Enter Without Desire

talked to... in sheer cold blood. I wasn't sure I could do it.

     And could I get away with it... again? Again. I was getting to be an old hand at murder. Would it be again and again and again and...?

     Sid came over to drive us to the beach and I mechanically got into my trunks, held the baby, even took part in the small talk, discussed my idea of the mobile, as we drove. And all the time my inner mind was working like an adding machine, turning over and discarding ideas—ways of killing.

     I still had that same old advantage—Logan didn't know me from a hole in the wall. I'd have to see what he looked like, then surprise him, ambush him. And the gun?

     Good God, I ought to at least buy the tools of my new trade!

     And the gun? I could steal Tony's new revolver, but would the same scheme work again? One thing—if Logan was killed the cops would certainly learn about Mama Morse, but unless Logan had told anybody about Bud and the gun, the cops would be right back where they started— looking for the swarthy fat man who shot Mac... and now Logan. The same old false trail, but for a double murderer this time. What about Bud? Would he run to the cops when he heard about Logan dying?

     Bud might... but it was a fifty-fifty chance. From what Len told me the only idea Bud had was to get out from under. I'd have to chance his clamming up. Christ, all the things I'd have to chance! Was my luck still riding, or was I pushing it too hard?

     Everybody is lucky—only one can't tell if it's good or bad luck 'til it's too late to matter.

     It was all crazy: I lay on the beach and sunned myself, as though the sun or lack of sun was the main thing wrong with my health, my chances of being alive a year from now. I joked and played around with Elma in the water, and under it all only one thing was on my mind—murder.

     That night I even slept and in the morning there was a letter from my agent, he had a possible buyer for the bronze of the baby's lips sucking Elma's breast. It was a legitimate reason for going to town... and I made up my mind I'd kill Logan that day.

     Just like that, practically on the spur of the moment, I decided to take a man's life. I wondered if I was crazy, or was the violence in the air so great these days that taking a life seems almost normal?

     I didn't know how I would go about it, but I felt a certain sense of relief that I had made up my mind, that within a few hours things would be settled for me, one way or the other.

     I borrowed Sid's car and stopped off at the Alvins to ask Alice if she wanted anything from the city. She and a woman in one of the summer cottages were going to make a big outdoor barbecue and while Alice went to ask what sauces they'd need.... It was so easy to find a gun, take it... a long-barreled target automatic... lighter than the Luger. What a gun expert I was becoming!

     Crossing the Tri-Borough Bridge I suddenly turned off into the Bronx and drove around aimlessly. North of the Yankee Stadium I came upon this old residential section that almost looked like the side street of a small town. I found a little alley that had this square wooden house on one side, the drawn dusty shades evidence it was either empty, or maybe shut for the summer. On the other side of the alley were these nice high hedges that needed trimming, then a wide open lot and a small modern brick house. The alley ran around the old wooden house to an unused garage. Back of the garage there was the exposed skeleton of an apartment house foundation—a house that was probably started way back during the depression years and never finished. This was surrounded by a sagging wooden fence that kids had knocked down in several places, and a street with more private houses.

     I looked the scene over as though it was all a stage set, something especially built for what I had in mind—a personal drama.

     Suddenly everything fell in place: if I could only get Logan in the alley, a quick shot that nobody would notice... Sid's car waiting in front of the sagging fence on the other street... me rushing across the old foundation and a clean get- away.

     It sounded too easy, too simple, and yet I knew its very simplicity was in my favor. There were no complicated plans here to go wrong... I'd lucked up on this place by chance, nothing to identify me with it again.

     I drove downtown and called my agent. He was out and I left my name, said I was coming into town from Sandyhook and would call later in the afternoon; even that was a sort of alibi—a mild one.

     Driving over to Newark made me feel a bit queasy... I kept thinking over and over—the murderer returning to the scene of his crime. Harry Logan was in the book. I figured him for a small, one-man agency... he'd been doing all this snooping himself... and I knew I was right when he answered the phone himself, saying, “Yes? Logan speaking.” He had a dull, clear voice.

     “Are you Harry Logan, the private detective?”

