Savage Night (15 page)

I
wasn’t out very long, I guess, but it was long enough for Dr. Dodson to get there. I came to, stretched out on the floor with my head on some flour sacking and the doc bent over me.

“How are you feeling, son?” he said. “Any pain?”

“Of course, he’s in pain!” Kendall snapped. “This—this creature beat him within an inch of his life!”

“Now, wait a minute, dang it! I didn’t—”

“Shut up, Summers. How about it, son?”

“I—I feel all right,” I said. “Just kind of dizzy, and—” I coughed and began to choke. He raised my shoulders quickly, and I bent over, choking and coughing, and blood spilled down on the floor in a little pool.

He took the handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped my mouth with it. He lowered me back to the floor again, and stood up, staring at the sheriff.

The sheriff looked back at him, sullen and sheepish.

“Kinda lost my temper,” he mumbled. “Reckon you would’ve, too, doc, if you’d been in my place. He was all set t’do Winroy in, just like the note said he’d be, and then this danged drunk gets in the way an’ he comes saunterin’ back here, just as pretty as you please, and—”

“You know,” the doctor cut in, quietly. “You know something, Summers? If I had a gun I think I’d blow that fat head of yours right off your shoulders.”

The sheriff’s mouth dropped open. He looked stunned, and sort of sick. “Now, now looky here,” he stammered. “This—you don’t know who this fella is! He’s Charlie Bigger, Little Bigger, they call him. He’s a killer, an’—”

“He is, eh? But you took care of him, didn’t you?”

“You want to know what happened or not?” Sheriff Summers’ face turned a few shades redder. “He—”

“I’ll tell you what happened,” Kendall spoke up coldly. “Carl stepped out for a little walk, as he has my permission to do when his work is caught up. In fact, I’ve encouraged him to do it since his illness. He was in the vicinity of the Winroy house when this ruckus broke out, and having something better to do with his time than gawk and gape at matters which did not concern him—”

“The heck they didn’t concern him! How come the note said he—”

“—he came back here,” said Kendall. “A few minutes later, Summers came storming into the bakery with this—uh—hireling and started babbling some nonsense about Carl’s having tried to murder someone and failing to stop when he was ordered to. Then he rushed in here and attacked him, beat him into unconsciousness. I’ve never seen such savagely inexcusable brutality in my life, Dod!”

“I see,” the doctor nodded, and turned to the sheriff. “Well?”

Sheriff Summers’ lips came together in a thin hard line. “Never mind,” he grunted. “You want it that way, you have it that way. I’m takin’ him to jail.”

“On what charge? Taking a walk?”

“Attempted murder, that’s what!”

“And what are your grounds for such a charge?”

“I already told—!” The sheriff broke off, his head lowered like a mad bull. “Never you mind. I’m takin’ him in.”

He started toward me, the deputy hanging back like he was pretty unhappy, and Kendall and the doc stepped in his way. In about another ten seconds, I think he’d have had a knockdown drag-out fight on his hands. And there wasn’t any sense in that, so I got up.

I felt all right, everything considered. Just a little smaller and weaker than I had felt.

“I’ll go,” I said.

“We can settle it; you don’t need to go,” the doctor said, and Kendall added, “No, he certainly does
not
need to!”

“I’d rather go,” I said. “Sheriff Summers and his wife have been very nice to me. I’m sure he wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t think it was necessary.”

There was some more argument from Dodson and Kendall, but I went. We all went.

We got to the courthouse just as the county attorney was going up the steps, and the deputy took us into the c.a.’s office while he and the sheriff stood in the corridor talking.

The sheriff had his back to the door, but the county attorney was facing it, and he looked weary and disgusted. All the time the sheriff was talking, he just stood there with his hands shoved into his pockets, frowning and shaking his head.

Finally, they came inside, and he and the sheriff started to ask a question at the same time. They both stopped, one waiting for the other, then they started again, both at once. They did that about three times, and the doctor let out a snort and Kendall sort of half smiled. The county attorney grimaced and leaned back in his chair.

“All right, Bill,” he sighed. “It’s your headache, anyway.”

Sheriff Summers turned to me.

“What’s your name? Your right name?”

“You know what it is, sheriff,” I said.

“It’s Charlie Bigger, ain’t it? You’re Little Charlie Bigger.”

