PRESENT FOR LONA

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, March 1958.

There was sawdust—just like in a butcher shop—on the floor of the long room where Jack Clauson stood waiting for the man he was going to kill. Whatever the man had done, Clauson did not hate him for it But he had to die, and Clauson had to kill him. Not out of hate, but for love—for love of Lona.

I won’t be the only one, he kept telling himself. It won’t just be me… And he has it coming to him anyway… But it was no use. He felt an unfamiliar rigidity in his throat, struggled against nausea.

Bright lights, terribly bright lights, bore down from overhead on the far end of the long room. The near end was dark. The men there shifted from foot to foot, coughing nervously. The coughing stopped abruptly as the door at the far end opened.

Clauson tensed, fighting against the impulse to drop what he held in his hands and run.

A group of people entered, but Clauson had his eyes only on the one in the open shirt. As he watched, the man—his face paper-white—blinked and ran the tip of his tongue along his lips. I can’t do this… Clauson’s thoughts darted around frantically, like rats cornered in a pit. I never saw him before… I won’t do it; they can’t hurt me if I refuse… The man walked steadily enough and his head was up and he didn’t say anything. But there was suddenly the sharp fresh smell of his sweat; it was the odor of fear.

Clauson started to move. Then he remembered. I must. I have to. He’ll die anyway. He deserves to die. He killed an innocent man.

The guards bound the arms of the man in the open shirt swiftly, tightly. The chaplain murmured from his little book. A target was pinned over the heart.

The man’s head began to move from side to side. It was still moving when the bullets hit him.

* * * *

Jack Clauson counted his money. Twenty-five dollars. Not a lot, not for killing a man. His hand jerked suddenly at the thought Why, he could earn that much from his regular work in a single morning, and work six days a week—to say nothing of overtime. So what was twenty-five dollars?

Not much. Only a man’s life. Only another man’s marriage. Clauson loved his wife. Now he’d killed for her. This was the first money he’d made in over a month, and it was for just a few minutes’ work too. He’d buy Lona something. Something nice. She loved to get presents. He’d make her smile; she’d come into his arms, and things would be all right between them again… Or would they?

He drove along the new road on his way back. It was really longer. There was a quicker route to reach the trailer camp, but he liked to ride along the new one. He’d helped build it. It was finished a month ago. He and Lona really should have been moving on long ago. She couldn’t have much left out of the last of his earnings—the money he’d given her when everything was all right between them. But everything wasn’t all right between them anymore. He was moody; she was moody; they quarreled and yelled at one another. She wanted to settle down and he wanted to keep moving; that was the trouble. And so they rubbed each other raw, and it had been sullen and ugly and apart that they’d spent the last week. They both knew that a split was coming, knew the other knew. It had been hell. Because he wanted her. Badly.

Jack knew he had to do something to show he wanted her. Words would no longer be enough. There had to be something from outside the two of them.

How the man’s head had weaved from side to side! As if he was looking for an out—and knowing there wasn’t any. Then the bullets, smashing into him—

Recalling it made Jack hunch over the wheel, drive faster and faster, sorry he’d taken the longer route, anxious to be back at the trailer camp, eager to show her his token of love—the present. Lona had always loved to get presents. He laughed—why, he hadn’t even bought it yet! But it wouldn’t take long; it was Late Closing Night at the stores in the little town. The neon signs beckoned to him as he carefully parked the car. They were mostly red. Red. The color of blood. Blood soaking into sawdust. When the bullets hit, the man didn’t even yell. He just grunted. And then the blood…

Seeing the lights out in the trailer, Jack thought Lona might be asleep. If she was, he’d wake her up. He couldn’t just turn in by himself, not now, not with this on his mind and heart. He’d done it for Lona and Lona alone could make it all right He could forget, in her arms… Maybe she was just lying awake in the dark as she sometimes did. Softly, he opened the door. “Lona?” he called, making his voice gentle. There was no answer, and his eyes, adjusting to the dark, saw she wasn’t in bed. He grunted, flicked on the lights.

He jumped at the sudden flood of brightness, swore. For a moment he’d thought he’d seen a man under the lights, a man with bound arms and a bloody target on his chest. Badly frightened. Clauson stood still, waiting for his racing heart to slow down. He looked around him.

The place was a mess, clothes scattered all around, bed unmade, a paper bag of garbage spilling on the floor. Lipstick-smeared tissues and a scattering of face-powder told him that she’d gone somewhere she expected to meet people. But—he hastily checked—her things were still here. She’d be back—but he wasn’t going to wait. Not alone.

“Why couldn’t you be here?” he asked the empty trailer, aloud. “I wanted to give you the present I got for you.” His face twisted in disappointment as he looked down at the fancy-wrapped package. The money had gone just far enough—two crisp tens and one new crisp five. Twenty for the present. A bottle of bourbon used up all but some loose change out of the remainder.

