Chapter 5
When Laura was ready to go into the house, she seemed once again to be in control of herself. Exhaustion was written all over her small delicate darkly-framed face, but she was calm.
"This dress is a wreck," she said. "I'll have to dash right upstairs and get it into the laundry before anyone notices. Then it will be all right."
"Will you be all right?"
She didn't answer.
"I'll call you tomorrow, Laura."
She nodded.
"And I love you, darling."
And now she didn't even nod: she didn't appear to hear. For a moment, Richard thought of repeating his vow in an effort to get through to her, but he dismissed the idea: to repeat his promise would only be to diminish its force, not to bolster it. Some things, if they are to be truly meaningful, can be said only once.
He started the wagon, took it down the block and around the comer and up the driveway of Laura's house, pulling to a stop before the front porch. "Should I take you to the door-"
"No, I have to hurry." She opened the door of the wagon.
"Good night, Laura," he said. "I love you."
She slipped out of the wagon and headed for the porch steps, murmuring, "Good night."
Only after she had entered the house and he had pulled away did he realize that they hadn't kissed before parting. They hadn't kissed since she arrived home.
He went home and got drunk. Quietly, soberly drunk.
If his parents noticed, they didn't say anything. They were intelligent, perceptive people, and if Richard was getting something off his chest, perhaps it was for the best. And he was doing it in his own home in an unobtrusive manner which made trouble for nobody, which was the way he'd been taught to do it.
In spite of all the liquor he consumed, he didn't sleep for hours. He had certain tokens of his adulthood; his Speed Graphic, his typewriter, his .22 pistol, his knife. He had fantasies of what he'd like to do with the little Colt automatic, and they seemed unsatisfactory. So he thought about what he might do with the knife. It was a custom-made six-inch switchblade for which he had paid twenty-five dollars, and he could shave with it comfortably. But all such fantasies of revenge seemed childish and futile, and what was true reduced him to tears. He wept in the night as he hadn't since he was a child, and he bit his pillow to keep his family from hearing him.
Near dawn, he fell into an exhausted sleep. Fortunately, he'd remembered to drink a quart of water with some aspirin before going to bed, and he didn't feel too badly when he woke up in the early afternoon. After some orange juice and coffee he felt very mildly drunk for a couple of hours, but not so much that it bothered him.
His family said nothing about the incident. The nearest they came to it was when his father said, "Oh, by the way, Richard. It's occurred to me that I must have sounded rather pompous yesterday evening." He mimicked himself. " 'Surely you're not serious about this girl!'"
In spite of all that had happened, Richard couldn't help grinning. "You sounded okay."
"In any case, if you happen to be serious about Laura, it's your own damned business, and Papa Dale will just have to sweat it out."
He walked away before Richard could answer.
Richard telephoned Laura to tell her he would be over to see her.
"I'd rather you didn't come over, Richard. I'm not feeling very well. T wouldn't be very good company."
"But I want to see you-"
"Please. Maybe tomorrow. Or Monday. Right now I only want to be alone."
Alone. Not with him. Why should she want to be with him? What good could he do her?
After a moment he asked, "You are okay, aren't you?"
Whatever she said, she didn't sound right, and that left him feeling sick. "Just remember that I love you," he said.
"And I love you. Good-bye, Richard." Before he could say another word, the phone clicked.
He had promised Laura that in some way he would take care of the man who had forced himself on her, but how he was going to do so. he hadn't the slightest idea. He racked his brains and found himself at a total loss.
Find the man and murder him? He would have liked to have done that, but he didn't know whether he could actually bring himself to the point of killing or not. If he could, he wondered how he would react to the act afterward-and how Laura would react to him once she knew. For surely she would guess. And much as she might hate the man, the odds were that she would draw the line at murder.
It was quite possible that Laura had not been his first victim or, for that matter, that she would be his last. Could he find out about some other victims and expose the man? It seemed un-likely. Since nothing had happened to the guy in the past, as far as he could tell, any victims probably kept their mouths shut-just as Laura was doing. It wasn't likely that they'd want to open up to Richard, even if he could locate them.
