by Jim Thompson
“Sure,” he nodded, scowling a little. “Anyone’d know that. Don’t see how you could even have been sixteen.”
“Well, the war was still on and any kind of help was hard to get. This Mr. Fields and his wife—awfully nice old couple—gave me a job in their filling station, and it didn’t pay much, because it didn’t make much, but I liked it fine. I lived with them, just like I was their son, and saved everything I did make. And two years ago, when Da—I mean, Mr. Fields died, I bought the place from her…I guess”—I hesitated—“I guess that’s one reason I wanted to get away from Tucson. With Dad Fields dead and Mom moved back to Iowa, it just didn’t seem like home any more.”
The sheriff coughed and blew his nose. “Dang that Jake,” he growled. “So you sold out and came back here, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Would you like to see a copy of the bill of sale?”
I showed it to him. I also showed him some of the letters Mrs. Fields had written me from Iowa before she died. He paid a lot more attention to them than he had to the bill of sale, and when he was through he blew his nose again.
“Goldarn it, Carl, I’m really sorry to ’ve put you through all this, but I reckon I’m not through yet. You won’t mind if I do a little telegraphin’ out there to Tucson? I just about got to, you know. Otherwise Jake’ll keep kickin’ up a fuss like a chicken with its head off.”
“You mean”—I paused—“you want to get in touch with the chief of police in Tucson?”
“You ain’t got no objections, have you?”
“No,” I said. “I just never got to know him as well as I did some of the other folks. Could you send a wire to the sheriff, too, and County Judge McCafferty? I used to take care of their cars for them.”
“Goldang it!” he said, and got to his feet.
I stood up also. “Will this take very long, sheriff? I hardly feel like enrolling at the college until it’s settled.”
“O’course, you don’t,” he nodded sympathetically. “We’ll have it all straightened out, so’s you can start in next Monday.”
“I’d have liked to get into New York first,” I said. “I won’t go, naturally, until you say it’s all right. But I bought a new suit while I was there, and the alterations were supposed to be done by this Saturday.”
I walked to the bedroom door with him, and it seemed to me I heard a faint creak from the door across the hall.
“A man’s kinda got to get along with everyone in a job like mine, so I wouldn’t want you to repeat anything. But these Winroys—well, it ain’t good economy to stay with ’em, no matter how cheap it is. You take my advice, an’—”
“Yes?” I said.
“No”—he sighed, and shook his head—“I guess you can’t very well do that. Jake kicks up a big fuss, and then you move out, an’ no matter what I say or you say it looks bad. Makes it look like you had to move, like maybe there was somethin’ to his crazy carryin’ on.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I surely wish I’d known who he was before I came here.”
I saw him out the door, and closed it again. I stretched out on the bed with a cigarette, lay with my eyes half closed, puffing smoke at the ceiling. I felt all wrung out. No matter how well prepared you are for a deal like that, it takes a lot out of you. I wanted to rest, to be left alone for a while. And the door opened and Mrs. Winroy came in.
“Carl,” she said huskily, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “I’m so sorry, darling. I’ll murder that Jake when I get my hands on him!”
“Forget it,” I said. “Where is he, anyway?”
“At his shop, probably. Probably’ll spend the night there. He’d better if he knows what’s good for him!”
I walked my fingers up her thigh, and let them do a little wandering around. After a moment or two, she squeezed them absently and laid my hand back on the bed.
“Carl…You’re not angry?”
“I didn’t like it,” I said, “but I’m not angry. Matter of fact, I feel pretty sorry for Jake.”
“He’s losing his marbles. Why, they wouldn’t dare kill him! It would hurt them twice as much as having him testify.”
“Yeah?” I said. “I guess I don’t know much about those things, Mrs. Winroy.”
“They—Why don’t you call me Fay, honey? When we’re alone like this.”
“Fay honey,” I said.
