Scarlet Imperial by Dorothy B. Hughes Page B

me. I don’t know who shot me.” He intended to find out. His mouth was a straight line. Then he smiled at her. “You want to know. Of course you do. I left our friend Hester on the stairs while I went for the freight elevator. By foot, yes. That risk had to be taken. I couldn’t carry him down fourteen flights. No one saw me. I brought the elevator up, hauled him in, took the car down to the first floor. When I opened the alley door someone let me have it.”
    Her eyes were tight on his face.
    “Someone sent Hester to do the job. But if I got away from Hester and tried to skip out the back, someone was there to take care of me.”
    She nodded.
    “I dropped. If someone shoots at you, you drop, make him think he’s hit the target. I waited a while, then I hauled Hester back into the elevator, took it to the basement and dumped him.” He wasn’t speaking of someone he’d killed; he was speaking of an inanimate burden. “I couldn’t walk back up. I took the elevator to the eleventh, climbed only the three flights.” He grimaced. “I wasn’t feeling my best. If you hadn’t handled that G-man, I’d have had to get rid of him too.”
    She said it. “You can’t go on shooting everyone who gets in your way. With Hester it was self-defense. But no one would believe more than one was self-defense.”
    “Do you think I care what anyone believes?” His eyes were bright, metallic blue. “I’m interested in one thing, taking care of me.”
    “But the law—”
    “The law. What law? Do you still believe there is immutable law? If there is, it’s kill or be killed. I learned that when I was a kid in Galway. Kill the oppressor. I learned it better in France, Germany, points north, south, west.”
    “That was war,” she countered.
    “What’s war? A word the law invented. To legalize killing. Go out and kill.” His voice tightened. “Kill what? Kill men, stupid. Sure and God said, Thou shalt not kill. But this is higher law, stupe, this is legal law. Kill. If you want to live, kill.”
    She said gently, “You aren’t a soldier now.”
    “War’s a great teacher. You don’t forget her lessons. And you’re wrong thinking I’m not fighting. The enemy’s trying to take the Scarlet Imperial. I’m protecting it. If I have to kill to protect it, that’s part of the game. The enemy knows the rules as well as I. They’re trying to kill me. You still think I shouldn’t have killed Hester?”
    He wasn’t hysterical; he was cold, quiet. But his knuckles were white and hard. She said, “No. That was self-defense.” She understood but she’d learned civilized ways. She said, “You can’t go on killing. Whatever you think of the law, as long as you’re in New York, you’re liable under its rules.”
    He spoke with certainty. “I have no intention of meeting up with the New York law, Eliza.”
    She warned, “Then stop talking about getting rid of Jones. You can’t protect yourself that way. If one F.B.I. man falls, two more spring up in his place. The day of the jungle is past.”
    He gave one brief laugh. “You think so?”
    She nodded slowly. “It must be past. If you’re right, if there’s no law but the law of the jungle, we’re doomed.”
    “We’re doomed,” he stated and he wasn’t laughing. “You can’t teach men one year to kill to win their point, and the next year tell them to win it by strewing bluebirds. Once you’ve learned to kill, you know the value of killing.”
    “Not if you don’t like killing,” she said quietly.
    “You don’t like killing,” he accused.
    “No, I don’t.”
    His eyes were narrow. “Why don’t you turn me in to your law?”
    “Because—” She carefully put out her cigarette. “Because I’m protecting myself.” She looked at him coolly. “I could pretend it’s for other reasons but it isn’t. I haven’t done it because I wanted to spare you anything. It’s just that I don’t want to be arrested for complicity.”
    “You’re not afraid of