The Nothing Man

by Jim Thompson

  “Shocking. Inexcusable. Very bad management, Randall.”

  Dave took it, squirming and sweating and trying to protest. Finally he escaped—rather he was called out to the desk—and I had a chance to work.

  “Obviously” (and let us put that obviously in quotes) the two murders—Ellen’s and Deborah’s—had been committed by the same person. The poems “established” that fact. Certainly two such poems in the possession of two mysteriously murdered women could not be mere coincidence. The man hated them—the hard murderous hate shone through the lines—so…

  I bore down on the poems so heavily that I almost believed what I said.

  “But I don’t need to explain all this to you, sir,” I said. “You felt that the colonel needed a good jacking up and you took this opportunity of delivering it—of making him sweat a little, if you’ll excuse the expression. But you can see that Judge couldn’t be guilty. He was in jail at the time of the second murder; therefore he couldn’t possibly be guilty of either one.…That’s your opinion, isn’t it, sir? I’ve stated your own thoughts correctly? You feel that Judge—the Courier—is in no way involved in this scandal?”

  It was, it appeared, exactly the way he felt. I had stated his own thoughts perfectly, and he complimented me on my astuteness.

  “Very—uh—shrewd of you, Brown. Couldn’t have put the matter more clearly myself. But this—this Chasen woman—”

  “I was coming to that, sir. When you call Detective Stukey about Judge—You were going to do that right away, I suppose? After all, a Courier man shouldn’t—”

  “Certainly!” he snapped. “Demand his immediate release! Can’t think what the police department is coming to to make such a ghastly error.”

  “Well,” I went on, “I was thinking you might clarify Mrs. Chasen’s position while you were talking to Stukey. We have our duty to the public, sir. We can’t allow baseless rumors to get into circulation. As I see it—regardless of her claims—Mrs. Chasen was not a friend. She was not even an acquaintance, in the accepted sense of the term. It seems to me, sir, that she was merely another visitor to the building, one of the many sight-seers who come here yearly to—”

  “Exactly! That’s exactly the case, Mr. Brown. Don’t know why I—uh—I’ll call Stukey immediately.”

  He called, and Stukey was far from pleased, from what I could gather. But he didn’t have any evidence against Tom, and he hadn’t been able to make him talk. And there was no small amount of logic in “Lovelace’s” opinion about the connection between the two murders. Moreover—most important, of course, was the fact that Lovelace was Lovelace. You didn’t say no to him if you could avoid it.

  Stukey had no grounds for avoiding it.

  So Tom was promptly released…and fired almost as promptly. Just as soon as he could be reached by phone. He’d not been a very good worker to begin with, and now he’d had the bad judgment to get himself arrested. And—

  But we don’t need to go this fast. We can slow down a little now.

  I talked a while longer, “restating” Mr. Lovelace’s thoughts for him. He frowned a trifle, but he was forced to admit that I had voiced them perfectly.

  “Uh—yes. Must be done, I suppose. Public duty and all. Of course, the murderer may have left the city—”

  “I’m positive he hasn’t,” I said. “As sure as I’m sitting here, sir, he’s still in town.”

  “Yes—uh—probably. Doubtless. Have to get him, eh? See that this Stukey fellow—uh—keeps out the—uh—dragnet. Continues the clean-up. Right?”

  I told him his mind worked like a steel trap. “I don’t know how you do it, sir. I mean, see right through to the point of things.”

  “You think—ahem—you really think I do, Mr. Brown?”

  “Like a steel trap,” I repeated firmly.…

  Dave was just heading for Lovelace’s office as I came out, and I thought he appeared somewhat chagrined when he learned that everything had been settled without him. Along with the chagrin, however, was considerable relief at getting the old man off his neck. And he seemed pleased at the latter’s instructions to fire Tom Judge.

  “I should have done it long ago.” He nodded. “Just didn’t have the heart. Now it’s out of my hands.”

  I started toward my desk. He touched me on the arm. “By the way, Brownie. You spent the better part of a day with Mrs. Chasen.…”

  “You’re right,” I said. “It all comes back to me now that you mention it.”

