“We got to where we saw quite a bit of each other outside the line of business. He’d drop in on me a night or two a week, or I’d run in on him. We’d have a few drinks and a bite to eat, and bat the breeze around. And, gradually, without knowing I was doing it, I began to get his guard down. He started tipping his hand.”
Appleton shook his head, started fumbling for another cigarette. I gave him one, and held a match.
“For God’s sake,” I said. “Let’s hear the rest of it.”
“He had a big German shepherd, Joe; a big brute that was a hell of a lot more wolf than it was dog. And I began to notice—he and that dog were a lot alike. Sometimes he’d snap at a sandwich or a piece of food just like the dog. Sometimes there’d be a trace of growl in his voice, or he’d scratch the back of his head with that stiff, rapid stroke a dog uses. Sometimes they even looked alike.
“The payoff came one night when he started to play with the dog. It started off as a romp, but before it was over they were down on the floor together, snapping and slashing and clawing, yeah, and barking. Both of ’em. And when I got the cops in they turned on us—the two dogs. Wolves. I don’t need to tell you who our murderer was.”
I shivered. He gave a short laugh.
“Not nice, huh, Joe?”
“I think I’m coming down with a cold,” I said. “I’ve been having chills all evening.”
“Well, I’ll shove off and let you go. How about dinner some night this week?”
“Sure,” I said. “But don’t rush off. Tell me some more about this guy.”
“What about him?”
“Well, why did he choose to be a dog? It doesn’t seem to make sense. I can understand how a guy who worked with crooks all the time might turn out to be a crook, but—”
“He was a man of innate and extraordinarily fine sensibilities, Joe. And a man has to identify himself with something. He has to be able to picture himself as being some certain thing. If he can’t, he’s helpless. There’s no motivation, no guide for his acting and thinking.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s right, isn’t it?”
“This man couldn’t identify himself with the human race. He appeared to be able to do it with extreme ease, but actually he was losing a little of his character and personality with every contact. In the end, there wasn’t anything left; nothing but the idea that humanity was pretty rotten. So—”
“I see,” I said.
I shivered again, and he reached for the door.
“You ought to be in bed, Joe. I’ve got to be going, anyway. I’ve got another case to handle. Going to be on the jump for the next few days.”
“Where’s the fire this time?”
He shook his head. “It’s not in my line, but as long as I’m here I’m taking a crack at it. It’s a disappearance case. Some dame is supposed to have come out here from the city a few days ago, and she hasn’t been heard of since.”
“The hell!” I said. “What do you know about that?” And he gave me a funny look.
“You don’t need to be polite, Joe; I’m not interested in it, either. We get a hundred like it every year.”
“But—but where could she disappear to in a town this size?”
“She couldn’t; I’ll turn her up in a few days. She’s a houseworker; came out here to take a job. That narrows it down a lot. There aren’t many people here who hire household help.”
“No,” I said. “Uh—how did you know she disappeared, anyway? Who reported it?”
“Her former landlady. She didn’t have any relatives, it seems, and she owed this landlady a hell of a big bill. So, as a gesture of good faith, she switched a little paid-up policy she had—actually it would just about take care of her burial expenses when she died—to her landlady. That is, she named her as beneficiary until such time as she could clear up her debt. Well, she left the city in a hurry and was supposed to send for her baggage, and she hasn’t done it. Naturally, the landlady is sure—she hopes—that something has happened to her, and she comes down on us.”
“Y-Y-You’re pretty sure y-you can f-f-find—”
“How can I help it? Say, you have got a chill, haven’t you?”
My teeth were clattering too hard to answer. I nodded, and he said good night and got out. Up on the curb he hollered at me not to forget our dinner date; and I nodded again.
I backed the car out into the street, made a U-turn, and headed for home. As I started to angle around the square, I glanced into the rearview mirror. He was still standing where I had left him. Up on the curb, with his hat thrust back and his hands on his hips.
Watching me.
21
I must have been off my nut by the time I got home. I had to be to do what I did. I ran up the steps almost before the car had stopped rolling. I pushed the door open, half fell inside, and stood leaning against it.
“Elizabeth,” I panted. “Elizabeth—”
And, of course, it wasn’t Elizabeth. But even when I realized that, I couldn’t come to my senses. It only made me worse.
I started to say that I was sorry, that Elizabeth’s name had just slipped out; but I felt so ugly and scared, I guess, that it acted on her. And when it did she wasn’t something I cared about hurting. She got me in the same way Elizabeth had used to.
It was all I could do to keep from slugging her.
“You—you muddle-headed bitch. Goddamn—damn you! Didn’t know where she was going, huh? Everything was all right, huh? Now they got us they got us they got us! They—”
I don’t know what I said, the words were coming so fast and so mixed up, but somehow Carol got the sense of it.
“She didn’t, Joe! She didn’t know. I swear that she didn’t!”
“Huh? How—”
“She was too anxious for the job to ask questions, and I slid over it. I told her I was hiring her for a friend. I told her I’d give her the exact address after we got here. I slid over it that way. She didn’t know a thing until we got on the bus!”