And suppose he did locate them. How could he expose the man in any way without having him refer to Laura and him and thus draw Laura into it-which she certainly didn't want. There would be a question as to why Richard should take the trouble to expose the fellow, and people would naturally believe anything the man said, true or false. And he could make things sound plenty bad for Richard and Laura both.
But all this was largely academic; Richard felt that he had about a chance in a million of pulling off some kind of expose. Was there, then, some way in which he could ruin the man privately, some way he could run him out of town so that Adamsville would be rid of him forever and Laura would never have to see him or think of him again?
This, too, seemed un-likely, but it was the best possibility, short of murder. It depended upon two things: First, on Richard's locating some kind of usable material. Second, on the man's being nearby in Adamsville.
It was quite possible that he was from some distant locality, though he would seem to have some knowledge of the town. This last point gave Richard a glimmering of hope, though he still had hardly any idea of how to go about his task.
That glimmer grew brighter on Sunday afternoon.
Though he was not a particularly religious person nor irreligious either, for that matter-Richard had the habit of going to church with his family when he was at home. The habit was made more pleasant by Laura's presence, but she wasn't there that morning. Her absence increased his desperation, and he decided to see some friends that afternoon, friends who might be able to point out a certain cop to him. But he never reached the friends.
He was driving down Main Street that afternoon when he found himself behind a police car. Something about the heavy shoulders of the driver seized his attention, and excitement welled up in him. The police car made a right hand turn after a couple of blocks, and the view of the driver was obscured, but Richard followed him. The cop made a left at the next comer, and Richard got a quick glimpse of his face.
He was positive that it was the same face he'd seen but dimly less than forty-eight hours ago.
He also made a left and kept following. The cop made another left at the next comer, and Richard followed but failed to get a good look. He did get a look at the next comer as the cop turned back onto Main Street, and his impression that it was the same man was reinforced.
The meeting wasn't altogether luck, of course. If the man really were a cop and Richard looked for him, he'd be bound to find him within a few days. But running into him so quickly gave Richard the feeling that he was making progress.
He didn't dare follow for too long; he didn't want to be spotted. He crossed Main Street, rather than following the police car. and headed for Laura's house.
When he arrived there, he found her pale and listless, and she was reluctant to come for a drive in his car. But the urgency in his voice got through to her, and she finally agreed.
When he had driven a few blocks, he pulled up on a shady residential street. He twisted in his seat to look at Laura, who had remained silent.
"I've found him," he announced.
"Found who?"
"The guy!" he said, surprised. "I spotted him just a little while ago. He's a cop."
"We knew that already," she said in a tone of flat factuality.
"No, we didn't. We only knew what he told us. Now we know for sure."
Laura shrugged. "What's the difference? If we had assumed that he was telling the truth, things wouldn't have been any different, would they?"
Her comment brought him up short, and his glimmer of hope wasn't quite as bright as it had been. He hadn't taken into consideration Laura's superbly feminine grasp of concrete actualities, much more highly developed than in most seventeen-year-olds. A man might talk possibilities and probabilities and chop logic all day and all night, but his woman would still ask, "What's the difference? How does this really change things? Where does the bread come in?"
"The point is," he said after a moment, "I no longer have to worry about whether or not the man is within easy reach."
Laura was silent, as if considering whether or not this really did made a difference. If she was, she didn't pass judgment aloud. Instead, she asked, without looking at Richard, "What are you going to do?"
He chewed his lip for a minute. "What do you want done?"
She didn't answer, and he wished to God he hadn't asked that question. He had taken an important task upon his shoulders, and now he was asking her to define it for him, as if in hope that she wouldn't ask too much. It was that damned touch of childishness, that feeling of ineffectualness, that he thought he'd never get rid of.
"Don't worry," he said. "I'll know what to do when the time comes. And I'm going to make it come. But I've got to ask one question, Laura. Please don't be angry. But are you absolutely sure you don't want your folks to know anything about this?"
The answer was what he fully expected, but he hadn't expected its force. She turned on him, her face white. "No! Don't you dare tell them! My poor father, that would kill him-"
"All right, all right," he overrode her, "I'll never tell anyone-"
"How can you ask! You know how my father-"
"I had to ask because what I do might depend on the answer! Now that you've said it, I'll never have to ask again."
