’Til Death

Chapter 11

There was the strong smell of cigar smoke.

There was a long shaft of light far away, and a silhouette filling the piercing beam.

There was pain, excruciating pain that throbbed and vibrated and sang with a thousand shrill voices.

There was warmth, a warmth that was thick and liquidy, oozing, oozing.

Cotton Hawes fought unconsciousness.

He felt as if his body was quivering. He felt as if every part of him was swinging in a wild circle of nauseating blackness. Some inner sense told him he was lying flat on his back, and yet he had the feeling that his hands were clutching, grasping, trying to reach something in the blackness, as if his legs and feet were twitching uncontrollably. The pain at the side of his face was unbearable. It was the pain, finally, which forced away the unconsciousness, needling him with persistent fire, forcing sensibility into his mind, and then his body. He blinked.

The cigar smell was overpowering. It filled his newly alert nostrils with the stink of a thousand saloons. The shaft of light was penetrating and merciless, flowing steadily through an open window at the end of the room, impaling him with sunshine. A man stood at the window, his back to Hawes.

Hawes tried to get to his feet, and the nausea came back with frightening suddenness, swimming into his head and then dropping like a swirling stone to the pit of his stomach. He lay still, not daring to move, aware now that the side of his face was bleeding, remembering now the sudden blinding blow that had knocked him to the floor unconscious. The nausea passed. He could feel the steady seeping of the blood as it traveled past his jawbone and onto his neck. He could almost feel each separate drop of blood rolling over his flesh to be sopped up instantly by the white collar of his shirt. He felt as if he were being born, hypersensitive to every nuance of smell, and sight, and touch. And, newborn, he was also weak. He knew he could not stand without falling flat on his face.

He turned his head slightly to the left. He could see the man at the window clearly, each part of the man combining with the next to form a sharply defined portrait of power as he crouched by the window, the late afternoon sunshine enveloping the silhouette in whitish licking flames of light.

The man’s hair was black, worn close to his skull in a tight-fitting woolly cap. The man’s brow was immense in profile, a hooked nose jutting out from bushy eyebrows pulled into a frown. A small scar stood out in painful relief against the tight skin of the man’s face, close to the right eye. The man’s mouth was a tight, almost lipless line that gashed deep into the face above a jaw cleft like a horse’s buttocks. His neck was thick, and his shoulders bulged beneath the blue tee shirt he wore, biceps rolling hugely into thick forearms covered with black hair that resembled steel wool. One huge hand was clutched around the barrel of a rifle. The rifle, Hawes noticed, was mounted with a telescopic sight. An open box of cartridges rested near the man’s right shoe.

This is no one to tangle with in my present condition, Hawes thought. This may be no one to tangle with in any condition. He looks like a man who tears telephone books in sixteenths. He looks like a man who allows automobiles to drive over his inflated chest. He looks like the meanest son of a bitch I have ever seen in my life, and I am not anxious to tangle with him. Now, or maybe never.

But that’s a rifle he’s holding, and it has a telescopic sight, and he sure as hell doesn’t plan to pick his teeth with it.

Do I still have my gun? Or has he disarmed me?

Hawes looked down the length of his nose. He could see the white throat of his shirt stained with blood. He could see his shoulder holster strapped to his chest beneath his open coat.

The holster was empty.

There’s nothing I can do but lie here, he thought, and wait for my strength to come back.

And pray, meanwhile, that he doesn’t take a pot shot at anybody across the yard at the reception.

The black MG convertible had been a gift from Ben Darcy’s parents. Unaware of his private intention to enter dental school, they had offered the sleek, low-slung car to him as a sort of bribe. Ben had accepted the bribe and then entered dental school, anyway, just as he’d planned to. Everybody was happy.

The car was capable of hitting rather high speeds on a straight run, and Ben was doing his best at the moment to prove that the manufacturer’s claims were valid. The top down, his foot jammed on the accelerator, he cruised along Semplar Parkway at the lowflying speed of eighty-five miles an hour.

Beside him, her long brown hair blowing back over her shoulders, Angela Giordano, nee Angela Carella, watched the road ahead with wide eyes, certain she would be killed on her wedding day.

“Ben, can’t you slow down?” she pleaded.