“Suppose I said, yes,” I said. “Then what? I’d like to accommodate you, sheriff, but I don’t see how that would help.”

“I asked you what your—!” He broke off as the county attorney caught his eyes. “All right,” he grunted. “What was you doin’ sneaking along behind Jake Winroy tonight?”

“I wasn’t sneaking anywhere. I was walking.”

“You always go for a walk at that time o’night?”

“Not always. Often. It’s a slack time for me.”

“How come you was walkin’ toward the Winroy place instead of the other way?”

“These work clothes. Naturally, I wouldn’t want to walk up toward the business district.”

“I got a note about you. It had you right down to a
t.
Said you was gonna do just what you—what you tried to do.”

“What was that?” I said.

“You know what. Kill Jake Winroy!”

“Kill him?” I said. “Why, I didn’t try to kill him, sheriff.”

“You would have! If that danged drunk—”

Dr. Dodson let out another snort. “Anonymous notes! What next?”

“He was there, wasn’t he?” The sheriff whirled on him. “How come I got that note if—”

“I believe it has been established,” the county attorney sighed, “that he is in that vicinity almost every night at approximately that time.”

“But Winroy ain’t! It ain’t been established how I—”

Kendall cleared his throat. “Since you seem to be unwilling to accept the note as the work of some crank who has observed Mr. Bigelow’s movements and who profited by an unfortunate but by no means extraordinary coincidence—”

“It’s too danged extraordinary for me!”

“As I was saying, then, the note can only be explained in one way. This shrewd and crafty killer”—he smiled apologetically at me—“the most elusive, close-mouthed criminal in the country, went around town confiding his plans…Something wrong, sheriff?”

“I didn’t say he done that! I—I—”

“I see. It’s your theory, then, that he wrote you—or I believe it was printed, wasn’t it?—he sent you the note himself. So that you’d be on hand to apprehend him.”

Doc Dodson burst out laughing. The county attorney tried not to laugh, but he couldn’t quite hold it back.

“Well,” he said, bringing his hands down on the desk. “Bill, I think the best thing we can do is—”

“Now, wait a minute! He could have had someone workin’ with him! They could’ve given him away!”

“Oh, come now.” Kendall shook his head. “He’s a stranger here. I live with him and work with him, and I can assure you he has no intimates aside from me. But perhaps that’s what you had in mind, sheriff? You think I was involved in this matter.”

“I didn’t say so, did I?” The sheriff glared at him helplessly. “I—anyway, that ain’t all I got on him. I got a wire from the kin of some folks he used to live with. They said he swindled and abused these old people, and—”

“I believe you got two other wires about me, also,” I said. “From a chief of police and a county judge. What did they say about me?”

“I—well—why’d you run away tonight?”

“I didn’t do any running, sheriff.”

“Why didn’t you stop when I hollered? You heard me.”

“I heard someone, but they were a couple of blocks away. I didn’t know they were hollering at me.”

“Well—uh—why—?”

He paused, trying to think of something else to ask me. He wet his lips, hesitating. He slanted a glance at Kendall and Dodson and the county attorney, and in his mind’s eye, I guess, he was also looking at his wife, wondering how he was going to explain and excuse himself to her.

The county attorney yawned and massaged his eyes. “Well,” he said, “I suppose we’ll have an army of city cops moving in on us now. Ordering us around and telling us how to run our business like they did last time.”

“Now, I—I—” The sheriff gulped. “I don’t reckon we will. My boys ain’t letting out anything.”

“He’d probably like that,” said Dr. Dodson. “Likes to get his picture in the papers. If I didn’t think you’d suffer enough without it, I’d file a complaint against you with the county commissioners.”

“You will, hey?” The sheriff jumped to his feet. “Hop right to it! Go ahead and see if I give a dang.”

“We’ll see,” Dodson nodded, grimly. “Meanwhile, I’m going to take this boy to my clinic and put him to bed.”

“You are, huh? He ain’t going anywhere.”

“Very well. He needs rest and medical attention. I’ve said so. These gentlemen are my witnesses. And I’ll tell you something, Summers—” He slammed on his hat. “Don’t be too surprised if you find them testifying against you on a charge of murder by criminal neglect.”

