Then the buzzing stopped.
The tears started again, coming into his
eyes, collecting there, ready to gush. He told himself that he had
to stop that sort of thing. It was bad because it was soft and if
there was anything he couldnt afford now it was softness. The
lukewarm and weak brand of softness. Everything had to be ice, and
just as hard, and just as fast as a whippet and just as smooth. And
just as accurate as a calculating machine, giving the buzzer a
certain denomination. Now that the buzzer had stopped a key was
clicking into position and crossing off the denomination. The
buzzer had stopped and it was all over. The person down there had
gone away. Check that off. Then check off all the other things that
needed checking off. Get another key in position and check off San
Quentin. Go back further than that and check off the trial. Come
back to San Quentin, go ahead of San Quentin and check off the
barrel and the truck, the pale-green meadow, the hills and the
dark-green woods. Check off the Studebaker, the man in the
Studebaker, the ride to San Francisco and the motorcycle
cops.
Check off Studebakers clothes. Get
started with now and keep going from now. Check off the buzzer.
Start Shorty George again.
He turned the lever that started the
phonograph running.
The black record began to spin. He put the
needle down and Shorty George was on its way. Parry stood a few
feet away from the phonograph, watching the record go round and
listening to the Basie band riding into the fourth dimension. He
recognized the Buck Clayton trumpet and he smiled. The smile was
wet clay and it became cement when he heard knuckles rapping
against the apartment door.
All of him was cement.
The rapping was in series, going against
Shorty George. The first series stopped and Parry tried to get to
the phonograph so he could cut off the music that wasnt music
anymore, only a lot of noise telling the person out there that
someone was in the apartment. He couldn't get to the phonograph
because he couldn't budge. The second series of raps came to him,
stopped for a few moments and then the third series was on and he
counted three insistent raps.
Then he knew it was impossible to check
off all those things. They were things to be remembered and
considered. This thing now rapping at the door was the police. It
was logical that they should be here. It wasnt logical for them to
have slipped up on that blanket episode. Then again it was logical
for them to have taken the Pontiac's license number as the car went
away from them. It was easy to sketchthem talking it over, telling
each other they should have looked further under the blanket to see
what was in those old clothes for China, then congratulating each
other on their brains in taking the license number, and now coming
here to have a talk with Irene Janney.
He turned and looked around the room and
tried to see something. The window was the only thing he saw.
Shorty George was rounding the far turn and coming toward the
homestretch, but he didnt hear it, he was staring at the
window.
The fourth series of raps got through the
door and bounced around the room, and following the raps a voice
said, Ireneare you there?
It belonged to a woman. Then it couldnt
be the police. And yet there was something about the voice that was
worse than the police.
Ireneopen the door.
The music was music again. Parry figured
if he made the music louder he wouldnt hear the voice.
It was a voice he knew and he was trying
to place it and he didnt want to place it. He made the music
louder.
Irenewhats the matter? Let me
in.
Shorty George was coming down the
homestretch. The voice outside the door was louder than Shorty
George.
IreneI know youre in there and I want
you to let me in.
The voice was getting him now, closing in
on him, forceps of sound that was more than sound, because now he
recognized the voice, the pestering voice that belonged to Madge
Rapf.
CHAPTER 5
It was as if the door was glass and he
could see her standing out there, the Pest. His eyes made a turn
and looked at the ball of yellow glass with the lighter attachment.
All he had to do was grab hold of that thing and open the door, go
out there and start banging her over the head to shut her up. This
wouldnt be the first time he had liked the idea of banging her
over the head.
IreneI dont think this is a bit funny
and I want you to open the door.
Parry reached over and picked up the heavy
ball of yellow glass.
Ireneare you going to open the
door?
Parry tested the weight of the ball of
yellow glass.
Ireneyou know Im out here. What's the
matter with you?
Parry took a step toward the door. He
wasnt shaking and he wondered why. He wasn't perspiring and he
wasn't shaking and the ball of yellow glass was steady and all set
in his right hand. He wondered why he felt so glad about this and
all at once he understood he was about to do mankind a
favor.
Irenedo you intend to open the
door?
Shorty George crossed the finish line and
the glazed center spun soundlessly under the needle.
Rapping again. Angry, puzzled
rapping.
Ireneopen the door.
Parry took another step toward the door
and he began to shake. He began to perspire. His teeth were
vibrating. A grinding noise started deep in his belly and worked
its way up toward his mouth.
Irene-
Shut up, Parry yelled, realized that he
was yelling, tried to hold it, couldnt do anything about it. For
God's sakeshut up.
What?
I said shut up. Go away.
He knew that she was stepping back and
away from the door, looking at the number to see if she had the
right apartment.
Then she said something that was Madge
Rapf all over. She said, Irene, is someone in there with
you?
Yes, someones in here with her, Parry
said. Now go away.
Oh, I didnt know.
Well, now you know. So go
away.
She went away. Parry had an ear next to
the door crack and he could hear her footsteps going down the
corridor toward the elevator. He moved to the phonograph and picked
up the needle from the silent record. He lit another cigarette and
then took a position near the window and waited there. He estimated
two minutes and it was slightly under two minutes when he saw Madge
Rapf getting past the partition of yellow brick. He knew she was
going to turn and have a look at the window and he ducked just as
she turned. When he came up she was on her way again and he watched
her crossing the street. He figured she had to cross the street but
when she got to the other side he knew that was wrong. She was
there because she wanted to get a better view of the
window.
