Chase (21 page)

Chase wiped at his face, flicked the sweat from his fingers. His stomach, knotted only minutes ago, had loosened too quickly, like a greased rope curling on itself, and he felt as if he might be sick. He could not afford that luxury.

Outside, a car full of shouting teenagers went by, screeched at the corner, sounded its horn and peeled off with a squeal of rubber.

Chase stepped across Richard Linski's body and looked out the window. There was no one in sight. The lawn was dark. The sounds of the struggle had not carried any distance.

He turned away from the glass and listened to Linski's breathing. It was shallow but steady.

Chase crossed the room to the other floor lamp, tripped over an ottoman on the way, found the lamp and switched it on.

He looked at his shoulder, probed the hole in the fleshy part of his biceps. As far as he could tell, the bullet had passed straight through. He could look at it in a moment, under stronger light, as soon as he secured Judge,

He could also call the police. In a little while. After he had taken care of a couple of loose ends that yet remained.

Sixteen

In the bathroom, Chase stripped off his blood-soaked shirt and dropped it in the sink. He washed the wound and tested the flow of blood, sopping it up with a washcloth until it was not bleeding dangerously any more. He located the alcohol in the medicine chest and poured half a bottle over and into the hole, was nearly knocked down by the rush of stinging pain that exploded in the wake of the fluid. For a while he bent over the sink, staring into the mirror, watching the circles under his eyes grow darker, the whites of his eyes more bloodshot. When he felt he could move again, he found gauze pads and soaked one of them in Merthiolate. He slapped that over the wound, covered it with more clean pads, then wound wide-band adhesive tape over the entire mess. It wasn't professional, but it would keep him from leaking blood over everything.

In the bedroom, he took one of Judge's shirts from the closet and struggled into it. If their fight had been now instead often minutes ago, he would surely have lost, for his shoulder and back were beginning to stiffen considerably.

In the kitchen, he found a large plastic garbage sack and brought it to the bathroom. He dropped his bloody shirt, the bloody towel and washcloth into it. He used tissues and wads of toilet paper to wipe up the sink and the mirror, threw those in the bag when he was done with them. Standing in the doorway, he looked the bathroom over, decided there was no trace of what he had done there, turned off the light and closed the door.

Judge's second shot had missed Chase, but it had thoroughly smashed a three-foot-square ornamental mirror that had hung on the wall above the bar at the far end of the living room. Bits of glass lay over everything within a six-foot radius. In five minutes he had picked up all the major shards, though hundreds of tiny slivers still sparkled in the nap of the carpet and in the upholstery of nearby chairs.

He was considering this problem when Judge awoke. He went to the chair in the middle of the living room, where he had tied the killer with clothesline he had found in the kitchen. It was a straight-backed, unpadded, armless chair that provided a number of rungs and slats to snake the rope through. Judge twisted and tried to break free, but soon saw there was no hope of that.

Chase said, ‘Where is your vacuum sweeper?’

‘What?’ Judge was still groggy.

‘Vacuum sweeper.’

‘What you want that for?’

Chase slapped him hard with his good hand.

‘In the cellarway,’ Judge said.

He brought the sweeper back, plugged it in and picked up every piece of shattered mirror that caught his eye. Fifteen minutes later, satisfied, he put the sweeper away again, just as he had found it.

‘What are you up to?’ Judge asked. He was still trying at his ropes, as though not convinced it was hopeless.

Chase did not answer. He picked up the television and replaced it on its stand, plugged it in and tried it. It still worked. There was a situation comedy playing, one of those in which the father is always an idiot and the mother is little better. The kids are cute monsters.

Next he picked up the floor lamp he had fallen over and examined the metal shade. It was dented, but there was no way to tell that the dent was new. He unscrewed the damaged light bulbs, and along with the larger scraps of the broken mirror, threw them in the plastic garbage bag on top of the bloody shirt and towel. He used the pages of a magazine to scoop up the smaller pieces, and threw those and the magazine into the garbage bag.

‘Where are your spare light bulbs kept?’ Chase asked Linski.

‘I'm not telling you.’

‘You will, eventually.’

