The Order of Death

by Hugh Fleetwood

  There was someone in the apartment….

  It was impossible, he told himself wildly. There couldn’t be. Not now. Not when everything was over, finished. Not when peace had finally, after a lifetime of waiting, come to him. There couldn’t be!

  And then, as the panic spread through him, he wanted to shout out loud. No! There mustn’t be. Let him be mistaken. Let there be no noise. Please, please, he wanted to shout, let there be no noise. Let him be having a dream now, the most terrible night­mare that anyone had ever had. But let there be no noise.

  But there was; and as he sat quivering, sweating, cold in his chair, he heard it again. And it was the noise—though it was weird, muffled, obscene—of a human being. And, he knew, he had to do something about it. He had to go out, and meet it.

  Quietly, breathlessly, he got to his feet, and tiptoed to the door of the living room.

  The noise was coming from down the corridor.

  Quietly, breathlessly, he moved towards it.

  It was coming from the slightly open door of the bathroom.

  Quietly, breathlessly, he moved towards it, and pushed the door open.

  And then, as he saw what was in there, though he didn’t make a sound, he heard a scream within him that was like the scream of a soul being forced through the furthest limits of agony. It was like the scream of a man who had finally come face to face with the furies. He couldn’t bear it. It was going to deafen him. His head was going to explode. He closed his eyes, and bit his lips, and pressed his hands to his ears. But it was all no use. The scream went on and on, getting louder and louder, becoming more and more unbearable. And then it started to fade.

  And as it faded Fred lowered his hands and opened his eyes, and looked once more into the bathroom. And there, he saw, lying on the floor, Smith. A completely naked Smith, with white flaky skin and watery blue eyes red around the rims. And a Smith whose feet were tied with a piece of cord, whose hands were locked in front of him with a pair of handcuffs, and whose completely shaven head was bound up with surgical tape.

  Fred sat down on the floor of the corridor, and stared. He was too shocked, too stunned to move. He simply sat there, and stared. He knew he should get up and release the boy; but he couldn’t. He should take the tape off the boy’s head and ask him what had happened; what grotesque, what appalling trick of time or reality had been played on them. But he couldn’t move. What did it mean? What could it mean? He sat there, and stared, and asked himself these questions again and again, until, eventu­ally he felt capable of standing up. He stood up, and took a step towards the boy, still asking himself what it could mean, and still incapable of thinking.

  But then, just as he was about to remove the tape from round the boy’s head, the doorbell rang. His doorbell. It rang in exactly the same way as it had the day Smith had first come. And as it rang, jangled through the apartment and himself, he suddenly knew what had happened. Not all the details, not all the exact moves, but—the overall idea. He knew precisely what had hap­pened, just as he knew who was at the door—and just as he knew that there was nothing in the world he could do about it; nothing, except go to the door and open it.

  He left Smith lying on the floor and walked down to the hallway. He didn’t hesitate for a second. And when he had opened the door and seen Lenore standing there—little plump Lenore with her grey eyes and her moustache, with Bob’s snub-nose .38 pistol in her hands; how nervously but how strangely well she held it; much better than her husband had—all he said was, ‘Hi.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Lenore said bluntly.

  Fred wanted to smile at her, and tell her she could put the gun away. It wasn’t necessary. But he knew she wouldn’t believe him, and anyway—what did it matter? Let the comedy end as it would.

  ‘He’s in the bathroom,’ he murmured, and turned, and put his hands in the air, and led the way down the corridor to the bathroom.

  When she saw Smith Lenore said, ‘Jesus!’

  It was what, Fred thought, anyone might have said in a film or in a book. But that wasn’t surprising under the circumstances. Lenore was playing a part in a book.

  Pointing the gun at him still—he really thought he should con­gratulate her on her confidence and style; after all, she couldn’t have ever done anything like this before—with her free hand she tore—more brutally than he had ever torn—the surgical tape off Smith’s head. And then she untied his feet.

  ‘Where’s the key to the handcuffs?’ she asked Fred.

