The Second Confesion

For instance, when I had frisked him at the roadside Sunday night, after Ruth Brady had prepared him for me, I had used a fair amount of caution, but now fair wasn't good enough. I gave his leather wallet a good rub with my handkerchief, inside and out, put prints from both his hands all over it but kept them haphazard, and returned it to his pocket. It contained a good assortment of bills, so he must have cashed a cheque since I had cleaned him. I wanted very much to repeat the performance on the Communist Party membership card and its cellophane holder, but couldn't because it wasn't there. Naturally that irritated me, and I felt all the seams and linings to make sure. It wasn't on him.

My mind was completely on getting the job done right and in time, before the girls returned, but when I finally gave up on the membership card I felt my stomach suddenly go tight, and I stood up and backed off. It will happen that way sometimes, no matter how thick and hard you think your shell is, when you least expect it. I turned to face the other way, made my chest big, and took some deep breaths. If that doesn't work the only thing to do is lie down. But I didn't have to, and anyhow I would have had to pop right up again, for in between two breaths I heard voices. Then I saw that I had left the flashlight turned on, there on the ground. I got it and turned it off, and made my way back to the clearing beyond the thicket in the dark, trying not to sound like a charging moose.

I was at my post, a patient sentinel, when the girls appeared and crossed the open space to me, with Madeline asking as they approached, “Did he come?” “Not a sound of him,” I told them, preferring the truth when it will serve the purpose. “Then you didn't get him?” “I got a phone-answering service.” That was Gwenn. “They said he would be back after midnight and wanted me to leave a message. I'm going to stay here a little while, to see if he came on the eleven thirty-two, and then quit. Do you think something happened to him?” “Certainly something happened to him, if he stood you up, but God knows what.