No Beast So Fierce (34 page)

“Man, I don't want to get involved. I'm no gangster. I can't handle this kind of weight.”

“Yeah,” I said, feigning indignation and hiding my real fury, “you're a friend when I'm throwing the party. You're a jivin' motherfucker.”

“For Christ sake, I've got an old lady and crumb snatchers. I'm just a raggedy ass dope fiend.”

“Look, asshole, I just want you to go with me to the Salton Sea and dump my car somewhere else. I've got a friend I can hole up with.”

“Man, I'm scared shitless.”

“I'll give you five bills.”

“I'm still scared. You're on the news every fuckin' hour.”

“Motherfucker, you're comin' with me, and you're going to drive my car back here and dump it.” I raised the pistol.

“Max! Man, don't go crazy. I'll go with you.”

“C'mon then.”

We started back around the house. “Let me get my outfit. I'll need a geez before I get back.”

“Go ahead.”

I waited in the doorway while he fished up the outfit, and stayed behind him while he went over the fence. We moved back through the wet weeds to where my car was parked.

“You drive,” I said.

“Yeah, but put the fuckin' pistol away, you insane mother—”

As we got in the car his manner lost its edge of panic. Fear was still evident, but it was different in texture. At first it had been terror. Now he was afraid but he believed me unaware of his infamy. This present fear was that my desperation would get him in trouble.

“I'll keep it out in case I need it.” I kept the pistol in my lap, leaned casually back against the door—so I could watch him.

For the first few miles he stayed on back roads. It was slower but safer. Nearing the freeway entrance, it was necessary to swing out onto a boulevard and cross a heavily traveled intersection with a traffic light. It was unlikely that Willy knew he was going to his execution, but if he did this was where he would try to save his life. With automobiles and people on the sidewalk, he could dive out and run for it, his last best chance. After that he'd be going too fast. It was what I would try in the same situation. I decided that I'd start shooting if he reached for the door, though I wouldn't chase him if he got any distance. Revenge wasn't worth being killed or captured.

When we came upon the intersection, I began talking, wanting to soothe his fears.

“I got the big one,” I said, “but bad luck got me.”

“I just hope the shit doesn't go down tonight.”

“We'll be all right tonight,” I said.

“That was a helluva sting—half a million.”

“If I get to spend it.”

“Man, too bad you had to waste that cop. And your partners … I'm glad they didn't get you.”

“It's still early.”

“What went wrong?”

“They just ran down on us. Bad luck, like you said.”

Willy was quiet, slowing for the traffic as we moved with the traffic toward the light. Just before we came to a halt it turned green and he punched the gas. It made me relax. He signaled and turned up the ramp to the freeway, the car gathering momentum.

“Does that guy know you're coming?”

“Yeah, I called him this afternoon.”

“I started to knock the old lady down last night. She knew about the scene before I did. I found out when I got home last night. She was gloating. I was so fuckin' mad—but she's a hateful bitch. I sure talked bad to her.” Willy's tone of concern was sincere. He did care for me, and yet he'd fingered me. Something other than malice had made him an informer. It was simple weakness. He was the kind who would feel remorse when he heard what he'd caused—a remorse now forgotten when he believed I was unaware of his perfidy.

The miles flew away, cars became fewer, the lights beyond the fence farther apart. I pretended to listen to the car radio, to songs that reduced life to simplicity. I had stirrings of sorrow for what I was going to do. He was a worthless wretch (but so was I by society's standards), and my killing him would hurt others—Mary, his children, Selma, though I had no real concern about her. They would never understand the law of my world, which was all I had to live by.

The nascent compassion contained a wish to doubt his guilt. I had no real evidence—except by the process of elimination. Yet that was a fact that could not be reconciled with any other theory: he'd been the only person other than Jerry, Aaron, and myself who'd known. Allison had known nothing. And if Jerry had told Carol, she certainly didn't want anything to happen. The police had known just what Willy knew, nothing more.

I'd kill him. The decision was unwavering—but first I'd make him confess, remove any trace of doubt.

