"What did you do to her?" I shouted. "What did you do, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d?"
"Hush, Mr. Amberson." He sounded amused. Sadie was no longer screaming, but I could hear her sobbing. "She"s all right. She"s bleeding pretty heavily, but that will stop." He paused, then spoke in a tone of judicious consideration. "Of course, she"s not going to be pretty anymore. Now she looks like what she is, just a cheap four-dollar wh.o.r.e. My mother said she was, and my mother was right."
"Let her go, Clayton," I said. "Please."
"I want to let her go. Now that I"ve marked her, I want to. But here"s what I already told her, Mr. Amberson. I am going to kill one of you. She cost me my job, you know; I had to quit and go into an electrical-treatment hospital or they were going to have me arrested." He paused. "I pushed a girl down the stairs. She tried to touch me. All this dirty b.i.t.c.h"s fault, this one right here bleeding into her lap. I got her blood on my hands, too. I will need disinfectant." And he laughed.
"Clayton-"
"I"ll give you three and a half hours. Until seven-thirty. Then I"ll put two bullets in her. One in her stomach and one in her filthy c.u.n.t."
In the background, I heard Sadie scream: "Don"t you do it, Jacob!"
"SHUT UP!" Clayton yelled at her. "SHUT YOUR MOUTH!" Then, to me, chillingly conversational: "Who"s Jacob?"
"Me," I said. "It"s my middle name."
"Does she call you that in bed when she sucks your c.o.c.k, c.o.c.kboy?"
"Clayton," I said. "Johnny. Think what you"re doing."
"I"ve been thinking about it for over a year. They gave me shock treatments in the electric hospital, you know. They said they"d stop the dreams, but they didn"t. They made them worse."
"How bad is she cut? Let me talk to her."
"No."
"If you let me talk to her, maybe I"ll do what you"re asking. If you don"t, I most certainly won"t. Are you too fogged out from your shock treatments to understand that?"
It seemed he wasn"t. There was a shuffling sound in my ear, then Sadie was on. Her voice was thin and trembling. "It"s bad, but it"s not going to kill me." Her voice dropped. "He just missed my eye-"
Then Clayton was back. "See? Your little tramp is fine. Now you just jump in your hotrod Chevrolet and get out here just as fast as the wheels will roll, how would that be? But listen to me carefully, Mr. George Jacob Amberson c.o.c.kboy: if you call the police, if I see a single blue or red light, I will kill this b.i.t.c.h and then myself. Do you believe that?"
"Yes."
"Good. I"m seeing an equation here where the values balance: the c.o.c.kboy and the wh.o.r.egirl. I"m in the middle. I"m the equals sign, Amberson, but you have to decide. Which value gets canceled out? It"s your call."
"No!" she screamed. "Don"t! If you come out here he"ll kill both of u-"
The phone clicked in my ear.
5.
I"ve told the truth so far, and I"m going to tell the truth here even though it casts me in the worst possible light: my first thought as my numb hand replaced the phone in its cradle was that he was wrong, the values didn"t balance. In one pan of the scales was a pretty high school librarian. In the other was a man who knew the future and had-theoretically, at least-the power to change it. For a second, part of me actually thought about sacrificing Sadie and going across town to watch the alley running between Oak Lawn Avenue and Turtle Creek Boulevard to find out if the man who changed American history was on his own.
Then I got into my Chevy and headed for Jodie. Once I got out on Highway 77, I pegged the speedometer at seventy and kept it there. While I was driving, I thumbed the latches on my briefcase, took out my gun, and dropped it into the inner pocket of my sport coat.
I realized I"d have to involve Deke in this. He was old and no longer steady on his feet, but there was simply no one else. He would want to be involved, I told myself. He loved Sadie. I saw it in his face every time he looked at her.
And he"s had his life, my cold mind said. She hasn"t. Anyway, he"ll have the same chance the lunatic gave you. He doesn"t have to come.
But he would. Sometimes the things presented to us as choices aren"t choices at all.
I never wished so much for my long-gone cell as I did on that drive from Dallas to Jodie. The best I could do was a gas station phone booth on SR 109, about half a mile beyond the football billboard. On the other end the phone rang three times . . . four . . . five . . .
Just as I was about to hang up, Deke said, "h.e.l.lo? h.e.l.lo?" He sounded irritated and out of breath.
