He kept walking. He had no idea of direction. But there was a hopeless horror building inside him and he knew that soon he would have to think. He was afraid of thinking. As long as he could walk on blindly he felt invisible and anonymous, but he couldn’t go on forever. Sometime his thoughts would catch up with him.
At eight-thirty he turned into a restaurant. It was a cheap Greek eating place and there was no one at the counter. He sat down and ordered coffee from the proprietor, a fat man, with skin like leather and mustache that looked like a dirty scrub brush.
The coffee was in a thick white mug and he couldn’t drink it. He sat and looked at the cup. He tried to light a cigarette but his hands were trembling too much.
He started thinking. He tried not to, but it was no use.
He remembered the blonde girl he’d met, he remembered that she wanted him to go home with her. And he remembered how she looked lying on the bed with a knife stuck into her, and her blood crusted and dark on her white breast.
He thought of Fran. And he made a noise in his throat like an animal.
How long he sat there he had no way of knowing, but when he felt the hand on his shoulder he learned something. He learned about fear.
He looked up and there was a big man, with a hard, gray face, a gray overcoat and a gray hat standing beside him. The hand on his shoulder was big and business-like.
Larry tried to say something, but the words stuck. He couldn’t meet the big man’s level gaze.
“Let’s see your wallet,” the big man said.
Larry heard the words. He knew what they meant, but he didn’t have any muscular coordination. He started fumbling with his tie. The big man said again, “The wallet. And fast. I’m from the Bureau of Detectives.”
He got out the wallet and handed it over. The big man looked at it, thumbed through the papers, then handed it back.
“Get up. We’re taking a trip.”
Larry got up and went outside with the big man. There was a police car parked at the curb. The big man opened the front door, climbed in after Larry. He started the car, put it in gear and drove toward the Loop.
He didn’t talk much.
He said, “What did you do it for?”
“I don’t know.”
“They all say that. Do you think that helps her any?”
“I don’t know.”
“Guys like you should get the book.”
Larry shook his head slowly and then he pressed his hands against his face. He couldn’t think anymore.
The copper said, “We were lucky to get you without any trouble. Usually you guys keep us working for a week.”
He shut up then and concentrated on driving. They were on a through-street now leading into the Loop. When they reached State Street the copper pulled up beside a Subway entrance.
He reached over and opened Larry’s door.
“Now get this,” he said. “Go home and stay there. You got no cause to be worrying your wife like you did. She’s been on our necks all last night. Lucky I got a flash this morning before I started back to work.”
Larry felt his throat crawling again. He was afraid he was going to be sick. “You’re letting me go?” he said.
“Sure. We got nothing to book you on. Your wife called the cops, the fire department, the Missing Persons Bureau, and just about everybody else when you didn’t come home last night. She thought you’d been hit by a truck. We don’t care how many times a guy walks out on his wife, but when she starts squawking to us, that’s just another headache. Now take my advice, when you go on a bat the next time, cover up in advance. Tell her you got to work, or got a business trip to make. Then she don’t worry, and we don’t get no headaches. Get on home now. And you’d better think up a good story to tell her.”
Larry didn’t trust himself to talk. He felt like laughing. But he was close to hysteria. This copper was practically shoving him out of the car. Giving him advice about being a good husband, keeping out of trouble. Saving the police headaches.
In another hour this copper and every other one in the city would be looking for him. And not to give him advice.
He got out of the car and the copper leaned over and looked at his hand.
“Hurt yourself last night, didn’t you?” he asked.
“I fell, I guess,” Larry said.
His heart was pumping again, heavily, painfully. He wanted to turn and run, but something told him nothing would be more fatal. And then he felt a leaden despair. What did it matter?
The copper said, “Want me take you down to the station and have it fixed up?”
Larry shook his head and stepped back into the car. He pulled the door shut and said, “You may as well take me down to the station anyway.”
“What’s the idea?”
“I don’t know how to say it,” Larry said. His voice sounded a million miles away, flat and expressionless. “When I woke up this morning there was a dead girl lying beside me. She had a knife stuck into her. My hand was holding the knife. I guess you’d better take me in.”
Chapter III
The copper looked at him for a moment and then shook his head. He pushed his hat back on his head and fumbled for a cigarette.
“If this is a gag, it ain’t a funny one,” he said.
“It’s no gag,” Larry said.
The copper lit a cigarette and stared straight ahead with a gloomy expression on his face.
“So you picked up a tomato last night and stuck a knife in her. Is that it?”
“I didn’t kill her,” Larry said. He stopped and wet his lips. He didn’t know whether he had killed her or not. “I got a drink that had been doctored some way. It knocked me out. I don’t remember going to bed with her. When I woke up she was lying there dead. She had a knife driven into her chest.”
The copper frowned. “Now let’s go through this once again. I’d take you in, but I don’t want to get laughed out of the station. I got an idea you got the shakes. I think your imagination is running as wild as a woman’s poker game. You tell me a story that may be true. And it may not. There’s no percentage in it for you to lie to me. That’s why I’m listening.”
Larry shrugged wearily. “I wish to God I was lying. But I’m telling you the truth, as far as I know it. I had a fight with my wife last night. A little thing, but it seemed big, so I barged out of the house to get a drink. I went down town and stopped in a bar on Madison street. I—”
“What bar?”
Larry thought a minute. It was hard to sift through the tumbled thoughts in his head. “The Kicking Horse was the name of the place,” he said finally. “There’s a neon sign out in front with blinking lights that look like a horse kicking.”
“I know the place. Go on.”
“I met a girl in there. A blonde. We had a couple of drinks. I didn’t have more than four or five all night, but I started to get tight. But it wasn’t a drunken feeling. It was a sick, knocked-out feeling.”
He stopped and licked his lips. The copper looked at him steadily.
“I took her home. Or she took me home. That’s about all I remember. When I woke up she was lying beside me. She was dead. I wasn’t thinking very well. I walked out of the place and just kept walking. I stopped for some coffee and that’s where you found me.”
“Where did she live?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, where did she take you?”
“It was somewhere on Nelson Boulevard. I didn’t notice any street numbers.”
The copper turned the ignition key and stepped on the starter. He was still frowning.
“We can check that story easy enough,” he said.
“Can I call my wife?” Larry asked.
“Maybe from the station,” the copper said.
He put the car in gear and moved away from the curb. He was still frowning.