The Nothing Man (11 page)

You see, you do see, don't you, how very hard it was? How even I, with stalwart purpose in my heart and lofty motives in my mind, might hesitate? She had to be told, yes, and certainly I intended to tell her. But she was making it so hard and she was so sure of herself, so positive that everything was now all right, so happy… And in a way I loved her.

Her small hard hand moved under the table and came to rest on my thigh. It moved down, up, down, up. It stayed up, pressed there firm yet trembling. She shivered and leaned against me.

Then, that sleepy-soft whisper again: "You've made me so happy, darling, and I'll make you so happy. You'll see, Brownie. You'll never be sad again."

"Sad?" I said, and I pressed the buzzer for the waiter. I needed one more drink. I would tell her after the second drink. "You are speaking in paradoxes, Deborah. I am a jolly
Courier
man, a member of the happy
Courier
family. We know no sadness, only joy in a job well done."

"You're sad," she said. "That's why you write those terribly sad poems."

He left for the second time. She sipped her drink, her fingers toying with the cardboard menu, a faintly teasing smile on her lips.

"Surprised you, didn't I? You thought it was a secret."

"A very rare type of secret," I said. "One dealing with the non-existent. Newspapermen don't write poetry, Deborah, never, never, ever. That's traditional."

"Oh, ye-es?" she drawled, smiling. "I know one that does. He was writing one the first time I saw him. In the office. He got rid of it very fast, but not quite fast enough… Not for someone who could read a menu upside down and across the table."

I lifted my glass. I took a very long swallow and set it down again. "Poetry," I said. "It places me in a pretty bad company doesn't it? I mean, that poem she had. They think there's a possibility that the killer may have written it."

"Do they?" She shrugged. "Oh, well…" Just, oh, well. Meaning nothing; meaning a great deal.

"Yes," I said. "That's what they think, and I have a strong hunch they may be right. I think they may have even more reason to think so in the not-too-distant future."

Here was my answer. Just a matter of minutes before- in my hotel room-I had been wondering how I could draw Stukey's attention away from Tom Judge, how I could prove once and for all that the murderer and the poet were the same person.

Now I knew how I could prove it.

Through Deborah.

If, say, there was another murder, and if a poem similar to the first one was found on the victim…

"Let's not talk about… it." She frowned. "But you won't write any more of those poems, will you? I think they're bad for you."

"I think they could be, myself," I said. "I certainly wouldn't care to have them become a matter of public knowledge, Deborah."

"Don't you worry, darling." She patted my thigh. "I'd never tell anyone. Now you just stop being sad, hmmmm? Because there's nothing to be sad about, now."

"Perhaps not," I said. "How can one be sad when he has the sky and the stars to gaze upon and God's own green carpet to rest his aching arches? Morning's at seven, Deborah. Morning's at seven, the hillside's dew-pearled, God's in his heaven, all's right with the world."

"That's awfully pretty, Brownie. Did you write that?"

"Yes," I said. "I did it under my pen name, Elizabeth Khayyam. I wrote it one eventide on a windswept hill while watching a father bird wing home to his wee ones. There was a long caterpillar in his beak and he had it swung over his shoulders, muffler fashion, as a shield against the wintry cold. I… Listen to me, Deborah! For God's sake, listen!"

She had been laughing, looking at me fondly. Now she went serious and she said, "No, Brownie. Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it. Not tonight, anyway."

"But you just don't-"

"You don't know everything about me either. What's the difference? I just don't care, Brownie! We're together and we're going to stay together, and that's all that matters. Oh, it's so wonderful, darling. Just think! Me, finding you, getting you back after I thought I'd lost you. The only man in the world I could-"

"Please," I said. "I-The world's a hell of a big place, and-please, please-"

"No. No," she said. "I won't listen. I only know I'd die without you. I don't want to hear anything that might-I don't want to hear anything. I don't need to. It wouldn't matter. Nothing about her or you and her or… It wouldn't matter, Brownie. I-I-I wouldn't care if you'd killed her!"

She nodded firmly, her eyes somehow cold yet burning. Up near the bar, the jukebox suddenly began to blare, shaking the walls with its clamor before someone turned down the control.

I took a cigarette from my package. I lighted it and inhaled, slowly, stalling for time.

