He could hear him breathe, through the door, he was so close. He probably couldn’t, but his taut senses supplied the sound out of their own invention.
The doorbell battery, fortunately far behind him along the hall, clamored.
Marshall’s hands came out from behind his back. He flexed them, to give them agility. He wiped them on his side, to dry them. He put one forward and placed it on the knob. Left it there like that.
The rearward battery clarioned again.
His wrist turned, and he tugged the door in, and he was looking at him, the man he was going to kill within the next few minutes.
6
He was shorter than Marshall. He was broader by a good deal. He was also older than he, not by so much perhaps as that he showed it more. He was balding, and there were already certain creases imprinted about his mouth and eyes that had become permanent, remained unaltered no matter what facial expression backed them.
He saw everything about him at a glance, Marshall. Things that were of no consequence, that he almost didn’t want to know, that only intruded on the main issue — which was life and death. Life at this particular moment, death at another moment very presently to come. As when you’re taking a snapshot of one certain subject, and background irrelevancies crowd into the print, doing away with its singleness of purpose.
Such as that he was wearing a tie of dark blue silk, with a very thin diagonal band of gold repeated on it at wide intervals. Such as that there was a mole on his neck, just down from the lobe of his left ear. Or such as that there was the top of a fountain-pen barrel affixed to the rim of his breast pocket by a ball-pointed clip.
There was an intentness to his eyes that boded ill. They somehow betrayed the fact that they were alert lest his vis-a-vis, Marshall, get away from him, elude him in some way. Though they were intent, they weren’t still. It wasn’t a passive stare. Their pupils vibrated, danced. They remained at dead center of the eye, but they reminded Marshall of that subtitle at the picture awhile ago, the way they quivered while yet standing still. As though, if you go over to the left, I’ll go over to the left after you; if you go over to the right...
He waited for him to speak, Marshall.
“Good evening, Mr. Marshall?”
“Mr. Marshall.”
“Mr. Prescott Marshall?”
“Mr. Prescott Marshall.”
“I think I’d like to see you.”
“You think you would?”
“I’m sure I would, Mr. Marshall. In fact, I’ve tried before.”
Marshall repeated the phrase, without interrogation. “You’ve tried before.”
Notice how watchful he is, afraid any moment I’m going to close him out? Notice how his eyes just went down to the base of the door, to make sure my own foot isn’t down there as a wedge? Notice how they now went toward the inside knob, to see if I wasn’t about to ram it closed?
“But I’m persistent. My experience has taught me to be so. I never give up.”
“Never?” He thought of a line in Gilbert and Sullivan: Never? Well, hardly ever. But his mind didn’t smile at it.
He was looking past him now, warily and dissembledly studying the terrain. The car was empty, he’d come alone. No one out there on either side of the walk.
“And, as you see, it’s paid me not to—”
Not to what? He had to think back. Not to give up.
“—because I’ve finally run you down.”
Marshall’s eyes widened slightly, then drew back to normal.
He thought a sentence over, then said it. “Does that mean I’ve been avoiding you?”
The man smiled a little, for the first time. It wasn’t friendly, it was a cynical half-smile. “In my line, I think most people do. I have to go out and nail them down. They’re not going to come in to me.”
He’s becoming more broad by the minute. It’s not an overt arrest, though, or it would have already occurred, the minute I opened the door. Blackmail, probably, the same as the woman. Only infinitely worse this time.
“I think we could talk over what I have to say to you more comfortably inside, Mr. Marshall.”
“Well, then we will,” said Marshall crisply. He drew the door back past himself full arm’s length. He followed it back, still facing forward, like a soldier executing a rearward wheeling movement. “Help yourself,” he said, dangerously reticent. Come in at your own risk.
The man came forward. “Your lady at home?” he asked tentatively.
“I’m here alone,” Marshall said.
“Well, I think maybe that’s better for our purposes.”
Marshall closed the door, and locked it. Then he managed to get over to the room opening ahead of the man, by quick-stepping, in order to be there in time to indicate.
“Sit in that chair. That one there, where you’ll have enough light.”
It was so akin to an order, that the man glanced at him. But then he went over and stood before it.
“Shall I...?” He bent, offering to pick up the scattered sheets of newspaper.
“No, leave them there,” Marshall said. “Just put your feet on them. We spilled something on the rug earlier.”
The man sat down without further ado. Marshall sank into the diagonally confronting chair he had ready, knowing he was going to get up again in only a moment.
When I do, that’ll be twice I’ve done it. Killed someone. Most people never do it even once. Strange, when it happens by accident, like the first time, you’re so frightened, you think it’s so terrible. When you’ve planned it ahead, like now, you’re hardly frightened at all, you hardly think anything of it at all. I mean, as far as feeling guilty about it.
What are those papers he’s taken out, and is looking over? Typed reports? Documents having to do with me? He has it all written down already.
“I have here a complete dossier on you, Mr. Marshall. That’s a fancy French word I picked up, I find myself using it lately, dunno why. Well, in plain English, a file. You look surprised.” He chuckled. “I already know more about you than you do about yourself. I’d like to bet. Well, when a man’s whole future — you might even say his very life itself — is what you’re concerned with, it pays to be thorough, that’s the least you can do.”
His very life itself, echoed Marshall.
The man began to read aloud, but in a curious monotone, as if more for his own sake, to refresh his own memory, than for Marshall’s.
“Now, let’s see what I’ve got on you so far,” he said. “Prescott Marshall. Married. Age — twenty-six.”
“Who told you that?” said Marshall with a visible start.
The man looked complacent. “Oh, I’ve been making inquiries. Here and there.”
Marshall let go a deep, shuddering breath.
“You came out here in July of this year. You work for the Ponds Company, everyone knows who they are. Before that, you worked in New York, different type of job.”
“Where’d you get that from?”
“That’s my job. I’ve had my eye on you for some time.”
Now. Do it now. Don’t wait any longer. Beat him to the punch.
“Oh, well,” the man said indifferently, “I have enough on you. The rest I can get from you your—”
Marshall was on his feet, after a pretended patting of several of his pockets. “Just a minute, I think I’d like a cigarette. I left mine over there in back of your chair.”
The man was suddenly holding a package so close to him that it touched his midriff. “Here, have one of mine.”
“No, I, uh, smoke Murad. That’s my brand.”
The man slanted his thumb down out of the way, revealing more of the package. “That’s what these are. That’s my brand too.”