Fredrick Brown - Night of the Jabberwock

I said, "My opinion of Smiley has changed a lot tonight. He's smarter, and a better guy, than both of us put together, Carl. But go on about Al."

"Touch of Oedipus, complicated by bastardry. Probably, in some obscure way, managed to blame Bonney for his mother's death. Not a real paranoiac, but near enough to do something like that. Sadism — most of us have a touch of it, but Al a little more than most."

I said, "Most of us have a touch of everything. Go on."

"Pyrophobia. But you know about that. Not that we haven't all got phobias. Your acrophobia and my being afraid of cats. But Al's is pretty bad. So afraid of fire that he doesn't smoke and I've noticed him wince when I've lighted a cig—"

"Shut up, Carl," I said.

I should have thought of it myself, sooner. A lot sooner.

I said, "I'll have that drink, Carl. Just one, but a good one."

I didn't need it physically, but I needed it mentally this time. I was scared stiff at the very thought of what I was going to do.

The windows were faint gray rectangles; now, with my eyes accustomed to the decreasing darkness, I could see Carl almost clearly as he went to the cupboard and groped until he had the bottle he was looking for.

He said, "Doc, you sound happy enough that I'll have one with you. Hair of the dog, for me. Kill or cure."

He got two glasses, too, from over the sink, breaking only one glass by knocking it into the sink in the process. He said a nasty word and then brought the glasses to the table. I struck a match and held it while he poured whisky into them.

He said, "Damn you, Doc, if you're going to do this often. I'm going to get some luminous paint. I could paint bands around the glasses and the bottles. And say, know what else I could do? I could paint a chessboard and a set of chessmen with luminous paint, too. Then we could sit here and play chess in the dark."

"I'm playing, Carl, right now. I just reached the seventh square. Maybe somebody'll crown me on the next move, when I reach the king-row. Have you got any cleaning fluid?"

He'd started to reach for his glass, but he pulled his hand back and looked at me instead.

"Cleaning fluid? Isn't whisky good enough for you?"

"I don't want it to drink," I explained. "I want it not to burn."

He shook his head a trifle. "Again and slowly."

"I want some of the kind that isn't inflammable. You know what I mean."

"Wife's got some kind of cleaning fluid around. Whether it's that kind or not, I don't know. I'll look."

He looked, using my matches and examining the labels of a row of bottles in the compartment under the sink. He came up with one and looked at it closely. "Hope. This is marked `Danger' in big letters and `Keep away from fire.' Guess we haven't got the non-inflammable kind."

I sighed. It would have been simple if Carl had had the right brand. I had some myself, at home, but I didn't want to go there. It meant a trip to the supermarket.

And I didn't ask Carl for a candle. I could get that at the supermarket, too, and I neither wanted Carl to think I was crazy or to have to explain to him what I was going to do.

We had our drink. Carl shuddered at his, but got it down. He said, "Doc, listen, isn't there anything I can do?"

I turned back at the door. "You've done plenty," I told him. "But if you want to do more, you might get dressed and ready. I might be phoning you soon if everything goes all right. I might need you then."

"Doc, wait. I'll get dressed now, and—"

"You'd be in the way, Carl," I told him.

And got out quickly before he could press me any farther. If he'd even guessed how bad a jam I was in or what a damn fool thing I was going to do, he'd have knocked me down and tied me up before he'd have let me out of there.

Dim gray light of early morning now, and I no longer had to grope my way. I'd forgotten to ask Carl the time again but it must be about a quarter after five.

I was under greater risk, now, of being seen if Kates and the deputies were still cruising around looking for me, but I had a hunch that they'd have given up by now, convinced that I'd holed in somewhere. Probably now they were concentrating on the roads so I couldn't get out of town. And getting out of town was the farthest thing from my mind.

I stayed in the alleys, just the same. Back the way I'd come and ready to dive between garages or behind a garbage can at the first sound of a car. But there weren't any cars; five-fifteen is early even in Carmel City.

The supermarket wasn't open yet. I wrapped my handkerchief around the butt of one of my two revolvers — Two-Gun Stoeger, they call me — and broke a pane in one of the back windows. It made a hell of a racket, but there aren't any residences in that block and nobody heard me, or at least nobody did anything about it.

I let myself in and started my shopping.

Cleaning fluid. Two kinds; I needed some of the non- inflammable kind and, now that I thought of it, a bottle of the kind that was marked "Danger. Keep away from fire."

I opened both of them and they smelled about alike. I poured the inflammable kind down the drain of the sink at the back and replaced it with the kind that doesn't burn.

I even made sure that it wouldn't burn; I poured some on a rag and tried to light the rag. Maybe it would have been in keeping with everything else that had been happening if that rag had burned and I hadn't been able to put it out, if I'd burned the supermarket down and added arson to my other accomplishments of the night. But the rag wouldn't burn any more than if I'd soaked it with water instead of the gasoline-smelling cleaning fluid.

I thought out carefully what other items I'd need, and shopped for them; some rolls of one-inch adhesive tape, a candle, and a cake of soap. I'd heard that a cake of soap, inside a sock, made a good blackjack; the soap is just soft enough to stun without killing. I took off one of my socks and made myself a blackjack.

My pockets were pretty well laden by the time I left the supermarket — by the same window through which I'd entered. I was pretty far gone in crime by then; it never occurred to me to leave money for my purchases.

It was almost daylight. A clear gray dawn that looked like the herald of a good day — for someone; whether for me or not I'd know soon.

I stuck to the alleys, back the way I'd come and three blocks on past Carl's house.

Al Grainger's. A one-story, three-room house, about the size of mine.

It was almost six o'clock by then. He was asleep by now, if he was ever going to sleep. And somehow I thought he would be asleep by now. He'd have been through with everything he had to do by two o'clock, four hours ago. What he'd done might have kept him awake for a while, but not into the next day.

I cased the joint, and sighed with relief at one problem solved when I saw that the bedroom window wasn't closed. It opened onto the back porch and I could step into it easily.

I bent and stepped through it. I didn't make much noise and Al Grainger, sleeping soundly in the bed, didn't awaken. I had my gun — the loaded one — in my right hand and ready to use in case he did.

But I kept my right hand and the loaded gun out of sight. I got the rusty, unloaded Iver-Johnson, the gun that had been used as a bludgeon to kill Miles and Bonney, into my left hand. I had a test in mind which, if it worked, would be absolute proof to me that Al was guilty. If it didn't work, it wouldn't disprove it and I'd go ahead just the same, but it didn't cost anything to try.

It was still dim in the room and I reached out with my left hand and turned on the lamp that stood beside the bed. I wanted him to see that gun. He moved restlessly as the light went on, but he didn't awaken.