Compulsion

by Meyer Levin

  “That stupid piece of junk!” Artie burst out. “If you try to sell it, that’s just the kind of swag they can trace by the numbers on it.”

  “Why should I sell it?” Judd said. He could use it.

  Keep it? That made Artie decide he had a share in it, too. Judd flared. “You never even wanted to take it!” They screamed at each other. Artie drove a hard bargain. He’d keep the best of the gold watches.

  “Keep them all!” Judd cried bitterly. “If that’s all it means to you.”

  Artie called him a stinking punk amateur. If not for his backing out, they’d have cleaned the second place, too! Hell, Judd had no right to any of the swag; the Delt house was for him and he had screwed it up. Screeching, grabbing for the stuff, they scuffled, and then suddenly Artie started laughing and Judd too.

  The atmosphere remained that way between them, swaying from playfulness to brawling. Artie was finishing the flask. Judd cried, “Save me some, you sonofabitch!”

  Artie started the car, pulled onto the road. “You bastard,” he said, “if we’d have cleaned out the Delts, we’d be in clover.” Suddenly Judd had fallen into silence, moody. He hadn’t wanted Artie to start the car just then. And he hated to have Artie drive his car. Artie began a kind of act. “Listen, Mac, next time we go out, you do the way Charley says, or I get me another partner.”

  Judd took it up. “For crissake, Charley, if not for me, you’d have got us both pinched. I saved you from getting caught.”

  “Yeah? Mac, I pulled plenty of stuff and I never got caught. You’re just so goddam green you’re scared of your own shadow.”

  Judd seized the flask. There was still some left.

  “You didn’t even get a kick out of it!” – Artie was getting querulous again – “that’s why you wanted to stop.”

  “Well, not the same kind of kick you get,” Judd said. “To me, it’s more of a stimulant than a gratification.”

  Artie might not have heard. “I think I’ll get me a goddam date for New Year’s Eve,” he said. “You’re just a wet blanket.”

  Judd drew in his breath. He must remain in full control of himself now; everything depended on it. Artie was teasing, that was all. Teasing. “New Year would be a hell of a night for a haul,” he observed.

  Artie gave him a sidewise glance. Maybe he’d let Mac in on some more jobs; maybe they could pull some real stuff together instead of chickenshit. Only Mac had to know who was boss.

  “Well,” Judd said quietly, “Mac, if I do what you want, you’ve got to do what I want. That’s equitable.”

  Artie turned his face to him, this time, and there was the Dorian smile. “You want to make that a deal?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay, we could make it a kind of a deal.”

  Their eyes held together, in the bargaining. Judd felt himself almost unbearably quickening.

  And then, in that same instant, a blur crossed the corner of his vision, something on the road in front of them; they were going through a small town, a figure was crossing the street. Judd cried out, and jerked the wheel from Artie. The car slid around the bundled figure – some goddam drunk; the car skidded, wavered. Artie gave Judd a terrible shove with his elbow, and somehow managed to put the car under control. “You goddam stupid sonofabitch, what did you do that for?”

  “You didn’t see him! You’d have run him down!”

  “I saw him.”

  Artie was dead serious, sober, cool.

  “You could have killed him.”

  “So what? Who’d have known?”

  Judd was silent. His mind worked around Artie’s words. Artie could do things, say things, flashing in an instantaneous reaction understanding, that he, Judd, had to attain in several steps of thinking. It was true again – by everything his intellect accepted, Artie was right. And yet he felt as though he had made some great, shivery effort, dragging himself up to a peak, an icy peak, alongside his friend.

  “How about it, Mac? You want to make the deal?” Artie said, and the teasing note was there, just an edge of it.

  “If we’re agreed on the terms,” Judd managed, quietly.

  “Yah. But Charley’s the boss. What he says, you do. Life or death.”

  Judd nodded. Yes. In any action, one had to be the master. And the slave, a slave.

  Artie accelerated. The car swayed but held on the slippery road.

  But not a slave to grovel. A slave of sure reward, the golden slave, his sword protecting his master, his beloved master, of long ivory limbs.

