He kept walking. Now he was going faster
and he knew he was racing the morning. He knew he couldnt keep it
up like this, and if he didn't get there soon he was going to go
out cold. He knew he couldn't afford to go out cold and he kept
walking fast. He was getting there. He was almost there. He
measured the streets. He told himself it was three blocks. He knew
it was more than three, more on the order of six or seven. He
didn't think he could last out seven blocks. They were long blocks.
The morning was getting a lead on him. He tried to walk faster. He
tried to run and his legs became cotton fluff under him and he went
to the pavement. He stayed there on his knees, feeling a wetness
flowing all over his body, and for a few moments he thought it was
the blood from his face getting out through the split flesh and
pouring down under the bandage and down through his collar and
going all over him. He put his hand to the under-edge of the
bandage. His hand came away moist. He looked at his hand. It
glistened with perspiration. He stood up and started to walk. He
asked the blocks to come toward him, slide toward him and go away
behind him. He kept walking. Then he could see it, the apartment
house. He started to open his mouth to let out a cry and a dreadful
pain spread out from his lips and went to his eyes and came down to
his lips again. He closed his mouth, and his eyes were jammed with
tears. He looked at the apartment house coming toward him as he
went toward it. He was about sixty steps away from the apartment
house. He didn't think he could cover those sixty steps. He covered
five of them and ten of them and thirty of them. He was ahead of
the morning now and he was going to make it and he knew it. And as
he knew that he knew it he saw something on the other side of the
street, almost at the end of the block, parked there and waiting
there and it was the Studebaker.
CHAPTER 12
It was the same Studebaker. It was the
very same, the same Studebaker from way back. The same hunk of junk
that had picked him up on the road. It couldnt be. It just
couldn't be. And yet it was. There it was, parked across the
street. There it was. Waiting there. The same
Studebaker.
Parry came toward the apartment house, not
knowing he was going toward the apartment house, knowing only that
he was going toward the Studebaker, wanting to make sure that it
was the same car and knowing it was the same car and not believing
it was the same car and knowing it anyway. There was nobody in the
car. It couldnt be the same car.
It was the same car.
He didnt want to start asking himself
why. And how. And why and how and when and how and why and how and
why. He asked and he couldn't answer. If there was any answer at
all it was coincidence. But there was a limit to coincidence and
this was way past the limit. This neighborhood aimed toward upper
middle class, anywhere from fifteen thousand a year on up. Or give
Studebaker a break and make it ten thousand. Even seventy-five
hundred and still Studebaker didnt belong around here. Studebaker
was way down in the sharecropper category. And the car was parked
in front of an apartment house that wouldn't rent closet space for
less than one ten a month. It couldn't be the same car.
It was the same car.
All right, Studebaker worked there as a
janitor. No. All right, Studebaker had a wealthy brother living
there. No. All right, Studebaker was driving down the street and he
ran out of gas and had to park there. No. No and no and
no.
It wasnt the same car. It couldn't be the
same car.
It was the same car.
The morning light came down and tried to
glimmer on the Studebaker. There was no polish on the Studebaker
and very little paint, therefore very little glimmer. There was
only the old Studebaker coupe, dull and quiet there on the other
side of the street, waiting for him.
Parry turned and went toward the apartment
house. He was staggering now. On the steps he stumbled and fell. In
the vestibule his finger went toward the wrong button and he veered
it away just in time and got it going toward the right button and
pressed the button.
He got a buzz. He went through the lobby
and entered the elevator. He pressed the 3 button. The elevator
started up and Parry felt himself going down. As the elevator went
up he kept going down and his eyes were closed now. He saw the
black wall of his shut eyelids and then he saw the bright orange
and the trapeze again and he saw the gold inlays in the laughing
mouth and then he saw the black again just before everything became
bright orange and after that it was all black and he was going in
there in the black and he was in there. He was in the
black.
Gradually the black gave way and its place
was taken by grey-violet and yellow. He was on the sofa. He looked
up and he saw her. She was standing beside the sofa, watching him.
She smiled.
She said, I didnt think you'd come
back.
She was wearing a yellow robe. Her yellow
hair came down and sprayed her shoulders.
