“No! It wasn’t like that!”
“Then how was it? Why’d you beat her up?”
Partain licked his lips, waggled his head from one side to another, big-eyed, as if looking for a way out.
“Answer me, Phil. Why did you beat her up?”
“She… I… all right, all right, I caught her trying to steal money out of my wallet, all right? Afterward, after I already paid her the fifty she asked for. All right? You satisfied now?”
“You must’ve been damn angry. She was banged up pretty good.”
“Bitch fought me, what else could I do? Tried to scratch me, kick me in the nuts. It was self-defense.”
“What time did all this take place?”
“I dunno what time, late afternoon…”
“And then what happened?”
“What you think happened? I threw her ass out.”
“And she went back to Ginger Benn’s apartment.”
“Yeah, I guess so. That’s the last time I saw her-”
“You’re lying, Phil. Ginger Benn was there on Sunday and she didn’t see Janice Stanley. Nobody saw Janice until Monday morning.”
“I don’t know where she went, how the hell would I know?”
I was remembering those red chafe marks on Janice Krochek’s wrists. “Let’s try this on for size. You caught her stealing from your wallet, beat her up when she fought you, but you were still pissed and you figured it wasn’t enough payback. So you held her here against her will, tied her to the bed, let’s say, and used her while she was lying there helpless, and kept her tied up and kept using her until Monday morning.”
It was the right scenario or close to it. Partain looked sick and panicky. Nerves jumped and crawled in his cheeks like worms under thin white latex.
“And then maybe you decided you wanted more sex, more payback. So you went over to her house on Tuesday, caught her there alone-”
“House? What house?”
“You know where she lives. You could’ve found out easily enough. You went over there, caught her alone-”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“-and she gave you more trouble and things got out of hand. Is that about how it happened?”
“No!”
“Where is she, Phil? What’d you do with her body?”
“Her… body? Jesus, you think I… Jesus!”
“An accident, right? You didn’t mean to kill her-”
“You’re crazy! I never went to no house, I never killed nobody! You’re trying to frame me, you…” The last word caught in his throat; he gagged, coughed up another stream of words. “I can’t listen to no more of this, I don’t have to stand here half-naked listening to this shit.”
Partain stumbled over to an open closet door, dragged a pair of pants off a hanger. He was still at the closet door when he got them on, and when he reached in again I thought it was for a shirt. Wrong. What he was after was on the shelf above.
Gun. Stubby, scratched up Saturday night special.
I froze. So did Runyon. Partain waved the piece back and forth between us, his hand shaking hard enough to make the muzzle bob up and down. “All right, you bastards,” he said, “all right!”
Both Runyon and I had been under the gun before, a couple of times together before this, and I’d been shot once a long time ago. But you never get used to looking down the bore. And the reaction, for me, is always the same: muscles bunching up tight, senses sharpening, a kind of cold calm descending over a thin layer of fear. The fear comes from uncertainty more than anything else; you can’t predict what somebody with a gun in his hand will do, and that goes double for a man in the throes of panic.
I said slowly and evenly, “You want to be careful with that, Phil.”
“You’re not gonna arrest me, frame me for something I didn’t do.”
“Nobody’s trying to frame you.”
“I never killed that bitch Janice. I never went to her house, I never saw her again after I threw her outta here Monday morning.”
“I believe you. Put the gun down, you don’t want to shoot anybody.”
“I don’t want to but I will. I’m not going to jail for something I didn’t do.”
“You don’t have to go to jail. If Janice Stanley’s alive and intended to press charges, she’d’ve done it already. You’re home free, Phil. Unless you pull that trigger and one of us gets hurt.”
It didn’t register; he wasn’t tracking clearly. He waved the gun, holding it in both hands now to steady his grip. “Get out of my way. I’m getting out of here.”
Partain moved and I moved, hands up at the level of my shoulders, palms outward. His attention was caught on me. Runyon was a short distance away, on his left and slightly behind him. When I saw Jake slide a careful step forward I knew what he was going to do and I tried to warn him off with my eyes, but he was focused on the gun. Partain kept coming and I kept gliding aside to clear his path to the door. He was between the two of us, starting to glance Runyon’s way as if he’d just remembered him, when Jake made his play.
He was good and he was fast; Partain had no time to swing the gun. Runyon judo-chopped his forearm, hit him with the other shoulder at the same time. The Saturday night special went spinning out of Partain’s hand, clattered on the floor. The force of the shoulder blow threw him staggering in my direction. I couldn’t get out of his way; he caromed off me, shoving with his hands. Runyon lunged at him, but his feet got tangled in the threadbare carpet and he tripped, lost his balance, banged a knee on the floor with enough force to bring a grunt of pain out of him. By the time he shoved up again, Partain had the door open and was out into the hall, running.
Runyon went after him. I yelled, “Jake, don’t!” but he kept going. Nothing for me to do then but to join the chase. But not until I’d scooped up the weapon and slid it into my coat pocket.
When I got into the hall, Runyon was just limping around the corner ell. It took me four or five seconds to get there and take myself around it. The long hall to the elevator was empty, but I could hear running steps close by. A door halfway along was just closing on its pneumatic tube. I yanked it open and bulled through. Fire stairs. But the running steps were going up, not down.
One flight to the roof. The door at the top of the landing stood half-open; I had a glimpse of Runyon’s back going through. I went running up the stairs. Not the man I used to be: I was puffing hard when I came out onto the roof.
Rough, tarry surface, heater vents and chimneys, taller buildings on all sides. And Partain at the far end, heading for a pair of curved hand bars at the top of a fire escape, and Runyon hobbling behind him. I sucked enough cold air into my lungs to yell, “Jake, let him go!” If he heard me, he kept going anyway.
Partain reached the hand bars, swung a leg over the parapet, and scrambled down out of sight.
I yelled it again, louder: “Jake! Let him go!”
It got through to him this time, broke his stride. He looked over his shoulder, saw me gesturing, and slowed to a walk. He was at the thigh-high parapet, leaning on the hand bars and looking down, when I reached him. I don’t like heights, but I eased forward to take a look myself. Partain was down past the third floor, running blindly and with enough panic to skid and bang precariously into the iron railings. He almost went over at the second floor level, caught himself just in time.
“No point in chasing him,” I said.
“Guess you’re right.” Runyon leaned down to rub his knee. “My bad leg, dammit. I’d’ve caught him if I hadn’t tripped.”
“Doesn’t matter. He’s got nowhere to go that he can’t be found. We’ve got nothing on him anyway except threat of bodily harm, and it’s his word against ours on that.”
“What about the gun?”
I took the Saturday night special out, broke it open. “Not even loaded.”
“Shit.”
That was a word Runyon hardly ever used. I glanced at him. Tight-lipped, eyes bleak and underslung with bags. Something bothering him. It could have been the hassle with Partain, but I had the sense that it went deeper than that. No use in asking; he was as closed-off a man as I’d ever known.