Ed McBain (39 page)

"I must go to town, Miguel," Felipe said hastily. "I see you soon."

"Just a moment, Felipe. How is it...?"

"Good-bye,
amigo.
"

Felipe turned his back and Miguel stared at him as he walked toward the road. The dust rose about him, and he waved back at Miguel. Miguel did not return the wave. He stood there with the strong sun on his head, and the many rocks and stones at his feet.

How did this animal with the slobbering lips know of Maria's passion? Surely he had never spoken a word about it to any of the men. Then how did Felipe know?

The possibilities annoyed Miguel. He turned back to the rocks, and this time they seemed heavier, and the sun seemed stronger, and his back seemed to ache more.

How did Felipe know?

He was pondering this in an ill temper when Juan came to stand beside him. Juan was darkly handsome, his white trousers and shirt bright in the powerful sunlight. Miguel looked up at him sourly and said, "So? Do you wish to pass the time with idle chatter also?"

Juan smiled, his teeth even and white against the ruddy brown of his face. "Did I offend you, Miguel?"

"No!" Miguel snapped.

"Then why do you leap at me like a tiger?"

"Do not mention this animal to me," Miguel said.

"No?"

"No! I have rocks to clear, and I want to clear them before lunch because Maria will be calling me then."

"Ahhhhh," Juan said, grinning.

Miguel stared at him for a moment. The grin was the same one Felipe'had worn, except that Felipe was ugly and with slobbering lips and Juan was perhaps the handsomest man in the village.

Miguel stared at him and wondered if it had been
he
who told Felipe of Maria's great passion. And if so, how had Juan known?

"Why do you 'ahhhhh'?" he asked.

"Did I 'ahhhhh'?"

"You did. You did indeed. You made this very sound. Why?"

"I was not aware,
amigo.
" Juan said, and smiled again.

"Was it mention of lunch that evoked this sigh?"

"No. No, I do not think so."

"Then there remains only Maria."

Juan grinned and said nothing.

"I said..."

"I heard you, Miguel."

"What about Maria?"

Juan shrugged. "Who said anything about Maria?"

"You are saying it with your eyes," Miguel said heatedly. "What about her?"

"She is your wife, Miguel."

"I know she is my wife. I sleep with her, I..."

Juan was grinning again.

"What's funny about that, Juan? Why do you grin now?"

"I have nothing to say,
amigo.
Maria is your wife. God bless her."

"What does that mean?"

"It means ... well, God bless her. She is a good woman."

"How would you know?" Miguel shouted. "That she is a good woman? Why, Miguel..."

"You know what I mean! Why is my wife the sudden topic of conversation for the whole village? What's going on? Why do you all discuss her so intimately?"

"Intimately?"

"Yes! By God, Juan, if there is something that someone knows..."

Juan smiled again. "But there is nothing, Miguel. Nothing."

"You are sure?"

"I must go to town now, my friend. Is there anything I can do there for you?"

"No!" Miguel snapped.

"Then,
adios, amigo.
"

He turned and walked off, shaking his head, and Miguel could have sworn he heard him mutter the word "tigress."

He went to work on the rocks with a fury. What was all this? Why Felipe? And now Juan?

What was going on with his wife?

He thought of her passion, her gleaming black hair, the way it trailed down the curve of her back, reaching her waist. He thought of the fluid muscles on that back, beneath the soft, firm skin. He thought of the long graceful curve of her legs, the way the firelight played on her lifted breasts, the deep hollow of her navel.

Too passionate, he thought. Far too passionate.

Far too passionate for one man. Far too passionate for simple Miguel who worked the fields picking stones and hoeing beans. Yes, she was a woman who needed many men, many, many men.

Was that why Felipe had laughed with dripping lips? Was that why Juan had smiled that superior handsome smile? Miguel picked up his hoe and swung it at a large rock. The rock chipped, but it did not budge from the earth.

Was that it? Was Maria then making a cuckold of her simple Miguel? Was that why all the men in the village were snickering, smiling, laughing behind their hands? Or was it only the men from this village? Was it the adjoining village, too? Or did it go beyond that?