She said, When I heard the buzzer I was
frightened. When nobody came up I was terribly frightened. Then
after a while I went out in the hall and I saw the light from the
elevator. I went down there and I opened the elevator and I saw you
in there. I was so very frightened when I saw the bandages but I
recognized the suit and so I understood the bandages. Im lucky
you're not heavy, because otherwise I couldn't have managed it.
Tell me what happened to you.
Parry shook his head.
Why not?
He shook his head.
Why cant you tell me?
He pointed to his mouth. He shook his
head.
Can you talk?
He shook his head.
Can I do anything for you?
He shook his head. Then he nodded. With an
imaginary pencil he scribbled on a palm. She hurried out of the
room. She came back with a pad and a pencil.
Parry wrote
A taxi driver recognized me. He offered to
help me. He took me to a plastic specialist who operated on my
face. Then he brought me back and left me off a few blocks from
here. The bandages must stay on for five days. I can eat only
liquids and Ive got to take them through a glass straw. I can
smoke cigarettes if you have a holder. I've got to sleep on my back
and to keep from turning over on my face I've got to have my wrists
tied to the sides of the bed. My face hurts terribly and so do my
arms where he had to cut to get new skin for my face. I'm very
tired and I want to sleep.
She read what he had written. She said,
Youll sleep in the bedroom. I'll sleep here on the
sofa.
He shook his head.
I said youll sleep in the bedroom.
Please don't argue with me. I'm your nurse now. You mustn't argue
with the nurse.
She led him into the bedroom. She stayed
out while he undressed. When he was under the covers he knocked on
the side of the bed and she came in. She used handkerchiefs to tie
his wrists to the sides of the bed.
Is that too tight?
He shook his head.
Are you comfortable?
He nodded.
Anything more I can do?
He shook his head.
Good night, Vincent.
She switched off the light and went out of
the room.
In a few minutes Parry was asleep. He was
up a few times during the night, coming out of sleep when he tried
to turn over and his tied wrists held him back. Aside from that he
slept the full sleep of fatigue, the heavy sleep that got him away
from shock and pain. He slept until late in the afternoon, and when
he awoke she was in the room, waiting for him with a breakfast
tray. There was a tall glass of orange juice. There was a bowl of
white cereal, very soft and mostly cream, so that it could be taken
through a glass straw. There was a pot of coffee and a glass of
water. There were three glass straws, new and glinting, and he knew
she had gone out in the morning to buy them. He thanked her with
his eyes. She smiled at him. She reached for something on the
bureau and when she held it up he saw a long cigarette holder, new
and glinting. It was yellow enamel and it had a small, delicately
shaped mouthpiece.
She said, Did you sleep well?
He nodded. She untied the handkerchiefs
and he started to get out of the bed and then he looked at her. She
walked out of the room. He went into the bathroom. When he was
finished in the bathroom he took his breakfast through the glass
straws. Basic music came from the phonograph in the other room,
then she came in from the other room and lighted a cigarette and
watched him sip his meal through the straws. She looked at the
empty glasses, the empty bowl and the empty cup.
She smiled and said, Thats a good boy.
And now would you like a cigarette?
He nodded.
She placed a cigarette in the holder and
lighted it for him.
She said, Does your face feel better
today?
He nodded.
Much better?
He nodded.
What would you like to do?
He shrugged.
Would you like to read?
He nodded.
What would you like to read?
He shrugged.
A magazine?
He shook his head.
The paper?
He looked at her. She wasnt smiling. He
tried to get something from her eyes. He couldn't get anything. He
started a nod and then he stopped it and he shrugged.
She went out of the room and came back
with an afternoon edition. She gave it to him and he held it close
to his eyes and saw that in San Francisco a man named Fellsinger
had been murdered in the early hours of the morning and police said
it was the work of the escaped lifer from San Quentin. Police said
Parrys fingerprints were all over the place, on the furniture, on
the cellophane wrapping around a pack of cigarettes, on a glass, on
practically everything except the murder weapon, which was a
trumpet. Police put it this waythey said Vincent Parry had gone to
his friend George Fellsinger and had demanded aid in his effort to
get away. Fellsinger no doubt refused. Then Fellsinger tried to
call the police or told Parry he would eventually call the police.
In rage or calm decision Parry took hold of the trumpet forgetting
his other fingerprints throughout the room and knowing only that he
mustn't get his fingerprints on the trumpet. And so he must have
used a handkerchief around his hand as he wielded the trumpet and
brought it down on Fellsinger's head. Again and again and again.