  “Only, not for kid stuff,” Judd stipulated. “I don’t have to obey if it’s crap.”

  Artie laughed at his apprehensiveness. “No, this is for real stuff.”

  “Any crap, Mac has a right to refuse.”

  “Wait a minute, Mac. If you start refusing every time I get a hot idea, what the hell.”

  They defined it. Only things that might make Judd look ridiculous could be challenged. But if once he refused to go through with a serious thing, then they’d be finished. Artie would get someone else.

  “But Mac has a right to question an order,” Judd insisted.

  “Okay. But Charley has the last word. If Charley says so, it’s so.”

  It hung between them for a moment. “Hey, Jocko, let’s make that the signal,” Artie said. “When I say ‘Charley says so’, that means no more questioning. ‘Charley says so’, you’ve got to do it, no comeback.”

  It was like handing over his life. A fluttering elation went through Judd. “Okay, Dorian,” he said. They squeezed some last drops from the flask. Judd heard something like a giggle coming out of himself, the high girlish giggle he used to have when a kid. And just then the car skidded. It whirled completely around and landed in a ditch.

  Judd sat rigid for a moment, but Artie lay back, laughing. Then Judd got out and walked around the car. They had been lucky; the ditch was quite shallow. He could pull out, he felt sure.

  He came around to Artie’s side. The laughter had stopped. Artie’s head was against the back of the seat; his eyes were closed.

  “Move over. I’ll drive.”

  Artie swayed over, limp and warm-feeling in his racoon coat. Judd slipped in and closed the door.

  It was one of those times when you couldn’t tell if Artie had really passed out or was only letting things happen. The deal.

  In Michigan City, a diner was open. Artie, in high spirits, gabbed of the stunts they could pull off, now and then letting a word like “hi-jack” escape loud enough for the waitress to hear. There was Ned White’s house in Riverside. His folks had a cellar full of the best stuff straight from Canada. A couple of cases would be worth a couple of centuries. Maybe they could let Ned in on the job. No, Judd objected, Ned was a pet hate of his – a bore. Okay, Artie had a better idea: let Ned in on the job and then plug him. He was a snot anyway.

  Then they started on pet hates, who shouldn’t be allowed to exist. They took turns naming candidates, beginning with Morty Kornhauser. And the blackballing president of the chapter, Al Goetz – Artie said they ought to shoot his balls off. And they named a prof or two, and William Jennings Bryan. And how about including females, Judd said, the old bitch who had spoiled his all-A average with her B in Medieval History. Sure, Artie said, and his own bitch of a governess, Miss Nuisance, he had always wanted to kidnap and torture her, “Cut her tits off!” Judd said. And it was like splashing, splashing, and he was tittering, and Artie said in a solemn voice, “Kidnapping, that’s the thing to do – pull off a snatch. That would be the real trick, a snatch for a big wad.”

  “How about Myra?” Judd suggested, seeing the German soldiers, the French girl dragged by the hair. “And rape her for the hell of it.”

  “Rape?” Artie laughed suggestively. “She’d beat you to it.” Then serious again: “A boy is better. A kid.”

  And suddenly now in his room, as Judd sat waiting, his blood pounding with the exciting remembered images, the lights snapped on and a rough voice demanded, “Oka
y, Steiner, where’s that typewriter?”

  He didn’t show, he knew he hadn’t shown, the leap in him. Yet it had been a dreadful leap of fear, before he told himself it was Artie.

  Judd said, “What took you so long, you sonofabitch?”

  Artie said that Myra had called just as he was leaving – she was alone, so he had to stop by and give her one. A man had to keep his girl serviced. He was in high humour. “Boy, you should have been at the house for dinner!” He told of his mother discussing the big murder. “The murderer ought to be tarred and feathered and then strung up, she said! I nearly stood up and announced, ‘Mater, I cannot tell a lie, it was me!’”

  “Why didn’t you?” Judd said, his voice soft, Artie’s nearness almost uncontainable to him. “They wouldn’t believe you anyway.”

  “Hey, how about if I try it? Confess to the cops!” Artie bet that was what Steger was doing right now! His words tumbled on. He’d met that punk reporter, Sid Silver. “Boy, did I fill him with crap about Steger.” And Sid had told him about the third degree, the tricks the cops used so as to leave no marks.

