The Outsider (38 page)

Cross watched, disdainful, detached. He saw that there was a broken table leg lying near the fireplace; someone had no doubt been sent crashing into the table and the heavy oaken leg had snapped in two near the top of the table. Teeth bared, Gil now lifted the poker once again to send another blow to Herndon; but, as his arm was about to descend, the tip of the poker caught in the glass chandelier swinging from the ceiling. There was a musical storm of falling crystal and the ceiling light went out, leaving the room lit only by the leaping shadows of the fire. The force that Gil had put behind that swooping blow now carried him headlong to the floor, the poker bounding free once more.

Catlike, Herndon was on it and before Gil could rise Herndon was raining deadly blows upon the head and face of Gil.

Suddenly a fullness of knowledge declared itself within Cross and he knew what he wanted to do. He
was acting before he knew it. He reached down and seized hold of the heavy oaken leg of the table and turned and lifted it high in the air, feeling the solid weight of the wood in his hand, and then he sent it flying squarely into the bloody forehead of Herndon. The impact of the blow sent a tremor along the muscles of his arm. Herndon fell like an ox and lay still. He had no doubt crushed the man's skull. Tense, he stood looking down at Herndon, waiting to see if he would move again. He was concentrated, aware of nothing but Herndon's still, bloody form. Then he was startled; he whirled to see Gil struggling heavily to his feet, blood streaming from his face and neck, clotting his eyes. Cross stared for a moment. He was not through. The imperious feeling that had impelled him to action was not fulfilled. His eyes were unblinkingly on Gil's face. Yes, this other insect had to be crushed, blotted out of existence…

His fingers gradually tightened about the oaken table leg; his arm lifted slowly into the air. Gil was dabbing clumsily with his handkerchief at the blood on his neck and cheeks. Cross let go with the table leg, smashing it into the left side of Gil's head. Gil trembled for a split second, then fell headlong toward the fireplace where flames danced and cast wild red shadows over the walls. Cross's hand sank slowly to his side, the table leg resting lightly on the floor, its edges stained with blood. There was silence save for the slow ticking of an ornate clock on the desk.

He filled his lungs and sighed deeply. For perhaps a minute he did not move; his sense gradually assumed a tone of anxiety and he stared more intently at the two bloody forms stretched grotesquely on the smeared rug. Then he sucked in his breath and whirled toward the door. Oh, God, it was still open! Had anyone seen him?

He rushed to it and closed it; then turned back to the room and the two inert forms over which red shadows of the fire flickered. Were they dead? He touched Herndon's shoulder; the man was still; the wide, thin lips hung open; blood oozed from one corner of the mouth. Cross hesitated a second, then lifted the table leg and chopped again into the skull. The body rolled over from force of the blow.

Cross now turned to Gil whose head lay near the fire. He caught hold of one of Gil's legs and yanked the body from the fireplace into the center of the room where he could get a better chance to deliver another blow at the head. Again he lifted the table leg and whacked at Gil and he knew that Gil would never move again.

The universe seemed to be rushing at him with all the concreteness of its totality. He was anchored once again in life, in the flow of things; the world glowed with an interest so sharp that it made his body ache. He had had no plan when he had dealt those blows of death, but now he feared for himself, felt the need of a plan of defense. He knew exactly what he had done; he had done it deliberately, even though he had not planned it. He had not been blank of mind when he had done it, and he was resolved that he would never claim any such thing.

He took one last quick look about the room. One of the drawers of Herndon's desk was open and Cross could see the butt of Herndon's gun half-pulled out. He could almost reconstruct what had happened between the two men. Gil had no doubt grabbed Herndon just as Herndon had been about to seize the gun. And after that they had fought so desperately that neither of them had had a chance to get the gun, or they had forgotten it…

The plan sprang full and ripe in his imagination, his
body, his senses; he took out his handkerchief and quickly wiped the table leg which he held in his hand, making sure that no trace of his fingerprints would remain. He went to Herndon, holding the table leg with the handkerchief so that his hand would not touch it, and forced the fingers of Herndon's right hand about it several times so that the man's prints would be found…He was breathing heavily. The winking shadows of the fire flicked warningly through the room. Still holding the leg with the handkerchief, he went to Gil and closed Gil's loose fingers about it, letting the wooden leg trail uncertainly about the lifeless hand. He took the fire poker, wiped it clean and inserted it in the fingers of Herndon's right hand…No; he changed his mind; he'd let the fire poker rest a few inches from Herndon's hand…That was more natural…He looked swiftly around to make sure that he was leaving no marks of his having been in the room. He had to hurry…The door? Fingerprints on the knob…? No; he would not bother about them. After all, if he made things
too
clean, the police would get suspicious…And he had been down here talking to Herndon earlier this afternoon…Sure…His prints had a right to be on the door. Go up to Eva…What would he tell her? There would be questions from the police, from Party leaders, from Eva, from everybody…The newspapers…? What would they say? Well, he was just a Negro roomer who had gone down at the suggestion of Mrs. Blount to see what was happening and had seen them fighting…