Had the poetry meant anything to her? Had she been hinting, giving me a warning, when she said that it was bad for me? Did she know that I
had
killed Ellen, and…?

Probably she wouldn't care now-that is, if she did know. She could rationalize that. Ellen was no good. Ellen would have had it coming to her. Ellen was nothing to her, and I was everything.
But-
But what about later when she discovered that I was not everything, that I was nothing? That I was merely another blank page in her book of life. How would blunt, straightto-the-mark Deborah Chasen behave then? She would have no use for me-would she? And I knew what her attitude was toward people for whom she had no use. "She was dead, and I was so happy…" Wasn't that what she had said?

Perhaps I could tell her the truth and it would be all right. But if it wasn't all right-if she turned spiteful and vengeful-I'd be sunk. It would be too late to draw back, too late to try to silence her. I'd have lost the game, and there wouldn't be another one.

So…?

I tamped out my cigarette and swallowed the rest of my drink. "Your fabulous fanny," I said. "Is it quite comfortable, Deborah? Then keep it where it is while I procure my car and carpetbag, and we shall then head south into the dawn."

She let out a delighted squeal.

"Brownie! You sweet, funny… But hadn't I better-?"

"We will send for it," I said. "Whatever you need we will send foi Deborah. Meanwhile, with me providing a toothbrush and you providing yourself we shall want for nothing. We shall have paradise now."

She smiled, looking a little puzzled through the tenderness, but she didn't argue. She was right up on top of the load after a hard climb, and she was going to do nothing to upset the applecart.

"Do you believe in a personal paradise?" I said. "A personal hell?" Do you have a soul, Deborah?

"Hurry," she said. "Hurry as fast as you can, darling. We get in your car, I'm going to take this girdle off."

I hurried, but I was quite a little while at that. Because I had something more to do than get my car and check out at the club.

There was a hotel up the block and on the opposite side of the street. I remembered its arrangements well from the days when I was working in Los Angeles and covered conventions there.

Immediately inside the lobby entrance, a staircase led to the mezzanine. A little beyond the head of the stairs was the public stenographers's desk. She wasn't there at this hour, naturally, but her typewriter, a silent machine, was, and her wastebasket hadn't been emptied.

I sat down, dipped into the basket, and selected a discarded second-sheet with only a few lines at the top. I creased it and tore them off.

I turned the paper into the typewriter.

The poem went very fast; I suspect that I was lifting it, at least in part, from my original manuscript. When I had finished, I laid it on the desk and scrubbed both sides of the page with my handkerchief. I folded it, using the handkerchief, picked it up with same, and stuffed it into my pocket…

I am somewhat hazy in spots about the ride to Pacific City, but my general recollection is that she enjoyed it immensely. Not that I didn't-although my mind was not exactly pleasure-bent-but I didn't matter. I meant it to be her party, and I believe it was a dilly.

The highway was practically barren of traffic. I had had the foresight to lay in a plentiful supply of beverages, and I saw to it that she sampled them generously. We rode southward into the fog, her laughter growing louder and louder. She braced her feet against the dashboard and raised her hips off the seat, trying to remove the girdle. She tried it a half dozen times, and each time she'd barely get started when laughter overpowered her. She flopped back in the seat, snickering and sputtering and guffawing. She hugged me around the hips, giggling and choking, shivering against me.

"B-Brownie, you-you s-st… Ha, ha, ha, ha-y-you s-stop n-now, B-Brownie…!"

"You bray like a goddamned jackass, Deborah," I said. "Like a bitch baying at the moon."

"B-Brownie! Now, that's not in… ha, ha, ha, ha…"

"Shall I breed you, Deborah? Is your tail tingling, my prize bitch?"

"Ha, ha… D-don't talk about d-dogs, Brownie. I- I-Oh, d-darling… ha, ha, ha, ha…"

She was so wonderfully earthy and human. Eve before the apple, Circe with the giggles, Pompadour on a night off.

About thirty miles out of Los Angeles, I turned the car onto the beach and got out. I opened the door on her side, and she lay back with her legs stuck out and her skirts up, and I got a good two-handed grip on the girdle.

I gave a hell of a yank.

