Mourn the Hangman (2 page)

He walked east through the empty rain, turned south on Fifth. There ahead of him was the apartment house. Built flush with the sidewalk, it was red brick, wet red brick in the night with the street lights on it. There were seven floors and their apartment was on the fifth one and Steve didn’t look up because he didn’t have the guts to take a chance. There might not be a light in that window. Im almost there now, he thought. Hell, this is going to be a wonderful night.

He pushed open the thick wood door. The corridor was dimly lighted. There were mail boxes in a row, the stairway and the automatic elevator, the door standing open. Sidling in through the narrow door with his packages, he listened to the mechanism hum as he was slowly lifted.

When he stepped out on the fifth floor, Ada Grueter was standing there. A thin spinster of fifty, her face was sharp. Her rain cape was tied in a tight knot at the base of her throat. A black hat was pushed down tightly about her graying hair. She was carrying rubber overshoes and an umbrella.

“Hello,” Blake said. “How are you, Miss Grueter?”

She just looked at him. He smiled a little. Well, so she hadn’t forgiven him yet for the way he and Stella had yelled at each other that Saturday night. He shook his head. Grueter must have heard every well-chosen word of it.

She bobbed her head at him and stepped past him into the elevator. She looked down at the packages he was carrying and her mouth moved disdainfully. Blake bowed to her and she closed the elevator door with a sharp bang.

He went along the corridor, feeling the urgent need for Stella in the crannies of his belly. He had to drop packages and valise and fish the apartment key from his trouser pocket. He inserted the key in the lock, then he took off his hat, beat the rain out of it, set it on the back of his dark head. He shook out his raincoat, picked up the packages and pushed open the door.

And Blake took his first step into hell.

Inside the apartment, the lights were on. Every light in the apartment was burning. He let the packages slip from his arms. He toppled back against the door, closing it, listening to the lock click into place.

He had no idea how long he stood propped against that door.

The room before him was wrecked. His shocked gaze moved to Stella. He felt his legs tremble and almost buckle under him. She was battered and bloody, almost nude, sprawled across the divan, her eyes wide and staring in death.

For God only knew how long, Blake stood with his back against the door. He thought nothing. He had no strength or will to move.

His eyes went over it all a hundred times. Stella had been brutally bludgeoned to death. Someone had killed her after a violent struggle that wrecked the room.

First, Blake’s knees began to bend under him and he thought he would fall, for he had no will to go on standing. Then it began to form in his belly, the grief and the agony and the tears, all balling up and burning upward through his throat. And he knew he was going to sob and groan, that he would cry and never stop crying. And then as it filled his throat, scalding and searing, it stopped there, choking him. And he knew he wasn’t going to cry. He knew with horrible clarity that it would be better if he did let it out of him. But he also knew he couldn’t. Steve Blake died, he thought coldly, just as he was about to sob and go on living.

I’m dead
, Steve Blake thought, standing there,
and I can’t cry. Who will
I
cry for? For Stella, who’d never hear me now? Maybe I’ll cry for the man who killed her. Maybe I’ll cry for him when I find him — and maybe God himself will cry for him before I’m through…
.

WHO HAD KILLED her? Who had any reason to kill her?

Blake stiffened, straightening up slowly. He moved woodenly across the cluttered rug to the telephone. It had been knocked off the end table, but it had been righted. The receiver was replaced carefully in its cradle. His whole body ached from the fatigue caused by strain and shock. But he was acting now from the force of long habit.

The police, he thought, I’ve got to call the police.

His hand was almost upon the telephone when he stopped it in mid-air, making a numb claw over the instrument.

No, he thought. No. They can’t have her. Not yet. And they can’t have him yet. Not until I’ve had him first.

He straightened up again, lines plowed like ruts in his cheeks, his mouth tight, his green eyes cold with hatred, the way only green eyes can show hatred.

He began to plod through the small apartment. From the wrecked front room, he moved to the tiny corridor that opened on bedroom, bath and kitchenette.