"Deke? It"s George."
"Hey, boy!" Now tonight"s version of Bill Turcotte (from that popular and long-running play The Homicidal Husband ) sounded delighted instead of irritated. "I was out in my little garden beside the house. I almost let it ring, but then-"
"Be quiet and listen. Something very bad"s happened. Is still happening. Sadie"s been hurt already. Maybe a lot."
There was a brief pause. When he spoke again, Deke sounded younger: like the tough man he had undoubtedly been forty years and two wives ago. Or maybe that was just hope. Tonight hope and a man in his late sixties was all I had. "You"re talking about her husband, aren"t you? This is my fault. I think I saw him, but that was weeks ago. And his hair was much longer than in the yearbook picture. Not the same color, either. It was almost orange." A momentary pause, and then a word I had never heard from him before. "f.u.c.k!"
I told him what Clayton wanted, and what I proposed to do. The plan was simple enough. Did the past harmonize with itself ? Fine, I would let it. I knew Deke might have a heart attack-Turcotte had-but I wasn"t going to let that stop me. I wasn"t going to let anything stop me. It was Sadie.
I waited for him to ask if it wouldn"t be better to turn this over to the police, but of course he knew better. Doug Reems, the Jodie constable, had poor eyesight, wore a brace on one leg, and was even older than Deke. Nor did Deke ask why I hadn"t called the state police from Dallas. If he had, I would have told him I believed Clayton was serious about killing Sadie if he saw a single flashing light. It was true, but not the real reason. I wanted to take care of the son of a b.i.t.c.h myself.
I was very angry.
"What time does he expect you, George?"
"No later than seven-thirty."
"And it"s now . . . quarter of, by my watch. Which gives us a smidge of time. The street behind Bee Tree is Apple-something. I disremember just what. That"s where you"ll be?"
"Right. The house behind hers."
"I can meet you there in five minutes."
"Sure, if you drive like a lunatic. Make it ten. And bring a prop, something he can see from the living room window if he looks out. I don"t know, maybe-"
"Will a ca.s.serole dish do?"
"Fine. See you there in ten."
Before I could hang up, he said, "Do you have a gun?"
"Yes."
His reply was close to a dog"s growl. "Good."
6.
The street behind Doris Dunning"s house had been Wyemore Lane. The street behind Sadie"s was Apple Blossom Way. 202 Wyemore had been for sale. 140 Apple Blossom Way had no FOR SALE sign on the lawn, but it was dark and the lawn was s.h.a.ggy, dotted with dandelions. I parked in front and looked at my watch. Six-fifty.
Two minutes later, Deke pulled his Ranch Wagon up behind my Chevy and got out. He was wearing jeans, a plaid shirt, and a string tie. In his hands he was holding a ca.s.serole dish with a flower on the side. It had a gla.s.s lid, and looked to contain three or four quarts of chop suey.
"Deke, I can"t thank you en-"
"I don"t deserve thanks, I deserve a swift kick in the pants. The day I saw him, he was coming out of the Western Auto just as I was going in. It had to"ve been Clayton. It was a windy day. A gust blew his hair back and I saw those hollows at his temples for just a second. But the hair . . . long and not the same color . . . he was dressed in cowboy clothes . . . s.h.i.t-fire." He shook his head. "I"m getting old. If Sadie"s hurt, I"ll never forgive myself."
"Are you feeling all right? No chest pains, or anything like that?"
He looked at me as if I were crazy. "Are we going to stand here discussing my health, or are we going to try to get Sadie out of the trouble she"s in?"
"We"re going to do more than try. Go around the block to her house. While you"re doing that, I"ll cut through this backyard, then push through the hedge and into Sadie"s." I was thinking about the Dunning house on Kossuth Street, of course, but even as I said it, I remembered that there was a hedge at the foot of Sadie"s tiny backyard. I"d seen it many times. "You knock and say something cheery. Loud enough for me to hear. By then I"ll be in the kitchen."
"What if the back door"s locked?"
"She keeps a key under the step."
"Okay." Deke thought for a moment, frowning, then raised his head. "I"ll say "Avon calling, special ca.s.serole delivery." And raise the dish so he can see me through the living room window if he looks. Will that do?"
"Yes. All I want you to do is distract him for a few seconds."
"Don"t you shoot if there"s any chance you might hit Sadie. Tackle the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. You"ll do okay. The guy I saw was skinny as a rail."
