To Keep or Kill

Thirteen

Horne braced his feet wide apart on the dew-covered grass to give him balance and searched the far horizon. A heavy, rich canopy of stars was motionless overhead. There was no moon.

He swung around in a slow arc, blinking away the burning sensation lingering behind his eyes. The merest movement of his mouth was painful. Far to the distant right, beyond the few lonely trees, a red haze of reflected neon hung low in the dark sky.

Horne re-entered the house, looking for a towel to wipe away the water dripping from his face. There was none in the kitchen so he used an apron. His drippings and splashing had left a trail across the kitchen floor from the sink to the open door, and a few moments later, from the door to the hook where he found the apron hanging.

Betty and Bumble were gone. He and the dog were in complete possession of the house.

Where along that road between the house and the city jail, he wondered, was the Buick which would be eating the miles? How much of a head start did they have?

He again passed the apron across his face and stared around him. Either drops of water remained in the corners of his eyes, or he was still suffering from the effect of the blow. The light hanging in the center of the ceiling had a curious rainbow aura about it.

Horne noticed the watchdog placidly lying at his feet, stared back at the open kitchen door and acidly remembered the bomb on which he had been laboring. The thought jerked his head up and his eyes focused on the closed door down the corridor. He strode towards it.

The door was locked.

Putting his hands on the wall behind him, he lifted a foot and delivered a mighty kick. The reaction only hurt his jaw. Horne whirled to enter Betty’s bedroom.

After a while the dog strolled in from the kitchen to see the cause of the racket. Each of the drawers from the dressing table and a chest of drawers had been pulled out and dumped upside down. The contents littered the floor. Horne was pawing among the debris. The dog sniffed at the piles of belongings once or twice and dropped onto the tiny throw rug to watch the man.

After twenty minutes the man gave it up.

Dismissing the remaining rooms as unworthy of search, he exited by the kitchen door and ran across the yard to the garage. He flicked a light switch just inside the wide doors. The garage contained the usual paraphernalia to service an automobile. There was also a woman’s bicycle.

Dubiously, Horne eyed it, and swung around again to gauge the distance to where that red haze hung above the horizon. A few minutes’ tense silence brought not a single sound from the highway; there wasn’t so much as a hint of a pair of headlights traversing the rolling hills in the distance.

Horne wheeled the bicycle out of the garage.

Winken, Blinken and Nod trotted along beside him as far as the gate opening onto the highway, where he sat down. Horne rode onto the paved road and turned towards the town. The dog watched him out of sight. When all sight and smell and sound of the man had vanished into the night, the dog returned to the house. Pulling open the screen door with his teeth, he entered the kitchen and walked through all the rooms. Finally he jumped onto the studio couch and settled down to sleep.

Charles Horne dropped to his hands and knees in the blackness of the alley and crawled the entire distance between the two streets. When he reached the opposite end of the alley he climbed gingerly to his feet and swore under his breath at the bits of cinders and glass sticking in the palms of his hand. The knee of one trouser leg was ripped open and he felt warm blood on his kneecap.

He had counted up to three hundred and nine while traversing the alley and guessed that was just short of five minutes. All of the blocks in the neighborhood seemed about the same size.

He peered carefully from the mouth of the alley and scanned the street.

Standing there in the concealing darkness he tried to pick out the shapes or movements of the men who should be watching Deebie Bridges’ animal hospital, but nothing rewarded him. The hospital was on the other side of the street from where he stood, and a half a block to his left. There were no lights showing and no one on the street.

Cautiously pushing his head around the corner of the building where he was standing, he looked down the street towards the center of town. The street lights revealed no traffic, afoot or automotive. But then, he reflected, that was natural for Boone after midnight.

Several windows in the City Hall, three blocks down that street, were brilliantly lighted. Horne pulled his head in and looked in the opposite direction, away from town. Some nine blocks that way, he knew, was the telephone exchange. It was at the very edge of the residential district and out of sight from where he stood.

