Killing Time

by Thomas Berger

  Nothing that happened ever passed out of reality: all was still in existence, every image, every voice, all occurrences, filed away as it were, on cosmic film if you like to call it that, so long as you understood that it was in no way a representation, a re-creation, but rather actual and eternal, its temporal divisions being merely a human argument. That was to say, Time, though often seemingly important, inconvenient, even dangerous, was not ultimately serious.

  Realization could be only approximated in language, talked about, but not experienced. Betty had understood this from the first. Though normally loquacious enough—Detweiler loved to hear her bright chatter—when they were Realizing together she silently took her cue from him. This sympathy had been essential to his efforts. Never before and not since had he approached so closely to an Absolute Realization: the first AR, which would be known in the records as AR1, for this was a science, and Detweiler knew he was only a forerunner, a kind of Archimedes, of the great Realizers to come.

  He had almost no money left after buying his ticket, so he stopped a passerby and asked him for a dollar. His victim was a dark-skinned person wearing long sideburns and a hairline mustache. At first he took it as a joke that a sober, clean, blond individual would ask him for aid, but no one who looked at Detweiler’s committed face could mistake what he saw there as wit.

  Detweiler explained: “I haven’t eaten anything today. I’d like to get a decent breakfast before I board the train.”

  The young man solemnly forced a slender hand into the pocket of his tight trousers and came out with two dollar bills. They were in fact his last two, though he would rather have died than let that on to Detweiler, and presented them with an air of casual munificence, then waved, saying nothing.

  Detweiler ate a plate of scrambled eggs which to anyone else might have resembled a boiled pigskin glove, and a cairn of french fries more grease than potato, but he thought them very good indeed, and said as much to the girl cashier as he paid the check. In his habitual enjoyment of the moment, Detweiler had forgotten again about Betty. He had also momentarily forgotten about Realization. When he noticed the cashier’s full breasts, however, and was conscious of an acute urge to take one in each hand with the nipples between index and third fingers, he remembered why he was going to another town: to find a doctor who would mutilate him. He assumed it would be easy to arrange that elsewhere, in a city with different customs.

  But he was weak, so terribly weak. He could not help himself. He accepted his change and leaning towards the cashier, he said fervently: “I would like to make love to you.”

  A sullen, stupid, white-faced, black-haired, urban girl, she short-circuited her change machine and an avalanche of quarters clattered down the chute, overrunning the collection basin. With the fence of his hands Detweiler stopped those coins which would otherwise have rolled off the counter. He returned them to the girl, who gazed tenderly at him in total acquiescence. She astonished herself; she generally reacted with pseudo-hatred to any evidence of male admiration.

  Detweiler, however, seemed genuinely to need her: she was urgently required!

  But then for him a sense of duty intervened. Detweiler reached across and touched her wrist, applying no pressure, yet it seemed as though she were in the grip of high authority, a principal in affairs of magnitude.

  “However,” he said, “I have to go away.”

  Dumbly she nodded, nobly restraining her grief though the loss was major. No sooner had Detweiler vanished, however, than she took him as the product of a hallucination. A short blond man had stood there all right, and said something, but not that.

  The girl hired by Harry Clegg to ingratiate herself with Andrew Starr looked incessantly for work in the theater, but when unemployed as a Thespian she would for payment allow a man, often a total stranger, to caress her intimately and eventually thrust himself inside one of her body openings. Her ego was of sufficient strength to admit that this behavior added up to prostitution.

  Clegg now and again called her number when he wanted to oblige someone so as to get a story out of him, as now. Which made Harry as much of a pimp as it made Lois a whore. There was no sexual attraction on either side.

  Dilworth, however, was new to Lois; and as she arrived at the room the reporters had taken just across the hallway from Starr’s, she assumed Dill was the trick and showed him the smile that would have been commonplace and unevocative in any other context. This is all Lois ever did by way of initiative. She would not voluntarily touch a customer in or out of bed. And if a man took her hand and put it on him, she withdrew; a second time, and she threatened to call off the game. Oddly, this treatment usually seemed to aggravate-the man’s passion, sometimes to the point of prematurity. Which was all to be desired by Lois. Whatever the nature of the discharge, her obligation ended with it.

  Harry said: “Our guy’s across in four-twelve.” Generally he preferred to tell Lois as little as possible about the client, but in this case he believed she would recognize Starr, whose picture had been run in every paper with the first story on the murders.

  “‘Old man Starr?’” repeated Lois with a wince of nonrecognition. “Who is that supposed to be?”

  Lois always managed to amuse Harry. “You don’t read the paper you free-lance for?” he asked, almost affectionately.

  Dilworth was intrigued by hookers, with whom however he did not consort. From boyhood to the present day, he had never lost his capacity to be enchanted by a reminder of the existence of women to whom one could do anything with impunity. It was wrong for a man to force his attentions on a respectable woman, but if she was a whore, no holds were barred. She was as a criminal to a cop, or public buildings to a revolutionary, or a fire-ravaged department store to a mob of looters. Anything went. Absolute freedom. Dill’s fascination was philosophical, not physical.

