Just a Kill in the Dark...

Chapter Three Something Wrong

The camp is in Rush Morson’s name. The lake is small and secluded. There is only one other camp on the lake and that is invisible from ours. The camp itself is a rambling log structure. Lots of bedrooms. Log steps that wind down to the beach and to the diving platform.

“Moon tonight. Drink now. Nice moonlight swim after. You don’t drink, Al. You got to watch her.”

There is something about death for a woman, a young woman, that is horrible. You see shadows of it in the eyes of the witnesses when a woman is about to be electrocuted. It awakens both latent sadism and self disgust.

George, Moke and the boss broke out some bottles and sat around the kitchen table. I could see that they were going to get drunk quickly. It would be easier that way. I kept telling myself that I wouldn’t have anything to do with it. I’d turn my back when it happened. I’d rub the memory of it out of my mind. After all, in spite of her being a woman, she was from the Other Side. What had the Other Side ever done for me? Not a damn thing... ever.

I took her upstairs. She was submissive. I pushed her into one of the bedrooms, followed her in and pulled the door shut. She stood by the bed, dull and apathetic.

I put the suitcase on the bed and flipped it open, pulled out the swimsuit and one of the dresses.

“Climb into these,” I said. “Put the dress on over the swim suit.”

I walked toward the door, turned, leaned against it and lit a cigarette. She looked at me. “Can’t you—”

“No, I can’t. Mike would take it very unkindly if you managed to hang yourself to the shower rail with one of your nylons. Do as I tell you.” I made my voice cold.

She looked at me for a second, and then her lip curled in disgust. She pulled the dress up over her head, stepped out of her shoes, sat on the bed and peeled off her stockings. I studied the glowing end of my cigarette. When I looked at her again she was dressed in the swim suit. It was one of those tubular jersey jobs. Her shoulders were all that shoulders can be. The rest of her matched nicely.

She put the dress on. Then the sandals.

I held her wrist firmly as we went back down the stairs. I took her out into the kitchen and, at Mike’s order, had her sit in one of the straight chairs in a corner. I sat with the others at the kitchen table, between her and the door. I took one light drink. She refused a drink. Mike waddled over to her with the bottle, held her chin cupped in his hand and tried to pour straight rye down her throat. It dribbled on the dress I had bought her. Something in her calm eyes seemed to shame him, and he laughed half-heartedly and sat down again at the table.

The calmness surprised me. It was as though she had made her pact with death and from here on in, it didn’t matter in the slightest.

Finally George got drunk enough to say what was on his mind. He looked at the girl and then at Mike. “I don’t like this one damn bit,” he said.

“You don’t like what, Georgie?” Mike cooed at him.

“I don’t like killing no girl. I never got mixed up in anything like this before and I don’t like it now. I think it’s a sucker play. Hell, they’ll burn all of us for it.”

Mike’s big fist made a small arc. There was a wet sound as it thudded into George’s mouth. George went over backwards in his chair and skidded on the linoleum toward the stove.

As he got up shakily, Mike said, “Good place for you, Georgie. Time you cook steaks. Getting dark soon.”

He turned toward Moke and said, “Georgie didn’t like the idea, Moke. What you think?”

“I don’t like it either, but don’t put your dirty hand on me.”

Mike looked stupidly down at his hand. “Not dirty, Moke.”

“Just don’t take any pokes at me,” the Moke said. His voice was almost a whisper.

Mike hooked a big foot around the rung of the Moke’s chair and yanked. The Moke went over backwards. He came up with the Positive in his hand. I tore it out of his fingers and dropped it into my side pocket. George was banging pots and pans. Finally the Moke stopped trembling and sat down. I handed him back his revolver. He tucked it away.

Jane looked at all of us with her calm eyes.

Though George prepared a plate for her, she wouldn’t eat. Mike ate like a great pig, grunting and rooting at his food. I tried to eat, but didn’t make much of a job of it. In my mind I had a screwy picture. Symbolism maybe. It was as though I was on a runaway freight car going down a steep hill with a switch at the bottom. I could go one way or the other. Both of them were right angle turns. Both choices would wreck me. And there weren’t any other choices.

Night crept toward us, shadowing the lake. The last glow died in the west. George went back to the bottle as soon as he ate. In a half hour he put his head down on the table and began to snore. Mike cursed him and shoved at him. He fell off the chair, moaned once and then began to snore again. Mike laughed.

The Moke sat and looked at Mike with hard eyes in which there was no flicker of expression.

Finally Mike stood up, lumbered to the window and looked out at the lake. “Nice moon, hey?” He turned toward Jane. “Swim now?” He laughed. But I could see that it had gotten him a little too. There was a rusty edge in his laugh.

He pushed her toward me. “You take care, Al. I find swim pants.”

My own personal little freight car was roaring down onto the switch, toward the right angle turn I couldn’t make.

Idly, without taking the cigarette out of my mouth, I clubbed her on the side of the head above the ear, knocking her down. It wouldn’t leave a mark. I yanked her back up and said, “Why don’t you let me take care of all of it, Mike? No reason why you should have all the fun. I want to see if this pigeon can breathe under water.”

Glancing at Mike’s eyes, I knew I had won. There was relief there, and yet a shade of suspicion. Jane’s eyes were dead. The seconds seemed interminable as he stared at me.