She relaxed. "I'm sorry. But you scared me."
He looked at her pityingly. The poor kid. So scared of her father's worries that she didn't even dare tell him that she'd been raped, let alone that her body had been touched by someone who loved her and wanted to marry her. And the two things in combination-she'd almost rather die than have him find out. It could be considered immaturity on her part if she weren't so young, but there were thousands if not millions of older women who felt much the same way.
"Please take me home, Richard. I'm so tired."
He started the car and pulled away from the curb. They drove back to her house in silence. When he let her out, again she neglected to lean toward him for a kiss, and when he put his hand on her shoulder, she slipped out from under it as if she didn't feel it.
As he drove away from the house, a thought hit Richard with doom-like finality, bringing sweat to his face and hands: Before this thing is done, I'm going to have to kill that man. As certain as we both live in the same world, I know that I'm going to kill him.
He knew that he was going to kill the man. He didn't know when or how, but he knew it-it was as if the blood were on his hands already. Perhaps he had known it from the time Laura had told him what had happened. Maybe he had been afraid to understand what he was certain to do, the way he had at first been afraid to understand what Laura was telling him. He had been numbed by the blow; it took time to awaken to the truth.
He didn't want to kill. He had to find another way of dealing with the enemy, and he had to find it fast: it was the only way to avoid becoming a murderer. It was as if the knowledge of what the blackmail-rapist had done to Laura had triggered a bomb within him, a bomb that had its own longing to explode, a bomb that was ticking toward its final moment when it would destroy the enemy-and possibly Richard and Laura as well.
And thus, strangely, in his efforts at vengeance Richard found himself striving to save the life of the man he longed to destroy.
On Monday morning he sought out one of the people he had planned to see the afternoon before-just before spotting the cop. He phoned the police station, asked for Joe Harrison, and was informed that the latter was off duty. He looked up Harrison's address in the telephone book and, without bothering to call first, drove to his house. He found him tinkering in his basement workshop.
He was surprised to see Richard: they hadn't met often in the last few years. But Harrison, a thin-faced amiable fellow of about twenty-three, had been the president of the photography club when they were both in high school, and this gave them a common meeting ground. Richard's pretext for calling on him-and it wasn't altogether false-was that he wanted to buy a single-lens reflex camera, and he wanted the advice of someone experienced whom he could trust before speaking to a dealer.
For almost two hours they talked cameras and photography and became reacquainted. Eager as he was to get to certain questions, Richard didn't force the conversation but let it follow its natural course. Finally an opportunity arose for him to ask how Harrison liked police work, now that he'd been in it for a while.
"I like it. The pay's much better than average in this town, and the pension plan and insurance are quite good, and you sure meet all kinds of people."
"I'd think it would get a little tiresome, going around leaning on people all the time."
"No, that's only part of it. Around here, you spend more time stopping trouble than you do tossing people into the tank. I mean, a couple of housewives get into an argument over which kid hit the other first, and one of them calls a cop, or you see 'em yelling at one another on the sidewalk. So you stand there and stroke your chin and help 'em get it off their chests, and after a while they go off, great buddies, with a date to go shopping together. It happens all the time, and I get a great kick out of it. I don't know how people get the idea that cops spend all their time pushing people around."
"Maybe it's just that a few of them give that impression. For instance, there's one guy on the force here-I don't know his name-a great big guy, tall, has a low, smooth voice, built like a truck-"
"We've got a couple, three big guys like that, but Ted Sloan is a real clown, and everybody in town knows it. And I wouldn't want to cross Mickey James, but he's about as mild acting as anybody I ever met, a real nice guy."
"Couldn't be the fellow I'm thinking of. At least, I don't think he'd strike anybody as mild."
Joe Harrison frowned and looked away from Richard. "You must mean Bull Chapman."
"Big? Smooth, low voice-"
"Yeah, yeah."
Still Harrison avoided looking at Richard. After a moment, the latter asked, "What's the matter, you got something against this Bull Chapman?"
