Death Wish

20

He spent the weekend in the apartment except for the Sunday ride to Princeton with Jack. The psychiatrist’s pontifications made him uneasy; to what extent were the police guided by his opinions? Would it occur to them to start questioning every middle-aged male whose wife had been the fatal victim of an unsolved crime? How many like him were there?

The gun was the only real clue they could find. It kept coming back to that. He ought to hide it. But he needed it: without it he would be easy prey for any junkie overdue for a fix. Without it he would again have to walk in fear, circumscribing his movements in time and place. It was the only city he knew of in which it was the well-off citizens, the honest people, who were herded into ghettos. Through most of the city you could not walk unarmed at night; through some of it you could not walk unarmed at any time of day.

Take the chance. It was better than the fear.

“I had a call from George Eng,” Henry Ives said. He watched as if he were peering into strong light: with his aged head down and his eyes narrowed to slits.

Paul sat forward, forearms resting on knees. He felt the muscles and nerves twitch in his face, worry pulling at his mouth: I blew it, he thought, I fucked up something.

Ives’ smile was without menace but Paul felt a chill. A vein throbbed above Ives’ eyebrow, embossed as if by contained anger. Paul pinched his mouth closed with tight compression and breathed deep through his nose.

After a silence that nearly cracked his nerves he heard Ives say in his cool precise voice, “You did a thorough job on the Jainchill matter, Paul. George is deeply grateful. He’s on his way to Arizona to close the deal for Amercon. He asked me to pass on to you his congratulations — we all know what a strain you’ve been under. It takes a great deal of strength to carry on as you have.”

Paul straightened in relief; he made an effort to dispose the muscles of his face toward lines indicative of modest appreciation.

“Quite frankly,” Ives said, and his eyebrows contracted sternly, “we’d been watching to see how you bore up under it. I can confess now that there were a few who thought it was only a matter of time before you’d be taking three martinis for lunch and letting your work go to pot. Personally I felt you were made of better stuff than that, but I allowed the partners to persuade me to wait and see. I can tell you now you’ve passed the test with flying colors.”

Test? Paul said with uncertain hesitation, “Ye-es?”

“We met this morning in Mr. Gregson’s office. I proposed that you be invited to join the firm as a full partner. I’m glad to say the motion was passed unanimously.”

Paul pulled his head up in amazement.

Ives’ voice dropped almost out of hearing with avuncular confidential smugness. “We all feel you deserve it, Paul.” With an effort he lifted himself to his feet and shuffled around the desk, hand outstretched, beaming.

In the night he re-read the New York interview with the psychiatrist; he had bought a copy for himself at the stationery store on Seventy-second Street with the same feeling he recalled from boyhood when he’d bought forbidden pulp adventure magazines: the furtive haste, the fumbled coins.

The psychiatrist was uncomfortably close to the truth in his summation. To what extent were the rest of his speculations valid?

What kind of a monster am I?

He studied himself in the mirror. His face seemed haggard; there were unhealthy pouched blisters under his eyes.

“...about as much effect on the total crime picture as you’d get by administering two aspirin tablets to a rabid wolf.” Well, that was wrong. He’d had a staggering effect on the city. It was in all the media. It was the only topic of conversation. Cops were stating publicly that they applauded the vigilante. And in today’s Post, a story about a Puerto Rican boy — an addict with a lengthy arrest record — found stabbed to death in an alley beside a school in Bedford-Stuy-vesant. It added strength to the news item three days ago about a man found murdered by three .22-caliber bullets on East Ninety-seventh Street — a man who had served two terms for armed robbery; he’d been found with an automatic pistol in his pocket. The newspapers were speculating: Has the vigilante’s .32 become too hot to handle — has he traded it in? But these killings were not Paul’s doing; people were getting on the bandwagon.

Have I done enough? It made him think of countless cowboys in countless Westerns who only wanted to hang up their guns.

That was no good. It wasn’t a horse-opera with all the bad guys dead in the last reel. They were still out there.

They would always be out there. You couldn’t stop them all. But that was no excuse for giving up. The important thing — the only thing — was knowing you weren’t going to give up. Perhaps there were no victors, perhaps there were only survivors; perhaps in the end it would gutter out like the noxious stub of a used-up candle. Perhaps it was all solipsism and none of it mattered to anyone but himself. But what difference did that make?

He called Jack. “Did you talk to them today?”

“Yes. No change. I think we’re going to have to learn to live with it, Pop.”

“I guess we are.”

After he hung up he got into his reversible jacket and picked up his gloves. Touched the gun in his pocket and checked the time — eleven-ten — and left the apartment.