Richard Stark - The Hunter

“Not then, either,” she said, face and voice urgent. “I wouldn’t, Parker — there’s nobody forcing me.”

He laughed again. “You won’t get the chance,” he said. ”You won’t have to make the choice.“ He got up with a suddenness that terrified her, but he made no move toward her. “I’ll meet him for you.”

“Are you going to stay?” she asked him. Fear and desire were mixed up together in her expression. “Will you stay?”

“I’ll stay.”

He turned away from her, crossed the living room and pushed into the bedroom again. She followed, the tip of her tongue trembling between her lips, her eyes darting from him to the bed.

He circled the bed, knelt beside it, in front of the nightstand. He reached in under the nightstand and ripped the telephone wires loose. Then he straightened again.

She had opened her robe. He looked at her, and the desire stabbed him once more, stronger than the last time. He remembered her now.

She said, “Will you stay in here?”

He shook his head. “For you, that tree is dead.”

He went over to the window, pushed the drapes aside and looked out. There was no fire escape, and no ledge.

She whispered his name.

He crossed the room again, headed toward the door. She took a step toward him, her arms coming up. He stepped around her, and went on to the door.

The key was in the lock on the inside. He took it out, stepped through the doorway, closed and locked the door.

On the other side, she called his name, just once.

He switched out the living room and kitchen lights, and lay down on the sofa. In the dark, he stared at the window. He had lied. The tree wasn’t dead: he was afraid of her.

She was a corpse naked on the bed. He stood in the doorway a minute, looking at her. The drapes were drawn against the noon sun, leaving the room as cool and dark as a funeral parlor. An odor of perfume and cosmetics and cologne was vaguely flower-like. Where a faint breeze rippled the separation of the drapes, sunlight flickered like a candle flame. Far away there was the hum of traffic.

She lay on her back, breasts and belly flattened. She had apparently composed herself for death, legs together, hands crossed at the waist, elbows close to her sides. But, in falling asleep, she had moved, destroying the symmetry.

One knee had bent, the right leg now lying awkwardly L-shaped, the wrinkled sole of her right foot against the side of the left knee, in a kind of graceless parody of ballet. Her left hand was still reposed, palm down, over her navel, but her right arm had fallen away and lay now outstretched, palm up and fingers curled. Her head was canted at an angle to the right, and her mouth had fallen open.

Parker came into the room, strode around the bed, and picked up the empty pill bottle from the nightstand. Printed on the label was the name and address and phone number of the drug store. Typed in the white space below were Lynn’s name, the name of a doctor, a number, and the message: “One on retiring as necessary. Do not exceed dosage.”

Parker moved his lips as he read.

He read the whole thing twice, the name of the drug store and the address and the phone number and his dead wife’s name and the name of the doctor and the number and the message. Then he dropped the pill bottle into the half-full wastebasket beside the nightstand, and turned to look at the corpse again.

He moved as though to touch her wrist, to feel for a pulse, but then he checked the motion. A corpse is a corpse; there can be no mistake. The skin is too waxlike, the chest too still, the lips too dry, the eyes too sunken behind the closed lids.

He had to get rid of her. He had three days to stay here, and she couldn’t be here with him. In all his rages, six months on the prison farm, he had never planned to kill her. To beat her, yes, to mutilate her, to give her pain and scars, but not to see her dead.

In the closet, he found a dress with a zipper all the way down the back. He put it on her, forcing her stiffening arms through the sleeves, then rolled her over and zipped it closed and rolled her back again. He forced shoes onto her feet. They were too small. Either the feet had started to swell or she had gone in for shoes more flattering than comfortable.

Dressed, she looked less dead. Not asleep, though. Unconscious. As though she’d been clipped. He closed her mouth, and it stayed closed.

At the doorway, he looked at her for a long minute. Then he said, “You were always dumb. You never changed.”

He shut the door.

There was a television set in the living room. He found a bottle of blended whiskey in a kitchen cupboard, broke the seal, and watched cartoons on television. Then he watched situation comedy reruns and children’s shows.

The living room drapes were closed, but he could tell by the clock over the television set when the sun was going down. He watched dinner-hour news broadcasts, and they didn’t mention him. They wouldn’t. The break was three weeks ago. A continent ago. A dead guard and a runaway vag don’t make the news a continent away.

It should never have happened. Another result of her dumbness. Sixty days as a vag, and now they had his prints on file, the marks of his fingers. The name that went with the marks was Ronald Casper, but it didn’t matter. He could call himself anything, even his true name, and the marks of his fingers would never change. Sixty days they gave him. Twenty days, and he fought a guard, and they added six more months. Eight months out of his life, weeding on the prison farm. He lasted six and found his break, and took it — and left behind a stupid guard with his head half twisted from his shoulders.

She had caused that, just one of the things she’d done to him. Crossed him and cuckolded him and jailed him and put his prints on file in Washington, D.C. Given him a continent to cross. She had done it.

No other woman could have. There had never been a woman anywhere in the world to trouble him, till her. There never would be again.

And now she had left him a body to dispose of. He couldn’t leave her here, he had a messenger to meet. He couldn’t keep her here, he wouldn’t be able to stand that. He couldn’t call for the law to come take her away, like a solid citizen, because one hard look would tell them he wasn’t a solid citizen.

He hated her. He hated her and he loved her, and he’d never felt either emotion for anyone before. Never love, never hate, never for anyone. Mal, now. Mal he would kill, but that wasn’t hate. There was a score to settle; there were accounts to balance. That was rage, that was fury and pride, but it wasn’t hate.

The level lowered in the whiskey bottle, and the prime-time panel shows and westerns came on the television set. He sat and watched, the blue-white light gleaming on his face, outlining the ridges of his cheekbones. Prime time went by, and the old movies started, and he watched them. The movies finished, and a minister said a prayer, and a choir sang the “Star-Spangled Banner” while a flag fluttered on the screen, and then the station went off the air. The speaker emitted only a heavy hissing; the screen was full of a trembling of black and white spots.

He roused himself, switched the set off, turned on lights. The bottle was empty. He felt a little high, and that was bad. That was something else she’d done, made him drink himself a little high when he shouldn’t.

He went out to the kitchen and made a sandwich, and washed it down with half a quart of milk. He was tired then, so he made coffee and drank three cups black, and doused his face at the kitchen sink.

The bedroom was dark. Light spilled in from the living room, across her shod feet. He switched on the ceiling light, and she had moved. Her arms and legs had twisted in toward her torso; her head was back, her eyes were open and staring at the closed drapes.