"Aw, no, Bull's all right, I guess. Does his work okay, sometimes maybe he's a little rough. He's kind of a lone wolf, so I don't know him very well."
"I take it he's not very popular with the rest of the force."
Harrison shrugged. "We get along."
Thus far, Richard had no more than the name of a cop who might have been a little rough at times. He decided to take a chance.
"If he's the guy I think he is, I sure wouldn't want to buddy up to him. You know, Joe, there've been some rumors going around town about some cop who blackmails women. When he catches some woman cheating on her man, he makes her love him-"
"Oh, for God's sake, Dick!" Harrison, red-faced whirled around on him. "You're a big boy now. Don't you know any better than to believe that stuff? That story has been told everywhere you'll find a cop! The dirty minds and the cop haters keep it going to get a cheap thrill!"
"You don't think such a thing has ever happened? You don't think it could happen?"
"I didn't say that," Harrison said sulkily. "Of course it could happen, and at one time or another it probably has. But how often? Just because all cops don't wear haloes doesn't mean they're all no good, for God's sake."
Richard gave the man a minute to calm down.
"Of course not," he said at last. "But there are bad doctors and bad lawyers and bad everything else, even bad preachers. So why not an occasional bad cop-"
"You'll find 'em," Harrison said tersely. "I'm not denying that."
"And if someone were playing a crummy game such as I mentioned-which cop would be most likely to do it?"
Harrison didn't answer. He went to a refrigerator in the comer of the workshop and took out a couple of "shortie" bottles of beer. He opened them and gave one to Richard, and they both drank.
"Okay, Dick," he said, "what's bugging you? This summer heat just getting to you, or are you trying to find something out?"
Richard wondered if he should lay some of his cards on the table. He took a deep breath and said it: "I'm trying to find something out."
"What and why?"
"I can't say yet. Maybe I never will be able to say."
"But you're willing to pump me about the men I work with."
"Maybe I've got good reasons."
"Okay. I've got a good reason for telling you to lay off. Like I said, I work with Chap--with the other men on the force. So let's stay friends and talk about cameras."
They talked cameras and finished a couple more beers, and Richard tried to soothe any rumpled feelings. He felt that he had blundered. An amateur at intrigue, he had given away as much as he had learned, and he couldn't be sure that. Chapman was the man he was after.
After lunch he went to the public library, found the files of local newspapers, and started looking through them, working backward. Unfortunately, there was no index to which he could refer. Scanning the papers in hope of finding information seemed like a futile pursuit, but he knew of nothing better to do. In the next couple of hours, he came across a few references to minor arrests made by Carl Chapman, but nothing more. Finally he gave it up.
It occurred to him that he might do better by looking into the newspaper morgue, but it was his understanding that such information files were rather carefully guarded. In all the movies he had seen, the lead had had an old friend who got him the information, very conveniently, but Richard had no such contact. After some thought, he decided to give it a whirl just the same.
A long high desk divided the newspaper's front office. A pleasant looking middle-aged woman came up on the other side of the desk, and Richard identified himself. "I have a sociology paper to turn in before I can get credit for a course I took last spring," he told her "It's supposed to be three thousand words on the career of a policeman in a town like this. Now, I'd like to get some background material before I interview anybody, and if I get enough material, maybe interviews won't even be necessary. So if you could let me look into the files of a few local officers, say Carl Chapman and Ted Sloan and Mickey-Mickey-"
"Mickey James. Of course, Richard, but we can't let you take the files out of the office-"
"Oh, I understand that!"
He hadn't expected such ready accommodation. He followed the woman back into the office, where she offered him a small desk. She left him and returned a few minutes later with half a dozen files: large manila envelopes, labeled on the comers.
"If you need more," she said, "I'll be glad to get them for you."
"Thank you."
Richard shuffled through the envelopes and was happy to see that Chapman's was among them. He had picked up a pad of paper and an inexpensive ball point pen on his way over to the Clarion Freepress, so he could make a show of taking notes. He went through several files before turning to Chapman's: he was almost afraid of what he might-or might not find.
