Fury on Sunday (4 page)

He moved quickly as a door down the hall opened a trifle. He ran to it and shoved his foot into the small opening.

“Open up,” he said to the young woman who stood there.

She gasped and tried to close the door. His foot prevented her from doing it. Vince reached for his pistol with an angry motion and almost shoved the end of the barrel into her face.

“Do you want to die?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

The girl’s face went white, her lips trembled and she backed away from the door. He pushed his way in. The girl was cowering back against the wall.

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t do anything to me. Please don’t.”

She winced as he turned on the hall light. In the bright light Vince could see that her hair was disarrayed and there were red scars on her right cheek where she’d been resting on the pillow.

“Have you got a man’s raincoat here?” he asked.

“What?”

“I want a man’s raincoat,” he snapped at her.

Then, without thought, he looked down over her pajama covered body. His eyes moved back to her young breasts pressing against the yellow silk. He pinched his lips together.
No!
snapped his mind and, mocking, in the background came the voice of Saul,
My dear boy, if the pressure is annoying, relieve yourself. You don’t need a woman for that
.

He felt a drop of sweat run into his mouth.

“Well?” he said angrily, forgetting for the moment what he was asking her about.

“I live alone here,” she said, “I—I haven’t got a man’s raincoat.”

His hand twitched at his side. He wanted to hit her for foiling him. He couldn’t go to another apartment. He was getting that trapped feeling again. He’d always been that way. If he wanted something and couldn’t get it the first time, he started to feel frustrated. That’s how he felt now. He couldn’t go to all the apartments when he had to get to the subway and get downtown. A fresh idea came to torture him; what if the guard regained consciousness and got the police out looking for him? Sooner or later he’d wake up and tell them. His breath grew restless, his finger trembled on the trigger.

“Get in the bedroom,” he heard himself say.

He followed her in, wondering why he wasn’t leaving. If there was no raincoat here, what was the point in staying? He fought against the ugly pressure in his body. He didn’t like it. No, he wasn’t that kind; that was insane.

“Turn on the lights,” he ordered.

She stood by the rumpled bed, looking at him and shivering a little.

“What are you going to do?” Her voice was thin and afraid.

He didn’t answer. Instead he went to the closet door as if he knew what he was going to do. He flung open the door and reached in, trying to avoid the sight of her slender body. She’s sort of pretty, the thought rose unbidden in his mind. Blonde hair like Ruth. I’d like to—

He dug his teeth into his lower lip and turned to face the closet completely, not even looking at her. He reached in and came out with a black trenchcoat. He tried it on and it fit pretty well, and the cut wasn’t too feminine. He’d have to chance it.

“Have you a telephone?” he asked, still not able to understand how he managed to think of all these details when his mind was so obsessed by the one desire to kill Bob.

“No,” she said.

He wouldn’t have to cut any wires then, he told himself and nodded once. Still he stood there not knowing what to do, his mind filled with a dozen questions. Should he leave the girl? Wouldn’t she call the police? Should he shoot her? Wouldn’t the people in the house hear the shot? Vince started to tremble nervously at all the disturbing elements that his coming in here had brought on. That was the trouble with life, no matter what you did it just made everything
more confusing.
Kill Bob
, that was what he had to concentrate on.
Get to the subway and kill Bob
.

His eyes re-focused on the girl who still stood there watching him. He shouldn’t kill her. She hadn’t done anything to him. She was a pretty girl and she didn’t mean him any harm. Only an insane man killed everybody. He only wanted to kill certain people like Harry and Bob. Harry was dirty and fat, and Bob was torturing Ruth. But that was all. There was Saul, too, but Vince didn’t know where Saul was.

But he didn’t kill the guard, he’d only knocked him out. Didn’t that prove he wasn’t crazy? His face softened without him realizing and the expression he directed at the girl was one of supplication.

“Are you sick?” said the girl.

Her tone and the words she used broke the spell.

Vince’s mouth tightened, his face lost all softness.

“I’ll show you how sick I am,” he said and pulled the trigger of the pistol.