He kept one eye past the limit of the
window. He didnt know whether she could see that half of his face.
But even if she could see that one half of face she wouldn't be
able to recognize it. Now she came walking down the other side of
the street and stopped when she was directly across from the
apartment house. She stood there and looked at the window. Her head
went low and that meant she was looking at the grey Pontiac. Then
the window again. Then the Pontiac. Then the window. Then she
started on down the street. Then she stopped and took another look
at the window. She took a few steps in the direction of the
apartment house. She hesitated, then came on.
For God's sake Parry
murmured.
She stopped again. This time she made a
definite about-face and walked on and kept on walking.
Parry looked at the door and he was about
to make a go for it when he remembered that his attire consisted of
a yellow towel and nothing more. He sucked at the cigarette and
walked without meaning in a small circle and then he went back to
the window. No Madge Rapf. But something else. This time it was a
policeman on the other side of the street. The policeman didnt
look at the apartment house. Parry crossed to the davenport and sat
on the edge, the cigarette burning furiously as he gave it the
works.
Something pulled him up from the davenport
and he went into the kitchen. It was small and white and spotless.
He put his hand on a solid bar of glass, the handle of the
refrigerator. He opened the door and looked at the food without
knowing why he was looking at it. He looked at a neat row of
oranges and then he closed the door. He looked at the kitchen
cabinet, the sink, the floorthe incinerator. He opened the metal
cap of the incinerator and gazed into the black hole. He closed the
incinerator, went out of the kitchen and into the bathroom. When he
came out of the bathroom he went into the one room that was left,
the bedroom.
The bedroom was all yellow. Pale yellow
broadloom rug and furniture and dark yellow walls. Four water-color
landscapes that werent bad. They were signed Irene Janney. He
recognized the pale-green meadow and the hills. And again he saw
the dark-green woods and the road. He wanted another cigarette and
he went into the parlor.
When he came back to the bedroom he stood
in front of the bureau and ran his fingers cross the shining yellow
wood. He puffed hard at the cigarette and then he opened the top
drawer. It was divided into two sections. There was a big bottle of
violet cologne that would follow the half-filled bottle on top of
the bureau. There was a carton of Luckies, two jars of skin cream,
a pile of handkerchiefs wrapped in a sachet-scented fold of
grey-violet satin. There was a box filled with various sorts of
buttons. That was about all for the top drawer.
The second drawer had underthings and more
handkerchiefs and three handbags. They were expensive. Everything
was expensive. Everything was neat and clean. The third drawer was
about the same. The fourth drawer was heaped with papers and
note-books and text-books. Parry examined the papers and books. He
found out that Irene Janney had attended the University of Oregon,
had majored in sociology, had graduated in 1939. There were
considerable examination papers and theses and most of them were
marked B. There was a record book from the Class of 39 and he
followed the alphabetical order until he came to her picture and
write-up. Her picture was nothing special. She was even thinner
then than now, and she was plenty thin now. She looked uncertain
and worried, as if she was afraid of what would happen to her after
graduation.
There was something at the bottom of the
drawer peeping out from the edge of a textbook. It was from a
newspaper. It became a clipping as Parry took it out. He saw the
picture of a man who looked something like Irene. The picture was
captioned Dies in Prison. Underneath the picture was the name
Calvin Janney. Alongside the picture was an article headed Road
Ends for Janney.
Calvin Janney, sentenced four years ago to
life imprisonment for the murder of his wife, died last night in
San Quentin prison. He had been ill for the past several months.
Officials said Janney made a death-bed statement claiming his
innocence, the same claim he made during the sensational trial in
San Francisco.
Janney, a wealthy real-estate broker, was
accused of killing his bride of a second marriage, less than a week
after they had celebrated their first wedding anniversary. Death
was attributed to a skull fracture caused by a heavy blow with an
ornamental brass jar. The body had been found at the foot of a
staircase in the Janney home. Janney stated that his wife had
fallen down the stairs, had knocked the brass jar from the base of
the banister in her descent, then had struck her head on the jar.
This statement was disproved by the prosecution. It was established
that Janney had charged his wife with infidelity and had threatened
on several occasions to kill her. Janneys fingerprints on the
brass jar was a primary factor in the guilty verdict.
Efforts to obtain a new trial proved
fruitless. In recent months Janneys attorneys made another plea
founded on new developments, the result of continued investigation
during the past four years. The plea made no headway due to lack of
witnesses.
Janney was 54. He is survived by a son,
Burton, a chemical engineer in Portland. Also a daughter, Irene, a
grade-school student in the same city.
There was a date at the top of the
clipping. It said February 9, 1928. Parry kept looking at the date.
On the basis of the date and the record-book date, she was nine
when her father died and she was five when the trial took place. He
read the clipping again. Then again. He decided she ought to be
coming back soon and maybe he ought to get the clipping and the
papers and books back in the drawer. He started to handle the
clipping and he was getting it back in the textbook when he heard
the door opening into the parlor and footsteps coming into the
apartment, going through the parlor, coming into the
bedroom.
She looked at him. She looked at the
clipping half in his hand and half in the textbook. Her arms were
filled with paper boxes and she put these on the bed and kept on
looking at Parry, looking at the clipping, then back to
Parry.