Читать книгу Compulsion - Meyer Levin - Страница 19

LEAVING ARTIE WAITING in the Stutz, which they had picked up on their way downtown, Judd drove the rented Willys into the garage of the Drive-Ur-Self. He got out of the car and stood leaning against its door while the manager walked around the vehicle, glancing at the fenders.

Judd looked away from the car; he would not let himself think of the spots on the rear floorboard. The manager would never inspect the rear. If he did, Judd was prepared to make the remark about the spilled wine, to hint about laying a broad back there—boys will be boys, what’s a car for, ha ha.

But the nausea invaded him again. It pulsed up in him like a pulsing flow of blood. Blood on the ground, blood when his fingers touched his forehead, and he was shrieking . . . wrestling on the lawn with his big brother Max, his forehead cut on a stone, and Max at first concerned and then getting sore . . . “Stop crying. Stop bawling. That’s enough! Boys don’t cry. What the hell are you, a girl? A girl?” And his own shrieking—“I’m not a girl! I’m not a girl!”—while Max taunted, Max laughed . . . Max laughing at him, Max making fun of him, his big brother Max, he couldn’t stand it; it was worse than the pain, the bleeding. Then he had known he had to hide everything inside himself, hide from Max. Keep Max outside himself, keep everybody outside himself—they could hurt too much. A man didn’t let anything hurt. And he was no girl. He was no girl to cry at blood. And his mother had come out of the house and folded his face in her skirts. A girl. A girl.

Judd shut it off. To fill the mental void came the image from yesterday. He had not counted on the blood. In all the months of planning, he had seen the thing as perfectly clean. They had even talked of it as neat, clean, talked of using the ether. And he had taken along the ether, yesterday morning, as if for his bird collecting, taken two whole cans, enough for a thousand birds. And put the two small cans into the side pocket of this car . . . Judd’s mind leaped back to the immediate scene—the cans! Had he forgotten them there, since they hadn’t been used? No, he knew for certain he had taken them out and placed them back on the shelf in his room. Late last night. Yet it was all Judd could do now to restrain himself from opening the door and checking.

At least, he noted, this sudden scare had ended his nausea . . . And why hadn’t they used the ether? To put the boy cleanly to sleep, and in his sleep to do as planned—in his deep sleep to slip the rope around his throat, Artie and he each holding an end of it—to pull, with equal force, equal participation, forever linked in that way, he and Artie. Instead, it had all happened so quickly once the kid was in the car. The car had scarcely turned the corner. It had happened while Judd had still been feeling that perhaps the whole final deed would not take place at all . . . Could Artie have sensed this last hesitation in him, and jumped the deed the way you ought sometimes to jump a girl before she can gather her resistance?

The rental man was putting his head inside to check the mileage. So outside nothing showed. They had washed it well enough. But it was a damn stupid thing. That damn stupid Emil had to come along offering the Gold Dust. It was a damn stupid thing to have taken the car into the driveway to wash. For that, Judd blamed himself. Last night’s washing should have been enough without the second going-over in the morning. Modern version of Lady Macbeth . . . out, out, damned spot!

What was the use of taking all the trouble to establish a fake identity, with hotel registrations and all that stuff, so as to rent a car and not use your own car, and then the next thing you do is let some dumb Swede chauffeur see you with it and tie you up with the strange car?

The only safety was, the question must never arise. For right now this car was being returned to anonymity; tomorrow it would be out in someone else’s hands.

“Fifty-three miles, Mr. Singer,” the rental man said. “Want to check it?”

Judd smiled, feeling refreshed. How natural the name sounded! This part—the carefully established false identity, the car—it was all his idea and it had worked perfectly. Artie would have to give him credit for that much. “What about the gas I bought?” Judd said. “I filled up the tank.” And he wished Artie had come in with him to savor this moment, to observe his complete self-possession. It was all there, the evidence of their deed was registered in the atoms of the vehicle, this inanimate object had experienced what they had experienced—the man had it standing before him as Judd stood; yet he could tell nothing, from either.

“Did you get a slip for the gas?”

