty or forty or fifty years he would have spent upon the earth? It seemed to him that nothing was of any value except kindness, and that last Friday for the doctor was like the doctor’s good life compressed i
nto twenty-four hours—the kindness the doctor had given him, followed by the shot that led to his death.

  “Bob?” Jack said.

  Betty was handing him a plate. In the middle of the coffee table sat a plate with a large yellow, braided pastry topped with plum halves and powdered sugar. A wraith of steam rose from it as Betty cut it. Jack was talking about “that son of a bitch Kolbe,” and Betty told him rather primly to watch his language, and the incident of last night—Kolbe making him hand Greg’s gun back to him, which he had told to Jack on the telephone at midnight—now seemed as unreal to Robert as it seemed to be to Betty, less real than a scene in a story of violence on television. Had he been one of the main characters? Robert wanted to smile.

  Before Betty and Jack had finished their cake, Robert stood up and said he would go out and start carrying his things in. The Nielsons had said they would put them in the cellar.

  “Wait a second and I’ll help you,” Jack said, his mouth full.

  “I don’t need any help, thanks.”

  “You shouldn’t carry anything with a wounded arm,” Betty protested.

  But Robert went on. He supposed he was being a bit rude, but he wanted it over with, wanted to get his other things from his house and leave, because he had a feeling Greg and Nickie might come to his house. It was a horrible feeling. He could not sit still with it.

  Jack did help him, and together they carried the five or six items down to the cellar.

  “How about the stuff at the house you’re taking?” Jack asked. “I’ll come with you and help you load.”

  “No, thanks, Jack.”

  “Come on, I’ll take my car. You won’t have to bring me back.”

  “I’d rather be alone. Honestly,” Robert said so firmly that Jack looked at him. “I’m not taking much with me,” he added.

  “O.K.,” Jack said, giving up with a shrug.

  Robert thanked him, said he would surely see them before he took off for New Mexico, and then he went out to his car. He drove quickly. It was a short drive, and within five minutes he had reached his road. He was relieved to see that there was no car in his driveway. He took a drink of water at his sink, and stared at the empty window sill where Jenny’s plant had used to sit. He had taken his plants in a carton to the Nielsons, and he imagined Betty now, emptying the carton that he had left in the little foyer inside the front door. It was a quarter past eleven. He had promised to call his mother this morning, but he did not want to take the time to do it here. He would call her from Rittersville. And he must also remember to have the telephone disconnected tomorrow.

  Robert was going out the door with his first suitcase when he heard a car on his road. He stopped on his porch, watching it. It was a black Thunderbird, and he thought it was going by, but it turned fast into his driveway. Nickie was driving, and Greg was beside her.

  Nickie got out and said, “Well, Bobbie, you are leaving. We’re just in time, aren’t we?” She caught her balance on the door and slammed it.

  Greg was slowly getting out on the other side, a drunken, sheepish smile on his face.

  Either bluster your way on, Robert was thinking, load the car and go, or try being polite and see if you can get them to leave. Or a combination of both. “No, you’re a little late,” Robert said. “I’m leaving now.”

  “That’s what you said an hour ago. Aren’t you going to ask us in for a drink? We’re—out, aren’t we, Greg?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Forester.” Greg came on toward him, unsteady but determined, and still smiling.

  “Well, so am I out. Why don’t you go to Jersey and get something?” Robert said, and walked on with his suitcase toward his car. He had to step around Greg, who deliberately blocked his path. His heart was thundering in his chest. His throat seemed to have a painful lump of air in it. He bent over the trunk of his car, trying to get the heavy suitcase into position with his right arm alone. Then he was wrenched around by the shoulder, and Greg’s fist came toward his face.

  Robert landed hard on the ground, a couple of yards from his car. Greg yanked him to his feet by his left arm, and Robert gave a cry of pain.

  “Don’t knock him out!” Nickie said through a laugh. “I want to talk with him!”

  Robert managed to stand up. His jaw hurt as if it were gathering itself for some far worse pain, and his left ear rang with the blow he had taken. Greg wasn’t going to get him again, he swore, and he’d only gotten him that time because his back had been turned. Greg was so drunk he had to keep moving in order not to fall down. Robert started back into the house for his other suitcase.

  “Wait a minute,” Nickie said.

  Robert got the suitcase and came out again. Now Greg was on the porch, groping for the doorjamb. Let them go in, Robert thought, there was nothing of his in there any more. Nickie followed Robert. Robert opened the door of his car and put the suitcase on end on the floor. Then there was a crash from inside his house. Robert ran for the front steps. Now he heard the shattering of glass.

  “For Christ’s sake, cut it out!” Robert yelled as he walked in the door.

  Greg was in the kitchen. A straight chair was upset in front of the fireplace. Robert dodged a dish that Greg threw.