Horne grinned in the night. The animal hospital was situated on a crow-line between the City Hall and the telephone exchange. And telephone companies, like crows, realized the economic advantages of laying their wires along the shortest, most direct routes possible.

Horne prowled back along the alley he had just traveled, looking for a likely door. He found it, slightly ajar in its frame, the old-fashioned bar lock loosely holding it shut. He pried the lock open with the deposit box key the redheaded girl had given him.

Easing in, he located the stairway to the basement by the damp odor and slipped down the stairs. In the basement he struck a match and held it aloft. The far wall. Telephone and electric wires came down from the building overhead and dropped through an insulated slot set in the foundation wall. Below the slot was a small iron door opening into the service tunnel. The iron door was secured by a padlock. Horne’s fizzling match died out, leaving him in darkness.

Betty’s gift key would never open that lock.

Horne closed his eyes and searched his memory for what had been revealed in the brief flare of the match. Nothing, he felt sure, that would do him any good. On an impulse, he struck another match and examined the basement room in detail. It contained only broken office furniture and nameless junk. Horne quietly ascended the stairs and left the building.

Again in the alley he walked noiselessly along the building walls until he reached the mouth, to take up a position where he had stood before. There was no noticeable change in the scene.

Betty had an underground entrance into that hospital somewhere. She couldn’t and wouldn’t just walk up to the front or back door and push it open. Especially not these last few days — or nights. Horne eyed the alley mouth across the street, opposite him. It was very near the hospital. On a sudden decision, he whirled about and strode down the alley, back the way he had first come.

A five-block circuitous route brought him into that other alley from the rear. He found himself on the hospital side of the street, facing the position he had just quitted.

He searched again along the opposite side of the dark street, looking for the men that should be there. The row of second-story windows caught his eye. There was no movement behind them and they were as black as the night itself, but there would be the logical place for them to watch. A man in any of those windows commanded the front of the hospital. A man in the windows above him, across the ten or twelve feet of alleyway, would command a side view of the hospital and possibly most of the rear. But the man above him could not see him unless the man put his head out of the window and looked down. And even then the darkness would probably protect him.

But — let him step out of the alley mouth into the street, or let him slip into the fenced-in yard about the hospital, and he was an instant target. From the hospital as well as the second-story windows.

Horne looked down at himself clad only in torn trousers and slippers, and decided that he was pretty easy to identify or describe. Then he edged out of the mouth of the alley onto the sidewalk. Keeping close to the buildings, he sidled towards the animal hospital.

Upstairs, across the street, a yawning patrolman took one look and scooped up a telephone. By the light of a tiny penlight he dialed a number.

“City Hall,” the answering voice said.

“Gimme Wiedenbeck, quick! This is Eisner.”

After a couple of connecting clicks the sergeant came on the wire.

“Sergeant, this is Eisner. There’s a guy out here without any shirt on. He’s limping.”

“Without any — hey! That’s our man, that’s Horne. Hold him!”

“Okay, okay, he’s across the street. He’s — wait a minute, sergeant.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The guy’s breaking into the dog hospital, sergeant. He’s trying to get a window open.”

“Swell! Now listen — hey, don’t hang up!”

“I didn’t, sergeant, but it sounded like you did.”

“Bad connection, I guess. Now listen, wait until the dope gets inside before you move. Then grab your pardner and cover the front and back door. Nobody comes out — and if you have to shoot, aim for the legs. I’ll be there as soon as I can get a warrant out for Horne. That’s excuse enough to get in there.” He banged down the phone.

The patrolman watched Horne disappear through a window.

He smelled dogs. From his position on the floor Horne put out a hand, encountered a table leg or similar prop, and ran his hand up it. Close-woven chicken wire came beneath his searching fingers. He stuck a single finger through a hole in the wire and a small tongue licked it.

Dogs. Apparently an entire row of them, each in separate booths. It struck him as odd that they were so quiet in his unexpected presence. Surely one out of the many would have the instincts of a watchdog.

