The Butcher by Peter Ely

Author:Peter Ely [Ely, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vanguard Press
Published: 2022-02-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

Ellen didn’t like the look that she saw in John Harley’s eyes. Harley didn’t look confident. He looked apprehensive. Ellen checked her watch. It said 4.30. “John! We’re a half hour late already.”

Ellen expected John to jump into action, but still Harley hesitated. Something seemed to be nagging at him… A guilty conscience or something. “Well, aren’t we going to get going?” Ellen demanded nervously. “If the Butcher is watching us, he’ll be getting suspicious. He’ll start wondering who the strange man in the car is. The Butcher will notice this car and make a mental note of it. Then, he’ll recognize it later.”

Harley shrugged his shoulders dispiritedly. “We’ll just have to pray that the Butcher is not watching at the moment. Anyway, our meeting here at four thirty instead of four o’clock is killing us by itself, regardless of whether we speed it up from this point on or not. It’s going to look suspicious to the Butcher no matter how fast we move at this point. We’ll just have to resign ourselves to starting the operation at Franklin’s grave at close to five o’clock. There will be a small sliver of daylight left then.

“But there’s a more important issue, Ellen, than the sting logistics. I feel that I haven’t prepared you properly emotionally for this ordeal.”

“Haven’t prepared me properly? John, you’ve drawn me up an excellent map. You’ve gone over every detail of the operation one hundred times, both in terms of explaining it to me and checking out the terrain for yourself. Why, John, you’ve practically lifted up each cobblestone in each alleyway and looked under it.”

“There are no cobblestones in those alleyways off Front Street, Ellen,” Harley replied with a grim smile. “You’re thinking of Chestnut Street. There are cobblestones on Chestnut Street.

“But what I’m concerned about, Ellen, is that I haven’t prepared you, as I just said, emotionally to face the Butcher. You know that this issue of you losing your nerve and bolting has been the central area of concern between us. I don’t like the look in your eyes, Ellen. Your eyes are darting around nervously. It shows that I haven’t prepared you properly emotionally. You look like you’re about to bolt.”

As they had been talking, Ellen had had to struggle to look as severe and adult as possible, to make that receptive baby face of hers, that face that invited abuse, looking more competent and formidable. So naturally, this comment from Harley that she wasn’t emotionally ready dismayed her.

“John, I notice that when I call you ‘John’ and you call me ‘Ellen’, you wince. You feel very threatened by any intimacy between us, don’t you? Now, I notice that there’s been a lot of talk at the crime scene between the cops and the reporters, that I’m looking to sink my claws into you. Patty Gereson and Darrell Langhorne are the worst offenders. They’ve taunted me with being a clinging vine, and I can tell that they’re taunting you with the issue too, John… The clinging vine clinging to the motherloving misogynist.

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