“Why were you waiting here?” she said.
“It’s too involved to go into,” he said. “Look, could you manage to get out of town for a week or two?”
“It’s curious you should mention it. I’m planning to leave. Did you know that?”
He felt suddenly confused and angry. “How the hell would I know it? Where are you going?”
“Chicago. It’s a better job, my agent thinks.”
“You do what he says, eh? Just like that?” he said, snapping his fingers.
“Not quite. He’s wanted me to leave for two years, but I thought there was something to wait for in New York.”
“You’ll be better off in Chicago.”
“Why do you want me to leave?”
“I told you it’s an involved business,” he said. “I’m not making friends these days, and some of them might think of causing you trouble. It’s a long shot, but it’s there.”
She was frowning slightly, watching him with thoughtful eyes. “And you’d care if something happened to me?”
There was no guile in her question; she seemed honestly puzzled by him now.
“I couldn’t care less,” he said, and his voice was bitter with anger at himself, at the stupidity of his answer. Why was he here if he didn’t care? That’s what she’d ask him next, trapping and hounding him with her eyes. “I don’t want you dragged into this. I don’t want you on my side, even by accident.”
“Steve, Steve,” she said, breathing the words softly. “Stop doing this thing to yourself.” She caught his arm impulsively as he tried to turn away from her. “Look at me, Steve. Please! I want to talk to you, I want to tell you what happened — how it happened while you were away.” She shook her head quickly, staring helplessly into his eyes. “It was so unimportant, Steve, so tragically unimportant. That’s what I want to make you understand. It had nothing to do with my loving you. Can’t you believe that?”
“I might,” Retnick said, “if I were a complete fool. I suppose you told him I was unimportant — tragically unimportant in your nice phrase.”
She took a step backward and withdrew her hand slowly from his arm. Then she said, “It’s a waste of time to go on hurting me, Steve. If you knew me at all you’d realize you’ve hurt me enough.” Her lips were trembling but her eyes were suddenly as cold as his own. “Maybe you think I should be stoned in the public square by the righteous daughters of the community? Or be beaten and branded and hung up by my thumbs? Is there any limit to what you think I deserve? How much should I pay for my mistake? I’ve been lonely and afraid for years. Isn’t that payment of a kind? Isn’t that enough? I’m in love with a man who can look at me as if I’m something loathsome. Isn’t that some kind of payment? Well, to me it is. As far as I’m concerned the account is in balance. I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. From now on I’ll judge myself by my rules, yes, and by Father Bristow’s. His rules are based on love, and yours are based on hate.” She drew a deep, unsteady breath. “That’s a long speech, but it’s the last you’ll hear from me.”
“Wait a minute,” he said.
“No.” She shook her head quickly, speaking the one word with difficulty. Turning, she hurried toward the entrance of her apartment. He saw the gleam of her slim legs as she began to run, and he knew from the way she held her shoulders that she was weeping.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” he shouted, but the door was already closing swiftly against his words.
Why had it happened to him? he thought, rubbing both hands over his face. He realized his mind was spinning senselessly, demanding answers to impossible questions. There was no reason to any of it; his life had been smashed casually and carelessly, destroyed in a whimsical collision with another’s will. The only way to give it sense was to destroy whoever ordained these fateful collisions. An uncomfortable chill went through his body at the thought, and he shook himself quickly and began walking. He knew then that part of his hatred had shifted from Amato to someone infinitely more powerful. What worried him was that his anger was directed at someone he no longer believed in. It was this that made the shadows of the night, and the shadows in his mind, so strange and menacing.
13
Retnick lay on his bed smoking one ciagrette after another, unable to find relief from his painful, turbulent thoughts. When a knock sounded on the door he got quickly to his feet, grateful for the distraction. Mrs. Cara stood in the hallway, an anxious and worried frown on her face.
“Mr. Retnick, I shouldn’t bother you, but one of my old men is sick.” She sighed and shook her head. “Not sick but drunk. He is weeping and drinking and I can’t do nothing for him. I thought you could talk to him, maybe.”
“What good would that do? If he wants to drink he’ll drink.”
“But he’s not like that. Mr. Nelson is very steady all the time. Something just happened to him, that’s all.”
“You could call the cops,” Retnick said.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that. He’s a very nice man.”
“Where is he?”
She smiled then, and some of the worry left her eyes. “Good, I show you. Come with me. Maybe another man can help him.”
Mr. Nelson had a room on the first floor at the back of the house, a clean, neat cubicle with a window opening on an air shaft. He was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling, a tall thin man with silver-gray hair and gentle brown eyes that were sunk deep beneath bushy eyebrows. A half-empty bottle of whisky was on the floor near his trailing hand. He was fully dressed. His overcoat was folded over the back of a chair but he still wore a gray wool muffler. He had been crying, obviously; his nose was red and tears glittered in his staring eyes.
“You go back to bed,” Retnick said to Mrs. Cara. “I’ll sit here with him awhile.”
“Can I get him anything?”
“I don’t think so.”
Nelson was apparently unconscious of their presence, but Retnick knew from the altered rhythm of his breathing that he had heard their voices. He pulled up the chair and sat beside the bed. Mrs. Cara looked uncertainly at the two men for a moment, and then sighed and tiptoed from the room.
“You can’t help,” Nelson said, without looking at Retnick. His voice was unexpectedly clear. “You might as well go, too. I’m not likely to become violent.”
“You gave Mrs. Cara a scare.”
“I didn’t mean to. I... she’s a good friend of mine. But I couldn’t help it.”
“She’ll understand. She’s just worried about you, that’s all. You mind if I smoke a cigarette?”
“No, I don’t mind. But you might as well go back and sleep. You can’t help me.”
“I’ll just finish the cigarette then,” Retnick said.
Nelson said nothing for three or four minutes. Retnick glanced around the small, tidy room; it was a still life of sterile loneliness. No snapshots, no pictures, no personal notes. The clutter of life was absent; the change and keys to use tomorrow, the stamped letter to mail on the way to work, there were no such things in this wrapped-up little box. A toothbrush stood in a clean glass on a shelf above the sink, and a bar of soap gleamed dully in the bright light. But they looked new and unused, like props in a department store window. Except for a tiny crucifix above the bed the walls were bare.
“My cousin died this morning,” Nelson said, in his clear distinct voice. “That’s... well, that’s why I got drunk. Would you explain that to Mrs. Cara?”
“That’s too bad,” Retnick said. “She’ll be sorry to hear it.”
Nelson shook his head. “She didn’t know him. I haven’t seen him for fifteen years. He lived in Boise. He was a school teacher. Never married. But he was the only relative I had. It — just hit me today. I’m alone. There’s nobody to bury me. The police will come when I die and they won’t know what to do with my body. I... I just started drinking this morning. I couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen to me, and I couldn’t stop drinking. I’m not a drinking man. I worked thirty-two years in the post office and I don’t suppose I had a dozen glasses of beer in all that time. You might as well go to bed, mister.”