The Butterfly - James M. Cain [23]
He was sitting on the edge of the bed in his hotel room, all dressed for the wedding except for his coat, that was on the back of a chair with a carnation in the buttonhole, and two boxes of flowers in the same chair. He lit a cigarette and smoked a long time. Then he said: "Listen, Jess, it just can't be true. In the first place she's not that kind of a girl. And if she was that kind of a girl, she couldn't be that kind of a girl with Moke. And he's old enough to be her father. He's almost as old as you are, Jess."
"He's thirty-nine."
"Then she couldn't fool around with him."
"Yes, she could."
"Jess, I say she couldn't."
He snapped that at me with a killer light in his eye, and I don't know what kind of a look I had in my eye when I slung it back at him, but it must have said something, because he staggered back against the wall and said, "Jesus Christ."
"You think I'm just fooling?"
He lit another cigarette and thought a while, and said: "Then I've got to kill him, Jess."
"That I won't let you do."
"I wasn't asking you."
"You don't know where he is and I won't tell you and even if you did know you couldn't get to him without a guide. And by the time you find one, if you can find one, he'll be dead, because I'm going to kill him on my way back."
"She's the mother of my —
He broke off and looked at me, and I think it was the first time he got it through his head, the meaning of what I had told him.
"I really got nothing to do with it, have I?"
"Not a thing in this world."
"Unless —
"You killed her, is that it?"
He didn't answer me. He just went and looked out the window, but that was what he had started to say. "Well, Wash, I tried it, but I couldn't."
"I could."
"Him, that'll be different."
There came a ring on his buzzer and he opened the door. It was his father and mother. His father was tall, like he was, with gray hair and a brown, sunburned face. But his mother was pink and pretty and sweet, and went over to him and kissed him and asked if the bride was here, and where was the baby, and lots more stuff like that. He said who I was, and both of them shook hands, and said they had hoped I'd be able to get to the wedding.
"There won't be any wedding, Mom."
"What?"
"Sorry you took the trip for nothing. Now we're going home."
Chapter 10
When I got near the bend I stopped, hid the truck back of the old filling station, got the rifle out, and crossed the creek on the pillars of the old bridge. I kept on up on the other side, keeping under the cliff and out of sight from above till I came to the path. Then I crept up the mountainside without making any noise at all. When I came to the drift I went in, opened the tool chest, refilled the lamp, lit it, and set it down. I cut off about six feet of fuse, rolled it up, and stuck it in my pocket. I put a box of caps in there with it. I stuck a couple of sticks of dynamite in my pocket on the other side. Then I went on in. When I came to the shaft I laid out powder, fuse, and caps on a scaffold, and put my shoes beside them, tied to a scantling against rats. Then I picked up the rifle and started up the ladder. When I lifted my head out he had moved, with the sun, about six feet away from where he had been before, but that put him facing me more, and made it better. He was eating beans out of a can with his knife, and I let him finish them up before I raised my gun. I drew my bead right on the butterfly. He doubled up when I pulled the trigger, and held on to his stomach, and kicked like a cat trying to shake papers off its feet, and drew his breath in and out fast like a dog in the summer time, except instead of heat that made him do that, it was pain. That suited me fine. I stepped out, picked up his rifle from where he had set it down to eat, and sat down to watch him twitch.
"You dirty son of a bitch."
"Hello, Moke."
"God, that would be like you, Jess, to shoot me in the belly and then go on and leave me here to die."
"Oh, I wouldn't go off and