One Lonely Night Read Online Free

yourself?
    I sat down in the swivel chair again and pulled all the junk out of my pockets; the keys, the wallet and the change. Two of the keys were for a car. One was an ordinary house key, another for a trunk or suitcase, and another for either a tumbler padlock or another house.
    If I expected to find anything in the wallet I was mistaken. There were six fives and two singles in the bill compartment, a package of three-cent stamps and a card-calendar in one pocket, and a plain green card with the edges cut off at odd angles in the other pocket. That was all.
    That was enough.
    The little fat boy didn’t have his name in print anywhere. It wasn’t a new wallet either. Fat boy didn’t want identification. I didn’t blame him. What killer would?
    Yeah, that was enough to make me sit back and look at the scuffed folder of calfskin and make me think. It would make you think too. Take a look at your own wallet and see what’s in it.
    I had the stuff spread out on the desk when I remembered the other pocket of my raincoat and pulled out the huge tweed triangle that had come from the girl’s coat. I laid it out on my lap with the night before shoved into some corner of my brain and looked at it as though it were just another puzzle, not a souvenir of death.
    The cloth had come apart easily. I must have grabbed her at the waist because the section of the coat included the right-hand and pocket and part of the lining. I rubbed the fabric through my fingers feeling the soft texture of fine wool, taking in the details of the pattern. More out of curiosity than anything else, I stuck my hand inside the pocket and came up with a crumpled pack of cigarettes.
    She didn’t even have time for a last smoke, I thought. Even a condemned man gets that. She didn’t. She took one look at me and saw my eyes and my face and whatever she saw there yanked a scream from her lungs and the strength to pull her over the rail.
    What have I got locked up inside me that comes out at times like that? What good am I alive? Why do I have to be the one to pull the trigger and have my soul torn apart afterwards?
    The cigarettes were a mashed ball of paper in my hand, a little wad of paper, cellophane and tinfoil that smelt of tobacco and death. My teeth were locked together and when I looked down at my hand my nail ripped through the paper and I saw the green underneath.
    Between the cigarettes and the wrapper was another of those damnable green cards with the edges cut off at odd angles.
    Two murders. Two green cards.
    It was the same way backwards. Two green cards and two murders.
    Which came first, the murders or the cards?
    Green for death.
    Murder at odd angles. Two murders. Eight odd angles. Yes, two murders. The fat boy got what he was after. Because of him the girl was murdered no matter how. So I got him. I was a murderer like they said, only to me it was different. I was just a killer. I wondered what the law would say and if they’d make that fine difference now. Yeah. I could have been smart about it; I could have done what I did, called the police and let them take over then take the dirty medicine the papers and the judge and the public would have handed me. No, I had to be smart. I had to go and mix it up so much that if those bodies were found and the finger pointed at me all I could expect was a trip on that long road to nowhere.
    Was that why I did it ... because I felt smart? No, that wasn’t the reason. I didn’t feel smart. I was mad. I was kill crazy mad at the bastards the boy with the scythe pointed out to me and goddamn mad at all the screwy little minds and the screwy big minds that had the power of telling me off later. They could go to hell, the judge and the jury and all the rest of them! I was getting too sick and disgusted of fighting their battles for them anyway! The boy with the scythe could go to hell with the rest and if he didn’t like it he could come after me, personally. I’d love that. I wish there was a