The Wounded and the Slain Page 14

  “What’s that again?”

  “Worryproof,” Bevan said. He looked at the inspector. “It’s something new on the market. It’s a special treatment you can give yourself at home. Very easy to take, once you have the knack. There’s really nothing to it.”

  “Perhaps I’ll try it sometime,” Archinroy said. Again his fingers hit the invisible piano keys. His eyes were focused on the blotter pad as he said, “I want you to repeat your confession.”

  “All right.” Bevan shrugged. “But I wish we had a tape recorder. I’m getting tired of all these encores.”

  Archinroy leaned back in the chair. “Ready?”

  “For anything,” Bevan said. Then again he was gazing past the Inspector. He was talking to an audience far beyond the Inspector as he said, “I’m a guest at the Laurel Rock Hotel. Yesterday afternoon I went out for a stroll. Not to see the sights, not to get exercise. It was more like going out on an assignment, although I wasn’t quite sure where I was headed. I don’t know how far I walked or where I went, although I remember turning a lot of corners and it must have been a very long walk.

  “Then when it was dark I happened to be on Barry Street, and I went into this house called Winnies Place. I sat down at a table and had some rum. It was awfully good rum and I bought some more. And then more. I was having a swell time sitting there drinking the rum when there was some disagreement among the other customers and they began slamming each other around and throwing things. I wanted more rum, but there was so much activity and no one around to serve me, so I decided to get out of there and go some other place where I could buy more rum. But actually I didn’t want the rum.

  “Actually I wanted blood.”

  He was repeating it almost word for word, as he’d told it to the sergeant and the lieutenants and the captains, as he’d told it previously to the Inspector.

  “I wanted blood,” Bevan went on. “I wanted to see it spilled and I was hoping for a chance to hit at something. So then in the alley outside Winnie’s Place I hear this sound and I turn around and there he is. I picked up a bottle and made a pass at him. The bottle breaks and I guess you know how it is when you’ve got hold of a broken bottle and you’re in the mood to use it on something to see the blood come out. You have a grudge against the universe for a number of reasons and you’ve got to take it out on some living thing. Reason I’m putting it this way, I want you to know I knew what 1 was doing when I jabbed that broken bottle in his throat.”

  “And then what?” the Inspector murmured.

  “Then I ran away,” Bevan said. He shrugged and added, “Today I got to thinking about it and I went to Winnie’s Place for another look at that alley. You know how it is, the old routine, we’re always pulled back to the scene of the party. And later I’m sharing a bottle with Winnie and she tells me you’ve arrested her brother.”

  “Is that your reason for coming here? To protect her brother?”

  I came here to tell you the truth.”

  “Then tell it.” The Inspector’s narrow eyes became narrower. “What really happened?”

  “Let’s leave it the way it is. Don’t try to twist it. There’s no way to twist it.”

  “I suppose not,” Archinroy said aloud to himself. And then, to Bevan, “You really believe what you’re saying. If I tried to contradict, I’d be talking to the wall. You’re sitting there but actually you’re not there. There’s no use in trying further questions.”

  “Why not? I’m willing to answer.”

  Archinroy smiled. It was a kindly smile. There was a tinge of pity in it. He said, “All right, let’s give it a test. Let’s see if we can bring it onto solid ground. To begin with, what happened to the broken bottle?”

  Bevan didn’t answer.

  Archinroy leaned back in his chair and waited. Bevan grinned at him and then aimed the grin at the floor.

  The Inspector went on smiling kindly, pityingly. Now he was looking down at the blotter pad as he said, Tell me something, Mr. Bevan. Have you ever had treatment?”

  “Treatment? For what?” “Emotional disturbance.”

  Bevan blinked several times. “Well—” He rubbed his fingers hard across his forehead. “Well, yes. I’ve been to a neurologist.”

  “Did he diagnose your condition?”

  “He said— Oh, the hell with what he said.”

