Free The Nothing Man by Jim Thompson Page A

can't blame me for-"
    "I don't blame you. I'm not sore," I said. "Not in the way you mean. Something very bad has happened; that bad has to be offset. That's as close as I can come to explaining what I mean."
    "And where do I come in? What do I get out of it?"
    "Nothing more than you deserve. To put it succinctly, you do not get a murderer who is not one. You do not get some haif-witted odd-job man and sap him into making a confession. It wouldn't work, Stuke, even if I were willing to let you do it. We know the murderer is someone of fairly high intelligence. You'd be laughed out of town if you tried to pin the job on one of your typical fall guys."
    "Yeah?" His eyes glinted. "So suppose I hang it on some smart baby. Someone like you."
    "You do that," I said, "and we'll discuss the matter again."
    He stood up, slamming on his hat. He walked toward me slowly and I crossed my legs, bringing one foot up in line with his crotch. I hoped he would try something, but I was sure that he wouldn't.
    He didn't.
    "Look, Brownie. Don't you see what you're doin' to me, pal? It ain't just a matter of gettin' no credit-of knockin' myself out and losin' out on all the easy dough and not getting no credit for solving the murder. That's bad enough, but it ain't just that."
    "No," I said, "it isn't just that."
    "You see it, huh? If I don't get the murderer-"
    "If you don't get the murderer, or, let us say, until you do get the murderer, you have to keep on looking for him. You won't be able to let things get back in the shape they've been in. Yes, I see that, Lem, and now that you see it I think you'd better leave."
    He left, cursing. I waited until I heard him drive away, and then I got up and stood in the doorway a few minutes.
    It had stopped raining about an hour before, and now the moon had come out and a few stars, and the air was clean and balmy. I stood drinking it in in long deep breaths. I turned and craned my neck, looking in at the kitchen clock. It was only one, a few minutes after one. It seemed like years had passed since- And it was only a little after one.
    I closed and locked the door. I went into the bedroom and turned on the light. I came back and turned off the living-room light. I started back into the bedroom. I went a few steps and then I dropped down on the lounge and began to cry.
    About nothing, really; I suppose you would call it nothing. Certainly not over a problem. How can one cry over a problem? Or an answer-if there was an answer? I cried because-Just because, as kids cry, as she had used to cry…
    Because things were a certain way, and that's the way they were.

8
    After a while I got up and went into the kitchen. I cracked four eggs into a glass, filled the glass with whisky, and tossed them down. I stood very still for a moment, swallowing fast, letting them get anchored. When I was sure they were going to stick, I took another drink and lighted a cigarette.
    Another long time had passed, at least ten years. But the clock said twenty minutes of two. I refilled my glass with whisky and began cleaning the kitchen.
    There was not a great deal to be done since the soot is more or less ineradicable and my meals at home are confined largely to eggs, milk, and coffee. But I did what little there was to do: scrubbing the sink, wiping off the drainboard and stove, sweeping the floor, and so on. I put the egg shells into the garbage pail and carried it out to the incinerator. I lingered a minute or two after dumping it, looking down at the railroad tracks. I often stand there at night, on the bluff overlooking the tracks, watching the trains go by, wondering if it wouldn't be better to…
    But the last train for the night had passed more than two hours ago. The last one was the "milk" train-a combination freight and passenger that left Pacific City at eleven-thirty and loafed into Los Angeles some seven hours later. There wouldn't be another train until six forty-five.
    I went back into the house and returned the