A man’s life = a present + a bottle of bourbon = a happy couple and a saved marriage. Or does it? Because it was as close as that with them. It was as close at that…

There was an almost-empty half-pint on the table. That was something Lona had taken to again. She did that when things were bad between them. If only she’d drink with him—but she wouldn’t, not with that black mood on her. And afterwards they were certain to quarrel, screaming at each other the empty threats that made no more sense than the rest of their quarreling.

“You like it so much here?” his own voice rang in his ears. “Then you can stay—all by your lonesome! I’m getting out!”

And her voice, shrill, “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

Each knowing the other didn’t mean it… With a sigh, Jack went out and walked over to the Roanes’ trailer. Ed and Betty Roane were the only friends they had left in the trailer camp; most of the construction workers had moved away as soon as work on the new road was over. Jack envied them; he longed for the feeling of freedom, the long trips across the state and even into a different part of the country, perhaps. But not Lona.

He sighed again.

There was a heavy weight on his chest. How much of it, he half-formed the question, was his wife—and how much of it was the man he’d helped kill?

The sounds of radio and TV, the smell of late suppers cooking, the murmur of conversation, children’s voices… Maybe if they’d had children, but each had wanted to be modern and wait. Suddenly bitter, he muttered, “Wait for what?” and then he was at the Roanes’ trailer, knocking.

And with each knock, he felt it was no use. It had all been for nothing. His heart sank, and he felt he was sinking with it. The gap between him and Lona was too wide by now for any gift to bridge. He’d done a terrible thing, and it was all for nothing.

* * * *

Ed and Betty never fought. They were easy-going, and it was always “Yes, dear” and all that sort of thing.

Lona was there. She smiled briefly and tightly as she saw him. He was right: it was too late. No—she wouldn’t snap or snarl if others were present, but neither would she pretend. And old Mrs. Cheener was there too: Mrs. Cheener who owned the camp, a tiny little woman with wild white hair. Her age and position made her a privileged character and she now at once proceeded to take advantage of it.

“Well, so you finally got here, did you?” she rattled away at him. “I suppose you were boozing it up while your poor little wife sets here with us. If she takes a notion to walk out on you, nobody’d be to blame but you there, Clauson, I’m speaking to you. The way you yell and threaten her!”

Jack asked, with a forced grin, “But what about the way she threatens me, Mrs. Cheener?”

Lona looked up. Jack noticed that she didn’t appear to be taking his remark as an affront Could it possibly be that it wasn’t too late, after all?

Mrs. Cheener’s bright eyes turned to the Roanes. The implication, that she didn’t want to waste any more of her valuable time on Jack.

“Turn on the television,” she directed, as if it were her place. “I want the news.” Betty obeyed—reluctantly, it seemed to Jack. Ed avoided his eye.

The newscaster’s face flowed into focus. “—the only State which allows such a choice or uses such a means of execution—” his voice boomed out. Betty, grimacing, hastened to soften it.

“There, we tuned in late and missed the beginning,” the old lady fretted.

“—a target was pinned over the condemned man’s heart and—”

“Ah, it’s that no-good from down the state that killed his partner,” the old woman remarked grimly.

“—the firing-squad was, as is customary, composed of paid civilian volunteers, who—”

Betty shuddered. “Oh, I’d rather not listen to this!” She screwed up her face and put her hands over her ears. She and Ed stared at each other. Mrs. Cheener gazed avidly at the screen, as if expecting it to reveal the death-event itself. Jack Clauson sat stiff, saying nothing. Then he reached across to where Lona was sitting and took her hand, held it though she did make an attempt to free it.

“Meanwhile, the death toll continues to mount in the California floods,” the announcer was saying, in his smooth, rich voice, summing up the number of drownings as if he were lauding a hair tonic.

As soon as the news was over, Lona and Jack left.

* * * *

They walked to their trailer without speaking. Just wait until she sees that present, Jack told himself. Just you wait.

As soon as they got inside, still without speaking, Lona started picking up some of the stuff that littered the place, not to make order but to be doing something, absently.

He got the box in its fancy wrappings, wanted to hand it to her, but didn’t know how. That she might refuse to unwrap it bothered him. So he said, “Here’s something for you,” and started jerking off the ribbon and the paper. He got the nightgown out ?Take a look at this, would you,” he said, holding it up. And the festive quality he’d put in his voice, he didn’t feel.

Lona dropped what she had in her hand and moved toward Jack—toward the black lace nightgown—as though mesmerized.

“Oh, it’s beautiful!” Lona’s face—so like a child’s, he thought, for all that she was almost thirty—was wide-eyed and delighted. Her eyes explored the nightgown avidly. She touched her cheek to its softness, virtually embraced it.

“Lovely,” she said. “It’s lovely…”

“Glad you like it, honey,” Jack said, but he was aware that Lona was still so taken up with the beauty of her present that she hadn’t heard him. He wanted to kiss her. But he couldn’t let her think that he was buying her affection with the present. Slowly does it, he told himself.