“I like to drive fast,” he answered. “Angela, you’ve got to listen to me.”

“I’m listening, Ben, but I’m scared. If another car should—”

“Don’t worry about me!” he snapped. “I’m the best damn driver in Riverhead. You couldn’t be in better hands.”

“All right, Ben,” she said, and she clutched her hands in her lap and swallowed hard and continued to watch the road.

“So you married him,” Ben said.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Oh, Ben, really, we went through all this on the dance floor. I wouldn’t have come with you if I’d known—”

“Why did you come with me?” he asked quickly.

“Because you said you wanted to take me for a spin for the last time. A ride around the block, you said. All right, I believed you. But we’re not going around the block, we’re on the parkway heading toward the next state, and you’re driving much too fast. Ben, would you please slow down?”

“No,” he said. “Why’d you marry him?”

“Because I love him. Does that answer you?”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Believe me. Please believe me.”

“I don’t. How can you be in love with him? A bank clerk! For the love of God, Angela, he’s a bank clerk!”

“I love him.”

“What can he offer you? What’s he ever going to give you?”

“He doesn’t have to give me anything,” Angela said. “I love him.”

“I’m better looking than he is,” Ben said.

“Maybe you are.”

“I’m going to be a dentist.”

“Yes.”

“Why’d you marry him?”

“Ben, please, please slow down. I’m—” Her eyes widened. “Ben! Look out!”

The Buick came hurtling onto Ben’s side of the parkway suddenly, passing a slower car ahead of it. It came like a steam locomotive, unable to cut back because of the car ahead, committed to the pass, determined to reach the safety of its own lane by a new burst of speed. Ben recognized the impossibility of the situation. He swung the wheel sharply to the right, heading for the grass at the side of the parkway. The Buick whooshed past with the roar of a diving jet as the small MG cleared the vented fender of the bigger car by no more than a foot, climbing onto the steeply sloping bank of grass, and then executing a small sharp turn to the left as Ben yanked the wheel over again. For a moment, Angela thought the car would roll over. Tires squealed as it hit the concrete again, going into a skid, and then straightening to face the dead center arrow of the parkway. Ben slammed his foot onto the accelerator. The speed indicator rose to ninety.

Angela could not speak. She sat beside him gasping for breath. And finally she closed her eyes. She would not watch. She could not watch.

“It’s still not too late,” Ben said.

His voice droned in her ears over the rush of air in the open cockpit of the sports car. Her eyes were closed, and his voice sounded strange, low and meaningful, droning on monotonously.

“It’s still not too late. You can still get out of it. You can have it annulled. He’s wrong for you, Angela. You’d find that out, anyway. Get rid of him, Angela. Angela, I love you. You can have it annulled.”

She shook her head, her eyes closed tightly.

“Don’t go on the honeymoon, Angela. Don’t go with him. Tell him you’ve made a mistake. It’s not too late. You’d be doing the right thing. Otherwise...”

She shook her head again. Weakly, she murmured, “Ben, take me back.”

“I’ll be waiting for you, Angela. Get rid of him. He’s no good for you. Do it yourself, Angela. Tell him, tell him.”

“Ben, take me back,” she mumbled. “Please take me back. Please. Please. Please please please please please—”

“Will you tell him? Will you tell him you want it annulled?”

“Ben, please please—”

“Will you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll tell him.” She did not care that she was lying. She only wanted the nightmare of this ride to end, wanted to get away from the man beside her. “Yes,” she lied again, and then she gave the lie strength and conviction. “Yes, take me back and I’ll tell him. Take me back, Ben.”

“I don’t believe you. You’re not really going to tell him.”

“I am!”

“Do you love me?”

She could not answer.

“Do you love me?”

“No,” she said, and she began weeping bitterly. “I love Tommy, I love Tommy! Why are you doing this to me, Ben? Why are you torturing me like this? If you ever cared anything for me, take me back! Please take me back!”

“All right,” he snapped suddenly. He slowed the car, and then executed a screeching U-turn. His foot pressed against the accelerator once more. Angela did not look at the speedometer.

Tommy was waiting at the curb when the MG pulled up before the Carella house. Angela leaped from the car and rushed into his arms, and he held her for a moment and then said, “What the hell’s the idea, Ben?”

