I, The Jury

I waited for the killer.

Yes, Jack, this is it, the end. It took a long time to get around to it, but I did. I know who did it now. Funny, the way things worked out, wasn’t it? All the symptoms were backwards. I had the wrong ones figured for it until the slip came. They all make that one slip. That’s what the matter is with these cold-blooded killers; they plan, oh, so well. But they have to work all the angles themselves, while we have many heads working the problem out. Yeah, we miss plenty, but eventually someone stumbles on the logical solution. Only this one wasn’t logical. It was luck. Remember what I promised you? I’d shoot the killer, Jack, right in the gut where you got it. Right where everyone could see what he had for dinner. Deadly, but he wouldn’t die fast. It would take a few minutes. No matter who it turned out to be, Jack, I’d get the killer. No chair, no rope, just the one slug in the gut that would take the breath from the lungs and the life from the body. Not much blood, but I would be able to look at the killer dying at my feet and be glad that I kept my promise to you. A killer should die that way. Hard, nasty. No fanfare except the blast of an unsilenced .45 going off in a small, closed room. Yeah, Jack, no matter whom it turned out to be, that’s the way death would come. Just like you got it. I know who did it. In a few minutes the killer will walk in here and see me sitting in this chair. Maybe the killer will try to talk me out of it, maybe even kill again, but I don’t kill easy. I know all the angles. Besides, I got a rod in my fist, waiting. Waiting. Before I do it I’ll make the killer sweat—and tell me how it happened, to see if I hit it right. Maybe I’ll even give the rat a chance to get me. More likely not. I hate too hard and shoot too fast. That’s why people say the things about me that they do. That’s why the killer would have had to try for me soon. Yes, Jack, it’s almost finished. I’m waiting. I’m waiting.

The door opened. The lights flicked on. I was slumped too low in the chair for Charlotte to see me. She took her hat off in front of the wall mirror. Then she saw my legs sticking out. Even under the make-up I could see the color drain out of her face.

(Yes, Jack, Charlotte. Charlotte the beautiful. Charlotte the lovely. Charlotte who loved dogs and walked people’s babies in the park. Charlotte whom you wanted to crush in your arms and feel the wetness of her lips. Charlotte of the body that was fire and life and soft velvet and responsiveness. Charlotte the killer.)

She smiled at me. It was hard to tell that it wasn’t forced, but I knew it. She knew I knew it. And she knew why I was here. The .45 was levelled straight at her stomach.

Her mouth smiled at me, her eyes smiled at me, and she looked pleased, so glad to see me, just as she had always been. She was almost radiant when she spoke. “Mike, darling. Oh, baby, I’m so glad to see you. You didn’t call like you promised and I’ve been worried. How did you get in? Oh, but Kathy is always leaving the door open. She’s off tonight.” Charlotte started to walk toward me. “And please, Mike, don’t clean that awful gun here. It scares me.”

“It should,” I said.

She stopped a few feet away from me, her face fixed on mine. Her brows creased in a frown. Even her eyes were puzzled. If it were anyone but me they’d never have known she was acting. Christ, she was good! There was no one like her. The play was perfect, and she wrote, directed and acted all the parts. The timing was exact, the strength and character she put into every moment, every expression, every word was a crazy impossibility of perfection. Even now she could make me guess, almost build a doubt in my mind, but I shook my head slowly.

“No good, Charlotte, I know.”

Her eyes opened wider. Inside me I smiled to myself. Her mind must have been racing with fear. She remembered my promise to Jack. She couldn’t forget it. Nobody could, because I’m me and I always keep a promise. And this promise was to get the killer, and she was the killer. And I had promised to shoot the killer in the stomach.

She walked to an end table and picked a cigarette from a box, then lit it with a steady hand. That’s when I knew, too, that she had figured an out. I didn’t want to tell her that it was a useless out. The gun never left her a second.

“But . . .”