“No, I didn’t bother, but you can see it’s practically full.” He had filled it at home from the pump in the driveway just before they had started out to find the victim; at least Emil hadn’t walked in on that.

With an air of creating good will in a customer, the man agreed to allow for a couple of gallons. “Call on us again,” he said, his upper lip folding back over his toothbrush mustache in a smile.

“I will,” said Judd, wishing Artie could hear that one.

“What took you so long?” Artie demanded before Judd could climb into the roadster.

“I made him give me an allowance for the gas.”

Instead of laughing, Artie snapped, “The longer you gab the better he knows you, you sucker.” Judd was getting in from the driver’s side, making Artie push over. And in that instant, in Artie’s anger, Judd suddenly felt the failure of the entire venture. It came over him blackly, fully—a grief, an anguish that nearly brought tears.

It was all closed now. They had turned in the car. The whole thing was a failure. The killing itself had been wasted. Even if the killing had been a necessary waste, an experiment, there remained the death of the thing itself. The whole thing had represented a plan, an entity, perhaps a poetic unity, a flower of evil, a union between Artie and himself. And it was dead.

What had killed it? What was it really that had gone wrong?

Judd pulled away from the curb, but Artie, in the midst of lighting a cigarette, made a motion for him to stop, and jumped out to a newsstand—a new headline had caught his eye: MILLIONAIRE BOY SLAIN. Artie stood there on the pavement, reading. Judd honked. Still reading, Artie got into the car.

“How did they find out who he was?” Judd asked.

“Some stupid sonofabitch reporter went out there—”

Judd parked part way up the block and leaned over to read with Artie. His eye skipped down the column, and together they saw the line about the glasses: “Desperately awaiting word from the kidnapers, the Kessler family at first refused to believe that the boy found dead in the culvert was Paulie, because the police reported that the dead boy wore glasses. Then it was learned that the glasses had been picked up in the weeds, and placed on the boy by his finders. The glasses, police now believe, were dropped by the murderer, and should prove a valuable clue.”

Artie turned his face full on Judd. His cheek was twitching, high up under his eye. “You buggering sonofabitch, you had to go and spoil it.”

Automatically, Judd’s hand had gone to his breast pocket, though he already knew that it was so: this was the flaw. And a curious thrill went all through him, the first complete thrill of the entire experience. It was not the dark thrill he had imagined he might feel at the height of the deed itself, as at a black mass, nor was it the elative thrill he might have felt had the package been tossed from the train. It was a thrill as from some other being within himself; it was a gloating.

He told himself that it was a thrill to the challenge that now existed, the challenge to outwit pursuers, even when they possessed a clue. For there was no game unless you gave the other side a chance.

But why had the glasses been in his coat pocket at all? He speculated on causation. He had scarcely used the glasses during the past few months, not even for studying. It must have been weeks ago that he had stuck them in this coat pocket, and, hardly wearing this suit, he had forgotten they were there. Then what had made him choose this suit yesterday?

And when could the spectacles have dropped out? Judd tried to bring back the scenes of yesterday, to see into them, but only briefly, partially, only for that one item, as a man, to shield his sight from the burning sun, will cover part of a view. Had it happened when he was bending over, in the back of the car, the glasses dropping into the lap robe half wrapped around the boy? Judd saw again the boy entering the car, the quick blows, the suffocation—that part of it already done, so hastily, so irretrievably done before you could decide finally whether or not to do it. Then driving through the Midway, past the university, through the park, south to the edge of the city, then stopping at a hot-dog stand, leaving him in back there while they ate the franks, then cruising, then parking on the little side road back of a cemetery, waiting for darkness. And both climbing into the back seat, and Artie’s high-pitched, “Let’s see.”

Like kids in a dark closet, to do the most awful imaginable forbidden things. Huddling down. Had the glasses fallen out then, onto the robe? Artie beginning to undress the body, pulling off the knee pants. And Judd in himself wondering at himself, now that the opportunity had come to test the farthest human experience, dispassionately, as in a laboratory. Remembering the untried experiences from the list in Aretino’s Dialogues. Artie’s saying, almost petulantly, “He’s dead all right. Getting stiff.” Then all at once, tumuluously, himself losing interest . . . Now Judd shut off the dark image. The glasses, only the glasses—were they glinting there, fallen on the robe?

