Chapter 17
HE REMAINED HOLED-UP, AS HE had said he would, but it was more of an ordeal than he expected. He could hardly bear it.
His body was young and hard, it needed to be used. He would pace the room for hours on end-to the window, back to the couch, and around again-like a tiger in a cage. As he paced, memories would come Hooding in, torturing him. Pangs of remorse would stab at him, cause him to pause in his tracks and stare vacantly into space. He could not get Helen out of his thoughts-her kindness and selfessness, her love and devotion to him. He realized too late that it had been she he loved-she, the good, the warm, the simple. She was dead-vanished like a puff of air, leaving no trace behind. He could not believe it. lie had seen her poor twisted body, her purple face, and yet he could not accept the finality of it.
And to think that he himself had planned to kill her, for this (he would draw the envelope from his pocket and gaze at it with contempt), a stack of greenbacks which meant nothing to him now! He would get an urge, a pressing urge, to tear up the Contents of the envelope and scatter it about the room. And when Fran returned and saw what he had done he'd laugh in her face and dare her to do her worst.
He managed to restrain himself, returned the envelope to his pocket. It wasn't his to do with as he wished; it was Sue Carter's more than anyone's, he would send it to her the first chance he got. Fran did not yet know this, but he'd tell her when the time came. Thinking of it, he laughed to himself.
In those two days he ate little and slept less. When he did manage to doze off, the recurring dream immediately took possession of his mind. It had changed in one detail, otherwise it was exactly the same. The dead woman he wept over now was Helen. In his waking moments he might console himself with the thought that he had not killed her, but when he slept his subconscious took sway, and his subconscious was a sterner judge: it accepted fact and intention as one and the same thing, so of course it found him guilty.
At times he would recall the words his lather had said to him in the first feverish dream: "You who have chosen the easy way, the short sweet life-have you found happiness? One hour of it? One minute of it? One second of it?" ... Then it would strike him that his father had been right: he had gotten no happiness from the life he had chosen, not an hour, or a minute, or a second of it. His father had wished him to take the hard road because, being older and wiser, he had known that this was the way to whatever happiness and contentment the world could offer a man. He neither pitied nor feared the old man now. He only loved him, wished to see him again so that he might get down on his knees and beg his forgiveness. bite in the morning of the third day Fran came into the house with the groceries and a startling piece of information.
"I was followed!"
He waited for her to go on, but when she began to unload the packages, set diem on the table, he lost patience. "Finish what you were saying! You were followed by who?"
"A man," she said. "I lost him in the crowd. I didn't get a very good look at him, but I believe I recognized him."
He noticed that she was quite pale, her lips were bloodless. Then he realized that she was frightened, was trying to hide it from him. "You're scared, aren't you?"
"Scared? No, I-" she hesitated, then blurted out, "Yes, I'm scared! This guy-there's something about him that gives me the willies, I don't know just what."
"Where do you recognize him from?"
"The Club Seventy-Seven. He used to come there now and then. Always took a front table and sat alone, ogling me. He frightened me then, too."
"Is he a cop?"
"How would I know? No, he's not a cop. At least he doesn't look like one."
"I don't get it. Why are you so scared of him?"
"I don't know. It's hard to explain. When he was following me I had a funny feeling-a feeling that it wasn't the first time, he'd followed me before."
"When?"
"I don't know when. I don't even know if he actually did. I told you it was just a feeling."
"Forget it," he suggested.
She turned her back to him and started for the stove. "I already have."
But that afternoon, when he suggested she go out and buy an evening paper, she was hesitant. "Why?" she asked; "is it that important?"
"I'd like to get the latest on the case."
"The body has been discovered and the police are looking for you. What else do you need to know?"
"Maybe they've got a lead on the one who really did it."
"Oh, don't be an optimist, Joe! As far as the police are concerned it's an open and shut case, and you know it."
"The newsstand is just at the corner. Walk fast and your creep won't spot you."
"I won't."
He continued to press her, however, and she did finally go. Five minutes later she returned with the paper, and reported that this time she hadn't been followed.
Nor was she followed the next morning. After that she seemed to have completely forgotten the incident.
That night she went out for a stroll. "Just to get some air," she said.
She returned in less than a minute, breathless and white as a sheet. He was seated on the couch reading the paper. "Him-it's him, Joe! Passed the house just as I stepped out the door, pretended not to notice me. But he did, he did! lie stepped into a doorway a few houses down the street and I ran back."