“She called from somewhere! Or maybe she wrote! Her landlady—”
“I tell you, she didn’t, Joe! She did not! I was with her every minute.”
“But Appleton—”
“Don’t you see, Joe? It’s someone else. It’s another woman. It must be.”
“Oh,” I said. “Oh—”
My knees were about to give way under me. I wobbled over to the lounge and sat down.
“You’re sure about everything, Carol? Elizabeth got away all right?”
“Yes.”
“And the woman? No one saw you, heard you, when—”
“No,” said Carol. “We were all alone. We—she knew what was coming, right at the last, but there wasn’t anything she could do. No one would hear her. I was stronger than she was. She didn’t even try to fight. She—”
“Carol,” I said. “For God’s sake. You don’t need to draw me a picture.”
“I was just trying to tell you, Joe. Everything’s all right. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
The funny, intent look went out of her eyes. She turned them in toward the bridge of her nose and pursed out her lower lip. And then she blew upward at the little wisp of hair that had fallen over her forehead.
That got me, just like it always had. All at once we were right back where we’d been that Sunday afternoon when she’d come into my room in her made-over clothes, and I’d felt so damned sorry for her I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Come here, Carol,” I said; and she came there, over to the lounge.
I gave her a grin and squeezed her hand, and after a minute she slid close to me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That Appleton guy got me rattled. You know how you’d feel if you had a piece of news like that thrown at you.”
“Yes,” she said. “I know.”
“I meant to tell you I was going into the city but I didn’t have a chance. I had to leave in a hurry.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, I
did.”
“Why?”
“Business. I could tell you, but you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh.”
“All right, ‘oh,’ then,” I said. “It’s the truth. God, Carol, I’m out in front in this deal! I can’t stop and explain every time I turn around. I’ve got to do what I think’s best.”
“I know.”
“Well, then?”
She hesitated, then turned and looked squarely at me. Or as squarely as she could with those eyes of hers.
“Will you answer me one question, Joe?”
“Certainly, I will.”
“And tell the truth? Wait a minute, Joe! I didn’t mean to insult you. But I’ve just got to know.”
“All right, shoot,” I said.
“Is there something wrong at the show?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t find my voice right then.
“You’re not—that’s the truth, Joe?”
“Of course, it’s the truth. What are you driving at? What could be wrong?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But there is something wrong. There’s something wrong somewhere, and you’re afraid to tell me about it. That’s what—w-what I c-can’t stand. Your being afraid of me.”
“Aw, hell,” I said, trying to put my arm around her. “Why would I be afraid of you?”
“It’s no good asking each other questions, Joe.” She brushed at her eyes. “What we need is answers. We’re in this together, but we’re pulling different ways. You don’t trust me.”
“It don’t—doesn’t—look like you trusted me a hell of a lot, either.”
“I love you, Joe. Sometimes you love a person so much you can’t trust them. It’s for their own good that you don’t.”
“Well,” I said. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I—I guess there isn’t much to say.”
I jumped to my feet and headed for the kitchen. And I didn’t stop or look around when she called me. Things had been coming at me too fast; I didn’t have anything left to fight with. I had to do something quick or I knew I’d be yelling the truth at her. You’re goddamn right I’m afraid! You think I pulled you into this to get Elizabeth and me out of a hole! You think I’d sell anyone out! You—
I got the cupboard door open and reached down the whisky bottle. I raised it, turning around, and she was standing in the doorway watching me.
The whisky never reached my mouth. I couldn’t get it that high. It trickled out on my shirt front, and then the bottle dropped from my hand to the floor. And I followed it.
Instantly she was at my side, lifting me. And sick and dizzy as I was, the one thought that filled my mind was how much strength she had. I weigh around two hundred, but she hoisted me up and got me over to the table as easily as if I’d been a child.
“Joe, darling—what do you want me to do, Joe?”
“I’m sick.” I kept repeating it. “I’m sick, Carol.”
“Do you want me to get a doctor?”
“No!” No, I didn’t want a doctor. He might give me something to knock me out, and I’d start raving.
“I’m just awfully tired and weak,” I said. “Running around too much. Not eating. Got a chill—”
She put a hand to my forehead. “You’ve got a fever, too.”
“I’d better go to bed,” I said. “I get in bed and I’ll be all right.”
“All right, Joe.”
She started to lift me again, but I held back. “We can’t go on staying here alone, Carol. We’ll have to have someone come in.”
“Do you want me to call Mr. Chance?”
“Jesus, no! I mean I may be in bed several days. We want someone who can be around all the time. Get Mrs. Reverend Whitcomb. Take the car and go after her. She’ll do anything to get a few square meals.”
She got up slowly, kind of hanging back. “Couldn’t I just call her, Joe?”
“How would she get over here? The Whitcombs don’t have a car. Now, go on and go after her before it gets any later.”
“But—but I don’t drive very well. I don’t like to drive after dark.”
