The Darkest Hour

18

It was eight o’clock that night when Retnick rang the bell of his wife’s apartment. He had spent the day in his room trying fruitlessly to find a solution to his problem. It was a moral problem, he had decided irritably, one his Jesuit teachers would have had a field day examining. Take what you want and pay the price! That had made sense to him. But he was beginning to realize that it wasn’t as simple as that. If you couldn’t pay the price, then what? It wasn’t a clean exchange; you didn’t make the payment and put an end to it...

He heard her light footsteps. Then she opened the door and looked up at him uncertainly. She wore a white silk blouse with black slacks, and her hair was brushed smoothly back from her face. He noticed that she carried two freshly ironed blouses over her arm.

“You didn’t say when you were leaving,” he said. “I... I wanted to say good-by.”

“I’m taking a flight at ten,” she said. “I was just packing. I’m glad you could stop by.”

“You’re busy, I guess.”

“No, I’m practically through.”

Retnick entered the room and turned his hat around awkwardly in his hands. There were no easy words. Everything seemed to come out with an effort. “You go ahead and finish packing,” he said. “Take your time.”

“All right, I won’t be long.”

When the door closed behind her Retnick looked around at the familiar furniture and pictures. She hadn’t changed things. His big chair was in the same place, and his pipe rack was still on the table. She’d added a new picture or two, and a bookcase had been built in beside the fireplace. That was about all.

He sat down on a large ottoman without removing his overcoat and rubbed a hand across his forehead. Something was wrong with him, he knew.

When she opened the door he stood quickly.

“Please sit down,” she said. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“How about a drink?”

“Never mind.”

She sat down on the sofa, tucking her feet beneath her, and lit a cigarette. For a moment or two they were silent, and then Retnick said heavily, “Do you have to go tonight? I mean is there any need to rush?”

“No, not particularly. But I’d like to get settled down a bit before I start work.”

“Sure,” he said pointlessly. She was a million miles from him, he realized, cool and distant, unmoved by his presence. There was no fear or anxiety in her eyes, no tentative appeal in her manner. She wasn’t unhappy in a positive way, she was simply impassive; he knew he didn’t touch her any more.

“I want to talk to you,” he said, turning and looking into the fireplace. “Will you listen a minute?”

“Of course, Steve.”

“Put off your trip,” he said. “Stay here until I finish the job I’ve got to do.”

“What would be the point of that?”

“I don’t know,” he said wearily. “Maybe there’s no point to it. But it might make things different. With me anyway. Maybe I could see things in a different light. That’s all I’m asking you to take a chance on.”

“It’s a pretty slim chance, I’m afraid.”

“Maybe it is. But it’s the only one I can offer you.”

“I’m sorry, Steve,” she said.

He looked at her then, jarred by the almost casual tone of her voice. “You won’t do it?” he said.

“There wouldn’t be any point to it,” she said, glancing up at him. “I might as well be honest, Steve. You — you’ve turned into something — well, it doesn’t matter. Maybe you were that kind of a man all the time. I don’t know.” She shrugged lightly. “You think I had a fine roistering time of it while you were away. But for the record they were five miserable years. I was scared most of the time. Scared because I couldn’t understand the cruel and stupid pride that made you refuse to let me help you. Did you stop to wonder what that did to me?” She shook her head as he started to speak. “It’s not worth arguing about. But I’d like to finish this, please. You told me to get a divorce, you refused to see me, and then you behaved like a madman because there was someone else while you were gone.” She smiled sadly. “And my big affair, my great sin! He sang at the club for a while. He was a gentle young man who drank too much and could have written a big book about loneliness. It lasted a month. And that was enough to convince me you were worth waiting for, even if it took fifty years instead of five. I regretted it, I made what amends I could, and I settled down to wait. That’s how I put in my five-year stretch, with an occasional dinner with the Ragonis, or a drink with Lieutenant Neville. I might as well have been in jail, too.”

If she was angry or bitter, Retnick thought, it would be different. But she seemed disinterested and slightly weary.

“You didn’t care about my pride or peace of mind,” she went on, studying him thoughtfully with her wide gray eyes. “That’s what I couldn’t understand. But now I believe you don’t care about anybody. You want to kill the men who framed you. And some day you will. You’ll be the final judge on that score. Just as you’re the final judge on my morals. You’re the final arbiter on all behavior, all questions of right and wrong. What you say goes! Well, it doesn’t go with me, Steve. I can think of nothing less pleasing than living with you and wondering what suspicions were cropping up in your mind and what action you were planning to take. You—”

“All right,” he said, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “I get the general idea.”

The phone in the bedroom began to ring and she turned away from him quickly.

“Just a minute,” he said. “This man, the singer.” He hesitated, frowning. “Did he love you?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“I don’t know. Never mind.”

