Free Someone Is Bleeding by Richard Matheson Page A

already know, and that he used to be a professional killer back in Chicago in the days before Jim got hold of him.
    After Jones left, I drove to Peggy’s and found Jones just coming out of her apartment house. He grinned smugly at me.
    Peggy was inside. So was Dennis, And another miserable afternoon began. Dennis was in a nasty mood and he made it plain that he was after Peggy and that he didn’t want me seeing her any more. That led to one thing and another and, finally, a brawl. I took out on Dennis all the anger Steig had built up inside me, and when the fight was over, Dennis was battered and bloody.
    While he was picking himself up off the floor, Peggy announced that she thought it would be “nice” if I drove Dennis home.
    Very nice.
    I drove Dennis home. He didn’t open his mouth once during the drive, but as soon as he got inside the house at Malibu he began squabbling with Jim. Jim sent him upstairs and invited me into his den for another father-to-son chat.
    I sat there stupidly while he told me that Peggy was his. Only his. was to lay off from now on. and if I didn’t, well . . .
    “I‘m going to have Peggy,” he said. “I’m going to take her away from your dull influence. And if I have to lie to do it, I’II lie, justifying the means by the end. You can rectify one lie. I’ll tell another. You can keep refuting one lie after the other but my words will go on and gradually they’ll forge ahead of you. I’ll build such a structure of lies around you that Peggy won’t know what to believe. I’ve done it and done it quite successfully with other men who were foolish enough to think they’d win Peggy. I have more strength than you. And more will. And I’ll beat you. There’s no step I won’t take.”
    “Even unto murder,” I said.
    And watched his face.
    No tremor, no twitch. The man was a master at deception. He smiled casually.
    “That’s for you to prove, isn’t it?” he said.
    He smiled and I had to face it. It was the cold, unyielding smile of the professional killer.
    “I’ll get Audrey to tell me all about your . . .” I started.
    At last. A rise.
    “You’ll leave Audrey out of this,” he said tensely.
    “I’ll leave nothing out of this,” I said as slowly and as hostilely as I could, “because you’ll leave nothing out; you just said so. Because your war is no gentleman’s war.”
    “You’ll leave Audrey out of this.”
    More strenuously spoken. The composure was going slightly. And it gave me a distinct pleasure to see it peeling away.
    “Someone is bleeding,” I said.
    I drove home slowly. I thought all the way of the look of white, shaking rage I’d finally managed to wreak out of Jim. Of his threats which he obviously had the means to carry out. Of my poor, ineffectual rebuttals. Of whether I could do anything I’d threatened.
    There was one thing necessary, I realized.
    Pinning the murder on him. The rest didn’t matter anyway. Why hurt Audrey? Why hurt Dennis? They weren’t responsible for anything. No, a murder indictment against Jim and Steig. Two birds with one subpoena.
    And I thought of what I’d said to him.
    Someone is bleeding, I’d said.
    Sure. Someone is always bleeding. Bleeding over politics. Bleeding over religion. Over where the next meal is coming from. Lots of things.
    And over women? Good God. Hemophilia. And the next day, Peggy came and told me that Jim wanted to take us to dinner and to a concert at the Bowl. Us? Sure, she said. Us. Peggy and me.
    “Why this change in Jim?”
    “I told him I didn’t intend to stop seeing you.”
    “Is that what he wanted?”
    “Yes.”
    He was working on her already. Already? He’d probably been working on her since she’d come in that time to tell him she wanted a divorce. It wasn’t hard to desire Peggy. And for a man like Jim who took what he wanted . . . I wondered how many men he had frightened away from her.
    “I told him I had no intention of not seeing you,” she repeated. “I said if