There was a click. And suddenly, Vince felt cold sweat break out on his body. God, was he insane to make such a loud noise in this house? He gritted his teeth.

He had to save those bullets, too. He hadn’t thought to look and see how many there were, but there could be no more than five. It was lucky that chamber was empty.

He saw that the girl was wavering as if she were going to faint.

“Get in bed,” he told her.

She sank down weakly on the bed, her hands shaking in her lap.

“Get under the covers,” he said.

“Wh-wh-why?”

“I said get in bed!”

As she lay back the top of her pajamas slipped up and he saw an expanse of white skin. His heart pounded violently and he lowered his head an instant to hide the swallowing.

Hastily the girl drew up the blankets. She lay there watching him with glazed, frightened eyes.

“Close your eyes.” he said.

She put her head down on the pillow and closed her eyes. Then a sob broke in her throat and she opened them again. Her voice shook.

“Are you g-going to hurt… me?”

“Close your eyes.”

He moved closer, enjoying the feeling of power it gave him to hold life and death in his palm. He thought of killing Bob. He thought of how grateful Ruth would be when Bob was dead, how she would throw her arms around his neck and kiss him and…

“I said close your eyes!” he yelled.

He looked down at her white face. Then, abruptly, he flung back the covers and stared down at her body. His hand moved down.

Get involved and you’ll regret it, my fine young fool!

His hand jerked back. He threw the covers over her again and stood there looking down sullenly.

“I ought to kill you,” he said. “You’re not a clean girl. But I won’t because I’m not as crazy as you think. Remember that if anyone asks you.”

A breathless chuckle sounded in his throat.

“They’ll ask you all right,” he said as casually as he could.

Then he bent over and kissed her on the cheek. Her eyes rolled up and she quietly fainted. He didn’t notice.

“Cheerio,” he said and walked out of the bedroom and the apartment, feeling a pleasant sense of bravura. He hadn’t killed the wretched young nothing. He’d just taken her raincoat as any hero might, leaving her with a kiss on the cheek. That was heroic, it was the sort of thing a girl would remember. She wouldn’t tell anyone. She’d treasure this experience because it was romantic. No, he hadn’t touched a hair on her head. That’s because he wasn’t insane. He’d just tried to kill his father, that was all. Anyone might try to kill his father.

***

He stopped at the head of the subway steps and looked around.

There was no one following. As he had surmised, the girl hadn’t screamed for help when he left. She was probably lying there and dreaming of the handsome man who had kissed her and stolen her raincoat. He smiled a smile of tragic acceptance and moved slowly down the steps.

Halfway down he stopped, the sense of poetry gone suddenly with the realization that he had no money. He stood there looking blankly down the steps.
This is absurd!
The words exploded in his mind.

His hand tightened on the gun butt. He wasn’t going to let a ridiculous thing like this stop him. He walked down past the white tiled walls. He glanced at a seal balancing rye bread on its nose on one of the posters.
Gust of the bizarre
. That’s what Saul would say. Vince wondered where he was, wondered if it were possible that someday they could get together again and get Vince back into concert work. Vince didn’t like to admit it to himself sometimes, but he
did
miss the piano. He could tell himself that nothing mattered but Ruth, and the piano was unimportant. But why did his hands always move over the keys even though he hadn’t been near one in… how long?

Oh, what difference did it make where Saul was? Their lives were parted forever. Ever since that day in the penthouse. Vince remembered the rain; he remembered Saul backing away from him.
For the love of God, are you mad? Vincent!

It was the only time he could ever remember his father calling him by his name.

He pushed again. Then he looked down curiously and saw that he was shoving futilely against the wooden turnstile. Red flared up in his cheeks. Then he glanced hurriedly toward the change booth and saw that the man was looking at him.

Vince drew in his breath. The man started to open the door of the booth, and suddenly, Vince ducked down and darted underneath the turnstile. What if no train comes! He ran down the sloping floor, heart beating in fright.

“Hey, come back here, you!”

