Savage Night (12 page)

I
was in bed until Friday. Or, I should say, I didn’t leave the house until then, because I didn’t stay in bed all the time. When I had to vomit or use the toilet I went to the bathroom, and I made sure that everything was flushed down good.

I told everyone that I felt all right—that I was just sort of weak and tired. And aside from all that blood and phlegm, which began tapering off about Thursday, there
didn’t
seem to be a hell of a lot wrong with me. I didn’t have much pain. Like I said, I was just weak and tired. And I had a funny feeling that a lot of me had been taken away.

What there was of me was all right, but there wasn’t much of me any more.

Fay spent a lot of time in my room. And that was okay, of course, since she was supposed to take care of me. We had plenty of time to talk.

She said that Jake had been in the house and in bed every night by eleven o’clock. As she put it, he was behaving like a perfect lamb.

“How about that, anyway?” I asked her, making it sound casual. “I mean, how come he lets you boss him around? What’s he afraid of?”

She shrugged. “Gosh, I don’t know, honey. Afraid I’ll leave him, I guess.”

“It’s not doing him a hell of a lot of good for you to stay.”

“No?” She laughed huskily, slanting her eyes at me. “Now how would you guess a thing like that?”

I let the talk drift off onto other things—what a funny little guy Kendall was and who in the hell could have seduced Ruthie—and after a while I let it drift back to Jake again.

“This board money doesn’t amount to anything,” I said, “and I don’t see how he can make any dough in that shop of his. How do you keep going?”

“You call this going?”

“It takes dough. Quite a bit with Jake hitting the whiz so hard.”

“We-el, he does have
some
business, Carl. Me”—she guffawed and put her hand over her mouth—“I’d be afraid I’d get scalped. But everyone knows him and knew his folks, and he has some trade. On Fridays and Saturdays, you know, when all the shops are busy. And he’s usually hanging around there, at night, staying open, when the other shops are closed.”

One day—Wednesday, I think it was, when she brought my lunch up—I asked her if Jake had ever mentioned going back to jail.

She shook her head firmly. “For ten years? He couldn’t take it when he was being paid off heavy—when he knew he’d be taken care of when he got out. They wouldn’t play with him any more, would they, Carl? If he was willing? He’d just do his time and they’d get him when it was over?”

I nodded. “If they couldn’t arrange to get him inside…Why in hell did he do it anyway, Fay? I know the cops probably shot him a big line about how they’d protect him and no one would dare touch him because it just wouldn’t be good business, but—”

“And how! I hated to lose out on that payoff money, but I didn’t think—no one seemed to think that—”

“Jake must have known how it would be. Hell, look at the way he started slipping. Hitting the jug and letting himself go. Look at the way he blew up when he spotted me.”

“Yeah. Well—” She shook her head again. “Why do we do anything? He was going nuts in jail. He felt like he’d been the fall guy for the rest of the crowd, and the money he was getting wasn’t doing
him
any good. So—”

That was about the size of the matter. I knew it. I’d been briefed on every phase of the deal, just what had happened and why and how it had happened.

But I wanted her to tell me, anyway.

“Why doesn’t he turn himself into custody? Stay in the jug until after the trial is over?”

“Why?” She frowned at me, puzzled.

“That’s what I said. If he’s so sure I’m—someone’s going to bump him off to keep him from talking, why—?”

“But, honey. What good would that do? They’d get him afterwards.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “That’s the way it would be, all right.” Her frown deepened a little.

“Honey…You’re not—not getting nervous, are you?”

“About him?” I forced a laugh. “Not a chance. He’s in the bag and I’m all set to sew it up.”

“How? Tell me, Carl.”

I hadn’t meant to tell her so soon. The safest way would have been to keep it to myself right up to the last minute. But—well, I’d got her a little worried with all that questioning. And it looked to me like I’d better show her I was right on the ball before she got more worried.

“Here’s the deal,” I said. “We’ll pick a weekend night when Ruth’s gone home to her folks, and—”

She, Fay, would set Jake up. She’d meet him downtown earlier and see that he didn’t get too much to drink. Then she’d go on home, after she had him good and teased up, to get ready for what she’d promised to give him.

