Paul Channing stood for a moment at the corner. The crossing-light, half a block along the highway, showed him only as a gaunt shadow among shadows. He looked down the short street in somber hesitation. Small tired houses crouched patiently under the wind. Somewhere a rusted screen door slammed with the protesting futility of a dying bird beating its wing. At the end of the deserted pavement was the gray pallor of sand and, beyond it, the sea.
He stood listening to the boom and hiss of the waves, thinking of them rushing black and foam-streaked through the pilings of Sunset Pier, the long weeds streaming out and the barnacles pink and fluted and razor sharp behind it. He hoped that Hank had struck his head at once against a timber.
He lifted his head, his body shaken briefly by a tremor. This is it, he thought. This is the deadline.
He began to walk, neither slowly nor fast, scraping sand under his feet. The rhythm of the scraping was uneven, a slight dragging, off-beat. He went to the last house on the right, mounted three sagging steps to a wooden porch, and rapped with his knuckles on a door blistered and greasy with the salt sweat of the sea. There was a light behind drawn blinds, and a sound of voices. The voices stopped, sliced cleanly by the knocking.
Someone walked heavily through the silence. The door opened, spilling yellow light around the shadow of a thick-set, powerful man in shirtsleeves. He let his breath out in what was not quite a laugh and relaxed against the jamb.
“So you did turn up,” he said. He was well into middle age, hard-eyed, obstinate. His name was Max Gandara, Police Captain, Surfside Division, L.A.P.D. He studied the man on the porch with slow, deliberate insolence.
The man on the porch seemed not to mind. He seemed not to be in any hurry. His dark eyes looked, unmoved, at the big man, at him and through him. His face was a mask of thin sinewy flesh, laid close over ruthless bone, expressionless. And yet, in spite of his face and his lean erect body, there was a shadow on him. He was like a man who has drawn away, beyond the edge of life.
“Did you think I wouldn’t come?” he asked.
Gandara shrugged. “They’re all here. Come on in and get it over with.”
Channing nodded and stepped inside. He removed his hat. His dark hair was shot with gray. He turned to lay the hat on a table and the movement brought into focus a scar that ran up from his shirt collar on the right side of his neck, back of the ear. Then he followed Gandara into the living room.
There were three people there, and the silence. Three people watching the door. A red-haired, green-eyed girl with a smoldering, angry glow deep inside her. A red-haired, green-eyed boy with a sullen, guarded face. And a man, a neat, lean, swarthy man with aggressive features that seemed always to be on the edge of laughter and eyes that kept all their emotion on the surface.
“Folks,” said Gandara, “this is Paul Channing.” He indicated them, in order: “Marge Krist, Rudy Krist, Jack Flavin.”
Hate crawled into the green eyes of Rudy Krist, brilliant and poisonous, fixed on Channing.
Out in the kitchen a woman screamed. The swing door burst open. A chubby pink man came through in a tottering rush, followed by a large, bleached blonde with an ice pick. Her dress was torn slightly at the shoulder and her mouth was smeared. Her incongruously black eyes were owlish and mad.
Gandara yelled. The sound of his voice got through to the blonde. She slowed down and said sulkily, to no one in particular, “He better keep his fat paws off or I’ll fix him.” She went back to the kitchen.
The chubby pink man staggered to a halt, swayed, caught hold of Channing’s arm and looked up at him, smiling foolishly. The smile faded, leaving his mouth open like a baby’s. His eyes, magnified behind rimless lenses, widened and fixed.
“Chan,” he said. “My God. Chan.”
He sat down on the floor and began to cry, the tears running quietly down his cheeks.
“Hello, Budge.” Channing stooped and touched his shoulder.
“Take it easy.” Gandara pulled Channing’s arms. “Let the little lush alone. Him and—that.” He made a jerky gesture at the girl, flung himself heavily into a chair and glowered at Channing. “All right, we’re all curious—tell us why we’re here.”
Channing sat down. He seemed in no hurry to begin. A thin film of sweat made the tight pattern of muscles very plain under his skin.
“We’re here to talk about a lot of things,” he said. “Who murdered Henry?” No one seemed particularly moved except Budge Hanna, who stopped crying and stared at Channing. Rudy Krist made a small derisive noise in his throat. Gandara laughed.
“That ain’t such a bombshell, Chan. I guess we all had an idea of what you was driving at, from the letters you wrote us. What we want to know is what makes you think you got a right to holler murder.”
Channing drew a thick envelope from his inside pocket, laying it on his knee to conceal the fact that his hands trembled. He said, not looking at anybody, “I haven’t seen my brother for several years, but we’ve been in fairly close touch through letters. I’ve kept most of his. Hank was good at writing letters, good at saying things. He’s had a lot to say since he was transferred to Surfside—and not one word of it points to suicide.”
Max Gandara’s face had grown rocky. “Oh, he had a lot to say, did he?”
Channing nodded. Marge Krist was leaning forward, watching him intently. Jack Flavin’s terrier face was interested, but unreadable. He had been smoking nervously when Channing entered. The nervousness seemed to be habitual, part of his wiry personality. Now he lighted another cigarette, his hands moving with a swiftness that seemed jerky but was not. The match flared and spat. Paul Channing started involuntarily. The flame seemed to have a terrible fascination for him. He dropped his gaze. Beads of sweat came out along his hairline. Once again, harshly, Gandara laughed.
“Go on,” he said. “Go on.”
“Hank told me about that brush with the pachucos. They didn’t hurt him much. They sure as hell didn’t break him.”
“Flavin, here, says different. Rudy says different. Marge says different.”
“That’s why I wanted to talk to them—and you, Max. Hank mentioned you all in his letters.” He was talking to the whole room now. “Max I knew from the old days. You, Miss Krist, I know because Hank went with you—not seriously, I guess, but you liked each other. He liked your brother, too.”
The kid stared at him, his eyes blank and bright. Channing said, “Hank talked a lot about you, Rudy. He said you were a smart kid, a good kid but headed for trouble. He said some ways you were so smart you were downright stupid.”
Rudy and Marge both started to speak, but Channing was going on. “I guess he was right, Rudy. You’ve got it on you already—a sort of grayness that comes from prison walls, or the shadow of them. You’ve got that look on your face, like a closed door.”
Rudy got halfway to his feet, looking nasty. Flavin said quietly, “Shut up.” Rudy sat down again. Flavin seemed relaxed. His brown eyes held only a hard glitter from the light. “Hank seems to have been a great talker. What did he say about me?”
“He said you smell of stripes.”
Flavin laid his cigarette carefully in a tray. He got up, very light and easy. He went over to Channing and took a handful of his shirt, drawing him up slightly, and said with gentle kindness, “I don’t think I like that remark.”