The Killer Inside Me

by Jim Thompson

  “I don’t think we should marry now, no.”

  “You don’t want to marry me at all.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She was silent for several minutes, but her face talked for her. I saw her eyes narrow and a mean little smile twist her lips, and I knew what she was thinking. I knew almost to a word what she was going to say.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to marry me, Lou. You’ll have to, do you understand?”

  “No,” I said. “I won’t have to. You’re not pregnant, Amy. You’ve never gone with anyone else, and you’re not pregnant by me.”

  “I’m lying, I suppose?”

  “Seems as though,” I said. “I couldn’t get you pregnant if I wanted to. I’m sterile.”

  “You?”

  “Sterile isn’t the same thing as impotent. I’ve had a vasectomy.”

  “Then why have we always been so—why do you use—?”

  I shrugged. “It saved a lot of explanations. Anyway, you’re not pregnant, to get back to the subject.”

  “I just don’t understand,” she said, frowning. She wasn’t at all bothered by my catching her in a lie. “Your father did it? Why, Lou?”

  “Oh, I was kind of run down and nervous, and he thought—”

  “Why, you were not! You were never that way!”

  “Well,” I said, “he thought I was.”

  “He thought! He did a terrible thing like that—made you so we can never have children—just because he thought something! Why, it’s terrible! It makes me sick!…When was it, Lou?”

  “What’s the difference?” I said. “I don’t really remember. A long time ago.”

  I wished I’d kept my mouth shut about her not being pregnant. Now I couldn’t back up on my story. She’d know I was lying and she’d be more suspicious than ever.

  I grinned at her and walked my fingers up the curving plane of her belly. I squeezed one of her breasts, and then I moved my hand up until it was resting against her throat.

  “What’s the matter?” I said. “What have you got that pretty little face all puckered up for?”

  She didn’t say anything. She didn’t smile back. She just lay there, staring, adding me up point by point, and she began to look more puzzled in one way and less in another. The answer was trying to crash through and it couldn’t make it—quite. I was standing in the way. It couldn’t get around the image she had of gentle, friendly, easy-going Lou Ford.

  “I think,” she said slowly, “I’d better go home now.”

  “Maybe you’d better,” I agreed. “It’ll be dawn before long.”

  “Will I see you tomorrow? Today, I mean.”

  “Well, Saturday’s a pretty busy day for me,” I said. “I reckon we might go to church together Sunday or maybe have dinner together, but—”

  “But you’re busy Sunday night.”

  “I really am, honey. I promised to do a favor for a fellow, and I don’t see how I can get out of it.”

  “I see. It never occurs to you to think about me when you’re making all your plans, does it? Oh, no! I don’t matter.”

  “I won’t be tied up too long Sunday,” I said. “Maybe until eleven o’clock or so. Why don’t you come over and wait for me like you did tonight? I’d be tickled to death to have you.”

  Her eyes flickered, but she didn’t break out with a lecture like she must have wanted to. She motioned for me to move so she could get up; and then she got up and began dressing.

  “I’m awfully sorry, honey,” I said.

  “Are you?” She pulled her dress over her head, patted it down around her hips and buttoned the collar. Standing first on one foot then the other, she put on her pumps. I got up and held her coat for her, smoothing it around her shoulders as I helped her into it.

  She turned inside my arms and faced me. “All right, Lou,” she said briskly. “We’ll say no more tonight. But Sunday we’ll have a good long talk. You’re going to tell me why you’ve acted as you have these last few months, and no lying or evasions. Understand?”

  “Ma’am, Miss Stanton,” I said. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “All right,” she nodded, “that’s settled. Now you’d better put some clothes on or go back to bed before you catch cold.”

  5

  That day, Saturday, was a busy one. There were a lot of payday drunks in town, it being the middle of the month, and drunks out here mean fights. All of us deputies and the two constables and Sheriff Maples had our hands full keeping things under control.

