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I ran from the window, dressed hurriedly and ran down to help Chris in any way that I could. Being the only friend he had, I felt I should. I arrived just as the door of the apartment building was opening, and Chris was coming out. The people who had gathered at their windows were almost reaching a fury pitch, for this was the first time that any of them had ever seen more than the hairy apparition at the window. He walked out and said he was ready to go, I called to him and my presence seemed to make him more calm, although to others, he outwardly looked as composed as ever. He put his arm out to me and I held him and walked with him toward the police car. The police were walking on either side of us. He was telling me that he had seen nothing. He said he heard nothing but footsteps and a shot, but had seen none of it.

As we approached the police car, his body lurched forward, as the violating sound returned to haunt the silently watching buildings. His body pulled against my arm with a tautness and a jerking that threw me off balance. He became limp in my arms, which I spread to support him. The police began to run for cover, looking for the assassin. I was in the middle of the street trying to support Chris's sagging body, and lower his inert form as slowly as I could to the ground. Chris was dead, never could he tell of the spectacle he had seen, of the murder, or of the murderer, nor could he ever, thought I, poor Chris, poor wonderful, blind, Chris.

CONNIE

A woman walked towards us; not an old woman, but one who looked as if she already had 60,000 miles on her. About her there was an appearance of fading beauty. Her clothes were frilly and garish. You could tell she was high, not much, but just enough to free her from her mortal bonds. As Ed and I approached, she looked at Ed in an obviously coy way, and said,

“Got a light, honey?”

Ed lit her cigarette, and as we continued walking, Ed said: “Hot stuff, eh, pal? Want a little company, probably only cost a couple of drinks”.

“It's not quite as funny as all that, Ed,” I said. “I happen to know that tramp. I knew her real well, as a matter of fact … we were going to be married”.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah … that's Connie. She had quite a body then, and a face—wow. Would drive me crazy every time I saw her. Really a fabulous girl”.

I was talking to Ed Sawyer, a fellow I had met at the new job I recently began at Franklin Johnson, an importer on Vine Street. Ed and I became quite friendly, sort of buddies at work. We had just started out on a lunch break when we saw Connie. This was the first time I had seen her in about five years, and she sure had changed. The last time I saw her, she was the girl I wanted to marry, and … well, it never worked out. Ed and I walked into a drug store and sat down at the lunch counter. Ed began to ask all sorts of questions, and seeing her again like that after all these years, put me in a very melancholic mood. Words began to spew out, seemingly without any effort on my part.

“She and I became friendly about nine months after I came to California”, I mused, “that was about seven years ago. She was a tremendously attractive girl then, about five foot two, with a body that was round, soft and fleshy. One that filled out clothes so excitingly. The kind of body that undulated all over when she walked, and made you feel you were going cross-eyed if you watched her from behind. Her face was cute, not beautiful, but real cute. Dark, warm, passionate eyes showed beneath long, thin eyebrows, etched on white, white skin. Her nose was short and straight, and her mouth was small and thin lipped, and felt good when you kissed it. She wore her naturally brown hair long, but tinted a different color to match her moods. She looked good in every color too!

“She was an aspiring actress, you know the bit. This damn town is full of people who are making a name for themselves, or sliding down, or making a comeback, or something. Everybody wants to be a star. Well, Connie wanted to act, to make the big time, she was to be the great new light of the movies. She was so new, the movie makers didn't know her, not yet. We met one day at a little lunch place, something like this. I noticed this fine looking girl sitting at the counter alone. At first I only noticed how zaftig she was, if you know what I mean. Then I noticed the way she was skimping over a burger and Coke, and, well, I don't know how I saw it, but you know how you feel when you think a person doesn't have enough cash to buy a good meal? That's the way I felt. I figured she hadn't eaten since the burger and Coke she had the day before. And, I was right, she told me, after I chivalrously asked her to join me for lunch. I told her I was a stranger to this section of town, and I never liked to eat lunch alone. Since my youth, I told her, I always ate lunch with a maiden aunt, and after her death I left the old ranch in Colorado, came to California, and since haven't been able to enjoy a single luncheon. I didn't want her to feel I was buying her lunch because she looked broke, and I thought my maiden aunt story might cheer her up a bit. She smiled and said she'd love to keep me company”.

