“Don’t talk that way,” Duke said, shaking his head quickly. “This is Duke, remember. Your brother, kid.” His lips were trembling, and his limp was very pronounced as he dragged himself across the floor. “We can make a deal, kid. Let Grant take the baby home. Then I’ll go with you to the cops. They’d believe me then. We’d turn Grant in.” He wet his lips. “Just a few hours. That’s all I’m asking. I don’t want to die, kid.”
Unconsciously, Hank hesitated. He wanted to believe him; that had always been his trouble. Even now, listening to his wheedling lies, he wanted to believe him. The story about Grant — it could have happened that way, he thought.
And Duke, six feet from the phone now, watched him with narrowing eyes. “What do you say, kid? Just a few hours?” With what seemed an immense effort, he shifted himself closer to the phone. “You can’t blame me for wanting to stay alive. It’s not much fun with one leg, but it’s better than nothing, I guess. How about it?”
“No,” Hank said sharply. Duke’s words were beginning to work on him. “No deals, no stalls.”
“Go ahead and shoot then!” Duke leaped sideways for the phone, his big body moving with the speed and precision of a pouncing cat. “Shoot me, hero,” he said, bringing his hand down with a crash on the receiver. “Kill me. That’s what you want.” The slackness was gone from his body; he was like an animal ready to charge; his muscles were drawn up tight, his weight was balanced on the springs of his legs. Crouching low, an arm swinging wide, he laughed bitterly, and said, “Go ahead, pull the trigger. They taught you about guns, didn’t they? What are you afraid of?”
“Get away from that phone,” Hank said softly. “I don’t want to shoot you, Duke.”
“You don’t want to shoot!” Duke said, in a hard, mocking voice. “Have you sold yourself that lie? You always hated me. You want to blow me to hell. So here’s your chance. Haven’t you got the guts?”
“You’re raving,” Hank said. “Get away from that phone.”
“Raving?” Duke brought his hand down against the thigh of his bad leg, and the sound was like a piston shot in the silence. “You did that, remember. You tried to kill me when you were a kid. Now you want the cops to finish the job for you.”
“You’ve got a lot of mileage out of that accident,” Hank said, and his voice was as bitter as his brother’s. “You’ve been whining about it for twenty years. Don’t you think that’s enough?”
“Sure it’s boring,” Duke said. “You try limping through life and see if it’s boring or not. We called it an accident, didn’t we? Everybody covered up for little Hank, the boy with the matches and the yen for homicide.”
“Shut up,” Hank said.
“Don’t want to talk about it, eh?” Duke laughed as he saw the tense frown tightening on his brother’s forehead. “Of course you don’t, kid. It’s no fun to talk about your mistakes. And you made a big one. Because you didn’t kill me. But you tried, by God. Doesn’t that make you feel better? You set the fire, and walked away from it. You knew I was sleeping upstairs. And you didn’t think I’d wake up. But I did. And I jumped. I stayed alive.”
“Get away from that phone.” Hank rubbed the scar on his forehead, and then dropped his hand guiltily to his side; it was a gesture of confusion and anxiety that he hadn’t used for years. And he realized with a sudden sickening fear that Duke could still hurt him.
“Am I boring you now?” Duke said, in a low, passionate voice. He took a step toward Hank, staring at him with sullen, furious eyes. “That jump put an end to football and track for me. You can’t run with a stiff knee, kid. Paste that away with your collection of interesting, but little-known facts. I was All-State in my sophomore year, the first time that ever happened in Wisconsin. Lots of things ended with that jump, kid.” Watching the frown deepen on his brother’s face, he laughed bitterly. “And lots of things started. Limping around like a crab. Taking side streets to school because I didn’t like dragging myself down Charles Avenue for everybody to stare at. Watching other guys play football, and running on the beach. That all started it for me. And ducking away from girls who wanted to tell me they didn’t mind that I walked like a crane with a broken leg.” Duke laughed again, but his eyes were alive with scorn and anger. “You never knew about this, I guess. You got all the sympathy. ‘Mustn’t let little Hank know he tried to bum his brother up like a pig on a spit. That might give him nightmares!’ Sure, that’s what they said. Poor Hank!”
“A spark from the fireplace set the rug on fire,” Hank said in a low, savage voice. “When I woke the room was full of smoke. I couldn’t get up the stairs to wake you.”
Staring at the fury in his brother’s face, he knew he was fighting for his freedom, for his very life. Duke’s words had stormed against him, scattering his resolution into splintered fragments. He’d been a fool to underestimate him, to think he had earned his freedom without striking a blow.
“An accident,” he said again, gathering all his strength for what he must say next; this had been in his mind for years, evolving from his tortuous examination and reassessment of his relationship with Duke. Now he said coldly, “You loved being a martyr. It gave you an excuse to be any kind of a heel you wanted. You always had an out. A cripple could get away with a murder — if he was a phony to start with. You used that stiff knee to blackmail people for pity and sympathy and forgiveness — and anything else you could squeeze out of them.”
“I told you were full of hate,” Duke said softly. “Can’t you hear it in your voice?”
“No,” Hank said. He was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling quickly. “Get away from that phone.”
“Why did you hate me?” Duke went on. “You had a good life, didn’t you? You went off to the wars while I limped around with the women and children. You loved that, didn’t you? Being the hero at last, picture in the paper for shooting some Korean slobs in the back. You pushed me aside all right — it’s easy to do with a guy who has only one leg. But you’re still not satisfied,” Duke said, taking a half-step toward him. “You want to hand me over to the cops. You want them to bum me. But they won’t do your dirty work. You’ll have to shoot me yourself. Go ahead, you crawling little bastard. Go ahead and shoot.”
Hank tried to squeeze the trigger, but his fingers were numb and helpless. “I don’t want to kill you,” he said, wetting his lips. Without realizing it his free hand had moved to touch the thin, white scar on his forehead.
Duke grinned suddenly. “You aren’t going to kill anybody at all, kid.” His eyes shifted past Hank’s shoulder. “Is he, Eddie?”
Hank spun around, a cold shock of fear streaking through his body. He saw Grant lying on the floor, limp and motionless, and he knew that he’d been tricked, that he’d lost everything...
His reactions were anticlimactic; spinning around, he tried to bring the gun back on Duke, but it was far too late for that. The edge of Duke’s hand struck his wrist and sent the gun spinning halfway across the room. And before he could raise his hands, Duke’s first blow snapped his head back and the second caught him alongside the jaw and knocked him reeling against the wall.
Duke came after him quickly, his eyes measuring him for destruction. He was grinning now, and his teeth flashed against his dark skin. “You poor fool,” he said, beginning to laugh.
Hank couldn’t get his hands up; they felt as if weights were riveted to his wrists. He had forgotten the power in Duke’s fists. He had forgotten so much...
Duke hit him with clinical precision, once in the stomach, once along the jaw, his arms swinging with the finality of an executioner’s stroke. He was laughing as he hit, and that was what Hank heard as he fell toward the spreading blackness at his feet...