Galatea (14 page)

He screamed: “No, no!”

He jumped to stop her, and as he jumped I did. I let go with a left, but she was pulling away from him, and her elbow touched my fist. I landed, but not on the button. It was on the side of his neck, and he was able to fire the gun. She screamed as it barked like a cannon, there in the closed room, lost her balance, and fell, though her being in motion was probably what saved her life. I helped her up, but dared not swing again, as I couldn’t forget it was her he had shot at, not me.

For the second time I had missed.

He circled, to get her in line of fire, between him and me, and cut out his bughouse shrieks. He fanned his face, to get the smoke out of his eyes, told me take hold of her arms and back up beside the door that led to the patio. That left her still in line of fire, but I tapped her elbow quick, to keep her from blowing her top, as once he’d fired, he could do it again, any time. I guided her as he said, and when I bumped the wall, he stepped over, opened the door, and said get on out. I guided her down the step, and in front of the kitchen he told me stop. He slammed the door behind him and began backing us fast, out to the water tank. He told me let her go and get on up the ladder, which I did. It was too dark to see the rungs, and I had to do it by feel, but I climbed, and fast.

And then I thought: “If it’s too dark to see, it’s too dark to shoot, at least any distance up in the air.” I stopped and said: “O.K., Mr. Val, here I am. Quarter-way up, maybe. But I don’t go one inch further until you turn her loose. When I see her leave, when her car goes down the drive, O.K., you say it and I’ll have to do it. Until then I balk.”

“Shut up, jailbird.”

To her I said: “Holly, you do what I said. I love you, and don’t love dying, not even a little bit. But it’s important that somebody be left to hang this crazy fool.”

She didn’t answer me, and for some seconds I hung there, looking up at the night, trying to make myself realize it would be my last one on earth. Then I heard him whispering, and yelled at him to quit it, to come on, get it over with. I heard her gasp, and it seemed to me she was crying. I heard him growl: “You want to save him or not?” Then something touched the ladder, and I peered down, trying to see what it was. I caught a glint of red, as by now my eyes were getting used to the dark. I realized it was her hairribbon, and that she was under me, climbing up. I leaned out and saw him, under her, punching her with the gun.

I cussed at him, but to give her room, had to go up a rung. He kept punching, she kept climbing, he kept following, not letting her stop at all. I took another rung, another, and another. Then I was at the top, my chin over the housing, the little circular roof that ran around the top. He said: “Duke, open the vent.”

It worked like a wedge of pie, and I opened it so it banged and he could hear it. I caught the rim of the tank, pulled myself up a few inches, and put one foot on the catwalk, to get it out of her face. He punched and she came still further up, so her head touched my knee.

I cussed, but he said shut up and listen to what he said. I asked him: “Haven’t you said enough?”

“It’s about Sickles, Duke.”

“Who?”

“That guy. You asked about the angles.”

“We’ll skip him. If you don’t mind.”

“No, no, it’s important. I was telling Holly, down there on the ground, about that point Lippert reminded me of. Sickles killed the lover, and the world cheered his name. He took back the wife, and the world spit in his face. I won’t make that mistake. Because—I might be weak. I—might take her back. ... Holly, did you hear what I said?”

“You? Take
me
back?”

“Then, Holly—will you take me?”

“After all you’ve done to me? Gambling with my life for your own selfish ends?”

There came a second of silence that told me this was about something that hadn’t been mentioned yet, in spite of all their screaming. Then, very quick, very glibly, he said: “Holly, I was ignorant then, I didn’t know what it could lead to, what I asked of you then. Holly, my little Holly, let’s watch this jailbird die! Let’s wash the slate in his blood and begin all over again!”

“That’s your idea of a beginning?”

“It’s the only way that’ll work.”

“You promised, if I came up here, you’d let Duke go free, and now—as always, you’ve got some rotten way to squirm out! Val, can’t I
ever
believe you?”

By that time I knew if she just said yes, he would let her live, whatever he did to me, and I pleaded with her to say it. She paid no attention, but began to scuff with her feet, and I realized she was kicking him in the face. She said: “Val, stop poking me with that gun! Shoot, if you’re going to, but leave me alone till you do!”

