“What in hell are you talking about?”
She stood up and crushed out her cigarette. “I have a friend here in town who is a very old woman in very ill health. She is the one I just spoke of as refusing the money because she doesn’t expect to live much longer, She used to be one of my teachers years ago. I am quite fond of her, and I am glad to be able to say that for some perverse reason she likes me. Like a great many very old women she has grown to be unimpressed by lots of things and she has a somewhat irreverent sense of humor. She also happens to have a notary’s commission.
“I spent about two hours out at her home today, after the morning papers came out. I wrote out a rather full account of all this thing, particularly in reference to your participation in it, and signed it in her presence. She put her seal on it. She doesn’t know what is in the document, but she witnessed the signature. It has been sealed, and will be placed in her lawyer’s safe, to be opened when she dies. That may be next month, next year, or three years from now—”
I stared at her. I couldn’t even open my mouth to speak.
“There is no statute of limitations on murder, Mr. Harlan,” she went on. “You are guilty of withholding evidence of two murders, and of being not only an accessory but an active participant in a third.”
I finally got my mouth open. Nothing came out.
She turned and started toward the door. Then she paused with her hand on the knob.
“Of course, I could have merely had it notarized and then left it beside me tonight so the police would find it in the morning, but that seemed to me to lack finesse. That way, you wouldn’t have time to enjoy your wealth, or to savor your emotion to its fullest. Emotion can grow, you see. Or at least, that particular one can. The passage of time and the night-and-day uncertainty somehow mature it and give it a certain poignant quality I am sure you will appreciate.”
I grabbed her arm. “You can’t do it! No—”
She smiled and opened the door. Gently disengaging her arm, she said, “Good night, Mr. Harlan. And think of me from time to time, will you?”
She lifted her hand in a little gesture of farewell and went down the hall toward the stairs. I leaned against the door and watched her. It was an erect and unhurried walk, as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
I went back inside and closed the door. A month ... a year ... three years.... I sat down on the bed. It was lumpy and uncomfortable. I looked around and saw I was sitting on the pile of money. I pushed it off onto the floor. I’d never know. The first inkling I’d ever have of it was when, they came knocking on the door to pick me up. Run? Run where? They always found you.
I tried to light a cigarette. My hands shook so badly I let it fall to the floor. I didn’t even try to pick it up. I went on staring at the wall.
That was the horrible part of it.
I’d never know when—
Mr. Harlan?
A Mr. John Harlan. He live here?
A fat man, a thin man, a man with one gold tooth, a tall man, a man with tufts of hair in his ears, a smiling man, a man with one drooping eyelid—
A man with a Panama hat pushed back on his head, a man with a cigar in his mouth—
A man with spring sunlight in his face, a man wearing a raincoat against the November rain—
Mr. Harlan?
Is this Mr. Joseph N. Carraday, whose real name is John Harlan?
A man sweating in the Florida sun, a man with Chicago snow on the shoulders of his overcoat—
He looks at you through the narrow opening of the doorway.
Mr. Harlan?
I’ve come to read the water meter. To collect for the Times-Picayune-Mirror-Sun-Post-Dispatch-Examiner-Herald-Tribune. To sell you an aluminum pot. To tell you about our new hospitalization plan.
To arrest you for murder.
No!
I lunged to my feet. It was here. Here in this city. Look. All I had to do was find her so I could get it away from her and destroy it. Hell, finding her would be easy. She was a Notary Public. She was an old woman. She was ill. How many old-women-ill-Notaries-Public were there in a city of maybe less than a million?
I grabbed up the telephone directory and flipped wildly through the yellow pages.
Naturopathic Physicians . . . Newspaper Dealers . . . Night Clubs ...
Notaries Public . . .
Column after column of Notaries Public.
Most of them weren’t even listed by name. They were listed by the places they worked: insurance agencies, attorneys’ offices, banks, real estate offices.
I was shaking. I stared at the yellow columns. Hell, I could do it. Hire private detectives. That was it. Look. I had lots of money. Hire all the private detectives in town. They’d find her. They’d find her before—
Before what?
Why, before she died, of course.
And so what was I going to find her for? To kill her? If she wouldn’t tell me where the statement was, I’d have to threaten to kill her to make her talk, and if I killed her they would get me just that much quicker—
And she didn’t have it, anyway. Her attorney had it.
So I had to find her, and then find out who her attorney was. And if she wouldn’t tell me who her attorney was, I had to threaten to kill her to make her talk, and if I killed her—
How many attorneys were there in a city of maybe less than a million? The yellow pages flew by in a blur.
Attorneys. (See Lawyers.)
Lapidaries . . . Lawn Mowers . . . Lawn Mowers, Rental. . .
Lawyers.
I stared. Page after page of lawyers.. Entire races of lawyers. A torrent of lawyers, a waterfall of lawyers, a whole river of lawyers overflowing from the bottomless springs of a thousand law schools and spreading across the pages faster than I could turn them. I put my head down in my hands.
No. Don’t go to pieces. You can do it. You’ve got money. Look at all the money you’ve got. Hire detectives. Find her. Find her lawyer. Find her lawyer’s safe. Open the safe. How? Hire somebody to open the safe. A safe-cracker.
Safe-crackers . . .
Saddlery . . . Safe Depositories . . . Safes . . . Safety Equipment. . . Scales. . . What?
Get hold of yourself. Look, it doesn’t mean anything.
It was just a momentary aberration. You’d been looking for all those other things in the yellow pages, so naturally—
I sat down then, and picked up the cigarette. It was all right. It’s just a problem, see. Find her, find the attorney—lawyer, that is—get somebody to open the safe. She’ll live that long. Sure she will.
Hell, it’s nothing, compared to what they were up against.
Suddenly, I thought of Tallant. He was dead. And by now she was probably dropping off to sleep, for the last time. The roulette wheel had stopped for them and they were at peace. They were resting.
And why shouldn’t they be? They had got up and given me their seats in front of the wheel.
No, by God, I thought. I’ll beat ‘em. I’ll show ‘em. All I have to do is find her, and then find the lawyer— But first I’d better get out of here. This place wasn’t safe any more. Maybe the clerk had recognized her. Maybe he had called the police. That was it; pack up and move somewhere else, and then I would be able to think.
Hurry.
Charles Williams, The Big Bite
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