“We could say they told us to let them off at the corner where we picked them up,” Judd suggested. “That sounds genuine.”
“Hey!” Artie eyed him cleverly. “How about giving them the story you were out with a nice girl? Let on you hosed her. Then you’ve got to be the gentleman protecting a nice girl’s rep.”
“You mean, we had a double date with nice girls?”
“No, just you.” After all, no glasses of Artie’s had been found.
Judd felt a quiver of grief, more than anger. A feeling of loneliness, as if Artie had actually deserted him and left him with some jane he didn’t even want. But then he finessed the game on Artie. “I could say I was driving, and you had Myra in the back seat. She’d back it up for you. As you say, she’ll do anything for you.”
“Damn right,” said Artie, still eying him in that cunning, disturbing way.
Desperately, Judd tried to recapture the mood. “How about we both take her out tonight and rape her?”
“You’d be scared to try.”
“Yah? Anything you’ll do I’ll do.”
“Yah?” Judd knew what it was now in Artie’s look. It was the accusation over what had happened yesterday, at the crucial moment—when they had the kid in the car, and the sudden blows and the blood, and Judd had heard himself crying out, “Oh my God, this is terrible! This is terrible!”
“You were scared pissless,” Artie said with finality. “That’s why you dropped your goddam glasses.”
In his tone, Judd felt everything possible. Maybe Artie would do it to him. Like things Artie must have done. Maybe Artie coming up behind him, the slug on the skull with the taped chisel, and the quick push off the end of the Jackson Park pier, his body plopping into the dark water, and his own look, upturned to Artie, accepting.
“I’ll stick to the alibi for a week,” Artie said. “After that, it’s each man for himself.”
“If a week goes by, we ought to be safe on the glasses,” said Judd.
He turned on Hyde Park Boulevard. At the Kessler house, police cars lined the curb. Photographers and newspapermen were all over the lawn. Artie was about to hop out. “Stay away from there!” Judd cried.
Artie chuckled. “It’s only natural I’d be interested. I live practically across the street. Why, poor little Paulie used to play on our tennis court all the time. Why, he’s a chum and classmate of my little brother Billy!”
“You’ll spill the beans, the way you gab. Keep off of there!”
“The hell! You going to tell me what to do?” But he remained in the car.
Silent, Judd pulled up to Artie’s door. But as Artie started into the house, Judd asked, “What’re you doing later?”
“I don’t know. I’ll give you a buzz.”
Judd drove on.
I must have just come back to give Tom the details of the teacher’s arrest when Artie and Judd drove by, for I remember seeing Artie go into his house. I remember thinking, So that’s the Straus mansion. Some class.
With the rest of the press, Tom was now outside on the Kessler lawn. It was understandable: they couldn’t have all of us camping in the house, and they couldn’t play favorites.
Everything was up a tree, Tom said. Anyway, our last replate was gone; if something happened now, we’d read about it in the morning papers. Was there any place around here a man could get a drink?
I knew a place on 55th Street, where they had spiked beer. We took the coeds there to give them a thrill. I had meant to rush over to Ruth’s, but now I went along with Tom. The place had a cigar-maker in the window, a natural lookout. This always gave me an odd feeling, for my father was a cigar-maker, though he didn’t work in a store window—he worked in a small shop in Racine. Now Pop would have big things to tell about his son, the university reporter.
As we stood up to the bar, Mike Prager and a couple of other afternoon-paper reporters found the place. We began to trade theories of the crime. I felt I was a full member of the profession. I was drinking with the boys.
When Judd dropped him at the house, Artie ran in with the Globe extra, to make a sensation. His mother wasn’t there. She would be at some meeting, doing good. By the time she got home, she’d know. He felt cheated. Something always cheated him, with her. Mumsie, you know what happened to the Kessler kid! She’d have gone white. It could have been Billy! Why, Mumsie, Billy was right there playing with Paulie on the baseball lot. I saw them myself! No. Maybe better not go that far.
Artie leaped up the stairs. Billy’s room was empty. There, for an instant, Artie’s mind stood blank, with some weird confusion. As if the room were of course empty because it had been Billy they— Then he told himself, Hell, the kid was over in that crowd at the Kesslers’, soaking up all the excitement; he’d give a full report before his big brother could get in a word—a bright, cute Billy-boy report.
They should really have snatched him, the brat, as they had once planned. Only Judd had taken it as a joke. Artie saw it now as if they had done it, grabbing Billy, feeling the kid in his arms in a squirming struggle, like sometimes when they playfully wrestled. But this time—the look on the kid’s face when he was bopped! And if it had been Billy, Artie wondered, would he himself have wanted to weep?
Then his imagining switched suddenly to a jail. He was behind bars, and people passed, grimacing at the monster killer; then came girls he knew, that big-eyed Dorothea, and Susan French, and that babe in Charlevoix, Betty, and then strangers, all grimacing at the monster, and he grimaced and made faces back at them, stuck out his tongue, made funny faces; Dorothea laughed, then he let his arms hang long and he pranced like an ape. Some fun!
On Billy-boy’s bed was an open box of chocolates. Artie grabbed a handful and ate them. The images of the jail went on. They were giving him the third degree.
He heard a gasp. The maid was in the doorway. “Oh, it’s you, Artie! I didn’t hear anyone come in.” She looked scared stiff. “We’ve all got the heebie-jeebies today. You know what happened to poor little—”
“Yah, it’s in the papers. Where’s Billy?” he asked with concern.
“Oh, he’s safe! Your mother went with the car the minute we heard something was wrong, and took him out of school. She wouldn’t leave him there another minute. All the mothers have been calling up, all day! Your mother took Billy along with her to her meeting. It’s in the papers, is it?”
“Sure.” He showed her the headline.
“It must have been a fiend that did it,” Clarice said. “He could be someone in that school!”
Artie wished he had been there to see that sight, all the limousines filling the street. There must have been a regular traffic jam, with all the anxious mommies hurrying to get their darling children safely home.
“It could be a fiend in the neighborhood,” Clarice repeated.
“That’s right, and they come back to the scene of their crime,” Artie said. She was excited, moistening her lips with her tongue. If she weren’t so dumpy, and her hands always damp, he might give her a shove. She was always asking for it, brushing against him. But once he made the push he’d have to go through with it, and maybe the disgust over her would hold him down so he couldn’t do anything. Then he’d always have that funny feeling, having her around, knowing. The hell with her.
“I hope they catch him,” she said. “No one will feel safe until they catch him. That poor little Paulie, I hope he didn’t suffer. I hope the end was quick.”