Chapter 16
HE TOSSED THE ENVELOPE ON the kitchen if table, said, "There it is," then sat down heavily on a wooden chair. She grabbed the envelope, opened it. She became Hushed, her hands trembled, a wild, almost insane, light shone in her eyes. Then she passed the envelope back to him, suggested he return it to his jacket pocket. "Why!'" he asked.
"Don't you think we ought to be leaving town? What if she calls the police?"
"You know she wouldn't!" he retorted angrily; and again a feeling of repulsion swept him. He had an urge to get to his feet, walk out the door and leave her forever. But he staved where he was, for his body would not rise from the chair. He told her all that had transpired between Helen and himself as they had parted; except that he omitted the hand-kissing incident, which had so strangely moved him. He thought she would not understand it; unlike himself, she would jeer at it and debase it.
Fran bubbled with excitement. She fluttered around, talking without let-up. She raved about California, mentioning and in the same breath rejecting places they might go first. She made plans and immediately altered them, put out ridiculous suggestions.
"Let's go out," she said brightly.
"Where?" he asked.
"Anywhere-oh, anywheres at all. In public-as long as we're seen in public!" 'Why?"
She hesitated, then shrugged and said, "Well, if she is going to do it at five, don't you think we ought to be noticed away from the scene...."
"Of what?" he asked. Before she could reply he reminded her of the note Helen would leave, which would clear everyone of responsibility for her death. He glanced at his wrist watch, saw that the time was two-fifteen. He took the watch off and set it on the table, next to the envelope. For a moment he stared at the two-objects and said nothing. Then he raised his eyes to Fran, who had begun to chatter again, and in a soft but ominous voice said, "Shut your trap, bitch!"
She gaped at him in amazement. Then her thin lips twisted in a sneer.
"Don't talk to me," he warned; "Not a word between now and five o'clock!"
She shrugged, turned from him, moved slowly to the window. He noticed, looking beyond that, that the sky had clouded over, become dark and foreboding.
They remained where they were, silent and almost motionless: she standing at the window, he sitting at the table. Time ticked away, infinitely slow. He tried to think, but couldn't-his mind seemed to have gone blank. He knew only that he must stay here and wait-count off the minutes, but wait!-till five o'clock. And then-why then he might get up and go where he pleased, do as he wished.
He glanced at the watch again. 2:45. Slow, much too slow, his lids were heavy. He lowered his head to the table and shut his eyes. He expected to doze off but he didn't, he remained awake. Awake, and yet, strange to say, he was dreaming. "But I'm awake," he thought, as the dream started to unwind. "My head is down on the table and my eyes are shut, yet I'm not asleep. And since I know it's a dream, it can't really be that, can it? Whenever I wish I can simply raise my head and bring it to an end."
Of course it was the same dream: the dream that the lever had brought on two weeks before. Or rather it was a continuation of it; for this began where the other had ended-with him standing over his murdered mother, looking down at her and weeping. It was a dream without movement or dialogue, a dark, gruesome, unchanging scene. It went on and on and he knew it would never change, it would be thus forever. Was this his punishment? That he should stand thus forever and look down on what he had done.
Time passed but there was no way of measuring it. There were no windows in the huge room, so he couldn't count the days; and he had no watch so he couldn't count the hours. How long had he been standing here weeping, looking down at his dead mother?-he wondered. A day? A year? A century? Ten thousand years? A million perhaps?
He realized that since he had to stand here forever, time meant nothing to him. Yet it did. He had an insane yearning to measure it. He began to imagine that somewhere nearby he heard a clock ticking. It was his imagination, of course, but it sound ed so real. If only he could have found that clock, look at it, and know! Oh, if only ... Then he remembered again that this was a dream, he could end it whenever he chose. There was a watch on the table-all he needed to do was sit up and look at it.