He opened the door; the downstairs hallway was empty. He caught hold of the door handle and was about to shut it when an idea came to him. Suppose someone came to see Herndon and found both Herndon and Gil dead? Ah, yes; it was better to push the tiny
lever on the lock and let the door lock itself. The door would be locked when the police and the Party leaders arrived. That was the trick. They would have to knock down the door.
And he, on his second trip down, had not been able to see what was happening; he had only heard sounds…
He adjusted the lock and pulled the door to, hearing it catch. He tried the handle; it was locked. Now, what motive on earth could he have had in killing the two of them? Let them figure that out…

He started up the stairs, then paused and looked down at himself. Was there any blood on him? He looked at his hands, his coat, his shoes. He could see nothing. Oh, yes; his handkerchief; it was bloody from where he had wiped the fingerprints from the fire poker and the table leg…He would have to burn it. Yes; he'd put it into the kitchen incinerator the first chance he got. And, to be absolutely sure, he would ditch the clothes he was wearing. The police had scientific ways of examining particles and arriving at damaging conclusions. He stood in front of Gil's apartment door and composed himself. Yes; he had to act hurriedly and frantically now. He grabbed hold of the doorknob and rattled it brutally. It was locked.

“Eva!” he yelled.

“Is that you, Lionel? Is Gil with you?”

“It's me; Lionel! Open the door quick!”

He heard the night-chain rattling; she had locked herself in. She opened the door and backed fearfully away from him.

“Did you call the police?” he asked her.

“No. I called Jack Hilton; he's calling the police—What happened?”

He searched her face; her eyes were bleak and frightened. Would she be glad that Gil was dead? Didn't she want him dead so that she could be free?

“The door down there is locked and I can't hear a thing,” he told her. “Gil's still in there…”

“Oh, God,” she whimpered.

He longed to know what was going on in her mind. Was she hoping that Gil was dead? And was she feeling guilty because she was hoping it? If so, then she'd act violently now; she'd try to ease her burden of guilt.

“The door's locked?” she repeated in a quiet voice.

“Yes.”

“I'm liquid with fear…Look, Lionel, call Jack Hilton again and tell 'im—He thinks maybe Gil's all right now—”

Her voice died in her throat and she had spun around and was out of the door before Cross could grab her. He debated: he had a wound on his shoulder to prove that he had tried to help Gil and maybe it would be a good thing for Eva to see that the door was locked. Then, Eva, panting and whimpering, came rushing in again.

“He's there!” she gasped. “He's coming up here…”

“Who?”

“Herndon—I saw 'im on the stairs—He has his gun—”

Was she crazy? Herndon was dead. Eva ran past him into her bedroom. Cross approached the door and looked out; he heard footsteps mounting the stairs on the floor above him. Ah, Eva had thought she had seen Herndon, but she had mistaken another man for Herndon…He shut the door and put on the night-chain. Yes; that was something that could be used in his favor. Eva had thought that she had seen Herndon coming up the stairs!
That meant that her testimony would indicate that Herndon was still living after he had come up to the apartment for the second time…That could mean that Gil and Herndon killed each other!

By God,
that
was the plan! He would stick to that story…

“Eva!” he called to her. “Give me Hilton's phone number!”

When she did not answer, he went to her. She was lying on the floor of her bedroom; she had fainted. He lifted her to her bed, got a wet towel from the bathroom and patted her face with it. Her eyelids fluttered.

“Give me Hilton's phone number,” he asked her.

“My purse,” she murmured.

