Night My Friend (4 page)

Stout, surprisingly, had not yet called at five o’clock. The glow by then was beginning to fade, and replacing it was a sort of uncertainty. Finally, at five-fifteen, he called home to make certain the children were inside, and warned Marge of the possible danger from the hunters. When he hung up his palms were sweating for the first time that day as his mind ran over the score of possibilities. Stout might have given up and already left town. He might be sick, or he might simply have lost interest in Dale. Or, and he had to face this extreme, Stout might be plotting right now some attack on his family.

Finally, just at five-thirty, the phone rang. It was Harvey Stout. “Hi, Fielding. I been thinking. Maybe I could get by with five thousand, if you were still interested in helping a buddy. That’s as low as I could go, though.”

Dale felt his hand trembling on the receiver, and he steadied his elbow against the desk. “All right, Harvey, on one condition. That you get out of town and don’t come back.”

“Ah, now, Fielding…”

“That’s it, Harvey. Take it or leave it.”

“Five thousand?”

“I told you all right.”

“When can I have it, boy?”

“Tomorrow night, after work.”

“I’ll come by the office.”

“No. My girl will be working late. Look, you know where I live. Just past the house there’s a road that leads out toward the woods. Drive out there till you come to a place where cars park. Hunters usually leave their autos there. I’ll be there at five sharp.”

“You make it sound like a damned TV show or something.”

“If you want the money, you’ll be there.”

“All right,” he said finally. “Five o’clock.”

Dale hung up and wiped the sweat from his palms. It was done. The deed was as good as done. It was late but he knew the gun shop on the way home would still be open.

“Mr. Fielding! Haven’t seen you in years.”

“Long time since I’ve hunted, Joe. I need some shotgun shells. Here, I think this is just the thing.”

“What you going to be hunting, Mr. Fielding?”

“Partridge.”

“Well, you don’t want slugs for partridge. You want shot.”

“Oh. I guess you’re right.”

Dale accepted the box of shells with a firm hand. All right, it just meant he’d have to get a little closer before he pulled the trigger, that was all. The police could say what they wanted, they could accuse him of anything they liked, but they’d never be able to prove it wasn’t a hunting accident, pure and simple. It was the easiest way, the only way. He’d gone over the alternatives carefully in his mind. Of course he could have told Marge, but she would never have understood. She would only have seen this uncertain side to his character. Seen it, but not understood. Perhaps no one could understand who hadn’t been out there, in the Pacific. Marge would have cried, and told him to call the police. And the police? They couldn’t arrest Stout without dragging Dale himself through a drawn-out investigation. And if they believed Stout guilty of that long-ago crime, what would keep them from thinking Dale just as guilty?

He patted the box of shells. This was the only way it could be, the only way to be free of the man.

Friday was a gloomy day, half overcast with the threat of rain, and the dampness was thick in the air. Dale stayed at his desk most of the time, thinking about everything but the date he’d made with Stout. As the afternoon wore on, he became more and more uneasy with the knowledge that the time was nearing. Already he’d reminded Marge that he’d be a little late getting home, storing the shotgun and box of shells in the car when he left that morning. He found himself almost wishing, though, that rain would come—anything to delay or cancel the deed which he must do.

Finally, a bit after four, he told Jean he was going partridge hunting with a friend. He drove slowly toward home, watching the clouds with a careful eye, wondering about a hundred unimportant business details left undone. There would be an inquest, of course, and perhaps he might even have to spend the night in jail. But they couldn’t prove a thing. It happened every day.

He reached the point of the meeting, and was pleased to see that only three cars were there before him. With luck they would be undisturbed at the time of the planned accident, but even if someone was nearby it would not greatly change his plan. He opened the car door on the driver’s side and placed the shotgun across his lap, its barrels pointed toward the empty space where Harvey Stout’s car soon would be. Two shells went into the chambers, and he was ready. In his mind he ran over the details once again. The hunting license was in his pocket—Stout would have neither license nor gun, but the lack of one would explain the lack of the other. He had come along simply to watch. They might suspect differently, but certainly the suspicions would be no worse than those born of Harvey Stout’s story of events on le Shima.

