Read Savage Night for Free Online Page B

Fay.”
    “But they won’t! They can’t afford to!”
    “Sure,” I said.
    “The case won’t ever come to trial. Everyone says it won’t!”
    “Well, they probably know,” I said. “I was just talking about how Jake would feel if he thought they did want to kill him.”
    “Yes, but you said—I mean, when he knows they won’t do it, why—?”
    “He knows it, but do they know it? See what I mean? He knows they’ve got plenty of brains and plenty of money. He knows they’d find an angle, if they wanted to get him badly enough.”
    “But they—”
    “They don’t,” I said. “But if they did? There wouldn’t be anyone Jake could trust. Why, they might even try to get to him through old man Kendall.”
    “Oh, Carl! That’s ridiculous!”
    “Sure, it is,” I said, “but you get the idea. Some guy who would never be suspected.”
    “Carl—”
    She was looking narrow-eyed, interested, cautious.
    “Yeah, Fay?” I said.
    “You…What if—if—”
    “What if what?” I said.
    She kept on staring at me in that puzzled cautious way. Then, she laughed suddenly and jumped up. “God,” she said. “Talk about Jake losing his marbles! Look, Carl. You’re not going to school this week?”
    I shook my head. I didn’t bother to rib her about snooping.
    “Well, Ruth has a nine o’clock class, so you ought to be downstairs by eight if you want her to fix your breakfast. Or you can just help yourself to coffee and toast or something whenever you get up. That’s what I usually do.”
    “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll see how I feel in the morning.”
    She left, then. I opened a window and stretched back out on the bed. I needed a bath, but I wasn’t up to it yet. I wasn’t up to such a little thing as undressing and walking a few steps down the hall to the bathroom.
    I lay still, forcing myself to lie still when I felt the urge to get up and look in the mirror. You’ve got to take it easy. You can’t run for the big score with sand in your shoes. I closed my eyes, looking at myself in my mind’s eye.
    It gave me a start. It was like looking at someone else.
    I’d seen myself that way ten thousand times and each time it was a new experience. I’d see what other people seemed to see, and I’d catch myself thinking, “Gosh, what a nice little guy. You don’t need anyone to tell you he’s all right—”
    I thought that, now, and somehow it sent a shiver through me. I started thinking about the teeth and the other chances, and I knew that they really didn’t matter. But I made myself think about them.
    I felt safer, some way, believing it was those things instead of—instead of?
    …The teeth and the contact lenses. The tanned, healthy-looking face. The extra weight. The added height…and only part of it was due to the elevator shoes I’d worn since 1943. I’d straightened up when I shook the bug, and—but had I shaken it? Suppose I took sick now, so sick I couldn’t go through with this? The Man would be sore, and—the name? Charles Bigger— Carl Bigelow? Well, it was as good as any. It wouldn’t have been any better to call myself Chester Bellows or Chauncey Billingsley; and it would have had to be something like that. A man can’t get too far away from his own name, you know. He may try to but he’s asking for trouble. There’s laundry markings. There’s answering when you’re spoken to. So…
    So I hadn’t made any mistakes. I…But The Man had found me. He’d never seen me before either but he’d known right where to send for me. And if The Man could do it…
    I lighted a cigarette, jabbed it out immediately, and threw myself back on the pillows.
    The Man—you couldn’t count The Man. I hadn’t made any mistakes, and I wouldn’t make any. I’d make the score, and I’d make the afterwards, the hard part. Because no matter how smoothly it was done, there was bound to be some heat. And the surest way of getting cooked was to try to run from it. You’d screw things up for The