Dreadful Summit (15 page)

It wasn't loud enough to hear the words. I went up the first two steps, but I still couldn't hear them, and I had to. I started going up the rest of the way, flattened against the wall, and looking around to make sure nobody was watching me. There were two people talking in the parlour, and one of them was my father.

He said, ‘Don't, Mr Judge! I tell you I don't know. You saw them go over the place. I tell you I don't know!' and Al Judge said, ‘I warned you, LaMain. I'll tear you apart if you don't start talking! Where is he?'

I felt like I was walking in my sleep. I was standing in front of the door, looking at Al Judge's face all blood-red, and watching him slap the cane into his other hand like Kennealy was doing with the night stick, and listening to his voice come from between his teeth. There was bandage and tape all along the side of his head, there wasn't any white scarf, but it was him all right. It was a miracle.

My father was trying to move back, but he was up against the big armchair and he couldn't. He said, ‘Don't, Mr Judge! I swear I don't know!' and Al Judge yelled, ‘God damn you, LaMain! I warned you!'

And then the cane was up in the air. Up over his head the same way I remembered it, only it wasn't meant for me. It was meant for my father, and it would come down across the stripes on his back and he would scream and fall down and the whole thing would start all over again.

The gun was in my hand. I didn't think about pulling it out or anything because it was in my hand. I only thought, the best way to hold it is with both hands because it kicks back so hard, and I held it tight with both hands and squeezed it
crash
, squeezed it
crash
, again and again, until it went click-click-click, and Al Judge grabbed his belly with both hands and fell over on his face, and the cane was lying in the armchair.

I didn't know Flanagan was there all that time. He grabbed me by one arm, and my father got me by the other and pulled the gun out of my hand. He held it out, showing it to me and yelling something, but my ears were ringing and I couldn't hear him. I thought I was going to pass out right in the door, but Flanagan got an arm around me and tried to steer me to a chair there.

Then I heard what my father was saying. He was yelling, with his face all twisted like a crazy man, ‘It's her blood! Do you hear? It's her blood, and you'll end the same way!'

He didn't know Kennealy had come up. None of us knew it. He was standing at the top of the stairs with his gun pointed at my father, and he was bent over like a football player getting ready to tackle somebody.

He yelled, ‘LaMain! Drop it!' and there was my father twisting around surprised with the gun still in his hand, and Kennealy yelled, ‘LaMain!' and his gun went off, and my father kept twisting all the way around until he hit the little table with the radio and the picture on it. It went over, and he went over with it, and he lay there quiet.

That was all. Only Flanagan kneeling over him with his overcoat on and his torn old sweater showing. He was kneeling there, and I think he was crying, and he was pushing his teeth in with the back of his hand and saying over and over, ‘Ah, Kennealy, the gun was empty. Didn't you know, Kennealy? The gun was empty.'

Over and over.

Chapter Eighteen

I
T
was quiet in the bedroom. Quiet and dark. Sitting on the edge of the bed with Flanagan next to me, and looking at the big double doors, it felt like the parlour and everything in it was a thousand miles away. You could hear the cops and the guys from the newspapers walking around and talking, but as long as the doors were closed I didn't care.

It was different when they had me in the parlour. They asked me questions so fast I couldn't think, and I had to put my hands over my ears and yell, ‘Shut up! Shut up!' until they stopped. Then Flanagan and Kennealy started talking to an old guy who was there, and he let Flanagan take me into the bedroom.

It was good talking to Flanagan in the dark. It was almost like talking to myself, and it helped me put things together. When we sat on the bed, he whispered, ‘Keep your head screwed on. They think your father killed the man, do you see? And to my way of thinking, it's enough he died for it. Now, for God sake, tell me everything so we'll know what kind of a story to give them.'

So I told him. I told him everything from the time Al Judge came into the bar all the way to the end. Sometimes I couldn't remember exactly what happened or somebody's name, but it was so important to me that I should, that I stopped and figured it out until I had it right. And all the time I didn't feel like I was doing the talking at all. It felt like the words were coming out by themselves and all I had to do was steer them along.

When I was done, Flanagan sat quiet a little, and then he said, ‘Peckinpaugh is the man to be afraid of, all right. He'll twist and turn everything you've done until he has you where he wants you.'

I said, ‘What will he do to me?'