The only fingerprints in the place were those of Fellsinger and
those of Parry. There was positively no doubt about it. Parry did
it.
Parry looked up. She was watching him. He
pointed to the story.
She nodded. She said, Yes, Vincent. I saw
it.
He made a gesture to indicate that she
should offer a further reaction.
She said, I dont know what to say. Did
you do it?
He shook his head.
But who could have done it?
He shook his head.
You were there last night?
He nodded. Then he made the pad and pencil
gesture. She brought him the pad and the pencil and he wrote it out
for her, as it had happened. She read it slowly. It was as if she
was studying from a textbook.
When she finally put the pad down she
said, In that statement you wrote this morning you said nothing
about Fellsinger. Why?
He shrugged.
Is there anything else you didnt tell
me?
He shook his head. He thought of the
Studebaker. He thought of Max. And the Studebaker. And he shook his
head again.
She said, I know theres something else.
I wish you'd tell me. The more you tell me the more help I can give
you. But I can't force you to tell me. I only ask if it's
important.
He shook his head.
She went to the door and there she turned
and faced him. She said, I have work to do this afternoon.
Settlement work. I devote a few hours every day to it. Ill be back
at six and we'll have dinner. Promise me you'll stay here. Promise
me you won't answer the buzzer and no matter what takes place and
no matter what thoughts get into your head you'll stay
here.
He nodded.
She said, There are cigarettes in the
other room and if you get thirsty youll find oranges in the
refrigerator and you can make juice.
He nodded.
She walked out. He leaned over the
newspaper and a few times more he read the Fellsinger story. He
heard her going out of the apartment. He went through the
newspaper. He tried to get interested in the financial section and
gradually he succeeded and he was going through the stock
quotations, the Dow-Jones averages, the prices on wheat and cotton,
the situation in railroads and steel. He saw a small and severely
neat advertisement from the firm where he had worked as a clerk,
where Fellsinger had worked. He began to remember the days of work,
the day he had started there, how difficult it was at first, how
hard he had tried, how he had taken a correspondence course in
statistics shortly after his marriage, hoping he could get a grasp
on statistics and ultimately step up to forty-five a week as a
statistician. But the correspondence course gave him more questions
than answers and finally he had to give it up. He remembered the
night he wrote the letter telling them to stop sending the
mimeographed sheets. He showed the letter to Gert and she told him
he would never get anywhere. She went out that night. He remembered
he hoped she would never come back and he was afraid she would
never come back because there was something about her that got him
at times and he wished there was something about him that got her.
He knew there was nothing about him that got her and he wondered
why she didnt pick herself up and walk out once and for all. She
was always talking in terms of tall bony men with high cheekbones
and hollow cheeks and very tall. He was bony and very thin and he
had high cheekbones and hollow cheeks but he wasn't tall. He was
really a miniature of what she really wanted. And because she
couldn't get a permanent hold on the genuine she figured she might
as well stay with the miniature. That was about as close as he
could come to it. She was very thin herself and that was the way he
liked them, thin. Very thin. She had practically no front
development and nothing in back but that was the way he liked them
and the first time he saw her he concentrated on the way she was
constructed like a reed and he was interested. He disregarded the
eyes that were more colorless than light brown, the hair that was
more colorless than pale-brown flannel, the nose that was thin and
the mouth that was very thin and the blade-line of her jaw. He
disregarded the fact that she was twenty-nine when she married him
and the only reason she married him was because he was a miniature
of what she really wanted and she hadn't been able to get what she
really wanted. She married him because he came along at a time when
she was beginning to worry about it, to worry that she wouldn't be
able to get anything. There were times when she told him the only
reason he married her was because he was beginning to worry,
because he couldn't get what he wanted and he supposed he might as
well take this colorless reed while the taking was good, and before
years caught up with him and he wouldn't be able to get anything at
all. He said that wasn't true. He wanted to marry her because she
was something he really wanted and if she would only work along
with him they would be able to get along and they would find ways
to be happy. He tried to make her happy. He thought a child would
make her happy. He tried to give her a child and once he got one
started but she went to a doctor and took pills. She said she hated
the thought of having a child.