The Early Ayn Rand (7 page)

“Wait, Mr. Gray,” I said coldly. “We shall have time enough for that.”

“What is the matter with you, Mrs. Stafford . . . Miss Wilmer, I mean?” he muttered. “You are so pale!”

“Nothing,” I answered. “I am a little tired.”

For two hours we sat, silent and motionless. There was nothing but the noise of the wheels around us.

After two hours’ ride, there was the first station. I took my bag and rose. “Where are you going?” asked Mr. Gray, surprised. Without answer, I left the train. I approached the open window of the car where he sat looking at me anxiously, and I said slowly: “Listen, Mr. Gray: there is a millionaire in San Francisco waiting for me. You were only a means to get rid of my husband. I thank you. And don’t ever say a word about this to anybody—they will laugh at you terribly.”

He was stricken, furious and disappointed, oh, terribly disappointed. But as a perfect gentleman, he did not show it. “I am happy to have rendered you that service,” he said courteously. The train moved at this moment. He took off his hat, with the most gracious politeness.

I remained alone on the little platform. There was an immense black sky around me, with slow, heavy clouds. There was an old fence and a wretched tree, with some last, wet leaves. . . . I saw a dim light in the little window of the ticket office.

I had not much money, only what was left in my pocketbook. I approached the lighted window. “Give me a ticket, please,” I said, handing over all my money, with nickels and pennies, all.

“To which station?” asked the employee shortly.

“To . . . to . . . That is all the same,” I answered.

He looked at me and even moved a little back. “Say . . .” he began.

“Give me to the end of the line,” I said. He handed me a ticket and pushed back some of my money. I moved from the window, and he followed me with a strange look.

“I shall get out at some station or other,” I thought. A train stopped at the platform and I went in. I sat down at a window. Then I moved no more.

I remember it was dark beyond the window, then light, then dark again. I must have traveled more than twenty-four hours. Perhaps. I don’t know.

It was dark when I remembered that I must alight at some station. The train stopped and I got out. On the platform I saw that it was night. I wanted to return to the car. But the train moved and disappeared into the darkness. I remained.

There was nobody on the wet wooden platform. I saw only a sleepy employee, a dim lantern, and a dog rolled under a bench, to protect himself from the rain. I saw some little wooden houses beyond the station, and a narrow street. The rails glittered faintly and there was a poor little red lantern in the distance.

I looked at the clock: it was three A.M. I sat on the bench and waited for the morning.

All was finished. . . . I had done my work. . . . Life was over. . . .

 

I live in that town now. I am an employee in a department store and I work from nine to seven. I have a little flat—two rooms—in a poor, small house, and a separate staircase—nobody notices me when I go out or return home.

I have no acquaintances whatever. I work exactly and carefully. I never speak. My fellow workers hardly know my name. My landlady sees me once a month, when I pay my rent.

I never think when I work. When I come home—I eat and I sleep. That is all.

I never cry. When I look into a looking glass—I see a pale face, with eyes that are a little too big for it; and with the greatest calm, the greatest quietness, the deepest silence in the world.

I am always alone in my two rooms. Henry’s picture stands on my table. He has a cheerful smile: a little haughty, a little mocking, very gay. There is an inscription: “To my Irene—Henry—Forever.” When I am tired, I kneel before the table and I look at him.

People say that time rubs off everything. This law was not for me. Years have passed. I loved Henry Stafford. I love him. He is happy now—I gave him his happiness. That is all.

They were right, perhaps, those who said that I bought my husband. I bought his life. I bought his happiness. I paid with everything I had. I love him. . . . If I could live life again—I would live it just as I did. . . .

Women, girls, everyone that shall hear me, listen to this: don’t love somebody beyond limits and consciousness. Try to have always some other aim or duty. Don’t love beyond your very soul . . . if you can. I cannot.

One has to live as long as one is not dead. I live on. But I know that it will not be long now. I feel that the end is approaching. I am not ill. But I know that my strength is going and that life simply and softly is dying away in me. It has burned out. It is well.

I am not afraid and I am not sorry. There is only one thing more that I dare to ask from life: I want to see Henry once again. I want to have one look more, before the end, at him that has been my whole life. Just one look only. That is all I ask.

I cannot return to our town, for I will be seen and recognized at once. I wait and I hope. I hope hopelessly. There is not much time left. When I walk in the street—I look at every face around me, searching for him. When I come home—I say to his picture: “It is not today, Henry. . . . But it will be tomorrow, perhaps. . . .”

Shall I see him again? I tell myself that I shall. I know that I shall not. . . .

Now I have written my story. I gathered all my courage and I wrote it. If he reads it—he will not be unhappy. But he will understand all. . . .

And then, perhaps, after reading it, he will . . . oh, no! not come to see me, he will understand that he must not do it . . . he will just pass by me in the street, seeming not to notice me, so that I might see him once again, once more . . . and for the last time.

 

 

Editor’s Preface

This story represents the writing of the
very
early Ayn Rand. She wrote the story, probably in 1926, while living at the Hollywood Studio Club. She was still learning English—especially the use of American slang and how to re-create the same on the printed page.

“The Night King” clearly reflects her admiration of O. Henry. (See Leonard Peikoff’s preface to “Escort.”)

This story is being published here with minimal editing in order accurately to convey her literary and linguistic starting point, and thus her development as a writer both of fiction and of English in the ensuing years.

—R.E.R.

That one was to be the best crime I ever pulled off, if I say so myself, it was to be a masterpiece. And a masterpiece it was, all right, but every time I think of it my blood boils with fury and I wonder if I’m not going to be a murderer instead of a mild, harmless hold-up man.

Some people may be so heartless as to feel a certain lack of respect for me, when they hear of this memorable affair. But I defy anyone to tell me that he would have acted differently, that he would have been
able
to act differently in this strange case.

