Cornell Woolrich - Nightwebs (A Collection of Stories)

“What are you going to do about it?” he said hoarsely. “Why didn’t you report it in from there?”

Freshman didn’t answer. He kept looking straight ahead, as if he were made of stone.

“I’ll tell them, if you don’t!” Jones panted. “I’ll holler it from the cab window.”

“Now I’ve heard everything,” Freshman murmured.

They hit the Plaza de Catalunya, the big light-frosted amphitheatre. And there the two eventual directions split. Until then they’d been identical, you couldn’t tell one from the other. But now the giveaway had to come. The hotel was just offside, a few doors to the left. Headquarters was further down the Rambla.

The driver slowed and glanced around at Freshman.

“Which way now, senor?” Almost as though he knew of the decision that had to be made, but he couldn’t have. It was just that this was a traffic hub, a wheel from which spokes shot out all over town.

“Para un momento ,” Freshman said.

They came to a dead halt.

The meter went pounding on. So did Jones’ heart.

“Two murders now, one here, one back home,” Freshman said, as though he were talking for his own benefit.

He’d taken out the pair of dice Jones had given him earlier in the evening, was tossing them up and down in his hand, knocking them together. The left, not the gun hand. “But they don’t stack up alike, do they?”

When Jones moistened his lips and tried to say something, Freshman cut him short with a chop of his hand.

“Save your breath, I’m way ahead of you. You don’t have to give it to me. I’ll give it to you . This is a Latin country. They’re lenient toward crimes of passion. Anything with a woman in it, and love, and jealousy. On the books, you could get death. But you won’t. You’re popular here — almost an idol. And the public influences judges and juries. Because judges and juries are part of the public, themselves.

“You’d get twenty years; maybe even only ten. With time off, with the public rooting for you, you could be out in five. With the bankroll waiting, to take up where you left off. And even if you got the rope here, that would still be a lot better than the lynching you’re afraid you’ll get back there.

“Those odds aren’t bad. You don’t have to be much of a gambler to take them. You’re betting on almost a sure thing.”

“Isn’t there one thing you’re overlooking?” Jones panted. “I didn’t do the other one. I did do this.”

“I’m not overlooking anything,” Freshman let him know harshly. “Not a single damn thing, from beginning to end! You’re the one overlooking something. And that’s that possession is nine-tenths of the law. I’ve got you and they haven’t.”

Jones shut up, and his head canted down upon his chest, in admission of defeat.

Freshman gave a flick of his wrist, and the dice shot out of his hand and hit the asphalt outside the window. And bounced, and rolled, and finally lay still.

“Call that shot,” he ordered.

“Two,” Jones answered wanly, without lifting his head.

A big gasoline tank-truck rumbled by, and they vanished, kicked out of the way like gravel.

“Only God will ever know if you called it right or not,” Freshman mused.

He leaned forward and banged the glass with his knuckles.

“Straight on down,” he said. “To the Barcelona General Police Headquarters. I want to turn this man in.”

Jones gave a sigh so deep that it was almost like three years of accumulated fear and misery rising up and drifting out of him, leaving him for good.

Going up the steps Freshman stopped and shoved his hand at him.

“Just a minute. Give me the heart-drops. I’ll carry them from now on. The first thing they’ll do is search you.” He dropped the vial into his own coat pocket.

They went inside. He twisted Jones’ arm around behind his back, held it gripped that way from then on.

They saw the man they were supposed to see, the higher-up. Freshman knew how to work it. He showed his credentials.

An effusive Spanish greeting, complete with genuflections, was elicited.

“Ah, a fellow professional. At your service, Senor Freshman. What can I do for you?”

Freshman read from the jottings he’d made back there. “In the Apartment Forty-four in the house at One-twenty-six Valencia Street, there is a woman lying dead with a knife in her heart. The divorcee Blanca Fuentes, former wife of an industrialist, age twenty-seven, no living relatives. Better send somebody over there.

“This man has already admitted to me he did it. He gave himself up to me at the door. They were alone together in the room. Although I have a warrant for his extradition, he belongs to you.”

“You will have to waive that, senor. He cannot leave Spanish soil now.” He raised his finger. “Officers!”

Two policemen sprang forward. Jones changed hands.

They started to drag him out of the room between them. He dragged very easily, almost gracefully, muscles all relaxed.

Then suddenly he thought of something, balked. “Just one word more,” he begged. “Just let me have one word more with him.”

They brought him back beside Freshman again.

“I just thought of something,” he said in English. “How did — how did you know I was carrying those heart-drops away with me in my pocket? I took them out of the drawer before I let you into the room.”

“You damn fool,” Freshman slurred, so low no one else in the room could have caught it even if it hadn’t been in English. “What makes you think I wasn’t down on one knee at the keyhole the whole time, from first to last?”

“Thanks,” Jones breathed gratefully as they led him away to be booked for murder. You could hardly hear it. He said it more with his eyes and the expression on his face than with his voice.

Freshman came down the steps of the police station again a few minutes later, alone.

He reached in his pocket for a cigarette, and found the little vial of heart-drops. He switched his arm carelessly sideward, straight across his own body, and chucked it away.

In the hotel rooms late the next day Nunez was packing up Jones’ belongings, under the watchful scrutiny of Freshman. The valet kept shaking his head mournfully from time to time.

“I miss him,” he murmured. “This was the time I always woke him up. He always woke up with a grouch. I miss that, too.” He sighed deeply. “I used to swipe little things from him while he lay sleeping. Cigarettes, change from his pockets. I’d gladly put them back again, if I could only have him sleeping there again.”

Outside, the lights began to twinkle in the Plaza de Catalunya, the little side streets off the Rambla vanished one by one in a night-blue blanket, the guardian mountain Tibidabo stood out against the western glow. But the bed was empty. A pair of fresh white-kid gloves lay on it, ready for use.

Freshman went over to the door between the two rooms, looked out. They were all waiting in the outside room, the same as every other night, hanging around expecting to be fed.

“Blow,” he said curtly. “No supper tonight. The party’s over.”

They filed out, singly and in twos. Trumpet, and girl. Drums, and girl. Bass trombone and piano. And two girls that were nobody’s girls, but just there for the food.

They didn’t resent the brush-off. They all looked sort of sad. The last one to go turned, in the doorway, and raised her arm and gave Freshman a sort of half-hearted wave of farewell.

“If you should ever see him again, wherever he is, tell him good luck from Rosario.”

Freshman raised his own arm and gave her a solemn wave back.

The door closed. The party was over. The music was through.

He went back to the inside room and resumed his inventory.