Recoil

by Jim Thompson

  It was unlocked.

  I pushed it open slowly.

  I ducked back and flattened myself against the partition, and then I moved away from it and stepped inside and flicked on the flashlight.

  The beam moved across the desk. He was bent forward a little on his elbows; his hands lay on top of each other carelessly; and the chair was drawn close to the desk, holding his body against it.

  He wouldn’t be talking that night or any other. He was through talking for all time.

  21

  I knew what had happened before I looked at his head. He had pulled the chair up close to the desk and put his elbows on it, because he had wanted to count something, money, and that was the natural way to do it. He had sat there counting, his suspicions lulled by the fact that the money had been paid quietly, without argument. And then the person—the man or woman—who had handed it over so readily…

  I moved the flashlight. I couldn’t see his face; his chin was resting on his chest, and his hat was pulled too low. But I could see his head, even with the hat on. Part of it was oozing right out through the crown of the hat. He’d never known what hit him.

  I wasn’t sorry he was dead. I’d seen good men killed for no reason, and he hadn’t been good or even fair. He’d meant to collect from both sides, from one for keeping quiet and from the other—from me—for talking. I might have foreseen that he would try that. The murderer had.

  I walked around the desk and opened a drawer. There was nothing in it but a pipe, a can of tobacco and a half-empty pint of cheap whiskey.

  If there was anything significant in the thin file of letters, the dog-eared ledger, or the several dozen receipted and unreceipted bills, I didn’t know what it was. Probably there wasn’t anything. I felt his pockets as best I could without moving him. I found a few pads of matches, a wallet containing his credentials, and six dollars, a package and a half of cigarettes and a fully-loaded .32 automatic.

  I put those things back where I’d found them, and looked down at the desk. There was nothing on it but a day-to-day calendar. The date showing was the following day.

  I didn’t think anything of it for a moment. I turned away and looked around the room carefully, trying to find—I don’t know what I was trying to find.

  I looked down at the calendar again, and then it came to me. It wasn’t a mistake. This was one day that Eggleston wouldn’t have slipped up on.

  I flipped back one of the little white leaflets. There was the date, today, and scrawled across it were two notations:

  Mrs. Luth. 5:45

  P. Cos 8:00

  I pulled it loose from the staples and tore it into shreds. I went through the expired calendar slips and tore off a dozen or more of them. I dropped them into the sink, burned them into ashes and flushed them down the drain. One missing slip might mean something. A number of missing ones wouldn’t.

  The phone rang, and I jumped. I moved back from it automatically, and then I lifted it up, let it bang against the desk and held the receiver against my ear.

  I waited. And whoever was calling waited. At last there was a whisper, “Mr. Eggleston?”

  I couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman. You can’t tell with whispers. “The same,” I whispered back.

  “I can’t talk very loud, Mr. Eggleston.”

  “I’m in the same position.”

  That sounded like him, I hoped.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t keep our appointment, Mr. Eggleston. Personally. Was it all right?”

  “I’m afraid it isn’t,” I whispered. “I’m afraid I’ll have to insist that you come down.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Why is it necessary for me to come down?”

  “I think you know why.”

  “You got the money, didn’t you? You were taken care of?”

  It wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t going to get him or her to come down. That left only one thing to do. Startle that whisper into a recognizable voice.

  “Yes,” I said, in a deeper whisper. “I’m all taken care of. I’m sitting here with the top of my head bashed in. Dead.”

  That didn’t work either. There was a short silence. Then the receiver at the other end of the wire went down with a bang.

  I pushed Eggleston’s body back from the desk and searched it thoroughly. I might as well, I knew now, because I couldn’t leave it here. The time of death couldn’t be fixed exactly; thirty minutes or an hour would be about as close as the police could come to it. And that, since the real murderer would have a foolproof alibi, left me the only suspect.

  There was a chance that the elevator boy wouldn’t remember my loitering around the lobby. There was chance that he couldn’t describe me if he did remember. But I, a man on parole, a man with a criminal record, couldn’t take those chances. Someway I’d have to get the body out of the building. Hide it. The river would probably be best.

  My search produced nothing but a few keys, some coins and another partly filled package of cigarettes. I dropped them back into his coat pocket, and stood back studying him. He’d bled very little, and that had been absorbed by his hat and hair. He wasn’t bleeding at all now. There were no stains to clean up. Nothing to do but get him out of there.

  That was all.

  I tested the outer door and found it unlocked; I could have walked in instead of climbing. I glanced at the snipped chains of the transom. They would be discovered and arouse comment, but without the body they didn’t mean anything. In time, of course, Eggleston’s absence would arouse inquiries. But by that time, I hoped, I would have the riddle of Dr. Luther solved. I would know what Eggleston had known and, hence, who had killed him.

  But that was something to work out later, when, perhaps, I had more to work on. Right now Eggleston’s body had to be got out of there.

  I opened the door, glanced out, and let it close again. Going back into the other office, I picked the body up in my arms, carried it to the door and pulled it open with my fingers. It was still clear outside. The other offices were quiet and dark.