Ed's nod urged more.

“We talked some during lunch and she told me she was trying to become an actress. She was looking for her first break, and since funds were pretty low, she was glad I had asked her to have lunch with me. I told her I was doubly glad, first because I had done a good deed, and secondly, because in looking more closely at her, she appeared to be prettier than my aunt. We laughed a lot and had a good time, so I asked her to the movies that night. She accepted, and we had a wonderful evening together. I never had a better time with anyone in my life”.

“After that we began to see quite a bit of each other. I was working in a public relations place over on Sunset at the time, we would meet after I finished work. She was almost always free. She would spend her day going to a few studios in the morning trying to get some work, or she'd meet someone who might be able to help her, or she'd just see some of her friends, then she'd go to the little rooming house where she was staying and work the switchboard for two hours a day to earn her room rent. That would just about leave her with enough time to make herself beautiful and come to meet me at a little spaghetti joint on Maple Street. We would have dinner, and then go for a walk, or talk, or see a movie. We really had great times those days, and I was glad to have met such a wonderful girl. I was so happy I could hardly concentrate on my work during the day”.

“Once in a while, after dinner, she would come over to my place, and I would change, then we'd go out, after which I always took her home. One night, though, she stayed with me at my place. I held her in my arms all night, and when morning came I couldn't bear to let her go. And, well, she never stayed at the boarding house again, not while we were going out together, anyway”.

“Go on”, said Ed. “What happened?”

“She moved her things to my place, and we became inseparable, almost. We decided we'd get married real soon. This was something new and different for me. I had been with a lot of women before, but I didn't give a damn about any of them. This time I was flipping out, and I wanted to get married. We were going to get the benefit of a J.P. as soon as it could be arranged”.

“As I said, she'd go around trying to land parts and seeing agents that were going to help her. You know from what you read you'd never think there were any nice girls trying to make it in this business. I only mention this so you don't get the wrong impression of Connie. She was a fine woman, a real woman, and she loved me … me alone, forever”.

“Anyhow, one night she wasn't at the place when I got there, so I just put a couple of records on the turntable, mixed up a batch of drinks, sat down with a magazine, and waited for her. She had gotten a couple of bit parts lately, so I figured she was working a little late this night. After a couple of hours you might be able to figure I was not only a little worried, but a trifle annoyed. I began to imagine all sorts of things, and my nerves started to give. I mixed another batch of drinks and just sat watching the clock and drinking with determination. Finally, about ten-thirty, the key turning in the lock glued me to my seat. She came into the apartment, and as I turned to see her, I thought someone had just put their hand on my head and began pushing downward. I was numbed. She looked at me through bleak eyes. She looked haggard. She looked as I feared she might. Putting herself down in a chair, she began to cry hysterically. ‘Oh, baby, baby,' she screamed. I grabbed her by the shoulders and snapped her head back to look at her face. She had been drinking, you could see it, you could smell it. ‘Where in hell have you been? What's the matter?', I demanded. She hung in my arms, lifeless, except for the crying. I was starting to crack. What was it, I begged. She gathered up all the energy she had, and looking away, blurted …

“‘I went for a drink down at Ciro's with an agent', she said. ‘You know, the one I said got me the part in that picture yesterday'.

“‘Yeah, yeah'.

“‘Well, I had one, two, maybe three drinks, and then everything is blank. I don't remember anything except those three drinks, and … and … oh, baby', she started crying violently.

“‘And what? What?'

“‘I came to and I was in bed with him'”.

Ed was just staring, hanging on every word.