“It was just a wedding gag,” Ben said, grinning feebly. “Kidnapping the bride, you know? Just a gag.”

“You’ve got one hell of a sense of humor. You’re lucky I don’t knock you flat on your ass. You had us all going nuts here until we noticed your car was gone. Goddamnit, Ben, I don’t think this is the least bit funny. I don’t think it’s funny at all. Goddamnit, I think I will knock you on your ass!”

“Come on, where’s your sense of humor?” Ben said, and again he grinned feebly.

“Oh, go to hell, you bastard,” Tommy answered. He put his arm around Angela. “Come on, honey, let’s go inside.”

“You want me to go home?” Ben asked sheepishly.

“Go, stay, do what you want. Just keep away from Angela.”

“I was only kidding,” Ben said.

The men surrounding the body of Birnbaum the neighbor were not kidding at all. There was something very unfunny about murder. No matter when it happened, or where, it was still uncomical. There were some who maintained that the worst murders were those that dragged a man out in the wee hours of the morning. There were others who despised early evening murders. But each murder seemed the worst when it was happening, and each of the men who stood looking down at Birnbaum’s lifeless shape agreed — though they did not voice it — that the worst time to be killed was in the late afternoon.

The 112th Squad had sent one detective over because the murder had been committed within its boundaries and because the case would officially be theirs from here on in. Homicide, informed that four bona fide detectives were at the scene, decided not to send anyone over. But a police photographer was taking pictures of the corpse fastidiously, if without the energetic grasshopperiness of a Jody Lewis. The assistant medical examiner was officially pronouncing Birnbaum dead and instructing the stretcher bearers on how to carry him out to the meat wagon waiting next to the curb in front of Birnbaum’s house. Some boys from the lab had put in an appearance, too, and they were attempting now to find foot imprints from which they could make a cast. All in all, everyone was pretty busy compiling the statistics of sudden and violent death. Unfortunately, none of the investigators felt the need to make a telephone call. Had the need presented itself, one or another of the men might have wandered into the Birnbaum house that stood forty feet from the shielding line of shrubbery behind which they worked.

In the attic of the Birnbaum house, Cotton Hawes felt his strength returning. For the past ten minutes, he had lain silently, his eyes flicking from one corner of the attic to another, and then back to the patiently waiting powerhouse squatting on the floor near the window. The attic was filled with the discarded paraphernalia of living: bundles of old magazines, a green trunk marked “CAMP IDLEMERE” in white paint, a dressmaker’s dummy, a lawn mower without blades, a hammer, an Army duffel bag, a radio with a smashed face, three albums marked “Photographs” and numerous other items that had undoubtedly cluttered the busy life of a family.

The only item that interested Hawes was the hammer.

It rested on top of the trunk some four feet from where he lay.

If he could get the hammer without being heard or seen, he would promptly use it on the sniper’s skull. Provided the sniper didn’t turn first and shoot him. It would not be too pleasant to get shot at close range with a rifle.

Well, when? Hawes asked himself.

Not now. I’m not strong enough yet.

You’re never going to get any stronger, Hawes thought. Are you afraid of that big bastard crouched by the window?

Yes.

What?

Yes, I’m afraid of him. He can break me in half even without using his rifle. And he may use it. So I’m afraid of him, and the hell with you.

Let’s go, coward, Hawes thought. Let’s make our play for the hammer. There’s no time like the present, the man said.

The man didn’t have to face Neanderthal.

Look, are we...?

All right, all right, let’s go.

Silently, he rolled over onto his side. The sniper did not turn. He rolled again, completing a full turn this time, coming to rest a foot away from the trunk. Swallowing hard, he reached out for the hammer. Soundlessly, he slid it off the trunk and gripped it tightly in his right hand.

He swallowed again and got to his knees.

Okay, he thought, we rush him now, hammer raised. We crease his skull before he knows what hit him.

Ready?

He got to a crouching position.

Set?

He stood up and raised the hammer high.

Go!

He took a step forward.

The door behind him opened suddenly.

“Hold it, mister!” a voice said, and he whirled to face a big blonde in a red silk dress. She was reaching into her purse as he leaped at her.