Nolan shoved her away from him and she rolled on her side sobbing uncontrollably. He ran into the bedroom and jerked open the closet doors.
Shoes were arranged in neat rows along the top shelf. Ankle-strap sandals, spectators, blue-suede pumps, moccasins, evening slippers.
Nolan pushed them aside and saw the paper-wrapped package of money at the rear of the shelf against the wall. He grabbed it in both hands and walked to the middle of the bedroom, holding it tightly against his body. This was his, all his, and it was the only thing that meant a damn. Tearing off an end of the wrapping, he saw the green bills, and nodded with satisfaction. Then he shoved the package into the pocket of his suit and strode into the living room.
Linda was sitting up, supporting her weight on one arm. She raised her head and he saw the tears in her eyes, and the angry red imprint of his hand on her cheek. “Barny, you can’t keep on like this,” she said, and the words were indistinct and blurred.
He stared at her in silence, watching the rise and fall of her bosom. There was no sound in the room but her ragged breathing.
“You told them, didn’t you?” he said.
“No, no, Barny.”
“You sold me out. I trusted you and you sold me out.”
“No, no! Barny, everyone knew about it. You... you never had a chance. But stop now, Barny, for God’s sake.”
Nolan laughed and drew his gun from its holster. He saw her now as part of the dirt and deceit that had always filled his life. She was in the same class with Petey Felickson and his wife and Dave Fiest and that chemistry teacher. They’d never believed in him, trusted him, given him a break. They were all pieces of filth waiting to lie to him, to cheat him, to betray him; as everybody he’d known had always done.
“Please, Barny, for my sake, sit down and put your gun away,” she said. “Don’t go on this way.”
He saw her clearly, pleading with him, crawling toward him, seeking to get his defenses down.
He laughed suddenly but the sound broke in his throat and he felt stinging tears in his eyes. She had been what he’d always wanted, the cleanness and brightness that would make everything else all right. And she was the worst of all.
Linda screamed as he raised his gun. He fired one shot at her and saw her spin as if struck by a giant fist, and then he waited, staring down at her, his breath coming slowly, until he saw the blood spreading through her robe.
When he saw that, he put his gun away, and walked out of the apartment. He went down the steps to the sidewalk and turned right, not knowing where he was going, but reasoning calmly to himself that he’d better be somewhere else when the police arrived. Ramussen would be coming, of course, and neighbors would be phoning the police board to tell them they’d heard a gunshot. The area would be crawling with red police cars within three minutes.
Nolan walked to the first intersection and glanced back toward Linda’s apartment. A man was standing in the street staring at him, but when Nolan looked back, the man ran up the steps of a building and out of sight.
Nolan hesitated for a few seconds at the intersection, unable to decide what to do, or even to marshal enough energy to keep moving. His inclination was to stand still until the police cars arrived and then draw his gun and shoot anyone who got in his way; but he had been a cop for seventeen years, and his instincts prodded him into defensive action almost automatically. He walked quickly down the block that intersected Linda’s street, and at the next corner turned left and broke into a run. When he reached the next block, a well-traveled street, he stepped off the curb and waited for a cab.
Within a minute or so he stopped an empty one. The driver, a small young man with a blond mustache, glanced at him as he climbed into the rear seat. “Where to, sir?” he said.
“Just drive for a while,” Nolan said. “I got a little time to kill before an appointment.” The phrase, time to kill, brought a faint grin to his face. He suddenly felt unbearably hot, and he knew he needed a drink. “Stop at a State store,” he told the driver.
“Okay.”
The driver swung into the traffic on Chestnut Street and followed it for several blocks before turning off and coming back up Walnut Street to a State liquor store.
“I can’t park here long,” he told Nolan. “The cop at the next corner is murder. If he spots me here he’ll make me move.”
“Well, circle around and pick me up if you have to,” Nolan said. “Cops. They’re all rock-heads, you know.”
“Yeah, I suppose so,” the driver said.
Nolan walked into the liquor store and joined the slowly moving line of customers. He felt quite calm and relaxed. Nothing seemed important but getting something to drink and finding a place where he could He down and rest.
Finally it was his turn. He ordered two fifths of blended whisky and watched with mild interest as the clerk rang up the sale, slipped the bottles in a brown paper bag, and made change from his ten-dollar bill. He counted the change carefully, nodded to the clerk, and walked outside to find his cab driver still waiting.
“Well, I guess he didn’t see me,” the driver said.
“They’re all rock-heads,” Nolan said.
He opened one of the bottles and took a long drink of the burning liquor. Somewhere off to his left he heard the whine of a police siren. Or an ambulance maybe. Then he heard another.
“Hey, something’s up!” the driver said.
“You should have been a cop,” Nolan said. “You’re bright. You hear a half dozen sirens so right away you know something’s up.”
The driver said nothing.
Nolan had another drink before thinking about his own problem. He didn’t know what to do, or where to go; but he couldn’t stay in Philly. The cab was safe for a while, but he couldn’t ride around indefinitely.
“Drive me over to Camden,” he told the driver.
Camden, N.J. That was it. The cops over there wouldn’t get the alarm from Philadelphia until a three-state flyer went out. Camden was only ten minutes away, just over the Delaware River Bridge.
They crossed the beautiful span of the bridge and stopped at the toll gate on the Jersey side. The driver paid twenty cents to a Bridge Authority patrolman, and they rolled on into Camden’s Main Street.
“Where to now, sir?” the driver said.
“Can you take me to Atlantic City?”
“No, we’re not allowed to go that far.”
Nolan realized that this cabby would put the finger on him when he returned to Philadelphia. The police would check all the cabs that had been in Linda’s neighborhood when the shot was fired, and they’d find this driver, of course.
“Well, can I get a cab to Atlantic City here in Camden?”
“Sure, they make all the shore points.”
“Well, Atlantic City is good enough for me.”
Nolan wanted the driver to report that his fare had gone on to Atlantic City. That might give him an extra few hours. An extra few hours for drinking, he thought.
The driver stopped at the County Building and pointed to a row of cabs. “Any of those fellows will be glad to take you,” he said.
Nolan paid him and got out. “Thanks, pal,” he said, and watched the cab until it disappeared on the route back to the bridge.
Nolan walked along Main Street for two blocks and then turned down a block that led to a quiet residential area. Couples strolled along hand-in-hand, glancing idly at Nolan, but he passed them without a thought. His mind was calm, undisturbed. The only reality was the money in his pocket and the liquor under his arm.
When he came to a frame house that had a ‘Rooms’ sign in the front window he went up the rickety stairs and rang the bell. The woman who answered the door was a friendly, garrulous person, who showed him a small hot bedroom on the third floor, and collected nine dollars in advance for a week’s rent.