Pulling out of that cemetery lane, dark enough then, and driving down Avenue F . . . the turn, the ruts onto the wasteland, the spot where he always parked and left the car, going birding. Lucky, lucky no love birds parked there this night; then the two of them removing the long bundle wrapped in the lap robe, lugging it all the way across the weed-grown wasteland . . . Artie stubbing his toe, stumbling and swearing and letting down his end, the bundle dragging on the ground. Stopping to rest, Artie complaining, “Why the hell so far? Why not an easier place?” But no, this had to be the place—and stooping to pick up the bundle again, was that the moment when the glasses had fallen out? No, they were found too near the culvert. That weird and exhilarated march, the sky rim reddish from the Gary chimneys, the clumsy burdened feeling of endlessness, weighed down awkwardly with the bundle on one side, and under the other arm the boots he was carrying, and the container of hydrochloric in his pocket bumping his hip . . . Why labor so? Only for something that had to be done, had to be done!

And all the time trying to quiet Artie, to shut up Artie in his high mood making his jokes, waving his flask—“We come not to bury Paulie but to baptize—”

“Shut up! There’s some bastard railway switchman got a shack up the track. He’ll hear you.”

“Invite him! Let’s give him a drink of that old acid! You sure you got the ass-it?”

“I’ve got it, right in my pocket.”

Then coming to the edge of the pond, putting down the long bundle. And there it must have happened . . . Judd saw himself there, sitting for a moment on the slope of the low railway embankment, bending to take off his shoes and pull on the boots—his brother Max’s fishing boots, taken from Max’s closet. You’re in it with me, Max, you sonofabitch, big man Max. How’s this for sissy stuff? Who’s a sissy now! And as he bent, Judd could hear a distant train, a muffled rhythmic pounding under the earth like a heart under the earth. And before him, the dark flat water, going into the dark hole, the culvert. Then, heated from the long exertion, and knowing he had yet to lift the body and carry it into the water, Judd rose to remove his coat. He placed the coat carefully folded upon the grass, beside his shoes.

The remainder of the scene flashed through his mind now, accelerated, for he still found it distasteful to review. First, Artie unrolling the lap robe. The lower part of the body, bare except for the knee-length stockings, appearing grotesque under the low-held beam of Artie’s flashlight, looking like those manikins you sometimes see half undressed in store windows . . . when you see the cold glassy surface of the middle portion . . . No! the glasses would have glinted then, under Artie’s light. No! Now Judd felt sure; he could sense the glasses lying there still folded in the breast pocket of his folded coat.

“Cold stiff,” Artie said. “Help me with his goddam clothes.”

“Rigor mortis,” Judd repeated, kneeling. They both worked to finish the undressing.

Artie joked—the punk was like some broad that goes rigid and won’t let you get her clothes off. He kept up the stream of jokes the way he had in the car, kept it on a level of high deviltry, good and ginned up, handling the body so casually, the way he had in the back of the Willys. Then the nude body lay there, a pale streak on the lap robe, and Judd knew his part had come. He rose and got the can of hydrochloric. Was it then? Not then; he had not disturbed the folded jacket—the can was already out of the pocket, placed on the ground.

And Artie had moved the body off the robe, to the water’s edge, and Judd stood over it, raising the can of hydrochloric, so well forethought—acid to dissolve all evidence of mortality. Then he was pouring the stream from the can—“I hereby baptize and consecrate nothing to nothing”—and with his high giggle, watching the stream, silvery, upon the face. To obliterate, all, all! A thought, an urge, a dark wing beating far back in his mind, so they never might recognize, never might identify, but it was more than that, it was all, all faces, and no face. It was as though he himself were being obliterated so he could never be caught. And then there was a sure impulse, a thing to do so no one could ever ever know who, what it was. And he turned the stream downward, giggling, giggling—he was a kid again playing in the sand, holding a can of water over a body of sand, the stream hitting the sand, dissolving away, the sand dissolving away to nothing—so now the stream upon the penis . . . dissolve, dissolve and be no more! And Artie laughed with him, and it was right, right! There was a great lifting within him, Judd thought, because now the deed was done, the whole terrible superhuman god-devil deed was done. They had achieved! But it was a feeling that continued, even stronger, more obscure, a lifting feeling within him, as though something utterly wrong had been corrected, put back right.

