The Walking Wounded Read online

  I had washed my hands now of everything. The past, the Bitch-Mother, the hairshirt,

  the millstone, the dragging, unwanted weight.

  What a laugh. Jannings' Last Laugh was a piker by comparison. I had yielded to white heat, lost all sight of my master plan, my well-conceived

  vendetta---and blown it all in one mad shot. There was little satisfaction, alas. Noon

  was dead, without ever learning where the fatal shot had come from. Who was firing it

  and why. Oh, there was the play, of course---if he had read it---and that could become

  an inconvenience now. The police might well wonder what an Ed Noon might be doing

  with a new, unproduced play of Jo Malmedy's in his apartment. But that could be easily

  bypassed or explained, if the cops did come around to ask their inevitable questions. But

  the victory, the juice of passion, the subtle poison, was gone now. I had wanted to toy

  with Noon's mind, play with his guilt complexes, if he had any, and enjoy his

  discomfort at sight of ghosts from his long ago past. And now---it was all denied me.

  Firing in haste, I was repenting at leisure. The cream of the jest was lost. There

  was no le mot juste at all. The joke had laid an egg.

  Valerie, of all people, and the last lady I wanted to see that night, was waiting

  for me in the apartment when I walked in, still caught up in that trance of non

  communication. I regretted letting her have a key. Never more than that moment. I had

  wanted to be alone.

  "Jo---" she blurted, as I dropped the trenchcoat across the leather lounge near the

  doorway, "Did you hear what happened?"

  "You're pregnant," I said, without humor. Or care or worry.

  "Fat chance," she laughed but her sea-blue eyes were still all knotted in a scowl.

  She was lying naked on the red counterpane of the huge bed I had bought to

  accommodate her passions. And she was still wearing the platform shoes which

  somehow made her more erotic than ever. She'd had me that morning and had her shopping spree and here she was back for the dinner time ritual, again. What a woman.

  "I'm talking about the radio, tiger. That writer was shot in a West Side bar just about an

  hour ago---you've been out---you must have heard something----"

  "Writer?" I checked her back like an invoice. Never had that lovely, familiar

  word, sounded so terrible. An hour ago? Already on the news broadcasts? I must have

  walked in a daze from Eighth Avenue.

  No, no. There must be some mistake. Some other writer--

  And Noon---cold and cruel ice closed over all my reflexes.

  "You know," Valerie persisted, rolling over on her side facing me so that her

  pink-flecked breasts surged into view. "The one with the French name. Only he isn't

  really French---?"

  "Marcel Alevoinne," I said. The name never sounded sillier or more macabre.

  Like a grotesque pun of Moliere's. Or Robert Bloch's.

  "Then you did hear! Gave me a turn I can tell you, Jo. There I was in Tiffany's

  and the radio was on and the announcer was talking about a prize-winning author being

  shot in a bar. Right in the face---Christ. I never realized how much I liked you, tiger--

  can you imagine? What's New York really coming to?"

  "Shot in a bar," I echoed. "Right in the face."

  I couldn't move for a long second. I could only stare down at her. At her nudity,

  her fleshy abandon, her so small world of Shopping and Sex. There was a blind red haze

  in front of me. Spinning like a roulette wheel gone mad. And in my ears, a thousand

  drums were vibrating. Flatly. "Uh huh," she nodded, her honey-blonde hair tumbling, her Boston accent

  temporarily camouflaged. "Seems he was drinking with some detective character and

  somebody walked in and shot him from the front door---"

  There was nothing more to hear. Nothing more to stay for. Suddenly, the Tudor

  Place home I worked in and loved in was as remote as Siberia. I turned like an

  automaton, heading for the door. Forgetting the coat, the silencer-pistol, forgetting

  everything. Except the best laid plans of mice and men and unloved, forlorn sons,

  which had gang aft aglee. No, thank you, Robert Burns. I had been hoist on my own

  petard. I had obviously killed the wrong man! And now I would have to do it all over

  again. Start from the very beginning, once more. From the ground floor up.

  Somehow, despite my sorrow for the innocent target, my genuine remorse about

  Mad Marcel, something glowed inside me. There was still time, then! Still a chance to

  savor the cold pie of vendetta. To do it right. Without blind rage and white heat.

  Without P.D.Q. coarseness.

  By Christ---there was a second chance!

  I could still get my own back. Still make the bastard sweat---as I had been

  sweating for such a long while now---dying by inches--

  "Jo! You just got here---where the hell do you think you're going? Can't you see

  I'm waiting on you, tiger?"

  "Wait a little longer," I said over my shoulder, not looking back. I would never

  look back again. "You'll keep and those prize of arms of yours won't rot. I'm sure of it."

  "You walk out on me now and I just might no be here when you get back! You

  think about that, Mr. High and Mighty---" There was nothing in that to think about. Not ever for me. Valerie Wales was

  one of the ships that passed in my night. I didn't care if I never went into her ratlines

  again. We were quits, at last.