  Fred was about to say that he didn’t know, but Smith drawled flatly, ‘He always keeps it in the closet down the corridor there, on the first shelf.’

  Lenore went down the corridor backwards, so she could keep Fred covered, opened the closet door, found the key, came back, and released Smith’s hands. He rubbed his wrists, and got up.

  ‘Can you keep that on him,’ he said to Lenore, pointing at the gun, ‘while I get some clothes on?’

  Lenore nodded. And then, Fred saw, she was trembling, and he realized that she was, in spite of her apparent confidence, terrified. It wasn’t surprising, he guessed. Poor thing. This wasn’t really her sort of scene at all. It was much too messy. Still, later, and with a bit of careful editing, she would be able to make it—well, readable, if not quite believable.

  She stood and faced Fred for five minutes—who kept his eyes lowered, not wanting to embarrass her—until Smith returned, wearing his blue blazer and a white shirt and black pants and a tie, and looking for all the world—apart from his shiny, shaven head—like a nice, rich young college graduate, going for an interview for a job he was sure he would get. Which, reflected Fred, quite soon he would be.

  ‘Okay, I’ll take it if you like.’

  Lenore passed him the gun—he held it even better than she had; lazily, easily, like one born to hunting—and fished in the pocket of the baggy white wool cardigan she was wearing for a cigarette, which she lit with an audible sigh.

  ‘Shall I go call the police now?’ she said.

  ‘You’ll have to go down to the supervisor’s office. He cut the wires of the phone here.’

  ‘I’ll go upstairs,’ Lenore said, ‘and call from there. That’s where I’m supposed to be, anyway.’ She managed a sour smile at Smith. ‘My friends didn’t know what was going on. I got the doorman to call them. I went up, told them I had to see someone else and would be back soon, and came down here. They thought I’d gone mad. But I couldn’t think of any other way of getting into the building without having the doorman call up here. And you said I shouldn’t.’

  And now Smith smiled at her; but patronizingly, patricianly. ‘Wouldn’t you like to hear the whole story before the police come? Because once they get on to it you’re only going to hear bits and pieces.’

  Lenore seemed doubtful—she looked from Smith to Fred and back again—and then—the artist in her winning over the dutiful citizen—said, ‘Okay. You don’t think he’s—’ She shrugged.

  ‘Oh, he’s all right now. He knows it’s all over. But let’s go into the living room and sit down.’

  Lenore looked even more doubtful, but Smith was so very much in charge, so very much the gracious host in his town apartment, that she nodded, and repeated, ‘Okay.’

  Fred led the way to the living room, and stood there, still, while Lenore and Smith sat down. He saw the girl’s grey eyes flickering round, taking notes. They would come in useful, he guessed.

  Smith, once again, gave a soft little smile. ‘Well, I guess I should explain a few things first. I mean—I didn’t tell you any­thing on the phone, did I?’

  ‘No,’ Lenore said.

  ‘Well—’ he giggled. ‘I guess I’m sort of crazy. But I’ve always had had this thing about guilt. You know—crime and punish­ment and that sort of thing. I’ve always wanted to know exactly what a guilty person felt like. You know. Really get into their minds, and feel like they feel. I mean—how would you feel if you’d killed someone? I guess I wanted to know because I thought that if I could
really understand—well, I’d understand a whole lot about human nature, and myself.’

  Fred glanced at Lenore, and saw that it was her turn now to look patronizing, and slightly scornful. He remembered Smith’s grandmother saying, ‘Leo’s silly.’