Then wading in Max’s boots into the water, seizing the body, feeling no longer squeamish to touch it bare, feeling it cold as the touch of the water. And the whole thing had become easy. Shoving the object into the culvert, the non-being, face and sex soon dissolving, how neatly it fitted, as he had estimated it would, fitting perfectly in the perfect place. And then retreating to get cleanly out of there.

Had he then picked up the coat?

And the precise image of that moment came before Judd. Artie’s form, looming out of the dark, Artie breathlessly offering him his coat and shoes, the coat snatched up in a tangle any old way, the disorderly way Artie handled things, upside down.

That was how it had happened. That had been the moment. Judd could virtually sense the glasses sliding from the upside-down pocket, among the weeds.

“I’m sorry to have to contradict you,” he said now to Artie, “but I believe the slip-up was yours. It was you who picked up my jacket and brought it to me. That’s when the glasses must have dropped out. But I accept my share of the error in failing to notice—”

“Me!” Artie turned on him, raging. “Trying to shove it off on me! You and your buggering sure-shot hiding place! You and your buggering eyeglasses—”

“Take it easy,” Judd said. He felt cool, controlled, exhilarated. He began to understand the strange electric thrill he had experienced a moment ago—the challenge.

If the whole thing had gone off without a slip-up, it would have been perfection of a kind: a deed conceived and planned and carried out, like some intricate construction—a matchstick palace with even the last piece fitting perfectly into place. There would have been a mathematical purity to it.

But the glasses were an error, an error tearing down Artie and himself from their superhuman state as beings who could achieve an act of perfection. And in some center of his self, Judd rejoiced that they were united in this error, united in their imperfect action; he rejoiced that Artie had committed his part of the flaw.

Now their action permitted a different kind of triumph, for they must try to retrieve their error and still emerge superior. And in their error they were united even more firmly than by a perfect deed. For had the adventure succeeded, they would have divided the ransom and been done. He would have gone on, in two weeks, to Europe.

Perhaps now he would never go. Even in this dread anticipation of being caught, Judd felt a subterranean satisfaction; he and Artie were entwined in what was still to come.

“By the law of probabilities,” he said to Artie, “there is one chance in a million that they can trace the glasses.”

“Shit on all that,” said Artie.

But something perverse in Judd made him see the spectacles already traced. They had to be traced—he had to be confronted with them—for the next part of the action to occur, the infinite ordeal through which he would redeem his error, prove himself a truly superior being. The ordeal in which, by facing down all accusation, he would save Artie, too.

To Artie he said, “They’re just the most ordinary reading glasses. There must be hundreds of thousands of the same prescription. The chance that their ownership can be identified is infinitesimal. But even if it should be, that still doesn’t prove anything. I could have dropped my glasses any day I was out there birding. I was even out there with my class in the same spot last week; I could have dropped them at that time. A mere coincidence. In fact, I can use my bird class as witnesses!” There was a Machiavellian touch that Artie should appreciate.

Judd saw himself standing before some powerful man—a heavy mustache, an authority—but he remained unflustered, controlled, saying, “A mere coincidence,” as he accepted the spectacles back into his hand and placed them back in this same coat pocket. For no matter who they were, the authorities would know they had to accept the word of Judah Steiner, Jr.

In fact, they would conduct their questioning with the utmost deference, and probably apologize to his old man for even calling him in. And the old man would say to him quietly, “You don’t have to answer them if you don’t want to. What kind of nonsense is this?” But Judd would say, “It’s routine. I’m perfectly willing to answer any questions they ask. And since you are so insistent that I become a lawyer, you ought to be glad, as this will give me a little direct experience with matters of law.” And all that time it would be a howl over the old man and his slow-minded righteousness! For he would be fooling the old man as well as all the inquisitors.

“I ought to kill you for making such a boner,” Artie said, hurling the newspaper to the floor.

