"George, please — "
"Let's not fight about it," George said. "I'm leaving. I got to leave."
"I don't like it," his wife said.
"I'll think about what you said," George told her. "I honestly will."
"Can't you do what I want?" his wife said. "It's what you want too, or what you tell me you want."
"We've been over this," George said. He went to the front door. "Now I'm leaving," he said.
"Please, George," his wife said.
George shrugged. "I'll give you a call when I'm ready to come back," he said.
George drove carefully, and not too quickly, out of town and onto the turnpike. There was very little traffic; George allowed himself the luxury of a cigarette as he drove and thought about his next move.
Fred was his cousin, he thought, and maybe his wife was right; you had to pay some attention to that. It wasn't like going out after a stranger. And he and Fred had been closer than most cousins; they'd almost been like brothers for many years. George could remember secrets they had shared, expeditions they had gone on together; when Fred had finished with high school, George, a year older, was already a runner for the organization, and he had managed to get Fred his first job.
Now Fred had walked out. Fred had announced he was going straight, and he didn't want to have anything more to do with the organization. Of course, Terry had been right, too; you couldn't let a man get away with that; a man in a responsible position had to have his mouth shut for him if he ever decided to walk out. You could never trust a man once he was away from the organization. And if the man knew too many secrets, you had to get rid of him. Even aside from Terry's talk about teaching the rest of the crowd a lesson, there was that business of knowing too much, and George could see that Terry was right.
Fred hadn't been a small-time runner or even a single-owner when he left, not like some little man who runs a book or a numbers drop and knows very little about the higher-ups and the organization work, Fred had been part of the inner group, a rough-house boy who'd made good. Fred had never been a gun, of course; he just didn't have what it took to do that job and George, who knew he was one of the best guns in the organization, knew that, too, about his cousin. But Fred had been valuable in his own way, valuable and trusted. If a man in a responsible position gets away from the organization, George told himself, you have to shut his mouth for him; you can't trust him. George knew that was perfectly right, even if you'd put the man in the responsible position yourself, even if the man were close to you, as close as if you'd been brothers.
George had to do the job, then, and he knew that. But as he drove down the turnpike, getting closer and closer to New York, where Fred had gone and where he would be hiding, he began to feel strange.
She should have known better than to argue with me, George told himself. He felt nervous, without knowing why; he thought perhaps he felt conscience or compassion, but he didn't know quite what they would be or what they might feel like; he put it down to nervousness alone. She should have kept quiet, George thought; she knows me and she knows I'll do the best thing. Now she has to start me thinking.
George was afraid it would affect his search, or the moment after the search was over. He was afraid he would do something wrong, and then where would he be? In spite of the brave talk, in spite of his wife's confidence, he had no idea what would happen if he reported failure to Terry. It was altogether possible Terry would decide George's usefulness was over, and then George would be the hunted man. George would have to run for his life… and finally face another gun, with the orders of the organization behind him.
Fred should have known better, he told himself. It's not my fault, what he did. He knows what's coming to him.
George kept telling that to himself, over and over. The drive through the dark, lamp-lit night was long and lonely. Fred had known what he was doing, George told himself. I can't afford to get myself in bad, or get myself killed, just because of Fred. If he wants to play it foolish, that doesn't mean I can't go on playing it smart.
And the way I feel… This is my job. This is what I do, and what I'm supposed to do. I can't just fool around with my work, as if it didn't mean anything.
George reached the outskirts of the city, the first turnoff into Queens, and slowed down. The drive was almost over; the search was about to start. Stop this foolish thinking, he told himself desperately. Stop it.
It was going to be simple finding Fred. George knew he would be with a girl, and he knew the girl…
Fred hadn't taken the trouble to hide anything, he told himself. For some reason that irritated him, and he had no idea why; he tried not to think about it. There were so many things about this job that made him feel strange; it was almost like a different kind of thing altogether, not a job like all the jobs he had grown used to doing.
At any rate, George knew the girl lived on Fifty-third Street, East, and he knew Fred would be there sooner or later. He drove his car through the massed New York traffic, taking great care not to be involved in an accident of any kind, and pulled to the curb three doors away from the apartment house in which Fred's girl lived.
No sooner had he parked, than a cab drew up before the apartment house and a girl got out. George wondered if he should wait for Fred, and decided that since the girl had come home, he would be better off waiting upstairs with her, and not giving Fred any chance to get away. There was the possibility, too, that Fred might already be inside. He was thinking mechanically now, not letting himself feel even the pleasure he remembered from other jobs well done, neatly planned and carefully executed; there could be no pleasure in this job. With any feeling at all, George knew, there was the danger that those strange sensations might come, the conscience or compassion or whatever they were; he could hardly afford that, at this final stage of things.
He followed the girl through the apartment house door and to the elevator. He looked at the mirror-walls of the lobby, at the front door behind him; he and the girl were strangers and neither talked nor gave any indication that they were aware of each other. After a few seconds, the elevator came. The girl stepped in and George was behind her.
She pressed the fourth-floor button. George stood waiting. When the elevator stopped, the girl opened the door and stepped out and George followed her. She went to her door without pausing, probably thinking, if she were thinking about him at all, that George was visiting some other apartment on the floor. But he kept close behind her until she had reached her own door. He took out his gun carefully, keeping it almost totally concealed under his jacket.
"Just open the door and go in ahead of me," he said suddenly, in a quiet voice, "and then there won't be any trouble."
The girl turned and faced him.
"No…" she said, finally.
"Just open the door," George said. "I don't want to hurt you."
"You're looking for… he's not here," the girl said. "I don't know what you want."
"You know just what I want," George said. "Let's not stand here talking. Come on. Let's go inside."
"You can't — "
George motioned with the gun.
"— they're waiting for you inside. They'll kill you."
George shook his head. "Now I'm tired of wasting time," he said. And he made an angry, jabbing gesture with the gun.
The girl turned without a word, opened the door and stepped inside. At the last second, she tried to close the door in George's face, but he threw himself forward and came through into the apartment.
He closed the door behind him and stood leaning against it for a minute. There was a long hallway in front of him, carpeted in dull red, the walls painted pearl-gray. At the end of the hall was a large room. Doorways opened off the hall to his left.