20
I woke up a little after nine the next morning.
My mouth was sticky and my throat dry from the morphine-I don't know why he hadn't used hyoscin like any damned fool should have-and all I could think of right then was how thirsty I was.
I stood in the bathroom, gulping down glass after glass of water, and pretty soon it began to bounce on me. (I'm telling you almost anything is better than morphine.) But after a while it stopped. I drank a couple glasses more, and they stayed down. And I scrubbed my face in hot and cold water, and combed my hair.
Then I went back and sat down on the bed, wondering who'd undressed me; and all at once it hit me. Not about her. I wouldn't think about that. But-well, this.
I shouldn't have been alone. Your friends don't leave you alone at a time like that. I'd lost the girl I was going to marry, and I'd been through a terrible experience. And they'd left me alone. There wasn't anyone around to comfort me, or wait on me or just sit and shake their heads and say it was God's will and she was happy, and I-a man that's been through something like that needs those things. He needs all the help and comfort he can get, and I've never held back when one of my friends was bereaved. Why, hell, I-a man isn't himself when one of these disasters strikes. He might do something to himself, and the least people can do is have a nurse around. And…
But there wasn't any nurse around. I got up and looked through the other bedrooms, just to make sure.
And I wasn't doing anything to myself. They'd never done anything for me, and I wasn't doing anything for them.
I went downstairs and… and the kitchen had been cleaned up. There was no one there but me. I started to make some coffee, and then I thought I heard someone out in front, someone cough. And I was so all-fired glad I felt the tears come to my eyes. I turned off the coffee and went to the front door and opened it.
Jeff Plummer was sitting on the steps.
He was sitting sideways, his back to a porch post. He slanted a glance at me, then let his eyes go straight again, without turning his head.
"Gosh, Jeff," I said. "How long you been out here? Why didn't you knock?"
"Been here quite a spell," he said. And he fingered a stick of gum from his shirt pocket and began to unwrap it. "Yes, sir, I been here quite a spell."
"Well, come on in! I was just-"
"Kinda like it where I am," he said. "Air smells real good. Been smellin' real good, anyways."
He put the gum in his mouth. He folded the wrapper into a neat little square and tucked in back into his pocket.
"Yes, sir," he said, "it's been smellin' real good, and that's a fact."
I felt like I was nailed there in the doorway. I had to stand there and wait, watch his jaws move on that gum, look at him not looking at me. Never looking at me.
"Has there… hasn't anyone been-?"
"Told 'em you wasn't up to it," he said. "Told 'em you was all broke up about Bob Maples."
"Well, I-Bob?"
"Shot hisself around midnight last night. Yes, sir, pore ol' Bob killed hisself, and I reckon he had to. I reckon I know just how he felt."
And he still didn't look at me.
I closed the door.
I leaned against it, my eyes aching, my head pounding; and I ticked them off with the pounding that reached from my head to my heart… Joyce, Elmer, Johnnie Pappas, Amy, the… Him, Bob Maples… But he hadn't known anything! He couldn't have known, had any real proof. He'd just jumped to conclusions like they were jumping. He couldn't wait for me to explain like, hell, I'd've been glad to do. Hadn't I always been glad to explain? But he couldn't wait; he'd made up his mind without any proof, like they'd made up theirs.
Just because I'd been around when a few people got killed, just because I happened to be around..
They couldn't know anything, because I was the only one who could tell 'em-show 'em-and I never had.
And I sure as hell wasn't going to.
Actually, well, logically, and you can't do away with logic, there wasn't anything. Existence and proof are inseparables. You have to have the second to have the first.
I held onto that thought, and I fixed myself a nice big breakfast. But I couldn't eat but a little bit. That darned morphine had taken all my appetite, just like it always does. About all I could get down was part of a piece of toast and two-three cups of coffee.
I went back upstairs and lighted a cigar, and stretched out on the bed. I-a man that'd been through what I had belonged in bed.
About a quarter of eleven, I heard the front door open and close, but I stayed right where I was. I still stayed there, stretched out on the bed, smoking, when Howard Hendricks and Jeff Plummer came in.
Howard gave me a curt nod, and drew up a straight chair near the bed. Jeff sat down, sort of out of the way, in an easy chair. Howard could hardly hold himself in, but he was sure trying. He tried. He did the best he could to be stern and sorrowful, and to hold his voice steady.
"Lou," he said, "we-I'm not at all satisfied. Last night's events-these recent events-I don't like them a bit, Lou."
"Well," I said, "that's natural enough. Don't hardly see how you could like 'em. I know I sure don't."
"You know what I mean!"
"Why, sure, I do. I know just how-"
"Now, this alleged robber-rapist-this poor devil you'd have us believe was a robber and rapist. We happen to know he was nothmg of the kind! He was a pipeline worker. He had a pocket full of wages. And-and yes, we know he wasn't drunk because he'd just had a big steak dinner! He wouldn't have had the slightest reason to be in this house, so Miss Stanton couldn't have-"
"Are you saying he wasn't here, Howard?" I said. "That should be mighty easy to prove."
"Well-he wasn't prowling, that's a certainty! If-"
"Why is it?" I said. "If he wasn't prowling, what was he doing?"
His eyes began to glitter. "Never mind! Let that go for a minute! But I'll tell you this much. If you think you can get away with planting that money on him and making it look like-"
"What money?" I said. "I thought you said it was his wages?"
You see? The guy didn't have any sense. Otherwise, he'd have waited for me to mention that marked money.
"The money you stole from Elmer Conway! The money you took the night you killed him and that woman!"
"Now, wait a minute, wait a minute," I frowned. "Let's take one thing at a time. Let's take the woman. Why would I kill her?"
"Because-well-because you'd killed Elmer and you had to shut her up."
"But why would I kill Elmer? I'd known him all my life. If I'd wanted to do him any harm, I'd sure had plenty of chances."
"You know-" He stopped abruptly.
"Yeah?" I said, puzzled. "Why would I kill Elmer, Howard?"
And he couldn't say, of course. Chester Conway had given him his orders about that.
"You killed him all right," he said, his face reddening. "You killed her. You hanged Johnnie Pappas."
"You're sure not making much sense, Howard." I shook my head. "You plumb insisted on me talking to Johnnie because you knew how much I liked him and how much he liked me. Now you're saying I killed him."
"You had to kill him to protect yourself! You'd given him that marked twenty-dollar bill!"
"Now you really ain't making sense," I said. "Let's see; there was five hundred dollars missing, wasn't there? You claiming that I killed Elmer and that woman for five hundred dollars? Is that what you're saying, Howard?"
"I'm saying that-that-goddammit, Johnnie wasn't anywhere near the scene of the murders! He was stealing tires at the time they were committed!"
"Is that a fact?" I drawled. "Someone see him, Howard?"
"Yes! I mean, well-uh-"
See what I mean. Shrapnel.
"Let's say that Johnnie didn't do those killings," I said. "And you know it was mighty hard for me to believe that he had, Howard. I said so right along. I always did think he was just scared and kind of out of his mind when he hanged himself. I'd been his only friend, and now it sort of seemed like I didn't believe in him anymore an'-"