  "YOU BASTARD, COME BACK HERE---WELL, OF ALL THE

  GODDAMMED UNGRATEFUL-----OH, SCREW YOU, BUSTER-----"

  Bastard was all I really heard. The rest of her tirade was cut off and drowned out

  by the slamming of the door. By the thunder of drums.

  Bastard. Bastard. Bastard. Gospel from Miss Wales of Boston.

  All too true. All too shameful. The awful truth.

  Not all my talent nor all my academic credits and success had obliterated that

  name-tag from my soul.

  From the heart of the little boy who had cried. And mourned.

  Growing up and doing my own thing had not saved me from Mr. Freud. Or Mr.

  Noon. Or Dolores Ainsley Brand. My mother. My humiliation.

  I rushed out into the night, leaving Valerie Wales behind, to scratch her own

  itches. In a way, she was far luckier than I was.

  Anybody can get laid. Anybody at all, if they try hard enough.

  Not everyone can get back what they have lost.

  It's a long, long journey back to infancy.

  Too long.

  Thomas Wolfe had never been wrong---Marcel Alevoinne's idol.

  You can't go home again.

  You never can. Because the place isn't there anymore.

  For me, it never had been.

  Not ever.

  Dolores Ainsley had seen to that.

  She had taken care of it from the very outset.

  From Act One, itself.

  When she slammed the iron door in my heart-broken, stupid face.

  "I must not only punish, but punish

  with impunity." Edgar Allan Poe

  THE EYE MUST DIE

  I moved toward him that day with a single-mindedness, a purpose, a magnetic

  field sort of locomotion that marked me for a Zombie. A mindless automaton, to look at

  me, I suppose. But I was anything but that. I knew exactly what I had to do, what I

  wanted to do. Valerie's information had set off the mine in my brain. It had been lying

  there, buried beneath the surface of my life for more than
twenty years. Marcel

  Alevoinne's death had simply pushed it closer to the top. Now, it lay exposed, about to

  explode. It only wanted for the final triggering action. Noon of Manhattan was about to

  die. My way.

  There's literature in me, tons of it. My head is a warehouse of quotations,

  deathless lines, timeless maxims and adages. Writer's curse.

  A pile of them came to me as I walked through the night toward my date with

  Noon. The one he had no awareness of, no suspicion of, beyond the tantalizing play I

  had served up to him in the mail.

  Hamlet had a ton of them. Avenge me, my son!……remember me!!! Remember

  me!!!….I must be cruel in order to be kind….to be or not to be….Yorick….therest of

  Death is silence. My thoughts fly upward…

  And then, incredibly….Richard Cory…

  Of all people!

  Whenever Richard Cory went downtown

  We people on the pavement looked at him.

  He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

  Clean favored, and imperially slim.

  And he was always quietly arrayed,

  And he was always human when he talked,

  But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

  "Good morning," and he glittered when he walked.

  And he was rich---yes, richer than a king-

  And admirably schooled in every grace:

  In fine, we thought he was everything

  To make us wish that we were in his place.

  So on we worked, and waited for the light,

  And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

  And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

  Went home and put a bullet through his head. Crazy that. Noon wasn't Cory---he wasn't going to kill himself. I was going to

  kill him. Me. Jo Malmedy.

  Or was I thinking of myself? Would I kill myself after I killed Noon? I didn't

  know…..

  More quotations danced in my brain. Rioted, really.

  If there is no wind---row.

  Though the Poles are the current whipping boys for stupidity-symbols, we can

  thank them for that superb line. It seems to say it all, for me. Me. Jo Malmedy, son of

  the bitch-woman. Dolores Ainsley.

  Water must shape itself to the vessel that contains it.

  A Chinese cutie, of course, Damn clever those Chinese. They always know

  what they are talking about, what they are trying to say and convey in a brief epigram.

  Bless them all, all the hundreds of millions of them in faraway, starving China. Red,

  white and blue.

  What am I but the water shaped by the mother that bore me? That brief passion

  that gave me birth---where was it? In some back alley or a fleabag hotel room or perhaps

  under the big tent where she shook her monstrous flesh for money? Who was the man-

  my nameless father? Was he tall or short, handsome or ugly or simply nondescript? He

  wasn't Harry Hunter--I'm sure of that. Not according to the story of the play. Did she

  like the man who ploughed into her mountainous thighs or was he only another statistic

  in a book filled with men's names?

  God how I hated her! Even now, after all these years.

  But I hate Noon more. I wonder why. The man never did a thing to me, really.

  It was an accident, shooting her in the back of the head, like that. A tough shot

  down those winding steps. And yet---why do I shape up into cold quivering rage when I

  even think of his name, much less the man himself? If I am crazy, I'm doing the right

  thing. I'm taking my insanity with me. I'll destroy myself along with him. Or if I kill

  him, I can save myself, at last. That must be the answer. It has to be.

  I stopped thinking about him when I reached the place on Broadway. There was

  too much to do, too much to buy, if I wanted to get down to the police station in time to

  pick up Noon when he left. They couldn't keep him there forever. Not a big deal like

  him.

  They ask no questions at the shop, thanks to my references and the green cash I

  will pay them. Remarkable how a city like this one can still hide a thousand and one

  crimes. A billion sins.

