Fury on Sunday (8 page)

“Yes,” he said quickly.

“It’ll hurt,” she said. “A lot…”

“Then don’t put it on!” he snapped in a nerve-ragged voice. “What’s the matter with you?”

Jane’s lips pressed together, her mind more conscious of the situation again. He’s like a sullen little boy, she thought—only the little boy was wounded and he had a big gun in his hand. She wondered idly if the gun was really loaded.

Stan was standing near the bedroom door. Could he run in, lock the door and get the gun before Vince could shoot open the lock? His throat tightened. It seemed reasonable enough. But he didn’t move. He kept watching the two of them on the couch. He heard Jane say “You’ll have to go to a doctor.”

Vince started to answer, then gritted his teeth in pain and anger. She was just trying to make things more complicated. She knew he couldn’t go to a doctor. And he couldn’t leave there because they’d call the police and the police would take him back and they’d kill him for stabbing Harry with the bottle.

Why did everyone conspire against him? Why did everything go wrong? He had to get to Bob McCall. He had to free Ruth. It was his duty.

Your duty is to the piano, Vincent, only to the piano.

Saul’s words again filtering through the years like a poisonous gas. Liar! He had no duty to the piano. He looked down at his arm, feeling the throbbing hot pain in it. Then, in a moment of terrible shock, he wondered if he would ever play again.

He felt his stomach tighten.
To never play again
.

The world fell on him. Visions ran through his mind—he was on stage in Carnegie Hall, one empty tuxedo sleeve in his pocket, the other hand moving futilely over the keys, trying to play both parts at once. And people in the audience, silently shaking their heads. A pity, such a pity—he might have been one of the greats.

Saul, help me!

Jane looked at him in surprise when he sobbed. There was something in her eyes he didn’t want to see—something that looked too much like pity.

“Don’t look at me,” he gasped, “I swear to God I’ll kill you if you do.”

As he raised the gun to point it at her he noticed Stan moving near the bedroom door. His eyes fled over and he saw Stan’s face blanch.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Stan said.

“You better not try anything, Stan,” Vince gasped. “I swear to God I’d just as soon…”

His throat clogged and he swallowed. He had to get rid of Stan, he didn’t like Stan to stand there like that.

“Get in the kitchen,” he ordered. “Make me some coffee. I want some coffee.”

“All right, all right,” Stan said, “I’ll make some for you.”

Jane heard the bare feet moving across the rug, heard Stan flicking on the kitchen light, and she silently cursed him for his cowardice. She went on bandaging.

Stan stood in the middle of the bleak kitchen looking around for a weapon. He felt his heart thudding fitfully as his eyes moved over the walls, into the partially opened cabinets, over the stove and refrigerator.

He moved to the drawer in a step. Slowly, carefully, he drew it out without making a sound. He looked down at the long, shining knives.

“What are you doing!” Vince called.

Stan twitched and hurriedly pushed in the drawer.

“Making coffee!” he answered. And in his mind the accusation came,
You’re afraid, you’re a coward
.

In the living room, Vince was looking at the black nightgown Jane wore. As she moved her hands around his arm, tightening and pulling snug, he saw the movement of her uncupped breasts and he felt that strange, dismaying heat in his body again. It was wrong; he knew it was wrong.

The heat had come often in his young life. Saul had mocked it. Endlessly, Vince had fought that shapeless fire in his body, trying to force down the flames and, in so doing, only fanned them higher. Until they scorched.

He lowered his eyes when he saw that she noticed him staring at her breasts.

“I—I want a cigarette,” he said nervously.

“Over there,” Jane said, gesturing at the table beside the chair across the room.

“Get me some,” Vince said.

She got up and moved over the rug. He let his eyes run up and down her body. As she stood before the table, he could see her body outlined against the lamplight. His mouth pressed together angrily.

“Bitch,” he muttered, thinking she wouldn’t hear.

Her mouth tightened and her throat moved as she picked up the box of cigarettes. She knew Vince was looking at her body. She wondered, momentarily, if she could use her body as a weapon.

Forcing away the tight look, she turned and brought back the cigarettes. As she lit one for him her eyes moved over his tight, boylike face.

