Free Night-World by Robert Bloch Page B

longer.
    Strange. All the dryness was gone, and he was conscious of another reaction. Gut-reaction. He was hungry. Not thirsty. He didn’t need a drink. Oh, he wanted one all right, no sense trying to kid himself about that, but he didn’t need it. What he needed was food. A good square meal. And then, he knew what to do.
    A plan wasn’t necessary. Now that he was sober, really sober, he knew it never had been necessary. Getting bombed and trying to figure some way-out scheme for running off again—that had been the drunk’s idea. But it wouldn’t work, couldn’t work. Where could he run to and how long before they’d catch up with him anyway? Sooner or later they’d find out he’d been involved; Blix would probably tell them after tonight and be a big hero.
    So the thing to do was take the play away from Blix and call the police himself. Tell them exactly what had happened, lay it right on the line, name the others, cooperate. Sure, he’d have to clear his own part in it, and there’d be a lot of publicity. But it could be good publicity—good for him, good for the business. Simple, how everything fell into place once you stopped thinking drunk.
    Standing there in the darkness, Lorch started to close the cabinet door. As he did so, he noticed there was a gap right in the middle of the top shelf. One of the bourbon bottles was missing. Blix didn’t drink—who could have taken it?
    The answer came out of the shadows behind him. Jack Lorch turned just in time to see the blurred motion of the bottle descending to smash his skull.
    Then he fell, and the cabinet toppled forward and glass shattered on the floor and in his flesh. In the darkness blood and bourbon mingled and Lorch’s thought—his last thought—was that Griswold had been right. It was liquor that killed him, after all.

CHAPTER 12
    T he man on night duty was named Lubeck. He arrived at Karen’s apartment shortly before ten and had a little private conversation with Doyle outside in the hallway.
    Then Doyle left and Lubeck took over. He was a few years older than his predecessor and a good twenty pounds heavier, but his very size and bulk seemed reassuring. Like Doyle, he made the rounds, checking closets and doors and windows.
    “You intend to keep the air-conditioning on all night?” he asked. “Good. Then you won’t be opening any windows.” Lubeck walked back into the living room and adjusted the night chain on the door. Karen watched him from the bedroom.
    “Mind if I use your phone?” he said. “I want to call in.”
    “Go right ahead.”
    Karen stood in the doorway as Lubeck dialed. She felt awkward coming back into the living room while he was phoning, but perhaps she could catch the conversation from where she was standing.
    It didn’t work out that way. Lubeck spoke very softly, and the air-conditioning drowned out his voice.
    Karen shook her head. Why was she acting this way—afraid to walk into her own living room? She wasn’t a prisoner.
    Or was she?
    A man in armor is his armor’s slave. Robert Browning said that, in “Herakles.” Why the quotation lingered in her mind all these years Karen had never known, but suddenly she realized it was true. We’re all armored, and all enslaved. Just having Lubeck here made her a prisoner—a prisoner of her own need for protection. And Lubeck, armored with his badge and his service revolver, was a prisoner, too—the prisoner of a system that made him report to his superiors. And his superiors were prisoners of the politicians, and the politicians were the prisoners of the people, and the people were, like herself, serving a life sentence while trying to protect themselves against the world. Some of them, of course, were under a death sentence. And it could be carried out anytime—
    Karen pushed the thought aside, forced herself to move forward from the doorway just as Lubeck replaced the phone in its cradle.
    “Any news?”
    Lubeck shook his head. “Nothing.” He stood up.