‘It may be, mind you I don't say for sure, but it may be he'll try to put the killing on you. He's the one to keep in mind while we fix up the story.'

I said, ‘Why didn't you stop me? I wouldn't have done it, only nobody stopped me!'

‘Shh! Have you got stones in the head? When you weren't home after twelve, your father had me walking the streets all night in the blackness looking for you. Only when Judge came with the cops did we have an idea what happened and your poor father near went out of his mind.'

I said, ‘I don't care! It was his fault! Why didn't he tell me about Frances? I wouldn't have done it if I knew all about what happened!'

Flanagan said, ‘Quiet! Who's to pin the fault on anyone? He never told the girl he would marry her, but she said no matter. When she came crying, and said she was in trouble and he would have to marry her Johnny-on-the-spot, what could he do? He gave her the only advice he could.

‘Was it his fault if she died in her room from poisoning after the operation? Up to the end she hardly spoke a word about her brother, the way she hated him for his bullying ways, but the priest got him there before she went, and that's how it all came out. It was nobody's fault, the way it happened.'

‘It was! Why didn't he marry her? He liked her all right, didn't he? Then why didn't he marry her?'

‘Marry her? Christ Jesus and the angels! How could he marry anyone when he's still married to your mother?'

‘But she's dead! My mother is dead!'

He started rocking from side to side so his shoulder kept hitting me. ‘Ah, Jesus, it's out now and what's the difference with him laying in there. He could have been free of your mother any day he said the word, but he would never say it. He could never have her, but the way he was mad about her, he would never cut the ties between them.

‘That was what he carried around inside of him, night and day. All he ever feared in his life was you would find out, and it would hurt you like it hurt him. He had you on one side and her on the other, and he was torn between you night and day.'

I whispered, ‘But she's dead. He told me himself she was dead long ago.'

‘She's in prison for life. She'll live there, and she'll die there, but as long as your father had breath in his body, she was the only woman for him. And she was no good. Smart and beautiful, and no good at all.'

‘But what did she do?'

‘What did she do? She had you squalling in a baby bed upstairs, and your father working his head off to make money for her, and all that time she was carrying on with another man! The bar was on the other side of town then, and from the day I went to work there, I could see she was no good. All that time carrying on with another man until the day he threw her over for someone else's wife, and she found him out and shot his in his bed. And even knowing the truth, your father would have given his life to save her from what she had coming.'

‘He never told me that. He never told me anything about it.'

‘Everything he did from then on was to save you from knowing. If I ever told you this when he was alive, he would have had my life.'

My eyes were getting so used to the dark now, I could almost see myself in the mirror, and I saw I still had the black hat on. I took it off and started wiping it around so it would be the way my father liked it. Then I couldn't help it. I crumpled it up and squeezed it as tight as I could in my hands and held it that way, and it felt good.

Flanagan said, ‘That's how it is with some men. There's only one woman in the world for them, and if it's the wrong one, no matter. They call their curse a blessing and carry it inside of them to the grave. That was your father.'

I said, ‘He was all right.'

Flanagan said, ‘He wouldn't want you to end up the same as she did. Let me tell you what to say now.'

‘No. He was all right.'

‘Then listen now.'

I said, ‘No. You don't understand. You just don't understand.'

‘Have you gone crazy? You'll do the way I say!'

Somebody knocked on the double doors and said, ‘Hey, you guys,' and Flanagan jumped up and said, ‘Right away! He'll be feeling better right away!'

Then he got me by the shoulders and started shaking me so my head rocked. ‘Listen to me!' he said into my ear. ‘Listen to me!'

I said, ‘No. I want to tell them what happened.'

‘What are you saying?'

I had the hat squeezed tight in my hands. I said, ‘I want to tell them what really happened.'

‘Oh, Jesus, you're crazy! Do you hear? You're crazy for sure!'

But I wasn't. It was only that I saw everything straight now, and how my father took that beating from Al Judge because, the way he looked at it, it was coming to him. All his life, he took what was coming to him and never said anything about it because he was that kind of a guy.

Flanagan didn't understand. He just didn't understand that even if my father was dead, it was the most important thing in the world that people mustn't think he was a bad guy. Because he wasn't.

He wasn't like that at all.

He was all right.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1948 by Stanley Ellin

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

ISBN:

This 2014 edition published by
MysteriousPress.com
/Head of Zeus

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781784089573

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