The Order of Death

by Hugh Fleetwood

  Man would win, they seemed to say. Man had to win.

  Oh, how happy he was….

  And the reason for his happiness, for his exhilaration and sense of power was, he knew, Smith. The existence and the presence of the mean weak boy, battered and beaten, a grovelling prisoner in the apartment, honed him and polished him and ground him to a point, as if he were the sharpest, deadliest knife that had ever been wielded in the world.

  He had only had to beat him up, savagely, once more, before the boy had abandoned his silly, social manner, his presumptuous air of playing a game the rules of which he had invented, and became the frightened, wretched animal that he really was; and now he simply stayed in the bathroom, whimpering or sleeping or, possibly, thinking, lying on the floor most of the time, with handcuffs on his wrists (the ties with which Fred had bound him, his fine silk ties, he had had to throw away), a rope round his ankles, and surgical tape bound tightly round his face, from his scalp—which Fred had shaved—to his chin, so that he could sip water through a straw, but couldn’t open his jaw enough to shout, or make any sound other than a sort of croak.

  Once a day Fred would come to remove the tape—which always made the boy wince; it hurt him—and give him his daily meal, which he served in an enormous dog bowl on the floor, and which always consisted of an abundant mixture of rice, chopped up meat, greens, raw eggs, yoghurt, pieces of cheese, and fruit. When Smith, on his hands and knees—like a dog—and with his hands chained behind his back, had gobbled up this—in Fred’s opinion—sufficient and well-balanced meal, he would finally, and briefly, have the handcuffs removed, so that he could shit, and wipe himself (there had been some problems about this for the first few days, but after that the boy’s bowel movements had become as regular as Fred’s visits), then take a shower, wash himself, dry himself, and shave his chin, cheeks and scalp—so that the surgical tape wouldn’t pull on too many hairs—with an electric shaver. Fred never left him for an instant throughout these operations—though he did, when the boy was sitting on the john, turn his head away—and he was always ready, if he should make the slightest move—or even speak, which Fred had forbidden him to do—to leap on him, and beat him up again.

  The only luxury he allowed the boy was a radio, which he could turn on and off with his chained hands; though from which Fred had removed the button which controlled the volume —just in case he should turn it up too loud, and possibly attract attention.

  And just as Fred felt—or at least wished—that the bright crisp weather and his crisp bright mood would last forever, so he never allowed himself to think that maybe something would alter the situation in the apartment. In fact, after only ten days, he couldn’t imagine the apartment without Smith. He envisaged the years passing, and his retirement, and Smith in the boarded-up bathroom getting older and fatter and steadily more docile, like an old dog who has forgotten that he was ever allowed out to run in the park, and was so comforted by the idea that he would have wished the years could have passed as quickly as days, if he wasn’t enjoying the days so much. Of course, he imagined what might happen if he had an accident, or couldn’t get to the apartment for some reason, but he figured that, even if he did, he would never be away for more than a few days, so that Smith, even if he got very hungry, wouldn’t actually die, since there was always, on the floor, alongside the dog’s bowl of food, a big bowl of water and a lot of straws, and he could always drink. If he had a fatal accident—well, yes, the boy would die; but that would be too bad. Anyway, he thought, there was no point in worrying about such things; he had never had an accident in his life, nor, as far as he could remember, had he ever been sick; so if anything unexpected did happen, he would just have to deal with it as best he could.

  But after three weeks the weather—as it had to—broke; and that same day several things happened….

  It was a Tuesday morning, early, in the second week of March, and Fred arrived at his usual time, with his shoes wet and his hands cold. He went into the kitchen to prepare Smith’s meal, and when he had done so he took it in its plastic bowl down the corridor to the bathroom. It was when he unlocked the door that he noticed something odd. Because normally when Smith heard him coming, he stood up—as he had been told to do—and turned the lights on—if they weren’t already on. But today the room, with its sealed window, was dark. As soon as Fred saw this he backed out into the corridor, and set the dog’s bowl down on the floor; ready and on guard in case, in some way, Smith had gotten free, and was going to attack him.