“They wouldn’t dare to, would they, Carl? Right here in his home town where everyone knows him and he knows everyone? Why—why”—she laughed irritably—“my God! this is the one place in the world where he’s safe. No stranger can get near him—no one he doesn’t know, and—”
“I got near him,” I said.
“Oh, well,” she shrugged. “I’m not counting you. He knows that anyone the college sent here would be all right.”
“Yeah? He didn’t act much like it.”
“Because he’s full of booze! He’s beginning to see things!”
“Well,” I said, “whatever he does, you can’t blame him much.”
“I can’t, huh?”
“I don’t think you should,” I said.
I raised up on one elbow and tamped out my cigarette.
“Here’s the way I might look at it, Fay,” I said, “if I were in Jake’s shoes. Practically all I know about crime is what I read in the papers. But I’m pretty good at putting myself in the other fellow’s place, and here’s the way I’d feel if I were Jake. I’d figure that if they took a notion to kill me, there wouldn’t be any way I could stop them. Nothing I could do, no place I could go. I—”
“But, Carl—”
“If they didn’t get me in one place, they’d do it in another. Some place, somehow, and no matter how tough it was. I’d know they’d get me, Fay.”
“But they won’t! They can’t afford to!”
“Sure,” I said.
“The case won’t ever come to trial. Everyone says it won’t!”
“Well, they probably know,” I said. “I was just talking about how Jake would feel if he thought they did want to kill him.”
“Yes, but you said—I mean, when he knows they won’t do it, why—?”
“He knows it, but do they know it? See what I mean? He knows they’ve got plenty of brains and plenty of money. He knows they’d find an angle, if they wanted to get him badly enough.”
“But they—”
“They don’t,” I said. “But if they did? There wouldn’t be anyone Jake could trust. Why, they might even try to get to him through old man Kendall.”
“Oh, Carl! That’s ridiculous!”
“Sure, it is,” I said, “but you get the idea. Some guy who would never be suspected.”
“Carl—”
She was looking narrow-eyed, interested, cautious.
“Yeah, Fay?” I said.
“You…What if—if—”
“What if what?” I said.
She kept on staring at me in that puzzled cautious way. Then, she laughed suddenly and jumped up. “God,” she said. “Talk about Jake losing his marbles! Look, Carl. You’re not going to school this week?”
I shook my head. I didn’t bother to rib her about snooping.
“Well, Ruth has a nine o’clock class, so you ought to be downstairs by eight if you want her to fix your breakfast. Or you can just help yourself to coffee and toast or something whenever you get up. That’s what I usually do.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll see how I feel in the morning.”
She left, then. I opened a window and stretched back out on the bed. I needed a bath, but I wasn’t up to it yet. I wasn’t up to such a little thing as undressing and walking a few steps down the hall to the bathroom.
I lay still, forcing myself to lie still when I felt the urge to get up and look in the mirror. You’ve got to take it easy. You can’t run for the big score with sand in your shoes. I closed my eyes, looking at myself in my mind’s eye.
It gave me a start. It was like looking at someone else.
&nb
sp; I’d seen myself that way ten thousand times and each time it was a new experience. I’d see what other people seemed to see, and I’d catch myself thinking, “Gosh, what a nice little guy. You don’t need anyone to tell you he’s all right—”
I thought that, now, and somehow it sent a shiver through me. I started thinking about the teeth and the other chances, and I knew that they really didn’t matter. But I made myself think about them.
I felt safer, some way, believing it was those things instead of—instead of?
…The teeth and the contact lenses. The tanned, healthy-looking face. The extra weight. The added height…and only part of it was due to the elevator shoes I’d worn since 1943. I’d straightened up when I shook the bug, and—but had I shaken it? Suppose I took sick now, so sick I couldn’t go through with this? The Man would be sore, and—the name? Charles Bigger—Carl Bigelow? Well, it was as good as any. It wouldn’t have been any better to call myself Chester Bellows or Chauncey Billingsley; and it would have had to be something like that. A man can’t get too far away from his own name, you know. He may try to but he’s asking for trouble. There’s laundry markings. There’s answering when you’re spoken to. So…
So I hadn’t made any mistakes. I…But The Man had found me. He’d never seen me before either but he’d known right where to send for me. And if The Man could do it…
I lighted a cigarette, jabbed it out immediately, and threw myself back on the pillows.
