After Dark, My Sweet by Jim Thompson

Author:Jim Thompson [Thompson, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Kidnapping, Noir fiction, Detective and mystery stories, Crime
ISBN: 9780752852089
Publisher: ORION
Published: 2004-05-20T04:51:40.531000+00:00

12

I buried the uniform and the things that went with it. I came back up from the trees, returned the spade to the garage and went up to the apartment. I washed my hair out, flopping down on the bed for a while afterwards. But tired as I was I couldn't rest. I kept tossing around, trying to straighten my mind out. And I sure didn't feel much like laughing, but somehow I wanted to laugh.

Because I'd played one hell of a joke on myself.

Doc Goldman had called the turn on me, all right. My judgment was anything but good. Guys with my background-and maybe a lot of guys without it-can't think very far ahead. They knock themselves out getting something. They just have to have it, it seems like. And then it turns out to be something they don't want, and they don't know how to get rid of it.

I'd looked forward to making Fay and Uncle Bud squirm. Crowding them onto the ragged edge and keeping them there. But now I could see it wasn't going to work. They might crack up and be unable to do what they had to. They might feel I was just waiting for a chance to pay them off, that they had to get me before I got them.

I'd had to shake hands with Uncle Bud. I'd had to pull him off the spot I'd put him on, make him think that things were at least reasonably okay. And Fay, I'd have to do the same thing with her-if I could. Because the other wouldn't work. The other took more out of me than I had.

I couldn't beat them over the head without beating myself.

It was night, dark, when I finally thought things out. As good, I mean, as I could think them out. I got up and went downstairs, and I stood there in the yard awhile, looking in through the back door of the house.

Fay and the boy were at the kitchen table. She was holding him on her lap, not eating anything herself. But it looked like he was eating quite a bit.

He finished after a few minutes. They left the kitchen, the boy holding on to her hand, and watching through the windows I saw her take him into the bedroom.

I went on inside. There was a lot of stuff left on the table-canned beans and boiled ham and half of a pie. So I warmed up the coffee, and started eating.

Fay came in, pulling the door shut behind her. I looked up and nodded.

"How's the boy doing? Did he eat his dinner all right?"

"Did he?" She shrugged. "Don't tell me you don't know."

I supposed she must have noticed me out in the yard. I said I'd just waited out there until the boy was through because I was afraid I might upset him.

"Uh-huh. Well, if that's all you were just doing, I'll just tell you that young Charles, heir apparent to the Vanderventer fortune, had a light repast consisting of one-half of a pie and approximately one pound of beans.

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