Росс Макдональд - The Three Roads

Two deep lines formed on either side of her scarlet mouth and twisted it like a pair of pincers. “I don’t know. I–”

“Are you sure that you don’t know? If you are suppressing the truth you are perpetuating the darkness of his mind.”

“No!” she cried. “I’ve been protecting him.”

“From reality? From justice? In ignorance he will find no justice. There is justice in the truth because they are the same thing. Would you deny him justice?”

“I have no faith in justice.”

“But he has. Perhaps you do not need the faith. He does. When a mind has broken through the surface of appearances, a strong rope is needed to pull it out.”

“I don’t trust any rope.” She felt the symbolic horror of the word and suppressed a shiver. “Do you, Dr. Klifter?”

“Have I faith in universal justice, do you mean? No. But I trust the faith of men who have it.”

She sensed his weakness and thrust her wedge further into the opening. “Is that scientific? I came to you as a doctor, but you’re talking like a priest – a priest who has lost his own faith.”

“Very well, I accept the role.”

“Though you yourself believe in nothing?”

“I believe in one thing: the individual man. I am not so mad as to try to remake men in my image. I remake them in their own.”

“Even then you assume a great responsibility.”

“No greater than the one you have assumed. I believe your responsibility is too heavy for you.”

After a while she said: “I know it is.”

“Then give him back to himself. Tell him the truth. I think he knows it already but will not recognize it. Eventually he will recover all his memories. When he does he will cease to trust you.”

“I don’t care about myself. I’ve lost him no matter what I do.” She rose with a movement of disconsolate finality, gathering herself to face the outer loneliness and darkness.

He followed her to the door and gave her his hand. “Perhaps you have lost him. If that is so, his loss is the greater one. But I wish you both good fortune. You need not be afraid that I will tell anyone what I have guessed – not even him, if you do not wish it.”

“Thank you.” Her face was troubled but bold.

She went out, and he heard her heels click rapidly across the paved terrace into silence.

Bret knocked on the door of 106. After a heavy pause Miles called out: “Who’s that?”

Bret knocked again.

“Who’s there?”

Bedsprings creaked, and quiet footsteps crossed the floor of the room. The blind on the window beside the door twitched slightly. Bret flattened himself against the door. He couldn’t see the window from there, but he could see the pencil of light that was thrown across the balcony when the edge of the blind was lifted. After a moment the light was erased.

The footsteps came to the door. They were hardly footsteps at all, but the muffled whisper of stockinged feet. Miles spoke softly through the door. “Is there anybody there?” A slight nasal wheeze added an overtone of uneasiness to the question.

Bret stayed where he was and said nothing. The door between them was so thin that he believed he could hear the other man’s breathing. Very softly a hand touched the door and moved against it. A bolt screeched faintly as it was withdrawn from its socket. The knob on which Bret’s hand was lightly resting turned against his palm. It was like a movement of repellent life in an unexpected place, a worm in the apple, a snake under the pillow. He removed his hand and stood back a few inches from the door.

Quarter inch by quarter inch it opened. A single eye blinked through the crack, unfocused. Bret forced his shoulder through the opening.

“You!” Miles said, straining against the door.

With his back against the jamb Bret forced the door inward with his hands. Miles stepped back suddenly, and Bret, unbalanced, came headlong into the room. When he looked up, Miles was facing him with his right hand in front of him on a level with his navel, his thumb pressed down on the base of a four-inch knife blade that projected horizontally.

The shining blade in its center brought the room into focus: the unrelieved ugliness of the stucco walls and the cracked ceiling; the uncarpeted floor worn through to the bare wood by endless traffic between the bathroom and the bed; the chipped metal bed with its frayed cotton bedspread crumpled in the central depression of the mattress; the single lamp on the bedside table wearing its scorched brown paper shade askew. No one came to such a room to live. You came to sleep for a night when nothing better was available; to escape from marriage or convention or police; or to wait. A pair of shoes on the floor and a coat draped over the only chair were the sole signs of occupancy. Miles had come here to wait, and the knife provided the meaning for which he and the room had been waiting.

Bret put his hand in his pocket and found the butt of the gun. “Drop it!” he said.

“You got no gun.” His tone was half questioning.

With his forefinger curled snugly between the trigger and the guard, Bret withdrew his hand from his pocket and answered the question. Miles’ eyes, the balance of power, the focus of the room, shifted to the more potent weapon.

“That I should get the cross from her!” Miles said. “A dirty double-crossing bitch like that!” His face contorted monkeylike in a strange combination of senility and childishness. “Sure, sure. Now tell me I’m talking about the woman you love.”

His body was crouched and tense, but the knife, deprived of potency by the gun, hung down in his hand.

“Drop the knife and close the door.”

Miles looked down at the knife as if he had forgotten it. He compressed the spring, shut the blade into the handle, and tossed it onto the bed. He went to the door, circling Bret with Bret turning at the center of his circle, and took hold of the knob with his left hand. For an instant his body was quite still.

“You wouldn’t make it,” Bret said. “Shut the door and come here.”

When Miles turned from the closed door he was greatly altered by fear. His face was pale and seemed to have lost flesh. His carefully brushed blond hair was growing limp and dark, falling down over his temples like an adolescent’s. His mouth had lost its shape and was feeling for another shape. Bret hadn’t noticed before how wide and dark his nostrils were. A little thing like that could spoil his boyish good looks and give a corny touch even to his terror. A little thing like that was crucial when you were deciding to kill a man.

“What do you want?” Miles said. His voice was unsteady and high.

“Come here.”

Miles moved toward him slowly, as if the gun projected a tangible force against his body.

“Stand still.” Bret raised the hand that was holding the gun, so that Miles was looking directly into its muzzle. His eyes strained and crossed but could not look away. Suddenly his face was shining, streaming with sweat. Dark patches of wetness appeared on the breast of his shirt and under his arms. His whole body was realizing the fear of death. “No,” he whispered. “Jesus!”

“How long did you know my wife?”

“Me?” he babbled. “I didn’t know your wife. What makes you think I knew your wife?”

“Answer me quickly.”

“We were friends, that’s all. Just friends. She was a sweet kid. I never did anything to her.” His roving eyes were drawn back to the steady gun. “Oh, no,” he said. “Don’t shoot.” Two deep-curved wrinkles formed at the base of his nose. His teeth chattered between them. “You’re crazy,” he stammered.

There was a souring smell in the air. There was a sour taste in Bret’s mouth, a sour sickness in his stomach. In the moment of triumph everything had turned sour. He was ashamed of his triumph, ashamed of the quality of his opponent. This chattering, sweating boy had violated his bed and killed his wife, but now he offered no resistance, no challenge. That wet shuddering softness was a sick anticlimax to the danger he had expected.