  But there was no movement from within the bathroom, and no sound, either. Carefully, Fred slipped a hand round the door, and hit the light switch.

  His first thought was that he need not have feared an attack, since Smith was sitting on the floor, with his back against the wall opposite the door; his second thought was that the boy, with his shaven head and the tape round it, was looking very strange. His face and his lips were terribly white, and if it hadn’t been for the redness around his eyes, and the wet, shifty blueness of the eyes themselves, that gazed at him as he stood in the doorway, he would have thought he were dead. He went over to him, pulled him away from the wall—just to check that his hands were still secure—and then started to rip off the tape from the boy’s head. Smith didn’t make a sound.

  Fred said, like a short-tempered old nurse, ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  Smith’s eyes continued to gaze at him; and then, only just moving the white lips, he whispered, ‘Can I speak?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can’t stand any more,’ the boy said.

  Fred, the nurse used to complaining patients, gave a quick, contemptuous laugh. ‘You’ve only been here ten days. You wait till you’ve been here ten years, and then tell me how you feel.’

  Slowly, Smith shook his head. He said, ‘They’ll find me. They’ll come looking for me soon.’

  Fred sighed, went out into the corridor, picked up the dog’s bowl, and put it on the floor near the boy.

  ‘Here,’ he muttered, ‘eat your food. No one’s going to come looking for you. I told you before. The police aren’t going to bother about a creep like you.’

  Smith closed his eyes, and seemed to hesitate before speaking again. Then he opened them again, and said softly, ‘Yes they will. My grandmother’s very rich.’

  ‘All the money in the world isn’t going to find you here.’

  Smith moved his head slightly. ‘Yes it is. You see—if they look for me—they’ll find me. I left a notebook, saying where I was. Saying where I was going.’

  He was bluffing. He had to be bluffing. ‘You what?’ Fred whispered, clenching his fists, and ready to hit the boy.

  Smith closed his eyes again, preparing for the blow. When it didn’t come he said, ‘I’m not bluffing. I swear. I wrote a notebook—a sort of diary—telling the whole story. Except for the ending. I didn’t know what the ending would be.’

  ‘And where is this notebook?’

  ‘In a desk in my room in my grandmother’s house in Provid­ence.’

  Fred bit his lips; he had to think clearly. ‘And you’ve written my name and address in your book?’

  Almost imperceptibly, Smith nodded.

  ‘And so if someone starts to look for you they’ll find it?’

  There was a long pause before the boy spoke again; and when he did, he whispered flatly, ‘They are looking for me. I heard it on the news on the radio this morning. There was just a little thing about me.’

  Fred felt the blood leaving his face; he thought he would fall over. He closed the seat of the toilet and sat on it. But then, as he sat there, something struck him.

  He said, ‘If that’s true, why are you telling me? Why don’t you just wait for someone to show up here?’

  Smith swallowed, his Adam’s apple jerking in his thin, flaky white neck. ‘Because I want to give you a chance. Maybe they haven’t found the notebook yet. If you let me go, I’ll go to the police and tell them I heard the thing on the news, and that I
’m alive and well, and then—they’ll stop looking for me. And you’ll be safe. I won’t tell anyone.’

  Fred didn’t believe him. He said, ‘Why do you want to give me a chance?’

  ‘Because it’s not really your fault that I’m here, is it? I mean—I came willingly.’ He sighed. ‘I swear I won’t tell them about you.’

  Sitting still on the toilet, Fred, now, closed his eyes for a second. Then he repeated, ‘Why are you telling me this? Why don’t you just wait for them to find you here, and arrest me?’