The Man—you couldn’t count The Man. I hadn’t made any mistakes, and I wouldn’t make any. I’d make the score, and I’d make the afterwards, the hard part. Because no matter how smoothly it was done, there was bound to be some heat. And the surest way of getting cooked was to try to run from it. You’d screw things up for The Man. If they didn’t get you, he would.
So…I felt drowsy.
No mistakes. No letting down for even a second. No getting sick. And use them all, Mrs. Winroy directly, the others indirectly. They’d have to be on my side. They’d have to know that I couldn’t do what I had to do. The Man didn’t need to watch me. They would. They were all watching to see that I did it right, and…watching…always watching…and me…
…They crowded the sidewalks of that dark narrow street, that narrow and lonely street. And they were going on about their business, laughing and talking and enjoying life; but still they were watching me. Watching me follow Jake and watching The Man follow me. I was sweating and all out of breath, because I’d been in the street a long time. And they kept getting in my way, getting between me and Jake, but they never got in The Man’s way. Me, ME, they had to screw up. And…I could taste the black damp in my mouth and I could hear the pillars cracking and crumbling and the lamp on my cap began to flicker and…I grabbed one of the bastards. I grabbed himher, and yanked and rolled and…
I had her on the bed. She was under me, and I had the crutch across her throat, pinned down with my arms.
I blinked, staring down at her, fighting to come out of the dream. I said, “Jesus, kid. You don’t want to ever—”
I slid the crutch to one side and she started breathing again, but she still couldn’t talk. She was too scared. I looked into the great scared eyes—watching me—and it was all I could do to keep from slugging her.
“Spill it,” I said. “Spit it out. What were you doing here?”
“I—I—I—”
I dug my hand into her side, and twisted. And she gasped.
“Spill it.”
“I—I—I w-was a-afraid for you. I—I w-was w-worried about…Carl! D-don’t—”
She began to struggle, then, and I lay flat against her. I held her, twisting her, and she gasped and moaned. She tried to pull at my hand, and I twisted harder.
“D-don’t!…I’ve n-never…C-carl, I’ve never…it’s n-not n-n-nice and Carl! Carl! Y-you’ve g-got to…I’ll have a b-baby, and—”
…She’d stopped begging.
There was nothing left to beg for.
I looked down, my head against hers so that she couldn’t see that I was looking. I looked, and I closed my eyes quickly. But I couldn’t keep them closed.
It was a baby’s foot. A tiny little foot and ankle. It started just above the knee joint—where the knee would have been if she had one—a tiny little ankle, not much bigger around than a thumb; a baby ankle and a baby foot.
The toes were curling and uncurling, moving with the rhythm of her body…
“C-Carl…Oh, C-Carl!” she gasped.
After a long time, what seemed like a long time, I heard her saying, “Don’t. Please don’t, Carl. It’s a-all right, so—so, please, Carl…Please don’t cry any more—”
5
I was a long time getting to sleep, and thirty minutes after I did I woke up again. I woke up exhausted, but with the feeling that I’d been asleep for hours. You know? It went on like that all night.
When I woke the last time it was nine-thirty, and sunlight was streaming into the room. It was shining right on my pillows, and my face felt hot and moist. I sat up quickly, hugging my stomach. The light, hitting into my eyes suddenly, had made me sick. I clenched my eyes against it, but the light wasn’t shut out. It seemed to be closed in, under the lids, and a thousand little images danced in its brilliance. Tiny white things, little figure-seven-shaped things: dancing and twisting and squirming.