  “All right,” Lois said wearily. “I give up.” She had ignored Dilworth after learning he was not the customer. She listened languidly to Harry, and said: “Murders? I glanced at the headlines, but I never read that sort of story. I suppose something is lacking in me. If a fire truck rushes by, siren wailing, I never have the impulse to turn around and watch where it goes.”

  Dilworth was interested: a reflective tart—though perhaps they all were.

  Lois went on: “I feel instinctively apart from the herd. It is a constitutional thing.”

  Dill spoke: “You abhor violence?”

  She turned suspiciously to Clegg. “Does this Starr want to be dumped? I don’t do that, and you know it.”

  Dilworth couldn’t get over how banally Lois was dressed: a black suit, with some lint on it; white beads like blanched almonds; small hat. Perhaps she was striking when naked.

  Harry laughed again, exposing his carnivorous front teeth. “No, he won’t want to be whipped. Mr. Starr is a distinguished gentleman of the old school. You can certainly handle him.”

  Lois hated Clegg’s entrails for always going out of his way to treat her as a prostitute—for example, not introducing this other man—but until she became better established as an actress she could not afford to lose the work he got her. He had also promised to introduce her one day to his colleague on the paper, the drama critic C. John Blackmeyer.

  “Don’t worry,” said Harry, still laughing hatefully. “He’s a physical wreck…. Now, here’s what we want you to do—”

  “We?” Lois asked stubbornly.

  “Dill and I.”

  Lois shook hands with the surprised Dilworth. “How do you do, Mr. Dill. I am Lois Fern.”

  Her hand felt like a lettuce leaf: so cool, crisp, weightless, nonfleshly. Unwhorelike, she had given her last name.

  Dill pronounced the full version of his own.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not at all,” said he. “You didn’t know it.” They both stared contemptuously at Harry, and Dill felt himself falling in love.

  Harry was oblivious to all of this, saying: “Get him to talk, get him to boast. Men sometime
s let things out in intimate moments with women that they wouldn’t otherwise.”

  “What kind of things?” asked Lois, wondering whether she needed the money this badly.

  It then occurred to Harry, as it had not before, that to tell Lois of his theory that Starr was the murderer might not be the best preparation for her encounter with the slob.

  So he said merely: “We think he has some connection with the crime, though he himself is a harmless old codger. Knows more than he has told the police. His wife was screwing the boarder, and God knows who was shoving it to Billie Starr—”

  Lois turned towards the door. “I don’t have to listen to your foul mouth,” she said. “This is a business arrangement and if you can’t conduct yourself in a gentlemanly manner…” She was authentically offended, almost to the point of tears.

  This uppity demonstration by a hooker infuriated Harry, but in the interests of the project he held his peace. He said harshly: “Try to get him to talk about the case. That’s your job. Remember anything he says, no matter if it seems insignificant to you. As incentive I’ll double the fee if you come up with anything useful.”

  “O.K.,” said Lois, “but in case I don’t, I want my usual right now.” She reached. To avoid the wretched scene, Dilworth looked at the hotel-painting over the nearest lamp: of course a sailboat in white water, broad mat, silver frame.

  Lois counted the money, found it five short; some acrimony ensued, and Harry finally handed her another bill.

  “Did you say four-twelve?” Lois asked Harry.

  “He’s expecting you.” As she opened the door Harry looked as if he might shout something rottenly ironic like “Have fun,” but in fact he turned and went into the toilet.

  Dilworth sat down at the writing table and through its glass top read room service’s catalogue of light provender and beverages.

  When Harry came out, Dill expected him to abuse Lois after their obviously abrasive encounter, but Clegg did not.

  “She’s a reliable kid,” Harry said instead, grunting in satisfaction. “She’ll get something out of him, you’ll see.” His head was soaked; he had water-combed it in the bathroom, and it was the kind of fair hair that turned green when wet. He suggested they call room service for beer and club sandwiches, or, for that matter, complete dinner: it was getting on to that time of day.

  So Dill did as much and hardly had he lowered the telephone than a rap sounded upon the door. Nearer it than Harry, he went to answer and found Lois upon the threshold. She seemed dazed.

  Harry cried: “Didn’t he let you in? Sure you tried the right door? Four-twelve. Maybe he’s in the crapper.”

  Choosing the chair Dill had vacated, Lois sat down precisely, like a little old lady.

  “Hey-hey-hey!” protested Harry.

  She said slowly, gravely: “I have seen some weirdies, but nothing to compare.”

  It was Dilworth who asked: “What did he want you to do?” He spoke without thinking; he did not wish to hear; he was prepared to shout hysterically to drown her out.

  Lois said: “I’d almost rather do it than tell you about it.” Her face was bland as nougat.

  Harry had blood in his eye. “God damn you,” he said. “You don’t perform, you return the money. Who’s a whore to get high and mighty? How many ways are there to take a dick?” He revolved once in pure rage, necktie flying, then advanced on her.

  Dill said: “Hold it, Harry.”

  Harry glared at him in astonishment, not anger.

