Dark Passage (27 page)

“You can’t take them back.”

“But I can, Madge. The other night when
you and Bob were in Irene’s apartment you made certain statements
and Bob made certain statements and I can take them back with
that.”

Her gaze drifted past him. She said,
“You’ve got Bob with you.”

“He doesn’t know it yet, but he's with me.
And you're alone. And when I take them back to the day Gert was
killed I'll have all of them with me and you'll remain alone. When
you come right down to it, Madge, you've always been
alone—”

“Give it up, Vincent. Walk away from it.
You can’t go out selling when you have nothing to sell.”

“—because you wanted to be alone. Because
whenever you got what you wanted you were anxious to get rid of it.
But when you saw someone else get hold of it you couldn’t stand
that. You knew Irene Janney wanted me and you killed Fellsinger
because it was your best way of making sure she'd never get me. You
knew they'd give me the chair for the murder of Fellsinger. That
was the big thing in your mind when you killed him, when you told
yourself you were rid of me once and for all and no one else would
have me. It was more important than any other thing, even your
practical reasons for killing him.”

“Take my advice, Vincent, and give it up.
There’s no way you can build a case against me.”

“You see, Madge? Even now you’re still
trying to make sure she doesn't get me. You're really a specimen,
Madge. It's almost impossible to figure you out. But it just
happens bright orange shows up against a dark street.”

“That’s no evidence. You don't have
anything there. What you need is a confession. That's what you're
trying to get, isn't it?”

“Well, it would simplify matters, anyway.
As things stand now I know what you did, the reasons and the
methods. And the problems you faced. Your first real problem came
when you knocked on the door of Irene’s apartment and then you
heard the phonograph going and then you heard me telling you to go
away. You had a feeling that wasn't Bob's voice and when you were
outside you kept looking at the window. And then you checked up on
Bob, and meanwhile you learned I was loose from San Quentin. And
here's where you get that Academy Award, because you knew she was
interested in me, you had it analyzed from the very beginning, and
underneath that mask of an ignorant pest you were laughing at her,
because here she was, in there pitching for me and I didn't even
know there was such a person as Irene Janney.”

“She told you that. She told you to come
here.”

“No. You’re not even warm. I'm the banker
now. I've got all of it. I can see you with your problems. I can
see you thinking it over, telling yourself I was on the loose, and
as long as you knew and I knew I didn't kill Gert, it was possible
I'd use my freedom to try and find out who did kill her. Then you
were worried about it, you knew you had to do something definite
and drastic. There was that very big surprise, that Irene Janney
had more brains than you gave her credit for and she was hiding me
in her apartment. So you knew you had to begin with keeping an eye
on the apartment. Then when I came out you followed me. Your bright
orange roadster followed the taxi to Fellsinger's place. You
watched when I pressed the button. When I went up you came in and
saw Fellsinger's name alongside that particular button. You knew it
was only a question of time before the police would visit
Fellsinger and ask him if I had tried to make contact. That time
element was important. You wanted me to hurry and come down, and
when I came down you slipped out from wherever you were hiding and
you went in and pressed that same button. You were planning it
then, as you went upstairs. And what you wanted most of all was to
make sure that Irene Janney would never get me. Next to that you
wanted to make sure Fellsinger wouldn't help me find out who killed
Gert. Then again you knew if you killed Fellsinger every finger
would point at me because the police knew of my friendship with
Fellsinger and you were certain they'd find my fingerprints in the
room and that was all they needed. So you went in there and killed
Fellsinger. You got talking to him and you got him off guard and
you did away with him. Didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Will you tell that to the
police?”

“No.”

“They’ll get it out of you anyway. Because
they'll have facts to work with. They'll have that motivation
aspect. Don't forget the big item about Bob. He'll be with
me.”

She smiled. “That’s no good. Bob would be
recognized as a prejudiced witness. Besides, what could he say?
He'd say I wanted you. What tangible proof would he
have?”

“A signed statement from the man you hired
to follow him. The man who turned right around and played both ends
against the middle and followed me to your apartment. That signed
statement, Madge, that does it.”

She stopped smiling. She said, “All right,
that’s concrete in itself, but it isn't sufficient. The jealousy
factor isn't strong enough.”

“Then let’s make it stronger. Let's bring
in a nasty bit of gossip concerning Bob and Gert.”

“Bob. And Gert. Bob and Gert. No. No,
don’t try that on me. That's not possible.”

“But that’s the way it is. And when Bob
gets up and admits his connection with Gert it bursts the whole
thing wide open.”

“I’ll tell them I never knew anything like
that was going on. And I'll be telling the truth.”

“They won’t believe you, Madge. You hired
that man to follow Bob. That's an act of frenzy and it establishes
motivation. You're afraid now. And I'll tell you this —as soon as
you knew I was here in town you were really scared stiff. Otherwise
you would have found a way to tip off the police and let them know
I was hiding at Irene Janney's apartment. But you were really
scared by that time, whereas before that you were only
uncomfortable. And now you couldn't bring the police in on it
because you thought Irene Janney and I were working on something
and maybe we had it at a point where we were just about ready to
hand it over to the police. The only way you could bust that up was
to bring in a second killing, to kill Fellsinger. That's where the
practical side comes in, but it wasn't practical enough. You
overlooked a big issue. If I had facts to prove I hadn't killed
Gert, why would I want to kill Fellsinger?”

“You know, I thought of that.”