He raised his head and slowly gazed about him. lie saw Fran standing at the window. She appeared not to have budged since he had lowered his head to the table. He remembered the envelope. He grabbed it and stuck it into his jacket pocket. Then, fearfully, he turned the watch around and read it. A quarter of five.
He leap to his feet and started for the door. Fran heard him, ran toward him in an effort to head him off. Tears streamed from her eyes and her face was twisted with emotion. "No-no-don't! Don't, Joe-please!"
She grabbed his sleeve. He whirled on her and slapped her so hard that she fell to the floor, by the time she had recovered her senses, he was out the door.
He hailed a cab, gave the driver the address on Alton Road, and told him to step on it, this was a matter of life and death. Would he be in time to stop her? For the first time in years he prayed: silently to a God in whom he did not rightly believe.
He still held the wrist watch in his hand, and he glanced at it as the cab pulled to the curb in front of the house. Five minutes to five. lie handed the driver a bill, without waiting for the change rushed up the stairs. The door was ajar, he pushed it back and entered.
The house was silent. With a feeling of dread such as had never previously known, he slowly crossed the kitchen to the bedroom. In the doorway he paused, and the sight that met his eyes caused his skin to crawl precisely as it had in the feverish nightmare. Helen lay crumpled on the floor in the center of the bedroom. It might have, been the weirdly twisted position in which she lay, or the purplish pallor of her face, that told him. Whatever it was, he knew at once that she was dead.
He walked into the room hesitantly, stood over her for what seemed like a long time, though in fact it may only have been a moment or two. He did not weep, as he had in the dream. His soul was chilled. At first he noticed nothing, only that she was quite dead. Then his eyes came to a focus on the bright green necktie twisted around her neck, which he recognized as his own. At once a thought struck him-a fantastic thought. Vet it was true, obvious as could be, there could be no mistake about it.
Helen had not committed suicide, she had been murdered!
He thought of looking on the table for the note that she had promised to leave, which was to have cleared him, and all others, of connection with her death. Of course it was not there.
He turned, walked from the room, crossed the kitchen and went out the front door. Rain had begun to fall, he hailed the first cab that passed and gave the driver the address of Fran's bungalow. He sat in back of the cab, dazed, trying unsuccessfully to sift his thought and impressions, arrange them, make sense of diem.
Watching her eyes go wide with astonishment, he told Fran what he had found at Helen's place.
She grasped his arm excitedly. "Are you sure there was no note? Maybe it fell off the table. Did you look under? Did you-" lie shook his head. "There was no note. How could there be, if she didn't kill herself?"
"Do you mean to say she was actually murdered?" Fran somehow could not get this into her head. "But why? Who would want to do that to a harmless little rag doll like her? It's-well, it just doesn't add up!" But immediately glimpsing the brighter side of the picture: "If she didn't kill herself, then we had nothing to do with her death! We're not implicated at all."
"Implicated-" he seized on the word. "We're implicated up to our necks! Think it over, I'm nineteen, she's thirty-one. We're living together, but I've got a girl friend-you. She drew five thousand from the bank. It's missing, and it's in my possession. The green tie that's wound around her neck-that belongs to me. She knew no one here but us. No one who would want to kill her. She was a shy backward thing and made no friends or enemies."
Fran lit a cigarette. Her eyes shifted wildly about the room. They lit on the floor, hesitated, then quickly darted back to his face. "Let's take off, Joe. We've got the money and the red convertible. Get it. Get it and-!"
He cut her short, "No. The cops will be expecting us to take off, and will probably be watching the train stations and airlines. As for the red convertible, that would stand out like a black eye on an old maid. We'll hole-up here, in this bungalow, till things cool off a bit."
"But how will we eat? One of us will have to go out and get the food."
"You'll do that," he said. "The cops won't be looking for you. You were only in our place once, and I doubt if you were noticed then."
"You'll trust me? How do you know I won't take off now that things are hot?" Her thin lips curled in a taunting grin. "I might, you know."
"But you won't," he said. He patted his jacket where it bulged. "Not as long as I've got this."