“Stan, what is it?”
Bob stood in the doorway looking at Stan, white and trembling.
He moved forward.
“Stan, what—”
Then, suddenly, he leaped to the side with a gasp as the door was slammed shut from behind and he saw Vince’s glaring face before him.
Stan backed away, shuddering, his eyes wide and staring. Vince leaned against the door, his chattering teeth jammed together, the gun wavering in his hand.
“Vince,” was all Bob could say as he stood there, paralyzed with sudden fear.
“Get inside,” Vince said.
He forced a calmness through himself. Bob was here now, in his hands. There was no use ending it right away. Bob would pay; but slowly.
“Vince, you—”
“I said get inside!” Vince ordered, his thin voice ringing out shrilly in the hallway.
Bob backed into Stan as he retreated.
“Bob, I’m sorry,” Stan murmured in a weak voice. “Please don’t hold it against—”
“If you don’t get in there,” Vince’s voice was low and menacing, “I swear to God, I’ll…”
They backed into the living room, their eyes never leaving Vince’s white, twisted face.
As they entered the living room Stan heard a groan and, turning suddenly, he saw Jane sitting up, holding her forehead with her hand, blood trickling between her white fingers.
“Jane,” he muttered, brokenly.
“Leave her alone,” Vince said.
But, for some reason, Stan didn’t listen. Maybe it was because he felt dead already. He helped his wife up.
“Let go of me,” she muttered hoarsely, in a voice that bordered on hysteria. “I don’t want—”
“Be quiet,” he said, quietly firm. “You haven’t helped any either.”
Jane sank down on the couch, wordless. She looked at Bob, then at Vince. Her teeth dug into her lower lip.
“I’m going to wash off her forehead,” she heard Stan say to Vince.
Vince said nothing. He backed over to where he could watch Stan in the kitchen. Stan might try for a knife. He kept looking from Stan to Bob, the gun held tightly in his hand. Why didn’t I stop Stan from going in there? he wondered. And then he realized that he was afraid of Stan. You couldn’t trust Stan’s kind, they were unpredictable. One minute they would be blubbering for pity, the next minute they would come lunging at you, eagle-clawed, eyes like fire. He had seen that at the asylum. The little man who coughed, he was like that. Cry, cry, cry and then, suddenly, with a shriek and a gibber, he would leap at you.
Bob stood in the middle of the room looking first at Jane, then at Vince.
“How did you get out?” he asked weakly.
“Never mind that,” Vince said carefully. “Do you want to know why I came out?”
Bob stared at him, his throat moving, still numbed from the shock of seeing Vince.
“I came to kill you,” Vince said.
Bob started as if someone had kicked him in the stomach. He stood there, his face petrified. Vince liked that. It gave him confidence again, confidence that he’d been losing when first Jane, then Stan, had defied him. He needed constant obedience to his words or he became unnerved.
“Ki—” Bob’s voice broke off. He drew in a harsh breath. “Kill?” he said, his voice flat and unbelieving.
“I’m going to blow your brains out,” Vince said, his voice a low, throaty sound. His eyes were like glowing coals.
“But—but I haven’t done anything to—”
“Shut up!”
A bubbling chuckle filled Vince’s throat and his nostrils flared in scorn.
“Yellow,” he said. “You’re afraid to die, aren’t you?”
Bob’s throat moved convulsively.
“Aren’t you?”
“Vince, don’t be crazy,” Bob heard himself saying. “You don’t want to kill anyone. You know you—”
Vince’s laughter stopped him, made him shudder.
“I don’t want to kill anyone,” Vince mocked. Then his face flinted.
“I’ve killed two men to get to you. Do you really think I’m not going to…”
He broke off suddenly and almost jerked the trigger. He wanted desperately to pull the trigger and watch Bob crumple to the floor in a hail of bullets. He wanted to stand over Bob’s twitching body emptying the gun into him.
The holding back made him shudder.