He got her purse and took it to her; she gave him an address book and whispered: “Find the number there, under H…”

Cross thumbed through the book, found the number, then walked slowly toward the telephone. His mind clearly grasped the entire situation and every muscle of his body was relaxed. Now, I'd like to see them figure that out, he told himself with a grim smile. I killed two little gods…He paused, frowning. But they would have killed me too if they had found me like that…Yet, he could not get it straight. Just a moment ago it had all seemed so simple. But now it was knotted and complicated. There was in him no regret for what he had done; no, none at all. But how
could
he have done it? He too had acted like a little god. He had stood amidst those red and flickering shadows, tense and consumed with cold rage, and had judged them and had found them guilty of insulting his sense of life and had carried out a sentence of death upon them. Like Hilton and Gil had acted toward Bob, so had he acted toward Gil and Herndon; he had assumed the role of policeman, judge, supreme court, and executioner,—all in one swift and terrible moment. But, if he resented their being little gods, how could he do the same? His self-assurance ebbed, his pride waned under the impact of
his own reflections. Oh, Christ, their disease had reached out and claimed him too. He had been subverted by the contagion of the lawless; he had been defeated by that which he had sought to destroy. He sank listlessly into the chair by the side of the telephone. Yet, no matter what happened, he had to call Hilton; he had to phone that little god…! He was limp. What was the matter with him? He was, yes, he was trapped in the coils of his own doings. He had acted, had shattered the dream that surrounded him, and now the world, including himself in it, had turned mockingly into a concrete, waking nightmare from which he could see no way of escaping. He had become what he had tried to destroy, had taken on the guise of the monster he had slain. Held to a point of attention more by the logic of events than by his own reasoning, his consciousness charged with a sense of meaninglessness, he bent toward the telephone and dialed…

T
HE SEDUCTIONS
of vanity have lured countless men to destinies that have confounded them, left them straitened and undone. After an arduous journey of experience it is not good to stare in dismay at a world that one was creating without being aware of it, and there is no chastening of the spirit so severely sobering as that rankling sense of guilt that springs from a knowledge of having been snared into the mire of disillusionment when one thought that one was soaring on wings of intellectual pride to a freedom remote from the errors and frailties of the gullible. At times there comes into the lives of men realizations so paralyzing that, for the first time, their hands reach out fumblingly for the touch of another human being.

In Cross's despair it was upon Eva's trapped and deceived heart—into whose depths he had stolen a criminal glimpse—that he now instinctively leaned, his wounded pride groping toward that one shelter where he hoped waited someone who loathed cruelty and yearned to place a kiss of fraternity upon the betrayed and victimized. And, as much for a dawning reverence for her as for the protection of his own self-love, he tried desperately to shield her from the shock of rough
events that he knew would be soon sweeping on tidal waves toward the both of them. Many despairs and regrets later, via his acutely developed habit of reflection, when he had reexamined his behavior following his bloody snatching of the lives of Gil and Herndon, he could find nothing remiss in how he had deported himself. To an important extent the logic derived from a mixing of his temperament and gratuitous opportunity had determined his attitude. To have fled immediately upon his gory acts would have been to confess his guilt openly, and to have tried to explain either to the police or to the Party the complex composition of the elementary judgment-feeling that had spurred him to such acts of ethical murder would have been to succumb to a gesture of sheer naïveté of which he was far too intelligent to be capable. He reasoned that it was much safer to lie, to dodge, to blend with the changing hues of the foliage of the landscape for safety in eluding his pursuers.

In talking to Hilton over the telephone, Cross was careful to assume the role of a subordinate, a humble outsider, a man speaking for a temporarily incapacitated woman.

“But Eva phoned and told me that you'd gone down to help Gil,” Hilton said in a baffled tone of voice.

“But the door was
locked
this time—”

“Did you try to get in?”

“Yeah. I banged and knocked and hollered—”

“And Herndon didn't answer?”

“No.”

“And did you hear anything?”

“Fighting, like I told you—”

“Did you try to get help from anywhere?”

“Eva called you—”

“And the first time you went down, he hit you?”

“Yes, with the fire poker—”

“Where's Eva now?”

“She fainted. She's lying down.”

“You hear any noise now?”

“Nothing; nothing at all.”

“And Herndon ran Eva back into the apartment, hunh?”

“Yes; I was trying to phone you and she ran out—”

“He had a gun?”

“She said so. I didn't see him. I bolted the door when she came running back in.”

“Did Gil seem badly hurt?”

“Gosh, I don't know. I only got a glimpse of 'im,” Cross was purposefully vague. “Look, you ought to come over and I could explain it all. I just moved in this morning, see? This Herndon jumped me at sight, told me to get the hell out, wanted to pull a gun on me, said he'd kill me—”

“Where was Gil when you first looked through the door?”