At the bathroom door, he stood and stared at the instrument
of Stella’s death. It was the heavy base of one of the small lamps from
her vanity dresser. Whoever did it, he thought, meant to kill her. And meant
to escape undetected. He had ripped the lamp cord from the wall and wrapped
a hand towel about the light socket, using the thing as a club. The base of
the lamp was clotted with blood and Stella’s blonde hair. He knew that
at any other moment in his life he would have been sick at the sight of her
blood like that. But he was gone beyond sickness now. He was beyond hurt. He
had died inside at the sight of Stella sprawled in death on the divan. He walked
and moved and breathed for only one reason — he was going to find the
man who had killed his love.

He even stared at the towel wrapped about the lamp socket and growled a wry and bitter laugh across his taut, drawn lips. Whoever had wrapped that towel had meant to leave no fingerprints. Probably there were none. No matter how smart you were, Blake thought coldly, it won’t help you. Nothing in God’s world can save you from me now.

He turned away and leaned against the jamb of the kitchen door. The electric refrigerator stood open. A burner on the electric stove glowed stoplight red. He snapped off the stove, slammed the refrigerator door.

He turned then and looked about the room. A can of vegetable soup stood open beside a saucepan on the drainboard. A white shirtwaist was rolled up as though Stella had dampened it, intending to iron. At the sight of the rolled shirtwaist, he felt the agony tremble in his belly for an instant. But only for an instant.

Blake walked across the corridor into the bedroom. Stella’s suitcase was opened upon the bed, still only half-unpacked. A gray gabardine traveling suit was draped across the foot board. A saucy, red-plumed gray beanie was placed beside it.

These were the things Stella wore home, Blake thought. He stood looking at them. She must have come in a few hours ago — maybe less. She must have come home alone. She had undressed in here, started unpacking and then, in her slip, had gone into the kitchen to dampen a shirtwaist for ironing and to fix a bowl of soup while she waited. She
had
been lonely, he thought. She
had
come home.

He looked down at his hands and they were trembling. He was aware that he was shivering all over and that his teeth were chattering. His damp trousers clung to his ankles. A filmy white curtain stirred. He saw that the window was open, the rain was making a rivulet along the baseboard.

He walked over to pull it down. He stopped and stared down at the sill. There was a smudge, a place that could have been made by a heel in the mud formed by rain water and dust. He bent over and leaned out of the window.

He looked down five stories to the blackness of the rain-swelled alleyway. His head swiveled right and then left. There was the fire escape. Whoever he was, Blake thought, he could have gone out this way. If he was fool enough to take the chance. The fire escape was three feet from the window at least. A leap. Grab at the bars. Pray to make it. He growled his bitter laughter again. You should have prayed you didn’t make it. The fall would have been easier. The fall would have been quicker.

He backed away from the window and stood erect. He returned to the front room. He went down on his haunches beside the divan. He looked at Stella’s broken face. He touched her arm gently. But it was cold to his touch. It was as though she’d been created like that, a wax exhibit for the horror shows. Both the straps of her slip had been ripped off and part of the bodice was torn away. He wanted to cover her, put clothes on her before
they
came. But he knew he couldn’t. She had done everything she could think of to make him happy and now there was nothing he could do for her any more.

One of her shoes was off, her bare foot was twisted and it hung off the side of the divan, toenails bright and red. He looked about for her other shoe, but couldn’t find it.

At last he got up and backed away from her. The backs of his legs bumped a chair. He sat down with his arms resting on his knees, staring at her. Who had killed her? The thought returned now.

Who had reason to kill her? Who had hit her and gone on hitting her, brutally, even when he must have known she was dead?

He was glad he was dead inside. The hurt and the anguish were all about him in the room, but inside he was cold and dead. And because he was, he could think. His mind was clear. He looked about the room. Soon, he knew, it would be overrun with men from homicide, the sheriff and his deputies, the constable and the coroner. Every resource they had would be geared to finding Stella’s slayer. Blake’s mouth twisted. Blake knew that he would find that killer first.