  The shop had what I needed.

  The corset, the medical supplies and the laudanum.

  I can't wait until I face Noon for the first time.

  God, twenty years!

  Twenty years….

  Page 110, somewhere in the middle of ACT TWO, SCENE FIVE….

  NOON (grimly)

  …start all over, Alma. And don't skip anything. This thing is confusing enough

  without me having to fill in the missing details. But I do get one thing right off. You and Dolores have been on the outs for years. You and your old man too, for that matter.

  Which is the only explanation for Brand leaving his diamonds to Dolores and not you.

  ALMA (sadly but glad he understands)

  You're right, of course. Pop's being a small-time was too much for me when I

  was in my teens. It was okay with Dolores because he sent us money from time to time.

  But it got to me. So I pulled up stakes and came to the big town. I know what you're

  going to say. My racket isn't so nice, either. But at least I'm not stealing and I'm paying

  my own way.

  NOON (refusing to comment on that)

  How come there was no record of a marriage? According to everybody and

  anybody, Daniel Brand was a bachelor. A happy little one.

  ALMA

  There never was. Pop had a common-law wife somewhere in Chicago. She died

  before Dolores and I were old enough to remember her. (Alma's voice turns bitter here)

  It's no kick you know---kids never knowing who their mother is---or remembering what

  she looked like--

  NOON

  Yeah. I know. (he doesn't mention here being orphaned as a child. Both parents)

  Go on.

  ALMA

  Pop was glad in a way. Him being such a half-pint, he was ashamed to

  acknowledge her as his daughter…Dolores, I mean. I think I know how he must have

  felt. But it's a screwy way for a father to be. NOON

  It's a screwy world. (pause) So he tried to make up for it by giving Dolores a

  chance to cash in on his haul. Is that it, Alma?

  ALMA

  It has to be that…he hated me. I was too smart for him. Too much like my

  mother he always said…

  NOON

  That's not hard to believe at all…..

  ALMA

  Oh, Ed. Can you love me---do you still love me after all this double-dealing and

  flimflamming? I could understand it if you didn't….I wouldn't like it at all but I'd

  understand it. So level with me---

  NOON

  Will you please shut up? And let me think----sometimes I feel like a motherless

  child isn't only a song from Porgy And Bess, you know. This case is loaded with

  orphans….Too damn many of them….

  The curtain begins to fall.

  Slowly.

  "In the midst of great joy do not

  promise to give a man anything; in the midst of great anger do not

  answer a man's letter."

  Chinese Proverb

  FROM THE PLAY CALLED 'LIFE'

  THE STORY OF G.I. JO

  (Gee, I hated what she did to me!)

  "I'll begin by telling you she was the

  tallest girl that ever came into my office." The Tall Dolores

  TWO NIGHTMARES MET

  There was a fly on the blue wall when I woke up.

  I couldn't look at anything else for a long gr
eat while. The fly was walking

  serenely, as if out for a Sunday stroll, and there was nothing but the acres of space to

  ambulate. I envied the fly without really knowing why. It is always like that somehow

  when you unfuzz from a sleep invoked by something else besides fatigue.

  My gaze wandered from the happy fly. The vast blueness of the wall blended into

  three more walls and then a ceiling. It was a restful shade of blue. A blue I couldn't give

  a name to. Still, it didn't matter. The color of my prison was the least of my problems.

  What was left of my logic-controlled thoughts began to separate and piece out the

  rest of the puzzle. The hotel room. Jo Malmedy. Sudden unconsciousness, drug

  induced, maybe---helped along by a blow on the back of the neck---positively. I was

  feeling no pain at all. No headache, no blurred vision, no aching muscles. It was

  curious.

  Like numbed sleep. Or hazy euphoria. A timeless interlude. And yet, all at once, lightning flashed all around the room. With figurative,

  totally alarming flares of realization. And recognition. I forgot the amiable fly entirely.

  It was time to think of spiders. Short, squat, powerful spiders, with axes to grind,

  memories to nourish them and some sort of fantastic vengeance driving them to build

  incredible webs.

  This was a web and a half. And then some. With Chinese flourishes.

  Everything about the vast blueness surrounding me slammed into my eyes with

  stunning force. For long moments, I couldn't breathe. Much less think straight. There

  was so much to see, such an awful lot to assimilate and digest on the usual terrible short

  notice. Jo Malmedy's web---whose else could it be?---was a very famous first. Even for

  me with the checkered career which had always kept me moving in vicious circles.

  Dazed, I saw---the lengths to which Malmedy madness had gone.

  The crumpled pile of all my clothes, including underwear, socks and shoes, in a

  disorderly heap on the floor of the blue room. Even as logic insisted it had to be the

  bathroom of the fancy lodging I had taken for the night at Essex House, that was no help

  at all. There was a tiled interior, the mirrored medicine cabinet, the clean, properly

  arranged towels, the commode bowl, the bright maroon scatter rug, the yawning,

  Pacific-blue bathtub. Beyond all this, only a yard or two away was the open door and