Free Anatomy of a Killer by Peter Rabe

so she could not see him. That, she thought, is a horrible thing to say to me. A horrible thing, period. And I’m not going to listen to that much longer. I won’t have to listen to that once I leave and it won’t be much longer.
    The thought was nothing angry, nothing with threat tone in it, because she thought this often and it was really a plan. It was where this side of the horizon and the mythology on the other side ran into each other. She would leave Penderburg sometime, which would leave Wexler and so forth behind. This made sense and absorbed her.
    There was more, of course, but vaguely. To get married. To stop working in a while and then just husband and home. But this part was certain and ordained and did not need hoping.
    “When you open up tomorrow,” said Wexler, leaving, “call the dairy and cancel the sherbet order. Nobody around here eats sherbet.”
    She said, yes, Mister Wexler, and went to the closet where the bucket was, and the brooms and her dress. She squeezed in there to take off her uniform. And when I leave I can say I wasn’t just a waitress but had other responsibilities. Orders, and so on. So that part doesn’t worry me, but I first got to leave.
    She changed and looked forward to the walk home. Slow, because tired, slow, to make a nice walk. Outside, the night hung warm. She liked that.
    When he walked away from the diner he thought the air might change and feel lighter the farther he went. He walked fast, walked by his car at the curb, towards the square with the closed stores. Nothing changed. It’s like glue sticking to me. Jinx job. I’ll start over. Tomorrow…. But the thought of waiting that long gave him no comfort and there had to be something he could do so it would not be as if he were delaying the job. I’ll walk back and look at the building. Then I check the mailbox position in the hall or maybe the number on the box in the hall and what have I done today then—I’ve found out where Kemp lives in that building. And nothing else happened today. Let’s say that.
    But if I had walked out with them when they left the diner, walked across with them and up to Kemp’s room…. He dropped that thought with a great deal of satisfaction, reminding himself he had not been carrying a gun. He didn’t work that way. He only carried a gun by plan, not by habit.
    Jordan walked back, away from the square. It got darker down the street and he noticed there were no longer the leaf sounds overhead. Unimportant. Where does Kemp sleep? He looked at the building on the other side of the street and the same, and as bad, as sitting with him again, and what was he like? Nice. Tepid word which left out a great deal, but Kemp, sitting and talking, you might say was nice. Not if he knew who I was. Or worse yet: not if I were working for him, did this work for him, not then either. Would he say, go to that rooming house and mention my name to Mrs. Holzer?
    Jordan looked at the building on the other side of the street and imagined nothing. Building with Kemp inside, Kemp-target.
    “I think he’ll be in bed by now,” he heard.
    Jordan held very still, waiting for more. Or, if I moved now, it would be so wild I could tell nothing ahead of time about what might come next….
    When he did not turn, the girl Betty stepped around so that she could see him better. “I mean Mister Kemp,” she said.
    “Ah,” he said. “I guess so.”
    The girl did not know what to say next. He talked so little. Or when he talked, he said nothing to invite a reply.
    “I just meant,” she said, “you were standing here, I saw you standing here, looking, and I thought you were looking for him because of that room. I thought maybe you had forgotten where Mrs. Holzer lives.”
    She made it very easy for him. I don’t have to open my mouth and she helps, he thought.
    “You want me to show you?” she asked.
    “That’s all right,” he said. “No. I’ll wait till tomorrow.”
    “Oh. You were just