No, he told himself. Wait; enjoy yourself. He wondered briefly if he should make Bob call up Ruth and get her over here too. How she would love him if she saw him shoot Bob right before her eyes. Then she’d give herself to him right in front of Stan and Jane.
No. No. He shouldn’t think of Ruth that way. She was clean and beautiful. He wasn’t insane. That proved it.
“Sit down,” he told Bob.
Good. Now he was in control of himself.
Bob stared at Vince without moving. Kill me? The words drummed in his mind and made him shiver convulsively. He couldn’t conceive of it. To suddenly have death facing you; that was impossible to understand.
“Are you going to sit down or…?”
Bob sank down on the piano bench with a faltering of leg muscles. He sat there, eyes fastened to Vince’s face.
“Get out here,” Vince told Stan.
He backed into the wall as Stan passed. Then he shoved Stan’s back and almost made him fall over.
“Watch where you’re going, stupid,” he said.
Stan’s breath caught and a strange, unfamiliar fury burst in him. That they should be subject to the whims of this adolescent lunatic! It made him shake with anger.
Then, as he walked past Bob, for a moment their eyes met. And there was something in Bob’s eyes that made Stan’s lips tighten, that made him turn away his gaze.
“Stan,” Bob said and it was like a knife turning in Stan’s body.
“You’re going to die, you know that,” Vince said.
He wanted to frighten Bob more. He liked the look Bob had gotten in the hall; that drained, terrified look, one cheek twitching; the backing away in horror. Vince liked that a lot. It made him feel good to terrify people. He thought for a moment of that girl he’d taken the raincoat from. He wished he was back there.
Bob didn’t answer Vince. His heartbeats were slowing down now. The initial shock had left his muscles feeling slack and impotent. His mind began slowly to function again.
What do I answer? he wondered. Was there an answer that would satisfy Vince, prolong the time he had to live?
He glanced over to where Stan’s hands moved gently over Jane’s forehead. Why had Stan done this to him?
“I asked you something,” Vince said, the anger coming again. “I’m not going to wait much longer. I won’t be defied.”
Bob looked at him.
“What do you want me to say, Vince?” he asked.
Vince stiffened. Wrong answer! The words exploded in Bob’s mind and made him go rigid with new fright.
“Why do you want to kill me, Vince?” he asked quickly.
Vince’s eyes slitted. Was he being tricked? Well, no one would trick him.
“You know why,” he said slyly.
Yes, Bob thought, I know why. He did know. Because of Ruth, because Vince had hated Bob with a paranoid hatred since the day he’d married the girl Vince had wanted for himself.
“Listen, Vince,” he said.
“Don’t try to save yourself,” Vince said. “You can’t.”
“You have no reason to kill me,” Bob said desperately. “I haven’t done you any harm.”
Vince stood there looking at Bob without any expression on his face. That’s right, his mind prodded silently. Beg for your life; I’ll stand here and listen.
“Vince, I haven’t done anything to you,” Bob said.
The room was silent. It was warmer now that the heat was up. Vince’s flannel shirt was getting hot and chafing him.
I haven’t done anything to you.
/> Bob’s words repeated themselves in his mind and the words made Vince’s lips twitch. No, he hadn’t done anything; only taken away Vince’s life, only taken away the only girl Vince had ever wanted, the only thing he’d ever really asked for in his life.
Momentarily he thought of Ruth as he’d met her so long ago at the party after the first Town Hall engagement.
Ruth had been sitting on a couch, all alone. Vince had wandered over, sat beside her. Nobody was paying any attention to her then, only Vince. He was the one who had introduced her to everybody, the one who had made her laugh and taken away her strangeness and timidness.
And what did he get for it? He tightened. She had married Bob and deserted him.
He swallowed. No, that wasn’t what had happened. Bob had tricked her, he had hypnotized her. Maybe even drugged her. Ruth loved him, not Bob. She had said it that day in the music room. Oh, maybe not in so many words, but in her eyes she had said it. She couldn’t get away from Bob, that’s what was wrong. She was helpless and that was why…
He refocused his eyes and realized that Bob had been talking to him all the time he’d been thinking of Ruth.