“How did you get out?” she asked.

“That’s my business,” he said, “not yours.”

But, after a moment, a thin, confident smile raised his lips. The throbbing wasn’t so bad, the bleeding had stopped. Why not tell her, scare her?

“I’m going to kill somebody,” he said as casually as he could. He liked the sound of the words.

Her eyes were on him.

“I’m going to shoot somebody right in the head,” he told her.

He didn’t understand the look in her eyes. Then she bent over and it seemed that, accidentally, as she did, the nightgown fell away from her breasts. He stared with sick eyes, the hot churning starting in his stomach.

Her eyes looked up at him now, suddenly inviting. It worked exactly opposite. He didn’t know why, she didn’t know why. But, suddenly, rage exploded in his mind and he flailed out with his pistol.

His aim was poor and the barrel end raked across her right temple, tearing open the skin. Jane fell back in fright, one hand flung up to protect herself.

“Bitch!” Vince yelled at her.

Stan came in hurriedly, his face slack with fear.

“Get in and make me some coffee, I said!” Vince screamed. Stan backed away toward the kitchen, his eyes on Jane.

“Are you all right?” he asked. He waited. “Jane?” he said.

“Make coffee, make coffee,” she said, her voice low and hating.

She sat there looking at Vince, her lips tight, feeling the thin dribble of blood on her temple.
I hope the police come and shoot him down like a dog. I hope they blow him to pieces
.

She saw him looking at her breasts again, and she turned away with a shudder.

Stan stood trembling before the stove, watching the coffee perk.

He started as Vince came far enough into the kitchen so he could watch both him and Jane.

“Just don’t try anything,” Vince said, bluffing a menace he didn’t feel. “Make me a sandwich too. I’m hungry.”

“A sandwich,” Stan said weakly as Vince walked out of the kitchen. He opened up the drawer again and looked in at the knives.
I have to
, he thought,
I have to
…

Vince walked around the living room, ignoring Jane. Then he stopped and looked around the room impatiently. Why was he staying here? He had to get to Bob’s apartment. He had his job, his obligation to Ruth.

But
how?
How did he get to Bob’s apartment without Stan and Jane warning the police?

I’ll rip out the phone
, he thought. He was suddenly pleased at the invention of his mind.

But the smile faded. They could go out after he left, call from a neighbor’s phone or from a phone booth in some store. And he couldn’t afford to waste two bullets. He might not even have them.

He fumbled with the gun, trying to open it so he could see how many bullets there were. But he knew nothing of guns and he couldn’t get it open. A hiss of anger passed his lips.

Then he found his eyes suddenly on the telephone beside the chair he was in. He looked at the black receiver and at the dial.

And the smile returned.

He grunted a little and felt Ruth’s legs twitch against him. Then he cleared his throat and tried to go back to sleep but the jangling wouldn’t let him.

He felt her hand on his shoulder.

“Honey?” she whispered.

He woke up. “Uh?”

“Telephone.”

“Oh, my God,” he muttered disgustedly.

He pulled back the covers and let his legs down to the floor. As he stood, he winced at the cold of the floorboards against his feet.

“Who could it be?” he heard her murmur from the dark warmth of the bed.

“God knows,” he said, yawning, and walked around the edge of the bed. In the living room the phone kept ringing.

“All right, all right,” he mumbled. He picked up the receiver with sleep-numbed fingers.

“Yeah.”

“Bob.”

Just his name; but the way it was spoken shook away the mists around his brain.

“Yes,” he answered.

“This is Stan, Bob I—could you cover over?”

“What?” Bob’s voice rose in unpleasant surprise.

“Could you—Bob, could you come over?” Stan’s voice was tightly urgent.

Bob yawned. “What time is it?” he asked.

“About three-fifteen.”

“My God, what are you doing, having a party?” Bob asked.

There was another pause.

“No, no—the—party is over.”

And the way Stan said that. It made Bob shudder; and, suddenly awake, he thought,
My God, he’s killed Jane!

His throat moved.

“You want me to come over?” he asked, not knowing what to say.

“Y-yes, Bob. Can you?”