He hadn’t expected to crawl right into their midst but now that he was here it was unbelievable luck to find them ignoring his presence. If I were a dog, Horne thought in some amusement, I’d sure as hell raise a ruckus if a stranger came crawling through my window. They acted as if they knew who was in the room.

As if they knew who was in the room.

Horne froze in his prone position beneath the pens. There was no sound — yes, there were sounds, small ones. A stirring here and there as some animal shifted position, a tongue somewhere along the line of pens lapping water. And his own labored breathing. He hugged the floor, belly down, and tried to guess where the other person was. The one whom the dogs knew by scent, a familiar scent, and consequently raised no outcry when he had entered.

He wondered if the dogs could see in the dark. If they could they would be following their noses, looking at him or the familiar occupant of the room. Now if he could only see where they were looking — he started to raise himself up and thought the better of it. If he got to his knees he would be silhouetted against the window.

He dropped back to the floor and was dismayed when the sounds of his hands striking the floor sounded like the dropping of a sodden rag.

The soft yet satiric voice said above him, “Get up off the floor, baby doll.”

“I like it here,” he ground out stubbornly.

She kicked him viciously in the ribs. “Get up!”

He winced and climbed to his feet. She was behind him. He sensed the familiar perfume. She placed the point of a knife against his bare back and thrust it in a fraction, puncturing the skin. Horne jumped.

“Hey!” he protested, “you’re hurting—”

“Shut up!” she hissed in his ear, “and get moving. That isn’t anything to what you’re going to get now.” Horne moved forward through the darkness.

“I guess the honeymoon is over,” he said slowly.

“You can say that again, you crooked louse. You and your damned shirts! Through that door — hurry. You’ve got the cops down on our necks now.” She gave the knife a vicious push.

He bit his lips to keep from yelling and stumbled through a black doorway into another unlit room. The girl guided him by pushes. They paused, she reached around him to open a door, and they began descending a stairway. When they had reached the bottom someone snapped on a light.

He was in a well-furnished basement room beneath the animal hospital. Bumble and Deebie Bridges stood there, watching him. The hate was still on the Negro’s face. The giant’s fists were clenching and unclenching in an obvious effort to control his anger. Deebie Bridges said nothing. Her face was grim, the long, thin lips tightly closed.

She made a jerking motion with her thumb.

Bumble walked across the room to Horne, picked him up in both hands, and carried him across the floor.

“Now wait a minute,” he cried in protest. “What—”

Betty struck him savagely across the mouth with the back of her hand. A trickle of blood ran down his chin from a split lip. He struggled in Bumble’s hands and the big man shook him as a terrier shakes a rat.

Deebie Bridges pulled aside a bit of tapestry to reveal the iron door that opened into a tunnel beneath the street. She swung it open. The redheaded girl pulled a chair beneath the opening and climbed in. When her feet disappeared from view the Negro tossed Horne into the opening head first. He threw out his arms to protect himself and his hands struck the feet of the girl ahead of him. She kicked back at him.

Behind him, Bumble crawled into the tunnel. The iron door clanged shut and all was silence. There was a strong odor of shoe polish in the air.

Sergeant Wiedenbeck sat on the running board of the patrol car parked in front of the animal hospital and watched the lights inside go out one by one. Deebie Bridges padded across a room in her night robe, in full view of the window, and switched out a light the searching police had left burning. Finally there was darkness in all but the rear bedroom where Deebie Bridges slept.

Wiedenbeck moved to the corner of the building and contemplated the light. In three or four minutes it too winked out. He returned to his former position on the running board.

The useless warrant rustled between his fingers.

“The old lady,” he said bitterly in the semidarkness, “wasn’t kidding us. She’ll raise hell about this in the morning.”

One of the patrolmen in the silent group about him raised his voice. He spoke with a belligerent surety.

“Sergeant, I saw that guy crawl in that window.”