  I don’t have much trouble with drunks. Dad taught me they were touchy as all hell and twice as jumpy, and if you didn’t ruffle ’em or alarm ’em they were the easiest people in the world to get along with. You should never bawl a drunk out, he said, because the guy had already bawled himself out to the breaking point. And you should never pull a gun or swing on a drunk because he was apt to feel that his life was in danger and act accordingly.

  So I just moved around, friendly and gentle, taking the guys home wherever I could instead of to jail, and none of them got hurt and neither did I. But it all took time. From the time I went on at noon until eleven o’clock, I didn’t so much as stop for a cup of coffee. Then around midnight, when I was already way over shift, I got one of the special jobs Sheriff Maples was always calling me in on.

  A Mexican pipeliner had got all hayed up on marijuana and stabbed another Mexican to death. The boys had roughed him up pretty badly bringing him in and now, what with the hay and all, he was a regular wild man. They’d managed to get him off into one of the “quiet” cells, but the way he was cutting up he was going to take it apart or die in the attempt.

  “Can’t handle the crazy Mex the way we ought to,” Sheriff Bob grumbled. “Not in a murder case. I miss my guess, we’ve already given some shyster defense lawyer enough to go yellin’ third-degree.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said.

  I went down to the cell and I stayed there three hours, and I was busy every minute of it. I hardly had time to slam the door before the Mex dived at me. I caught his arms and held him back, letting him struggle and rave; and then I turned him loose and he dived again. I held him back again, turned him loose again. It went on and on.

  I never slugged him or kicked him. I never let him struggle hard enough to hurt himself. I just wore him down, little by little, and when he quieted enough to hear me I began talking to him. Practically everyone in this area talks some Mex, but I do it better than most. I talked on and on, feeling him relax; and all the time I was wondering about myself.

  This Mex, now, was about as defenseless as a man could be. He was hopped up and crazy. With the booting around he’d had, a little bit more would never have been noticed. I’d taken a lot bigger chance with what I’d done to that bum. The bum could have caused trouble. This Mex, alone in a cell with me, couldn’t.

  Yet I didn’t so much as twist a finger. I’d never hurt a prisoner, someone that I could harm safely. I didn’t have the slightest desire to. Maybe I had too much pride in my reputation for not using force. Or maybe I figured subconsciously that the prisoners and I were on the same side. But however it was, I’d never hurt ’em. I didn’t want to, and pretty soon I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone. I’d get rid of her, and it would all be over for all time.

  After three hours, like I say, the Mex was willing to behave. So I got him his clothes back and a blanket for his bunk, and let him smoke a cigarette while I tucked him in. Sheriff Maples peeped in as I was leaving, and shook his head wonderingly.

  “Don’t see how you do it, Lou,” he swore. “Dagnab it, if I see where you get the patience.”

  “You’ve just got to keep smiling,” I said. “That’s the answer.”

  “Yeah? Do tell,” he drawled.

  “That’s right,” I said. “The man with the grin is the man who will win.”

  He gave me a funny look; and I laughed and slapped him on the back. “Just kidding, Bob,” I said.

  What the hell? You can’t b
reak a habit overnight. And what was the harm in a little kidding?

  The sheriff wished me a good Sunday, and I drove on home. I fixed myself a big platter of ham and eggs and French fries, and carried it into Dad’s office. I ate at his desk, more at peace with myself than I’d been in a long time.

  I’d made up my mind about one thing. Come hell or high water, I wasn’t going to marry Amy Stanton. I’d been holding off on her account; I didn’t feel I had the right to marry her. Now, though, I just wasn’t going to do it. If I had to marry someone, it wouldn’t be a bossy little gal with a tongue like barbed-wire and a mind about as narrow.

  I carried my dishes into the kitchen, washed them up and took a long hot bath. Then I turned in and slept like a log until ten in the morning. While I was having breakfast, I heard gravel crunch in the driveway; and looking out I saw Chester Conway’s Cadillac.

  He came right in the house without knocking—people had got in the habit of that when Dad was practicing—and back into the kitchen.

