Francis Nevins - Night and Fear

Gary Severn came in again.

Storm moved his figures up. “90 % sure,” he said privately to the lieutenant standing behind him. “I still got 10 % doubt left.”

“Yes or no?”

“I can’t say no, when I got ninety percent on the yes-side and only—”

“YES or NO!”

It came slow, but it came. It came low, but it came. “Yes.”

Gary Severn didn’t make a sound. He’d stopped saying anything long ago. Just the sound of one’s own voice, unheard, unanswered, what good is that?

The detective named Rogers, he was there in the background again. He just took it in like the rest. There was nothing he felt called on to say.

The news-dealer, his name was Mike Mosconi, set in jackknife position in the chair and moved his hat uneasily around in his hands while he told them: “No, I don’t know his name and I’m not even sure which house he lives in, but I know him by sight as good as you can know anybody, and he’s telling the truth about that. He hasn’t missed buying a paper off me, I don’t think more than once or twice in the whole year.”

“But he did stay away once or twice,” the lieutenant said. “And what about this twenty-second of June, is that one of those once or twices he stayed away?”

The news-dealer said unhappily, “I’m out there on the street every night in the year, gents. It’s hard for me to pick out a certain night by the date and say for sure that that was the one out of all of ’em — but if you get me the weather for that night, I can do better for you.”

“Get him the weather for that night,” the lieutenant consented.

The weather came back. “It was clear and bright on the twenty-second of June.”

“Then he bought his paper from me that night,” Mike Mosconi said inflexibly. “It’s the God’s honest truth; I’m sure of it and you can be too. The only one or two times he didn’t show up was when—”

“How long did it take him to buy his paper each time?” the lieutenant continued remorselessly.

Mike Mosconi looked down reluctantly. “How long does it take to buy a paper? You drop three cents, you pick it up, you walk away—”

“But there’s something else you haven’t told us. At what time each night did he do this quick little buying of the paper? Was it the same time always, or did it vary, or what time was it?”

Mike Mosconi looked up in innocent surprise. “It was the same time always. It never varied. How could it? He always gets the midnight edition of the Herald-Times, it never hits my stand until quarter to twelve, he never came out until then. He knew it wouldn’t be there if he did—”

“The twenty-second of June—?”

“Any night, I don’t care which it was. If he came at all, he came between quarter of and twelve o’clock.”

“You can go, Mosconi.”

Mosconi went. The lieutenant turned to Severn.

“The murder was at ten o’clock. What kind of an alibi was that?”

Severn said in quiet resignation, “The only one I had.”

Gates didn’t look like a criminal. But then there is no typical criminal look, the public at large only thinks there is. He was a big husky black-haired man, who gave a misleading impression of slow-moving genial good-nature totally unwarranted by the known facts of his career. He also had an air of calm self-assurance, that most likely came more from a lack of imagination than anything else.

He said, “So what do you expect me to say? If I say no, this ain’t the guy, that means I was there but with someone else. If I say yes, it is him, that means the same thing. Don’t worry — Mr. Strassburger, my counsel, wised me up about the kind of trick questions you guys like to ask. Like when they want to know ‘Have you quit beating your wife?’ ”

He looked them over self-possessedly. “All I’m saying is I wasn’t there myself. So if I wasn’t there myself, how can there be a right guy or a wrong guy that was there with me? I’m the wrong guy, more than anybody else.” He tapped himself on the breast-bone with emphatic conviction. “Get the right guy in my place first, and then he’ll give you the right second guy.”

He smiled a little at them. Very little. “All I’m saying, now and at any other time, is I never saw this guy before in my life. If you want it that way, you can have it.”

The lieutenant smiled back at him. Also very little. “And you weren’t on Farragut Street that night? And you didn’t take part in the murder of Sergeant O’Neill?”

“That,” said Gates with steely confidence, “goes with it.”

Gates got up, but not fast or jerkily, with the same slowness that had always characterized him. He wiped the sweat off his palms by running them lightly down his sides. As though he were going to shake hands with somebody.

He was. He was going to shake hands with death.

He wasn’t particularly frightened. Not that he was particularly brave. It was just that he didn’t have very much imagination. Rationalizing, he knew that he wasn’t going to be alive any more ten minutes from now. Yet he wasn’t used to casting his imagination ten minutes ahead of him, he’d always kept it by him in the present. So he couldn’t visualize it. So he wasn’t as unnerved by it as the average man would have been.

Yet he was troubled by something else. The ridges in his forehead showed that.

“Are you ready, my son?”

“I’m ready.”

“Lean on me.”

“I don’t have to, Father. My legs’ll hold up. It ain’t far.” It was made as a simple statement of fact, without sarcasm or rebuke intended.

They left the death cell.

“Listen, that Severn kid,” Gates said in a quiet voice, looking straight ahead. “He’s following me in five minutes. I admit I did it. I held out until now, to see if I’d get a reprieve or not. I didn’t get the reprieve, so it don’t matter now any more. All right, I killed O’Neill, I admit it. But the other guy, the guy with me that helped me kill him, it wasn’t Severn. Are you listening? Can you hear me? It was a guy named Donny Blake. I never saw Severn before in my life until they arrested him. For God’s sake, tell them that, Father! All right, I’m sorry for swearing at such a time. But tell them that, Father! You’ve got to tell them that! There’s only five minutes left.”

“Why did you wait so long, my son?”

“I told you, the reprieve — I been telling the warden since last night. I think he believes me, but I don’t think he can get them to do anything about it, the others, over him— Listen, you tell him, Father! You believe me, don’t you? The dead don’t lie!”

His voice rose, echoed hollowly in the short passage. “Tell them not to touch that kid! He’s not the guy that was with me—”

And he said probably the strangest thing that was ever said by a condemned man on the way to execution. “Father, don’t walk any further with me! Leave me now, don’t waste time. Go to the warden, tell him!”

“Pray, my son. Pray for yourself. You are my charge—”

“But I don’t need you, Father. Can’t you take this off my mind? Don’t let them bring that kid in here after me!”

“Yes, my son.” No need to tell the doomed man that Gary Severn had already preceded him into death.

Something cold touched the crown of his head. The priest’s arm slowly drew away, receded into life.

“Don’t forget what you promised me, Father. Don’t let them—” And then, in a tired voice: “Helen, I love you. I—”

The hood, falling over his face, cut the rest of it short.

The current waned, then waxed, then waned again...

They didn’t have the chart on the wall any more. It had done them poor service. The door opened and Mrs. Novak was ushered in. She had her knitting with her again. Only she was making a different article, of a different color, this time. She nodded restrainedly to several of them, as one does to distant acquaintances encountered before.