When he opened it, he found very little. Carl "Bull" Chapman had been something of an athletic hero in his high school days, according to one yellowed clipping. Several others referred to his athletic feats. That came to an end when he was kicked out of school on a J. D. charge-some kind of scandal which had been glossed over by the paper. All the news that's fit to print, Richard thought ironically. That was such a dead issue that it hadn't occurred to the woman who had given him the files that they might contain something reflecting badly on a cop. After all, a cop, like Caesar's wife, was supposed to be above suspicion.
Bull Chapman had gone into the army, and then there was a long gap in the file. He had been in the MPs and had been discharged three years ago. His high school JD record hadn't kept him off the force-that was dismissed as "kid stuff," no doubt; the announcement of his employment had mentioned only that he was a home town athletic hero who had returned after serving God and his country with distinction, as was quite proper, Richard reflected.
After that, there were only some notices of arrests and one picture which increased Richard's certainty that Bull Chapman was his man.
He returned the envelopes, thanked the woman who'd given them to him, and left.
He stood outside the newspaper office on the hot concrete, the late afternoon sun scorching his face, and he thought, Nothing! Nothing I can use at all! I'm going to have to kill him! I'm going to have to kill him!
He didn't know where to look or what to do next.
He stood there for a few minutes, panting lightly from the heat, sweat coming out on his forehead, and then headed across the street to a bar. He bought a beer and carried it to a booth, where he sat down to think.
The only thoughts which came to him were images: the beam of light suddenly hitting Laura and him, the huge figure of a man looming in the darkness. The threat to Laura and himself making her sob, making his own knees turn to jelly. The man's hands on Laura's breasts, his forcing her to kiss him. Bull Chapman taking Laura's naked body while she begged and screamed.
And Bull Chapman dead, dead, dead.., "Oh, my God...."
"You sick, kid? Heat getting you down?" The barman was looking at him worriedly. Richard hadn't realized that he'd spoken aloud. "Yes," he said, "the heat."
"Getting everybody," the barman said. "If we don't have rain and some coolness soon, everybody's going to get sick or go nuts. You should see the lawns over where I live...."
Over where he lived....
Where Bull Chapman lived....
Where did Bull Chapman live? The newspaper clippings referred to a couple of different addresses, and Chapman might have moved since the last one. It wouldn't hurt to know where the man lived, and Richard might be able to strike up a conversation with a neighbor. Something might emerge from such a chat.
He finished his beer and went to the phone booth in a front comer of the bar. Looking in the telephone book, he found only one Carl V. Chapman. The address was 1021 Corona, and Richard knew the neighborhood; a neighborhood of small houses crowded closely together. He left the bar, went to his wagon, and headed for Corona Street.
He had a sense of impending progress as he traced the numbers down. This might be his break; it had to be. He found the eight hundred block, the nine hundred block, and then his hopes dissolved, leaving him feeling sick. Since he had kst been in the neighborhood, three small apartment buildings had been erected in the ten hundred block. There went his chances of getting anything from a neighbor through a "chance" conversation. Even if he went knocking on doors, there was a good chance that Chapman's neighbors wouldn't even know who he was.
He parked in front of the second apartment building-1021-and had a cigarette. He thought of all the movies he had seen about crooked cops and clever police work and private eyes and skip-tracing and vendettas and evidence, and it all seemed silly to him. He laughed weakly. There was only one thing to do.
Kill the man.
But while he was here, he might as well check the address. And who could tell, maybe something useful would pop up yet.
He got out of the Nova and went into the building's closet-sized lobby. He went over the names on the mailboxes and soon found one labeled Carl V. Chapman. The apartment number was 2-B. He turned to the inner door and pulled it; it wasn't locked. Well, he'd know where to find Bull Chapman when he wanted him.
He turned to leave.
Through the glass outer door, he saw a man glancing at his station wagon and turning up the walk toward the building. He was a big man, tall, heavy as an ox, and he was wearing a flame-flowered sport shirt and shabby pants. He entered the small lobby. He had a broad bland face and large brown eyes, vacant of expression except for some spark deep within. His thin brown hair lay flat against his skull. He looked slightly startled as he saw Richard.
"Well, well," he said, "look who's here." His voice was low and smooth.