Wiedenbeck stared at the man in thoughtful silence. A taxicab crawled along the street behind them, the cab driver flashing a light at the row of houses, seeking a number. Two people were in the back seat. They all stared curiously at the knot of policemen as the cab drove by.

The cab finally stopped at a small house down near the far corner. The passengers got out, paid off the driver, and walked up to the door of the house, craning to look over their shoulders at the police. Someone opened the house with a key, they entered, and shortly several lights went on inside the place. The cab drove away. The street was quiet again.

Wiedenbeck stood up and sighed.

“I don’t doubt your word, Eisner. But he’s not in there now. Let’s break this up. You and Dick beat it back to your posts. Stay there until I send someone out to relieve you in the morning. We’ll go back downtown. Come on, boys, break it up.”

He climbed into the patrol car. Two or three others settled themselves in the rear seat. The car made a quick U-turn in the middle of the block and headed for the City Hall. No one said anything.

It was some twenty minutes before the phone rang at his desk.

He picked it up. “Wiedenbeck speaking.”

“Sergeant, this is Eisner. I—”

“Did Horne show?” the sergeant cut in quickly.

“No, sergeant. This ain’t got nothing to do with Horne. I just wanted to tell you all the lights are out, out here. The street lights and everything.”

Wiedenbeck controlled his voice. “Why tell me?”

“No reason, sergeant, no good reason. It was just curious, that’s all. I could see the street light from this window. It sort of dimmed down for several seconds, and then it went out. I looked out the window and all the street lights are out. Remember those people that drove up in the taxi? All their lights are out, too.”

“Oh hell, maybe they went to bed.”

“Don’t think so, sergeant. Just for luck I tried the ceiling light in this room. It don’t work, either. You might let the light department know about it.”

“All right. Keep your eyes open.”

Wiedenbeck hung up, waited a moment, and dialed the superintendent’s office at the municipal power house. In a few brief words he identified himself and said he had received a report the lights were dead on Mulberry Street, south of Main.

“Tell me something I don’t know!” that worthy complained. “Our circuit-breakers damned near jumped off the wall. The short is still there, too, ’cause the breakers won’t hold.”

“All right, all right. I just thought I’d tell you. I’ve got my own troubles.”

“You haven’t got anything, brother!” the superintendent disclaimed. “Me, I’ve got ’em. I’ve got to drag men out of bed. I’ve got to check every damned sewer and tunnel in that area. The short is still there.”

The sergeant leaned forward. “What sewers and tunnels?”

“What sewers and tunnels, he says. Say brother, where was you when the WPA put them in? Where’d you think all those power lines went to when we took ’em off the poles? Under the streets, of course.”

Wiedenbeck hung up and stared at his fingers. The warrant for the arrest of Charles Horne lay folded on the desk before him. Dumb — just plain dumb, that was the name for Wiedenbeck. Four or five days ago he and Elizabeth Saari had discovered the assaulted janitor in the basement of Horne’s office building. The tunnel service door had been standing open. And he had thought the red-haired girl had opened it merely to tap Horne’s telephone!

Of course Charles Horne had entered that dog hospital less than an hour ago. And of course he couldn’t be found when his men had searched the place.

Wiedenbeck picked up the phone and dialed. Elizabeth Saari answered. Without explanation, the sergeant asked the doctor to meet him at the City Hall as soon as possible. Prepared for business. Dr. Saari said, certainly, sergeant, and hung up. And then he dialed another number.

A voice answered, “Boone Ambulance Service.”

“This is Wiedenbeck, police department. Go to Mulberry Street just south of Main. In a few minutes there’ll be some repair crews there, hunting a power failure. Stick with them. When they find the trouble, you’ll find a body. What’s that? Yeah — electrocution.”

He put down the phone and sat back in his chair to await the arrival of Dr. Saari.

Horne’s knees were hurting.

It was extremely difficult maintaining the pace set by the girl ahead of him but every time he dropped back the Negro viciously shoved him forward. The tunnel was low and he kept banging his head against the wires and insulated holders fastened a few inches above him.

