would be as good a place as any. This part of town was drab, dead and lifeless at this time of night; the buildings standing gaunt and empty-eyed. I turned into a narrow brick paved street, a private one-way street that would be jammed in the daytime with trucks loading and unloading at one of the factories, but now it was empty.
I stopped the limousine and listened. There was no sound at all in the immediate neighborhood. Only then did I examine the chauffeur. He was dead.
With my handkerchief I wiped the steering wheel, the dash, the doors, the windows, everything I might have touched. Then I wiped Humphrey's automatic and left it on the front seat—I had no use for automatics, and it wouldn't have been smart to keep it if I had.
I had one good look at Burton before I left. He didn't look like much. His mouth was open, as though he were trying to yell, and his eyes were open, very wide. He looked like the most surprised bastard in the world.
I felt pretty good.
It had come off very nicely. The one man in Lake City who had had the power and brains to buck John Venci was dead. It was clear sailing now; the single danger had been eliminated. I said aloud, “Sweet dreams, boys,” and walked away.
I turned west and saw a bar at the end of the block. Up ahead, in the middle of the next block there was an all night eating place—I went in and ordered a glass of milk and a piece of pie. Later I called a taxi, and when he arrived I gave the driver an address down town. Downtown I took another cab and went to an address south-east, and from there I took still another cab to within a couple of blocks of my apartment. It took some time, but it would be worth it when the cops went to work.
It was about one o'clock when I finally walked into my apartment. I had company. It was Dorris Venci.
I said, “Well, for a woman who never wanted to see me again, you pop up in some pretty strange places.”
“I had to know!” she said quickly. “Did you...?”
“I did.”
“... Oh.”
I closed the door, walked into the room and dropped into a chair. She sat on the sofa with her hands clasped in her lap, every muscle in her body as rigid as steel. “Are... Are you sure?” she said nervously.
“I give you my personal guarantee; you can stop worrying about Burton's hoodlums coming in your windows and you can stop worrying about being killed.
“Relax, now. You're going to fly all to pieces one of these days if you don't learn how to relax.” I was tired. It had been a very successful day, but it had also been a wearing one. “Why don't you go home,” I said, “and try to get some sleep?”
She stared at her hands. “Yes... I suppose I should.”
But she didn't move.
“Well,” I said, “you might as well come out with it.”
“What?”
“You didn't come here just to find out about Burton. All you had to do was lift the phone; I would have told you. No, you came here because you've got something on your mind, so what is it?”
She looked at me. “Don't you know?”
Suddenly I wasn't as tired as I thought I was. Still, there was caution in the back of my brain and it kept nudging me.
“Yes,” she said flatly, “You know. And John. The only two people in the world who knew, or guessed, or could... satisfy... this awful sickness in my soul.”
“It's not as monstrous as you think,” I said. “Matter of fact, it is fairly common.”
More than anything in the world she wanted to run. She wanted to run from the apartment, from me, from herself most of all, but she couldn't move.
I knew what the end of this was going to be. I didn't know if it was smart, and at that moment I didn't care, but the longer I looked at Dorris Venci the more desirable she became. She was really a hell of a woman, especially at a time like this.
I stared at her and could think of nothing else. The vision of Pat Kelso was swept from my brain completely and a bright blue flame took its place. I grabbed her arm, just below the wrist joint, and began to squeeze. I dug my fingers in the most sensitive area, between the two flexon tendons, and applied sharp pressure to the median nerve.
Her reaction was instant and violent. The shock went through her, shook her. She came off the couch and threw herself at me. “Now! Now!”
CHAPTER TEN
THE NEWSPAPERS made a hell of a racket about the Burton killing. I had expected headlines, and maybe even a front page editorial, but I hadn't expected anything like what really happened. For a whole week there was nothing but Alex Burton.
According to newspaper editorialists and radio commentators, St. Francis of Assisi had been an outright scoundrel, compared to Alex Burton. A feature story on Burton's life ran to twelve installments. Preachers made him a martyr, used him as a subject for a number of sermons. A song writer composed something called
The craziest thing about the whole affair, though, was that every man, woman and child in Lake City believed every word they read or heard concerning the late Alex Burton. They thought of him as a kindly man who loved children, headed charity organizations, gave Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets to the needy; they thought of him as a tower of righteousness and strength. They thought of him as being on just one small step below God Himself!
Not only after his death, which might be explained as emotional hysteria, but they had believed it while he was alive! They had begged him to run for a second term as Governor—this thieving, knavish, pompous bastard who had robbed them blind during his political lifetime, had bled the State white, had committed every crime in the book, including murder, and I had the evidence to prove it! It was incredible that a man could have duped so many people so thoroughly, but Alex Burton had managed it.
All in all, it rather amused me. This hullabaloo was the most damaging comment imaginable on the intellect of the common herd. John Venci, too, would have appreciated a joke like this.
From John Venci's strongbox I selected the name of Parker King, a wealthy state senator, to go to work on. Politicians are easier to convince than most men; they have more to be afraid of. So Senator King seemed an excellent prospect. At the same time, as I looked into King's background, there was Dorris Venci who had to reckoned with. The task was not unpleasant, not in the least, so long as we kept it purely biological. And, too, there was Pat Kelso.
For me, Pat completed the circle. King promised the prospect of violence that I had to have to feel alive. Dorris offered biological satisfaction which I needed to keep my brain honed to the necessary sharpness. Pat Kelso... she was everything else.
I went after her.
“Why, hello there!”
I had tried several things since Burton's funeral: A few words at the mailbox, brief, senseless conversations in the hallway of our apartment building. Those tactics hadn't got me anywhere, so I had come right out to the Burton factory where she still worked.
It was quitting time and she had come out with all the other office workers this time. No chauffeur to pick her up in a limousine and whisk her off to the University Club. Burton's death had brought Pat Kelso down in the world somewhat, but it hadn't brought her off her queenly bearing.
I said, “Remember me? I'm your neighbor. William O'Connor from across the hall.”