Judd put the car in gear. Starting homeward, he said, “I agree—if it were entirely my error, I would deserve death.” Indeed, in a superior society, no one capable of such a stupid oversight should have a right to live. Nietzsche would certainly have condemned him, for in the end it was his own fault for having the glasses in his pocket. Thus, the pendulum in him swung to the other extreme, and Judd saw Artie enthroned, with golden wristbands, golden breastplate and greaves, judging him as he knelt abjectly. And the sentence—Artie’s outstretched gold-banded arm, decreeing death. And suppose he went out now with Artie to some dark field and insisted that Artie carry through the sentence—Artie shooting him, his body crumpling—it would be his sacrifice for Artie. They would find his body; he would leave a note acknowledging the glasses as his, the crime as his. That would be part of the sentence. And Artie would be forever safe.

But aloud, Judd proposed a bold idea. To go directly to the police and claim the spectacles. “I read the story in the papers, and realized that on my last birding expedition—”

“You’ll bugger it up,” Artie said. “You’ll bugger it up, sure as Christ.” He whistled at a couple of chicks on Michigan, reaching over to pound the horn, and elbowing Judd to pipe the broads, the sun coming right through their dresses.

The girls went into a building. “Crows, anyway,” Artie said, but his spirits had lifted. “Suppose you go and say they’re your glasses. All right. They give you the third degree. You think you can take the third degree?” he challenged.

“I’d be glad to help you in any way I can, officer,” stated Judd, looking him unflinchingly in the eye.

“Watch where you’re driving, you sucker. All right, Mr. Steiner, where were you last Wednesday?” Artie’s restless glance lit on another chick; he called. She turned, smiling, her tonguetip darting in and out between her lips—this part of Michigan was red light.

“The hell, you want another dose?” Judd remonstrated, then resumed, “Last Wednesday, yes, I recall distinctly, I spent the entire afternoon and evening with Artie Straus, a friend of mine.”

“All right, so then they pick me up and check your story. I ought to kill you first, you crapper.”

They rehearsed once more the story they had agreed upon, should they ever be questioned. Artie became suddenly attentive. “All right, we had lunch at the Windermere. That’s a fact. Willie was there with us. They can even check that with Willie.”

They laughed again. Judd felt pleased. They would be using Willie Weiss, and Willie wouldn’t even know how he and Artie together were having a laugh at him. “Then after lunch”—Judd picked it up—“we spent several hours in Lincoln Park, at the lagoon, mostly sitting parked in my car, as I was watching for a species of warbler that arrives in this area late in May—”

“Hey, give them the scientific name,” Artie said.

“Dendroica aestiva, of the Compsothlypidae family,” said Judd, and they snorted, imagining the cops handling that one!

Then Artie took over the story. “I went along with Judd Steiner and sat in the car while he did his bird scouting. I thought it would make a good effect on my mother to tell her I spent the afternoon with Judd and his bird science, so she would get the idea I was doing something real studious. But I’m afraid, sir, we had a pint of gin in the car and by suppertime I had too much gin on my breath, so I didn’t think that would impress my mother very well. We stayed out for supper, had supper at the—let’s see—”

“Coconut Grove,” said Judd.

“Then we drove around awhile, trying to pick up a couple of girls.”

“You mean, girls you didn’t know?”

“Yes, sir, you know, just a couple of janes.”

“Do you frequently engage in this practice?”

“Well, officer”—winking—“you know how it is. We coasted around on 63rd Street—”

“How did you make out?”

“Well, we picked up a couple, around 63rd and State. And we drove back to Jackson Park—”

Judd interrupted. “I thought we were going to say Lincoln Park.”

“Shit no. The first time, the birds, is Lincoln. The second time, the twats, is Jackson. Over by the lake . . . Only you see, officer, these girls wouldn’t come across, so about ten o’clock we told them to get out and walk.”

“Can you give us their names, Mr. Straus?”

“Well, mine said her name was Edna, but you know—we didn’t give them our right names, either. She was a blonde, well built—” He made curves with his hands, and just then spotted a girl in a Paige, passing them. “Hey! Follow her!”

