Anatomy of a Killer (16 page)

But he would not go back up the short flight of stairs to where the Caughlin corpse lay, and turn it over and touch it for the key….

And then the footsteps came down the other side of the basement door, they went limpedy-limp, and the easiest thing in the world, Jordan thought, when he shows in the door now … The old man from the elevator pulled open the door and came in, gaping, standing a split second away from being dead. He made one more limpedy-limp—That’s an idleness standing there, said Jordan, and I
know
better….

One more sick tired drag on the door and Jordan ran. He gave up and ran with mouth open, voiceless, because the wail in him got all used up with the running.

20

She said, “My God, Sam! What happened to you?”

He sat down in a chair in the room she had furnished and was ready to tell her what he had meant to do, what he had done instead, how confused it had left him, that she, Betty, was the only thing in all this that had never confused him, and that he thought this is what he had wanted all the time.

Later, he thought, after a breath. What he said was, “Nothing. It’s all right.”

“But—but honey, you looked like you
ran
all the way.”

“I rented a car,” he said.

She laughed and said she liked his sense of humor. She came over to him and ran her hand through his hair. “You have an accident, Sam?”

“Yes. A real one.”

“Bad, honey?”

“I don’t know yet. But it shook me.”

“Well, you just tell me later,” and she went to the front window where she pulled up the blind. “I didn’t know you were coming, Sammy, or I would have fixed up something. Did you notice the new couch I bought?”

“Close the blind, Betty.”

“Close it?”

“No. Leave it open. So I can look out.” He got up and looked out. He looked across the porch of the bungalow he had rented for her and up and down the street full of late sunshine. No palms here, but there was Spanish tile on the house across and Betty had liked that.

“You don’t want to eat now, do you, Sam? You don’t look….”

“No.”

She came over and wanted to lean against him but he changed it into something else, holding her, so she would not lean into the gun.

“You look,” she said, “you look almost a little older, or something.”

“No sleep,” he said. “It’s been very hard sleeping.”

Then she took him into the bedroom and wanted to help him off with his coat. “No,” he said. “I’ll do it,” and she laughed again and said that was just like him, not to accept a little consideration.

“No,” he said, “it’s not that.”

“Not that?”

“I will, in a while,” he said. “But right now I’m not yet done running.”

She did not understand that and laughed this time for that reason. “Sam,” she said. “Look what I bought in the meantime.”

While she went to the chest of drawers, he put the gun in the closet and hung up his jacket there.

“Look. And just today. Just as if I knew you were coming.” She held the fine spun nightgown up and moved it back and forth in the air. “Like it?”

“Yes,” he said. “I like you
very
much.”

He sat down on the bed and she said, “Oh, Sammy. You’re so tired you don’t know what you’re saying.”

He did not correct her, because he was tired.

“You going to stay a while this time, Sam?”

“Yes. Really.”

“How nice that will be, Sam. How nice.”

“Yes,” he said, and stretched out on the bed.

“You want a nap before eating, don’t you, Sammy.”

“Stay here.”

“If you want me to.”

“Yes. Stay here.”

She sat down on the bed and he laid his hand on her thigh. She put her hand on his and gave it a small push. “You’re not wearing a housecoat,” he said.

“Well, I wasn’t, I mean….”

“No, stay here.”

She stayed and then he said she should put on the new nightdress she had bought.

The sun was going outside and part of the time while she undressed he closed his eyes and just heard the sounds she made with cloth against skin. Once a car got louder down the long block, but Jordan was so worn he did not tense till the car had gone by and then he relaxed again.

“I’ll lie down next to you,” she said.

They lay like that and Jordan almost went to sleep. But he did not want to lose knowing that she was there, and the darker it got the more he listened for other things.

She moved against him and he stayed awake. He moved his hand over her and felt her skin in the places where he liked to feel it especially. They lay like that and touched only in a few places and she thought, should I tell him before or should I tell him after. He is so friendly now….

“Sam?”

“Don’t move away.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Stay like this, Betty, and I’ll talk to you.”

We’ll talk, she thought, and this is a good time to tell him.

“I tried and I tried,” he said, “but not all of it really came off. It’s mistakes that happened, wrong things along the line, but what I did wrong, Betty, my faults, I mean, they—I don’t know, Betty, I don’t know how to say it …”

He said, more, with the worry pushing him, the worry about not being able to keep Smith and Jordan apart, the new awful thing which he had never imagined, but the girl wasn’t listening then. She felt a quick panic.

“Are you trying to tell me you’re married?”

“Married? Hell no,” and he sat up, trying to focus.

She had heard how shrill she had sounded and how it must have struck him. She thought before I lose my courage I must speak. “I remember you said no once before, Sam, but you were acting so strangely, and here I have this important thing, this worry on my mind, and if you say so, Sam, of course I….”

“What?”

“I’m going to have a baby.”

He said nothing but she felt his quick move and she panicked again. “I mean, you got to take that into consideration, Sam. You got to remember I sit here all alone and only you know where and I got this worry …”

“Baby?”

“Yes.”

“Who says?”

“The doctor said so when I….”

“When?”

“Three months now.”

