Patricia Highsmith - Strangers on a Train

Now, on the train to Metcalf, he had direction. He had not felt so alive, so real and like other people since he had gone to Canada as a child with his mother and father—also on a train, he remembered. He had believed Quebec full of castles that he would be allowed to explore, but there had not been one castle, not even time to look for any, because his paternal grandmother had been dying, which was the only reason they had come anyway, and since then he had never placed full confidence in the purpose of any journey. But he did in this one.

In Metcalf, he went immediately to a telephone book and checked on the Haineses. He was barely conscious of Guy’s address as he frowned down the list. No Miriam Haines, and he hadn’t expected any. There were seven Joyces. Bruno scribbled a list of them on a piece of paper. Three were at the same address, 1235 Magnolia Street, and one of them there was Mrs. M.J.Joyce. Bruno’s pointed tongue curled speculatively over his upper lip. Certainly a good bet. Maybe her mother’s name was Miriam, too. He should be able to tell a lot from the neighborhood. He didn’t think Miriam would live in a fancy neighborhood. He hurried toward a yellow taxi parked at the curb.

Twelve

It was almost nine o’clock. The long dusk was sliding steeply into night, and the residential blocks of small flimsy-looking wooden houses were mostly dark, except for a glow here and there on a front porch where people sat in swings and on front steps.

“Lemme out here, this is okay,” Bruno said to the driver. Magnolia Street and College Avenue, and this was the onethousand block. He began walking.

A little girl stood on the sidewalk, staring at him.

“Hyah,” Bruno said, like a nervous command for her to get out of the way.

“H’lo,” said the little girl.

Bruno glanced at the people on the lighted porch, a plump man fanning himself, a couple of women in the swing. Either he was tighter than he thought or luck was going to be with him, because he certainly had a hunch about 1235. He couldn’t have dreamt up a neighborhood more likely for Miriam to live in. If he was wrong, he’d just try the rest. He had the list in his pocket. The fan on the porch reminded him it was hot, apart from his own feverlike temperature that had been annoying him since late afternoon. He stopped and lighted a cigarette, pleased that his hands did not shake at all. The half bottle since lunch had fixed his hangover and put him in a slow mellow mood. Crickets chirruped everywhere around him. It was so quiet, he could hear a car shift gears two blocks away. Some young fellows came around a corner, and Bruno’s heart jumped, thinking one might be Guy, but none of them was.

“You ol’ jassack!” one said.

“Hell, I tol’ her I ain’t foolin’ with no man don’t give his brother an even break….”

Bruno looked after them haughtily. It sounded like another language. They didn’t talk like Guy at all.

On some houses, Bruno couldn’t find a number. Suppose he couldn’t find 1235? But when he came to it, 1235 was very legible in tin numerals over the front porch. The sight of the house brought a slow pleasant thrill. Guy must have hopped up those steps very often, he thought, and it was this fact alone that really set it apart from the other houses. It was a small house like all the others on the block, only its yellow-tan clapboards were more in need of paint. It had a driveway at the side, a scraggly lawn, and an old Chevy sedan sitting at the curb. A light showed at a downstairs window and one in a back corner window upstairs that Bruno thought might be Miriam’s room. But why didn’t he know? Maybe Guy really hadn’t told him enough!

Nervously, Bruno crossed the street and went back a little the way he had come. He stopped and turned and stared at the house, biting his lip. There was no one in sight, and no porch lighted except one down at the corner. He could not decide if the faint sound of a radio came from Miriam’s house or the one next to it. The house next to it had two lighted windows downstairs. He might be able to walk up the driveway and take a look at the back of 1235.

Bruno’s eyes slid alertly to the next-door front porch as the light came on. A man and woman came out, the woman sat down in the swing, and the man went down the walk. Bruno backed into the niche of a projecting garage front.

“Pistachio if they haven’t got peach, Don,” Bruno heard the woman call.

“I’ll take vanilla,” Bruno murmured, and drank some out of his flask.

He stared quizzically at the yellow-tan house, put a foot up behind him to lean on, and felt something hard against his thigh: the knife he had bought in the station at Big Springs, a hunting knife with a six-inch blade in a sheath. He did not want to use a knife if he could avoid it. Knives sickened him in a funny way. And a gun made noise. How would he do it? Seeing her would suggest a way. Or would it? He had thought seeing the house would suggest something, and he still felt like this was the house, but it didn’t suggest anything. Could that mean this wasn’t the house? Suppose he got chased off for snooping before he even found out. Guy hadn’t told him enough, he really hadn’t! Quickly he took another drink. He mustn’t start to worry, that would spoil everything! His knee buckled. He wiped his sweaty hands on his thighs and wet his lips with a shaky tongue. He pulled the paper with the Joyce addresses out of his breast pocket and slanted it toward the street light. He still couldn’t see to read. Should he leave and try another address, maybe come back here?

He would wait fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour.

A preference for attacking her out of doors had taken root in his mind on the train, so all his ideas began from a simple physical approach to her. This street was almost dark enough, for instance, very dark there under the trees. He preferred to use his bare hands, or to hit her over the head with something. He did not realize how excited he was until he felt his body start now with his thoughts of jumping to right or left, as it might be, when he attacked her. Now and then it crossed his mind how happy Guy would be when it was done. Miriam had become an object, small and hard.

He heard a man’s voice, and a laugh, he was sure from the lighted upstairs room in 1235, then a girl’s smiling voice: “Stop that?—Please? Plee-ee-ease?” Maybe Miriam’s voice. Babyish and stringy, but somehow strong like a strong string, too.

The light blinked out and Bruno’s eyes stayed at the dark window. Then the porch light flashed on and two men and a girl—Miriam—came out. Bruno held his breath and set his feet on the ground. He could see the red in her hair. The bigger fellow was redheaded, too—maybe her brother. Bruno’s eyes caught a hundred details at once, the chunky compactness of her figure, the flat shoes, the easy way she swung around to look up at one of the men.

“Think we ought to call her, Dick?” she asked in that thin voice. “It’s kinda late.”

A corner of the shade in the front window lifted. “Honey? Don’t be out too long!”

“No, Mom.”

They were going to take the car at the curb.

Bruno faded toward the corner, looking for a taxi. Fat chance in this dead burg! He ran. He hadn’t run in months, and he felt fit as an athlete.

“Taxi!” He didn’t even see a taxi, then he did and dove for it.

He made the driver circle and come into Magnolia Street in the direction the Chevy had been pointed. The Chevy was gone. Darkness had closed in tight. Far away he saw a red taillight blinking under trees.

“Keep going!”

When the taillight stopped for a red and the taxi closed some of the distance, Bruno saw it was the Chevy and sank back with relief.

“Where do you want to go?” asked the driver.