“Listen”—Judd chased the Paige—“how about if we change the story? If we say they did come across, then it’s even less likely the girls would ever come forward and identify themselves.”

“All right. Wait a minute. If they came across, then we’d have taken them home. So where do they live?” Judd passed the Paige, but the girl ignored Artie’s waving.

“We could say they told us to let them off at the corner where we picked them up,” Judd suggested. “That sounds genuine.”

“Hey!” Artie eyed him cleverly. “How about giving them the story you were out with a nice girl? Let on you hosed her. Then you’ve got to be the gentleman protecting a nice girl’s rep.”

“You mean, we had a double date with nice girls?”

“No, just you.” After all, no glasses of Artie’s had been found.

Judd felt a quiver of grief, more than anger. A feeling of loneliness, as if Artie had actually deserted him and left him with some jane he didn’t even want. But then he finessed the game on Artie. “I could say I was driving, and you had Myra in the back seat. She’d back it up for you. As you say, she’ll do anything for you.”

“Damn right,” said Artie, still eying him in that cunning, disturbing way.

Desperately, Judd tried to recapture the mood. “How about we both take her out tonight and rape her?”

“You’d be scared to try.”

“Yah? Anything you’ll do I’ll do.”

“Yah?” Judd knew what it was now in Artie’s look. It was the accusation over what had happened yesterday, at the crucial moment—when they had the kid in the car, and the sudden blows and the blood, and Judd had heard himself crying out, “Oh my God, this is terrible! This is terrible!”

“You were scared pissless,” Artie said with finality. “That’s why you dropped your goddam glasses.”

In his tone, Judd felt everything possible. Maybe Artie would do it to him. Like things Artie must have done. Maybe Artie coming up behind him, the slug on the skull with the taped chisel, and the quick push off the end of the Jackson Park pier, his body plopping into the dark water, and his own look, upturned to Artie, accepting.

“I’ll stick to the alibi for a week,” Artie said. “After that, it’s each man for himself.”

“If a week goes by, we ought to be safe on the glasses,” said Judd.

He turned on Hyde Park Boulevard. At the Kessler house, police cars lined the curb. Photographers and newspapermen were all over the lawn. Artie was about to hop out. “Stay away from there!” Judd cried.

Artie chuckled. “It’s only natural I’d be interested. I live practically across the street. Why, poor little Paulie used to play on our tennis court all the time. Why, he’s a chum and classmate of my little brother Billy!”

“You’ll spill the beans, the way you gab. Keep off of there!”

“The hell! You going to tell me what to do?” But he remained in the car.

Silent, Judd pulled up to Artie’s door. But as Artie started into the house, Judd asked, “What’re you doing later?”

“I don’t know. I’ll give you a buzz.”

Judd drove on.

I must have just come back to give Tom the details of the teacher’s arrest when Artie and Judd drove by, for I remember seeing Artie go into his house. I remember thinking, So that’s the Straus mansion. Some class.

With the rest of the press, Tom was now outside on the Kessler lawn. It was understandable: they couldn’t have all of us camping in the house, and they couldn’t play favorites.

Everything was up a tree, Tom said. Anyway, our last replate was gone; if something happened now, we’d read about it in the morning papers. Was there any place around here a man could get a drink?

I knew a place on 55th Street, where they had spiked beer. We took the coeds there to give them a thrill. I had meant to rush over to Ruth’s, but now I went along with Tom. The place had a cigar-maker in the window, a natural lookout. This always gave me an odd feeling, for my father was a cigar-maker, though he didn’t work in a store window—he worked in a small shop in Racine. Now Pop would have big things to tell about his son, the university reporter.

As we stood up to the bar, Mike Prager and a couple of other afternoon-paper reporters found the place. We began to trade theories of the crime. I felt I was a full member of the profession. I was drinking with the boys.

When Judd dropped him at the house, Artie ran in with the Globe extra, to make a sensation. His mother wasn’t there. She would be at some meeting, doing good. By the time she got home, she’d know. He felt cheated. Something always cheated him, with her. Mumsie, you know what happened to the Kessler kid! She’d have gone white. It could have been Billy! Why, Mumsie, Billy was right there playing with Paulie on the baseball lot. I saw them myself! No. Maybe better not go that far.