I’m not an average crook and my mind is the best in the business. I sacrificed two years of my valuable life to that one job. Believe it or not, for two whole years I was as straight as a telegraph pole and earned my modest living by holding the honorable, respectable position of a valet. The cops back in Chicago would never believe that of me, Steve Hawkins, the great Steve Hawkins who used to pull stick-up jobs faster than the crime reporters could write down in short-hand. Me—to become a valet! Yet that’s just what I had been doing—for two years. For, you see, I was after the most precious thing and against the most dangerous man in New York.

The thing was the Night King; the man—Winton Stokes.

Winton Stokes had a nasty smile, sixteen million dollars and no fear whatsoever.

He also had the Night King.

He was one of those wealthy loafers that spend their lives looking for danger and never getting enough of it. Big-game hunting, aviation, jungle-exploring, mountain-peak climbing—there wasn’t a thing that man hadn’t had time to do in the thirty-four years of his life. And he always took a particular pleasure in doing the things that would shock people, that nobody could expect or think of. Some brain, too! The keenest, sharpest and, damn it!, queerest brain I ever came across. I often thought it was too bad he was born a millionaire, for he would have made a perfect crook—just the type for it.

His smile? I hated it. I hated almost everything about him: his slow, soft movements that looked as though his bones were of velvet, and with it his tanned skin that looked as though his body were of bronze; and then, his grey eyes, the eyes of a tamed tiger, that you weren’t so sure whether it’s tamed or not. But his smile was the worst of all. He always had it when he looked at people—just two little wrinkles in the corners of his mouth, which seemed to say you were terribly funny, but that he was too polite to laugh.

The Night King was a black diamond; one of those perfect gems that have a world-renown, and their owners—a world-envy. A marvelous stone, famous like a movie star, but different from one in that it never had a double.

Was it valuable? Well, you could buy a small city, inhabitants and all, for the price of that one little splinter of black fire. Winton Stokes was so proud of it that he wouldn’t have traded it for all the rest of his possessions—and that was plenty.

There had been more loss of life from trying to get that stone than there is from traffic accidents in a big city. All of our big guys tried it. Then, it was given up as impossible. No one could get it; not with Winton Stokes as the owner.

But I told them that there was nothing impossible to Steve Hawkins, the master-criminal. I had made up my mind to succeed where all had failed. They laughed at me for giving up my brilliant hold-up career and slaving as Winton Stokes’ valet. During the two years of my working at his New York residence, I never once got even a hint of where the Night King was hidden, no matter how hard I tried. I don’t believe anybody on earth knew that secret, except Winton Stokes. But I waited and played the part of as honest a guy as they make ’em. I was a model valet and just as sweet and white as sugar. Then, finally, my big chance came—and oh! How it did come!

I wanted to show them all an unusual crime to knock them cockeyed with amazement. And they
were
amazed, though not quite in the way I had expected. But just try to mention the Night King case to the New York cops and see what happens!

It started like this: Winton Stokes was going on a trip to San Francisco. He was engaged to some charming little girl who lived there. I’ve seen her picture on his desk. A blonde little thing, with a smile like a glass of champagne and legs like a hosiery ad. Winton Stokes was to marry her there, in her home town. But I knew something else about this trip of his, something that no one knew, but me, and Stokes, and his girl.

I learned it in a very simple manner, but the news was as unexpected to me as a fresh orchid in a garbage can. You may be sure that for two years I’ve been opening secretly all of Winton Stokes’ letters that I could lay my hands on. So I opened this particular one that he had ordered me to mail. I don’t remember a word of it, except one sentence, and here is the sentence that took hold of my brains, memory and consciousness so as to knock out everything else I had on my mind:

Oh boy!

The first thing I did when I read this was to take a deep breath. The second—to swear, energetically. The third—to laugh. The big fool! To give
that
stone away like this to a woman! Just like him, too.

Well, here was my chance.

In the day that followed I turned my brain upside down and back again, trying to figure out a way to accompany him on this trip. But I didn’t have to think much. He saved me the trouble.

I was called into his study on that beautiful spring morning. He was sitting in a deep, Oriental chair, his legs crossed, a long cigarette between his lips, looking at me with half-closed eyes.

“Williams,” he said (this being the name I had adopted), “you might be interested to know that in three days you are leaving with me for San Francisco.”

There must have been something funny in my face, for he added:

“What is it? Are you surprised?”

I muttered something about how grateful I was for the honor. Fact is, I was so grateful that I almost felt like sparing him and not touching his diamond at all!

“Your services have been most satisfactory during the time you have worked for me and I chose you to accompany me on this trip,” he explained, adding, “I trust you more than my other men.”

Now, I had to act and act quick. After some careful deliberation, a plan was ready in my mind, a brilliant plan that only a bright thinker like me could have devised.

That evening, I made my way to a certain part of New York, very far from the residential district and very different from it. I went directly to a certain pool-parlor, unofficially called “The Hanged Cat,” which was a pool-parlor and many other things besides. Since the time I started on my valet job, I didn’t mix with any rough work, as I’ve said before, but I knew where to find the boys if I needed them. “The Hanged Cat” was their favorite social club.

It didn’t take me long to choose my men—three of them—and to get them into a dark corner, around an old, shaking table that had four legs all of different lengths.

“Boys,” I said, “I have a job for us and if we pull it through we can all retire and start putting burglar-proof alarms on our safes!”

I explained the whole thing. I told them just what I wanted them to do and also just how much they’d get from me. Two of them, Pete Crump and “Snout” Timkins, agreed at once, and enthusiastically, too. But the third, and I might have expected it, started trouble. The third was Mickey Finnegan.