  Archinroy went on looking down at the blotter pad. “We have some good ones here in Kingston. I can recommend—”

  “Save it.” He felt the sickly grimace coming onto his face and there was nothing he could do to get it off. The words squeezed through his clenched teeth. 1 “Don’t get cute with me. You can shoot the questions, 1 but don’t get cute.”

  The Inspector spoke quietly. “There are no further I questions.”

  “Then pick up the phone and call them in. Tell them to put the cuffs on me and lock me up.”

  Archinroy’s smile widened just a little. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Bevan didn’t reply

  “You’d like that very much,” Archinroy said. “But I’m afraid we can’t accommodate you.” “Now look—”

  “I’m not accepting your confession,” Archinroy interrupted.

  Bevan blinked again. The sickly grimace became tighter, deeper. He heard a groan and wondered if it came from his own lips.

  The Inspector said, “Do you wish to leave now?”

  Bevan stared at the desktop. He saw the green blotter pad and there were no papers on it, just the inkwell and the pen arranged neatly to one side. He said, “You didn’t even bother to write it down.”

  “Because you’ve given me nothing that I can use.” The Inspector spoke softly, gently. “My usual practice is to make notes, but only when I hear something relevant and pertinent, something that will make sense when it reaches the courtroom.”

  “Thanks,” Bevan said. “Thanks a lot.”

  Archinroy was quiet for some moments. He seemed to be trying to find the right words, the words that wouldn’t be too blunt, that wouldn’t hit too hard. Finally he said, “You’re a confused man. Terribly confused, and certainly not responsible for your statements. It’s a nervous condition known as—”

  “They all want to be doctors,” Bevan cut in.

  “I was saying—”

  “You were saying nothing,” he cut in again. “My nervous condition. What do you know about my nervous condition?”

  Archinroy picked up the fountain pen and played it between his fingers. “I’ve come across many similar cases. After all, I’ve been working in this field for a long time. Some thirty-six years, to be exact.”

  “Maybe you’re pooped and you need a rest.”

  “Hardly,” the Inspector said. “There’s nothing wrong with my metabolism. The only trouble I have is a liver ailment, a gunshot wound that didn’t heal properly. But I’m sure it hasn’t affected the top floor.” He tapped the side of his head. “I’m sure the gears are all there and fully capable of making decisions. In this case it’s no sale.”

  “But I did it. I’m telling you I did it.”

  “You didn’t do anything except considerable drinking. You had too much last night and today you were at it again. It never helps, you know. What you need is a first-rate specialist who can get you started on therapy, at least keep you from walking into police stations and making irrational statements.”

  Then it was ended. The Inspector was making a polite but nonetheless definite gesture of dismissal.

  Bevan lifted himself from the chair. He started to say something and couldn’t get it going. He was shaking his head slowly as he walked out of the room.

  Inspector Archinroy opened the desk drawer and took out some papers that had to do with a case involving a practitioner of Obeah, an old woman whose fake or genuine witchcraft had caused three deaths among the acquaintances of her clients. He glanced through the papers and decided he had it wrapped up tightly enough to obtain a conviction. Folding the papers and putting them in an envelope,
he got up from the desk and carried the envelope across the room to the filing cabinet. It had three drawers and he opened the top drawer, which was labeled “C.C.,” meaning “Cases Closed.” In the brain of the Inspector the “C.C.” actually stood for “See? See?” which meant that these cases were sufficiently closed so that they required no further investigation. With a pencil he quickly scrawled the old woman’s first name and the initial of her last name on the envelope, then dropped the envelope into the drawer. There was no alphabetical index in this drawer, and the envelope on which he had just written Matilda B.” rested loosely alongside an envelope on which was written “Eustace H.”

  Inspector Archinroy closed the drawer of the filing cabinet and went back to his desk.

