He was right. It was practically an impossibility to hold that many people there at once. It looked like we were still following a hopeless trail.
Most of the cars left at once. Pat had a cop handing out the coats since he didn’t want anyone messing up the murder room. I went up with Charlotte to get hers. The cop pulled out her blue job with the white wolf collar and I helped her into it.
Mary was still out so I didn’t say good-bye to her. Esther was at the door downstairs, as calm as ever, seeing the guests out, even being nice to the ones that didn’t belong there.
I shook hands with her and told her I’d see her soon and Charlotte and I left. Instead of driving up, she had taken the train, so we both got into my car and started back.
Neither one of us spoke much. As the miles passed under my wheels I got madder and madder. The circle. It started with Jack and had ended with him. The killer finally got around to Myrna. It was crazy. The whole pattern was bugs. Now my motive was completely shot to hell. Myrna fitted in nowhere. I heard a sob beside me and caught Charlotte wiping tears from her eyes. That was easy to see. She had taken a liking to Myrna.
I put my arm around her and squeezed. This must seem like a nightmare to her. I was used to death sitting on my doorstep, she wasn’t. Maybe when the dragnet brought in Wilder and Sherman there would be an answer to something. People just don’t run away for nothing. The outsider. The answer to the question. Could either of them have been the outsider that belonged in the plot? Very possible. It seemed more possible now than ever. Manhunt. The things the cops were best at. Go get them. Don’t miss. If they try to run, kill the bastards. I don’t care if I don’t get them myself, so long as someone does. No glory. Justice.
When I stopped in front of Charlotte’s place I had to stop thinking. I looked at my watch. Well after midnight. I opened the door for her.
“Want to come up?”
“Not tonight, darling,” I said. “I want to go home and think.”
“I understand. Kiss me good night.” She held out her face and I kissed her. How I loved that girl. I’d be glad when this was over with and we could get married.
“Will I see you tomorrow?”
I shook my head. “I doubt it. If I can find time I’ll call you.”
“Please, Mike,” she begged, “try to make it. Otherwise I can’t see you until Tuesday.”
“What’s the matter with Monday?” I asked her.
“Esther and Mary are coming back to the city and I promised to have supper with them. Esther is more upset than you realize. Mary will get over it fast enough, but her sister isn’t like that. You know how women are when they get in a spot.”
“Okay, baby. If I don’t see you tomorrow, I’ll give you a call Monday and see you Tuesday. Maybe then we can go get that ring.”
This time I gave her a long kiss and watched her disappear into the building. I had some tall thinking to do. Too many had died. I was afraid to let it go further. It had to be now or not at all. I tooled the jalopy back to the garage, parked it and went upstairs to bed.
Sunday was a flop. It opened with the rain splattering against the windows and the alarm shattering my eardrums. I brought my fist down on the clock, swearing at myself because I set it automatically when I didn’t have to get up at all.
This was one day when I didn’t have to shower or shave. I burned my breakfast as usual and ate it while I was in my underwear. When I was stacking the dishes, I glanced at myself in the mirror, and a duly, unkempt face glared back at me. On days like this I look my ugliest.
Fortunately, the refrigerator was well stocked with beer. I pulled out two quarts, got a glass from the cabinet, a spare pack of butts, and laid them beside my chair. Then I opened the front door and the papers fell to the floor. Very carefully, I separated the funnies from the pile, threw the news section in the waste basket and began the day.
I tried the radio after that. I tried pacing the floor. Every ashtray was filled to overflowing. Nothing seemed to help. Occasionally I would flop in the chair and put my head in my hands and try to think. But whatever I did, I invariably came up with the same answer. Stymied. Nuts.
Something was trying to get out. I knew it. I could feel it. Way back in the recesses of my mind a little detail was gnawing its way through, screaming to be heard, but the more it gnawed, the greater were the defenses erected to prevent its escaping.
Not a hunch. A fact. Some small, trivial fact. What was it? Could it be the answer? Something was bothering me terrifically. I tried some more beer. No. No. No ... no ... no ... no ... no. The answer wouldn’t come. How must our minds be made? So complicated that a detail gets lost in the maze of knowledge. Why? That damn ever-present WHY. There’s a why to everything. It was there, but how to bring it out? I tried thinking around the issue, I tried to think through it. I even tried to forget it, but the greater the effort, the more intense the failure.
I never noticed the passage of time. I drank, I ate, it was dark out and I turned the lights on and drank some more. Hours and minutes and seconds. I fought, but lost. So I fought again. One detail. What was it? What was it?
The refrigerator was empty all of a sudden and I fell into bed exhausted. It never broke through. That night I dreamed the killer was laughing at me. A killer whose face I couldn’t see. I dreamed that the killer had Jack and Myrna and the rest of them hanging in chains, while I tried in vain to beat my way through a thin partition of glass with a pair of .45’s to get to them. The killer was unarmed, laughing fiendishly, as I raved and cursed, but the glass wouldn’t break. I never got through.
I awoke with a bad taste in my mouth. I brushed my teeth, but that didn’t get rid of the taste. I looked out the window. Monday was no better than the day before. The rain was coming down in buckets. I couldn’t stand to be holed up any longer, so I shaved and got dressed, then donned a raincoat and went out to eat. It was twelve then; when I finished it was one. I dropped in a bar and ordered one highball after another. The next time I looked at the clock it was nearly six.
That was when I reached in my pocket for another pack of cigarettes. My hand brushed an envelope. Damn, I could have kicked myself. I asked the bartender where the nearest drugstore was and he directed me around the corner.
The place was about to close, but I made it. I took the envelope out and asked him if he could test an unknown substance for me. The guy agreed reluctantly. Together we shook the stuff on to a piece of paper and he took it into the back. It didn’t take long. I was fixing my tie in front of a mirror when he came back. He handed me the envelope with a suspicious glance. On it he had written one word.
Heroin.
I looked in the mirror again. What I saw turned the blood in my veins to liquid ice. I saw my eyes dilate. The mirror. The mirror and that one word. I shoved the envelope into my pocket viciously and handed the druggist a fin.
I couldn’t talk. There was a crazy job bubbling inside me that made me go alternately hot and cold. If my throat hadn’t been so tight I could have screamed. All this time. Not time wasted, because it had to be this way. Happy, happy. How could I be so happy? I had the WHY, but how could I be so happy? It wasn’t right. I beat Pat to it after all. He didn’t have the WHY. Only I did.
Now I knew who the killer was.
And I was happy. I walked back to the bar.
I took a last drag on the cigarette and flipped it spinning into the gutter, then turned and walked into the apartment house. Someone made it easy for me by not closing the lobby door tightly. No use taking the elevator, there was still plenty of time. I walked up the stairs wondering what the finale would be like.
The door was locked but I expected that. The second pick I used opened it. Inside, the place was filled with that curious stillness evident in an empty house. There was no need to turn on the lights, I knew the layout well enough. Several pieces of furniture were fixed in my mind. I sat down in a heavy chair set catercorner against the two walls. The leaves of a rubber plant on a table behind the chair brushed against my neck. I pushed them away and slid down into the lushness of the cushions to make myself comfortable, then pulled the .45 from its holster and snapped the safety off.