  As Artie talked, he picked up the typewriter. “Let’s get rid of this goddam evidence.” He began to twist at the keys. “Hey, got a pliers or something?” Judd had a pair in his desk, but the keys were springy, his fingers got nipped, and he squealed. He never could stand physical pain. Artie laughed. “My God, you’re bawling!”

  It was more than Judd could endure. After the way he had worked himself up with all that waiting, and now Artie was throwing the typewriter on the floor, jumping on it. “Cut it out! You want the goddam maid in here?”

  It was odd how the machine seemed indestructible. “We better throw it in the lake,” Artie said. “This won’t come up and float.”

  “Okay.” Judd put the cover on the machine. And in that instant he remembered the robe, the bloody robe, hastily thrown into the bushes last night, after burning the kid’s clothing in the furnace. How could they have been so stupid! And in that moment the first ghastly doubt of their cleverness spread through Judd. The spectacles could have been an accident. But the bloody robe lying in the open all day, with the neighbourhood filled with police! Then, if they weren’t really so clever, if they weren’t really superior – if they were just anybodies, where was their right to do what they had done?

  It was a misty night, the sky almost milky, the air awesomely silent. They drove rapidly to Artie’s. Judd told himself that if the robe were still there it would be a sign that they’d get away with the whole thing.

  The robe lay, a dark clod under the bush.

  They drove into the park. Along the lake the cars stood, each with its mingled shape of lovers. Judd circled the old World’s Fair building. Behind the building was a little bridge over the lagoon. They parked the car, and walked out together, Judd carrying the typewriter. Not a soul around. No lovebirds, even.

  They stood on the little bridge. He could feel Artie leaning beside him. In daylight you could see the bottom through the shallow water. “Hell, it’ll sink in the mud,” Artie said. He took the machine from Judd and was about to drop it.

  “It’ll splash,” Judd warned. Suppose some damn cop happened to be attracted by the sound.

  “Drowning kittens, sir,” Artie said. “This is where I always drown my kittens.” He let the machine fall. The plop was small.

  They were almost free now of every thread to the thing. There was only the robe. It might float. Best to burn it somewhere, drive out where there’d be nobody around. Maybe the dunes.

  Going south, they passed the marker where they should have caught the ransom only that afternoon. The building loomed vague in the mist. Artie slumped in his seat, subdued. Judd came to a turn: leftward led to the lake; right, to the Hegewisch swamp. And he felt Artie beside him blaming him, and he felt it was true, something in himself had betrayed them. Why had he insisted so on the swamp, when Artie would have chosen the lake? Why had it had to be that one place, the cistern under the tracks?

  He drove on a side road the short distance to the lake. The mist has lifted a little; you could see a few stars, and the flame licks from the steel-mill furnaces.

  There was a stretch of crummy beach here, littered with cinders and junk. They were in luck: the area was deserted. Artie lugged the robe, a huge dark wad under his arm. Judd gathered some pieces of wood and tried to build a fire.

  “You’re a hell of a Boy Scout,” Artie said, and arranged the sticks in tepee form, so they would burn. Then they put the robe into the fire. Smudge and smoke arose; the flames were almost smothered “Hell, we should have brought some kerosene. This’ll take all night,” Artie said.

  If the fire would only burn off the blood, they could leave the charred rag. Artie lay down on the cindery sand, limp, as though suddenly pooped of everything, the way he was sometimes, limp, passive. Momentarily Judd felt the stronger, felt better about everything.

  Now at last everything was in the clear. The robe was burning, and even if found, who should ever imagine the boy’s body had been held in it? To all things material, he was superior. He was a mind. Why had he wept and been scared yesterday at the moment of the blow? Judd wanted now to say something to Artie, to say he hadn’t really been himself, to say he was recovered now, was beyond that kind of weakness.

  “Hey, Mac,” Artie murmured. “All we need is some wieners, huh, and we could have a wienie roast.”

  “Yah, Charley,” Judd said. He never was sure with Artie. Even after a couple of years. He lay down alongside, his face toward the fire.