He said nothing, but she kept on with her scuffing, and I reached with one hand to grab her, as all he had to do was give her foot a pull and she’d topple down to the ground. She tired, sobbed, and panted. He whined at her once more, with his same old blood proposition, and when she didn’t answer at all, said, very cold: “I see. ... Then Lippert was right after all. Sickles did have it backwards, he picked the wrong one to kill. All right, Duke, in a minute she’s going to slip, and what you tell the cops is: you left the water running—which of course you did. You knew nothing about her climbing up, to gauge if we still had water, or anything of that kind. You were in the cottage, you came when you heard me call, you helped me carry her in, which of course you will. You—”

“Suppose I don’t.”

“I’m taking a chance that you will. After the look in your eye, when you burned that confession just now, I’m taking a chance you’ll do anything to get clear, to get out from under, to get away. And then, the rest of my life, I’ll feed on your dirty rat heart, knowing that every night you’ll see her, this girl you say you love, and that you let die without saying a word, simply to save yourself. Nice, isn’t it?”

“O.K., if you like rat.”

“I love rat.”

“Bugs do as a rule. Causes bubonic.”

She gave a hysterical titter, and he began to rave: “All right, Holly, laugh, take your time. Because I want you to realize what this guy is. In your last moment alive, to know that he’ll walk off from your grave without lifting a finger to punish me. Have a good laugh, Holly, really let it come out.”

How long we hung there, a minute, a year, or a century, while he kept on snarling at her, I don’t know, but my guess would be four or five seconds. She began whispering, and I heard: “Dear, merciful God.” He heard it too, and said it was about time she prayed, and she’d need all the prayers she had. I still had my right topside, hanging to the rim of the tank, and was holding her with my left, under her right armpit, so my wrist was touching the ladder. It came to me, if I shifted my left to a rung and then let go with my right, I had just an outside chance to wrap quick with my legs as I slammed down past her, and at last get a position between her and him. I signaled to her quick, with two or three finger taps, and moved my hand very stealthy, but not stealthy enough. He saw me, told me put up my hand, and swung out to cover me. I still held on to the rung, and he aimed the gun to shoot. About that time, once more, down below, I heard my same little cat, the bell going
ping
,
ping
,
ping
, down on the ground, below.

He heard it too, and yelled:
“Get out, get out of there, you!”
Then he fired, not up at me, but down. With the blaze of the shot still around us, I let go with my right. I slammed down as I’d expected, but didn’t wind up under her, over him, or anything of that kind. I yawed off, under the ladder, not on it, and swung out on the other side, so my left hand was wrenched clear off. I had tried the third time and missed.

Almost.

My right did wrap, or try to.

It fanned around, touched cloth, and grabbed. Somehow I knew this was pant leg, and that whatever I did I must hang on. I started spinning, like a gator twisting the leg off a pig, while above me he started to moan. Then I was falling, still hanging on to the cloth, the moan rising up to a shriek. Then the volcanoes of hell hit me, and their fire shot through my brain.

“C
OME ON, WEBSTER, YOU
making a deal or not? Here they hang you—it’s not no friendly gas chamber. You killed Valenty, didn’t you—you and this here wife?”

“You think I did, sure enough?”

“Listen, we
know
.”

“Very idea scares me.”

“She got him up on that tank—we can prove it. You followed him up—we can prove it. You made him jump at gun’s point—we can prove it. And he knocked you off coming down—we can prove it. Now you own it up and we’ll do what we can with the court—get you clemency, all that stuff. You keep this up and you get it—feet first, through the trap. And she does. You might consider her.”

“Boys, I hear all you say. Somebody, I’m sure is dead, and some dame is in trouble. But all I know is what I’ve told you before: I did hit Pabby Ramos. I did lam out of Ojai. I did board a truck at Ventura, and I did doze and slide off. I must have, to wake up falling. But that’s the last I remember, and that was east of Yuma. You say this is Maryland, and you’ve brought me stuff to prove it—newspapers, anyhow, whatever they’re supposed to show. But I say it’s Arizona, and I say I’m not going back. You want me in California, you extradite me, see? I’m instructing this gentleman to see the Governor.”

“You lying crumb.”

“You even talk Arizona.”