  Behind this confrontation, Lois said: “He wanted me to pee on him.” She then put the unearned money on the writing table. When, looking over Dill’s shoulder, Harry saw that, he instantly lost all hostility and became simply bored. “Get the hell out of here,” said he.

  Dill offered to take Lois home.

  Harry paid no further attention to either of them. He thought vigorously for a moment, then crossed the hall to 412, the door of which was ajar.

  Fully dressed, Starr sat on the far bed in the same benumbed state as Lois. He blinked wistfully at Harry’s greeting.

  Harry said: “Look, Andy, I know you’ve been under pressure.”

  “Sright,” Starr answered hoarsely.

  “So let’s have a few drinks and hit the sack early. We’ll get a fresh start tomorrow. O.K.?”

  Starr nodded as if in the grip of palsy, squeaked gratefully, and Harry called room service to send up a couple of quarts of rye. His plan was this: to encourage Starr to drink himself into insensibility again, and then to interrogate him, to say certain provocative things into his ear that might touch off, as under hypnosis, some drunken, sleep-talking response.

  Harry by now had not the slightest interest in the series of articles he and Dilworth were supposed to write: he wanted only to get a confession out of Starr. Yet he was still a responsible newspaperman. He made the reverse trip across the hall, to ask Dill to go ahead and fake the first installment. They just might be able to get away with it: an overblown description of what met the father’s eyes as he arrived at the apartment on Christmas Eve, maudlin reminiscences of how he had held Billie in his arms as a baby, et bullshit cetera, a kind of introduction to gain time.

  But Dilworth was no longer in the room; he had been in earnest, then, about taking the whore home. Harry could not figure him out. He was fairly certain Dill did not want to lay her, which surely he could have done more conveniently in the hotel room than anywhere else, unless he would have been embarrassed to have Harry know. But if that were his concern he would not openly have gone off with her now. Harry could see no professional reason for Dill’s further association with Lois, and still less any personal motive. After all, he had been opposed to calling her in the first place.

  The room-service waiter showed up with the beer and club sandwiches. Being in good appetite and thirst, Harry engorged Dill’s share as well as his own.

  Chapter 7

  “YES,” SAID BETTY. She had changed from the bereaved daughter and sister Tierney had interviewed on Christmas Eve. Something had been done to her hair, by a professional in those matters, that tended to rigidify her head by exposing the ears. She had also developed a cynicism, an edge to her voice.

  “Yes,” she said, using the word as a negative, “I saw in the paper that you were looking for Joe.”

  They were in the sitting room of the hotel suite. Arthur had gone down to the barbershop. Betty had thought Tierney attractive on Christmas Eve, but it was true she had then been distraught. She could see now that he had no expanse of heart or mind: detectives after all were merely a sort of policemen.

  Tierney observed that she had not mentioned Detweiler when he asked her about the other boarders.

  “Which should prove something,” said Betty. “He’s the last person I would think of in connection with anything horrible.” She gave Tierney a keen, poignant look; that is, she produced such a look for whoever was there to witness it, and it happened to be he; it was not for him in any personal sense.

  Betty wanted to talk about knowing Detweiler, how he was in love with her, how she had broken his heart. Yet her taste told her to suppress these data, and that decision was confirmed by her intelligence. She did not want to get Joe into trouble. He could not have committed the crimes, but he was a weak and confused person and, if badgered by policemen with their routine theories about rejected lovers, might strike a self-damaging attitude. He was sensitive to a fault. Betty liked him a lot, but as a type of brother.

  “Do you know where Detweiler is at the present time?”

  “No.”

  “Where he might be?”

  “No.”

  “Has he got in touch with you recently?”

  “Huh-uh.”

  “When was the last time?”

  Betty was most reluctant to break the negative progression; it gratified her to deny Tierney. “Oh I don’t recall,” she said almost spitefully. “Joe didn’t do anything. He’s a dreamer.”

  “Seen him since you were marri
ed?”

  “Definitely no.”

  Tierney asked: “Were you lovers?”

  To an American cop this meant did they hold hands and go to the movies together. To Betty, who read certain novels, the term signified a couple whose sexual organs regularly met. Once more she was entitled to say no.

  Arthur returned from the barbershop, smelling of talc and lotion but looking the same: he had merely a light trim, costing him plenty nevertheless, and he did not have the nerve to put it on the tab that the newspaper would pay. It bothered him that the paper should provide his room and board; Betty’s, all right, but he was doing nothing for his. He was a moralist of the old school.

  He greeted Tierney, and the detective responded by asking about Joseph Detweiler.

  “A nice guy,” Arthur said. “An awfully nice guy.”

  “Did either of you,” Tierney asked, “ever see Detweiler do anything violent or show any tendency toward violence?”

  Arthur was flattered by being included in, but he had to admit that he had really seen so little of Det—

  “Certainly not,” Betty said with some heat. “You’re completely on the wrong track. I don’t think Joe would slap a mosquito that was sucking his blood.”

  “How did he get along with your mother?”

  “I’ll just say this,” said Betty, “with all it implies: he called her Mom. He was a real member of the family.”