“Pshaw.” The sheriff’s eyes wavered. “How come he gets around like he’s been doin’ if he’s so sick? You can’t tell me—”

“I could but I doubt that you’d understand…Coming, Phil?”

Well…

I went to the clinic.

The doctor checked me over from head to foot, shaking his head and grunting now and then in a kind of baffled way. Then he gave me a shot glass of some yellowish stuff, and three hypodermic injections, one in each hip and the other right over my heart; and I went to sleep.

But Sheriff Summers still hadn’t given up. He posted a deputy on my door at the clinic that night. And the next morning, around eleven, he came in and threw some more questions at me.

He didn’t look like he’d got much sleep. I’d have bet dough that Mrs. Summers had eaten him out to a fare-you-well.

He was still at it, going through the motions of playing cop, when Kendall showed up. Kendall spoke to him pleasantly. He suggested that they take a little walk, and they left together.

I grinned and lighted a cigarette. Kendall was starting to earn his money, if he hadn’t already earned it. It was the first real chance he’d had to get the sheriff alone.

The next thing he’d do, now…

The rest and the stuff the doctor had given me seemed to have perked me up quite a bit. And I guess a guy always fights best just before he’s through fighting. I didn’t think I could beat The Man—no one ever beat The Man—but I figured I could give him plenty of trouble. It might be a year or two before he could hunt me down, and if I could hold out that long…well. Maybe I could find the place or the thing or whatever it was I’d always been looking for.

I had almost five hundred dollars—more in the bank in Arizona, but I might as well forget about that. With five hundred bucks and a good car—and there was a drop in Philly where I could turn that car fast for another one—well, it was worth a try. I couldn’t lose anything.

…It was almost two o’clock when Kendall came back. And I was sure of what he was going to say, but he led into it so gradually that I almost got unsure.

Mrs. Winroy had gone to New York, he said. Her sister had taken sick and she’d had to leave suddenly.

“Poor woman. I’ve never seen her quite so agitated.”

“That’s too bad,” I said, wanting to laugh so bad it hurt me. She’d probably worry herself to death before they could get to her. “When is she coming back?”

“She wasn’t able to say. I gathered, however, that it might be quite some time.”

“Well,” I said, “that’s certainly too bad.”

“Yes. Particularly with nothing better than Winroy to depend on. I wanted to talk to him—straighten out our accounts since Mrs. Winroy isn’t available, but Ruthie hasn’t seen anything of him since lunchtime and he’s not at his shop. I suppose, now that the last restraining influence is gone, he intends to get drunk and stay drunk.”

I nodded. And waited. He went on.

“An awkward situation. Poor Ruthie; it’s really a tragedy in her case. There’s no other place she can get a job, and, with Mrs. Winroy gone indefinitely, she can’t stay there. I’d like to help her, but—uh—a man my age, giving financial assistance to a girl who obviously could not repay it…I’m afraid it would do her more harm than good.”

“She’s dropping out of school?”

“I’m afraid there’s no alternative. She seems to be bearing up very well, I’m happy to say.”

“Well,” I said. “It looks like we—like you’ll have to be finding another place to live.”

“Uh, yes. Yes, I suppose I will. Uh—er—incidentally, Mr. Bigelow, the sheriff is satisfied to—uh—abandon this Winroy matter. I’ve brought your clothes from the bakery, your pay to date also since it seemed doubtful in view of your health, and—uh—the situation in general—that you would care to continue there.”

“I see,” I said. “I understand.”

“About Sheriff Summers, Mr. Bigelow. His attitude is by no means as compromising as I would like to have it. I suspect that he would need only the slightest pretext, if any, to—uh—cause you serious embarrassment.”

I thought it over; rather I appeared to be thinking it over. I laughed, kind of hurt, and said, “It looks like I’m out of luck all the way around, Mr. Kendall. No place to live. No job. The sheriff all set to make trouble. The—I don’t suppose the college will be exactly happy to have me around either.”

“Well—uh—as a matter of fact—”

“It’s all right,” I said. “I don’t blame them a bit.”

He shook his head sympathetically, clucking his tongue a few times. Then he looked up sharply, eyes sparkling, and came out with it. As though it had just then popped into his mind.

“Mr. Bigelow! This may turn out to be a stroke of good fortune in disguise! You can go up to my place in Canada for a few months, use the time for studying and rebuilding your health. Then, when all this business is forgotten—”