     “Not the, but a private detective. Who's this?”

     “Free to do some work today?”

     “Maybe. Who is this?”

     “Tell you when we talk. Have some shadowing I want done. I'm willing to pay well for it.”

     “Fine. Come up to my office and start talking. Anybody who can pay well is more than welcome in my...”

     “I can't come up to your office,” I said. “I think I'm... eh... being followed. Explain it all when I see you. Can you meet me in about ten minutes? I'm a big guy in a baggy tweed suit, bald head.”

     “Funny way to do business. Why can't...?”

     “This is a kind of funny case. Mean a hundred bucks for a few hours' work.”

     “Got yourself a boy, baggy tweed. Where do we meet?'

     I was phoning from a drugstore across from his office. “There's a drugstore across the street from your place. I'll be able to be outside there in ten minutes. What do you look like?”

     “Tall, girls sometimes tell me I'm handsome—even when they're sober. I'm wearing a blue suit and a brown coconut straw,” Logan said, as though I amused him.

     “Okay, ten minutes,” I said and hung up.

     I drove around the block twice and even stopped at the drugstore for a red light. Logan was tall and handsome, didn't look at all like a dick—nothing tough about him.

     I drove north and when I came across the George Washington Bridge, I parked and called him again. “This is baggy tweed, Mr. Logan. Sorry I couldn't keep our date.”

     “What is this, a rib?”

     “Oh no, this is on the level. For...”

     He said, “I don't like this.”

     I said quickly, afraid he'd get off the hook, “You see, I got scared. It's... eh... sort of dangerous for me to be in New Jersey. Process server after me.”

     “Gotcha. This a divorce case?”

     “Why... yes. Any objections?”

     “Nope, long as you put the green on the line. How do we get together?”

     “It's one-thirty. Have you a car?”

     “It's been called that.”

     “Suppose you come to New York, to my place in the Bronx? If you use the George Washington Bridge, shouldn't take you more than an hour to get there. Let's make it for three.”

     “Right. What's the address?”

     I gave him the address of the house in the Bronx, added, “My wife has been giving me a hard time, so if the shades are down, don't worry. Don't want her to know I'm living there. Just come around to the back door. I'll give you fifty dollars then, and another fifty by seven tonight, when you tell me who she's seeing for supper.”

     “Got yourself a deal. Only, be there—this is a long ride, chum.”

     “I'll be there. This means a great deal to me.”

     I drove up to the Bronx, parked the car on the street side of the sagging fence and old foundation. There wasn't a soul on the street, the kids must have been in a neighborhood pool, or park. Walking around the block to the deserted house, I passed a woman wheeling a baby carriage—no one else in sight. I knew my luck was with me, I'd stumbled on the ideal spot for murder. It was two-twelve. My seersucker coat was wet with sweat and my mouth sandy dry. I had to walk three blocks before I found a candy store. A bottle of soda made me feel a little better, only I wished the soda had been a whisky bracer.

     Walking back slowly, I turned into the alley as though I owned the place, sat on the back steps. I put my hand in my right pocket, made sure the safety was off the gun....

     And waited.

     The sky turned a grayish blue... as though it was all a blue wash on which a drop of black had been spilled. I wondered if I was losing my sight. I wanted to ask Logan, who was pacing up and down beside me, staring at my stomach every few minutes with a worried look.

     But when I opened my mouth to ask him about the sky, the air was as thick as a huge marshmallow and all I could do was chew on it. It felt good whenever I was able to swallow a little of the air. It stunk a bit, too, a rotten, over-sweet smell.

     Logan muttered—and it was amazing how clearly I could hear even the smallest sounds. “Hope your wife gets here soon. Almost an hour now. Cops will come any minute and unless she gets here first or...”

     He suddenly stiffened, held out a hand for me to be quiet —which was comical—as we both heard a car stop out in the street with the weird scream of tortured rubber. I heard the sound of people running up the alley... then Elma came into focus and behind her I saw the frightened face of Alice.

     Logan grabbed Elma as she came toward me, her face ugly with hysteria. He shook her, said something in her ear, glancing at Alice. I saw her lips move and she