You Live Once Part 17

"I didn't do a d.a.m.n thing. She was a tramp, Yeagger.

You were just temporary fun and games. If it meant a h.e.l.l of a lot to you, that just made the game more interesting.

Blame yourself, don't blame me."

He looked away from me.

"I guess I know that. I guess I knew it all along. But... I'm sorry I went after you and.. " Astonis.h.i.+ngly, the big tough face crumpled, twisted up like a child's, and he began to cry. It made me acutely embarra.s.sed. He covered his eyes with a big hand and sobbed harshly. After a time he stopped, and knuckled his eyes. He wouldn't look toward me again. I told him he ought to have a st.i.tch taken in his head; he said it didn't matter. I asked him how he'd get back up to the lake country; he said that didn't matter either. He was anxious to go. If he hadn't been hit he would have killed me. But I could no longer feel indignation or anger. I felt sorry for him. Big and hard as he was, he was a child underneath.

He blamed me for breaking his toys, that was all. I stood out in the drive and watched him walk to the street and turn toward town, a big shadow fading into the night.

I looked out toward the lot and felt again that someone was there. It was an atavistic quiver of warning, legacy from the days of the saber tooth The world was suddenly dark and large and unfriendly. Yeagger had been eliminated. Someone, for an unknown reason, had halted a murder. On this night I could believe it had been halted only to be consummated later, by someone else. I went in to bed and wondered if it would have mattered to anyone if my life had ended there with Yeagger's hands on my throat. It could so easily have ended-and my last conscious perception would have been of the rockets behind my eyes and the world turned ofi by a monster switch.

The feeling of depression was still with me the next morning when I awoke. My arm was lame, but more serviceable than I had expected. My throat was sore, my voice husky. The episode with Yeagger seemed like a dream sequence, too unreal to reawaken fear. During all my dreams that night, someone had stood in shadow and watched me.

As I went out my driveway I saw Mrs. Speers standing in a window. I remembered that I had not collected her trash.

At the plant the floor was ready for two new pieces of heavy equipment. Two experts were there from the machine tool company. It took half the morning to set the equipment in place, make the power hookups and bolt it down. Then we went over it with Gus and with engineering and the experts until we knew all the tricks. At three I still hadn't had lunch. I went to the locker room, took the protective coveralls off, scoured the grease off my hands and put my suit coat on.

Dodd Raymond came in. He seemed vague, distracted.

"Understand they let Yeagger go," he said.

"That's right. Last night. I was there."

"What were you doing down there, Clint?"

"They wanted fingerprints. Did they get yours?"

"Yes. That Paul France stopped in at the house last night. Asked a lot of questions. Strange sort of guy."

I finished drying my hands and turned to face him.

"Did he ask about the key the Bettiger woman mentioned?"

"Why should he?"

"Dodd, Mary told me about you and the key and your little hideaway."

He flushed angrily.

"She promised not to say anything to anybody."

"You were pretty foolish, weren't you?"

I saw his face change.

"Don't forget yourself, Sewell."

"Forget you're the boss? No. But what do I say if I'm asked about it?"

He immediately became ingratiating.

"Clint, I didn't mean to get stuffy. Actually, it wouldn't help the police any to tell them that. If she told you, you know I had a place on the west side of town. I'm going to get my stuff out of there as soon as I get a chance. It was a d.a.m.n fool thing to do. But I lost my head, I guess. We met there six or seven times, that's all. It wouldn't help the police, and it might break up my home. Nancy doesn't know anything about it. I'd appreciate it if you'd just... let it ride. After all, I didn't kill her. That ought to be pretty obvious."

"So who did kill her, Dodd?"

He moved over to a mirror, straightened his necktie.

"I haven't any idea," he said. But I saw his eyes in the mirror. I sensed that he lied. Maybe he didn't actually know, but I think he had an idea. A good idea.

After he extracted my half-hearted promise not to mention it, he left. I went back to my office. Toni and I had been slightly awkward with each other all day, and I had covered up by being intensely impersonal. Now hunger gnawed at my nerves and I snarled at her, and saw her eyes fill with tears as she turned hastily away. I apologized to her, tried to get her to smile. It was a cool little smile at first, and then it turned into the grin that was so good to see. She went out and brought me back milk and a sandwich.

Nancy Raymond phoned me at five o'clock. She wanted to talk to me but wouldn't say what it was about. She wanted me to meet her at Raphael's, a little place on Broad, not far from the bridge. I agreed.

Toni finished up at about twenty after five. I walked out onto the catwalk and looked down at the big silent production area. I watched Toni walk down the walk toward the iron staircase. She wore a brown linen suit with a burnt orange scarf knotted around her neck. Her long legs swung nicely, hips moving firmly under brown linen, dark head held high. She went out of sight down the circular stairs, heels tamping the metal-and reappeared below. She smiled up at me, flash of white teeth in shadowed face, and then she was gone. I heard the muted distant bell as she punched out.

Raphael's is a logical outgrowth of the new money that has come to town. It is a small place, wedged in where there was logically no room for it. It is ten feet wide and quite deep. Forty feet from the front door it makes a right angle turn and widens out to twenty feet. A zebra-striped spinet piano sits in the angle, dividing the bar from the lounge.

During the c.o.c.ktail hour a girl with lovely bare shoulders sits at the piano, facing a tilted mirror that is placed in the angle of the wall in such a way that from bar or lounge you can see her face and her clever fingers. The lighting is muted, the soundproofing dense, the chairs deep. People talk softly there, drink quietly, and make little schemes that break hearts.

Nancy smiled at me from a corner of the lounge as I walked toward her. She looked as though she had been there some time. She had done something severe with her hair and it made her head look too small.

The waiter came over to the table as I sat. All the other tables were occupied. I asked for a martini. He replaced the ashtray, took Nancy's empty gla.s.s and eased away.

"I've had two for courage, Clint," she said.

"No, don't look like that. I'm not going to make problems for you like I did that time at the club."

"I wouldn't mind if you did. Old reliable Clint."

"Yes you would mind. And so would I. I don't know.. how to start this."

"Just start."

She paused while the drinks came.

"I told you that we quarreled and Dodd went out and didn't come back until five. Remember that?"

"Yes, of course."

"I guess you're the only person who knows that. He picked me up yesterday to take me out to Pryor's and on the way out he said, very reasonably, that if something had happened to Mary, it might cause a lot of unnecessary talk and trouble if he had to account for that period of time. He told me that he had driven out of town, maybe fifty or sixty miles. He said he had parked beside the road and smoked and listened to the car radio. He said that he was merely sulking like a child, and wanted me to be worried about him. He hadn't seen anyone. He said that after he was there about an hour, he turned around and came home, a little ashamed of himself. He said it would be a lot simpler if I would say that we had gone right home from the club and he hadn't gone out at all."

"You agreed to that?"

"Wait a minute. I said I would think about it. I said that I didn't think it was wise to tell lies to the police. I said if I lied and they found out I had Bed, it might make him look worse. Well, you know what happened at that meeting. It certainly seemed to me that Nels Yeagger had done it and they'd prove it-I just had that feeling. So when Sergeant Hilver asked me, I told him just what Dodd wanted me to say. Last night that Paul France came by the house. I told the same lie again.

You saw the morning paper. They released Nels."