At five minutes to five a car turned off the highway and headed toward him. From somewhere in the woods came the boom of a shotgun, and the ruffled rushing of birds on the wing. The forest was a living thing, breathing, vibrant.

The last western rays of the orange sun flickered through the enveloping clouds, and the car came silently closer like a great gliding animal breaking into the brush. Up ahead Captain Mason paused to look around, then gave the signal for them to follow. Harvey Stout paused and raised his rifle to his shoulder. Harvey Stout opened the car door and slid across the seat.

“Hello, buddy. You got the money?” Raised his rifle and so did Travello and so did Dale. Three men. The money. “What in hell are you doing with that shotgun?” The first bullet spun the captain around, and Stout and Travello kept firing. The gun was warm in Dale’s hands. He sighted at his target. The enemy.

“You damn fool, Fielding! You can’t pull it, can you? You couldn’t kill Mason and you can’t kill me.”

Dale heard the voice as if from a distance, and he knew the words were true. The shotgun was limp in his hands. Harvey Stout walked over and lifted it up. Then he slapped Dale twice with his open palm. “The hell with you. I can’t fool around any longer. I’ll take this gun and be thankful you got off so easy.”

He threw the shotgun in the back seat of his car and climbed in behind the wheel. Dale watched the scorn on his face with a mixture of feelings. Somehow it was almost as if he had failed Harvey by not killing him.

After the car pulled away he sat for a long time staring into the dusk, until at last all was darkness around him and the other hunters had departed. Then he drove slowly home to Marge and the boys.

H
IS NAME, THEY SAID,
was Johnny Nocturne.

Perhaps it was not his real name, but it didn’t matter. To the people in Tin Pan Alley, and the disc jockeys, and the lovers who listened dreamily to his songs, he was Johnny Nocturne, creator of mood music for the night people.

He’d never be another Irving Berlin or Cole Porter because his music somehow lacked the universal appeal of true greatness. But for those who liked the ever-changing moods of darkness, he was the master.

And like his music, Johnny Nocturne was a prowler of the night places. He claimed he got his best inspiration riding through the dark places of River City in a police prowl car. The cops of the night beat all knew him, and often they enjoyed having him in the back seat, humming a little tune that might be tomorrow’s hit.

Friday night was a good one on the night beat, and Johnny always managed to meet car 52 when it pulled out of Police Headquarters just before midnight. The cops in 52 were good fellows, not the kind who looked for trouble—just good fellows.

On this Friday night, Tom Harper was driving 52. He’d been on the force for some ten years, with the last three spent in a patrol car. It was a lot better than walking a beat, and it had made him feel that he was getting ahead on the force. It gave him an answer when his wife nagged him about the poor pay and long hours.

His partner for the past year had been Harvey Backus, a big, long-legged kid still in his mid-twenties. Harvey could run faster than any man on the force, as any number of young hoodlums had learned to their sorrow.

Together, these two prowled the post-midnight streets of River City. And quite often Johnny Nocturne could be found in the back seat.

“O.K., Johnny, it’s been a quiet night,” Tom Harper said as he wheeled the car around a corner. “Let’s see if we can find some inspiration for you.”

Harvey Backus paused in the act of lighting a cigarette to point out the side window. “Look! A light in the back of Blinky’s Cigar Store.”

Tom Harper pulled the car into the curb. “That means an all-night card game. Come on, let’s give ’em a scare.”

They hopped out of the car, and Johnny Nocturne slid out of the rear seat to follow. He paused on the sidewalk to shove the pencil and pad into his pocket and then followed them inside.

“What’s up?” a short, balding man said from the door to the back room.

“Just checking up, Blinky. Let’s have a look.”

“There ain’t nothin’ here, cop, honest!”

“Let’s look anyway.”

Tom Harper shoved past him and threw open the door. A half-dozen men looked up from around a green felt poker table.

“O.K.,” Harper told them. “Everybody out. And make it quick or I’ll run the whole lot of you in.”

There was some grumbling from the table as the men pocketed their money and moved towards the door. Harvey Backus towered tall and commanding next to it, and they had to edge past his glistening badge to reach the street.