“How about a drink?” he asked, louder this time. They’d celebrate the end of all bad feeling. And he, in addition, would celebrate the fact that his plan had worked—the end of his fear that it wouldn’t. “How about a little drink?”

Then—as suddenly as if a curtain had been pulled—the smile left Lona’s face. “Will one bottle be enough?” She didn’t so much ask the question as throw it at him.

“I, ah, I guess so,” he answered, uncertainly. He was confused. “What do you mean, doll?” he asked.

She stood there, stiff. Her face was cold, sullen. “This lovely nightie.” There was a sneer in the way she said that. She pushed the nightgown from her, glowered at it. “All this lace. The woman in me must have been carried away by it. Take the thing back. Go on, get your twenty-five dollars. That—that ought to buy enough liquor to get you good and drunk. I know if I were you I’d never want to sober up again as long as I lived.”

What happened? What made her change? Why had she—? Then, ringing like a bunch of jangly bells, the words—Twenty-five dollars Twenty-five dollars Twenty-five—He stared at her, swallowed. “How’d you know?” he asked, his voice thick. He poured whiskey into the glass, tossed it down.

“How’d I know?” Her voice rose shrilly. “Why, there won’t be anybody around here tomorrow who won’t know! Mrs. Cheener’s son-in-law, the guard at the pen, called to give her the information. Did you forget about her son-in-law? He saw you there. Ugh!”

She looked at him with disgust and horror. He had forgotten. He never once thought of it “How could you do it?” Lona asked, her face twisted.

“I did it for you!” He cried his outrage aloud. “That’s how I could do it! For us—to buy some nice present for you—to make you happy…” He moved toward her, his face hurt and baffled, his hands groping. They found the nightgown she had dropped, held it out to her in one last offering.

Lona stepped away. She shook her head. “Oh, no,” she said softly, almost in a whisper. “Not for me. I wouldn’t touch it. What do you think I am?” And once again she cried, incredulously, “How could you do it? Oh!”

His head was buzzing. The straight whiskey, no supper, the whole horrible business at the penitentiary, now this. But he had to answer her question.

“Well, uh…he had it coming to him. He killed someone. If it wasn’t me, it would of been someone in my place, so what’s the difference? That’s the law.” And, pleased with this neat summation, he cocked his head on one side and looked at her. For a moment there was silence. Then Lona moved away, began to pick up her clothes and fold them up haphazardly. She pulled a suitcase from its place. Her mouth was tight-pressed.

Jack looked at her in anguish. Ten minutes ago he’d thought hoped, that their marriage was saved. Now… He wiped his face. “Where’re you—? Lona? Please!”

She spun around and screamed at him, “I’m packing up! I’m going to get out of here. And this—and this—” She pushed at the black lace nightgown which he continued to hold out to her in supplication. “Get it away from me!”

Jack dropped the frothy garment and held her shoulders.

“Oh, no, you’ve got to stay—you’ve got to wear it, Lona! I only did it for you—only for you. It was awful, horrible—and if you don’t stay, then it was all for nothing. I’ll have helped kill a man I never knew, never even saw before, and all for nothing. All—”

She struck away his hands from her shoulders, and—when he touched her again—she clawed at him, spitting out ugly words. Then he knew that it had indeed been all for nothing, and a fury he had never known in his life took him.

“I’ll kill you!” he cried. “I’ll kill you!” He hit her—once—twice. He lost count…

* * * *

There were voices outside, old Mrs. Cheener’s, the Roanes’, others. What was he looking for? he asked himself. A towel. There wasn’t any. He knelt slowly to the floor, picked up the black lace nightgown, wet it at the sink, knelt again, began to wipe the blood away. The voices were baying outside, people pounding at the door, while he sponged his wife’s face. “Lona?” he said slowly. “Lona?”

* * * *

There was sawdust on the floor of the long room, just like in a butcher shop. Bright lights, terribly bright, bore down from overhead on the far end. The near end was dark. The men there shifted from foot to foot, coughed nervously. The sound stopped abruptly as the door at the far end opened.

A group of people entered, but the men already waiting had eyes only for the one in the open shirt—the one who blinked, who ran the tip of his tongue along his lips. The man walked steadily enough and his head was up and he didn’t say anything. But there was, suddenly, the sharp fresh smell of his sweat. It was the odor of fear. His face was paper-white.

The guards bound his arms, swiftly, tightly. One of them pinned a target over his heart. The chaplain murmured from his little book. These were the regular officials of the State and the State’s justice and mercy. The men waiting at the far end of the room—the bright lights enabled them to see but not to be seen—were volunteers. They had driven up to the prison in their own cars. Later they would drive away, each one with twenty-five dollars in his pocket (two crisp tens and one crisp five); and many of them would drive away along the newly-built road. The road Jack Clauson had helped to build.

Jack Clauson blinked in the bright lights. The straps were very tight. His head moved from side to side—as if he was looking for an out—and knowing there wasn’t any. He blinked and licked his lips and waited.