  ‘Anyway, it was only a sort of fascination—a hobby, if you like—though once, up in Providence, I did go and confess to the police that I’d raped and killed some girl who was found there. I did it just to see the mechanics of an arrest and an inter­rogation and all that sort of thing. And also to see if just by being arrested I could make myself guilty.’ He giggled again. ‘I couldn’t, unfortunately. They never believed me for a minute. They called my grandmother—I live with my grandmother—and she came and took me home. Anyway,’ the boy repeated, ‘last year—well, the end of the year before last I guess it was, after the second of the cop-killings—I started to get fascinated with the idea that here was some guy going round killing cops. And I tried to get into the mind of the murderer. I thought if I was the cop-killer—what would I do? How would I go about it? What would I be like? And I really thought about it, and studied it. And I was sure that the cop-killer—like some of the papers said—was a cop himself. Someone who had something to hide. Because I know—I mean I guess everyone knows—that all the cops in the Narcotics Bureau are wide open to bribes and corruption and—everything. So I really put myself into the shoes of this unknown murderer, and tried to think as I thought he would think: I tried to find a pattern, tried to imagine everything. I came down to live in New York, and took an apartment in the East Village and—started to try to live the life of the murderer, let’s say. I went out at night and wandered the streets, I followed as many different cops in the Narcotics Bureau as I could, to pick the next victim, and—’ he sighed. ‘Right before the third murder I found Fred here. And as soon as I saw him I knew. I was convinced. And I couldn’t think why everyone else didn’t know too. It was obvious. Just by looking at him. And then he was always alone when he wasn’t working, and—like I say, it was obvious. And I started to follow him, and find out about him—who he was, how he lived, where he lived. And quite soon I discovered—this place. And this was the secret I knew he must be protecting. Killing for. And then—I just watched. I didn’t see him actually kill any of the cops, but once I was only two minutes behind him. I guess I should have gone to the police, but I thought that if they didn’t know maybe there was no proof, and—anyway, I didn’t. But then, I thought that I’d like to meet him. Just so I could really see at first hand what a guilty person was like. I came here a couple of times and he wouldn’t let me up, and then I tried to speak to him outside, in the subway once. And then finally I came here and—I guess I knew I was running a big risk—I mean—I did know. But I thought that if I came here, not only would I be able to see the real—heart of darkness, but also, eventually—if he didn’t kill me, and I took as many precautions against that as possible—he would end up giving himself away. He would end up con­fessing. And so that way I was doing something good. Because if I—or someone—didn’t force him to confess—he might go on killing forever.’ He sighed again. ‘He kept me prisoner here—like you saw. He treated me like a dog. But he couldn’t kill me, because I’d left his name and address and all the details about him in a notebook at my grandmother’s house. He went up and got that notebook—and that was one of the few times I was really scared—but then I realized he’d spoken to my grand­mother, and if I was found dead she’d give a description of him and he’d be caught. No. I was fairly safe. But I’d made one mistake. I’d always assumed he’d taken this place by himself.’ He lowered his eyes. ‘I didn’t know about your husband. But one day he came here and discovered me and—he killed him. He knocked him out here, and then took his body to the Natural History Museum and cut his throat. He made me help stretch the body out. And then—he tried to shoot me, but the gun wasn’t loaded, and I ran away. That’s when I bumped into that guy. I ran into Central Park. But he followed me and found me and brought me back. But I managed to persuade him that you sus­pected him. That’s why he’s been coming round to see you. And today he said he was going to kill you. My God, I was desperate. But there was nothing I could do except wait. And then he came back and said he had lost his nerve. That he hadn’t been able to do it—and that everything was over for him. He unlocked my hands and took the tape off my face. And then he went to another bathroom and took a shower. And while he was taking it I crept down the corridor and looked up your name in the book—and told you to come here. That was why I was whispering. I didn’t call the police—and I didn’t want you to come with the police—because I thought that if they came battering on the door, or he heard sirens—he might panic, and kill me. Just as a last act, kind of. I thought if you came alone and rang the doorbell—well, he’d either think it was one of the doormen, come up for some reason, or—if he asked who it was, and you said—he’d let you in. Because as he’d lost his nerve before when he tried to kill you—’ Smith shrugged. ‘I guess Freud would say he let me go for those five minutes because he wanted me to call someone—he knew that since he’d lost his nerve with you it was all up. Because as soon as he had finished taking his shower he came back and tied me up again—and maybe sus­pected about the phone, because he suddenly went and cut the wires. But it was all like shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted—and he had wanted it to bolt. I couldn’t get out the door because he always keeps it locked with a key, and he had the key with him. But anyway—here you are, and this is the end of the story, and here’s the man who killed your husband, and here’s the cop-killer.’

