The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction (38 page)

“Well, I . . . I wasn’t completely unconscious. I sort of knew what was going on without really—”

“Now, you listen to me,” he said harshly. “You made that fake call of yours – yes, I said
fake
– to the operator at twenty-three minutes after five. There happened to be a prowl car right here in the neighborhood, so two minutes later, at five-twenty-five, there were cops here in your apartment. You were unconscious then, more than an hour ago. You’ve been unconscious until just now.”

Ardis’ brain whirled. Then, it cleared suddenly, and a great calm came over her.

“I don’t see quite what you’re hinting at, lieutenant. If you’re saying that I was confused, mixed up – that I must have dreamed or imagined some of the things I told you – I’ll admit it.”

“You know what I’m saying! I’m saying that no guy could have got in and out of this place, and done what this one did, in any two minutes!”

“Then the telephone operator must have been mistaken about the time,” Ardis said brightly. “I don’t know how else to explain it.”

Powers grunted. He said he could give her a better explanation – and he gave it to her. The right one. Ardis listened to it placidly, murmuring polite objections.

“That’s ridiculous, lieutenant. Regardless of any gossip you may have heard, I don’t know this, uh, Tony person. And I most certainly did not plot with him or anyone else to kill my husband. Why—”

“He says you did. We got a signed confession from him.”

“Have you?” But of course they didn’t have. They might have found out about Tony, but he would never have talked. “That hardly proves anything, does it?”

“Now, you listen to me, Mrs Clinton! Maybe you think that—”

“How is my husband, anyway? I do hope he wasn’t seriously hurt.”

“How
is
he?” the lieutenant snarled. “How would he be after gettin’ worked over with—” He broke off, his eyes flickering. “As a matter of fact,” he said heavily, “he’s going to be all right. He was pretty badly injured, but he was able to give us a statement and—”

“I’m so glad. But why are you questioning me, then?” It was another trick. Bill had to be dead. “If he gave you a statement, then you must know that everything happened just like I said.”

She waited, looked at him quizzically. Powers scowled, his stern face wrinkling with exasperation.

“All right,” he said, at last. “All right, Mrs Clinton. Your husband is dead. We don’t have any statement from him, and we don’t have any confession from Tony.”

“Yes?”

“But we know that you’re guilty, and you know that you are. And you’d better get it off your conscience while you still can.”

“While I still can?”

“Doc” – Powers jerked his head at the doctor. At the man, that is, who appeared to be a doctor. “Lay it on the line, doc. Tell her that her boyfriend hit her a little too hard.”

The man came forward hesitantly. He said, “I’m sorry, Mrs Clinton. You have a – uh – you’ve sustained a very serious injury.”

“Have I?” Ardis smiled. “I feel fine.”

“I don’t think,” the doctor said judiciously, “that that’s quite true. What you mean is that you don’t feel anything at all. You couldn’t. You see, with an injury such as yours—”

“Get out,” Ardis said. “Both of you get out.”

“Please, Mrs Clinton. Believe me, this isn’t a trick. I haven’t wanted to alarm you, but—”

“And you haven’t,” she said. “You haven’t scared me even a little bit, mister. Now, clear out!”

She closed her eyes, kept them closed firmly. When, at last, she reopened them, Powers and the doctor – if he really had been a doctor – were gone. And the room was in darkness.

She lay smiling to herself, congratulating herself. In the corridor outside, she heard heavy footsteps approaching; and she tensed for a moment. Then, remembering, she relaxed again.

Not Bill, of course. She was through with that jerk forever. He’d driven her half out of her mind, got her to the point where she couldn’t have taken another minute of him if her life depended on it. But now . . .

The footsteps stopped in front of her door. A key turned in the lock, the door opened and closed.

There was a clatter of a lunchpail being set down; then a familiar voice – maddeningly familiar words:

“Well. Another day, another dollar.”

Ardis’ mouth tightened; it twisted slowly, in a malicious grin. So they hadn’t given up yet! They were pulling this one last trick. Well, let them; she’d play along with the gag.

The man plodded across the room, stooped, and gave her a half-hearted peck on the cheek. “Long time no see,” he said. “What we havin’ for supper?”