The sharp odor of shoe polish continued strong in his nostrils.

He had given up the idea of counting to determine the distance they had traveled on hands and knees. Somewhere after the first thousand — possibly fifteen minutes — he became entangled in his own calculations and quit. They had made three turns along their route but he realized those turns weren’t necessarily at street corners overhead. He was lost after the second turn.

Surprisingly, at his request, the girl stopped to rest. There was no room in the tunnel to sit up so the three of them stretched out, head to toe.

Lying there in the confining darkness, Horne reached out a tentative hand to explore the wires just above him. There were two kinds. His fumbling fingers found two twisted cords braided about each other which were telephone lines, and a more solid, single wire. That would be the power line. The power line was thick and heavy, denoting high voltage, and there were many of them. He found time to be thankful he didn’t suffer from claustrophobia. How far were they beneath the street? Eight feet? Ten? The tunnel was like an eternal, never-ending tomb.

The redheaded girl rolled over, kicked his outstretched hand, and said “Come on, stupid.”

Behind him, Bumble had hold of his shoe in the blackness. Horne got to his aching knees and heard the Negro do likewise.

“Mind telling me where we’re going?” he asked.

“None of your damned business, Paul Pry. Your time is just about up.”

“I’m your sweetheart,” he said mockingly. “Remember?”

Her only answer was a quick, back-flung kick with her shoe. He sensed rather than saw it coming and tried to dodge. The heel of her shoe scraped his face, bringing blood.

“Baby doll!” he bit out sarcastically.

She stopped dead on the spot.

Horne tried to stop when he felt her nearness but the oncoming Negro crashed into him from behind, pitching his body forward onto her. She screamed and rolled to face him. Beneath his fingers he felt the sweater and slacks she had been wearing when last they had been together. One outflung hand landed in her face. She opened her mouth and bit down hard on his thumb.

Horne screamed in pain and tried to scuttle away.

Powerful hands grabbed his ankles from behind and hauled him backward. Frantically he tried to hang onto the girl’s struggling body. His fingers found a hold on her belt and curled around it. He didn’t remember the knife she carried until it came down in a sweeping arc past his ear and buried itself in his left shoulder. The blade bit deep, leaving him gasping with a burning pain.

His grip on the belt loosened. The strong pull from behind tore him loose from her and he was hurtled backwards, underneath the crouching body of the colored giant. Bumble clambered over Horne’s prostrate form in his eagerness to reach the girl.

Bumble lacked speech and hearing. He knew only that Horne and the girl had been fighting. He wanted to reach the girl in the quickest possible time; Horne could be taken care of afterwards. Getting past the outstretched body of the detective, Bumble scrambled up the tunnel.

Betty heard him coming in the blackness.

She screamed and drove the knife forward in a slashing blow at the Negro’s chest. Horne lay still listening to the struggle, realizing what was happening. The pain in his shoulder all but robbed him of consciousness.

Bumble reached across the fighting girl and grasped the wrist that held the knife poised for another blow. He bent the arm back and up, trying desperately to keep the girl from striking him again before she learned who he was. Panic-stricken, the girl could not notice the difference between the two men.

Bumble sent the knife hand up with a powerful thrust. The now-bloodied blade sliced through the insulation about the wire as if it had been butter. Before Bumble could stop the thrust, the knife had cut through three power lines.

After several seconds the circuit breakers in the powerhouse deadened the affected lines.

A repairman lifted the manhole cover in the middle of the street, flashed his light about in the opening, found the rungs set in the side of the well, and clambered down.

He stopped when he reached the bottom and smelled the air. The repairman stooped, flashed the light along one tunnel, saw nothing amiss, and turned to inspect a second.

Quickly he climbed the rungs to the street and sent a piercing whistle towards a knot of men some distance down the block. Faces whirled towards him. Someone on the service truck put a spotlight on him.

“Here they are!” he shouted shrilly. “Three of them!” And then he stumbled to the curb and was sick.