  I let the door close behind me and walked swiftly down the corridor to the turn. I stuck my head around it; all clear there too. I broke into a trot; moving as rapidly as I could with the dead weight I was carrying.

  I reached the elevators, and set the body down in front of the door of the unused one. Panting, I pressed the signal button. My car was parked two blocks away. I needed a total of at least five minutes. Two minutes to get there. A minute to get the car off the lot. Two minutes to get back.

  Just five minutes.

  I heard the elevator door clang at the bottom of the shaft. Cables whined. I flattened myself against the wall and waited.

  Light bobbled on the corridor as the elevator moved past and then came back to the landing. The door rattled and banged open.

  “Going down,” came a sullen snarl.

  I held my breath, clenched my fist into a hard, leather-covered ball.

  “Going”—he stuck his head out—“ugh!”

  My first came up hammer-like beneath his chin. His head went back, and then he toppled straight forward. I caught him, stretched him out on the floor of the car and felt his heart. The beat was fast but steady. Aside from a cut lip, where his teeth had snapped into it, he wasn’t hurt.

  The door had closed automatically. I opened it again, holding it with my foot while I reached out and dragged Eggleston inside. A moment later, having worked out the simple controls of the elevator, I brought it to a stop between two floors.

  I sank down on the stool, brushing the sweat from my eyes. Almost instantly, the memory of that automatic door brought me back to my feet.

  I couldn’t prop the door open while I went after my car. Not with a dead man in one corner and a senseless one in another. There might not be much traffic in the building at night, but obviously there was some. Otherwise an elevator wouldn’t be in operation.

  Feeling through the operator’
s pockets, I found what I was looking for, something I’d seen used at various times. It was a short thin piece of metal rod. An elevator “key.” Thrust through two small overlapping holes in the elevator doors, it permitted them to be opened from the outside.

  I dropped it into my pocket, shut off the lights and slowly lowered the car to the first floor. Looking through the small glass door panel, I saw that the lobby was empty. I stepped out and the door snapped shut, and I hurried away.

  When I got back, I made a careful left turn and drew up just short of the building entrance. The street was unlighted. The only illumination came from the dimmed lights of the lobby.

  I set the throttle so that the motor was barely turning over. Then, easing the left door off the catch, I slid out the right one, leaving it open behind me.

  I stepped toward the entrance—and I stopped. My heart stopped for a moment. Someone was in there. Pounding on the elevator door. Pounding and, now, shouting.

  I forced myself to walk on. I walked on, slowly, glancing inside as I passed. I couldn’t get a good look at him, and he didn’t look in my direction at all. He was too busy with his angry pounding and kicking on the elevator door.

  I waited a moment at the alley, and turned and walked back again, Time! I’d run over my margin of safety minutes ago. Even without that pounding, the elevator operator was due to come to his senses any moment. And if it kept on, if I couldn’t get in there—

  The racket rose to a thunderous crescendo. Then it stopped, and footsteps crossed the lobby, and there was another sound: The slamming of the door to the stairs. He’d given up. He’d decided to walk.

  I ran for the entrance, glancing up and down the street. All clear. Thank God this building was where it was, that this was a side street. Racing through the lobby, I yanked the elevator key from my pocket and jammed it through the overlapping holes in the door.

  From inside the car came a steady rattling buzz. Signal buttons. Someone wanted to come down. Several people from the sound of things. Probably some of them had already started to walk down. Were already on the stairs. And I couldn’t wait. There’d be more. What if I was penned up there with a dead man, and—

  Something was holding the door of the car, pressing against it. It wouldn’t open. It opened a few inches, but—but—

  The clatter of the signals was growing louder. And above it, from somewhere upstairs, I heard the vicious slamming of a door. Then another. Then voices calling to each other, and the hollow echo of footsteps coming downward.

  The door slid open another agonizing inch. I dropped the key, got both hands into the opening and threw everything I had into one gigantic tug.

  It grated and groaned—and then it shot open. And the elevator operator sagged through it. He’d revived partly. He’d been leaning against the door, holding it with his weight.

  He fell forward, knees limp, head down. I gave him a swinging right. He shot backward into the car, struck the back wall, and fell face-forward to the floor.

  Too hard. I hadn’t meant to hit him so hard. But no time to think of that, now. No time to look at him.

  I lifted Eggleston’s body. I clawed the door open with one hand, and staggered outside. Only seconds, now. Only a few seconds to get the body into the car and get away. The steps on the stairs were rushing downward. They’d passed the second floor. Any moment the lobby door would open, and—

  I ran toward the entrance. Only a few feet to go. Out of the lobby and across the walk into the car. Only a few feet and—and I couldn’t make them. I couldn’t go back and I couldn’t go forward. Someone had stepped into the entrance.

  A blue-uniformed cop.

  22

  He had been looking at something down the street as he stepped into the entrance, and his head was still turned now. I stopped dead in my tracks, paralyzed for the moment with shock and fear. Then, as his head started to turn toward me, I acted. I did the only thing there was to do.

  I ran forward and hurled the body at him.

