Джон Макдональд - More Good Old Stuff

There was silence in the room. Peter couldn’t meet Kroschik’s gaze. Then the little man said, “So you saw your hand on the gun, with the scar on your finger? Saw that finger pull a trigger?”

“Yes. I remember it.”

Again the silence. He looked up and saw the small blue eyes narrowed. Saw the expression of satisfaction. “Okay, Pete. That cooks it. You’ll testify formally, won’t you?”

“Anything you want. All I want to do now is sleep and see if I can forget. I want to forget the look on her face...”

After Kroschik had left, Peter Warlow lived in a strange world of tangled dreams. A world where a girl named Sandy had two slim guns fastened to her wrists instead of hands; where he stood behind a chair with straps on the arms and tried to duck as dozens of brown tape holders came turning slowly through the air; where a spreading red stain matted blond hair and a trickle ran down a white part like muddy water down a clean gutter.

The pale morning sun was slanting into his room when he awakened. He felt the bed shake and saw the same blond head in the same position on the edge of his bed. Once again he felt the tremor of the quiet sobs and realized that it was Jane, his wife, and he knew that she was mourning the wreckage of her life and the ruin of her husband. He tried to think of something that he could say which would convince her of his love and his own sorrow.

But the only words that would come were a halting “I’m sorry, darling.”

She lifted her head and in her eyes there was a strange light of joy and triumph. It startled him. She should be mourning him! Wasn’t he as good as dead?

Then with the words dancing over each other she said, “Oh, Peter. Mr. Kroschik told me. Now the case is over.”

“It’s over, certainly. I’ve confessed.”

“But, darling, your confession proved it wasn’t you. The scar on your finger.” He tried to lift his right hand and couldn’t. She sensed what he was trying to do and lifted it for him. The fingers were like a fragile bundle of gray twigs. There was no scar. His world reeled around him.

“You see, Peter,” she continued, “you are still mixed up. Your memory will play tricks for a long time. But you’re still the same sweet guy. You saw Jones’s finger on the trigger and some part of your poor mind made it seem to you that you had seen your own hand. Then he tried to kill you and blame the girl’s death on you. But when you spoke of the scar, Kroschik remembered seeing it on Jones’s finger. He understood. With that clue, he broke Jones down after he left you last night. Now they won’t want you — but I do. I want you to be well again.”

After his wife left, Peter lay for a long time in delicious relaxation. All the pieces were beginning to drop into place. He felt bemused at the memory of the alarm he had felt during the night.

Memory was still fragmented. It was like riding a bus through the night, looking out rainy windows at fleeting glimpses of unknown towns. Bits of memory had no relation to time. He could not tell if a vivid scene had happened ten years ago or ten months.

Suddenly he was in a motel room, propped up in bed, lights from the parking area shining in, lighting the room. Sandy stood naked at the window, looking out, hair tousled. There was an old black-and-white movie on television, the sound off. Cowboys rode down a long slope, firing silent guns at invisible foes.

Sandy said, her voice listless, “Fat Jones told me if I don’t go back to him, he’ll fire you.”

The scene faded away, dwindling to a bright white dot.

So that’s the kind of man I am, he thought. Or was. And Sandy hadn’t gone back to him. Did Jane know about him and Sandy? Was that the reason for some of the triumph in her eyes, knowing the girl was dead?

When he was on the edge of sleep, another scene flashed bright in the back of his mind. He was in a pine woods on a cool day, walking silently, carefully on the soft carpet of brown needles. Ahead, through the trees, appearing and reappearing, he saw a woman in a red-and-black-plaid wool jacket, strolling slowly. He leaned his left shoulder against a pine trunk and raised the rifle and looked through the scope at Jane, his wife. She would reappear in a few seconds on the other side of a deadfall. He aimed the cross hairs at that height where her pale head would reappear.

He was wide awake. The scene faded. The sense of delicious relaxation was totally gone.

What had happened? Had it been some sort of game?

The neurological surgeons had scrambled his brains. Was this the sort of man he had been? Was this the sort of man he was now?

Or was it a glimpse forward into time, of the sort of man he would become?

The red neon flickered, making bloody glints on the wet sidewalk. Sometimes the rain-filled wind paused for a moment, and he heard the hoarse chuffing of the switch engines in the freight yard. He walked endlessly, his raincoat belted tightly around him, his brown felt hat pulled low over his eyes, leaning into the gusts of wind. He shielded his cigarette from the swollen drops that would have hissed it out.

He was tired, exhausted — weary to the bone with the events of the past two weeks. Just a little while longer. Not even an hour now. And it could be turned over to someone else. The whole dirty burden could be flung to someone used to that sort of thing. And then he would have to look for a new place to live. The city of Amberton would be far too unfriendly. There would be people left around the town who would like to see him on his back in an alley with his eyes wide open. But until the train arrived...

He looked nervously behind him. The street was deserted. A taxi roared by, the springs and shocks smacking hard against the holes in the road. Holes in all the roads. Amberton was a stupid city. A fat, complacent, poorly run little city, full of bland, greedy politicians. The tax rate had climbed above fifty-five dollars a thousand, and factories stood idle along the river. New industry wouldn’t come in.

And still the politicians smiled, the citizens paid their taxes, the slum sections widened. The death of America, he thought. Right here in Amberton. And in the heart of every other fat little city where nobody cares — but the politicians. Well, he was doing what he could. And then it would be time to get out.

Time to get back to the station. He turned and began to walk more rapidly. He walked through the echoing station, across the dirty white marble, past the scarred wooden benches. He bought another pack of cigarettes at the newsstand and waited.

In ten minutes the train came in, and a few passengers walked listlessly out the gate toward the taxi line. Anxious to get to a bed. They looked crusted with sleep. All except one. A slim man who carried a briefcase.

Bill Davo walked over to him and said, “Berman?”

“Right. You’re Davo, hey? Where’s the sack?”

“Hotel Amberton. Half a block. One thing, though. They may grab me in the lobby. That’s okay with me — it just means I won’t be able to give you the dope until you can get to me tomorrow. Don’t try to make a fuss.”

Berman was slim, dark, alert. When he spoke he didn’t change expression. “That way, hey? Let’s go.”

They walked side by side diagonally across the street and up the block to the side entrance to the Amberton. Bill Davo felt so tense that he couldn’t manage to swing his arms naturally. In spite of his casual words to Berman, fear tensed the muscles of his stomach.