Fury on Sunday (11 page)

Then she suddenly thought, what if she got sick to her stomach? She’d had a rough time the past few weeks. But she’d really feel foolish if she came to Stan’s place and had to run right to the bathroom. A sort of harried smile crossed her lips. What would Bob say?

No more thought
, she told herself.
I’m going and that’s all there is to it. No matter what he says. If he yells at me I won’t mind as long as it’s a nice, healthy unharmed yell. If he takes me over his knee and spanks me I won’t care. As long as the hand that spanks is nice and safe and mine
.

In the darkness, in the silence of the great city, the cab sped up Lexington Avenue, its motor humming. Thirty-fifth Street, Thirty-sixth Street, Thirty-seventh, Thirty…

Vince stiffened at the sound of the bell. The apartment seemed to shake with the sound. He stood tensely, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths, his throat congested. He coughed. He didn’t know what to do exactly.

He looked at Stan.

“All right,” he said hoarsely, “you’re going to—”

“Vince, for God’s sake, don’t do it!” Stan suddenly burst out. “He hasn’t done anything to you.”

Vince was going to shout at him to shut up, but he held it in. His dark eyes glittered as he spoke quickly, gutturally.

“Shut up,” he said. “You’re going to open the door and let him in.”

Stan looked at him with blank eyes. He glanced toward Jane. His heart was thudding rapidly.

“Get out there,” Vince said.

“Vince…”

Vince raised the gun and pointed it at Stan. “You want to die?”

Stan braced himself.
I’ll let him shoot me
, he suddenly thought. It would warn Bob. He felt himself shudder.
No, no
, his mind rationalized quickly.
He’ll shoot Jane then. You can’t do it
.

But, deep inside, he knew he was a coward and afraid to die.

Vince moved behind Stan. He prodded the gun into Stan’s back as Stan stopped by his wife.

Stan jolted nervously as the gun barrel touched him. He looked into the hall with sick eyes and started walking toward the door.
God, why am I doing what he tells me to?
His teeth ground together in impotent fury.

The doorbell rang again and kept on ringing. Vince felt a wild, surging elation. Now he was going to avenge Ruth. All right, he couldn’t play the piano but at least he could save Ruth. He
would
save her.

Strangely enough though he couldn’t feel much about Ruth. He knew he wanted revenge. But he didn’t realize it wasn’t Ruth he wanted to avenge. It was himself, on the world. The world which had crippled his left arm and made it impossible for him to play anymore.

They stopped.

“Now,” Vince said in a grating voice, “
open the door
.”

No. No. Stan tried to turn the word into sound. His fingers curled around the door knob. Bob was his friend and yet he had brought Bob here to die. Scream out and beat on the door and warn Bob. Turn and fight Vince until the bullets were all gone from the gun into his body. He wanted to fight for Jane.

But he couldn’t. He stood there, shaking and helpless, his stomach a hot, churning knot of pain. And the words stabbed at his brain drawing the blood of his self-respect, the last few drops of it.
I am a coward
.

“Open it!”

The cloud of Vince’s hot, furled whisper surrounded him.

He unlocked the door and opened it.

“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?