After the First Death - Lawrence Block [66]
“Turk—”
“I cut her, see, and I never thought you would open your eyes. So then I got out of there. I had her damn blood all over me and I had to go wash myself clean. Then I was going to get out and go home, but I remembered how you got in trouble the first time, see, and I thought I better do something or you be up against it. I was almost out of the hotel and then I went back upstairs to the room. I was going to haul you out of there and put you someplace else so you wouldn’t ever know anything about it. But the door was locked, see, so I knew you was awake—”
“There was a thief in the room. He locked it.”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah. Now it fits. I figured you was awake and you’d get out of there on your own, see? So I cut out fast. And here I owed you to begin with, and then the next day I discover it’s worse than ever, you didn’t get up and you didn’t get out and the police are after you. Man, I went out looking for you. And when you called I wanted to give you money, give you my car, anything, just get you out of the country and let everything get cool again. I hate owing anything to anybody. I was born owing nothing to nobody and I wanted to go out the same way, and here I’m going out and still owing you. Ain’t that too much?”
“Turk—”
“I knew if they caught you it’d all be up for you, and instead it turns around and it’s all up for me. Just too much.”
“Turk, the first girl—”
“And me owing you, and all.”
“Evangeline Grant—”
“Now if I’d of drug you out of the room right away, or if I waited another couple minutes wiping my hands and that thief was gone by then, why, you never would a been in it Both of us, we’d never be in it.”
I said, “Evangeline Grant Turk. The first girl. Five years ago. Who … who killed her?”
“And I’m owing you. And never no more chance to make it straight with you, either.” He shuddered. “That hurts as bad as dying. Cause all I wanted was a chance to make it straight with us.”
“It’s straight Turk.”
I hadn’t thought he’d be able to hear me, but I guess he did. He did his best to smile, and he said something I couldn’t make out and then he settled back in his bed and died.
They were silent in the waiting room. Jackie, the cops. I walked over to them, and some of them looked at me and others carefully looked away.
“He’s dead,” I announced, but no one seemed to care.
“He told me everything.”
“Well, it clears you completely, Mr. Penn, and—”
“What about the other girl?”
“That was years ago, and—”
“Evangeline Grant—what about her?”
“We don’t—”
“Who killed her?”
I stood listening to the echo of my own words in the sterile silent room. Why do we ask such questions? A cop got to his feet. He came over to me, and he laid an infinitely gentle hand upon my shoulder and he spoke very softly, very softly indeed.
He said, “I’m afraid you did, Mr. Penn.”
24
A LOT HAPPENED AFTER THAT BUT I DO NOT REMEMBER IT VERY well I moved through it as a ship through fog. There was some police business, and some forms to fill out, and a horde of newspapermen, and flashbulbs popping in my face. That sort of thing. And eventually it stopped and I escaped, and found a bar and had a drink, and then everything slipped away and the days and nights went by. I don’t know how many of them there were. Somewhere along the line I got to my bank and took out a lot of cash, so I didn’t have to worry about money. I just stayed drunk and the days went by. If I went too long between drinks I thought about things that I did not want to think about, and that was bad, so I stayed drunk.
Until one day or night I looked up from a drink and saw her face. I knew that I recognized her but I could not remember at first just who she was. I couldn’t remember.
She said, “Oh, baby, you’ve been hard to find. You’ve been so hard to find.”
Then I knew who she was. “Jackie,” I said. “You’re Jackie.”
“You better come home with me, Alex.”
“Can’t go home,” I said. “Can’t.”
“Come on, Alex.”
“I’m a dangerous man. Killed a girl. Might hurt you, Jackie.”
“You come with me, baby.”
I picked