“Make him believe it,” I said. “Make him want it so bad he can taste it. Know what I mean?”

“I know. Go on, Carl.”

“Okay. You go on home. He gives you a few minutes, and then he follows you. I’ll be watching at the door of the bakery, and I follow him. I catch up with him at the steps, pop his neck and drop him off on his head. I beat it back to the bakery, and you discover him. You heard him stumble, see, like he’s always stumbling on those steps. That’s it.”

“How will you—his neck—?”

“It’s easy. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Well, gosh. It—it sounds so…so simple!”

“You want it hard?”

“Well, no—” Her frown went away and she laughed. “When do we do it, Carl?”

“I’ll let you know. Not for weeks yet.”

“Gee,” she said, wonderingly. “Imagine me thinking you might be getting a little sca—worried!”

“Are you kidding?” I said.

“Gee,” she said, again. “You tough little bastard, you!”

…Kendall was in to see me at least twice a day. He fussed around over me like I was a two-year-old kid, feeling my forehead and asking me if I didn’t want this or that or the other, then kind of scolding me about smoking too much and not taking better care of myself.

“You really must, Mr. Bigelow. So much depends on it,” he’d say.

And I’d say, “Yes, sir, Mr. Kendall. I understand.”

It seemed that quite a few guys had got themselves locked into the cold-storage room at one time or another, and he took it for granted that I’d done the same. He also took it for granted that I’d opened that side door of the bakery for some reason, and left it unlocked.

And, of course, I didn’t correct him. I didn’t point out that he’d done it himself when he was trying out the new key.

Kendall usually managed to be around when the doctor came to see me, but he and the doc didn’t do much talking after the first couple visits. Kendall didn’t want to be told that I was in bad shape, and Dodson apparently wasn’t a guy to pull his punches. So, after the first couple visits, when Kendall argued with him and kept calling him a pessimist, the doctor got sort of grim and clammed up. About all he’d say was I’d be all right this time—
but.
“But,” he’d say, and let it go at that.

And Kendall would be pretty red-faced and huffy, and almost glare at him until he got out of my room.

“A pessimist,” he’d say, huffily. “Always looking on the dark side of everything…You
are
feeling better, aren’t you, Mr. Bigelow?”

“Sure. Sure, I feel fine, Mr. Kendall,” I’d say.

Thursday evening, he asked me about a dozen times if I was feeling better and if I was sure I should get up the next day…after that he got pretty quiet for a time. And when he spoke again it was about that little cabin he had up in Canada.

“It might be just the thing for you, Mr. Bigelow. In case, that is, that your health should worsen and you should not—uh—be able to carry out your plans here.”

“I’m all right,” I said. “I’ll be able to carry them out, Mr. Kendall.”

“I’m sure of it. It would indeed be tragic if you could not. But, in case…It would be ideal for you, Mr. Bigelow. You could take my car, and living would be very cheap and—I assume you have some money but I would be very happy to help—”

“I have most of what I got from my filling station,” I said. “But it’s awfully nice of you to offer—”

“Not at all. You’re more than welcome to any help I can give you…What do you think about it, Mr. Bigelow, as a more or less pleasant solution to an unpleasant eventuality? You’d have complete quiet, the most favorable conditions for rest and study. The nearest town is forty miles away, accessible enough by car but far enough distant to insure your privacy. How does it sound to you, anyway?”

It sounded swell. I’d never heard of a better place to knock a guy off—as I was going to be knocked off if I fell down on the job here.

“That sounds nice,” I said. “But I don’t imagine I’ll be going. I’m staying right here and going to school and—and do everything else I planned.”

“Of course. Certainly,” he nodded, and stood up to go. “It’s just something to think about.”

I thought about it.

It was almost one o’clock in the morning before I could get to sleep.

The next day, the day after that night, rather, was Friday. And I was still awfully weak and wrung out, but I knew I’d better not lie around any longer. Fay would start to worrying again. Kendall would start to wondering whether I could carry on or not. And if he had any doubts, it wouldn’t be long until The Man had them.

I got up early, so that I could take my time about dressing, and ate breakfast with Kendall. I left the house when he did, and headed for the college.