  Now and now was the culmination, the completion of their deed, the fulfilment of the compact. Now, now he felt released of fear. He would never be caught, for he was strength itself. The lake, the blackened sand, the stars, the long close body of his friend, the fire-tipped chimneys, and the power in himself – the dark power growing toward release, eruption, the bad stuff, the dark evil clot in him pushing like a ball of fire in the huge tall chimney, wildly flaming out.

  I had two morning classes, and all through them I kept trying to think of some way to stay on the big story. But when I made my routine call, Reese said it himself. “See if Tom needs you over at the inquest.” A reward for my work of yesterday. From the morning papers I learned the inquest would be held at two o’clock, and I started for the frat house, to lunch there. It was raining, I was half running, soaked, and just as I reached the house Tom Daly called to me, coming up the street. He’d come looking for me, any place to get in out of the rain. The story was up against a stone wall. He had been to the Kesslers, to the police – hell, a man couldn’t even get a drink around here in the morning.

  I said I could probably find him a drink in the house. We had not even shaken the rain from our hats before Artie Straus was up from a chair, holding an early Globe. “Anything new on the story?” he asked me. “Did you give them all that stuff about Steger? I gave you lots of stuff they haven’t got in here.”

  I introduced him to Tom, and he became even more excited. Sure, he’d rustle up a drink. What about going out on the story with us? “Listen, I bet I can get you another scoop!” Artie said.

  “Artie, the Boy Detective!” Milt Lewis kidded. “Now’s your chance.”

  Hell, Artie said, just from the papers he could see there were lots of things that hadn’t been tried. There was the drugstore on 63rd Street, where the father was supposed to go with the ransom, only he forgot the address. How about tracking down that drugstore?

  “You think the killer is still standing there waiting?” Milt jeered.

  “The killers would never have been there!” Artie said excitedly. “That shows how much you know. The way they’d do it, it would be a relay. The father would get another call in the store, to relay him to the next spot-”

  “Well then what use would it be to find the store?” Milt asked.

  “For crissake, you never know; it could be a clue.”

  “Jesus, it’s raining cats and dogs,” Tom complained.


  “Come on. I’ve got a car. I bet we find it!” Artie said. “All we have to do is check drugstores on 63rd Street. Ask them if anybody phoned yesterday for Mr. Kessler.”

  Tom and I followed him out to his car. Artie drove along 63rd, talking about the crime the whole time.

  Tom asked, “You knew this kid pretty well?”

  “Sure. Like my own kid brother.”

  “What was he like?”

  “A cocky little bastard,” Artie said. “Christ, if you were looking for a kid to kidnap, that’s just the kind of cocky little sonofabitch you’d pick.”

  We were both struck dumb. Artie resumed. “I mean, why crap around, that’s the straight dope. It might help you to find the murderer.”

  Tom pursued it. Who, for instance? Did his little brother have any ideas? Who could be sore enough at a kid to do a thing like that!

  “I’ll ask Billy,” Artie promised.

  As 63rd Street was miles long, it seemed a crazy chase, but Artie said he bet the criminal would have chosen a store in the busiest part of the street, somewhere east of Cottage. He parked in the middle of a block; there was a drugstore on each end. “Let’s divvy up,” he said.

  Tom and I ran for one of the stores, and Artie toward the other. We told the druggist we were from the Globe on the kidnapping murder. He kept shaking his head. As we left the store, Artie came hurrying from the other end of the block. “Nothing doing,” he said. “Let’s try some more.”

  That way we worked up the street. After a dozen stores, Tom said the hell with it – even if we found the store it would be meaningless. “Hell of a newspaperman you are!” Artie laughed. “Persistence is the only way in a case of this kind.”

  “Fine,” Tom said, “that’s the spirit.” Artie and I could persist and he would wait in the car. We parked again, at Blackstone. There was only one store, and Artie and I made the dash. A Negro was behind the fountain. Artie headed for him while I approached the druggist. As soon as I uttered the name Kessler, the druggist’s face broke into a gasp. “Why, yes, yes, I never made the connection in my mind-”