by John Dunning
They walked up the avenue toward West Fifty-sixth. “You go on ahead, Johnny,” she said. “I’ve got to stop at the store and get a few things.”
She was surprised that he didn’t argue. He leaned over and kissed her neck, then went on to the house alone. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was in trouble, and her life would be worth much less if she went in there again.
She needed a weapon, something that would give her at least a fighting chance if it got mean. She found it at once, a man’s straight razor in the shaving section of the drugstore. It was a wicked-looking thing and it gave her the shivers, but she bought it and carried it out in the pocket of her dress, as if what she would do next was never in doubt. She was very afraid now, but she turned into the street and a moment later went into the house.
( ( ( 10 ) ) )
THE manager’s door was open and the radio was playing something drenched in organ music as she came into the hall. The old woman was sitting in a rocker and looked up from her knitting. “There she is!” she said. “Come in here, Brigit! Come rescue me from this mindless drivel.”
They talked for a while and there seemed to be no change in the old woman’s attitude. “Johnny came in, fit to be pickled,” she said. “He ought to be ashamed of himself, drinkin’ like that in the middle of a weekday. What must you be thinkin’ of him?”
“I like him.”
“Do you really?” Annie said, and something in her tone set the warning bells off again. But then the old woman smiled in that motherly way and it seemed all right. “He certainly likes you. He wants you to be happy here. Worries about the bleakness of that little room.”
“It’s fine. When I get a job I’ll buy me a radio.”
“You can use one of mine till you do. Take the little one in the kitchen. I don’t use it much.”
They talked about tonight. Some people were coming, rather late like last night and from out of town. “I could use your help again, beginnin’ around nine.”
“Of course.”
“What’ll you do between now and then?”
A strange question, she thought . . . as if it matters where I’ll be. “Maybe I’ll rest,” she said, “I’m still a little tired. Johnny said we might go out for an early supper.”
“Don’t be countin’ on Johnny. He’s dead to the world right now.”
Upstairs, she sat on the bed with her heart beating hard and a sinking feeling about what she was doing. She lay on the bed and listened to the radio, her fingers wrapped around the razor in her pocket. She thought about Dulaney but avoided Harford on the dial, as if the walls could hear and know who she was by what she listened to.
In a while the beer had its way with her and she fell asleep. Much later she looked at her watch. Seven thirty and no Johnny.
She came out of her sleep planning her escape. She had put her neck on the block and had learned nothing, but maybe she still had time. How close could she cut it before courage became stupidity? She would stick through Annie’s party, and if nothing happened by then, if she hadn’t learned what she’d come for, she would disappear in the middle of the night.
But now came a sudden new fear. What if Johnny’s suspicion had been aroused and he’d called the real Paul Kruger? . . . Whitemarsh, or whatever he was called down in Jersey. Her life wouldn’t be worth a plugged nickel. Whitemarsh might well be on his way right now . . . that creaking floor, those footsteps in the hall . . . any sound or no sound at all might be Whitemarsh, coming to kill her.
The footsteps went past but her heartbeat continued to race.
Did she dare walk out of here now? Just straight down the stairs and make a beeline for the front door. Out in the street she’d be safe. And yet she was so close. Another five minutes with Johnny would tell the tale. Just a name, a hint, some physical characteristic. If they don’t know he’s a killer, maybe they’ll tell me.
It would be a shame to get spooked when another five minutes might tell her everything.
It was almost eight o’clock, time for Jack’s radio show. She didn’t want to be listening if someone should come to her door, but the temptation was too great. She took the little radio into bed with her and pulled up the blanket, like a child defying her mother’s orders. She turned the dial to Harford and found a program of symphony music just ending, a network show coming from Rochester. She felt a sudden new tension and thought, Good luck, sweetheart, as if it mattered. But of course it mattered; she desperately wanted his show to be good. It will be his last program, so let it be something he can remember.
Then it was on and she was caught up in it, hunkered on the sand with those colored troops eighty years ago. The story was vivid even though she could see them doing it, the big studio alive with lights and people and music, Kidd watching from the back wall, Harford from his balcony, and Jack . . . Jordan, for that’s who he was now . . . throwing his cues, down on the floor with his cast. How did he get such polish out of those Negroes who just the other day were so inexperienced? How had he had time to blend Livia’s bombardment so perfectly with Zylla’s score? He is becoming a master, she thought; his show is as smooth and gripping as anything on any network. She listened through the credits and felt a flush of pride. Waited for his name, which trailed the cast, then turned it off and sat in the quiet.
Slowly as she withdrew from it her apprehension returned. The room was dark now, the city’s canyons had made the night come early. Downstairs she could hear voices and new movement. Laughter seemed to come out of the walls, far away but clear, a man laughing loudly at something she would never understand. She heard the sound of a door closing; then, a few minutes later, footsteps.
Someone was coming up for her.