Vince reached the steps and jumped down them two at a time. The shouts of the man from the change booth echoed after him in the silent station.

“Come back here!”

Vince reached the platform and his eyes raced up and down the length of it. It was empty. He looked back up the steps to see if the man was following him. Then he leaned over the edge of the platform and looked out into the blackness to see if the train was coming. There was nothing. He looked up and saw that he was looking for the train that was going uptown. He moved for the other side of the platform, glancing at the stairs again.

“You ain’t gettin’ away, buddy!”

Vince gasped and his head twisted suddenly. He saw the man coming down the steps. He turned around and started running
along the grey concrete. He heard the clatter of the man’s shoes behind him. It was an older man with white hair, wearing a black coat sweater.

“You stop or I’ll use this gun!” threatened the voice behind him.

Vince looked back over his shoulder and saw that the man held a small pistol. He started to whimper under his breath. The trapped feeling was coming over him again, starting from his stomach and spreading out with hot, twisting fingers.

“You want me to shoot you?”

Vince felt the gun banging against his leg as he ran.

He saw the wall ahead of him.

“Now, you’re caught!” said the man.

Something filled Vince’s brain with night, because he wasn’t aware of what happened then. He didn’t even feel himself jerk the gun from the raincoat pocket. He hardly heard the explosions that almost coincided, that of his pistol and that of the man’s. He felt someone strike him on the arm and knock him off balance. That was all.

Then he was looking at the scene as if he’d never seen it before. The man was writhing on the subway platform, blood gushing out of a great hole in his chest. Vince stared at him and then, as the man tried to raise his pistol again, Vince fired another bullet into him. The gun jolted in his hand and the sound deafened him.

The man lay dead on the platform. Vince looked down, amazed at the smoke coming from the barrel of his gun. Almost repelled, he shoved the pistol into his pocket. He could feel himself shaking his head and murmuring something.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I
mean
it, I’m sorry.”

Then the pain swept over him and he twitched violently. Looking down he saw blood running down the raincoat. He tried to lift his left arm and gasped at the fiery pain. His mouth fell open and a moan of fright filled his throat.

“No,” he said. “No, no.”

He looked incredulously at the man.

“He—he
shot
me,” he said. He couldn’t believe it. The man had shot him, he’d hurt him.

Then surprise and hurt flooded together into a hard hot lump of hate. He fumbled for his gun again. But his hand caught in the lining and he couldn’t get it out. Forgetting for a moment, he tried again to move his left hand.

The pain almost made him faint. He felt warm blood dribbling down over his wrist and into his palm. He stumbled around on the platform, waves of darkness lapping at his feet.

“No, no, no” he sobbed, “I don’t want to.”

He started sharply as a screeching whistle came from the black tunnel. The station grew more clear to his gaze. He found himself looking down at the dead man in horror. What if someone saw him? They would stop him!

“No!”

Without thinking, he grabbed the limp right hand of the man and dragged him along the platform leaving a trail of blood behind. His own left hand hung uselessly at his side. In a moment he’d dragged the body behind a refuse box. Then he hurried out and ran to the edge of the platform. He looked down and saw two white lights approaching and heard the far-off roar of the train. He shook his head to clear the mists from his eyes.

He looked down at his left hand. What if someone saw the blood dripping from the end of it? With his right hand, he hurriedly put the left into the raincoat pocket, gritting his teeth, his face white.

Then he stood there waiting nervously, his stomach throbbing spasmodically. What if they saw the man? What if they stopped him from getting to Bob? What if they saw his arm? He wanted to scream. What if he had no bullets left? What if the girl had called the police? What if the guard had regained consciousness? What if he bled to death?

He stood there shaking and whimpering in terror as the train moved past him, filling his nostrils with hot rushing air. It slowed down and the lights played on his white features.

The train stopped and he saw, with a shock, that there were several people in the train. What if they…?

He closed his eyes tight for a moment and tried to make his mind a blank. He heard the door open and he looked straight ahead as he moved into the fluorescent illuminated car.