Artie leaped up the stairs. Billy’s room was empty. There, for an instant, Artie’s mind stood blank, with some weird confusion. As if the room were of course empty because it had been Billy they— Then he told himself, Hell, the kid was over in that crowd at the Kesslers’, soaking up all the excitement; he’d give a full report before his big brother could get in a word—a bright, cute Billy-boy report.

They should really have snatched him, the brat, as they had once planned. Only Judd had taken it as a joke. Artie saw it now as if they had done it, grabbing Billy, feeling the kid in his arms in a squirming struggle, like sometimes when they playfully wrestled. But this time—the look on the kid’s face when he was bopped! And if it had been Billy, Artie wondered, would he himself have wanted to weep?

Then his imagining switched suddenly to a jail. He was behind bars, and people passed, grimacing at the monster killer; then came girls he knew, that big-eyed Dorothea, and Susan French, and that babe in Charlevoix, Betty, and then strangers, all grimacing at the monster, and he grimaced and made faces back at them, stuck out his tongue, made funny faces; Dorothea laughed, then he let his arms hang long and he pranced like an ape. Some fun!

On Billy-boy’s bed was an open box of chocolates. Artie grabbed a handful and ate them. The images of the jail went on. They were giving him the third degree.

He heard a gasp. The maid was in the doorway. “Oh, it’s you, Artie! I didn’t hear anyone come in.” She looked scared stiff. “We’ve all got the heebie-jeebies today. You know what happened to poor little—”

“Yah, it’s in the papers. Where’s Billy?” he asked with concern.

“Oh, he’s safe! Your mother went with the car the minute we heard something was wrong, and took him out of school. She wouldn’t leave him there another minute. All the mothers have been calling up, all day! Your mother took Billy along with her to her meeting. It’s in the papers, is it?”

“Sure.” He showed her the headline.

“It must have been a fiend that did it,” Clarice said. “He could be someone in that school!”

Artie wished he had been there to see that sight, all the limousines filling the street. There must have been a regular traffic jam, with all the anxious mommies hurrying to get their darling children safely home.

“It could be a fiend in the neighborhood,” Clarice repeated.

“That’s right, and they come back to the scene of their crime,” Artie said. She was excited, moistening her lips with her tongue. If she weren’t so dumpy, and her hands always damp, he might give her a shove. She was always asking for it, brushing against him. But once he made the push he’d have to go through with it, and maybe the disgust over her would hold him down so he couldn’t do anything. Then he’d always have that funny feeling, having her around, knowing. The hell with her.

“I hope they catch him,” she said. “No one will feel safe until they catch him. That poor little Paulie, I hope he didn’t suffer. I hope the end was quick.”

The delivery bell rang, and she had to go. Artie picked up Billy’s bow and arrow, thrown on the floor. No Miss Nuisance to make Billikins pick up things. Mumsie herself took care of her precious little boy.

The image returned. He was in the jail. They had him. Two huge dicks with rubber truncheons. He bent over, and they delivered the blows. He took all the blows, on his shoulders, on his ass. But he kept silent. They could never prove anything on him. He was the master criminal and they knew they had him, but they could never prove it on him! What a guy! At last they had to let him go. They followed him, the stupes, as though he would lead them to his gang. He gave them the slip. He got to his headquarters, in the basement hideout, and now he would take care of that rat, Judd. A couple of his strong-arm men brought in Judd and hurled him on the floor. Leaving his goddam glasses!

Artie threw the bow and arrow on Billy’s bed. He shook Billy’s piggy-bank—the hell with it—and flung it down. From Billy’s secret store of marbles he selected a couple of aggies, prize ones, milky, translucent, slipping them into his pants pocket.

With Judd lying prostrate at his feet, in the hidden cellar headquarters, Artie arose to give judgment. He stretched out his arm. The surge of power was in him. He pointed his finger downward at the quivering traitor. It is my will that you cease to exist. And the power passed like unseen lightning through the form of Judd, and life was gone from him.