The man with the flashlight, the night stick, and the badge. Bull Chapman.
The big man blocked the exit. "Looking for something, kid?"
"Maybe. Minding my own business."
"Yeah, I'll bet. Just visiting an old friend in this building?"
"Looking for someone."
"Who? Maybe I can help you."
Richard didn't answer. His chest felt full and he was breathless. He felt fragile looking up at Bull Chapman. It was as if he were looking at some mythical beast who had suddenly sprung to life before his very eyes.
"Kid, you wouldn't be looking for trouble, would you? I saw you following me in your station wagon yesterday. Why would you want to do a thing like that, kid? And now I find you here. How come?"
Richard tried to skirt Bull and get to the door, but the big man sidestepped and blocked him.
"I asked, how come? I did you a favor the other night, you know that. Now, what do you want from me, kid?"
Richard's voice was hoarse. "Right now, all I want is to get out of here and go home."
Bull snickered. "Yeah, I'll bet. Maybe I ought to pull you in for something, say loitering where you got no business. How about that?"
"Go ahead."
Bull was silent. He licked his lips and rubbed the side of his neck where Richard noticed three long inflamed scratches.
"Say, kid, did that girl of yours tell you something to get you all riled up?"
"Maybe she did."
Bull grinned. "Trying to make you jealous, huh?"
Again, Richard started for the front door. Bull's hand shot out, caught him by the face, thumb and fingers digging in painfully, and slammed him back into a comer. Panic grew for Richard.
"She didn't tell me anything to make me jealous."
"Well, what did she tell you, kid?"
Richard didn't answer. His jaws were aching. Bull reached out and slapped him lightly but stingingly a couple of times.
"Speak up, sonny, what did she tell you? Did she tell you she flipped for me, is that it?"
The words were like barbed wire coming out of his throat. "She told me how you forced her-"
Bull's face seemed to expand with surprise. "How I force-I" The laugh was a single explosion. "Is that what she told you, kid? That I forced her?"
"You made her do that-"
"I made her all right, but if I forced her...." He shook his head, grinning with amusement. "Kid, I've got news for you! All I can say is, if I forced her, she sure as hell put on a good act!"
Richard raised his fists. "You louse...."
"Ah, ah!" Bull backed off from him in mock alarm.
"You louse."
"Don't blame me, kid, I can't help it if she likes a man. And I'm telling you, that little girl really knows how. But I guess you know that already. Of course, I've spoiled her for you now. And the next time I take her-and I plan to-"
Richard's fists came in toward his shoulders, his head went down, and his knees and back bent as if he were crumbling. Bull stepped in toward him for the kill.
"The next time your girl and I-"
He never got any further. Not Richard's first but his left elbow come up in a short swift arc to connect with Bull's chin and snap his head far back. The giant went rubber-legged and pigeon-toed. Before he could recover, the stiff fingers of Richard's right hand plunged deeply into his padded middle, and he doubled up to meet a a hard right knee that set him onto his heels again. A pile-driving right elbow slammed into his face, and Bull Chapman collapsed into a comer.
Richard looked down on the big man in surprise. He could hardly believe what had happened. Why, he's slow, he thought. Big and clumsy and slow. Right now I could chop him to pieces. Right now I could kill him.
It took several seconds for Bull's eyes to clear and to focus on Richard. They, too, showed surprise and disbelief. "Why, you little punk," he croaked. "I meant what I said! That little witch, she loved me! She practically begged for me! And I'm going to have her again, you hear me, I swear I'm going to take that little witch, and she'll love me!"
Richard put up an arm and leaned against the wall. As he looked down on Chapman, he felt utterly impersonal. He said quietly, "I'm going to kill you, Chapman."
The big man was getting his control back. He managed a grin. "Little man, big talk."
Richard smiled back. "I'm going to kill you."
"I'm going to get up from this floor and take you apart."
"Get up."
Richard made a slight move toward Bull Chapman. Chapman's grin faded.
Richard went out the door and walked toward his station wagon. As he got in and started the motor, he heard Chapman's voice roaring after him .
"You aren't going to kill anybody, punk! She loved me! She's going to get that again!"
Richard drove away without looking back.