“Bill . . .” Ardis said. “How do I look, Bill?”

“Okay. Got your lipstick smeared, though. What’d you say we was having for supper?”

“Stewed owls! Now, look, mister. I don’t know who you—”

“Sounds good. We got any hot water?”

“Of course, we’ve got hot water! Don’t we always have? Why do you always have to ask if – if –”

She couldn’t go through with it. Even as a gag – even someone who merely sounded and acted like he did – it was too much to bear.

“Y-you get out of here!” she quavered. “I don’t have to stand for this! I
c-can’t
stand it! I did it for fifteen years, and—”

“So what’s to get excited about?” he said. “Well, guess I’ll go splash the chassis.”

“Stop it!
STOP IT!
” Her screams filled the room . . . silent screams ripping through silence. “He’s – you’re dead! I know you are! You’re dead, and I don’t have to put up with you for another minute. And – and – !”

“Wouldn’t take no bets on that if I was you,” he said mildly. “Not with a broken neck like yours.”

He trudged off toward the bathroom, wherever the bathroom is in Eternity.

Morning was slow in coming. I’d waited for it a long time. Three years the man said. And three years I had done without any nonsense about parole or executive clemency.

I was washed and dressed and waiting when the rising siren blew. As McKenny, the screw on our tier, clomped down the steel catwalk to pull the master switch, he paused in front of my cell and grinned:

“This is the day, eh, Charlie?”

The lump in my throat was so big all I could do was nod.

Breakfast wasn’t much better. The pock marks in the plaster of the mess hall bothered me. I knew them for what they were. If it hadn’t been for Swede, I could be dead instead of going out this morning. I could be with Mickey and Saltz. I could be down in solitary with the other ringleaders of the riot. I could even be with Swede.

The thought cost me my appetite. When we finally filed out of the mess hall a front-of-the-prison guard asked if my name was Charlie White. When I said it was, he led the way to a small room in the administration building. The clothes I’d signed for the day before were hanging on a wire hanger.

“When you’re dressed,” he said, “turn the things you’re wearing now over to the supply clerk. Then go straight down the hall to the warden’s office.” He laughed. “That is, unless you want to keep your denim as a souvenir.”

I said, “No, thank you. I don’t want any souvenirs. All I want of this is a faint recollection.”

“Then stay out of trouble,” he told me.

The warden had my dossier on his desk. He looked from it to me and said, “I’d planned to talk to you, White. You’re several cuts above the average man we get here and I don’t want to see you back. But right now you’re so filled with self-pity and feeling, so pushed around that nothing I could say would do a bit of good.”

He laid a typed receipt, a sealed envelope, a small sheaf of bills, and some silver on the corner of his desk. “So if you’ll sign a receipt for the one hundred and twenty-six dollars and fifty cents that is credited to your account, I’ll keep my mouth shut and let someone else do the talking.”

That would probably be Father Reilly. The priest had given me the only news I’d had of Beth. I knew she was clerking in a store in Palmetto City. I knew she knew about Zo. But if Beth had filed suit for divorce, I hadn’t been served with the papers.

“Goodbye and good luck, White,” the warden concluded the interview.

I started to crack, “Thanks for nothing,” but something stopped me. Perhaps it was the fact I had plenty for which to thank him. The warden had leaned over backwards to see that the attempted break hadn’t earned me any bad time.

The same guard took me in tow again. But we weren’t headed for the chaplain’s office. It was the first time I had been in a death house. I didn’t like it.

Swede was sitting on the edge of a desk in a small windowless conference room. He looked much the same as he always had except his tan was gone, the lines in his face were deeper, and his eyes seemed even bluer.

The guard said I had ten minutes, and closed and locked the door. The lump in my throat grew still larger. Ten minutes wasn’t long enough to even start thanking the old man for what he’d done for me. I’d have been in the attempted break up to my eyes if Swede hadn’t landed a hard right on my jaw that had belted me back on my cot unconscious.

When I’d come to again, Mickey and Saltz were dead, and Swede had picked up the big tab for caving in a guard’s head.

“
Stay out of this, kid
,” he’d warned me, “
You only got six months to go. I got life and ninety-nine years
.”

