by Ed Lacy
Double-checking my appearance, I drove toward Newark.
I reached the store by eight and of course it was shut. I'd made my first mistake—had a half hour to wait; I felt certain I had screwed myself up. I suddenly got the jitters, told myself the smart thing would be to go home, try again tomorrow....
But I was on top of the killing now, and tomorrow might be too late. I drove around and when I came past the store again it was 8:30 and the damn place was still shut. But some of the other stores were open.
I parked the car and waited—praying I didn't get the runs now.
At a quarter to nine I got out and strolled past the store. He'd just opened, was standing behind the counter, his hat and coat still on, reading the mail.
A few people were on the street. I didn't see any cops.
I waited, my knees doing a little dance. I waited and waited... then I boldly walked in, walking like a man on his way to the chair; wanting to get things over.
Mac gave me a practiced smile as he said, “Good morning. What can I do for you?”
He ran his eyes over my cheap clothes and his expression said I wasn't going to be much of a customer, even to break the ice for the day.
“You got lockets?” I heard my voice as if speaking from another world. I was talking with what I thought was an Italian accent. I don't know why I chose to be an Italian... put it on them.
“Yes, sir, a store full. About how much do you plan to spend?”
I was standing directly in front of him as I yanked out the Luger, my body hiding the gun from anybody in the street. “This is a stick-up!” I said hoarsely. “Keep your mitts on the counter—not up in the air! Keep still and you won't get hurt!”
“Of course,” he said, biting off the words, his whole face ashen. “A-all the money I-I have is in the cash register. Please don't h-hurt me.”
“Move over—with me—to the register.”
We both sidestepped toward the .cash register, moving like an awkward dance team. I motioned with the gun, “Open it!”
He pressed the button and the drawer shot open, making me jump. I took up a handful of bills with my left hand, asked for his wallet. I stuffed the money and wallet into my left pocket.
There was a tray of costume jewelry on the counter, I scooped that up, put the junk in my pockets. I told him, “Mister, don't call nobody for ten minutes. You hear, mister?”
“Y-yes.”
He was less than two feet from me and I had the Luger pointed at his heart. My own heart was beating like a hammer as I pulled the trigger....
... A tiny tear, a slit that became a hole, appeared in his coat. That was all.
Shocked surprise swept his face as he staggered a step backwards, eyes wide with disbelief... then he slowly and quietly slipped under the counter.
For a second the shop was still, then it seemed to be ringing with the thunder of the shot, the sound smothering me. Jamming the gun in my pocket, I walked out—forcing myself not to run.
The street looked normal. Two men were standing in the doorway of a haberdashery, three stores away, chewing the fat. They glanced at me as I passed, but that was all. There wasn't any sound of the gun on the street. I kept my hands out of my pockets, away from the security-feeling of the gun, as I turned the corner, got into my car and drove—smack into a red light!
The tension was terrible. I wanted to scream, yell my lungs out... having to sit in the car not thirty feet from his store. I looked about with a trapped feeling, noticed a parcel-post truck parked on the opposite side of the street. If they had a package for Mac... they'd find the body in a few minutes... maybe a few seconds... with the damn red light on, me sitting there, waiting for...
When the welcome green came on I drove away, forcing myself to drive at twenty per. I spat the cotton wad out of my mouth, took the plug from my nose, the wart off my cheek.
Glancing at the steering wheel I almost fainted—I didn't have any glove on my right hand!
Frantically I dug into my pockets for the other glove. It wasn't... then I saw it on the seat beside me. That was a relief... if I'd dropped it in the store.... But damn, I must have forgotten to put it on! They'd find fingerprints... store'd be lousy with prints! I tried to convince myself I hadn't touched anything with my right hand—only had used my gloved left... But had I?
I reached the highway, expecting to hear sirens following me any second, my brain in agony as I tried to recall every movement I'd made in the store. Did I push the door open with my right hand? Leave prints that could be easily checked with my army record? No, the door had been open... I think it was open... I'm almost sure it was open.
How about the counter... did I put my right hand on that? That goddamned ungloved right hand!... Maybe, but I had the right hand around the gun.... Yeah, I had my right hand in my pocket, all the time, holding the gun. No need to worry, my right hand was... But was it?... Oh Christ, had I left any prints...?
Turning off the road, I drove into the wooded area again and shut off the motor. I was sweating like a pig, with my padded suit on. For a second I studied the trees, the bushes, then quickly undressed, stuffed the clothes into two paper bags. The costume jewelry fell out of the pockets and I tossed that into the grass. I had taken thirty-three dollars from his cash register, and there was another fifteen bucks in his wallet. I shoved the money and wallet in my back pocket, put the gun and the freight hook under the car seat. I washed my hair, soaping it good. The dye came right off and I dried it with my shirt, then went to work on the car. It took more time than I expected to wash the paint off the fender. I should have had more water, but I finally got the blue off.