( ( ( 11 ) ) )
TONIGHT the party was smaller: just the two out-of-town men and a few from last night. Johnny appeared suddenly at nine, cold sober with none of the laughing playfulness she had seen in him earlier. The few times he looked at her he seemed angry—not a good sign, she thought, but then Annie had an explanation that made light of it. “It’s not you, Brigit, it’s just that he never liked those two. It’s a personal thing between them. Sometimes it’s like that with strong men and opposing ideas about what to do.”
“Why have them in your house if he doesn’t like them?”
Annie was shocked at such a question. “But they’re our boys, love. They might make John Riordan angry but they’re still two of ours.”
She could hear them swearing through the walls as she came up with the tray. She heard Johnny shout, “That’s a fookin’ lie, Brennan, carry that fookin’ blarney to somebody who’ll swallow it!” She knocked on the door and the oaths died away at once. But rancor remained heavy in the room.
“Here’s some food for you, Brennan,” Johnny said. “You eat hearty and drink up. I won’t have you tellin’ people you don’t get fed at Annie Riordan’s.”
Brennan, a great bear of a man, said, “Annie always takes care of her people, everybody knows that. It’s you that sits over there scowlin’. A man should have a brew at least when people eat under his roof.”
“I’ve had enough beer for one day. But I’ll break a bit of that bread to be sociable.”
Brennan grinned as she poured his beer. “And who might you be?”
“Her name’s Brigit Kelly, and you keep your eyes to yourself.”
Brennan liked the sound of it. “So tell us, Brigit Kelly, how did something so fair as you fall into the hands of an oogly bastard like Riordan?”
“Guess I’m just a lucky girl,” she said, and everyone laughed.
“There’s your answer!” Johnny thundered. Then, to the others, “Next thing you know he’ll be lickin’ her face.”
She looked at Johnny and hoped a playful smile would bring back his spirit. “He hasn’t got his hands on me yet,” she said without turning to Brennan. This drew a loud laugh all around, which became an uproar when she said, “But he’s been so charming, who can tell?”
Johnny
laughed with the rest now, pleased as she sashayed out. In the hall she stood for a moment gathering her wits. Then she was downstairs and the hall was empty; for a moment there was nothing between herself and the front door, and freedom. She walked past Annie’s door and no one called out or tried to stop her as she opened the outer door and walked into the cool city night.
She stood wavering at the top of the steps. No one was after her, it was all in her mind. And yet her inner voice warned her. Keep going, it said, don’t go back in there. But they had let her walk out, proof that her fears were nothing. In his stupor, Johnny Riordan had forgotten what had been said a few hours ago.
And the Paul Kruger business was still there to learn, it was just a question away. The thought made her tremble but she knew she was going to do it because this was what she had come for.
The evening dragged on. Upstairs they haggled and discussed their strategies and the night gave way to the early morning. She came in and picked up the dishes and the trays and she heard some of it. Political rhetoric, skirmish talk, and always the ways and means of getting more money. Brennan had been in Ireland for ten years before the war, and in England off and on. He had done things that had driven him underground, but he was going back as soon as the perilous passage could be arranged. She came in and out and heard fragments, at one point a discussion about explosives and bomb making cut short by her appearance. She picked up the glasses and the pitchers and asked if they wanted any more beer, and soon after that the meeting broke up and they all went off to their different rooms.
Johnny came into the kitchen and sat brooding while she and Annie finished up the chores. “You stop that anger, John,” Annie said. “Brennan may be a bellyacher but you know he’s a good soldier.”
Then it was over, the last mug and plate washed and put away. Annie turned off the lights and went to bed. Johnny took her hand and led her into the hall, toward the stairs that went up to his room. This is it, she thought. How far will I go? How much of me will I let him have?
But he went past his own door. “Let’s go up to the roof where it’s cool.”
“It’s cool on the street. We could sit on the steps.”
“What’s the matter, Brigit, are ye afraid of heights?”
“A little . . .”
“You should be gettin’ over that at your age. Come on, I want to show you something.”
Up to the third floor and out through a window at the far end. They clattered up an iron staircase to the rooftop.
“I love the city at night,” she said, to be saying something.
“It’s very pretty. Come over here near the edge. There’s a little copin’ at the top so it’s perfectly safe.”
“I don’t think I want to get that close, though.”
She took heart when he let go of her hand and went on to the edge alone. He sat on the coping and patted the space beside him. “Come sit here.”
“Johnny, I—”
“Just for a minute. Then we’ll go inside and we’ll see what we see.”
She sat beside him and he put his arm around her, drawing her tight. “This here’s me place,” he said. “It’s where I come when the world’s sittin’ heavy on me shoulders.”
“Is it doing that now?”
“Aye, I’m a troubled man.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Can I help?”
“Sure, since you’re the reason for it.”
He tightened his grip. “Tell me aboot Paul Kruger,” he said, and his hand tightened again.
“Hey, that hurts . . . dammit, that hurts, Johnny.”
“What aboot Paul Kruger? Was I too cockeyed to remember what I heard, or didn’t you say that you knew him well?”
“I said my brother knew him.”
“And what’s your brother’s name?”
She was quick and the name Daniel Kelly sprang to her lips.
“What exactly did Paul Kruger tell your brother Daniel Kelly, Brigit? What did he have to say about me and me mother’s house?”