Swede sucked hard at his cigarette as if with time running out on him he wanted to enjoy every puff to the maximum. “Ten minutes,” he said, “isn’t long. So let me do the talking, kid. Would you say I was a Holy Joe?”

The lump in my throat let go and I laughed nervously.

“Then keep that in mind,” Swede said. “You and me are a lot alike, Charlie. We both like the water. We’ve both made a good living on and out of it. But were we content with that? No.” He gestured with his cigarette.

“That’s why I asked the warden if I could talk to you. A man does a lot of thinking when he gets in one of these quick-fry joints. And it all boils down to this: A man hauls in the fish he baits for and at the depth at which he fishes.”

He lighted a cigarette from the butt of the one he was smoking. “In the old days it was different. A man had to depend on himself and there was a lot of wide open space for him to do it in. But times have changed. After years of sailing by guess, society has set out certain buoys and markers.” He asked if I had a silver dollar. There was one in the silver the warden had given me. Swede traced the lettering on the head side with a finger. “
E Pluribus Unum
. Know what that means, Charlie?”

I said, “Something about one for all or all for one.”

Swede shook his head. “No. It means
one out of many
. And that’s you and me, Charlie. And the screw who brought you here. And the warden. And the guy who’s going to fry me tonight. We’re all just one out of many. And you’ve got to swim with the school and keep its rules or – Well, look what’s happened to me. Look what happened to you when you tried to sail on your own.

“As rackets go, you had a good one. But let’s add up the score. On the debit side it cost you your wife, your boat, and got you three years in the can. On the profit side you had a dozen roaring good drunks in
Habana
, a fancy dame, and the false knowledge that you were smarter than your fellow fishing-boat captains. There were no lulls in your business. You brought in a good load every time. Okay. How much dough have you got?”

I told him. “One hundred and twenty-six dollars and fifty cents.”

Swede hooted. “For three years of your time. There are guys netting mullet out of Naples, and Palmetto City for that matter, who are making that much in one night. But netting mullet is hard work. So is fishing the grouper banks. And you and me had to be wise guys. You hear from your wife yet?”

I said I had not.

“Well,” Swede admitted. “I don’t know why you should. A man can starve a dame. He can cuss her. He can beat her every night and twice on Sunday and she’ll still think he’s her personal Marshall plan in a silver champagne bucket. But only if she knows she’s the only woman in his life.”

He went on before I could speak.

“But are you willing to admit you made a mistake and cut bait or fish? No. You’re so rotten filled with self-pity and hate, it’s a shame.” He snuffed out his cigarette. “I know how you feel, Charlie. I’ve got a temper, too. That’s one of the reasons I’m here.” He read my mind. “But don’t do it. Killing your former partner because he ran out on you when the law stepped in, will only bring you back here. And I mean
here
.”

Swede lighted a third cigarette. “Look. When you came back from that mess over there in ’45 or ’46 you’d been living in a bloody tide for four years. Life meant nothing. A thousand lives meant nothing. We had a similar red tide in the Gulf while you were gone. Fish died by the tens of millions. The shores and tide flats were heaped so high with dead fish they stunk. Everyone swore things would never be the same again.

“But they are. The water gradually cleared and the fish began to spawn again. Nature is building back. And that’s what you’ve got to do, Charlie. Forget this. You’re in clean water again. If you’re smart, you’ll stay there. Get a job fishing on shares. Swab out a charter boat if you have to. Then when you get something to offer her, find your wife. Get down on your knees if you have to and beg her to forgive you and come home.”

I said that sounded like good advice.

Swede looked at me a long minute, then snuffed out his cigarette. “But you aren’t going to take a damn word of it. Okay, kid. It’s your funeral.”

The guard opened the door. “That’s it.”

“I’ve been wasting my time,” Swede told him. He walked out of the room without offering to shake hands. “I won’t bother to say goodbye. It’s just
auf Wiedersehen
, Charlie. I’ll try to save a quart and a blonde for you down there.”

*   *   *

I walked back through the yard with the guard and out the front door of the prison. It was the same sun on the outside of the wall but it was brighter somehow. It almost blinded me. I stood on the steps for a moment looking at the cars in the parking lot and flipping a mental coin.