Driving toward the tunnel, I threw the water can away, tried to keep my thoughts clear, my mind sharp... and all I could think about was those lousy fingerprints I might have left.
A motorcycle cop passed me and I nearly blacked out. But he didn't stop and at exactly 9:32 I came out of the tunnel and headed cross-town for the 59th Street Bridge. Stopping for a red light, I got out and shoved one of the bags with my clothes under the other paper bags of garbage in a corner wire basket.
Going up Second Avenue, I passed a garbage truck, asked if it was okay to throw in some junk and one of the men said sure and it was a relief to see the bag disappear under the metal scoop, as though the truck had digested it.
I was beginning to breathe easy once more, although the idea of fingerprints kept hammering at my brain. When I stopped for a light at the entrance to the bridge, a beefy traffic cop jerked his finger at me and I nearly screamed. He took a few steps toward me, said, “Hey, wash up them plates, next chance you get, bud.”
I said yes sir and drove on, and when I got across the bridge I took out a handkerchief and dampened it with my sweat and cleaned the license plates. When I hit the parkway, I put the gas pedal down. I went past Sandyhook, cut across to the ocean—stopped for a moment to throw the baling hook into the waves—then came back toward the house, avoiding the village. It seemed to me I didn't pass anyone. It was 11:00 and most people would be at work, or still in the house.
Taking the gun, I went into our place, walking softly. Everything was quiet, Elma was still asleep. I quickly stripped, hid the gun and the wallet in my studio, climbed into bed. To my surprise, I fell into a sound sleep at once, as if I'd suddenly let myself fall off into space.
I had a nightmare.
I was back in the store, only this time everything went wrong. I saw the entire scene through a sort of web, which seemed to glow with a red neon brilliance. Then Mac was laughing at me like an idiot, suddenly yanked out a gun and poured bullets into me. The slugs didn't seem to hurt. An electric alarm shrilled through the store and as I turned to run, I found myself in the arms of a giant cop, who held me fast while Mac ripped off the mole, the padded clothing, and kept roaring with laughter. Then he pointed to the neon web and I suddenly knew what that was—a huge fingerprint. The cop began beating me over the head with his billy...
I awoke with a st
art: sweating badly. Elma was moaning. When I asked how she felt she said, “Very nauseous.”
“Now take it easy. Want the doctor?”
She nodded.
It was one in the afternoon: my alibi was perfect. As I dressed I suggested maybe she was just hungry, but the very mention of food made her pale. I called the doc, helped Elma with the bedpan, then went over to see if Alice was around—she seemed to have a soothing effect on Elma.
She was standing in the doorway as I came up the path. I had the gun hidden behind my back. She stared at me curiously as I came up to her.
“Lousy mosquitoes kept biting me all night,” I said, scratching myself, keeping the gun out of sight. Her face broke into a smile, “Same trouble myself, Marsh. How's Elma?”
“Not so hot. Why don't you run over for a while?” She said sure and as soon as she went over to the house, I cleaned the Luger with an improvised ramrod and patch and lighter fluid, slipped it back in Tony's drawer.
The murder seemed like something that had happened ages ago. Even the fingerprints didn't worry me; somehow I was certain I had my right hand on the gun all the time.
Back in the house, Alice was giving Elma the latest village gossip. I tried to eat but vomited. A slug of whisky stayed down, warmed my guts.
The doctor spent a long time with Elma. Alice and I sat in the kitchen and Alice said, “I'm worried, she really looks sick today.”
“Damn, she starts throwing up... that will be it.”
“The chemistry of the body is certainly an odd thing. We...”
The doc came into the kitchen, his wrinkled face worried. He said, “I gave her an injection of vitamins. Can't understand what she's worrying about. Doesn't seem afraid of birth...”
“She's worse?”
“Hard to say. Jameson, you and your wife aren't fighting over anything, are you? Even a very minor incident can upset a woman in her condition. You really want the child, don't you?”
“You don't know how much I want it!” I said, and my voice damn near broke at the thought of how much I wanted Elma to have her baby.... I'd murdered for Elma and the baby!
“Well, nothing more I can do. She must have peace of mind. And you take it easy, too. Sound a little hysterical.”
Elma seemed to grow weaker, more listless as the day wore on. It was a muggy, dreary day, and she was uncomfortable. I washed her down, changed the linen several times to cool her off. Alice and I spent every second with her, playing her favorite records, reading to her, discussing Alice's book... but Elma just lay there as though she no longer cared to live.
When the New York evening papers came on the late train, I read each line, but there wasn't any mention of the killing. It would certainly be in the Newark papers, but I couldn't get them....
Then it hit me—the stupid irony of the whole mess! The crazy joker in the deck that was our life! There wasn't any way I could tell Elma Mac was dead, without exposing myself!