Or else, take him with the pistol in his back to the pier, maybe late tonight. You see, Judd, this makes everything perfect. You have to agree, this is the perfect solution and therefore I am obliged to carry it out. That would be slick, using Judd’s own crappo philosophy on him. Judd would agree—they had found his glasses, they would find his body floating in the lake, a suicide. Q.E.D.

Suddenly Artie felt the fear. The fear, the heebie-jeebies, the unbearable shrieking thing coming up in him—he’d snap! Someone—to be with someone, to keep him from— Not Judd. He tried to call Willie Weiss, but Willie wasn’t home. Piling out of the house, Artie strode across the street, passed right against the Kessler place. The lawn was clear; all the reporters were gone. But police cars were still there. How would it be to ride in one of those Marmons, the siren blowing, a big cop on each side of you, while already you had the feeling of their truncheons across your naked back?

Artie forced himself away, circled back to his own house. His brother Lewis’s Franklin was in the driveway. Go screw yourself, Lewis! Behind the wheel, Artie felt somewhat easier. He swung the car down Hyde Park Boulevard. Not to Myra’s house—screw Myra . . . string bean with her long stringy fingers, she gave you the jitters. Halfway across the Ingleside intersection, he swung the car violently into a left turn, barely missing a flivver and causing a couple of old ladies who were crossing the street to squawk and scramble exactly like hens. Artie laughed out loud, feeling better as he braked in front of Ruth’s house.

She was exactly the one. He hadn’t called her in a month. But she was the one, with her round face, milky and smooth as an aggie. Have Ruthie sitting here beside him as he coasted out by the lake. Tell her a big story. She swallowed everything. Like the bootlegger act. The time he shot a hole in a shirt and wore it, showing her the hole, telling how he went bootlegging for the kick of it, and had to shoot it out with some hijackers. As if to prove she never believed the story, she would always ask how his bootlegging was getting along. But she was one of those who swallowed it. He’d tell her now that it was he who had kidnaped the Kessler kid! “Oh, yes, uh-huh,” she would say, with her serious eyes fixed on his, while keeping a you-can’t-fool-me-again note in her voice.

Looking in, through the window of her father’s drugstore, Artie could see that Ruth wasn’t downstairs. Their flat was on the second floor. He sounded the horn. Three, four times. Finally her mother appeared at the window over the store. The old lady went away, and then Ruth appeared. Artie blew again.

She pulled up the window. “Artie, is that nice?” she said, not too reproachfully. “Are you too lazy to get out and ring the bell?”

“Hey, come on down,” he said. “I’ve got something to tell you.”

“Well, you may come up if you wish.”

“Come on down.”

People were beginning to get interested. Ruth closed the window, and a moment later came out of the hallway, with an air of pique.

She looked good enough to eat. Her round, soft face had a glow, and her reddish hair glowed, drawn back from her forehead under a green velvet band, and fluffed out behind.

“Hey, come on for a ride,” Artie said.

“Artie, you’re cuckoo. I can’t go now.”

“Sure. Come on.” He gave her the boyish grin. “I feel lonesome.”

“What’s happened to all your girls?”

“Oh, I got sick of the whole bunch of them. I thought of you.”

“Well, that’s not very complimentary. The bottom of the list.”

He blew the horn. “Come on.”

“I can’t. I’m helping Mother. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Sure you can. Come on. I’ll buy you a beer.”

“No, really I can’t just now,” she said in that way girls have, when you know damn well they can. He let his face fall, moody, serious. It worked. She asked, “Is anything wrong, Artie?”

It was the shock of that thing in his block, he said, that horrible thing. Right across from his house. It could have been his own kid brother Billy!

“I know,” Ruth sympathized. “It’s ghastly. Such an incredible, fiendish thing.” For a moment, he had her. But then she shook her head and said, “I really do have to go upstairs. But another day, if you like, Artie. Only you should give a girl more notice.”

Hell with her. She was a wet rag. He slammed the car into gear and drove away, glad of the surprised, almost dismayed look on her face as he left her there on the sidewalk.

Artie pulled up at the frat, ran in, told the big news, talking a mile a minute about the crime, his brother, the ransom, then suddenly, in that way he had, shifting his attention to a bridge game.