Death of a Citizen

CHAPTER 27

SHE was a Spauish-American girl, dark and willing-looking, but a little past the prettiest time of her life, which comes early among that race. She was wearing one of those small gray jackets made of nylon fur, over a yellow sweater and a tight gray skirt tricked out around the bottom with a lot of little pleats. Somehow, whenever one of those girls gets hold of a narrow skirt, which isn't often, it's always several inches too long; and the tartier the girl, strangely enough, the longer the skirt. You'd think it would be the other way around.

This one was pretty well hobbled. She came across the hotel lobby in her high heels and went out into the morning sunlight. Presently a man came in to buy a paper at the cigar counter. His crisp Eastern voice was familiar; I'd heard it over the phone quite recently. He walked on past me towards the coffee shop, a moderately tall character, well set up, in a gray suit-too young, handsome, and clean-cut for my taste, the epitome of a modern law-enforcement officer, no doubt, with good training in law or accounting as well as marksmanship and judo. He could have taken me with either hand, while lighting a cigarette with the other;

but he'd never get the chance; he was too nice a boy. I was going to have trouble with him. I could smell it.

He didn't look at me as he went past, but his head kind of bobbed in a nod, to tell me it was the right girl and things might start to happen, now that she was out of the way. It was about time. I'd been sitting there for an hour and a half.

He'd hardly gone out of sight when Loris appeared at the head of the short flight of stairs that led to the rear of the hotel, whatever might be there. He was yawning. He needed a shave, but with my beard,I was hardly in a position to criticize. I'd forgotten how big he was. He looked tremendously solid, standing there above me, and handsome in a bull-like way. The place was lousy with handsome young men. I felt old as the Sangre de Cristo peaks above the town, ugly as an adobe wall, and mean as a prairie rattlesnake. I'd driven four hundred miles in the truck since yesterday morning and five hundred miles in the Plymouth since last night, but it didn't matter. Weariness just served to anesthetize my conscience, if 1 had one, which wasn't likely. Mac had done his best to amputate it long ago. It was, he said, a handicap in our line of business.

Loris looked down and saw me. He wasn't very good. His eyes widened with recognition, and he glanced quickly towards the phone booths in the corner. Obviously his first impulse was to report this development and ask for advice.

I shook my head minutely, and made a slight gesture toward the street. Then I picked up the magazine I'd been pretending to read for an hour and a half, but I was aware that it took him several seconds to start moving again. He wasn't a lightning brain, by a long shot. I was counting on that.

He came down the steps and walked past me, hesitated, and went on out the front door. I got up casually and followed him. He was kind of shuffling his feet outside, moving off to the left slowly while waiting to see if I was coming. Now that I was here, he didn't want to lose me, even if he didn't quite know what to do with me. I wasn't supposed to be here this early.

He kept going, looking back to see that I was following, moving in the direction of the Santa Fe River, at this time of year a small trickle of water running over sand and rocks between high banks; in places the banks were reinforced by stone floodwalls. I've seen times when it came over the banks and walls and caused considerable local excitement. Along the river was a narrow green park with grass and trees and picnic tables; and the streets of the town went, over the stream on low, arched bridges, like giant culverts. Loris got to the park and headed upstream, cutting across the grass, past the picnic tables, obviously looking for a place where we could have a little privacy. He wanted enough privacy, I guessed, to be able to knock me around a bit, if necessary. It would be what came naturally into his mind.

I followed him, keeping my eyes on his broad back, hating him. I could afford to hate him now. There was no longer any need for calmness and clear thinking. I'd flushed him out of cover, I had him in the open, and I could think of Betsy, and of Beth waiting at home without sleep. I could even think, if I wanted to be petty, of a poke I'd once taken in the solar plexus, of a crack across the neck and a kick in the ribs. I could add up the balance sheet on Mr. Frank Loris and find, not much to my surprise, that there wasn't any really good reason for the guy to keep on living.

He picked the spot as well, as I could have picked it myself, in broad daylight with the town coming awake around us and all the law-abiding citizens hurrying off to their law-abiding jobs. He ducked down the bank, jumped from rock to rock down there, and vanished under a bridge. I slid down after him.

It was medium dark under the bridge. We had a wide street with sidewalks above us, and in the center the light had quite a ways to travel from the half-moonshaped openings at either end. The river made a little trickle of sound to my right as I walked towards him. He'd stopped to wait for me. As I came up, he was saying something. His attitude was impatient and bullying. I suppose he was asking what the hell I was doing there, and telling me what would happen to me or to Betsy if I was trying to pull something..

I didn't hear the words, maybe because of the sound of the river, maybe because I simply wasn't listening. There was nothing he had to say that I had to hear. There were a couple of cars going past overhead. It was as good a time as any. I took out the gun and shot him five times in the chest.