Long After Midnight (15 page)

 
          
"I
don't want to kill you."

 
          
"One
part of you does. You're walling it in, you're trying not to let it out."

 
          
He
took the gun from his pocket. "I'm an old fool, I should never have come.
You're so beautiful."

 
          
"I'm
going to see Leonard tonight."

 
          
"Don't
talk."

 
          
"We're
flying to Paris in the morning."

 
          
"You
heard what I said!"

 
          
"And
then to Stockholm." She laughed sweetly and caressed his chin. "My
little fat man."

 
          
Something
began to stir in him. His face grew pale. He knew what was happening. The
hidden anger and revulsion and hatred in him were sending out faint pulses of
thought. And the delicate telepathic web in her wondrous head was receiving the
death impulse. The marionette. The invisible strings. He himself manipulating
her body.

 
          
"Plump,
odd little man, who once was so fair."

 
          
"Don't,"
he said.

 
          
"Old
while I am only thirty-one, ah, George, you were blind, working years to give
me time to fall in love again. Don't you think Leonard is lovely?"

 
          
He
raised the gun blindly.

 
          
"Katie."

 
          
"His head is as the most fine gold—"
she whispered.

 
          
"Katie,
don't!" he screamed.

 
          
"His locks are bushy and black as a
raven, his hands are as gold rings set with the beryl!"

 
          
How
could she speak those words! It was in
his
mind, how could
she
mouth it!

 
          
"Katie,
don't make me do this!"

 
          
"His cheeks are as a bed of
spices"
she murmured, eyes closed, moving about the room softly.
"His belly is as bright ivory overlaid
with sapphires; his legs are as pillars of marble
—"

 
          
"Katie!"
he shrieked.

 
          
"His mouth is most sweet—"

 
          
One
shot.

 
          
"—this is my beloved—"

 
          
Another
shot.

 
          
She
fell.

 
          
"Katie,
Katie, Katie!"

 
          
Four
more times he pumped bullets into her body.

 
          
She
lay shuddering. Her senseless mouth clicked wide and some insanely warped
mechanism had caused her to repeat again and again, "Beloved, beloved,
beloved, beloved, beloved . . ."

 
          
George
Hill fainted.

 
          
He
awakened to a cool cloth on his brow. "It's all over," said the dark
man. "Over?" George Hill whispered.

 
          
The
dark man nodded.

 
          
George
Hill looked weakly down at his hands. They had been covered with blood. When he
fainted he had dropped to the floor. The last thing he remembered was the
feeling of the real blood pouring upon his hands in a freshet.

 
          
His
hands were now clean washed.

 
          
"I've
got to leave," said George Hill.

 
          
"If
you feel capable."

 
          
"I'm
all right." He got up. "I'll go to Paris now, start over. I'm not to
try to phone Katie or anything, am I?"

 
          
"Katie
is dead."

 
          
“Yes.
I killed her, didn't I? God, the blood, it was
real!:

 
          
"We
are proud of that touch."

 
          
He
went down in the elevator to the street. It was raining, and he wanted to walk
for hours. The anger and destruction were purged away. The memory was so
terrible that he would never wish to kill again. Even if the real Katie were to
appear before him now, he would only thank God, and fall senselessly to his
knees. She was dead now. He had had his way. He had broken the law and no one
would know.

 
          
The
rain fell cool on his face. He must leave immediately, while the purge was in
effect. After all, what was the use of such purges if one took up the old
threads? The marionettes' function was primarily to prevent actual crime. If
you wanted to kill, hit, or torture someone, you took it out on one of those
un-stringed automatons. It wouldn't do to return to the apartment now. Katie
might be there. He wanted only to think of her as dead, a thing attended to in
deserving fashion.

 
          
He
stopped at the curb and watched the traffic flash by. He took deep breaths of
the good air and began to relax.

 
          
"Mr.
Hill?" said a voice at his elbow.

 
          
"Yes?"

 
          
A
manacle was snapped to Hill's wrist. "You're under arrest."

 
          
"But-"

 
          
"Come
along. Smith, take the other men upstairs, make the arrests!"

 
          
"You
can't do this to me," said George Hill.

 
          
"For
murder, yes, we can."

 
          
Thunder
sounded in the sky.