She looked at him and he saw that her lips were trembling; his question had pierced her cool indifference. The phone rang again and she said, “Excuse me,” in a small, unsteady voice.

When she returned to the room he was staring into the fireplace, a dark frown on his face. “It’s for you,” she said.

He turned to her, still frowning. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. She asked for you.”

He shrugged and walked into the cool, softly lighted bedroom. A gray tweed suit and a lace-edged slip were laid out on the bed, and a pair of brown leather pumps were on the floor beside two pieces of luggage. The room smelled faintly of the lavender sachets she kept with her gloves and lingerie. Retnick sighed and picked up the phone, “This is Steve Retnick.”

“My name is Kay Johnson. You don’t know me, but I’m Joe — I’m a friend of Joe Lye’s.” The woman’s voice was low and controlled, but he could hear a tremor of fear running under it.

“I’m not very much interested in Joe Lye’s friends,” he said.

“Please listen to me. Please! I know you don’t care anything about him—” She stopped and drew a deep, quivering breath. “No one cares about him! He’s just a cheap little hoodlum with a twisted face. I know that!”

“What did you want?” Retnick said. She was almost hysterical, he knew; the tight control of her voice was slipping.

“He’s going to be killed,” she said. “Nick Amato is going to kill him!”

“You’d better call the police if you’re worried about him,” Retnick said.

“I can’t! The police are going to kill him. Don’t you understand?”

“Calm down a bit. You said it was Amato.”

“Amato sent a police officer to do it. That’s how he works.”

“Was it a man named Connors?” Retnick asked her sharply.

“Yes, that’s his name. He’s going to kill Joe.”

“Why did you call me?”

“I don’t know. Joe told me you hated Amato. So I looked you up in the book. They’re afraid of you.”

“And you want me to save your boyfriend?”

“No, it wasn’t that,” she said, laughing softly. “No one can save Joe. The poor guy is all through. But nothing can save Amato.”

Retnick’s hand tightened on the receiver. “What’s that?”

“I can hang him,” she said. “I can give you his head on a platter. Are you interested?”

“Where are you now?”

She gave him the address of her apartment, still laughing softly, and Retnick said, “You sit tight. I’ll be along in ten or fifteen minutes.” Then he broke the connection and dialed the Thirty-First. Waiting for Neville he turned her story around in his mind. If she were telling the truth there must have been a major row between Amato and Lye. But over what?

When Neville answered, Retnick said, “Lieutenant, this is Retnick. Wait until I finish before you tell me to go to hell. I just had a call from a woman named Kay Johnson, Joe Lye’s girl friend. She tells me Amato has put the finger on Lye, and she says she can hang Amato. Whether she’s got anything on him or not, I don’t know. But I thought I’d let you know. I’m going to her apartment now.”

Neville took a deep breath and swore irritably. “Where does she live?” he said at last.

Retnick told him and Neville said, “All right. Meet me in front of her place. I’ll leave here now.”

Retnick put the phone down and walked slowly into the living room. Marcia looked at him and said, “You sounded excited. I hope it’s good news.”

“Yes, it’s good news,” Retnick said. He picked up his hat and she came with him to the door. With his hand on the knob he looked down at her and said, “This could be the end of it. Tonight could end it.”

“I hope you’ll have what you want then.”

He stared into her small familiar face, silently turning the painful thoughts in his mind. Then he said awkwardly, “I thought you’d be better off with a divorce. I thought you would get started over without me. I couldn’t let you visit me in jail.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “I wasn’t built to be a monkey in a cage. And I couldn’t come back to you as a jailbird. It was the way I felt about you. You were like some prize I’d won by a fluke, and I couldn’t crawl back to you—” He gestured helplessly. “I had to prove I was framed.”

“You never had to prove anything to me, Steve,” she said. “You still don’t.” She touched his arm gently. “Stay here and talk to me until I have to go. Let Lieutenant Neville finish this job tonight. You’ve done enough.”

“But it’s not over yet,” he said. “I’ve got to finish it.”

“You want to finish it,” she said, sighing and taking her hand from his arm. “It isn’t clearing your name, coming back to me like a white and shining knight. Be honest, Steve. You want to be in at the kill.”

“Maybe that’s it,” he said. Nothing made sense any more, he thought, watching her with a faint and bitter smile. “You’re still planning to leave, of course?”

“There’s nothing here for me,” she said. “I’ll be on the ten o’clock flight.”

“Well, good luck,” he said.

“Thanks. And take care of yourself, Steve.”

“Sure,” he said heavily, and opened the door.

She watched him from the doorway as he walked down the hall. He rang for the elevator and stood with his back to her looking down at the floor. The building was still and silent. When the elevator arrived he stepped into it without looking back. She waved tentatively but he was already out of sight. The doors closed on him with a dry and final ring.