He straightened a little in the chair. He needed a reason. He had learned to look for reasons while other men looked for clues. He had been a police detective and his record had been good. And now in his mind, he cast back for some somber shadow foretelling this tragedy. Because he couldn’t find at once why anyone would want to kill Stella, he began to think about himself. Murderers always have motives. Sometimes they are not aimed against the actual victim. Blake had made plenty of enemies. The job he was on now was a dangerous one in which he dared trust nobody.

He dug at his eyes with the backs of his hands. He was getting nowhere sitting there. His eyes always came back to Stella on the divan. Stella. Stella. Stella. He had to get his thoughts away from her. He had to get himself away from her.

Blake got up and walked across the room, moving like a sleepwalker. He snapped off the light, opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. He removed the key from the lock. In the elevator, he went down to the basement garage to get their car, thinking maybe it would help to ride around.

As Blake came out of the elevator, young Glintner walked around a line of cars. Glintner was a tall, blonde kid who looked like a movie type: wavy hair, blue eyes, a girlish pout about his mouth. He wore tight shirts that displayed his tautly developed muscles in cords across his wide shoulders and in his biceps.

“Why didn’t you call down, Mr. Blake?” he said. “I’d have had your car out front.”

Blake stared at him. The youth flushed slightly. “I don’t know, kid. I guess I don’t want the car. I’ll walk.”

He saw Glintner resent being called kid. “It’s still raining,” Glintner said.

“Yeah,” Blake said. “It’s raining. I’m not going far.”

Glintner shrugged and started back toward the office. Blake stood there a moment. “Glintner,” he said.

The immaculate youth turned slowly. “Yeah?”

“What time did Mrs. Blake come home?” Blake said.

Glintner looked at him. “I don’t know,” he said. “She didn’t take the car. The car’s been in here all week. We ran it the other day to keep the battery charged.”

“All right, Glintner. Thanks.” Blake turned and started up the cement ramp to the street. He could hear the droning patter of the rain on the walk as he neared it and then he began to feel the chill of the wind. He turned up his coat collar and jammed his hands into his pockets as he walked.

Blake walked steadily against the insistent drizzle of the rain. There was a bar at the corner of Fourth. He stopped outside, his shoulders hunched, and looked up at the pink and green neon sign — The Palm Club. He and Stella had been in here a few times for a drink. Well, there was no sense in attempting to run from every memory of her. There were too many memories. He couldn’t hope to run far enough, or fast enough.

A man stumbled as he came out of the front door. He bumped hard against Blake’s shoulder. Blake caught his balance. The man snarled, “Whyn’t you look where you’re going?”

Blake just looked at him. The man must have seen the hatred that had made slate marbles of Blake’s wide-set eyes.

“Whatsa matter?” the man said. “You wanta make something?”

“Go on,” Blake said. “Get out of here. I want to hit you. God help you if I do.”

The man caught his breath and swung around. “Why, you bastard,” he said. And then his eyes met Blake’s again. His fists relaxed at his sides. “Okay,” he said. His voice dropped slightly. “I bumped you. Okay.” He took two backward steps. He turned then and started away. Blake watched him. He let him go. He was wishing he could have hit him. He wanted to hit him, wanted to feel that man’s face give under his fist. Some poor devil he’d never even seen before….

He pushed through the heavy glass door, hearing the juke box wail, the clatter of bottles, the clink of glasses, the muted chatter of people in out of the rain.

He walked through the path between the tables, hoping there was no one he knew. He made it to the bar and put his hand against it to steady himself. He sat on one of the high stools. He could see his vague reflection in the blue mirror behind the glass shelf of labeled whiskey bottles. It was all there in the way his face was pulled down, even his lower lids seemed pulled away from his eyes. No wonder the poor devil ran, Blake thought. And, he thought, Blake, the man who needs to cry, who needs to smash something. God have mercy on Blake.