"Shut the door!" he muttered. Just then a knock sounded.
He leapt to his feet and started for the light switch, but he never reached it. The door burst open and a man stepped in, a man whom he at once recognized. Henry Kohler.
But this was not the same Henry Kohler he'd met in Brooklyn. 'Phis one appeared to be insane, with eyes glittering behind rimless glasses and lip's twitching spasmodically as they tried for a smile. He held a sawed-off revolver in his hand. "We meet again," he lisped, and laughed softly.
The instant he'd seen him, the answer to the mystery of Helen's death Hashed through Joe's mind. Now he decided to verify it. "You killed her, didn't you:'
"Helen?-why yes." Henry's lips finally managed a smile. In a mild, conversational tone he went on: "Yes, and now I'll do the same for you. But first, if you don't mind, I'd like you to squirm-squirm and plead, the way she did before I...."
With a lightning movement, Joe reached for the switch and flicked it.
The room was in darkness-hushed, breathless. Suddenly the insane little laugh sounded again, followed by a deafening explosion and a bright flash of light. Joe hurled himself to the floor, and lay there motionless, pressing himself flat. Two more shots in rapid succession shattered the stillness, flashed through the darkness. A thud, as if someone had fallen. Fran screamed feebly, moaned, coughed as if she were trying to catch her breath, then was silent. Joe pushed himself up and ran headlong toward the shadow by the door. Another shot exploded, he heard the bullet pop the air close by, then ricochet around the room. His head butted squarely into Henry's chest, and Henry thumped to the floor like a sack. His groping fingers found and twined around Henry's throat. He squeezed. A minute passed. Two minutes. Three. He relaxed his hands, got to his feet, and in the darkness made his way across the room to the light switch and flicked it on.
He saw Fran lying on her back in the center of the room. Her eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. Blood oozed slowly from a hole in her chest. She was dead.
He turned from her and walked to where Henry Kohler lay. He stood over him, looking down at him. In death he bore a strange resemblance to Helen Carter. His body was twisted grotesquely, the skin of his lace was purplish white.
Joe heard the wail of a siren in the distance, turned and started for the door. He went out.
He moved off into the night, taking long easy strides. He did not appear to be hurrying, and yet he was moving last. There was the swagger of youth in his walk, the impetus of purpose. A girl of twenty who passed him on the street paused to glance hack. He reminded her of her favorite movie star.
He walked onto the beach, trudged across the soft sand to the water's edge. He unlaced his shoes and kicked them oft, striped off his clothes. Naked, he walked into the water.
The sea was calm, hardly a ripple, he could hear the lapping of the dark water as his arms cut through it. Out and out he swam, easily, steadily smoothly-out into the tropical sea, beyond the point of no return, where undertows pull and shark and barracuda silently stir the warm water, ever hungry, ever on the search. As he swam he tried to think of nothing but the peace, the joy of being released at last from the past and the future.
Towards the end. however, when his limbs were weary and he grew short of breath, he did begin to think of the past. For a while, before panic struck, he imagined he wasn't alone, that Rudy Gowan was swimming beside him. He saw his parents; they were at home in the living room of their apartment in the Bronx, both of them were weeping silently. Why...?
But before he began to answer the question a feeling as cold as a knife blade moved at his stomach. The water was suddenly unfriendly and black and cold. His arms were so heavy he could hardly move them. He was going under. After the first gulp of sea water he shut his mouth tight, his teeth grinding together, his lungs suddenly searing, red-hot in his chest. He wanted to scream. The idea of turning back flashed through his dizziness. He came to the surface, gasped painfully for air, and uttered a bloodcurdling scream. It was as though it came from somewhere beyond him.
He recognized it as the last frantic scream of a dying man, and knowing it was his own scream bursting from his own quivering throat, he once again sank in a paralysis of terror with his mouth open. This time there was a hammer-blow of excruciating agony in his chest, he was falling, spinning, his eyes unseeing and rotating slowly for the last time under the dark blue bowl of stars above.
Helen! Helen! A wall of dark blood moved inexorably behind his forehead, deep behind the sockets of his eyes ... Frantically he wanted to clutch, to drag himself up and out ... But everything was going black, the tearing pain didn't exist any longer, it was as though he laid his head for the last time on Helen's breast and sank ... sinking down....