“Ed, somebody grabbed my stomach and twisted, hard. I couldn't say a word. I could no longer breathe. I was dying. I was dead. She screamed and ranted. She was sobbing through gasps about the horrible thing she did to me. ‘She didn't want to … she didn't remember anything … Oh, what she did to me'. I couldn't speak. I think I must have seen blood oozing over my eyeballs. I was going to kill him. I was going to rip him apart, but not now. I couldn't leave Connie, not in the condition she was in. That rotten son-of-a-bitch—the guy, I mean”.

“What happened—with the guy?”

“I got to him afterwards, but things between Connie and me were never the same. I went to his office. There he was in front of me, behind his desk. I can see him now, smiling his affable, affected smile, calculated to win you over. You don't know me, I said, but we have a mutual friend. My voice began to leave me. I didn't want to kill him, I didn't want that, not anymore. I had thought long and hard about it and decided killing him wouldn't change things. I just wanted to see the guy. I just had to see the rotten bastard. I couldn't get into a rage again, violence had left me. I had become resigned to what had happened, nothing could erase it. I just wanted to see him. He must have sensed my state of mind, the smile left his face.

“‘Who is that'”, the guy asked.

“‘Connie'”, said I. He shot a nervous glance at me. “‘You know why I'm here? I just wanted to see what a lowlife really looked like. You miserable' …”

“‘Now wait a minute, bud'”, he said. “‘Whatever went on, if anything, between any girl and myself is my business, and hers'. His unconcerned yet plaintive way of speaking made my blood boil. For a moment, I couldn't even see. I grabbed blindly and swung my fist with a strength that was not my own. God, I thought I'd kill him with that punch. I walked out, not even pausing to look back. I left him lying there on the floor of his office”.

“What about Connie?” asked Ed.

“Well, I was really sick about it, but Connie took it real bad. She didn't draw a sober breath for a week. She just sat looking into space, drinking and crying. I tried to reason her back to reality, “It's okay, baby. It's not your fault”. But I couldn't reach her. One day when I got home, she had already left, without leaving a note, a message … nothing”.

“That's horrible, it really is”, said Ed.

“Yeah, and I hadn't seen her since. I heard she was still around, always a little high, never with an enemy in the world anymore, if you know what I mean?”

Ed looked at me blankly, then said: “We better get back to the office”.

We paid the check and started back.

“You know, Ed”, I tried to say as calmly as I could, “I should have killed that bastard agent. He killed two people. You're looking at one … you just saw the other.

ONLY A MATTER OF TIME

Flame flickered into life at the end of the match, illuminating the darkened room with a pale, jaundiced glow. Shadows appeared behind objects in front and to the side of me, throwing fantastic, elongated specters on the wall. I inhaled through the cigarette, infusing it with a glowing ember. The match extinguished in the wind created by its flight through the air, and the room again fell into an obscurity of black. I've been sitting on the couch for what seems to be at least an hour. Through the windows I've watched the glow of day die and the cooling shadow of night deepen. It all seems so strange to me now, now that I'm home alone, in the safety and comfort of my apartment, with merely the spasmodic glow of a cigarette for company. Only a few hours ago, we had been together, she and I, and now she was gone, like the silent fleeting of a cat in the dead of night. Many times before, when unpleasantly pressed by circumstances, I have consoled myself with the thought that with a short passage of time all my trouble would be over. That's all life ever pared away to, a passage of time, and no matter how long the passage, each second of consciousness was a second less to wait, … one less, … another, … another.

Be patient, time will pass, it has to. Soon the entire problem will be over, so stop worrying
,

I thought to myself. But now my fear of time was mounting. I missed her terribly. I could hardly keep myself in the soft cushiony hold of the couch. I wanted to run to the phone to call her. I wanted to step into the high powered car that sat at the curb awaiting its master and spark it into its mechanical life, that could zoom me to her so quickly. I could stand it no longer. I had to go to her. But no, what would be the purpose of it all. She didn't want to see me anymore …