Well, I got rid of the thing, the girdle, and I found out something. About her size. However big she looked in certain places, she wasn't actually; it was simply the way she was built. There just wasn't enough of her to be big. As a man with some experience in such things, I'd say that she couldn't have weighed much more than a hundred and ten pounds.

So I yanked, thinking there was much more ballast than there was, and the girdle skidded off of her. My hands shot upward and backward, flinging the girdle into the ocean. I stumbled and fell flat on my back. Then she was out of the car and beside me.

She sat back, looking down at me almost gravely. And the sand felt peaceful and soft and warm, and so did she.

"You're very soft," I said. "Very soft and warm, Deborah."

"I don't have any pants on," she said. "I guess that's why I feel that way."

"I'll tell you something," I said. "You'll never die, Deborah. There is no death in you, only life. So long as there is laughter, so long as there is warmth and light, so long as there is soft flesh, fresh and sweet-smelling like no perfume ever made, so long as there is a breast to cup and a thigh to caress… you'll live, Deborah. You'll never die."

"That's awfully pretty," she said. "Want me to tell you something?"

"Please do," I said.

"I don't care if I do die. Not now, Brownie. Not after tonight."

We drove on to Pacific City.

We got to my shack just before dawn.

And I killed her.

You see, the two-way pull wasn't working as it should. It was pulling on me, trying to jerk me out into that other world, but she was pulling, too, pulling me in the opposite direction. And she was stronger than it was.

It was strange, very, how strong she was, how one so small could be so strong. I didn't believe that I could kill her. I was afraid to do it. I wasn't afraid of being caught, you understand. I was quite sure that I wouldn't be, and, since I am writing this some weeks later, you are aware that I was not. It was a fear away from and beyond the purely personal. It was as though she were life itself, the root of all life, and when I killed it, that, her, all life would vanish.

_And I had visions of a parched and withering earth, a vast and empty desert where a dead man walked through eternity_.

I didn't think I could kill her.

It is hard to believe that I did.

Even now, now more than ever, as I sit here alone in the
Courier
city room, and I am above self-delusion and below reproach-now when my one task is to set the record straight-it is hard to believe that I did it.

I find myself thinking that there must have been someone else, someone who knew about her and- But, of course, I did do it. The act of murder is not to be forgotten quickly, and I remember the facts of this one well. I did it… but not then. More than two thirds of a day passed, in the meantime, and I think you should be told about that.

I think we should keep her alive as long as we can..

I parked the car at the side of the house, and we went inside. She went to the bathroom while I drew the shades, and then she came out and I went.

She'd slept for about the last hour of the ride, and she was fairly wide awake now. She stood in the center of the living-room, smiling at me a little timidly as I came in, and she said she bet she looked a sight, didn't she?

"Awful," I agreed, and I gave her a kiss on the mouth and a small swat on the rear. "A hung-over hussy if I ever saw one. You must have a drink and pull yourself together."

"Oh-uh-" She hesitated. "Do you want a drink, Brownie?"

"It gags me to think of it," I said. "But I shall force it down. I will not let you drink alone."

I fixed us two whopping drinks and brought them in to the lounge. She curled up at my side, pulling my arm around her and we sat there drinking and talking. And saying very little. A train thundered by, leaving the house a-tremble. She pulled my arm tighter, pressing my hand against her breast.

"Brownie. You're… you're not still afraid? I mean, you don't think it might not be all right?"

"I am sure it will be," I said. "In such a package only quality could prevail."

"No, really, darling. If you're-"

"Really," I said. "Honest and truly. And you have your whole life to prove it to me."

"Mmmm," she said, and she wriggled. "Promise me something, Brownie? Don't die before I do, I wouldn't want to live without you, darling! Without your love."

"I promise," I said. And after a moment I added, "We will die together, Deborah. That is the way it will be. When you die, I will die."

"Will you, Brownie? Would you really want to?"

"I don't think," I said, "it will be a matter of wanting."

We drank. I kept filling our glasses. She asked me if my legs didn't get awfully stiff from driving, and wasn't I awfully tired. I said that they did indeed, and that I didn't get so much tired as tense. As soon as I got limbered up and relaxed a little…

"Brownie," she said.

"Yes?"

"I-nothing."

Several minutes passes; five or it might have been ten.