  It struck him high in the chest, obstructing his vision—I hoped—and bowling him over backwards. He yelled and grappled with it blindly, and I darted around to one side and sprang for the car.

  I brought my foot down on the accelerator, grabbing at the doors. They banged shut and the motor stuttered and roared and the car leaped ahead.

  As I shot past the entrance, I caught a confused picture of two figures rolling on the sidewalk and another running toward them from the lobby. Then, I was out of that block and in the middle of the next one, nearing the second intersection, and the speed indicator read seventy miles an hour.

  Somehow I got control of myself. I brought my foot down on the brake, and the car skidded perilously. I eased up on it for a split second, then brought it down again. At something near the legal speed limit, I swept through the intersection.

  Fortunately, there were no traffic lights this far down and very little traffic. At least it was fortunate at that particular moment. In the long run, I knew, safety would lie where the traffic was thickest. I rolled on, slower and slower, breathing heavily, nervous sweat rolling down into my eyes.

  I turned left at the next corner, entering an arterial street which led through the center of the downtown district. Not until then did I hear, far to the rear of me, the shrill clatter of a police whistle.

  Moving automatically with the traffic, I drove through town. I was safe, but for how long? And who could I turn to for help, if I needed it—if that cop had spotted my license plates or if the elevator operator could describe me?

  Wrapped in thought, driving blindly, I came out on the other side of the business district. I passed an apartment house, and suddenly I thought of Hardesty. He lived in this neighborhood, and he wanted something from me. The man who wants something is a good man to drive a trade with.

  I found his address, an apartment hotel near the park, and parked my car across the street from it. The lobby clerk was working the switchboard, his back to me. I got into the automatic elevator, punched a button and rode up.

  Hardesty came to the door in a dressing gown. He started to smile when he saw me. Then his eyes widened, and the smile faded into a startled frown. And he grabbed my shoulder abruptly and jerked me inside.

  “Why the hell did you come here?” he snarled, slamming the door. “Haven’t you got sense enough to—” Breaking off with an angry curse, he strode across the room to a large radio and flicked the switch.

  It burst into raucous sound, and cursing again, he turned down the volume. “Listen,” he said, curtly.

  I listened.

  “…additional information on the man who, a few minutes ago, beat an elevator operator in the Haddon Building unconscious, murdered a tenant of the building and escaped after slugging a police officer with the dead man’s body.

  “The murderer is about six feet four inches tall and has red hair. His complexion is swarthy; he is well-dressed; he is believed to be driving a late-model coupe with an out of state license. The elevator operator believes him to be the same man he saw loitering around the building earlier in the evening. No motive is yet apparent for…”

  The radio switch clicked.

  Hardesty looked at me, grinning; smiling in affable apology.

  “Sorry, Pat,” he said. “I was listening to that when you knocked, and I thought—well, that red hair and all…”

  His voice trailed off, and he frowned again.

  “Oh,” he said, softly. “So it was you.”

  “I’m the man they’re looking for,” I nodded. “But I didn’t kill anyone. I found the body. I was afraid the murder might be pinned on me so I tried to get it out of the building.”

  I gave him a brief account of what happened. He listened absently, with only a pretense of interest, but his face cleared.

  “Well,” he shrugged, “they seemed to have you tabbed wrong, anyway, even to the license on your car. The only thing they’ve got right is your hair and they can’t haul in every red-haired man in tow
n.”

  “They can haul in all those who have criminal records,” I said. “And that elevator operator could identify me if he saw me again.”

  “I doubt it.” He shook his head. “And how are the police going to know that the murderer had a criminal record? No, just sit tight for a few days, keep out of that neighborhood, and you’ll be all right. Three or four days from now that elevator jockey wouldn’t know you, even if you did have the bad luck to run into him.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I said.

  “I’m sure of it, Pat. I know how those things go. It would have been better of course if you’d just walked out after you discovered the body. But that can’t be helped now. Sit down and have a drink. I think you could use one.

  “Now,” he said, when he had poured two stiff drinks, “I wonder if there isn’t something else you should tell me, Pat.”

  “For instance?” I tossed down my drink and poured another one.

  “For instance, how you happened to be in this detective’s office.”

  “I had an appointment with him,” I said.

  “I supposed you had.”

  “He was going to tell me what this was all about, why I was paroled from Sandstone.”

  “I see.” He sat with his arms on his knees, bent forward a little, the glass cupped in his hands. There was a faint smile on his lips. “He was going to tell you something. He got killed. What conclusion would you draw from that?”

  “You mean I shouldn’t be curious?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean, Pat. I—”

  “I think you’re wrong,” I said. “I think I should be a damned sight more curious than I have been. The murder is proof that I’m playing blind in a game where a life means nothing. Before tonight I was just worried. Now I know that I’ve got to find out what’s going on.”

  “Oh?” he said, softly. “How do you propose to go about that, Pat?”

  “I’ve already got an opening wedge. Mrs. Luther had an appointment ahead of me tonight. I think it’s safe to assume that what Eggleston knew was about her.”