Pity Him Afterwards

The man thrashed on the bottom of the boat like a giant fish, his hands clawing at the hands around his throat. But the madman clung, and clung, and clung, and slowly the giant fish died.

Then the unconscious girl. She did not awaken, nor struggle. And he felt no carnal desire for her, her nudity meant nothing to him. Since that one time, when everything had gone wrong, those desires had never come back to him at all. He was by now too remote from living things to retain still the instinct of life to renew itself.

Moving carefully, revealing himself over the boat’s rail as little as possible, he tilted them up and over, lowering them slowly into the water. The bodies trailed down into the yellow-green darkness, floating downward, arms waving good-bye, the girl’s fair hair floating out and up away from her head, streaming down after her in great beauty.

Alone. Safe. In a new haven. The madman looked about himself.

There was a Thermos jug with a plaid exterior, half full. He tasted, and it was sweet lemonade. There was clothing, his and hers, scattered around the bottom of the boat, as though they had undressed in great haste and distraction.

His own clothing was once again sodden. He stripped it all off, threw it all over the side. That clothing would mark him now, as the clothing he had worn in his escape from the asylum would have marked him. No longer could he be Ken Forrest, and the attempt to be Rod McGee had been doomed from the start.

He couldn’t let that being take over again. It was dangerous, it couldn’t plan, it did stupid and wasteful things.

He tried the man’s clothing on, but the shoes were far too small. The trousers fit him at the waist, but were too short in the legs. And the shirt was too small. So he had nothing now but trousers.

He peered over the railing, looking back toward the gleaming red theater. Was there pursuit? He could see none. But this little boat with its orange sail could not be a haven for long. He had to find a more permanent refuge, at least until tonight. Under cover of darkness he could escape again. With a new name, and new identification papers. The dead man, according to the papers in his wallet, had been named Frank Marcangelo.

The madman — Frank Marcangelo now — peered over the railing, searching for refuge. The shore was dark and green, but all of it estates, all patrolled by guards with guns and cars.

He saw the island.

Sondgard stood in the doorway, looking at the body of Rod McGee sprawled across the bed. “All right,” he said. “All right.”

There was a cut beneath his right eye, where Ken Forrest had slashed him with his fingernails, trying to gouge his eyes out. There was a heavy pain in the back of his head, where he had hit it on the floor when he was knocked down.

His face was ashen. His eyes were cold, and bleak. His face seemed bonier, thinner than before.

He had let this happen. He had caused this to happen. His bluff had worked, had flushed the madman out, but at this cost.

All right. This was an end on it. No more. There was a rabid dog loose in the district; he would be cut down like a rabid dog. Cut him down first, pity him afterwards.

Sondgard turned away and hurried downstairs. Mike Tompkins was at the wheel of his pretty car, gunning the engine in impatience. Dave Rand had already gone on ahead, to get the launch ready. Joyce Ravenfield had been telephoned, and had probably already called Captain Garrett. Before sundown, this whole area would be cordoned. There would be searchers everywhere. The rabid dog would no longer have it all his own way, aided and abetted by a blundering stupid egotistical part-time cop.

Sondgard got into the police car, and Mike backed it quickly around in a tight hard circle, and jolted it forward onto the road. He said, “What’d you find?”

“McGee’s dead.”

“Jesus Christ Esquire on a crutch.”

“Shut up and drive.”

Sondgard wasn’t happy with Mike Tompkins now. He came close to hating Mike Tompkins now, partly because he was close to hating himself now and therefore was close to hating the whole world, and partly because Mike Tompkins was all bark and no bite. He went away and learned how to take fingerprints, and when he’s handed the one fingerprint in his life that’s important, he mashes it with his big stupid hands. He spends hours every day shooting at targets out on the practice range, and when for once in his life he’s shown an important target, the bobbing receding head of that rabid dog, he misses. A bragging, fat-head, big-chested, uniformed idiot.

He’s almost as bad, thought Sondgard grimly, as I am.

They rode in silence, Mike at least driving like a man who knew how. The siren wailed, the car careened around the curves, the red speedometer needle in its trembling never dropped below eighty.