Then the hours of riding, of being jerked and shoved, of people staring and people talking, and the bright steel handcuffs that cut into his wrists and the pain in his head and the aching nothingness inside him; the police shouting questions at him and then others asking him questions and listening quietly while he told them how he had killed her and why he had killed her, and then what he had said was brought back to him typed neatly and he read it and signed it; then the darkness of the cell where he wanted to sleep but could not sleep because he had to think, trying to remember what he had said, trying to remember if he had said it correctly. He had said it right and what he had done was right, and all his thinking only came back to the simple, quick judgment and decision he had made when he saw V dead.
He would see them looking at him; he wondered if they thought he was crazy. He knew they thought him a murderer, and they were right. But they should understand that he realized it too, that he knew it was his doing and only his, that his was the responsibility, that he wanted to pay for it. Responsibility; that was the only word that came near describing the enormity of it; his responsibility—Red, the kid, and finally—V. The feeling of responsibility that had grown from the passion and the rotten, corrupting jealousy, the desire and the shame of the desire, that had changed and grown, and had grown too large…
Why had it happened this way? He had not been the first man to seduce a girl. But that girl had been V. His had not been the first fight, but Red had been killed. Abortions were common, but this one had gone wrong. And he had never understood. He had never understood what was wrong and what was right, good and bad, what he wanted and did not want; he had never been able to solve the knotted snarl of his life because of the very complexity of that snarl, because of his indecision, because of the double responsibility he felt, and when, finally he had become man enough to solve it, it was too late, and too many forces had been set in motion. V was dead.
The next day Gene came.
The turnkey brought her to the door of the cell and went away, the jingle of the keys he carried and his squeaking shoes fading to silence down the long corridor. Sitting on the cot, he looked at Gene through the barred door.
After a long time he got up, stretched, and went over to her. The black, spaced bars were between them. Gene’s hands were two white knots of flesh, pierced by the bars, and between them her face was like death, her eyes huge and dark with seeing too much. Two bright spots of fever burned on her cheeks.
He stood with his legs braced apart, looking down into her face. “What do you want?”
Her white lips parted. She whispered, “Why are you doing this?”
“You’d never understand,” he said. “Go on home.”
“Please…”
“Get out,” he whispered fiercely. “Get out and don’t come here again. Get as far from here as you can, where you’ll never even hear about this. Don’t you ever…”
“Please. Let me take what’s coming to me.”
“Get out!” he said. Her hands clenched tighter. He saw her throat work. “This is mine,” he said.
“No! I did it, Jack.”
“Shut up! Listen,” he hissed. “Stay out of it! You stay the Goddamn hell out; don’t tell, don’t say a word. If you do I’ll kill myself in the rottenest.…” He clenched his fist in front of her face. “In the filthiest way I can!”
He was shaking when he turned away, and he heard her crying. The sound angered him. Around them the cell block was completely silent.
“Jack!”
He turned back, scowling. Her black-clad body was pressed against the bars. One hand reached through toward him. “Tell me one thing,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Tell me the truth. Please.”
“What?”
“Jack, are you doing this for me? Or for V?”
He stared at her, suddenly breathing hard. He took a step back.
“Are you doing this for me or for her?”
“Not for you,” he said.
She slumped against the door and her hands relaxed. He turned and went back to the cot and lay down with his face to the wall. After a while he heard her go away.