Finally he said, “Okay, Al. I watch you do it.”

The logs of the curving steps were still warm from the sun under my bare feet. She was beside me. She shivered in the night air.

The three of us walked out onto the broad wooden dock. Mike took her shoulders. “Swim out little ways, Al. I push her off when you ready.”

I dived in. The water felt warm compared with the air. I came up, turned and waited. He pushed her. She sprawled clumsily, barely managing to turn it into a dive as she hit the water.

I got her as she came up. She clawed at my face, tried to bite. She seemed at home in the water. I prolonged the struggle unnecessarily, moving farther out.

Mike yelled, “What’s matter, Al? Can’t handle her?”

“Sure,” I said.

When we were far enough I whispered, “Keep fighting, Jane. I’m faking this.”

She paused for a fraction of a second, then tried to twist away. I got her around the neck and pushed her head under. I let her come up and said, “Can you swim under water about a dozen feet?”

She nodded.

“Keep fighting. Scream as I shove you under. I’ll pretend to have you under the water near me. Swim under water to the far side of the float.”

“What you whispering about?” Mike yelled.

“I’m panting, if that’s what you mean,” I yelled back.

She screamed and I pushed her under. I pushed her way under, angling her off toward the black shadow of the float. I felt her slip away from me, but I continued to thrash around as though I were holding her under.

Finally I relaxed, turned and swam with a slow crawl back to the dock, heaved myself up, panting and dripping to sit beside Mike’s feet. We both looked out at the quiet expanse of dark water.

“You mark her up?” Mike asked.

“No.”

He laughed. “I think for a minute you try something funny, Al.”

“Funny? How?”

“Never mind, Al. Forget.”

Back in the camp I toweled myself, dressed slowly. Mike was on the phone. He had gotten hold of the proper authorities in the village and they were relaying a call to the county coroner and sending some men out to help drag the area near our dock. They’d be there in a half hour, Mr. Muriak. Yes sir, Mr. Muriak. Tough luck.

An hour later Mike and I sat up on the broad front porch watching the two boats going slowly back and forth in the harsh glare of the portable floodlights dragging the area between the float and the dock.

Mike yawned. “You think we have trouble, Al?”

“Sure we’ll have trouble.”

“But not so much as the other way. Nobody proves anything this way, Al.”

He stiffened suddenly. “What the hell!” he said.

There was a drone and something passed the bright face of the moon. It circled and went down to the end of the lake. The drone seemed to make the dark woods pulsate.

“Seaplane,” I said.

“Al, I don’t like this,” he said.

The floats were tossing up spray when it passed across the moonglade. It turned, running lights glowing, and taxied toward the float. The boats got out of the way and, with short bursts of power, it came all the way in, swinging to rest at last with the wing overlapping the low dock. The floodlights shone on it.

The first man to step out had an official look. Mike muttered, “We get out of here, Al. Something wrong.”

George was asleep. I got behind the wheel while Moke and the boss piled into the back. I looked back and said, “If we run, Mike, it makes the girl’s death murder.”

Mike was rattled. He said, “Got hunch, Al. We run like hell. Get moving.”

There was a shout behind us. I roared up the overgrown road. A car blocked the exit. I didn’t get to the headlight switch quick enough. I saw her and I knew that Mike saw her. Jane Ferris wearing a man’s overcoat over her swim suit. She had some beefy citizens with her.

In the dark, with the car still rolling, I pushed the button that opened the door and rolled out. I smacked hard against a tree.

The Cad rolled on into the car that blocked the way. There was a crisp roar of shots. I staggered to my feet and ran back down toward the camp. Footsteps pounded behind me. More shots sounded from up the trail.

I broke out into the moonlight and turned to see Mike bearing down on me. The gun glittered in his hand. I fell sideways as he shot, rolling onto my shoulders and kicking up at him. He fell, but got up as quickly as I did. I kicked the gun out of his hand and tried to move away, but he caught me under the ear with a right that turned the night to hot, red day. I fell back, powerless to move. He loomed over me with the gun.

Something cracked sharply and he fell over me. He shifted once and then lay still. I blinked in the glare of the flashlights held on us. The flashlights showed me the new economy-size hole in Mike’s temple.

You can’t take a right angle turn at the speed I was going without getting wrecked. Mike was dead. Andresa lived two days before he died. Jane’s phone call to the right place had brought the plane up. She had come in the car with some locals.

I gave all the evidence I could. I sewed up Morson and Kline for nice long terms. I didn’t feel as though I was ratting. It was all part of the right angle curve I had taken from the moment I doubled up my fist and hit Jane Ferris.

But in spite of the evidence, they tempered mercy with a jolt of justice. I drew five. With the way I’m behaving in this pen, it’ll be cut to three years and something over. I’ll be around thirty-three when I get out.

I’ll feel a lot younger.

I’m on good behavior not only to cut the time in stir, but also to keep them from snatching my visitor’s privileges. Every so often I get to look through the wire mesh at a pair of grey-green eyes that have a lot of things to say. I even like them with the glasses.

And, as Janey says, it’ll be handy for a stir-bug to have a crack stenographer as a wife. A little income until I get into some nice clean man-sized work, like digging ditches.