It was in the courthouse corridor, on the second floor at Upper Marlboro, a few minutes before the trial. I’d been brought on a stretcher, by the county in private ambulance, from the same old hospital at Cheverly, and carried in by police. “This gentleman” was a lawyer she’d got, a gray-haired guy named Brice, who came up after I’d been put on the floor. Talking were cops—not Daniel, but others—who had hammered me six long weeks, in my hospital room, trying to open me up. Arizona wasn’t so good, but it was the best I could think of in the way of a cover-up, to keep from having to talk. Because unfortunately she had talked, and plenty, as there was really no way she could help it. Both of us there on the ground had been breathing when she got down, groaning along pretty lively; and hoping to hush things up, she had grabbed the gun and hid it, back of a smokehouse cinder-block. Then, when she dived for the house, she found herself locked out, from phone, handbag, keys, and everything, so she couldn’t call for help, start her car, or anything. She had to run down to 5 and get such help as she could, and the first thing that stopped was a truck. She talked about “gauging the tank,” how the “men slipped and fell,” and so on. And one thing led to another. And when Val died during the night and the shells were found next day, nothing she said matched up. She was arrested that afternoon, and held without bail at Marlboro. She was not only in jail, but there was no way we could talk.

Because I was still in concussion, and stayed that way three days, and after that in anesthetic, for the operations they did on me, to set broken bones and tie up stuff inside. I came out of it little by little, but with something whispering to me, after seeing one night some police blue in the hall. I knew, by then, what it means to sign a paper, and back-pedaled into my cover-up. When Mr. Brice came to see me, I was afraid to let down my hair, for fear he’d ethic on me, and I’d be one hundred per cent in the soup. However, I did mention the “mystery lady,” and say: “If she’s nice, please give her my love.” He said he would, gave me a long, hard look, and said: “On the whole, Webster, if you could manage, consistent with conscience, to postpone recovery of memory until the trial gets under way, it might be a good idea.”

All in all, I piled a few points up, as she did, since she hadn’t talked under oath, and perjury wasn’t involved. And of course she was who she was, a big point in her favor. But the total tote was bad. Arizona caught on with the papers, and then there I was, by wirephoto from the West, all posed up in trunks, no good in southern Maryland, where they don’t think much of boxing. Her “hunger strike” caught on too, to hurt us most of all. I of course knew the reason. She was terrified to be tried looking as she had looked, and the strike was to get proper food brought to her there in the jail. But in print it was wacky, and not only got laughs, but lost her a lot of the ground her family had given her.

So that’s how it stood, there outside the courtroom, when Brice ran the cops down the hall, and I saw the top of her head. She came upstairs fast, a young officer at each elbow, dressed completely in black, but I was shocked at the change in her looks. From being soft, plump, and pretty, she almost verged on thin, with hollows in her cheeks and no color at all. Her eyes were big as saucers, and though she let them cross mine, to tell me we still had our love, they also told me we didn’t have much else. She went in the courtroom, and the police bearers picked me up. They carried me down the aisle, past a mob that was there, to a table inside the rail, and set me down on top of it. She was a few feet away, at another table, where Brice sat down beside her. The prosecutor, Mr. Lucas, a small, neat man around forty, with a pink face, sat at a table facing her, one or two assistants beside him. Outside, beyond the rail, on the first row of benches, were police, people I’d never seen, and Lippert. Behind them were Bill and Marge, and Mr. and Mrs. Hollis, Bill and Holly’s parents, that I’d seen just once at Waldorf. From behind the bench came a judge, and everyone but me stood up. An old geezer said this honorable court was now in session. The judge sat down. The people sat down.

Coming up for the bell, round one.

Allowing for every point that could be counted, it was ten times worse than I’d feared, as it had nothing to do with my caper back in the spring, the confession, boxing, her hunger strike, or anything of the kind. Mr. Lucas was quiet, but once the jury was picked, he put it right on the line, and said he would prove we had fallen in love, that we had decided to kill Val “as a convenient way to get rid of him,” that we had hit on the water tower as a way of doing it, that she had “enticed him up” after letting the tank run dry, and that I had climbed up under him and compelled him at gun’s point to jump. He said the scheme had backfired, as I had fallen too, but insisted that “clumsiness of execution is no mitigation of guilt, and sets up no reasonable doubt.”