Джеймс Кейн - Galatea

I took it, put it away, and went to the living-room when he called come in. By then he had the lights on and was parked on the sofa, one hand held to his head as he stared down at the floor. I paid no attention to that, as he had plenty of reason, considering all that had happened, to feel low in his mind, but sat in my place on the love seat, I hoped for the last time. I waited for him to speak, but all of a sudden felt nervous when I saw him peeping at me, just once, through his fingers. At last I heard myself say: “Mr. Val — did you get me — that confession?”

“I did, Duke. I did indeed.”

He got up and went to the dining-room, the main one, that they didn’t use, and I heard him go to his office, which was at the front of the house and was reached by the dining-room door. He came back with an envelope, came over and handed it to me. It had my name on it, in ink, Duke Webster, Esq ., a small, tight handwriting I’d never seen, but that I took to be his. The envelope flap was open, but inside, at last, was this thing that had plagued me so, a typed-up sheet in the form of a letter to Daniel, on the letterhead of the Prince Georges County Police. However, one corner, the one where I’d signed my name, was torn off, and I must have looked funny when I noticed it, as he said: “I did that, Duke. I had a reason.”

“It’s all right, Mr. Val, of course. Without that, it’s just a piece of paper — exactly as I’d want it. For a second — I was — startled — but I’m really — much obliged.”

“That much was due you, I thought.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“Duke, there was something I meant to do. Something that had to involve me with the police. It seemed only fair, since I would be searched and the place might be, not to leave things lying around that might involve you too. Especially considering the obligation I felt for what you did yesterday. So, to leave you easy in mind, with the confession accounted for, but at the same time not make you trouble, I did what we do in business, when things of that kind come up — I tore the signature off. That would have left you completely in the clear, as I had made Daniel turn it over to me before he had a chance to have photostats made. There’s only one copy, the one you have in your hand. Does that explain it for you?”

“Not wholly, sir. No.”

“Say what it is that puzzles you.”

“Why would the cops make a search?”

“You feel that concerns you?”

“I don’t know, sir, but it might. I have the paper, and I thank you. But, if I may say what I think, you’re still talking peculiarly.”

“I meant to kill a man.”

“Who, Mr. Val?”

“How would that concern you?”

By then there was no mistaking the hard light in his eye, but I had what I wanted of him, and that seemed to make things different. I said: “From where I sit it does. Spit it out, Mr. Val. I asked you who.”

He didn’t answer, but his hand, which had been jammed in his right coat pocket, came out with a little jerk. In it was a gun, a blue automatic, that he leveled directly at me. He said: “Burn your paper, Duke. On that your mind should be at rest. I want it to be.”

I piled confession and envelope in the copper ashtray, and my fingers trembled as I held the match, perhaps from fear of the gun, but mainly I think from relief the thing was destroyed, as I don’t remember, at that time, thinking much about the gun at all. He watched the flame, and made no move as I took the paper-cutter, chopped the embers up, and emptied them in the fireplace, banging the copper on brick. When I blew on it and put it back, he said: “Sit down — perhaps I can elucidate. Perhaps I can explain how it didn’t concern you at first, and then later did.”

He backtracked to the previous day, when he drove off in the dark, leaving me alone by the telephone. He said he’d gone to Cheverly, where the county hospital was, to talk to the cops who had Lippert, “on your behalf, Duke, because at that time I had only respect for this thing you’d done. Respect? It was reverence, as I couldn’t have done it myself, I’m too weak. The act, as I thought, of a fine righteous outrage, of loyalty to an employer, a benefactor, a friend. I wanted those cops to know that whatever Lippert would do, they had a fight on their hands, and leading that fight would be me. And I happen to have some influence, here in Prince Georges County, whether they think so or not. That was my frame of mind when I parked by the Cheverly Hospital. Imagine my feelings when I started into the place and saw my own wife’s car parked there beside mine.”

I opened my mouth to tell him the reason she’d gone there, but decided that any reason that I knew before he did could only make things worse. I clammed, watched the gun, and waited. He went on, almost sobbing, to tell the ride he had taken, “for hours, through a drizzling rain, to Annapolis. To Solomons. To La Plata. Any place, to try and deaden the torture in my heart. No use. No use. No use! ”

By now he didn’t even try to hide the tears in his eyes, but reached around with his left to his right-hand hip pocket, got his handkerchief out, and wiped them off. Then he told of how he’d come home, and then in the morning had kept his promise. He said: “I went to the bank, got the confession out, and came with it here, to give you. I called, but you weren’t around, and I went to my desk for an envelope, so I could leave it, in your room some place, where you’d be sure to find it. And there, in my desk drawer, looking at me, was this gun. Duke, do you know whose it is?”

I had the shivers so bad, from realizing that all this must have been while she and I were out back, holding hands in her car, that I was a little late when I said: “...My gun, I imagine.”

“Your gun, Duke, that Officer Daniel took off you, the gun I made him give me, with the confession you’d given, that morning down in Marlboro, to assure you complete protection. That gun, this gun, looked up to mock me.”

“Mr. Val, I don’t get the point.”

“It told me, this forty-five did, what one man had done. One gallant man, I thought. A thing beyond me, as I haven’t the strength. But the gun would give me strength. With it I could do what in my heart I knew I must. I sat down. I thought it out. I tore your signature off the confession. I enclosed it in an envelope, put it in the drawer. I took the gun out. I drove to Cheverly. I lost my nerve. I drove to Marlboro, to Glen Burnie, all over, as I had during the night. I drove to Cheverly again.”

He stopped, sobbed, stared at the gun, went in kind of a trance. I asked him: “Have you killed Lippert?”

“No, thank God, no.”

He seemed to shrivel as he sat there, pitying himself for “being inspired by a god, a god who turned into a rat — by you, Duke, that’s the horror of it.” Little as I pitied him, and bad as he had me scared, I caught something in his eyes just the same, that I knew most men never feel, of torture, at being fooled, at having his power mocked, that for a second or two changed him from a bedbug into a guy, and a terrific guy at that. But then all that was gone, when he began working me over, all he had done to help me: “—for your own good, Duke. Just to help you go straight. Out of the goodness of my heart.”

“You sure got a heart and a half.”

He jumped up, ran around the table, chocked the gun in my ribs, and said apologize. I clipped him, bouncing him off the table, so it rocked around on the rug. But it was just an uppercut, pulled up from a sitting position, and he didn’t really go out. Quick as I jumped for the gun, he was quicker with his roll, so he fetched up against the wall, the gun still leveled at me. He screamed back up and I backed, but had gained a little at that. If plugging me was the idea, why hadn’t he already done it? He had to have more on his mind, and I could risk one pitch to uncover it. I said: “You didn’t kill Lippert, then. If not, why not?”