The desert began southeast of Riverside, though the freeway continued. I had no memory of the freeway going this far. I'd counted on a narrow highway, from which a certain side road turned off toward the San Jacinto Mountains. Up the side road was a dirt road and absolute privacy, nothing for miles.

The headlights flashed on a sign: Palm Springs, 25 Miles. I had no idea where we were in relation to the side road, and it was absurd to have him drive around looking for his place to be murdered. He could keep going toward the Salton Sea, for somewhere in the vastness was the right kind of place.

The freeway ended beyond Palm Springs. The automobile followed the broken ribbon of white. A single automobile, lights flashing in our eyes, passed from the other direction. Once we pulled around a diesel truck. All else was emptiness. We hurtled onward too fast for our headlights to pick up unforeseen objects, but there were none. A pregnant full moon gave silver form and shadow to the desolate land's bizarre beauty, highlighted the weird shapes of sage-brush and cactus.

Another problem came to mind. No shovel. And the earth was hard. What if they did find the body? It was better that they didn't, but not so much better as to make a difference. If I hauled him a few hundred yards from the road it would be weeks or months—more than enough time for me to be safely away or caught.

The reflections went on silently. Now I steeled my mind. I opened the glove compartment. Its patch of light was bright in the surrounding darkness.

“Pull over,” I said. “I want to check something.”

“What if the highway patrol comes by?”

“We haven't seen a car in forty minutes. And we can see one for ten miles. Stop the short. I want to fix this pistol.”

“Man, you can do that when we get there.”

“Stop the fuckin' short.” I jerked the clip from the Browning. It was intended to soothe his fears. He pulled to the side of the road, the car bouncing on the soft shoulder.

“What's wrong with it?” Willy asked.

I switched off the dashboard radio. “The spring in the clip is fucking up.”

“You can fix it later.”

“I never know when I'll need it. I might have to dust somebody, some jiving motherfucker.” I let the words hang, sink in, and at the same time took the cartridges from the clip, one by one. I watched Willy from the corner of my eye. The atmosphere was full of threat. He might jump me now that he saw the unloaded gun. It would confess his guilt. It would also be a massacre. I had an elbow on the doorlatch. As he moved, I'd slide out and bring the .32 from my hip pocket. I could almost smell his fear.

“Fuck it,” I said, throwing the unloaded Browning in the glove compartment and slamming it closed. My hidden right hand was on the revolver. “Why'd you put the finger on us?” I asked.

Willy jerked, backed toward the other door, ready to leap out. “Man, what're you saying?”

“I know why, cocksucker. To save your funky ass.”

“Man, you're nuts!”

Thoughts and sensations gusted through me, none waiting long enough to be formed. It was important that this scene be a morality play, have meaning. It had to be justice and I had to make it so. Yet there was nothing to say. I pulled the revolver, quickly jammed it against his kneecap and pulled the trigger, the butt snapping back against my hand and the sound in the closed space smacking against my eardrums. The bullet smashed through bone and cartilage and somehow ricocheted up through the window, leaving a hole and tiny cracks as it flew into the night.

Willy screamed, grabbed his knee in both hands, and doubled forward, his face smacking into the steering wheel.

“Rat!” I said. My stomach was queasy, but I forced everything but rage from my mind. It is easier to kill in fury than coldbloodedly.

“Please, Max, please!” he cried, eyes white in the darkness.

Leaping from the car, I rushed around the rear, opened the driver's door and dragged him out by his jacket. He tried to stand, but his shattered kneecap gave away and he crumpled to the road. He chanted, “Oh Jesus … Oh Jesus,” over and over, as if the void would hear.

The windless night was icy chill. Silence and emptiness were absolute. The headlight beams shone out toward infinity. We might as well have been the only living beings in existence. Momentarily, I started to kill him out of hand, but remembered the confession. If the police could make him talk, so could I. Their lever was freedom; mine was life itself.

I leaned into the car and doused the headlights. Moonglow was enough to give shape and shadow, though colors were reduced to black and silver.

Willy struggled to a sitting position while I was turned, his fractured leg extended to the side in an unnatural curve. He held the sitting posture by a hand spread on the asphalt for a brace. Whimpers beseeching mercy came from his mouth, and garbled protests of his innocence.