  Chapter Twelve

  As Bevan came out of police headquarters, some children ran up to him and asked for pennies. He put his hand in his pocket, reaching for coins. Then he changed his mind and his hand went into the pocket where he kept his wallet. He took out the wallet, which contained some ninety dollars in American and British paper, and close to two hundred dollars in travelers’ checks. There were seven children grouped around him and he gave each of them a pound note. They were unable to say anything, and they had difficulty breathing as they stood gaping at the money in their hands. A very old Jamaican came limping from a doorway and held out his hand and Bevan gave him a ten-dollar bill. Then more Jamaicans came forward and Bevan continued to hand out money until some policemen appeared and one of them barked, “You leave dis mon alone. Can’t you see he is not well?”

  So that broke it up. But later it happened again on Duke Street, where he distributed forty dollars among various men and women and children, whose ages ranged from seven to ninety. He was having a fine time, not from watching their faces as they received the money, only from seeing it going out of his hands, seeing the wallet getting thinner. What broke it up this time was an argument among the Jamaicans when one of them dropped a pound note and another picked it up and claimed possession. This resulted in considerable activity, the others taking sides and several of them using their feet as well as their hands. Bevan walked away from it, but some of the children followed him and he kept passing out the paper until there were no cash notes remaining.

  Then later, on King Street, he was passing a bank when he saw some employees coming out and he went up to one of them and said he knew it was long past closing time but he’d be glad to pay for the extra service. So they went into the bank and the clerk took the traveler’s checks from him and asked if he wanted the cash in American or British money. He said it didn’t matter. The clerk gave it to him in British money. He gave the clerk the equivalent of some twenty dollars. The clerk said there must be some mistake. Of course, he was very grateful, but perhaps the gentleman failed to understand these were pound notes. But he wasn’t staying to listen. The clerk went on trying to talk to him as he walked out of the bank.

  He walked south on King, and at the intersection of King and Harbour he turned west. He had no idea where he was going. He was waiting for anyone at all to come up and ask for money. There were moments when it occurred to him that he had no logical reason for handing out money. That in itself was a satisfying thought; he wasn’t interested in logical reasons. To do anything logically was too much of an effort, and when people followed that pattern they were only kidding themselves. Coming down to the core of it, this thing called logic or common sense or normal behavior or whatever you wanted to call it was nothing more than a blindfold that covered the inner eye. It kept people from seeing themselves, every goddamn one of them here in Kingston and in all of Jamaica, in all of the continent and the hemisphere and let’s take it all the way and say both hemispheres. So if the question is asked, What’s it amount to? the answer comes sliding out easily: It’s just a merry-go-round that stops every now and then for some to get off and others to get on, and no matter how much you pay for your ticket, no matter how many brass rings you snatch, it’s only a matter of time before your place is taken by the next customer emerging from some womb to start the ride. So in the final analysis, it’s merely the process of being taken for a ride, and despite all the bright colors and the hurdy-gurdy music, despite the gleeful yells as the amusement machine goes round and round, the windup is a hole in the ground where the night crawlers get awfully hungry when it rains.

  He didn’t know it, but he was flat on his face in a muddy ditch that bordered a vacant lot off Harbour Street. He had stumbled into the lot, finally giving way to the quart and a half of rum he’d had at Winnie’s, the alcohol he’d managed to carry with straight-spined balance all through the late afternoon and the fading daylight. But the rum had to hit him sooner or later, and as the sun fell into the Caribbean, the hundred-proof blaster moved in and hauled off, taking swings at him. In the darkness that came all too quickly he was falling into a sea much deeper than the Caribbean. So while he’d thought of the merry-go-round, he’d actually staggered in circles going away from Harbour Street and into the vacant lot. The lights of Harbour Street were within range of his vision, but he couldn’t see them as street lamps and lighted windows; they added up to nothing more than a dim ribbon of yellow-green slime that curled and coiled all around him. His eyes were playing tricks on the brain that wanted to stop working and couldn’t stop working. Perhaps it was his animal need for sleep that pushed him toward the ditch he couldn’t see.