  “I’m not trying to pry, but—you thought quite a bit of her, didn’t you? I got the impression that you were pretty annoyed with Lovelace’s references to her.”

  “I loved her, Colonel,” I said. “Her image is permanently graven on my heart. I could have gone for her in a large way—if, unfortunately, I had not lacked certain essential equipment.”

  He winced, managed a sympathetic smile. “Well, we’ll put someone else on this one. You keep out of the office today—go out to the Fort. They’re having maneuvers with a lot of VIPs present. You phone in the story—maybe an interview or two if it’s convenient—and don’t show back here until tomorrow.”

  I was startled almost to the point of speechlessness. My absence would leave the office seriously undermanned, and Stukey would certainly want to talk to me. To send me off for the day on a relatively unimportant story was virtually idiocy. Or something.

  “You go on,” Dave repeated firmly, in answer to my puzzled mumblings. “I’ve got a guy coming in—used to work on the labor rag here before it folded—and Stukey can wait. He won’t know what the hell to do, anyway, and I can probably give him about as much dope on Mrs. Chasen as you can.”

  “But, Colonel—” I stared at him, frowning, still too stunned for proper speech. “I—I don’t believe—”

  “I don’t want Stukey bothering you. That’s one reason I’m getting you out of here. Now, go on and take it easy and—and, look. How about that dinner tonight? Come on out to the house about six, huh?”

  I said I would. I wanted to talk to the colonel, outside of the office with its many interruptions. There was a terrible price attached to the privilege, but I believed it would be worth it. Broadly speaking, of course. In actuality, there was no proper compensation for the torture of an evening with Kay Randall.

  I drove out to the Fort, leisurely, wondering how, if I ever found the opportunity, I should polish Kay off. The most appropriate way, I felt, would be to hit her with a father. She always called Dave “father” and I think that any wife under sixty who does that should be hit with one.

  Again—and this would be especially fitting—she might be drowned in mayonnaise. Kay cooked with mayonnaise; it was her rod and her staff, kitchen-wise. Mayonnaise was to Kay as can opener is to Newlywed. I felt reasonably sure that she had whole hogsheads of the stuff concealed in the cellar. If one could surprise her at just the right moment—catch her while she was dipping out a couple of ten-gallon pails for the evening meal—well…

  But probably she had become immune to it; probably she could breathe in it as a fish breathes in water. In any event there were other ways, and all very pleasant to contemplate.

  One might ash tray her to death, for example. You could place her at the end of a vast room while you sat at the other end. And you would be equipped with unlimited cigarettes and a thimble-size ash tray, and she with a pair of binoculars. Then…well, perhaps your own experience will allow you to imagine the rest. Driven by an insane urge, Kay would have to empty the tray each time you dropped a speck of ash in it. And each time, before returning to her post, she would have to give you a bright little smile and say, “My! You do smoke a lot, don’t you?” As soon as she returned to her post, of course, you would drop ashes again and Kay would…

  No. No, it was nice to think about, but it would never work. Kay had been in training too long. There might be ways of running her to death, but you could never do it with the ash-tray routine.

  Probably no one method would be adequate to disp
ose of her, for that matter. You would have to use a combination of all available means. You might, say, join the several hundred doilies and antimacassars in the living-room into a sack, fill it with mayonnaise, and tie it over Kay’s head. Then you could remove her shoes and start dropping ashes on her feet, and Kay—

  Hell.

  To hell with Kay. How could I think of Kay when Deborah—

  But I couldn’t think about Deborah either. I was afraid to think about her.…

  I arrived at the Fort and repaired to the public-relations office. Except for brief intervals, I stayed there until quitting time, sprawled out on a lounge within reaching distance of the bar.

  The story wasn’t worth my time. The p.r. men could cover it better than I could, and I felt that they should. P.r. men don’t work enough. They are always pushing you to take a story, and when you agree they let it slide and come at you with something else. They will give you pictures, yes, possibly some you can use if you are real hard up. They will set up interviews, yes, possibly with someone quite well known in his own neighborhood. But stories, no. They can talk story, but they can never give you one. Some strange psychological quirk keeps them from carrying through.