A white-aproned man moved between his distended eyes and the faintly tinted mirror. The bartender was bald and his face was sweated. “What you going to have?” he said to Blake.

“Whiskey,” Blake said.

“Chaser?”

“No.” Blake shook his head. “No. No. Just a glass.”

“You sure you’re okay, jack?” The bartender said.

Blake looked up at him. “I’m all right. I just want a drink. Okay?”

The bartender shrugged and measured out a double shot in a tumbler. Blake laid a dollar on the bar. The bartender took it, rang it up and slid the change across the bar. Blake had three drinks, paying for each one as he drank. He decided he was hungry, but knew he couldn’t eat. There was no food for his kind of hunger.

A tight-smocked waitress bumped his shoulder. He was aware that she flashed a quick smile at him as she picked up her order from the bar. Another order was placed on the bar. There was another waitress. She dropped some change into a beer mug behind the bar. Probably they were forced to turn in their tips.

He turned away. There was a couple entering the front door. Blake frowned. He knew them. Nort and Paula Donaldson. He tried to turn his head before they recognized him. But for the space of a second, his eyes met Nort Donaldson’s. Blake saw Donaldson flush, take his wife’s arm firmly and move her to a booth across the room.

Blake felt the breath exhale out of him. He turned back to his drink. Then he was aware of Donaldson standing at his shoulder. “Hello, Blake,” he said. “You gone snotty?”

“Yeah,” Blake said without turning, “I’ve gone snotty, Nort. Explain to your wife, will you?”

“Why don’t you come over?” Nort said. “You explain to her. Matter of fact, she sent me over to get you.”

“No,” Blake said. “No. Tell her I’m sorry. I’m just leaving. Some other time.”

“Okay,” Donaldson said. “Remember me to Stella, will you?”

Blake nodded. He hunched over his drink and didn’t speak again. Remember me to Stella. Nort and Paula Donaldson were friends of Stella’s — people she’d known in that other life of hers, the years when she was Mrs. Manley Reeder.

Manley Reeder. Blake’s hand began to shake.

There was something he had to remember. He pulled out his wallet and laid it on the bar before him. Brusquely, he ordered another drink and then sat there with his fingers straining around the glass.

It had happened just after he and Stella had married. They had gone into a cocktail lounge downtown. Manley Reeder had been at a table alone when they came in. When he saw them, he stood up. And then they saw how drunk he was.

He walked with the exaggerated dignity of the very drunk. He stopped before them. Stella said tautly, her voice a whisper, “You’re drunk, Manley. Go back to your table like a good little rat.”

“Rat?” Manley had said loudly. “I’m no rat. No self-respecting rat would speak to you.” He looked at Blake, his mouth twisting with hatred. “She been chasin’ cars lately, Blake? That’s the only thing about her. She’s housebroke, Blake. But she chases cars. Yeah. She barks at cars.”

Blake couldn’t hate him. He couldn’t even answer him. Manley Reeder was wearing his heartbreak in his tortured eyes.

“He’s got a strong leash,” Stella said in that quiet, tense voice. “Get out of the way, Manley — ”

“A strong leash! He’ll need it. You’ll need it, Blake. But it won’t help you keep her. You think you’ll keep her. You won’t keep her. I couldn’t keep her. And you won’t keep her!”

Sitting alone at the bar all this time later, Blake was aware that he was breathing through his mouth. Maybe it didn’t mean anything. But maybe it had been Manley Reeder’s threat — I can’t have Stella; no one can have her. There had been ragged heartbreak in his eyes that night and savage hatred.

Blake straightened up on the bar stool.

The pretty brunette waitress handed him a cherry. For a moment, frowning, he looked at her and was scarcely aware of her at all.

“Here, take it,” she said with a smile. She reached into the gallon jug and plopped a cherry into her own mouth. “It’s for being a good boy. The girls bet you sat here to try and make a date. That stool is called the Hot Seat in this place.”