“No,” I said, “let me tell you, Charlotte. I was a little slow in catching on, but I got it finally. Yesterday I would have dreaded this, but not now. I’m glad. Happier than I’ve been in a long time. It was the last kill. They were so different. So damn cold-blooded that I had it figured for a kill-crazy hood or an outsider. You were lucky. Nothing seemed to tie up, there were so many complications. It jumped around from one thing to another, yet every one of those things was part of the same basic motive.

“Jack was a cop. Someone always hates cops. Especially a cop that is getting close to him. But Jack didn’t know just who he was getting close to until you held a rod on him and pumped one into his intestines. That was it, wasn’t it?”

She looked so pathetic standing there. Twin tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks. So pathetic and so helpless. As though she wanted to stop me, to tell me I was wrong—to show me how wrong I was. Her eyes were pools of supplication, begging, pleading. But I went on.

“It was you and Hal at first. No, just you alone. Your profession started it. Oh, you made money enough, but not enough. You are a woman who wanted wealth and power. Not to use it extravagantly, but just to have it. How many times have you gone into the frailty of men and seen their weaknesses? It made you afraid. You no longer had the social instinct of a woman—that of being dependent upon a man. You were afraid, so you found a way to increase your bank account and charge it to business. A way in which you’d never be caught, but a dirty way. The dirtiest way there is—almost.”

(The sorrow drifted from her eyes, and there was something else in its stead. It was coming now. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it was coming. She stood tall and straight as a martyr, exuding beauty and trust and belief. Her head turned slightly and I saw a sob catch in her throat. Like a soldier. Her stomach was so flat against the belt of her skirt. She let her arms drop simply at her sides, her hands asking to be held, and her lips wanting to silence mine with a kiss. It was coming, but I dared not stop now. I couldn’t let her speak or I would never be able to keep my promise.)

“Your clientele. It was wealthy, proud. With your ability and appearance and your constant studies, you were able to draw such a group to you. Yes, you treated them, eased their mental discomfitures—but with drugs. Heroin. You prescribed, and they took your prescription—to become addicts, and you were their only source for the stuff and they had to pay through the nose to get it. Very neat. So awfully neat. Being a doctor, and through your clinic, you could get all the stuff you needed. I don’t know how your delivery system worked, but that will come later.

“Then you met Hal Kines. An innocent meeting, but isn’t that the way all things start? That’s why I had trouble with the answer, it was all so casual. You never suspected him of his true activities, did you? But one day you used him as a subject for an experiment in hypnosis, didn’t you? He was a fool to do it, but he had no choice if he wanted to play his role. And while he was under hypnosis you inadvertently brought to light every dirty phase of his life.

“You thought you had him then. You told him what you had discovered and were going to fit him into your plans. But you were fooled. Hal was not a college kid. He was an adult. An adult with a mature, scheming mind, who could figure things out for himself—and he had already caught wise to what you were doing and was going to hold it over your head. All you got out of that was a stalemate. Remember the book on your shelf—Hypnosis as a Treatment for Mental Disorders? It was well thumbed. I knew you were well versed in that angle, but I never caught on until yesterday.”

(She was standing in front of me now. I felt a hot glow go over me as I saw what she was about to do. Her hands came up along her sides pressing her clothes tightly against her skin, then slowly ran under her breasts, cupping them. Her fingers jumbled with the buttons of the blouse, but not for long. They came open—one by one.)

“You and Hal held on tightly, each waiting for the other to make a break, but there was too much of a risk to take to start anything. That’s where Jack came in. He was a shrewd one. That guy had a brain. Sure, he helped Hal out of a small jam, but in doing so something aroused his suspicions, and all the while he pretended to be helping Hal with his work he was really investigating him. Jack found out what Hal was up to, and when by accident he met Eileen, she confirmed it. Jack knew about the show through her, and since Hal was the brains of the outfit, knew, too, that he would be there.

“But let’s jump back a little bit. Jack wanted to see you about something during the week. You yourself told me that. No, Jack didn’t suspect you, but he thought that since you were connected with him through the school and the clinic, you might be able to keep tab on him.