That first morning—Monday morning—I hadn’t paid any attention to the other students. I’d seen them, of course; some of them were passing us or we were passing them all the way to the school. But they hadn’t made any impression on me. I mean, I hadn’t been bothered by them. Kendall had been so free and easy that I’d felt the same way.

This morning, it was different. I felt like a jerk.

There was a regular parade of students going toward the college, and I was right in the middle of it. But somehow I wasn’t part of it. I was always by myself, with the others in back or ahead of me, nudging each other when they thought I wasn’t looking; laughing and whispering and talking. About my clothes, about the way I looked, about—everything. Because nothing about me was right…

I went to my first class, and the instructor acted like he’d never seen me before. He wanted to know if I was sure I was in the right class and why I was starting to school so late in the term. And he was one of those goofs who keep asking you questions without listening to your answers; and I had to explain, over and over, while the others sat grinning and watching me.

Finally, it sank in on him. He remembered about Kendall introducing me, and he halfway apologized for his forgetfulness. But things still weren’t squared away. I’d been absent for three days, so I had to go to the dean of men for an okay before I could be admitted to classes.

I got it—a cut slip, I think they called it—and got back just about thirty seconds before the class was over. I was just sitting down in my seat when the bell rang.

Everyone got a big bang out of it. You’d have thought it was the funniest thing that ever happened.

In one class, I guess I must have moved a dozen times before I found a seat that didn’t belong to someone else. I’d just get sat down when some dope would trail up and say it was where he sat. And, yeah, I think they were making a game out of it, trying to make me look dopier than I felt, but all I could do was keep moving until the instructor woke up and assigned me to a desk.

The third class, the one just before lunch, was the worst one. It was English literature, and everyone was taking turns at reading a few paragraphs aloud. So it came my turn, and the way I was looking down and talking at the same time, my teeth slipped a little bit. And everything I said sounded sort of like baby talk. The snickers and giggles got louder and louder, and finally the instructor told me to sit down.

“Very amusing, Bigelow,” he said, giving me a glare that would have frosted an orchard. “Is Mr. Kendall acquainted with your talent for mimicry?”

I shrugged and smirked—what the hell could I do or say? And he frowned and nodded for another student to start reading. A little bit later—although it didn’t seem like a little bit—the noon bell rang.

I stopped by his desk on the way out, and explained about the teeth. He was pretty nice about it, said he was sorry he’d misunderstood the situation and so on. So that was taken care of: he wouldn’t knock me to Kendall. But…

I walked down the corridor to the building entrance, and everyone seemed to be laughing and talking about me. And part of it was imagination, of course, but not all of it. It was a small college, and I guess the students were pretty hard up for kicks, and news traveled fast.

I headed toward the house, wondering why in hell I bothered when I know I wouldn’t be able to eat anything. I tried to keep to the side streets, dodging people whenever I could and cursing myself for doing it.

She ducked out of an alley just as I was ducking across it. Looking back, now, I’d say that she’d been waiting for me to pass.

I said. “Oh, hello, Ruth,” and started to go on.

She said, “C-carl. Wait a minute.”

“Yeah?” I said. I paused, waiting.

“I k-now you’re mad at me about something, but—”

“Mad?” I said. “I don’t even know you’re alive.”

“Y-yes,” she said, “I know that, too. I didn’t want to talk to you about that. All I wanted to say was about…about school. D-don’t mind the way they act. Just go ahead, and after a while you get used to it.”

She smiled, tried to. She nodded her head, and pivoted on her crutch.

And I knew that I should let her go like that, a clean hard break. But I couldn’t do it. I stepped in front of her.

“I know you’re alive, Ruthie,” I said. “I know it plenty.”

“N-no…I mean, it’s all right, Carl. I—I guess, I just—”

“I’ve been trying to give you a break. I’m no good for you. I’m no good, period. But—”

“You are, too!” Her eyes flashed. “You’re nice!”

“And there’s Mrs. Winroy,” I said. “I think she might be a little suspicious. If she thought there was anything going on between us, she’d probably fire you fast.”

“Oh,” she said, and her voice quavered a little. “I d-didn’t…has she said anything? I couldn’t lose my job, Carl! If I—”