Suppose she worried herself into a miscarriage, even death, before she found out about Mac? I would have become a murderer for no reason, then! It was pretty awful, sitting beside Elma, watching her suffer, and not being able to tell her the reasons for her being sick no longer existed... the baby was all hers, all ours. Yet I had to sit and watch and keep still. The doc said not to give her any more dope that day and her soft, pitiful cries drove me crazy.
I tried to tell her, beg her, to get control of herself. But she would only sob, “You're right, Marsh. It's so unfair to you... my wonderful Marsh. I am trying... really I am, but... but...” and her voice would fall off to a sob again.
The doc called and said he would stop in before he went to bed, so I knew Elma must be real sick. Alice and Tony dropped in after supper, asked me if I'd eaten. I lied that I had. I was half high, what with nibbling at the bottle all day. I went out to buy another fifth and it was a hard shock to realize that I was paying for it with his money.
There wasn't much in his wallet—a driver's license, membership card in a local merchants' association, a Legion card, a memo to pay some bills by the tenth, a couple of blank checks. I went out to the homemade incinerator back of the house, where we burned most of the garbage, spilled a can of lighter fluid over the wallet, carefully burned it.
Alice and Tony left. Elma was staring at the ceiling, without seeing anything. I sat beside her bed like a mourner. A disk jockey was knocking himself out on the radio. It was nearly nine. I'd either have to chance telling Elma— and that would probably kill her—or drive into New York in the morning and get a copy of the Newark papers... if Elma survived the night. And that would look phony, I'd never bought the Newark papers before. But I sure had to do something—murder wasn't enough, it seemed.
I lit my pipe, asked if the smoke bothered her.
“No.”
“This is your favorite brand—real aromatic.**
“Is it? I don't smell it.”
“How about a game of gin?”
“No, dear.”
“Shall I read to you?”
“No.”
The record jockey read a commercial and as the nine o'clock news came on, I tuned in another station for more music. A brittle-voice commentator said, “Now for another crime-doesn't-pay bulletin taken from real life. Today, a Newark businessman, Maxwell Morse, was shot to death in a hold-up. The unknown gunman took a life for fifty dollars in cash and a handful of jewelry....”
I tuned it up loud, asked, “Elma, did you hear...?”
She was sitting up in bed, one hand motioning for me to keep still. Her face seemed to be listening with every pore—a pose I'd love to sketch, put in clay.
“... Later in the afternoon, some children found the cheap jewelry off the main road, where the thug had evidently thrown it away. So a human life was snubbed out for a few dollars and a handful of cheap trinkets, worth less than ten dollars. What price death! And now a news item from Denver tells us of a freak accident in which...”
I cut the radio off. Elma fell back against the pillow, began to cry once more.
I stroked her hair, wanted to shake her. “Elma honey, may sound hard to say this but... well... our troubles are over! The baby is ours, we can be married tomorrow... you're a widow!”
“What a way for poor Mac to die... always hated that store and now...”
“Damn it, the hell with poor Mac! He didn't give a fat damn if you went through hell, worried yourself and the kid into a... Poor Mac, my ass!”
Elma held out her arms and I kissed her wet face as she bawled, “Marsh, don't talk like that. He was such a weakling, and the .world so strong. He never had any of the happiness we've known, and now he's dead and...”
“Baby, don't cry. You heard what the doctor said. You're shaking with sobs.”
“I'm okay, Marsh. Really I am. This is different... I only feel sorry for him, the way he lost out in life.”
And as I held her I realized the difference in her crying. Now it was the sort of abstract tears a person gives out when they see a sad picture, or a puppy run over. I held Elma gently and knew everything was going to work out. I began to cry too... because I was still damn scared.
Elma asked, “Should I call up his mother?”
“Why?”
“She must be sick and...”
“I wouldn't call her now. As you say, she's probably too sick and upset to talk.” And as I listened to my own words, the casual, offhand sound of them, I was surprised at my hardness. For as soon as Elma called his mother, it might be the start of a link between me and the case... the police.
Elma slept soundly that night—without pills. The doc dropped in and we were both in bed. He looked at Elma, said it was a “good sleep.”
I had the same nightmare, only with a corny touch this time. I was running out of the store and a motorcycle cop was chasing me, Mac sitting behind the driver and pointing to me and laughing as he yelled, “Killer I Killer!” Then I ran into a huge spider web and got hung up on it. The web turned out to be my
fingerprint and Mac's pointing finger became a gun barrel and flame spurted from the finger nail and I felt the hot lead tearing through me with horrible pain and I awoke with a short scream, my pillow sweat-wet.
In the morning Elma ate a large breakfast and I managed to keep coffee and toast down—although even that gave me the runs. She decided to call her mother-in-law. I tried to stall her, but there wasn't any way I could talk Elma out of it. She had a long talk with the old woman, who was hysterical most of the time. I held my face next to Elma's, listened in.