  However, I got them to work, and they produced a fairly good story on the maneuvers as well as two interviews with the VIPs.

  “You can do it, men,” I said as I swung open the doors of the bar. “You have lingered in the nest too long, and now you must fly. Begone, and do not return without you-know-what. Otherwise, no word anent this occasion shall creep into the Courier and your asses shall be ashes.”

  It was what they needed—firm words and a steely eye. They tottered away, nervous but determined, and they returned triumphant. I called their stuff in to the desk.

  At three o’clock I sent in some pictures for overnight and knocked off. I went home and cleaned up, taking no more time about it than I had to. Then I went to a bar and stayed until a quarter of six, when I started for Dave’s house.

  Until the last six months or so, they had been living in a comfortable apartment at a surprisingly reasonable rental. But Kay had wanted “a little place of their very own,” so they had got this thing. It was little, all right, all bright new paint and shiny doorknobs—and rooms approximately the size of packing crates. But it was a very long way from being theirs. By the time Dave paid off the mortgage, his two “kiddies”—four and six—would be well past the voting age.

  Kay knew that I wanted to see the “little ones,” so I was taken in for a look immediately. And that I could have done without.

  The little boy, the oldest, had said a naughty word, it seemed, and the little girl had repeated it after him. Kay beamed down at them primly, commanding them to confess their evil to me.

  They confessed, sniffling and rubbing their eyes.

  “And Mother had to punish you, didn’t she? She had to wash your mouths out with soap.”

  They admitted it. Also that poor mother had been hurt by the punishment much worse than they.

  Well, the poor little devils had got one break anyway. They’d been put to bed without any dinner.

  We left, and Kay led me up the hall to the bathroom where she was sure I wanted to wash my hands.

  “Just my mind,” I said. “I’ve been thinking some naughty thoughts.”

  “Oh, you! You’re so funny, Clint!” She laughed. And her eyes said, The hell you are, bud!

  We went into the living-room. Kay produced two hand-cut glasses and a bottle of sixty-cent sherry, and gave Dave and me a drink. She waited, standing, poised to snatch the glasses from our hands the moment we were finished.

  We did and she did, and dinner was served.

  It was mayonnaise and something else, something I couldn’t immediately identify. It was served on individual plates of Haviland china.

  “Well, Father?” Kay smiled at Dave, firmly. “How do you like it?”

  Dave mumbled that it was very good, slanting an apologetic glance at me. “Afraid we should have given you something else, Brownie. You’d probably have preferred a steak.”

  “Oh, of course, he wouldn’t!” Kay laughed. “Clinton can eat steak any time.…How do you like it, Clint?”

  “I’d like to have the recipe,” I said. “I don’t believe I’ve ever eaten rubber gloves prepared in quite this way.”

  Her eyes flashed, but she went right on laughing. She was a laughing little woman, this Kay. A joyous little mother.

  “Silly! You can’t tease me, Clinton Brown. It’s iced frankfurters in hot mayonnaise-parsnip ring.”

  “No!” I said. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Mmmm-hmmm. That’s what it is.”

  “Clint—” Dave frowned. “If you don’t—”

  “Now you just leave Clinton alone, Father. He can speak for himself.”

  “It’s wonderful,” I said. “I don’t know how you do it, Kay.”

  She wasn’t kidding me any. Not a goddamned bit. There couldn’t be such a thing as iced frankfurters in hot mayonnaise-parsnip ring. This was just what I’d thought: rubber gloves in hand lotion with chopped sponge dressing.

  I ate quite a bit of the stuff. I’d had almost nothing to eat since Deborah—since the day before, and I was hungry. It was going to make me sick—I could feel the sickness coming on—but I went ahead and ate.

  Kay brought coffee (an unreasonable facsimile thereof, I should say) and something called Marshmallow Grape Surprise. I wasn’t up to any further surprise, nor was Dave apparently, so she ate her dessert alone.