“Nothing . . . he was just trying to help me get started in New York.”
“I hate to say it, dearie, but that sounds like applesauce.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If you know Paul Kruger, if you know even the first thing aboot him, Brigit, tell me the one thing everybody knows.”
She closed her eyes and tried to lean against him but he tightened his hand on her shoulder and held her away.
“What’s the one thing everyone knows, Brigit?”
“Johnny, I—”
“What’s the one thing everybody knows?”
She took a deep breath. “He’s from South Africa.”
“Ah! . . . so you do know that much. But what’s the other thing, Brigit? The thing you’ve got to know. The one thing everybody knows.”
He waited for a long moment. “What’s the one thing, Brigit?”
“I’m not a mind reader, Johnny. I can’t tell what you’re thinking.”
“This has nothin’ to do with readin’ minds. It’s common knowledge, but you don’t seem to know it. You get me in me cups and mention a name, but then you know nothing about the man behind it. How can that be?”
His hand tightened. “Shall I tell you? Is that why you came here?”
Again he waited. In the end he told her. “There is no Paul Kruger.”
He leaned back and looked down at the street. “The real Paul Kruger died forty years ago. He was a great South African freedom fighter. We still use his name as a badge of honor. It’s what we call our South African friends. We say a man is a Kruger the same way you’d call a cousin from Indiana a Hoosier.”
He sniffed. “You should’ve known that, Brigit.”
Suddenly he grabbed her with both hands and pushed her over the edge.
( ( ( · ) ) )
TWO
O’CLOCK,
EASTERN
WARTIME
( ( ( 1 ) ) )
HIS eyes were closed but he knew they were approaching the city. At some point the thought came over him that he had found the killer and its name was history.
But where was history’s instrument? Who was its disciple, its black knight and executioner? He had asked Becky to chase down some facts by telephone and a New York librarian had given her the basics on the South African war. Paul Kruger turned out to be a grand choice for a symbolic name. Still a hero in his homeland, he had been a four-term president of the South African Republic and a voice for Boer rights on a frustrating trip to Europe shortly before his death. He had died in 1904, leaving a two-volume memoir, which Becky had also located and Dulaney would pick up at a bookshop on Fourth Avenue later today. There was much on Kitchener, whose concentration camps had been hotly debated in England. Notable writers had covered the war. Churchill had gone; Conan Doyle had been knighted, not for Sherlock Holmes but for his vigorous defense of England’s conduct. Kipling had looked with disdain, saying, in the end, “Those farmers taught us no end of a lesson.” The camp at Germiston had been photographed and the pictures of dusty tent streets and the wire kraal were described by the young-sounding librarian, who finally said, “I had no idea.”
Becky defined the problem from a broadcaster’s viewpoint. “If we play it straight we’re implying a comparison with Hitler, and if we do a disclaimer we water down the impact of the story.”
There was no comparison with Hitler, she said: Kitchener was trying to end a war he had inherited and he just didn’t care about those people in his camps. You couldn’t compare that to what Hitler was doing.
Negligence is not mass murder. But that is small comfort when it’s your wife, your child or sister dying on the ground. To someone who has lost his family, the crime is personal, the comparison inevitable.
They were approaching the Lincoln Tunnel through Union City and he saw the New York skyline flowing past his window. He looked at Waldo and said, “Sorry I haven’t been much company.”
“I guess you’re entitled to be tir
ed after the broadcast last night.”
In fact Dulaney had slept little, either last night or the night before. Holly’s strange disappearance had rattled him, and her promise to meet him this afternoon was the day’s only saving grace.
“I haven’t talked much about it,” Waldo said, “but it was a real fine thing. We stayed up half the night at Eli’s rehashing it.”
“They should feel proud.”
“That’s what I told ’em. They didn’t know they could do that.”
“And now they’ll never have to doubt it.”
They turned into the tunnel and a few minutes later they burst into the city. Waldo turned left into Ninth Avenue.
“You can let me off anywhere here,” Dulaney said.
They sat idling in a no-parking space. He met Waldo’s eyes and Waldo said, “You’ve done some great things for us, Jordan.”
“Not as great as what you’ve done for me.”
“Well, I appreciate that. But the fact is, you can do this show on your own juice now.”
“No way, Waldo. If you hadn’t been there last night the show would’ve been a bust. You got that performance out of Eli, and that’s what carried the show. Never doubt that, Waldo. You are this program.”
He reached over and clutched Waldo’s arm, wondering if they’d ever see each other again. A moment later he stood on the corner watching Waldo drive away.
He walked up the avenue, lost in thought. A soft warm rain had begun falling but he barely noticed. I am very close now, he thought as he hurried across West Forty-fifth Street.
It was all mixed up through endless wars and more years than he himself had lived. Radio was simply the conduit, a clear-channel passage of the images and events of one man’s tragedy. This is where he’s been vulnerable. His old life and the way it ended haunted him, until he couldn’t not write it. He put his motive on paper before he even knew he was going to kill March Flack, and that motive is what we needed to know.