  “Flying saucers!” screamed Nickie, convulsed with laughter.

  Greg paused for a moment, as if stunned by something, or as if he didn’t know what else to reach for in the kitchen.

  “Well-l,” Nickie said, looking at Robert, her hands on her hips. She swayed from the waistline, describing little circles, as if she were drunkenly taking exercises. “You know what you used to say about me, Bobbie. I finish the bottle and fall on my face. My style of drinking, so maybe I will.”

  Robert went closer to the kitchen and said, “You’re wasting your time in there, Greg. That stuff doesn’t belong to me.”

  Greg turned, so that his back was to the sink, doing nothing now, maybe because there was nothing in sight to throw. He had thrown the few dishes Robert had left on the drainboard.

  The telephone rang.

  “Never mind it,” Robert said, looking at Nickie.

  She was moving in a lazy, pensive way, her head down, toward the fireplace.

  Robert picked up the larger pieces of the broken dishes, because they looked like potential weapons for somebody, and tossed them into the fireplace. The telephone rang on.

  “Answer it, Bobbie.”

  “Never mind, I know what it is,” Robert said. If it was the Nielsons, it could wait, and if it was the hospital, he knew what it was.

  “It’s me!” said Nickie with a loose smile, swooping on it. “Hello? Who? … Of coursh. Bobbie? A woman.”

  Robert took the telephone.

  It was the hospital. The doctor had died fifteen minutes ago, peacefully, at eleven-thirty.

  “You’re not a relation, is that correct, Mr. Forester?”

  “No, that’s correct. But—I think there was a cousin, an elderly man there last night. Somebody said he was a cousin. I don’t know his name.” The doctor had had several visitors, among them the couple named George and Irma who lived next door, but he had no close relatives, it seemed.

  “I see. It’s just that you came most often to see him that we asked.”

  “Thank you—for calling,” Robert said, and hung up.

  “Well—bad news?” asked Nickie.

  Greg came slowly in from the kitchen, the silly smile on his face again. Robert braced himself, blinking at Greg as if he were some ghost that he had to convince himself of. He didn’t know what Greg was about, whether he was going to attack him or just walk past, and then Robert saw the knife in his right hand that was down at his side—a small paring knife, but a sharp one.

  “Bad news, Bobbie?” Nickie repeated.

  “The doctor’s dead,” Robert said.

  Greg stopped, his hand with the knife a little raised. He stood only three feet from Robert.

  “Oh, come now, Greg, no knives! What is this, a rumble?” Nickie laughed. “I w
ant to see a fight.”

  “He’s dead?” Greg said. “You’re lying.”

  “Call them up and see,” Robert said angrily, gesturing with his sore arm toward the telephone.

  “Well—you did it!” Greg said, baring his teeth. He lifted the knife.

  Robert dove under it, and tackled Greg around the waist. Greg fell backward onto the floor. Then, for an instant, Robert felt Nickie’s hands on his shoulders, heard her “Hooray! Now stop it!” but he had Greg under him now, he was kneeling astride Greg’s body, and he hit him twice in the jaw before Greg toppled him over, and Robert’s face scraped the floor. Then Robert felt the pointed impact of the knife in his side. Greg’s right hand was still free and plunging with the knife. Robert hit him with the side of his right fist, and then stood up, groggily.

  “Oh, stop it, Greggie, stop it!” Nickie said, falling on her knees over him. “Ow!—Greg!”

  Robert looked at them, Greg still limply plying the knife in the air, eyes closed, Nickie sitting across his legs, her hand to her throat.

  “Bobbie!” she said in a surprised tone, turning her head to him.

  Then Robert saw the blood that was spurting between her fingers. Greg’s arm fell back and the knife rattled on the floor.

  “Nickie, he hit you?” Robert fell on his knees by her and pulled her fingers away from her neck. The blood was coming from her neck below the ear, spurting with her pulse.

  “My God,” Nickie said. “Oh, my God, my God.”

  Robert seized her by the shoulder and pressed the side of her neck just above the collarbone. The blood was coming from a spot higher up, and his pressing didn’t seem to do any good. It was the carotid artery, Robert thought. He could see the gash that was like a little mouth with bright blood jetting from it. Robert jerked off his tie, and then didn’t know what to do with it in the way of a tourniquet. He crushed his pocket handkerchief to a lump and put it at the side of her throat and tied the tie around it, as tight as he dared. The blood came on.

  “Bobbie—Bo-b-bie, help me!” Nickie said.

  His knees slipped in blood as he stood up. He grabbed the telephone. At the first sound of the operator’s voice, he said, “I want a doctor immediately. Gursetter Road. The Forester house, the name’s on the mailbox …” And five seconds more of stupid instructions, the color of his house, the distance from the turnoff to the highway, before he could hang up.