Judge remained silent, glowering at Chase. Chase noticed that just as intended, there were no bruises on the man's throat where Chase's thumbs had dug into him. The pressure had been too pinpointed and too quick to seriously hurt tissue.

Chase back-handed Linski across the face, three times.

Linski said, ‘In the kitchen, under the sink, behind the box of laundry detergent. What are you trying to prove with all this?’

Chase did not answer. He found the bulbs and screwed two new ones into the lamp. They worked when he switched them on.

In the kitchen again, he got a bucket of water, soap, ammoniated cleanser and a carton of milk - his mother's favourite spot remover - from the refrigerator. In the living room, he used a rag and a succession of the substances to get the worst of the blood spots out of the carpet. The faint brown stains that remained were easily hidden by the long nap of the shag rug.

He put everything away again and threw the rag into the garbage bag with the other things.

After that, he stood in the centre of the room and slowly examined all of it for traces of the fight. The blood had been mopped up, the furniture righted, the broken glass thrown out. The only thing that might draw anyone's suspicion was the soot-ringed, pale square where the ornate mirror had hung.

Chase pulled the two picture hangers out of the wall; they left two small nail holes behind. He used a handful of paper towels to wipe away most of the dirty ring, successfully blending the lighter and darker portions of the wall. It was still obvious that something had hung there, though one might now think it had been removed several months ago.

Judge watched all of this without asking any more questions.

Chase came back to him and sat down on the arm of the easy chair. He said, ‘I have some questions to ask you.’

‘Go to hell,’ Judge said.

Chase hit him hard. He said, ‘First of all, did you really intend to kill Louise Allenby, or just Mike?’

‘Both of them,’ Judge said.

‘Why?’

‘I've explained all of that.’

‘Explain it again.’ Chase's arm felt as if it were falling off, but the severe pain kept him alert.

They were fornicators,’ Linski said. ‘I followed them and watched them until I knew for sure.’

‘And why should that bother you? Because Mike should have been your lover?’

Perhaps Judge realized that there was no way out, no hope of continuing to hide anything. He no longer bothered to deny his sexual proclivities. He said, ‘He was a beautiful boy, and he seemed to like me. But I made a major mistake in approaching him. It became almost an obsession with me, his youthfulness, the grace in him that older men soon lose, his smile, his enthusiasm, his vital energy. I should not have started any of it.’

‘And that's why you killed him.’

‘No,’ Judge said. ‘It started out because of that, but it grew into something much more important.’ There was a peculiar spark of interest in his eyes, a morbid excitement. ‘When I followed him, I saw what loose morals he had - and what loose morals most of his generation has. I was negatively impressed by the rutting that went on in the park on Kanackaway, for instance. It soon became obvious to me that unless something was done to set an example for this generation, the country would one day decline as Rome declined.’

Chase felt tired. He had been hoping for something more than this, something original and fresh. Madmen, he supposed, always clung to the same stale ideas, though. He said, ‘And you would single-handedly bring about a change in the morals of all young people - just by showing them what was liable to happen to - fornicators.’

‘Yes,’ Judge said. ‘I know that I'm tainted myself. Don't think I'm blind to my own weaknesses. But by embarking on a crusade of this sort. I could surely pay penance for my own sins and contribute positively to the Christian standards of the community.’

Chase laughed.

‘I see nothing funny,’ Judge said.

‘I do,’ Chase said. ‘You ought to meet Mike Karnes's parents. Have you ever met them?’

‘No,’ Judge said, perplexed.

Chase was still laughing, but he realized it was not healthy laughter, too forced and tight for that. He stopped and sat there for a moment, regaining his composure. He said, ‘What about Blentz?’

‘I knew him once - in the Biblical sense.’

‘He was your lover?’ Chase asked.

‘Yes. But he was petty and nasty, and he threatened to expose me for what I was. He didn't care about his own involvement. He said he wouldn't care if the whole city knew.’

‘He had the right attitude,’ Chase said.

‘Exposing your own sin, revelling in it? That is a healthy attitude?’

‘Something like homosexuality is only a sin if you want to think of it that way,’ Chase said. ‘To other people, it's just another way of facing the world.’