“Vince, for God’s sake—” Bob said.
“Shut up,” Vince told him.
Now they all sat silent, watching him; Jane and Stan next to each other on the couch, Bob on the piano bench—all their eyes on him. It made Vince a little nervous, but he liked being the center of attention. It was the way it should be. He’d always loved that last minute of the concert when he knew they were all watching him from the audience and soon he would rise and bow carefully and slowly from the waist, a thin smile on his face.
“Where’s Ruth?” he asked Bob suddenly.
Bob didn’t answer. He just sat there looking at Vince. And he was thinking quickly. Was Vince actually planning to go to Ruth too? His throat moved. He had to stop him.
“I’m talking to you,” Vince said. “Answer me when you’re—”
“Vince, put that gun away,” Bob said.
“Listen!” Vince snarled. “You think I’m afraid of you? You think I’m afraid to kill? I’ve already killed two men and they can only get me once for—”
The words, his own, made him stiffen. He stood there staring at them, his heart pounding.
Get him? He’d never even considered it. He feared it, yes, but never for a moment did he believe they could really catch him. He was going to kill Bob and then he and Ruth would go away and have a new life.
Die? The word made him shudder. No, he wouldn’t let himself think of it.
He edged over to an arm chair and sank down on it. He hadn’t realized how tired he was but his muscles felt slack and dead as he relaxed. He shifted a little in the chair, rested the pistol in his lap. The pistol was getting still heavier, he realized worriedly. He shouldn’t wait; he knew that. He should get it over with and go. But it was different now. Killing Harry was easy because Harry had been filthy. Killing that man in the subway had been quick, almost accidental. It was different to kill someone after you talked to them, to kill deliberately. To end a sentence, then raise your gun and fire. It was hard to kill without passion. You see, his mind said, that proves I’m sane, doesn’t it?
“What are you going to do?” Jane asked, “make us wait?”
“You’ll wait. As long as I say,” Vince told her.
“What if we don’t want to wait?” she said.
His throat moved.
“You’ll wait as long as I say.”
She sank back against the cushion. Was it possible it was as simple as that? Just a matter of instilling a negative reaction in his fevered mind? It did seem to work.
So long as she didn’t trip, so long as she didn’t fall over a block in his mind, it might work.
Bob had caught it too. At first when Jane had spoken he had stiffened and thought, Good God, she wants him to kill me. But then he realized it was the only way. Buying time, tricking Vince into thinking they didn’t want to wait so he would make them wait.
But how long could it last? Bob’s throat moved convulsively and his mouth felt dry and hot. How long before Vince would suddenly tire of waiting, rise up, on impulse, and fire his gun?
Bob’s muscles tightened involuntarily. Did he dare make a jump at Vince? Was it possible that Vince would be so shocked by the move he couldn’t fire in time?
The thought made Bob shiver. What if he wasn’t too surprised to fire?
It seemed impossible, this moment of melodrama. Just a few hours before he’d been sitting with Ruth on the living room couch listening to Ravel, everything lethargic and peaceful. Now this.
That was the trouble, he realized with sudden alarm. Now that the first shock was over he couldn’t really bring himself to believe that anything was going to happen to him. He was nervous, yes, but the very core of him revolted at the thought that, in minutes, he might be killed.
How could he make himself jump at Vince when he couldn’t quite believe, in his own flesh, that Vince would really shoot him? And if that were so, then jumping would bring on the very thing he wanted to avoid.
Stan sat by his wife, never moving, tense and ready. If he had to, he was telling himself, he’d shield her body with his. He knew that life would be meaningless without Jane.
But his stomach was shaking and he had the horrible feeling that if the moment came he would be so petrified with fright he couldn’t budge to save her.
The room became so silent that they could even hear the slow buzzing of the electric clock in the kitchen. Soon now, Vince told himself, I’m going to shoot him. There’s no point in waiting.
Bob looked nervously at his watch.