“He was lying on the floor.”

“Herndon knocked him down?”

“Seems like it. Herndon had the fire poker in his hand—”

“Did you
see
him strike Gil?”

“Yes.”

“Was Gil conscious?”

“I don't know—”

“And you're sure that Eva saw him on the stairs a few minutes ago?”

“Sure; she said so.”

“Okay. Now, listen, don't let anybody into the apartment until I come, unless it's the police or somebody from the Party, see?”

“All right.”

“That's all. I'll be right over.” The line clicked.

Not once had any emotion entered Hilton's voice as he questioned Cross over the telephone, but Cross noticed that throughout Hilton's inquiries had run a theme that puzzled him. Ah, he knew now! Hilton was already trying to establish the fact that Herndon was the
aggressor
. Cross, knowing that Gil was dead, decided that his own defense could be best served by his feeding the Party's hunger for a martyred hero, dead or alive. He marveled at how instinctively Hilton was reacting in terms of the Party's organizational needs. If, in describing what he had seen when he had looked into the doorway, he said that Gil had seemed to be getting the worst of it, that Herndon had been standing over Gil with the fire poker, then the Party would claim, when it found that Gil was dead, that Herndon, the fascist beast, had killed him, and had later died of wounds which Gil, in self-defense, had inflicted on him during the course of the struggle. And then there was that fantastic windfall of luck of Eva's thinking that she had seen Herndon after Herndon had been killed and after the door had been locked! Cross knew that he had to be careful in relating what he had seen, had always to keep sternly in mind that he must do no interpreting at all, that the Party and the police had to weigh what had happened and place their own assessment and value upon it. His aim would be to establish in the minds of the police and Party leaders that Herndon had been alive when he had last looked into the room, that Gil had been hurt, unconscious, maybe dying, and after that the door had been locked…

And would not Eva be his unconscious ally? He was convinced that her actions had been determined by an awful sense of guilt toward Gil. Her fantasy of seeing Herndon with a gun on the stairs was but her own feeling that Herndon ought to kill her now that Herndon
had done her secret bidding by killing Gil…And Eva no doubt felt that he was, like she, a victim of the Party's complicated duplicities…Yes, he had a chance to stand clear of suspicion as long as he could manipulate or count upon the guilt-feelings of others.

Cross took a deep breath and tried to keep the facts straight in his mind. This thing had come upon him so suddenly that its reality had not sunk home to him in all of its fullness. Had he killed them or was it a teasing fantasy? He was counting on their both being dead, or his whole plan was crazy. Or, if Gil lived, he was in trouble, both with the police and the Party. He longed to creep downstairs and make sure that they were both dead, but he feared complications would ensue if he broke open the door and looked in…And suppose someone saw him in the lower hallway now? But those men
must
be dead. God knows he had pounded them hard enough. Gil would have to be a superman to live after the many slashes that Herndon had rained down upon him and the heavy whacks he had showered upon his defenseless head at the end…Of Herndon he could be certain; that Fascist was dead…

“Lionel…” Eva's voice was calling.

“Yes?”

He went in to her; she was half leaning on her elbow in bed and she looked at him with eyes brimming with fear and guilt.

“Did Gil seem badly hurt?”

“I don't know,” he answered her softly.

“What did Hilton say?”

“He said for us to stay here; he's on his way over now. He's phoned the police and the Party.”

“But we should try to do something for Gil—”

“The door's
locked
, Eva—”

“Oh, God,” she wailed, “I wish Hilton'd come. You hear anything down there now?”

“No,” Cross said. “I was listening in the front hall, but I couldn't hear anything.”

She broke down again and began weeping. “I can't stand this life—This deception—This everlasting violence—Is there no way to be human any more…?”

Before he could stop her, she had sprung from the bed and was running on swift feet down the hall to the door.

“Gil! Gil!” she was screaming.

“Eva!” he yelled and started after her.

“He'll blame me if we don't help 'im,” she sobbed hysterically. “And the Party'll want to know
why
we didn't help 'im…” She sobered quickly and stared at him, realizing that she was trying to explain something that he could not possibly understand.

Yes; she, like he, was wondering if Gil was really dead. A wounded Gil, a living Gil, would be a calamity for the both of them. He longed to put her at peace, to tell her that she was free. But he could not. He caught her on the landing, about to descend the stairs. He grabbed her shoulders.