“This is just a warning, Blinky,” Harper said. “Next time…”

“Ah, cop, I don’t hurt anybody. Here, have a cigar.”

Harper accepted the cigar, because that was the kind of cop he was. Then he and Harvey went back to car 52 and Johnny Nocturne trailed along. As they pulled away, Johnny saw that Blinky was dimming his lights and preparing to close up.

“Did that inspire you, Johnny?”

“A little,” Johnny Nocturne admitted, scribbling on his piece of paper. “A little…
Perhaps in the night, when the cards are all aces… And the smoke is so thick, you can’t see their faces… Perhaps that is when…
”

“Hold on,” Harvey Backus shouted. “What’s that up ahead?”

“It’s a girl,” Harper said, speeding up a bit until they drew alongside. “Are you in trouble, miss?”

The girl lifted her blonde head and looked at them with wide, glazed eyes. She was barely twenty, and Johnny wondered what she was doing alone at this time of night.

“I…” she managed to gasp, and then she seemed to collapse in a heap.

Tom Harper jumped out of the car and turned her over. “Damn,” he muttered. “She hasn’t got a thing on under this coat.”

Harvey Backus was already coming around from his side of the car, and Johnny slipped out of the rear seat to join them.

“What happened, miss?” Harper asked her.

She coughed once and opened her eyes, gazing up at them with glazed, unseeing vision. “I… it was Cravess… Cotton Cravess…”

And then her eyes closed and somehow they knew she was dead.

Cotton Cravess was a big man in River City. Perhaps some day he would be a big man in Washington. Certainly he was trying hard enough, and even Johnny Nocturne’s usual casual notice of the political scene had observed Cotton Cravess in action many times.

He was there on the front page of the paper every morning now, touring slum areas, or awarding prizes, or greeting Negro leaders or puttering in the garden with his wife. It was something different every day, but it was always page one news, possibly because Cotton Cravess owned the newspaper.

He’d taken over when his father died some five years before, and now, at the age of forty, he was possibly the most powerful figure in the state. His chain of newspapers could sway at least 10 percent of the public on any occasion, and he’d once proved it by getting out a crowd of 15,000 to hear a poetry reading.

Usually, a man in his position would be content as the power behind the scenes, but not Cotton Cravess. He’d seen his favorite candidates elected to Congress and the State Legislature, and after a time he’d just gotten the bug. So now it was
COTTON CRAVESS FOR GOVERNOR
posted on the billboards, shouted from the television screens. Cotton Cravess for Governor…

Johnny Nocturne thought about it as he looked down at the nude girl at their feet. Cotton Cravess was somehow linked to this girl, and now, three weeks before election, that fact could spell his doom at the polls, especially in an ultra-conservative place like River City.

Johnny looked at Harper and Backus, and he wondered what they were thinking. He didn’t really know them well, in spite of their nights together in the prowl car. Were they thinking now that the power of Cotton Cravess was suddenly broken, or were they perhaps thinking that here was a chance to make a little money? He didn’t know, but long ago he had lost the illusion that all cops were honest.

Now Tom Harper turned to him, as if suddenly remembering he was there, listening with them to the girl’s dying words.

“Johnny, you’d better get out of here. This thing is going to be a mess, and you’d only complicate things if you’re around.”

Johnny Nocturne nodded. He’d heard that before, and he wasn’t surprised to hear it now. He was unofficial. He was just a guy who wrote songs—nice to have around when things were dull, but likely to get in the way when there was work to be done.

He nodded again and walked slowly away from the car, hearing Backus as he switched on the two-way radio and called headquarters. Oh well, he could read about it in the newspapers.

As he walked he thought about the dead girl, and slowly, very slowly, the words to a song began to form themselves in his mind. A song for people who lived by night…

With the coming of the dawn he slept. But not for long. Just after ten o’clock the telephone rang, and he rolled out of bed to answer it.

“Johnny Nocturne here.”

“Who used to be Johnny Noctorno?” a girl’s voice asked.

He’d almost forgotten the name. “Yes… Who is this?”

“You probably wouldn’t even remember after all these years, but the name is Nancy Stevens.”