“You drive good enough. You drove all the way home from Wheat City after dark, didn’t you?”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll go right away.”
After she’d gone, I went on sitting at the table for a few minutes, thinking or trying to; something tickling my mind. Something important. But the idea wouldn’t come. I was too tired.
I don’t know what time it was when she and Mrs. Whitcomb got back. I was already in bed and asleep.
Back in reform school, once, some big-shot lawyer talked to us at chapel, and he made the statement that nature hated a crime. “Nature abhors a crime,” was the way he put it.
At the time, it struck me as being just some more of the grapefruit they were always squeezing out to us. It seemed to me that for a guy that had nature against him, he was doing pretty well. But now, twenty-five years later almost, I was beginning to see what he meant.
We’d planned everything perfectly. By all the laws of logic nothing could go wrong. And, yet—well, why say it?
On top of everything else I was afraid I was losing my nut.
I woke up early the next morning and tiptoed into the bathroom. I got a drink of water at the sink, and stood staring out the window. And there was the garage, just as big as day. Yeah, it was there. The old barn with the cupola that had been made over into a garage. I saw it just as I had seen it for ten years. I don’t know. Maybe the eye holds images that don’t go away, that don’t ever really go away. Maybe the average guy is so stuck on himself that everything he sees becomes important, and he won’t give it up, not to himself, until he’s past seeing and past remembering.
I don’t know.
All I know is that I almost let out a yell that they could have heard over in the next county.
I had to put my hand over my mouth to hold it back.
I got back into bed, shivering, and finally dozed off again. But it wasn’t good sleep. Not sound, I mean. I kept dreaming that Elizabeth was in the room with me. And it was like I was looking back or ahead on something that had happened.
She was climbing up on a chair to get something down from the ceiling—I don’t know the hell what—and anyone could see that the chair was made out of straw and wasn’t going to hold her up. But she kept climbing up on it and I’d run and catch her, and then she’d throw herself back in my arms and kiss me.
Then, there was a little guy that kept coming to the door and trying to get in. And there wasn’t a damned bit of sense in her being afraid of him, because he was so damned little and funny-looking. But anyway he kept coming and I’d go to the door and tell him to get the hell out, and he’d beat it for a minute or two. And then I’d go back over to the bed and pull the covers off of Elizabeth, but instead of doing what I should have done I’d stand there and laugh. Because, damnit, I know it’s crazy, but she’d turned into a statue. She had and she hadn’t. We had to do it first or she would be, but if we didn’t she was. And—
And then it was our wedding anniversary, it seemed like, and she was reminding me how, wherever we were, we’d promised that we’d always get together on our anniversary. And even dreaming, I knew it really was our anniversary, and I kind of remembered that we’d said that, that we’d promised like, I suppose, every couple does when they’re first married.
She kneeled down at my side and put her hand on my forehead. She leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth.
And I woke up, and it was Carol.
“How are you feeling?” she whispered.
I blinked my eyes.
“All right,” I said.
“Your fever seems to have broken.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I’m all right. Just weak.”
“What would you like for breakfast?”
I told her just a little toast and coffee would do. “Better bring up some whisky, too. I’m chilling.”
She was ba
ck in ten minutes or so with a tray. I sat up and made out like I was going to eat.
“You’d better run along, Carol. It won’t look good for you to spend too much time up here.”
“I—there’s something I want to say to you, Joe.”
“Well?”
“But I’ve got to know something first. I’ve got to know the truth. Do—do you really love me?”
“Oh, Jesus Christ!” I slammed down my coffee cup. “If you’ve got anything to tell me, spit it out! If you haven’t, leave me alone for a while. We’re not supposed to be together and I’m sick, and I’ve got a thousand and one things to think about. I’m sorry, but—”
“That’s all right, Joe. I’m going.”
“I do love you, Carol,” I said. “You know that.”
But she was already gone.
I took a bite or two from the toast, and put the rest in a bureau drawer under some shirts. I drank the coffee down halfway, and filled up the cup with whisky. After a second cup of the stuff, I felt pretty fair. I could have got up as well as not. But I stayed where I was. I wasn’t ready to face people yet. Andy Taylor and Appleton and Happy Chance. Maybe I’d never be, but I sure wasn’t now.
Around noon of the third day, right after I’d got through taking a bath, I heard a car coming up the lane from the road. I looked out the window to see who it was, but it was already up and in front of the house by then.
A minute or so later Carol tapped on the door, and I told her to come in.
“There’s a man here to see you, Joe. He said to tell you it was Sol.”
“Oh,” I said. “Tell him to come up.”
“Who is he, Joe? Is there—”
“Tell him to come up,” I repeated.
She got that hard, stubborn look on her face like she used to get around Elizabeth. But finally she turned and went back downstairs, taking her time about it.
22
Sol Panzer looked more like a jockey than the owner of a ninety-house chain. He was maybe five feet tall, and he might have weighed a hundred and ten with his clothes wet. I guess he had something wrong with his vocal cords, because his voice matched up with the rest of him. It was thin and soft; not much more than a whisper.