“I know you did it,” I said. “And you're going to die unless you tell me why … unless you give me a reason not to kill you.”

“Max! Max! I didn't … I love you like my brother. I'm weak … but I ain't a rat.”

The lies enraged me so I was dizzy with it. My eye caught on the splayed hand he was using for a brace. It was pressed wide and flat. I shot through it—flash, hole, and then the scream as he flopped outstretched, rolling around. I thought the movement was purely from pain, but suddenly he was crawling under the automobile, trying to hide. It was ludicrous—and horrible.

I began to laugh in frenzy. Murder, too, can have comical aspects. I was transcending life by destroying it. I was God the Judge and Executioner. “Peekaboo, I see you,” I said to the formless shadow.

“Sweet mother of Jesus, help me. I didn't, Max … I didn't.”

“Yes you did, Willy boy. Tell the truth.”

“I swear on my mother I didn't.”

“Don't treat Mom like that. Tell me, make me understand. I want to understand, so I can forgive you. It was because of your boys, and Selma, wasn't it? You didn't want to hurt me but you owed them a responsibility.”

“No, Max … not me!”

I pulled the trigger, the explosion drowning his words. I fired the bullet into the ground deliberately. “Tell the truth.”

Willy's answer was sobs, not tears but the long moans of an animal in agony.

“Are you sorry?”

“I'm sorry, Max! I'm sorry.”

“You told them what I told you in the garage, right?”

“Yes … yes.”

I shot him three times, each one bringing a gasp. In the blackness there was no telling where the bullets went in. He was motionless.

I leaped in the car and eased it forward. When I looked back there was no body. For an awful moment I thought he'd disappeared, or had managed to get off the road into the desert. Then I realized he was still beneath the automobile, clutching at something for refuge. I shot forward, slammed into reverse and spun back, reaching for the headlights. He lay in their beams, trying to crawl away. There was one bullet left in the small revolver. I got out of the car, pressed the muzzle to his head, and blew his skull apart. He died without a whimper, shook for a few seconds and stopped.

I dragged him by the feet (his upper body was too gory) several hundred yards from the road. The desert rolled slightly, hard dry earth with rocks and dry brush. The body left no trail. It was thirty miles to the nearest house. In a few months or years someone would stumble on the skeleton. By then my own fate would have been decided, and I'd probably be as dead as Willy.

My last gesture before leaving was to piss on his body. It was the sacrament a stool pigeon deserved.

5

D
AWN
in San Diego, misty rain polishing the streets and the sky gray with misery. I abandoned the automobile at the airport. Whenever it was found the authorities would believe I'd fled by airplane—or so I hoped.

A block from the hotel I got out of the taxi and telephoned ahead, waking Allison. She hadn't been out of the room since arriving, but she thought it was safe: the bellhop had tried to flirt with her late in the evening when she sent for a sandwich. “I don't think he'd have been so relaxed if they were waiting for you,” she said. “And he'd have to know.”

“You're getting pretty perceptive, baby.”

Minutes later, after letting me in, she threw her arms around my neck, her eyes wet. “I've been worried sick.”

Her emotion washed over me without arousing a response. The horror of the last murder, the imprint of the human head coming apart, was too vivid in memory for anything else to penetrate.

Allison saw the coldness and stepped back. “What's wrong? Did I do something?”

The simple and sincere question touched a chord that tears and hugs missed. With a lump in my throat, I shook my head. “No, you're beautiful. It's just … things on my mind and no time. Go back to bed.”

“You'd better get some sleep, too.”

“I'm too keyed up.”

Unable to rest, I spent the day pacing the hotel suite, fighting off the sensation that this was sanctuary. It was merely respite and the moment the situation crystallized I had to move. Moving now would be useless, for I had no plan. I spent hours staring from the window, watching people and vehicles moving despondently through the wetness nine stories below. Neither newspapers nor television news mentioned Allison in describing the manhunt, but I was certain that they knew I was accompanied by a woman. A federal fugitive warrant charging unlawful flight to avoid prosecution for murder had been filed, which brought in the FBI. Nothing unexpected.