He jumped off the bed and wiped his mouth, staring at her. Dark now in the room. He had talked and asked all the last things from sheer confusion but that was done. Clear now.

“Three months? From me?”

“Sam, Sammy. I didn’t mean—what I meant was, was something else. What….”

“Shut up.” I’m rattled, he thought, and then said it, “I’m rattled. Shut up for a minute—”

She lay still and confused and he thought that face there, I have never seen anything emptier. What is there…. Except for the lie she tried, the lie with the baby…. One lie in back, that was Sandy; one lie in front, staring empty…. Easy, try it easy like Jordan does this, and he stepped back almost into the closet. Smith gone now, he thought, but don’t give up Jordan. And no between-time kick, on-the-run kick any more. And my God, he thought—and there was a sound in his throat—what is left now….

The light snapped on.

The man nodded his head and nodded the gun at Jordan.

“Wasn’t she supposed to be dead?”

“Sam! He’s got….”

She stopped when the killer walked farther into the room, and when Jordan moved over where the killer wanted him.

“Where’s your gun?”

Jordan nodded at the closet.

“Ah,” said the killer, and left it to lie there when he saw it on the shelf. Then he turned all the way back to the room.

“A shame,” he said. “She could have stayed in one piece if I could have gotten you elsewhere. But now she’s going to see this.”

Jordan sank into the chair behind him and his breath came with a paper sound.

“I think I’ll do her first. Real shame,” and he lifted the gun the way Jordan would do it. Outside a motor raced loud. He took a stance the way Jordan did when he was not on the run.

The girl gagged when she saw the gun come up to level, and she understood nothing when all that stopped.

Jordan, the way he hardly ever did, squeezed from way low and the killer seemed to draw up his shoulders. When he fell, Jordan was over him, looking hard for the little hole which did not show clearly because of his clothes. He held out the little twenty-two and made a hole where he wanted it. He felt nothing.

When the girl made a hoarse sound Jordan looked up. He felt rattled and confused, Smith-Jordan confused. He looked at her drawn up on the bed and said, “Don’t be afraid, Betty. He’s dead.”

Then he ran out. He saw the car by the curb, motor revving, but when he ran out on the porch he thought better of it and pulled back. So the car took off.

He stood on the porch and watched the car go. He was not so confused that he did not know what came next. Next would come the same thing, the same thing again, with only one finish to it. He knew the routine. He felt heavy and still. One more run, he said, one more run. Not for long now, but for just a little.

He ran back into the house and into the bedroom.

“Betty…..”

“Please!”

“Quiet, Betty, quiet quiet. Here now, get this on.”

“What are you—who are—”

“Nonono. Forget that. Sam Smith. Remember? And the buttons.” He held the coat to her but she stepped back into a corner.

“Betty, please,” he said, “Betty, please. One more run is all, Betty sweet, one more and it’s over. When you’re gone and it’s over, they won’t want you any more.”

“What are you—”

“He said so, remember? Before he was dead. Here, the coat.”

She put it on, so he would go away. When she had it on he pulled money out of his pocket. “Now this, Betty. Stick it here, in the pocket,” and he held the thick roll out with two hands.

“No. I won’t touch….”

“Betty.”

“You’re some filthy kind of….”

“Please,” he said, talking slower now. “Please don’t quarrel.”

He put the money into her pocket and she held still with fright.

“You come now,” he said. “Here, shoes. Then we go. Run, I mean.”

She put the shoes on and he rushed her. He left his jacket where it was, but was not so confused that he did not take the Magnum. He put it in the place under his belt but moved it into the pocket when he saw how she looked at it.

“Please,” he said again. “Don’t quarrel,” and he ran her out to the street.

He ran her to the car at the corner and when they were inside he drove fast and skilled. For a while they sat next to each other like that without talking, he not talking because of all he was thinking. What there was of him and the things he had done, so that she would know the bad and the good of him, and what he had wished would have happened. But he did not know enough about any of it and the confusion kept him from talking. She sat still too, so he felt that she felt the same kind of things, and was kept from talking. Once he reached over and made a light stroke on her arm. Her fright kept her silent and stiffened.

Her fright made her keep step with him when they ran into the airport; and when he found a ticket for a plane which left in five minutes; and when he rushed her last through the gate and said something she did not understand….

He latched the chain across the empty gate and watched the plane swivel slowly and then move slowly with a big roar. It moved out of the light and in a while it will fly off, he said to himself.

He felt no need to watch that. And he did not remember where her ticket went. Just that the girl had been.

They picked him up again in town and they had him when he went into the bus station. He had gone into the station because there were people. Then he saw the three men and knew immediately.

They shot him against a wall with a summer schedule behind him, and that got torn too.

It felt to him as if he sat on the floor a long time, and for one very bad moment a sudden, great wildness almost tore him open, like pigeons beating around inside a wire-mesh cage and even their eyes with the stiff bird-stare turned wild with glitter.

But he made that all go quiet again. He could not see any more and wished he had said more to the girl, had told her some things he had done, so that she would know the bad and the good of him and he would not be just a blank.

He had a great deal of pain and then died.

When the policeman turned him over, he found one driver’s license which said Smith and another one which said Jordan.

“Must be Jordan,” he said. “There aren’t any Smiths.”

The End