“You thought of it when it was too late.
Fellsinger was already dead. You had slipped up on that and maybe
you had slipped up on other things, so you were still afraid to
give it to the police. The night you came to Irene’s place you
weren't putting on any act. You were really in bad shape. You were
hoping I wouldn't be there and it would mean I had skipped town and
I was running away from the whole thing. That was what you wanted,
because then you'd know for sure the Fellsinger investment was
paying dividends your way, and you could finally talk to the
police. But here it comes, trouble again. Irene says Bob will be
arriving any minute now and she won't let you hide in the bedroom.
So you know I'm in that bedroom. Then you're sick. You're going
around on a spinning wheel and you can't get off. What's Vincent
Parry up to? What's keeping him here in San Francisco? Why doesn't
he run away? What is he waiting for? And how long is he going to
wait? I'm afraid —I'm afraid. Right, Madge?”

She ran thin forefingers up and down the
creases of the pale orange slacks. She looked at her knees, then
she arranged the violet box of candy in the middle of her lap and
studied the contents.

Parry folded his arms and watched
her.

She selected a chocolate and brought it up
slowly toward her mouth and when she had it halfway there she
stopped its progress, she let it come into her palm and her hand
closed on it and she squeezed it. The chocolate surface broke and
white butter cream came gushing out between her fingers. Her head
swayed from side to side and she opened her mouth as if in a
frantic need for air. She kept squeezing the mashed candy and then
all at once snapped her hand open and looked at what she had done.
There was a mess of chipped chocolate and butter cream all over her
palm and dripping between her fingers. She let out a grinding noise
of disgust and rubbed the stuff on her slacks. Then she rubbed her
hand on the bright orange house coat, kept rubbing until her hand
was clean again. Then she looked at the mess on her slacks and her
house coat and she raised her head and her mouth remained open,
wide open now in a loose, sagging sort of way.

She said, “I want you, Vincent. At night
I’ve cried in my want for you.”

He unfolded his arms and held them stiff,
away from his sides.

“All right, Vincent. Let’s examine it.
She's got you now. She's got you and you've got me. But if you
don't hold onto me it means they're still after you. And as long as
you don't have me it means you can't prove anything because I won't
be there to admit anything. Motivation alone isn't enough. They'll
want certain facts.”

“You’ll be there,” he said. He took a few
steps backward so that he was between the low rounded chair and the
door.

“You’re wrong, Vincent. You'll never to
able to prove it because I won't be there. You need evidence, you
need something concrete, you need a witness. And you don't have a
witness, do you? No. Of course you don't.”

He watched her. She began to laugh lightly
and with enjoyment.

The various shades of orange were merging
and melting and flowing toward him.

She kept laughing. She said, “You don’t
have a witness—no witness.”

“I’ve got the facts and I've got you and
that's all I need.”

“The facts aren’t enough. You can't prove
them without me.”

“But I’ve got you.”

“No, Vincent. You don’t have me.” She
stood up. She smiled at him.

He said, “Do you think I’m going to stand
here and let you get away?”

She took a long breath and he could hear
the dragging in her throat. She said, “They’ll always be looking
for you. She wants you very badly. And that's why she'd be willing
to run away with you and keep on running away and always scared,
always running away. And it would ruin everything for her but she
wouldn't care because she'd be with you and that's all she wants.
And you know that and that's why you won't take her. That's why she
doesn't have you now and she'll never have you and nobody will ever
have you. And that's the way I wanted it. And that's the way it is.
And it will always be that way.”

She laughed at him and he saw the gold
inlays. He saw the bright orange going back and away from him,
going too fast. She was running backwards, throwing herself
backwards as he went after her but she was too fast and he saw the
gold inlays glittering and the bright orange flaring as her arms
went wide as the gold inlays flashed as she hit the window and the
window gave way and the cracked glass went spraying and she went
through.

He was at the window. He leaned through
the broken window and he saw her going down, the bright orange
acrobat falling off the trapeze. And it was as if she was taking
him with her as she went down, the bright orange rolling and
tossing and going down and hitting the pavement five stories below.
He saw two baby carriages and two women and he heard the women
screeching.

Then he saw the upturned faces of the
women. And he knew they were staring at the face of the man up
there, framed in broken glass. They screeched louder.

He ran out of the apartment, thinking of
Irene, darted toward the elevator, thinking of Irene, knew he
couldn’t use the elevator or the front entrance. He ran down the
corridor and took the fire escape. He was thinking of Irene. He
used an alley and a narrow street and another alley and finally a
street with car tracks. He waited there, thinking of Irene and then
a street car came along and took him to the center of town. He ran
to the hotel, his brain jammed with Irene. He went up to his room
and got into the new clothes and packed his things. Then he was
downstairs and paying for one day and saying he was called out of
town unexpectedly and he was thinking of Irene and he was seeing
her alone in her little apartment and at the window as he went away
and wanting him to come back, wanting him to take her with him. And
he was trying to tell her how much he wanted to take her with him
but he couldn't take her with him because now there was no way to
prove his innocence and they would always be running away and even
though the road was wide it was dark, frantic, and there was no
certainty. There would be a haven now and then but no certainty and
he couldn't do that to her. He told himself she was all alone and
he would always think of her as all alone and he told himself to go
back there and take her with him. He told himself he couldn't do
that to her. Here she had a home and she was safe. With him she
would never be safe and she would never have a home because a home
was never a home when it was a hideaway and he knew what it was to
hide and run and hide again.

He couldn’t ask her to share that even
though he knew she would leap at sharing it. And he knew once she
had it, once it hit her, she wouldn't say anything and she would
cover up and smile and say everything was all right. That was
Irene. That was his girl. That was the happiness, the sweet purity
he had always wanted and wanted now more than anything. And he
could hear her pleading with him to come back and take her. He
could hear himself pleading with himself to go back and take her.
And under flashing sunlight the road remained dark.