"Brownie-"

"Yes?"

"Nothing."

We went on drinking. I began to have a hard time keeping up with her. Finally she mumbled something about getting a sleeping pill, and she started to get up. Then she fell back, letting her head slide down into my lap.

She stared up at me squinting, drowsy and dizzy. One of her fingers wobbled and wavered, pointing at me. "Y-You know what? Y-You j-jus' got one eye. P-Poor Brownie o'ny got one eye…"

"The other one is turned inward," I said. "It is examining my soul."

"Mmmm?" she mumbled. "Jus'-just got-"

Her eyelids closed, and her lips parted and stayed parted. She slept.

I carried her into the bedroom and put her on the bed. I loosened her brassiere, took off her shoes, and pulled the spread over her. Then I went back to the lounge.

I poured another drink, but I didn't take it. Exhaustion suddenly overpowered me, and in a split second I was sound asleep…

When I awakened, the phone was ringing and she was kneeling at the side of the lounge, shaking me.

I started to sit up. I flopped back down again, yawning and rubbing my eyes. I looked at her, dully, wondering who she was and how she had got here.

"The phone, darling," she said. "Hadn't you better answer it?"

"Phone?"

"It's been ringing a long time, Brownie. Shall I answer it for you?"

That brought me awake, or much more awake than I was. It brought back my memory. I asked her the time, and she said it was a quarter of three.

"Probably the paper." I sat up, yawning. "Let 'em ring. If they knew I was back, they'd wonder why I hadn't come in. Might want me for something even this late."

"All right, Brownie. Want to go back to sleep again?"

"Yes-no," I said. "How about some coffee?"

"I've got some made, darling. I'll get it right away."

She went out into the kitchen. The phone stopped ringing. I sat looking down at the floor, at the blanket which must have been covering me.

It didn't necessarily mean anything. Neither it nor the fact that my shoes were off and the buckle of my belt unfastened. When you have drunk as long and as much as I have, you do a great many things without remembering or thinking about them. Just automatically. Frequently I have undressed and put myself to bed without ever knowing that I had done it.

So this, the condition I had awakened in, was doubtless more of the same. But so long as she was awake, it seemed like a good idea for me to be. She might be getting curious. She might become actively curious if she had the opportunity. _Maybe she already had_.

I washed while the coffee was heating and held brief and silent confab with that strange guy in the mirror. He looked a little haggard this morning-I suspected an incipient case of cirrhosis of soul-but withal he seemed reasonably at peace. He was strongly of the opinion that Deborah should not be killed.

"Unnecessary, my dear man," he advised me. "I suspect, as you did originally, that she is not greatly endowed with sharpness. She is not stupid, of course; she can be notsharp and not-stupid, also. She is just a very natural, very lovely, very simple and straightforward woman."

"Yeah, sure. But she said-"

"A manner of speaking; we all say things like that. But-assume that it was not. Let us say that she saw the connection between the poetry and Ellen's death. It didn't change her love for you. She went right on loving and trusting you. Would she, then, feeling about you as she does, suddenly turn on you because of something you cannot help? And-to make another far-fetched assumption-suppose she did? You have an airtight alibi, haven't you? You couldn't have crossed the bay that night. So, what if she should-?"

"I don't know," I said. "I don't know to all the questions. The deal's so goddamned screwed up and-and I can't take chances-and there's Tom Judge. I don't know why the hell they haven't nabbed him already."

"What about Tom Judge, anyway? The fact that there's another murder and another poem while he's in custody won't necessarily establish his innocence of the first one."

"It will throw considerable doubt upon the matter of his guilt. I'll do the rest. After I talk with Mr. Lovelace, and Mr. Lovelace talks with Mr. Stukey, Mr. Judge will be released. And promptly."

"We-ell… I suppose so. But-want to make a small bet? I'll bet you don't kill her. You can't."

"You think not, huh?"

"I
know
not. You can't kill her, Brownie. If she gets killed, it won't be by you."

She'd whipped up some toast and scrambled eggs along with the coffee, and it tasted better than any food I'd eaten in a long time. She'd already had a bite, she said, but she had coffee with me. We sat at the table, smoking and drinking coffee, making quite a bit of conversation but saying very little. She hadn't slept a great deal, she said. She'd had a hard time sleeping in recent years and had come to depend heavily on sleeping pills. Having taken none before retiring, she'd been pretty wakeful despite the booze.