  Smith whispered, sounding totally defeated now, ‘I was going to. But then—well, I’ve been thinking these last few days—it’s just possible that they won’t find the notebook. They might. But they might not. Or they might not for months, anyway. And I can’t stand this any more. I can’t go on. So I thought—in case they do find it—I’d give you a chance. And in return—you let me go.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘Sooner or later they will find it.’

  ‘And if they already have?’

  ‘If I go to the police right away then they wouldn’t do any­thing probably. About you.’ Smith paused. There was, Fred felt, a note of falsity in his voice now; something slightly theatrical. ‘They’ll arrest me, I guess. Because I’ve written about all the killings. But not about you. I mean—you could take me in. They’d be so pleased with you for having arrested me that they wouldn’t do anything about this place. I mean—they don’t really care about corrupt cops, do they? And they’d have to prove that the money you bought this place with and maintain it with came from—’ he shrugged. ‘You could say it was your father’s or something. You could say anything. They won’t care. Not if you’ve arrested the cop-killer.’

  Fred stared at the boy. ‘You’re not the cop-killer.’

  Smith shrugged again; and now, when he spoke, there was no longer any hint of the theatrical in his voice. He sounded, simply, very tired. ‘I say I am,’ he whispered.

  Fred continued to bite his lips. ‘How well hidden is the note­book?’

  ‘It’s behind a drawer in my desk. Only the drawer is sort of difficult to get out. And I guess unless they were actually looking for it—I mean, unless they actually knew about it—And no one does.’

  ‘Your grandmother?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you have any maids, servants, anyone?’

  ‘My grandmother has a couple of women who come in every day to cook and clean for her. But they don’t poke around in my room. One of them is almost as old as my grandmother, and can’t get up the stairs, and the other one is—no. I’m sure they haven’t found it yet.’

  ‘And if I let you go now—?’

  ‘Then I’ll go back to Providence and destroy the notebook and everything will be over.’ He paused. ‘And there’ll be no more killings. Because you know, and I know—’ he shrugged, once more. And then, suddenly, his face crumpled, like a piece of soiled paper that had been crushed in someone’s hand, and he burst into tears. ‘Please let me go,’ he sobbed. ‘Please. I can’t stand any more.’

  ‘And if this story about the notebook is all a lie?’

  ‘It isn’t,’ the boy cried. ‘I swear it isn’t. Just let me go. Please.’

  Fred watched him as he kneeled in front of him; watched him without saying a word for some time. And then he said, ‘Eat your food.’

  ‘No,’ Smith whimpered. ‘I can’t. It’s disgusting. I can’t eat any more of that stuff. Oh please let me go.’

  Fred didn’t insist; again, he simply watched the boy, as a plan formed in his head. ‘What’s your grandmother’s name?’ he said quietly.

  ‘Archell Smith. Marguerite Archell Smith.’

  ‘And her address?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What’s her address?’

  The red-rimmed eyes grew larger. Smith whispered again, ‘Why?’

  ‘Because,’ Fred said, getting up and going over to the shelf to fetch the surgical tape, ‘I’m going up to Providence to see your grandmother. And to see if your notebook exists. If it does, and it’s still there, I’ll destroy it. And if it isn’t, and your grand­mother tells me that the police haven’t found anything, I’ll come back and beat you into a pulp. And if your grandmother says it has been found—’ he smiled, pleasantly. ‘I hope I’ll get back here before anyone else does, so I can kill you. If I’m going to lose all this you can be damn sure that you’re going to pay for it. And they can send me to prison for life if they like. Because,’ and he smiled again at the boy, though slightly madly this time, ‘all this is my freedom. And if they take this away from me, I’d be in prison anyway.’

  Smith—as Fred advanced towards him, holding the surgical tape in his hands—got to his feet, and backed against the wall. His head was shaking wildly, backwards and forwards. ‘You can’t,’ he whispered. ‘You can’t. I was giving you a chance. You can’t do this.’

  Fred shrugged. ‘Who says I can’t?’

  Smith’s head went on shaking. ‘No,’ he gasped. ‘Please. I can’t stand it any more. Please. Don’t do it.’