“Never mind what time it is,” Vince said. “It doesn’t matter to you anymore.”
And yet Vince could not repress the sensation that time did matter, the feeling that if he didn’t shoot soon the whole thing would be impossible. As if every second were throwing up a barrier around Bob and Stan and Jane and, if he didn’t fire soon, they would be encircled, inviolate.
It was as if they were all in a play and when the moment came to shoot Bob, when the cue was given, he had to shoot or the chance was over. And he felt his throat moving. What if the time had already passed?
That was stupid!
But he found himself straining forward in the chair, his heart pounding in fright. In his mind he saw the completion of the play; the men in white bursting into the apartment and grabbing him, dragging him away screaming and kicking. And Ruth was there in the last scene too, laughing as the curtain fell.
No, that was stupid. He threw all those thoughts away.
He stood up again restlessly. What are you waiting for, the voice filled his mind.
Suddenly he stopped walking and a rattling sound filled his throat.
They were all looking toward the front hall.
The doorbell was ringing again.
4:15 AM
Bob felt his muscles tighten. For some reason the sudden idea had occurred that it was Ruth at the door. But it couldn’t be her, it couldn’t.
He looked back. Now they were all looking at Vince.
Vince’s throat moved and he stood there with a restless, nervous stance. What was the matter with the world? Why was everything so complicated? He wanted to kill the world.
“Nobody’s answering it,” he told them. “The first one who makes a sound…”
He trained the gun on each of them, moving his hand in an arc from Bob to Stan to Jane and back again.
“They’ll see the light under the door,” Jane said.
“No,” Vince said.
“What if it’s the police?” Jane said. “You’d better get out the back way.”
“It’s not the police.”
A bolt of fear had exploded in Vince’s chest at Jane’s words. No, it couldn’t be the police! His job wasn’t done yet. He needed time, time!
His throat moved and the gun shook as it pointed at Bob. At least I can do this, he thought.
The doorbell ringing, someone knocking loudly on the door now. Bob started up, then sank down nervelessly as Vince extended his right arm and the dark barrel pointed at Bob’s head.
“Vince, you’d better go out the back way,” Jane said. “If it’s—”
“Shut up!”
“But if it’s the police.”
“It’s not!”
“It might be, Vince,” Stan had added hurriedly.
“What if it is the police?” Bob suddenly joined in. Scare him, he thought, drive him away.
Vince’s eyes jerked from one to the other.
Now they were all suddenly still, dead still, and Bob felt his heart hammering.
For, in the front hall they could hear the pounding on the door; but above the pounding, a voice calling.
“Bob! Bob!”
Bob jumped to his feet.
“Ruth,” he muttered, his face bone white, a hundred frightened thoughts tearing through his brain.
Vince felt his heartbeat skip and his muscles tighten. A sudden smile lit up his gaunt, sweat-greased features. Ruth! She’d come to him!
He started for the hall.
“No,” he suddenly heard Bob gasp and, before his startled eyes, Bob broke into a run for the hall.
“Ruth!” Bob yelled, “Ruth, get away! Get away!”
“Stop it!” Vince screamed.
Bob didn’t stop.
“Ruth, get away!” he shouted, “Ruth, get…!”
The thunder of the gun explosion drowned out his words. Bob suddenly went lurching against the wall and bounced off, landing on one knee, a surprised expression on his face.
Vince pulled the trigger again but nothing happened. Outside, in the hall, he heard Ruth scream out Bob’s name. He broke into a run for the door. Bob tried to reach up and grab his leg but Vince kicked the feebly outstretched arm and Bob toppled over on his face with a rattling gasp. As Vince leaped over his body he noticed blood, slick and red across the leather of Bob’s jacket.
“Vince, don’t!” Jane screamed as she ran toward Bob. Stan stood by the couch, immobile with shock.
Vince jerked open the front door and Ruth recoiled with a breathless cry, her eyes suddenly wide with horror.
Vince grabbed at her, forgetting the gun, and the barrel cracked across her forearm, driving a numbing bolt of pain up her arm.