We moved in to the lounge after a while, and she sat with her legs drawn up, her head resting against my shoulder.

"Brownie," she said. "Am I keeping you from anything? If there's anything at all you have to do-"

"I'm doing it," I said. "This is what most needs doing right now."

"I thought you might get me that toothbrush… if you're going out. I could use one."

"I may have to go out later on," I said. "I'll get whatever you need then."

It occurred to me suddenly that it might have been Stukey calling a while before. He might already have Tom Judge. But… no, it wasn't likely; it must have been the paper checking on me. Stukey wouldn't have stopped with a call. Knowing me as he did, he would have come out to see if I was there.

We drank, or rather, I did. Deborah barely sipped at her glass. The afternoon-what there was left of it-slipped away and darkness came. And she never asked that we- that we go- Deborah stirred lazily. She stretched, arching her breasts, and stood up. She asked me if I wouldn't like her to fix something to eat, and I said, well, I would have to give the matter some thought. We were discussing it when the phone rang.

I glanced at the clock: seven straight up. There wouldn't have been anyone at the paper for hours.

I picked up the receiver. It was Stukey.

"We got him, keed. It'll knock you flat when you hear who it is."

He told me who it was. Tom Judge. It did not surprise me in the least.

"Good God!" I said, putting a good heavy exclamation mark behind the phrase. "It's incredible, I never liked the stupid jerk, but I wouldn't have thought-Has he confessed yet, Stuke?"

"There ain't hardly been time yet. We just pulled him in. But he's our boy, all right, pal. He fits all the specifications, and he's got that old guilty look written all over him."

"And he's been identified, of course? By the cab driver."

"We-ell, no." He hesitated. "The taxi angle didn't pan out. We picked him up on an anonymous tip. Came in on the switchboard, and that dumb ox we got workin' there didn't trace-"

"What about his wife?" I said. "She admits he wasn't at home that night?"

"We-ell"-again a pause-"no. But, o' course, she's lyin'… He's it, Clint; I'd swear to it on a stack of Bibles. How soon'll you be down?"

It was my turn to hesitate, and I did, lengthily. Then I let him hear an uncomfortable laugh.

"This one kind of throws me, Stuke," I said. "If it was anyone else but him-another
Courier
employee-I. You see what I mean? There's no real evidence against him. Suppose you had to turn him loose, and I had to go on working with the guy?"

"Well, yeah. But, keed, I
know
this baby is-"

"You knew the same thing about me. Remember?"

"Naw! No, I didn't," he protested. "I couldn't find you anywhere and I figured you was the only one with a motive, and-and I was sore. But I knew you hadn't done it as soon as I cooled off. I didn't have that ol' hunch like I got about this guy. Why, hell, Clint, I-"

"I'm not throwing it up to you," I said. "I'm just pointing up the possibility that you might be wrong about Judge… I think I'd better steer clear of this for the moment, Stuke. Anyway-unless Judge cracks before then-I want to talk with Mr. Lovelace before I get personally involved."

"Well, yeah," he said grudgingly. "I see what you mean."

"He'd be damned sore, you know, if Judge wasn't guilty. He'll probably be damned sore, in any case. The idea of a
Courier
man being a murderer won't sit at all well with the old boy."

"No…" There was a thoughtful silence. "I guess he won't like it much. But, looky, keed, I ain't playing hotsytotsy with no murderer just because-"

"You're damned right you're not," I said. "If you did, you'd have me on your tail. All I'm saying is that I'd better keep out of the frammis until I talk to Lovelace, unless Judge spills in the meantime. You can hold him seventytwo hours, can't you?"

"Well, sure. But-"

"I'll let it ride, then," I said. "I'll talk to Lovelace in the morning and get in touch with you afterward. I'd do it tonight, but we can't break the story before morning, anyway, and Lovey gets pretty hot if he's bothered at night."

Stukey grunted, cursed under his breath. He said, "Well, I sure as hell hate to… What you think, keed? I ought to go pretty easy on this character until you get the word? Just kind of leave him alone and let him stew?"