Did they pass her from hand to hand like a used wine jug? Did they all drink of her, and was that why they laughed at Miguel now? Was that why they laughed behind their hands, laughed aloud with their mouths and their eyes?

The sun was hot, and the bowels of the earth stank, and the rocks and stones were plentiful, and Miguel chopped at them with the hoe, using the sharp blade like an ax.

I shall show them, he thought. I shall teach them to laugh. I shall teach them to make the fool of Miguel de la Piaz!

It was then that Pablo strolled by. He had passed Miguel's house and Maria had asked him to call her husband home for lunch. He was not a bright lad, Pablo. He walked up close to Miguel, who furiously pounded the earth with his hoe, using it like an ax, the sharp blade striking sparks from the rocks. He tapped Miguel on the shoulder, smiled, and started to say, "Maria..."

Miguel whirled like an animal, the hoe raised high.

So you see, it was the next poor bastard who got it.

Nobody in police work likes to deal with lunatics. There's no predictability to the crimes committed by madmen. Moreover, in most mystery novels, there's a murder to be solved, a puzzle to be unraveled. Loose cannons present no such challenge, so I try to avoid them in the police novels I write today. But back in the fifties, I wrote several stories that...

Well, let me take that back.

Yes, the stories that follow were all published in the fifties. "Chalk" by Evan Hunter in 1953, in a
Manhunt
imitator called
Pursuit;
then "Association Test" and "Bedbug," both in
Manhunt
itself, both in 1954, the first under the Hunt Collins byline, the next under my already-legal name, Evan Hunter; and finally, in 1957 and again in
Manhunt,
another Evan Hunter story titled "The Merry Merry Christmas." So ... er ... what is there to take back?

"
Chalk.
"

Although this was finally published in 1953 (under the title "I Killed Jeannie," can you believe it!), I wrote this story in 1945, aboard a destroyer in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. When it circulated among my shipmates, it caused no small degree of apprehension. That's because loose cannons are unpredictable.

Here it is now, followed by the others in uninterrupted chronological order.

H
ER FACE WAS A PIECE OF UGLY PINK CHALK, AND HER
eyes were two little brown mud puddles. Her eyes were mud puddles and they did not fit with the pink chalk. The chalk was ugly, and her eyes were mud puddles, and they made the chalk look uglier.

"Your eyes are mud puddles," I said, and she laughed.

I didn't like her to laugh. I was serious. She shouldn't have laughed when I told her something serious like that.

I hit the pink chalk with my fist but it didn't crumble. I wondered why it didn't crumble. I hit it again and water ran out of the mud puddles. I pushed my hand into one of the mud puddles and it turned all red, and it looked prettier with water coming out of it and red.

I tore the beads from her neck and threw them at the chalk. I felt her nails dig into my skin and I didn't like that. I twisted her arm and she struggled and pushed, and her body felt nice and soft up tight against mine. I wanted to squeeze her and when I began squeezing her she screamed, and the noise reminded me of the Third Avenue El when it stops going, and the noise reminded me of babies crying at night when I'm trying to sleep. So I hit her mouth to stop the noise but instead it got louder.

I ripped her dress in the front and I swore at her and told her to stop the noise, but she wouldn't stop so I kicked her in the leg and she fell. She looked soft and white on the floor. All except her face. It was still pink chalk.

Ugly pink chalk.

I stepped on it with all my might and the mud puddles closed and red came from her nose.

I stepped on her again and the pink chalk was getting red all over and it looked good and I kept stepping. And the red got thicker and redder, and then she started to twitch and jerk like she was sick and I bent down and asked, "Are you sick, Jeannie?"

She didn't answer except like a moan, and then she made a noise that sounded like the Third Avenue El again, and I had to hit her again to make her stop.

I kept punching her in the face and the noise stopped.

It was very quiet.

Her eyes weren't mud puddles. Why did I think they were mud puddles? They were two shiny glass marbles and they were looking right at me, only they couldn't see me because they were glass and you can't see out of glass.