 
          
It
was eight-fifteen at night. It had been raining for ten days. It rained now on
the prison walls. He put his hands out to feel the drops gather in pools on his
trembling palms.

 
          
A
door clanged and he did not move but stood with his hands in the rain. His
lawyer looked up at him on his chair and said, "If s all over. You'll be
executed tonight."

 
          
George
Hill listened to the rain.

 
          
"She
wasn't real. I didn't kill her."

 
          
"It’s
the law, anyhow. You remember. The others are sentenced, too. The president of
Marionettes, Incorporated, will die at midnight. His three assistants will die
at one. You'll go about one-thirty."

 
          
"Thanks,"
said George. "You did all you could. I guess it was murder, no matter how
you look at it, image or not. The idea was there, the plot and the plan were
there. It lacked only the real Katie herself."

 
          
"If
s a matter of timing, too," said the lawyer. "Ten years ago you
wouldn't have got the death penalty. Ten years from now you wouldn't, either.
But they had to have an object case, a whipping boy. The use of marionettes has
grown so in the last year it's fantastic. The public must be scared out of it,
and scared badly. God knows where it would all wind up if it went on. There's
the spiritual side of it, too, where does life begin or end? are the robots
alive or dead? More than one church has been split up the seams on the
question. If they aren't alive, they're the next thing to it; they react, they
even think. You know the 'live robot' law that was passed two months ago; you
come under that. Just bad timing, is all, bad timing."

 
          
"The
government's right. I see that now," said George Hill.

 
          
"I'm
glad you understand the attitude of the law."

 
          
"Yes.
After all, they can't let murder be legal. Even if it's done with machines and
telepathy and wax. They'd be hypocrites to let me get away with my crime. For
it
was
a crime. I've felt guilty
about it ever since. I've felt the need of punishment. Isn't that odd? That's
how society gets to you. It makes you feel guilty even when you see no reason
to be...."

 
          
"I
have to go now. Is there anything you want?"

 
          
"Nothing,
thanks."

 
          
"Good-bye
then, Mr. Hill."

 
          
The
door shut.

 
          
George
Hill stood up on the chair, his hands twisting together, wet, outside the
windows bars. A red light burned in the wall suddenly. A voice came over the
audio: "Mr. Hill, your wife is here to see you."

 
          
He
gripped the bars.

 
          
She's
dead, he thought.

 
          
"Mr.
Hill?" asked the voice.

 
          
"She's
dead. I killed her."

 
          
"Your
wife is waiting in the anteroom, will you see her?"

 
          
"I
saw her fall, I shot her, I saw her fall dead!"

 
          
"Mr.
Hill, do you hear me?"

 
          
"Yes!"
he shouted, pounding at the wall with his fists. "I hear you. I hear you!
She's dead, she's dead, can't she let me be! I killed her, I won't see her,
she's dead!"

 
          
A
pause. "Very well, Mr. Hill," murmured the voice.

 
          
The
red light winked off.

 
          
Lightning
flashed through the sky and lit his face. He pressed his hot cheeks to the cold
bars and waited, while the rain fell. After a long time, a door opened
somewhere onto the street and he saw two caped figures emerge from the prison
office below. They paused under an arc light and glanced up.

 
          
It
was Katie. And beside her, Leonard Phelps.

 
          
"Katie!"

 
          
Her
face turned away. The man took her arm. They hurried across the avenue in the
black rain and got into a low car.

 
          
"Katie!"
He wrenched at the bars. He screamed and beat and pulled at the concrete ledge.
"She's alive! Guard! Guard! I saw her! She's not dead, I didn't kill her,
now you can let me out! I didn't murder anyone, it's all a joke, a mistake, I
saw her, I saw her! Katie, come back, tell them, Katie, say you're alive!
Katie!"

 
          
The
guards came running.

 
          
"You
can't kill me! I didn't do anything! Katie's alive, I saw her!"

 
          
"We
saw her, too, sir."

 
          
"But
let me free, then! Let me free!" It was insane. He choked and almost fell.

 
          
"We've
been through all that, sir, at the trial."

 
          
"It's
not fair!" He leaped up and clawed at the window, bellowing.

 
          
The
car drove away, Katie and Leonard inside it. Drove away to
Paris
and
Athens
and
Venice
and
London
next spring and
Stockholm
next summer and
Vienna
in the fall.