I sat on the edge of the bed, rocking and hugging myself. I could taste the blood in my mouth, salty and sour, and I thought of how it would look in the sunlight, how yellow and purplish, and…
Somehow I got to the dresser and got the lenses and teeth into place. I staggered down the hall, kicked the bathroom door shut behind me, and went down on my knees in front of the toilet bowl. I threw my arms around it, bracing myself, looking down at the wavering water in the faintly brown-stained porcelain. And then my whole body swelled and shook, and I heaved.
The first one, the first heave, was the worst. It seemed to pull me two ways, forcing the stuff back and throwing it up at the same time. After that it was easier; the hard part was getting my breath, keeping from strangling. My heart pounded harder and harder. The sweat of weakness streamed down off my face, mixing with the blood and the vomit. I knew I was making a hell of a racket, but I didn’t care.
There was a rap on the door, and Fay Winroy called, “Carl. Are you all right, Carl?” I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. And the door opened.
“Carl! What in the world, honey—?”
I gestured with one hand, not looking around. Gestured that I was all right, that I was sorry, to get the hell out.
She said, “I’ll be right back, honey,” and I heard her hurrying back up the hall and down the stairs.
I flushed the toilet, keeping my eyes closed.
By the time she came back I’d got some cold water dabbed on my face and was sitting on the toilet seat. I was weak as all hell, but the sickness was gone.
“Drink it down, baby,” she said. And I drank it down—a half a glass of straight whiskey. I gasped and shuddered, and she said, “Here. Take a deep drag.” And I took the cigarette she handed me, and dragged on it deeply.
The whiskey stayed down, warming me and cooling me in all the places where I needed warming and cooling.
“My God, honey!…” She was down on her knees in front of me; why she bothered to wear that nightgown I didn’t know, because it didn’t conceal anything. “You get that way very much, Carl?”
I shook my head. “I haven’t had a spell like that since I was a kid. Don’t know what the hell brought it on.”
“Well, gosh, I didn’t know what to think. You sounded worse than Jake does sometimes.”
She was smiling, concerned for me. But there was a calculating look in the reddish brown eyes. Was I a sharp guy, a guy who could give her a lot of kicks? Or was I just a sick punk, someone good for a lousy fifteen a week and no laughs to go with it?
Apparently she made up her mind. She stood up and locked her arms around mine, holding them. She sa
id, “Mmmmmmmmph!” and kissed me open-mouthed. “You tough little bastard!” she whispered. “Oh, you tough little bastard! I’ve got half a notion to—”
I didn’t want that. Yet. I wasn’t up to it. So I started a little rough-house, and that broke the mood.
“Stinker!” she laughed, leaning against the wall of the hallway. “Don’t you dare, you naughty bad boy!”
“Flag me down, then,” I said. “I only stop for red flags.”
I looked at her standing there laughing, everything she had on view. And all the time telling me not to look, not to dare. I watched her, listened to her. I watched and listened to myself, standing outside myself. And it was like seeing a movie you’ve seen a thousand times before. And…and I guess there wasn’t anything strange about that.
I shaved and took the bath I’d missed the night before. I got dressed, hurrying it up a little when she called up the stairs to me, and went down to the kitchen.
She’d fixed bacon and eggs and toast, some sliced oranges and french fries. And she’d dirtied up about half the pans and dishes in the place to do it, but it was all well prepared. She sat across from me at the kitchen table, kidding and laughing, keeping my coffee cup filled. And I knew what she was—but I couldn’t help liking her.
We finished eating, and I passed her a cigarette.
“Carl—”
“Yes?” I said.
“About—about what we were talking about last night—”
She waited. I didn’t say anything.
“Oh, hell,” she said, finally. “Well, I suppose I’d better go downtown and see Jake. He can stay away as long as he wants to, but he’s got to give me some money.”
“Too bad you have to look him up,” I said. “You don’t think he’ll be home?”
“Who knows what he’ll do?” She shrugged angrily. “He’ll probably stay away until they find out about you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I hate to have him put himself out on my account.”