  Fred had been watching Lenore throughout Smith’s long explanation—watching her disinterestedly, objectively, as if he had nothing to do with what was being said—and he could see that she wasn’t entirely happy with the boy’s story. But he could also see that, while she might not be satisfied with all the par­ticulars, she believed the basics of it; and he guessed that she would probably believe the whole of it when, once again, she had thought it over and done a bit of careful editing and re-writing. Just as the police, when they came, would believe it….

  And why not, he thought. It could have been true. And any­way, what did it matter? He couldn’t fight Smith, and Lenore, and the rest of the world, and nor did he even want to any more. He had wanted freedom, and here was freedom, of a sort, being offered him. And he wasn’t in a position to beg or choose.

  He was suddenly immensely, terribly tired. He just wanted to get everything over, and put an end to it. He wanted to let Smith out of here, let him go and do his explaining and have his brief moment of lurid publicity—although perhaps his grand­mother would be able to keep his name out of the papers—and go and pursue his banking career; and he wanted to let Lenore go, and return to her tiny apartment and her neat little articles and books. Let them return to their dreams, and try to find comfort in them, and forget all that had happened in the past. Let them go out into their cold ordered world, if that was the world they wanted. But just let them go, and leave him to his world, and to the freedom he had, at last, found.

  ‘Is it true?’ Lenore murmured; with just a trace of doubt in her voice? ‘Is that all true Fred?’

  Fred looked out of the window; at the afternoon sky that was now completely, and beautifully blue. What did it matter, he asked himself again. Let them have their truth, if that was what they wanted. He had his own, and he was too tired to try to impose it on them.

  ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s all true. I killed them all.’ And then, as if in a trance, he recited all the details of the killings. Exactly as he had read them, and now quite distinctly remem­bered them, in Smith’s notebook. ‘It’s all absolutely true. About Bob, and all the others. And I’m glad it’s all over.’

  And then, almost sleep-walking, he went across the room and opened one of the windows. He heard Lenore make a sort of gasp behind him, so he turned, said softly, ‘It’s all right, I’m not going to throw myself out,’ a
nd smiled at the girl; as if to reassure her, and remove any last trace of doubt that might remain within her; doubt which, if it wasn’t removed, would torment her always and possibly, one day, destroy her. And he didn’t want that…. Then he turned back to the window and looked down at the green lovely park—the perfectly planned and lovely park in which it was unsafe to walk at night—and said weakly, ‘I’m just letting in the spring.’

  *

  As soon as Lenore had gone upstairs to her friends to call the police, Fred, more from a sense of decency and tidiness rather than real curiosity, said to Smith—who lowered his gun now, and was smiling at him, ‘So it was you, after all?’

  ‘I told you so,’ the boy said, coyly and enigmatically. And then, with the air of one who is telling a fairy tale—which, Fred reflected, it was still just possible that he was—Smith went blandly on, ‘I killed the first two because I wanted to really know what it felt like to be guilty. And I chose them both from the Narcotics Bureau because it was sort of easier, and neater, and I’d been reading a book about some cops in the Narcotics Bureau. And then, just when I was trying to pick my third victim, I came across you. And—like I told Lenore here—and like I said in my notebook—as soon as I saw you I knew that you were the right person. I knew that one day, when I had finished,’ he giggled, ‘doing my research into human nature, I was going to get sick of it, and would want to settle down and lead a normal, decent life. And I knew that you were the person who would, if I was careful, and clever, confess. You see,’ he said, ‘I know about guilt and the guilty. You would have confessed anyway, sooner or later, to whatever I had done, but your killing Bob just speeded everything up. Except of course that you didn’t kill Bob. I did. He wasn’t dead when I cut his throat, and I haven’t even got the excuse that you were pointing a gun at me, because I knew it wasn’t loaded. Your precious friend Bob, when we were waiting for you, told me he never kept his gun loaded, under any circumstances. He said he’d never killed anyone, and never could, and would rather die himself than do so. He did,’ Smith laughed.