We looked at each other bleakly. Such a plan would work on Gunsmoke or Maverick, but this was real life. And in real life the good guys-and gals-sometimes get their a.s.ses kicked. Or killed.
7.
The yard behind the house on Apple Blossom Way wasn"t quite the same as the one behind the Dunning place, but there were similarities. For one, there was a doghouse, although no sign reading YOUR POOCH BELONGS HERE. Instead, painted in a child"s unsteady hand over the round door-shaped entrance, were the words BUTCHS HOWSE. And no trick-or-treating kiddies. Wrong season.
The hedge, however, looked exactly the same.
I pushed through it, barely noticing the scratches the stiff branches scrawled on my arms. I crossed Sadie"s backyard in a running crouch, and tried the door. Locked. I felt beneath the step, sure that the key would be gone because the past harmonized but the past was obdurate.
It was there. I fished it out, put it in the lock, and applied slow increasing pressure. There was a faint thump from inside the door when the latch sprang back. I stiffened, waiting for a yell of alarm. None came. There were lights on in the living room, but I heard no voices. Maybe Sadie was dead already and Clayton was gone.
G.o.d, please no.
Once I eased the door open, however, I heard him. He was talking in a loud and monotonous drone, sounding like Billy James Hargis on tranquilizers. He was telling her what a wh.o.r.e she was, and how she had ruined his life. Or maybe it was the girl who had tried to touch him he was talking about. To Johnny Clayton they were all the same: s.e.x-hungry disease carriers. You had to lay down the law. And, of course, the broom.
I slipped off my shoes and put them on the linoleum. The light was on over the sink. I checked my shadow to make sure it wasn"t going to precede me into the doorway. I took my gun out of my sport coat pocket and started across the kitchen, meaning to stand beside the doorway to the living room until I heard Avon calling! Then I would go in a rush.
Only that isn"t what happened. When Deke called out, there was nothing cheery about it. That was a cry of shocked fury. And it wasn"t outside the front door; it was right in the house.
"Oh, my G.o.d! Sadie!"
After that, things happened very, very fast.
8.
Clayton had forced the front door lock so it wouldn"t latch. Sadie didn"t notice, but Deke did. Instead of knocking, he pushed it open and stepped inside with the ca.s.serole dish in his hands. Clayton was still sitting on the ha.s.sock, and the gun was still pointed at Sadie, but he had put the knife down on the floor beside him. Deke said later he didn"t even know Clayton had a knife. I doubt if he really even noticed the gun. His attention was fixed on Sadie. The top of her blue dress was now a muddy maroon. Her arm and the side of the sofa where it dangled were both covered with blood. But worst of all was her face, which was turned toward him. Her left cheek hung in two flaps, like a torn curtain.
"Oh, my G.o.d! Sadie!" The cry was spontaneous, nothing but pure shock.
Clayton turned, upper lip lifted in a snarl. He raised the gun. I saw this as I burst through the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. And I saw Sadie piston out one foot, kicking the ha.s.sock. Clayton fired, but the bullet went into the ceiling. As he tried to get up, Deke threw the ca.s.serole dish. The cover lifted off. Noodles, hamburger, green peppers, and tomato sauce sprayed in a fan. The dish, still more than half-full, hit Clayton"s right arm. Chop suey poured out. The gun went flying.
I saw the blood. I saw Sadie"s ruined face. I saw Clayton crouched on the blood-spotted rug and raised my own gun.
"No!" Sadie screamed. "No, don"t, please don"t!"
It cleared my mind like a slap. If I killed him, I would become the subject of police scrutiny no matter how justified the killing might be. My George Amberson ident.i.ty would fall apart, and any chance I had of stopping the a.s.sa.s.sination in November would be gone. And really, how justified would it be? The man was disarmed.
Or so I thought, because I didn"t see the knife, either. It was hidden by the overturned ha.s.sock. Even if it had been out in the open, I might have missed it.
I put the gun back in my pocket and hauled him to his feet.
"You can"t hit me!" Spit flew from his lips. His eyes fluttered like those of a man having a seizure. His urine let go; I heard it pattering to the carpet. "I"m a mental patient, I"m not responsible, I can"t be held responsible, I have a certificate, it"s in the glove compartment of my car, I"ll show it to y-"