  Hours later he was still there, his slumber a barrier that prevented him from hearing the trickling sound. It was the sound of water rising in the ditch.

  This was a deep ditch. It went down a good twelve feet, its sides almost vertical where the crew of diggers had shoveled to reach a broken water pipe. They’d pulled it out a few days ago and shifted the flow to another pipe that ran parallel to the ditch a few feet away. They’d miscalculated the effect of the added pressure and the result was a leak in the second pipe. It was a small leak at first, but gradually it became wider and the water gained force going through the gap, presently coming through with the jet action of a garden hose turned on at full force. It loosened the soil and worked its way across four feet of mud and trickled merrily into the ditch.

  When Bevan had fallen, he’d landed on his feet, then on his rump, rolling over gently in the soft mud.

  In his sleep he’d shifted from the face-down position and now he rested on his side. He was having a fine sleep down there in the mud in twelve-foot

  ditch. There was no dreaming, no fitful squirming or quivering. He was motionless and completely asleep and he didn’t feel it when the water lapped against his chin.

  What woke him up was water getting into his nose.

  He opened his eyes and lifted his head. In the instant of feeling the wetness he thought he was in a bathtub. But it can’t be that, he thought. This isn’t a bathroom. And then, his senses rising quickly to full wakefulness, It’s a goddamn ditch and it’s filling up with water. Let’s get the hell out of here.

  He stood up. He was standing in two feet of water. Now the water was coming in fast. He reached up for a handhold to pull himself out and there was no handhold.

  Well now, he thought. Let’s have a look at this.

  He looked up, seeing the top of the ditch, which was more than six feet above his head and seemed much higher than that. Above it was the blackness of half past eleven. Some of the glow from a three-quarter moon was reflected on the shiny mud along the steep sides where he was groping for a handhold. His hands slipped away from the mud and he tried again. He kept on trying and his hands kept slipping away.

  Now the water was up past his knees.

  He was walking along, telling himself the ditch had to end somewhere and it wasn’t anything to worry about. He went twenty feet along the ditch, then thirty feet, his hands feeling along the slick mud wall. He walked another fifteen feet, going very slowly, telling himself there was no need to hurry and soon he’d be

  the end of the ditch and climbing out. He tried to concentrate on that th
ought, pulling away from the other thought that told him the water was at his waist.

  Minutes passed and he went walking along the ditch, staying close to the mud wall and groping for the handholds that weren’t there. All at once he gave a jump that became another jump, a sort of convulsion as something furry hit his shoulder and refused to get off, its long tail flicking against his cheek. He took a swipe at it, and his hand struck a gray rodent face that opened its mouth and tried to get him with its fangs. He hit it again, and it gave a loud squeak and hopped off, making a big splash because it was a big one. He told himself it was a very big one and he tried to see it as it went swimming away. But now there was no moonlight, there was no light at all. There ought to be, he thought. The moon’s up there and we ought to have some moonlight. He looked up and there was no moon, there were no stars. The blackness above his head was not the blackness of the sky. As he felt the water lapping at his chest he smelled the dank odor of weather-beaten wood. The odor came down from the planks they’d arranged across the top of the ditch in this section, where they’d used a pulley to lift the heavy pipe. That’s what they did, he thought. They put planks up there, they built a bridge for themselves. But for this traveler down here it’s no bridge, it’s a ceiling. Or let’s put it in the proper category and call it what it really is. You know damn well it’s a trap.

  The water was up to his chin. He was staring up at the ceiling of heavy planks that showed only the solid blackness, telling him there was no way out. Because now there was too much water and not enough time to get away from under the planks. He could move only by inches and there certainly wasn’t enough time because the total darkness covered a wide area, telling him it was a very wide ceiling up there. It was wide enough to keep him trapped while the water kept rising so that eventually he’d float up, treading water and telling himself it was no use treading water, he wouldn’t be going anywhere except up to the ceiling, where there’d soon be no air, only water.