He kept his voice down to a sandpapered whisper. Or maybe that was all he could drum up anyway.
“Scotty. Scotty.”
I leaned over a little toward him to catch it better. “Yes? What is it?” I asked pleasantly.
“I’ll give you a hundred thousand dollars. In the bank here in town. Check to bearer. Just let me get over to the desk — write it. Over there, Scotty — other side of the room. Or bring the blank check and pen over here to the bed; I’ll write it right where I am. I’ll put my arms up high, against the back of the bed; won’t move while you’re over there getting it.”
I considered it, to torture him a little.
“Hundred and fifty thousand, Scotty. The works; everything I’ve got in my account down here.”
“I want Eve back.”
His hands were all over me, playing tag, chasing one another all around my shoulders and face.
“Two hundred thousand. Chicago account thrown in. Two hundred and fifty. Listen, won’t you listen? A quarter of a million.”
“Keep your hands down. You’re annoying me. I want Eve. Didn’t you hear me? I want Eve.”
He rolled his head from side to side on the pillow in despair. “Scotty, everything I’ve got. New York, Philly. Dummy accounts, safety boxes. Three quarters of a million dollars cash. Everything. You’ll own the world. Just let me walk out of here. Just let me walk down the road, the way I am. Just let me be — alive.”
“Eve. I want to hear her talk to me again. I want to see her look at me again. I want to see her move around in front of me again.”
I’d seen these old-time big shots of the twenties die in movies lots of times, and they always went down spunky, shooting and snarling, “Come and get me.” He didn’t; he died all spongy. But maybe he was old by now; I don’t know. The twenties were way behind us. What do you think he was doing? He was stroking my arm, trying to wheedle me into letting him live. Down, and down, and down, like an angry cat’s fur.
“Everything, everything — just let me live.”
“But I don’t want everything. I don’t want anything. All I want is something much easier than that. It’s hard to rake three quarters of a million dollars together; it takes you all your life; it’s hard to hand it over to a stranger just like that! All I want is just Eve. Just arrange to have her brought back to me; that’s all you’ve got to do. That should be easy for a guy like you, used to pulling wires.”
“I can’t, Scotty,” he whimpered.
The low-voiced conversation was nearing the explosion point. I could feel it coming on, though I didn’t know from one moment to the other what we were going to say next.
“You’re asking me for the one thing I can’t do. Why won’t you take something else?”
“Then why do you have things done when you can’t undo them? Why do you take things away when you can’t give them back?”
There if came now. I could feel it pouring down the veins of my arms like a hot tide.
“So the only thing I’ll take from you is the one thing I can’t give you back: your life.”
I plowed deep into him with both arms. I twisted the thing around two ways at once, the thing that was his neck; one hand working one way, the other going against it. It seemed to be in layers; the outer layer, the skin, moved one way; the under part, the muscular column below, went against it. All that came out was a squeak. The echo of a smothered scream that was trapped below as it closed up.
Then you couldn’t hear anything much, except the continuous rustling sound the sheets made, as if he were being very restless in his bed. From this side to that, from that side to this. Then his legs would go straight up and pull everything up to a point for a minute, making a tent of the bedclothes. Then they’d collapse again, and the tent would deflate. Then from this side to that, from that side to this, like the blades of a pair of crazed scissors. Then straight up again, almost as if he were practicing calisthenics. It wasn’t at that end he was trying to escape; it was at the other, but it couldn’t show itself at the other, so it ran down to that end.
I was conscious of everything in the second or two that it was going on. I could even think objectively. I can even remember some of my thoughts. “How long it takes to kill a human being. You never get through.” “Isn’t he ever going to die? Die, will you? Die, will you? Die!” And with each “Die” I’d lunge downward with all might and main, until seams of the woodwork would creak a little, complainingly. And at each lunge his tongue would start forward, as if working on a reverse principle to my pressure. Then it would slip back again. It was like working some kid’s toy or plaything, built to do a certain thing when you push in at just the right hidden spot.
I could even see the shadow of my own head, thrown up on the wall by that halo from the lamp. I could see it jitter a little, and then go down out of sight, and then come up again, and then jitter some more. You couldn’t make out what it was doing — on the wall. It looked like the head of a man engaged in some strenuous but harmless thing, like packing a crammed valise on top of the bed.
Then suddenly it was swept way offside somewhere, snatched from close before me, and set down again on some far wall, and at different density, as if the original limited halo it had been swimming in had been flushed completely off there and swept away on some new torrential source of reflection. There was a full-length shadow of a man in its place now. Triangular, starting narrow, ending wide, and going all the way up. And I hadn’t moved, and the lamp shade hadn’t moved, so I knew what it was.
“Wait a minute, Ed — I’ll get him!”
The rattles had finally sounded, and the fangs were out.
I swung the two of us around: over, and off the side, and down to the floor in a barrellike somersault. The blast came just as it was half completed. We must have been still above the bed line, in process of going over. It was just dimly noted background noise, an accompaniment to the main event of clawing and flopping that was going on.
When we started I was on top, he was below me; when we ended he was on top, I was below. My hands were still fused to that throat of his; I’d never let go, even falling.
He came down on top of me, heavy and paunchy and bouncy, and then we both just lay there, still.
I didn’t feel anything, so I knew it had missed. I knew he was coming over to see.
I saw that I’d killed Roman by now, anyway; he wasn’t moving any more. His chest was pasted flat against mine, heart to heart, and I could go by that. There was no counterpoint to my own ticking; I would have felt it if there was any, after such a struggle. So I knew his heart had stopped; he was dead.
Good. That was what I’d been trying for.
He was on his way over to see. We were on the window side of the bed, the two of us, and it was in the way; he couldn’t see us from where he was. We both lay still, Roman because he was dead, I because that would bring Jordan over to see. I could see him from under it, his feet in those straw sandals he always wore. I saw them start to move forward, a step at a time. It was funny to see just detached feet, by themselves, walk like that.
I let go the throat. There was nothing to choke out of it any more. The skin almost seemed to stick to my fingers, like pully taffy, I’d been kneading it so long. I got hold of Roman’s limp arm in the gaudy striped sleeve, collared it just below the elbow, pushed it up perpendicular above the bed line. My grip around the bone held it up straight, although the hand bent down on itself a little. I let it sort of grab at the coverings atop the bed and stay like that for a minute.