The pink chalk was all red now except for white patches here and there. Her mouth was open but there was no noise.

Then I heard the ticking.

It was loud, like an ax splitting wood, and I was afraid it was going to wake her up and then she would make the noise all over again, and I would have to tell her to stop and hit her again. I did not want to hit her again because her eyes were only marbles and you can't see out of marbles, and her face was a pretty red and not made of chalk that would not crumble.

So I stepped on the ticking. I stepped on it twice so that I could be sure. Then I took off her clothes and she looked all red and white and quiet when I put her on the bed. I doused the light and then I left her to sleep. I felt sorry for her.

She couldn't see because her eyes were only marbles.

It was cold in the night. It shouldn't have been cold because the sky was an oil fire, all billowy and black. Why was it cold?

I saw a man coming and I stopped him because I wanted to know why it was so cold when the sky was burning up. He talked funny and he couldn't walk straight and he said it was warm and I was crazy if I thought it was cold. I asked him if he was warm.

He said, "I am warm, and don't bother me because I feel wonderful and I don't want to lose this feeling."

I hit him and I took his coat because he was warm and he didn't need it if he was warm.

I ran fast down the street, and then I knew he was right. It was warm and I didn't need his coat so I went back to take it to him because he might be cold now. He wasn't there so I put the coat on the sidewalk in case he came back for it.

Then I ran down the street because it was nice and warm and it felt like springtime and I wanted to run and leap. I got tired and I began to breathe hard so I sat down on the sidewalk. Then I was tired of sitting and I did not want to run anymore so I began looking at the store windows but they were all dark. I did not like them to be dark because I liked to look at the things in the windows and if they were dark I couldn't see them.

Poor Jeannie.

Her eyes were marbles and she could not see the things in the store windows. Why did God make my eyes out of white jelly and Jeannie's out of glass? I wondered how she knew me if she couldn't see me.

It was getting cold again and I swore at the man who had talked funny and couldn't walk straight. He had lied to me and made me feel warm when it was really cold all along. I lifted my hand up to the light in the street because it was yellow and warm, but I couldn't reach it and I was still cold.

Then the wet fell out of the sky and I began to run so it wouldn't touch me. But it was all around me and the more I ran the more it fell. And the noise in the sky was like a dog growling under his teeth, and the lights that flashed were a pale, scary blue. I ran and ran and I was getting tired of running and the wet was making me wet, and the damp was creeping into my head and the dark was behind it the way the dark always was.

The damp pressed on the inside and it pushed outward, and then the dark creeped up and I screamed, and it sounded like the Third Avenue El when it stops going, and I screamed again and it sounded like babies crying, and I punched myself in the face so I would stop the way Jeannie had. But I screamed again and the damp was all in and over my head. The dark was waiting, too.

I screamed because I didn't want the dark to come in, but I could see it was getting closer and I knew the way the damp always felt just before the dark came in. I hit my face again but the damp was heavy now and it was dripping inside my head and I knew the dark was coming and I ran away from it.

But it was there, and first it was gray like the ocean and then it got deeper like a dense fog and then it turned black and blacker, and the dark came and I knew I was falling, and I couldn't stop because Jeannie's eyes were only marbles.

I am lying on a sidewalk in a strange street.

The sun is just rising and the bustle of the day has not yet begun. There is a severe pain in my head. I know I haven't been drinking, yet where did this terrible pain come from?

I rise and brush off my clothes.

It is then that I notice the blood on my hands and on my shoes. Blood?

Have I been fighting? No, no, I don't remember any fighting. I remember ... I remember ... calling on Jeannie.

She did not feel like going out, so we decided to sit at home and talk. She made coffee, and we were sitting and drinking and talking.

How do I come to be in this strange street? With blood on my body?

I begin to walk.

There are store windows with various forms of merchandise in them. There is a man's overcoat lying in the street, a ragged overcoat lying in a heap. I pass it rapidly.

It is starting to drizzle now. I walk faster. I must see Jeannie. Perhaps she can clear this up for me.