Meyer Levin - Compulsion

Then as he tries to seize and analyse the sensation, the sex thoughts grow over it.

Suppose only a short time is left to him, in freedom, even in life. Suppose he and Artie may soon be caught and locked up? (He never sees it farther than being locked up in a cell.) But then, if he is locked up for life, what of the things he has left undone, untried? Most insistent of all is the rape. Much stronger than the pressure had been for that deed with the boy. That deed had not been in him at all; he had told himself it stood for the rape; but in the act itself, no end had come. Had it been a wasted substitute for the deed that was still there in him, clamouring?

Should he tell Artie? Do this one with Artie?

No. Alone. At least, go on a way toward doing it alone.

Judd pictures himself driving to her house to pick her up. Take the pistol along, as Artie would? The lunch date is known; her mother would know. If he did only the rape, without the killing, a girl wouldn’t tell. The soldiers dragging the girls – the killing wasn’t always part of it. But an absolute part of it is the girl being a virgin. He has to find out for sure at lunch. After all, she goes out with this newspaper fellow; you can never know.

The maid knocked.

In an odd voice, constricted, the maid said there were two police officers downstairs who wished to speak with him.

Judd told himself he was delighted to observe there was no panic in him, none whatsoever. Undoubtedly they had traced the glasses. Now everything depended on his savoir-faire . Should he phone Artie, warn him? No, they might already be watching the telephone.

As he dressed, without undue haste, Judd could not help noticing a subtle fleeting sense of pleasure that they had come.

He had slept late; the old man had gone downtown, and Max was out golfing. Lucky they were out. Judd descended the stairs.

Two policemen stood there. On their faces there was nothing to go by; or did he detect a shade of deference for the neighbourhood, the house? The nearer one said Captain Cleary would like to ask him some questions. At the South Chicago station.

The easy way they talked, it couldn’t be that they had anything serious. “South Chicago?” Judd repeated as though completely mystified.

The cops exchanged glances, and now the second one said, respectfully, “He just told us to bring you in for some questions.”

“Is it for speeding or something?” He smiled. They smiled back but didn’t answer. Judd shrugged, and acted indulgent though a trifle worried as anyone should be when called for by the police. If only Artie had been watching!

Feeling the two of them bulking huge behind him, Judd led the way to the door. Would there be a police wagon? No, a Marmon.

One policeman got into the back seat with him. Judd glanced hurriedly around. The street was inordinately quiet; kids were still being kept indoors. Nobody had seen, he guessed.

Judd offered his Helmars. The cop’s fingers seemed almost too thick to grasp a cigarette. With a comforting snort he remarked, “It’s just something routine.”

But why the South Chicago station? From the way the papers had it, the case was being handled by the chiefs downtown.

Then Judd recalled, on our date the night before, my talking about interviewing the captain out there. About nature students. That was certainly it. Somehow they had got his name. Because of that punk reporter. That smart-alec reporter, Sid Silver, had to go nosing around. Rape his girl for him, would serve him right. And Judd imagined himself telling the whole thing to Artie, afterward, and Artie’s laughter.

But something could go wrong. And if they kept him under arrest, there would be no rape; in fact, Ruth would even be stood up on her lunch date.

Finally the car halted in front of the two-story brick station. It looked a lot like the Hyde Park station where he had been taken as a kid when some cops picked him up in Jackson Park with his.22, shooting birds. The old man had straightened that out quickly enough. Dragging a well-brought-up boy of good family into a police station! Indeed, Pater practically had the police apologizing, afraid of what he could do to them with his influence. “Why, this boy is already a recognized ornithologist!” And the old man had got him the only permit in the entire city, to use his gun in the parks. “You see?” His father had wanted him to be impressed. Judah Steiner, Sr., could handle anything, get anything he wanted in Chicago. Well, let the old man get him out of this one! And there arose in Judd that curious mixture of resentment and expectancy that came when he thought of his father. This whole thing was like a final challenge between them.

He walked with the cops into the vacant-looking room, with the railing and the desk and the pale bare floor and the stale smell. He still could not be sure but that this represented the remainder of his life.

A cop in shirt sleeves stood by a window, gazing out on a vacant lot, his gun important-looking in the hip holster. Turning, he said, “The captain wants you, inside,” motioning to a partition, with a door. Judd reached over the railing to undo the catch on the gate, and walked across to the private office.

The captain was writing at his desk. Giving Judd a glance, he motioned to a chair. He was middle-aged, fat, even easy-looking. “Judah Steiner, eh? Well, I’ll tell you, you been around out in Hegewisch quite a lot, the game warden tells me.”

“Yes, sir.” It would be nothing at all, he already felt sure. Judd spoke of his bird-watching classes, and told how he had conducted the last group out there only a week ago. With respectful curiosity, the captain inquired just what they were studying about birds, and Judd spoke of the mating habits of several species at this season. The captain became interested. Oh, and who was in the class?

Judd would be glad to supply a full list. In this particular group there were several young married women. The captain chuckled. The mating season, eh? Then, returning to business: “Ever been out there around the Pennsy tracks, there by that culvert?”

“You mean where the Kessler boy was found?” Judd said easily. “I know the precise spot quite well, as it happens.”

“How does that happen?”

“Only the last time I was out there, I recall climbing over the tracks, because I slipped, coming down, and got my feet wet. It’s quite swampy there.” Thus, Judd felt, he had paved the way for discovering he had lost his spectacles, in case they had already been traced to him. They might have fallen out of his pocket when he slipped.

“You ever know of this Kessler kid going out there?”

“He certainly wasn’t in any of my groups, but he might have gone out with a school group. It’s used quite a lot, as you know. It’s the nearest place to the city where you find so much wild life.”

The captain had picked up a file card of some kind, and he tapped it against his desk. He swivelled and faced Judd. “You use glasses?”

Perhaps this was the moment to say, “As a matter of fact, those glasses found out there were mine. I must have lost them last week, but I didn’t notice it until I read about the case, and then – I guess it’s quite natural – I was rather frightened of becoming involved.”

Instead, he heard himself saying, “You mean field glasses?”

“No, I mean regular eyeglasses.”

“Why, yes, I do – or did. For reading, at home. I had them prescribed for headaches last year, but the headaches stopped, and I haven’t used my reading glasses for several months.”

The captain nodded. “Any of those people with you, or anybody you know goes out there, wear eyeglasses?”

Judd gave himself time for reflection. “Well, as a matter of fact, a few of the women wear glasses, and I have an assistant, occasionally – Jerry Harris is his name. He wears glasses. He was with us last week. But I’m sure he would have mentioned it to me, if he had lost his glasses.”