  “Keep your seat, boy, keep your seat,” he said, though I hadn’t made any move to get up. “Go right on with your breakfast.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He sat down, craning his neck so that he could look at the food on my plate. “Is that coffee fresh? I think I’ll have some. Hop up and get me a cup, will you?”

  “Yes, sir,” I drawled. “Right away, Mr. Conway, sir.”

  That didn’t faze him, of course; that was the kind of talk he felt he was entitled to. He took a noisy swill of coffee, then another. The third time he gulped the cup was emptied. He said he wouldn’t take any more, without my offering him any, and lighted a cigar. He dropped the match on the floor, puffed and dusted ashes into his cup.

  West Texans as a whole are a pretty high-handed lot, but they don’t walk on a man if he stands up; they’re quick to respect the other fellow’s rights. Chester Conway was an exception. Conway had been the big man in town before the oil boom. He’d always been able to deal with others on his own terms. He’d gone without opposition for so many years that, by this time, he hardly knew it when he saw it. I believe I could have cussed him out in church and he wouldn’t have turned a hair. He’d just have figured his ears were playing tricks on him.

  It had never been hard for me to believe he’d arranged Mike’s murder. The fact that he did it would automatically make it all right.

  “Well,” he said, dusting ashes all over the table. “Got everything fixed for tonight, have you? No chance of any slip-ups? You’ll wind this thing right on up so it’ll stay wound?”

  “I’m not doing anything,” I said. “I’ve done all I’m going to.”

  “Don’t think we’d better leave it that way, Lou. ’Member I told you I didn’t like the idea? Well, I still don’t. That damned crazy Elmer sees her again no telling what’ll happen. You take the money yourself, boy. I’ve got it all ready, ten thousand in small bills, and—”

  “No,” I said.

  “—pay her off. Then bust her around a little, and run her across the county line.”

  “Mr. Conway,” I said.

  “That’s the way to do it,” he chuckled, his big pale jowls jouncing. “Pay her, bust her and chase her…You say something?”

  I went through it again, real slowly, dealing it out a word at a time. Miss Lakeland insisted on seeing Elmer one more time before she left. She insisted on his bringing the dough, and she didn’t want any witnesses along. Those were her terms, and if Conway wanted her to leave quietly he’d have to meet ’em. We could have her pinched, of course, but she was bound to talk if we did and it wouldn’t be pretty talk.

  Conway nodded irritably. “Understand all that. Can’t have a lot of dirty publicity. But I don’t see—”

  “I’ll tell you what you don’t see, Mr. Conway,” I said. “You don’t see that you’ve got a hell of a lot of gall.”

  “Huh?” His mouth dropped open. “Wha-at?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Stop and think a minute. How would it look if it got around that an officer of the law had made a blackmail payoff—that is, if she was willing to accept it from me? How do you think I feel being mixed up in a dirty affair of this kind? Now, Elmer got into this trouble and he came to me—”

  “Only smart thing he ever did.”

  “—and I came to you. And you asked me to see what could be done about getting her out of town quietly. I did it. That’s all I’m going to do. I don’t see how you can ask me to do anything more.”

  “Well, uh”—he cleared his throat—“maybe not, boy. Reckon you’re right. But you will see that she leaves after she gets the money?”

  “I’ll see to that,” I said. “If she’s not gone within an hour, I’ll move her along myself.”

  He got up, fidgeting around nervously, so I walked him to the door to get rid of him. I couldn’t take him much longer. It would have been bad enough if I hadn’t known what he’d done to Mike.

  I kept my hands in my pockets, pretending like I didn’t see him when he started to shake hands. He opened the screen, then hesitated a moment.

  “Better not go off anywhere,” he said. “I’m sending Elmer over as soon as I can locate him. Want you to give him a good talking-to; see that he’s got everything down straight. Make him know what’s what, understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “It’s mighty nice of you to let me talk to him.”

  “That’s all right. No trouble at all,” he said; and the screen slammed behind him.

  A couple hours later Elmer showed up.

  He was big and flabby-looking like his old man, and he tried to be as overbearing but he didn’t quite have the guts for it. Some of our Central City boys had flattened him a few times, and it had done him a world of good. His blotched face was glistening with sweat; his breath would have tested a hundred and eighty proof.