“Herndon's dangerous,” he argued. “And Hilton said for us to
keep
from down there—”

“Gil may be hurt,” she whimpered. “We could help him—”

“The door's
locked
!” he insisted. Yes, he would stress that she must be loyal to the Party, something which she feared more than she feared Gil. “The Party will perhaps make a test case of this, see? We
can't
interfere…” A better idea leaped into his mind; she felt that he was a victim of the Party and he would try to exploit her delusion. That's it…“Look, Eva,” he argued solemnly, “this is complicated. The reason that Hilton doesn't
want me to go down there is that I'm
colored
, see? You know the police…They'd try to frame me…”

She wilted, turned, and buried her face on his shoulder. Hers was a world ruled by fear. He led her back into the apartment and bolted the door; sweat stood on his forehead. He guided her steps to the bed and gently helped her upon it. They were silent; there came the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Eva strained, lifting herself almost to a sitting position. Could that be the police or Hilton? Cross heard the footsteps mount the stairway. No; it was somebody who lived upstairs.

“The Cushmans,” Eva whispered. “They're anti-Party.”

Cross stared at her in amazement. To her the world was either Party or anti-Party, and all in between did not count. He sat on a chair at the side of the bed. Eva was shaking; he could hear her teeth rattling. He longed to take hold of her and soothe her, but dared not.

“You think they'll blame us if Gil's badly hurt?” she asked in a whisper.

The Party ruled her not only positively but negatively. It was not only what she did that would make her guilty, but also what she did not do…

“We did what we could,” he told her. “This was not our idea, Eva. They should have sent someone to help Gil…And he wouldn't let me go down with 'im…”

Her sense of guilt was a hot bed of coals and she was squirming on it. Cross rose and Eva reached impulsively and grabbed his hand and clung to it.

“Don't go,” she begged.

“I was going to try to listen at the door—”

“Don't leave me here,” she pled in a whisper of panic.

He sat again on the edge of the bed and felt nervous tremors going through her body. If only he could tell
her that she was free! But, no…If he told her that he had killed, the horror she felt for the Party would be transferred to him…

He was aware of her slim, willowy figure on the bed, the legs that tapered with such a long, slow curve, the suggestively dramatic roundness of her hips, the small but firm breasts, the long and delicate neck, and the hazel pools of her eyes now dark and anxious with dread; and desire for desire rose in him for her for the first time. Oh, God, he must not think of that now…He felt the soft pressure from her thin, almost transparent fingers on his hand and she became woman as body of woman for his senses. The depths of him stirred as he realized that she was now alone in the world and did not know it; in a peculiar sense she was at his mercy. What he did or did not do, what he said or did not say would affect her more profoundly now than anything that would ever happen to her. Already she was his in a deeper sense than the sexual, in a sense that included the sexual. At this moment she was again an orphan; she had only him to depend upon and he could now, like Gil had done with Bob, ravage her entire being without any resistance from her. From the poignant pages of her diary and from the fact that Gil was dead and she did not know it, he possessed a comprehension of her existence that she had not the capacity to imagine. Would she suspect him?
Could
she suspect him? She believed that colored people were caught up in life, healthy, untouched and unspoiled by the cynical world of political deceptions…Had she not referred to “us” when she spoke of her fear of the Party?

For the first time since he had killed, he felt guilty. It was not a guilt for his having murdered; it was because he now saw that he held over the life of Eva a godlike power and knowledge that even Gil or the Party had not
held. He had killed Gil and Herndon because they had wanted to play god to others, and their brutal strivings had struck him as being so utterly obscene that he had torn their lives from them in a moment of supreme conviction that he and he alone was right and that they were eternally wrong. And now Gil lay still and dead downstairs amid the trembling red shadows and he sat here holding Eva's hand, desiring her body. And the wall of deception which he had begun to erect to conceal the nature of her husband's death would throw her, perhaps, into his arms…

If the actions of Gil and Herndon were monstrously inhuman, then was not what he was doing also devoid of humanity? If there was a valid difference, just where did it lie? Was the innocence of Gil and Herndon the less because they had millions of supporters, because time and tradition, law and religion had mounted a shield of justification before them? And his guilt, was it the more because he was alone and had no counsel but his own? If Gil or Herndon had done what he had done, would it have worried them? Was not his worrying proof that he was wrong? Did he not need about him the sanctioning buttress of the faces of his brothers in crime to make him feel at home with his deed?