‘You're corrupted, like everyone else,’ Judge said. ‘At least I recognize it for the weakness it is.’

‘How long ago were you and Blentz lovers?’

Judge said, ‘Two years ago, maybe longer. We saw each other occasionally since then, but not in anything but a social context.’

‘When did he call to tell you I'd been around asking questions?’

‘Sunday afternoon. He wanted to see me Monday morning, and he made the mistake of hinting that he knew what I'd done.’

‘Why wouldn't he have gone straight to the police?’

Judge strained at his ropes, then sank back, gasping for breath. When he could speak easily again, he said. ‘He wanted money. The same way he threatened to expose me two years ago, same payoff.’

‘I'd think he would have more money than you,’ Chase said.

‘He gambled. When he saw this chance, he took it.’

‘You shot him with that gun?’

‘Yes.’

Chase said, ‘Where'd you get the grenade?’

Judge seemed to brighten for a moment. ‘I'm a major in the reserves. When we had manoeuvres this summer, it was a simple matter to lift one of them from the metal storage chests they keep them in. I thought it might come in handy, and it almost did.’

Chase found paper and pen in the dining-room desk, picked up a large coffee-table picture book on Africa and brought everything back to Linski. He placed the book on Linski's lap, the paper on the book, the pen on the paper. He said, ‘I've tied your hands separately. I'm going to loosen your right hand and hold onto it with this rope. I'll dictate a confession; you'll write it. If you try anything, I'll beat the shit out of you. Do you believe that?’

‘I believe it,’ Judge said.

Chase dictated the confession, saw that it was done properly, retied Judge's arm. He put the book on the coffee table again, put the pen in the desk.

‘You must be thrilled,’ Judge said. ‘I don't know how you found me, but it must be a clever story that'll make nice front-page reading.’

‘I won't let it get into the paper,’ Chase said. ‘At least not my part in it.’

‘Bullshit, Chase. Pure bullshit. You know there's no way you can keep it off page one. Even if you won't admit it, you must know you're a publicity monger, a cheap little tin war hero who has had his taste of glory and can't break the habit.’

‘No,’ Chase said. ‘You don't understand at all.’

‘Get a kick out of being a celebrity, do you? You killed all those women and children-’

‘Not me alone.’

‘- and now every time you get your picture in the paper, you're trading on that kind of ‘heroism.’ Medal of Honor winner. What a laugh that is, Chase. You're disgusting.’

‘I didn't want the medal,’ Chase said. He did not know why he had to defend himself to Judge of all people.

‘Sure.’

‘That's the truth.’

‘But you took it and the car and the awards dinner.’

‘Because that was the quickest way to get it over with and settle down again. If I'd refused any of those things, the curiosity of the press would have been ten times worse.’

‘Rationalization, that's all.’

‘It isn't!’ Chase shouted. ‘Dammit, I don't want to be a hero. I just want to live, the best that I can, as happy as I can. I'm not a hero at all.’

‘Why don't you tell that to the press?’

Chase stood up, agitated. He did not want to go on in this vein any longer. He said, ‘Did you really intend to kill Glenda?’

The blonde slut you're with?’

‘Glenda,’ Chase repeated.

‘Of course,’ Judge said. ‘She's a fornicator, just like you, just like the Allenby girl. And I still may kill you, all of you, bring you the proper judgment.’

‘Oh?’

‘You don't think they'll send me to prison, do you? They'll sock me away in an institution and give me psychiatric care. Though if they try to give me Dr Cauvel, I'll scream bloody murder.’ He laughed until he choked, blinked tears from his eyes. ‘I'll get out again, maybe not for ten years or fifteen. But they won't keep me until I die.’ He looked at the paper lying by his feet. ‘Besides, you've forced a confession from me. That might be just enough to cause a mistrial, if it's introduced as evidence.’

Chase picked up the pistol which he had placed on the television set. ‘You made the silencer yourself?’

‘Yes,’ Judge said. ‘It wasn't that difficult. A piece of pipe the proper diameter, the shop tools at the school where I teach - presto!’ He smiled at Chase. ‘That would make a good picture for the front page, you standing over me with the murder weapon in your hand, triumphant and glorious.’