“I guess so.” He took a deep breath. “All right, Stan, I’ll be right over,” he said. “Are you…?”

The receiver dropped abruptly on the other end of the line and Bob stood there a moment in the darkness holding the receiver to his ear. Then, slowly, he put down the receiver and went back into the bedroom.

“Who was it?” Ruth asked.

“Stan.”

“Stan? Why did he call?”

“I don’t know, hon. He wants me to come over.”

“
Now?
”

“Yes, I think I’d better go, too.”

Silence a moment; she felt her heartbeat quicken.

“All right if I turn on the light?” he asked.

“Yes, of course, honey.” Her voice was soft and concerned.

He turned on the bedside lamp and saw her propped up on one elbow looking at him. As the lamp flared on, she blinked and closed her eyes a moment. Then she opened them and looked back at him.

“What’s wrong, Bob?”

“He didn’t say, honey,” he told her. “He just wants me to come over.”

“Did he sound upset?”

He started taking off his pajamas.

“Yes,” he said, “he did.”

She caught her breath.

“Jane,” she said quickly.

He swallowed, then nodded his head.

“That’s what I was thinking,” he said.

“Oh,
no
,” she said. “It couldn’t be. He
loves
her.”

“How much can a guy take?” was his answer.

Quickly he dressed and she watched him pull on his trousers and tuck in the shirt ends with quick movements.

“Shall I go with you?” she asked.

“No, honey,” he said. “Stay in bed; you need your rest. And—” He blew out a breath, “if it’s what we think, I’d rather you weren’t there to see it.”

He sat down on the bed and started pulling on his socks.

“I wonder why he called us,” he said.

“Maybe he didn’t know who else to call.”

“Poor guy,” he said. “All those people who come to his parties—and probably not one of them he could call his friend.”

She shook her head.

“I hope it’s not what we think,” she said.

“You probably think it’s a ruse of Jane’s to get me over there,” he said.

He saw from the way her eyes lowered that he’d guessed right.

“Lie down, dumkopf,” he murmured and pushed her head down on the pillow with a gentle movement.

“Will you be gone long?” she asked.

“I don’t know, honey. I guess, if it’s what we think it, it’ll just be a matter of calling the police.”

He looked at her for a moment. Then he pressed her back again on the pillow and kissed her warm mouth.

“Go to sleep,” he said.

“Don’t stay too long,” she said. “I’ll worry.”

“I won’t,” he promised. “I—well, I just hope we
are
wrong and it’s something else.”

“Oh, so do I.”

He kissed her again and stood up. Reaching down he turned out the lamp.

She lay in the silence of the bedroom listening to his footsteps move across the living room and stop at the hall closet. She heard the hangers rattle as he took his jacket out, then the front door shut quietly and she was alone in the apartment.

She looked at the radium dialed clock and saw that it was almost three-thirty.

She made a worried sound in her throat. Was it really what Bob thought? Had Stan finally lost his mind and—done it? She rustled her head on the pillow. Not that she could blame Stan. Even if Jane was her friend, she knew as well as anyone that she had been no wife to Stan, that she kept Stan at a peak of nerves with her parties and her drive and her ceaseless, open infidelities.

And Stan was the type that would take it and take it, quietly, without a scene or a complaint until one day, one night, he would snap right down the middle, rise up and slay. It was something she and Bob had discussed often. Bob had always predicted it would end like this.

She lay there quietly and then, abruptly, she was sitting up and staring into the darkness.

Was it that? Had Stan killed her? Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, she felt her heart begin to beat in great, anxious pulses and felt her hands trembling on the sheet.

Bob had joked with her about it and she had smiled; but was it so incredible that Jane might have called and asked him over? No, no,
no
, how could she believe that? Would Bob lie to her and tell her that Stan had phoned if it were Jane?

And yet, she couldn’t stop the heavy heartbeats; she couldn’t check the trembling of her hands. Her breath began to quicken. She knew what Jane was like. She had seen the savage lusts she could arouse in herself at the slightest notice, knew she had no discretion at all when it came. And she knew she loved Bob too much. She
loved him so much that trusting him wasn’t enough. She didn’t trust another woman in the world.