  “Getting started pretty early in the day, aren’t you?” I said.

  “So what?”

  “Not a thing,” I said. “I’ve tried to do you a favor. If you ball it up, it’s your headache.”

  He grunted and crossed his legs. “I dunno, Lou,” he frowned. “Dunno about all this. What if the old man never cools off? What’ll me and Joyce do when the ten thousand runs out?”

  “Well, Elmer,” I said. “I guess there’s some misunderstanding. I understood that you were sure your father would come around in time. If that isn’t the case, maybe I’d better tell Miss Lakeland and—”

  “No, Lou! Don’t do that!…Hell, he’ll get over it. He always gets over the things I do. But—”

  “Why don’t you do this?” I said. “Don’t let your ten thousand run out. Buy you some kind of business; you and Joyce can run it together. When it’s going good, get in touch with your dad. He’ll see that you’ve made a darned smart move, and you won’t have any trouble squaring things.”

  Elmer brightened a little—doggoned little. Working wasn’t Elmer’s idea of a good solution to any problem.

  “Don’t let me talk you into it,” I said. “I think Miss Lakeland has been mighty badly misjudged—she convinced me and I’m not easy to convince. I’ve stuck my neck out a mile to give you and her a fresh start together, but if you don’t want to go—”

  “Why’d you do it, Lou? Why’d you do all this for me and her?”

  “Maybe money,” I said, smiling. “I don’t make very much. Maybe I figured you’d do something for me in a money way.”

  His face turned a few shades redder. “Well…I could give you a little something out of the ten thousand, I guess.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t take any of that!” You’re damned right I wouldn’t. “I figured a man like you must have a little dough of his own. What do you do for your cigarettes and gas and whiskey? Does your dad buy ’em for you?”

  “Like hell!” He sat up and jerked out a roll of bills. “I got plenty of money.”

  He started to peel off a few bills—they were all twenties, it looked like—and then he caught my eye. I
gave him a grin. It told him, plain as day, that I expected him to act like a cheapskate.

  “Aw, hell,” he said, and he wadded the roll together and tossed the whole thing to me. “See you tonight,” he said, hoisting himself up.

  “At ten o’clock,” I nodded.

  There were twenty-five twenties in the roll. Five hundred dollars. Now that I had it, it was welcome; I could always use a little extra money. But I hadn’t planned on touching Elmer. I’d only done it to shut him up about my motives in helping him.

  I didn’t feel much like cooking, so I ate dinner in town. Coming home again I listened to the radio a while, read the Sunday papers and went to sleep.

  Yes, maybe I was taking things pretty calmly, but I’d gone through the deal so often in my mind that I’d gotten used to it. Joyce and Elmer were going to die. Joyce had asked for it. The Conways had asked for it. I wasn’t any more cold-blooded than the dame who’d have me in hell to get her own way. I wasn’t any more cold-blooded than the guy who’d had Mike knocked from an eight-story building.

  Elmer hadn’t done it, of course; probably he didn’t even know anything about it. But I had to get to the old man through him. It was the only way I could, and it was the way it should be. I’d be doing to him what he’d done to Dad.

  …It was eight o’clock when I waked up—eight of the dark, moonless night I’d been waiting for. I gulped a cup of coffee, eased the car down the alley and headed for Derrick Road.

  6

  Here in the oil country you see quite a few places like the old Branch house. They were ranch houses or homesteads at one time; but wells were drilled around ’em, right up to their doorsteps sometimes, and everything nearby became a mess of oil and sulphur water and red sun-baked drilling mud. The grease-black grass dies. The creeks and springs disappear. And then the oil is gone and the houses stand black and abandoned, lost and lonely looking behind the pest growths of sunflowers and sage and Johnson grass.

  The Branch place stood back from Derrick Road a few hundred feet, at the end of a lane so overgrown with weeds that I almost missed it. I turned into the lane, killed the motor after a few yards and got out.