One Lonely Night

of the pack now.

Instead of digesting the absorbing piece of news, I scanned the pages for something else. Velda scowled at my concentration and hung over my shoulder. What I was looking for wasn't there. Not a single thing about two bodies in the river.

'Something, Mike?'

I shook my head. 'Nope. Just looking for customers.'

She didn't believe me. 'There are some excellent prospects in the letter file if you're interested. They're waiting for your answer.'

'How are we fixed, Velda?' I didn't look at her.

I put the paper down and reached in my pocket for a smoke.

'We're solvent. Two accounts paid up yesterday. The money has been banked and there's no bills. Why?'

'Maybe I'll take a vacation.'

'From what?'

'From paid jobs. I'm tired of being an employee.'

'Think of me.'

'I am,' I said. 'You can take a vacation too if you want to.'

She grabbed my elbow and turned me around until I was fencing with her eyes again. 'Whatever you're thinking isn't of fun on some beach, Mike.'

'It isn't?' I tried to act surprised.

'No.' She took the cigarette from my mouth, dragged on it and stuck it back. She never moved her eyes. 'Mike, don't play with me, please. Either tell me or don't, but quit making up excuses. What's on your mind?'

My mouth felt tight. 'You wouldn't believe it if I told you.'

'Yes I would.' There was nothing hidden in her answer. No laughter, no scorn. Just absolute belief in me.

'I want to find out about myself, Velda.'

She must have known what was coming. I said it quietly, almost softly, and she believed me. 'All right, Mike,' she said. 'If you need me for anything you know where to find me.'

I gave her the cigarette and went back to the office. How deep can a woman go to search a man's mind? How can they know without being told when some trivial thing can suddenly become so important? What is it that gives them that look as if they know the problem and the answer too, yet hold it back because it's something you have to discover for yourself?

I sat down in the swivel chair again and pulled all the junk out of my pockets; the keys, the wallet and the change. Two of the keys were for a car. One was an ordinary house key, another for a trunk or suitcase, and another for either a tumbler padlock or another house.

If I expected to find anything in the wallet I was mistaken. There were six fives and two singles in the bill compartment, a package of three-cent stamps and a card-calendar in one pocket, and a plain green card with the edges cut off at odd angles in the other pocket. That was all.

That was enough.

The little fat boy didn't have his name in print anywhere. It wasn't a new wallet either. Fat boy didn't want identification. I didn't blame him. What killer would?

Yeah, that was enough to make me sit back and look at the scuffed folder of calfskin and make me think. It would make you think too. Take a look at your own wallet and see what's in it.

I had the stuff spread out on the desk when I remembered the other pocket of my raincoat and pulled out the huge tweed triangle that had come from the girl's coat. I laid it out on my lap with the night before shoved into some corner of my brain and looked at it as though it were just another puzzle, not a souvenir of death.

The cloth had come apart easily. I must have grabbed her at the waist because the section of the coat included the right-hand and pocket and part of the lining. I rubbed the fabric through my fingers feeling the soft texture of fine wool, taking in the details of the pattern. More out of curiosity than anything else, I stuck my hand inside the pocket and came up with a crumpled pack of cigarettes.

She didn't even have time for a last smoke, I thought. Even a condemned man gets that. She didn't. She took one look at me and saw my eyes and my face and whatever she saw there yanked a scream from her lungs and the strength to pull her over the rail.

What have I got locked up inside me that comes out at times like that? What good am I alive? Why do I have to be the one to pull the trigger and have my soul torn apart afterwards?

The cigarettes were a mashed ball of paper in my hand, a little wad of paper, cellophane and tinfoil that smelt of tobacco and death. My teeth were locked together and when I looked down at my hand my nail ripped through the paper and I saw the green underneath.

Between the cigarettes and the wrapper was another of those damnable green cards with the edges cut off at odd angles.

Two murders. Two green cards.

It was the same way backwards. Two green cards and two murders.

Which came first, the murders or the cards?

Green for death.

Murder at odd angles. Two murders. Eight odd angles. Yes, two murders. The fat boy got what he was after. Because of him the girl was murdered no matter how. So I got him. I was a murderer like they said, only to me it was different. I was just a killer. I wondered what the law would say and if they'd make that fine difference now. Yeah. I could have been smart about it; I could have done what I did, called the police and let them take over then take the dirty medicine the papers and the judge and the public would have handed me. No, I had to be smart. I had to go and mix it up so much that if those bodies were found and the finger pointed at me all I could expect was a trip on that long road to nowhere.

Was that why I did it . . . because I felt smart? No, that wasn't the reason. I didn't feel smart. I was mad. I was kill crazy mad at the bastards the boy with the scythe pointed out to me and goddamn mad at all the screwy little minds and the screwy big minds that had the power of telling me off later. They could go to hell, the judge and the jury and all the rest of them! I was getting too sick and disgusted of fighting their battles for them anyway! The boy with the scythe could go to hell with the rest and if he didn't like it he could come after me, personally. I'd love that. I wish there was a special agency called Death that could hear what I was thinking and make a try for me. I'd like to take that stinking black shadow and shove his own scythe down his bony throat and disjoint him with a couple of .45's! Come on, bony boy, let's see you do what you can! Get your white-haired judge and your good people tried and true and let's see just how good you are! I think I'm better, see? I think I can handle any one of you, and if you get the idea I'm kidding, then come and get me.

And if you're afraid to come after me, then I'm going after you. Maybe I'll know what I'm like then. Maybe I'll find out what's going on in my mind and why I keep on living when fat cold-blooded killers and nice warm-blooded killers are down there shaking hands with the devil!

I pulled the green card out of the cigarettes and matched it to the one from the wallet. They fitted--Twins. I put them in my shirt pocket, grabbed my coat and hat and slammed the door after me when I left the office.

At a little after ten I pulled up outside the brick building that was the house of the law. Here was where the invisible processes went on that made cops out of men and murderers out of clues. The car in front of mine was an official sedan that carried the D.A.'s sticker and I smoked a butt right down to the bottom before I decided to try to reach Pat even if the fair-haired boy of the courts was around.

I should have waited a minute longer. I had my hand on the door when he pushed through and it looked like a cold wind hit him in the face. He screwed his mouth up into a snarl, thought better of it and squeezed a smile out.

Strictly an official smile.

He said, 'Morning.'

I said, 'Nice day.'

He got in his car and slammed the door so hard it almost fell off. I waved when he drove by. He didn't wave back. The old guy on the elevator took me upstairs and when I walked into Pat's office I was grinning.

Pat started, 'Did you . . .'