  Fred pulled off a length of tape.

  ‘No,’ Smith gasped again. ‘No. No. N—’

  But before he could scream, Fred put his big red hand over the boy’s mouth, and, ignoring the teeth that were biting into him, started slowly to bind the shaven head up.

  When he had finished, and Smith had fallen to the ground, weeping, he said, ‘I’ll come round as soon as I get back. And try not to shit in the meantime. You can wash and shave and have your meal then. Unless,’ he added, as he went out the door, ‘I have to kill you.’

  *

  He called in sick—making a joke of it; he, sick, who had never been sick in his life!—and then took the subway directly to Pennsylvania Station. He had to wait an hour for a train to Providence, but he spent that hour reading the paper, which he had bought, without a moment’s hesitation, from the news-stand at the station.

  The article he wanted to see—a tiny one—was under the head­line: ‘Rhode Island heir vanishes.’

  *

  When, at two o’clock that afternoon, he arrived in Providence, he bought the local paper, which gave the news in greater detail. It also—providentially, Fred thought, making a weak pun to himself—gave the address of Mrs. Marguerite Archell Smith: the Austrian born widow of cotton millionaire John Archell Smith Jnr., whose grandson, Leo, had not been seen or heard of now for more than three weeks.

  Then he took a taxi to within a block of the house—which was, as he had imagined, big, and white—and waited outside for a while in the grey, blustery March afternoon, to check that there were no patrol cars around. And then, telling himself that if there were any cops or reporters inside the house—though he didn’t think, after he had hung around almost three-quarters of an hour, that there were—he would bluff his way out of the situation somehow, he walked up to the big, green front door, and rang the bell.

  CHAPTER SIX

  An old shapeless woman in an old skirt, shapeless sweater, and thick brown stockings, with a face that was somehow smudged and worn, like an eraser that had erased too much, opened the door, peered at Fred through glasses whose frames had been repaired with bandaid, and raised her eyebrows. She was carry­ing a walking stick, and Fred guessed she was the old servant who could no longer climb the stairs.

  He flashed his badge at her quickly, and said, ‘Lieutenant Franklin ma’am. I’d like to speak to Mrs. Archell Smith.’

  The old woman gave him a slight, twisted smile—as if she were smiling at something private—and said, ‘Is there some news about Leo?’ She had a slight foreign accent.

  ‘No. I’m afraid not. Not yet. I’d like to ask Mrs. Archell Smith one or two more questions about Leo’s—habits, character.’

  ‘She told the other officers everything.’ She pronounced it, ‘everythink’, and said it with an air of finality.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Fred insisted. He began to feel apprehensive, and wondered if this o
ld maid was going to let him into the house at all. She didn’t seem about to, and was still smiling her private smile.

  But after studying Fred for a while, she obviously made up her mind, and very pleasantly—and sounding, now, very foreign—said, ‘Please come in, officer.’

  She led him, limping, through a high dark hallway that was hung with two faded tapestries and furnished with several massive carved chests and chairs, into a large, light, bright living room that looked, Fred thought, like a furniture depository. There were too many chairs, all worn, of different shapes and sizes, too many sofas of different colours, and too many tables, sideboards, and bookcases. And not only was there too much of everything, but everything there was—apart from being worn, and looking as if, even when, a long time ago, it hadn’t been worn, it still hadn’t been very attractive—was arranged, or rather set down, without any order or even, apparently, sense. A large green sofa faced a blank wall; four spindle-legged chairs were arranged in a circle with their backs to one another, facing outwards; one large bookcase was inaccessible, being behind a table; and another table—a great dark oak thing that stood in front of some French windows one could clearly get neither in nor out of, was surrounded on the three sides that were not against the windows by two vast brocaded armchairs, two bamboo garden chairs, and two white plastic armchairs. All of which were so low that the only thing one could have comfortably done at the table would be to rest one’s chin on it.