had killed him, and that I’d carry the image of his battered face with me to the grave.
“He’s dead, Johnny.”
She gave a little sigh, then stepped back, gathering her wrap about her, turning to look at
me.
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. This was murder. All right, I hadn’t meant to kill him, but
I had killed him, and he was there, dead on the floor, and that made it murder.
“He’s bleeding!”
She ran into the bathroom and came back with a bath-towel and did something I couldn’t
have done. She caught hold of his long, chalk-white hair, lifted his head and slid the towel
under it.
There was blood on her hands when she stood up, and I looked at the red stains in horror.
“Johnny!”
“I’ve killed him!”
“Pull yourself together!” Her voice was sharp. “No one knows but you and I. This is what
I’ve been praying for.”
I remembered Reisner had said the same thing when he had heard Wertham was dead.
Some prayers to have! That made them a pair.
“But they’ll find out,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
She came up to me.
“Don’t be a fool! Can’t you see this is what we want? This is the set-up! He’s dead, and we
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can take over. There’s no one to stop us now!”
I stared at her. There was a ruthless look of triumph in her black, glittering eyes, and her
scarlet lips were parted. There was no fear in that hard, lovely face: only triumph, and a
suppressed and violent excitement.
I grabbed hold of her arm and shook her.
“It’s you who’re the fool!” I shouted at her. “We’ve killed him - you and I! They’ll come
after us! They’ll catch us and they’ll fry us! Don’t you think you’re going to get away with
this! You’re not! Maybe we can hide the body for an hour or so, but they’ll find him …”
She put her hand over my mouth.
“Sit down, Johnny, and be quiet. It’s going to be all right. Keep your nerve: that’s all you
have to do. I know how to handle this. It’s going to be all right.”
I sat down, my back to Reisner’s body. All right, I admit it. I was in a bad way. I had killed
a man, and it was like taking a punch in the belly.
“What are you going to do?” I managed to jerk out.
“Look at his face. Doesn’t that tell you what to do?”
I couldn’t look at his face.
“What are you getting at? You make me sick! Haven’t you a spark of feeling? How can you
look at his face?”
She came around the bed to stand in front of me.
“Perhaps I’ve more guts than you, Johnny. Aren’t the stakes worth while? He was going to
shoot us! You killed him in self-defence. Why should you care about him?”
“It’s murder! It’s something that’s going to live with me! It’s something that’ll poison my
whole goddamn life!”
“In a week you’ll have forgotten he ever existed. But if you don’t pull yourself together and
help me, we’ll both go to the chair. Can’t you see that, you poor, frightened booby?”
Slowly I turned and looked at him. He was still a horrible sight, with the splinter of glass in
his eye and his face smashed and bloody.
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