  “Oh, Clinton!” she said, lapping up the last bite of the mess. “You didn’t get our flowers, did you? I mean, the ones we sent to the funeral.”

  “Kay—” Dave squirmed.

  “Now, Father. I just asked Clinton a simple question. I know he couldn’t have got them. We didn’t get any card of acknowledgment.”

  She smiled at me, wide-eyed. I said I couldn’t understand why she hadn’t got the card. “I sent it registered mail,” I said. “Registered with return receipt requested.”

  “Y-You”—she stammered—“you did?”

  “Are you sure the kiddies didn’t get hold of it?” I said. “They might have mistaken it for a naughty picture.”

  “Clint—” said Dave.

  I was getting tired. Tired and damned sick.

  “I got the flowers,” I said, “and thank you very, very much. Thank you for all your kindness, Kay. Incidentally, I hope you weren’t disturbed when the police called here that night. I could never forgive myself if you were.”

  “The police?” Kay looked blank. “The police didn’t call here.”

  “A man named Stukey. He called here trying to locate me.”

  “Not here, he didn’t. I was home all—Oh!” Her face cleared. “Father was at the Chamber of Commerce banquet that night. The answering service must have referred the call there.”

  “Answering service?” I looked at Dave. “I thought—”

  “Mmmm-hmmm,” said Kay. “It’s awfully convenient for Father when he has to be away from home at night. He just gives them the number of the place where he’ll be and they call there direct. Just as though it were his own number. I mean, when this number is dialed they automatically call the other—”

  “Very interesting. But suppose it was someone who wanted to talk to you?”

  “Oh, I never take any calls in the evening! All my acquaintances know that. I keep my evenings free for Father and the kiddies.”

  That figured, all right. She could give her undivided attention to making them miserable.

  “Of course, it’s one more expense and I—well—” She sighed bravely. “Goodness knows we don’t have a penny to spare. It seems we’re always having company, and.…Well, anyway, I feel that it just can’t be avoided with Father away so much. Let’s see, where did you have to go last night, Father? The Rotary Club, wasn’t it?”

  “Uh—yes,” Dave muttered, and he lifted his coffee cup.

  His hand trembled. Hi
s eyes wouldn’t meet mine.

  There’d been no Rotary Club meeting last night. There’d been no Chamber of Commerce banquet on the night that Ellen was killed.

  I pushed back my chair and stood up.

  “I’m going to have to go,” I said. “I’m—I don’t feel very well.”

  “Oh, no, you’re not!” Kay cried gaily. “We’re going to keep him right here, aren’t we, Father? We’re going to keep this big, bad ol’ Clinty right here where we can—”

  “Sorry,” I said, “and thanks for the dinner. I have to go.”

  I started to turn away from the table. She jumped up and flung her arms around me from the rear, hugging me around the waist.

  “Help me, Father! You know what he wants to do. He’s going off to some dirty ol’ bar, and—”

  I brought an elbow back suddenly. She grunted and reeled backward, batting her fat little head against the wall.

  “F-Father,” she whimpered. “H-He—he!”

  “I saw it.” Dave was looking at me at last, very white around the mouth. “Get out, Clint. I’ve put with…I’ve tried to—to—Get out!”

  “Out of your house, Father?” I said. “Out of your life? Out of your journalistic sphere? Could you possibly mean that I am fired, Colonel?”

  “Clint! I’m asking you to—”

  “I thought you were telling me,” I said. “Am I fired, Colonel?”

  “Yes!” he yelled. “Yes! Now—get—out!”

  I got out. I couldn’t have stayed another minute if I’d been paid to.

  I headed for the car, half-doubled over, a thousand hot knives twisting in my stomach. I started vomiting, and I am an old hand at that game, a charter member of the Heave-It League, but this was in a class by itself.

  I drove homeward, my head necessarily out the window all the way, and I was going as strong when I got there as when I had started. There wasn’t anything in me, but the heaving went right on.