If I Die Before I Wake Read online

  I remembered the rats in the swamp. This one’s eyes seemed almost human.

  We sat and waited.

  The whistle faded… somewhere people were happy, free, going to new places, new sounds. The whistle died.

  Still we did not move.

  Off in another cell a man was crying. He said over and over, under his breath, ‘Oh, my God… Oh, my God…’ He was one of the three slated to go down the ‘dance hall’ to the chair tomorrow night. He poisoned his wife in a suicide pact – then forgot to take some himself.

  I was one of the three, too – and I had killed no one.

  I seized the stool; the rat dived under the bunk. I yelled at him to come out and fight. He darted toward the door.

  But I was quicker. I came down hard with the stool. It caught him on the side, just as he reached the bars. He dragged himself on, stunned but still fighting. I grabbed him by the tail.

  Now – now!

  I swung him around my head. He curved back to bite my hand. I smashed his head against the wall.

  Blood and brains splattered.

  He was dead.

  IV

  At last!

  Bannister came in. His dark hawk’s face was blacker than ever, but his eyes were bright, burning. Without smelling the Scotch on his breath I could see that he had been hitting it strong.

  I wet my lips.

  ‘You saw the Governor?’

  ‘Yes – I saw him.’

  ‘No luck?’

  ‘No luck.’

  We stared at each other.

  ‘Then it’s all over?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I did all I could – more than anyone else could have, under the circumstances. After all, you made love to my wife, didn’t you? You helped Grisby plot the perfect crime against me, didn’t you? And then, when it failed, you accused me of his murder, didn’t you? Do you think anyone else would have helped you as much as I have?’

  I could feel the hot blood rush to my head.

  ‘You’d have to have a damned good reason, you’re right. And you did have – the best reason of all – that you killed him yourself! You took the case to make sure I didn’t get off.’

  He smiled.

  ‘There never was much doubt about the verdict, especially after you went against my judgment and admitted being in a plot with him. Whether they believed it or not, it was still bad. You ought to see that now.’

  I was boiling mad.

  ‘I don’t see it at all. I didn’t kill him – you did, you did! Why don’t you confess? Why let me go to the chair for something you did yourself? They’d never send you to the chair. All you have to do is plead self-defense. He was going to kill you – I can prove it! It’s a perfect case of self-defense.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘No – that’s where you don’t know the law. Oh, of course, if a man walks up to you and threatens your life with a homicidal instrument, you are entirely within your rights of self-defense to kill him. But if you have fair warning, if you know that he is coming to take your life and you lay a trap for him, then you are as guilty as he would be, even though that would be by far the more sensible course.’

  ‘And that’s what you did.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ He laughed. ‘Though I will say, it would have been poetic justice if I had. I’ll give Grisby credit – he planned the perfect crime. I’d like to think he made one fatal mistake – he underestimated his man. Instead of being the victim of the perfect crime, I committed it! The perfect crime reversed! But, I’m sorry – I can’t say that.’

  ‘You can’t because you won’t.’

  I turned wildly to look for the guards. The man in the cell down the way – the one who’d been crying all afternoon, ‘Oh, my God, oh, my God’ – was yelling like a madman, bringing the guards on the run.

  ‘Get me out of here,’ he shrieked. ‘I can’t stand it. I’ll go crazy. I’ll slam my head against the wall.’

  The guards were trying to quiet him.

  Bannister smiled.

  ‘Maybe he’s seen an execution before,’ he said. ‘Have you? I’ll tell you about it. Tomorrow morning they’ll put you in a pre-execution cell. They’ll give you a big dinner, anything you want. Then along about eleven tomorrow night – they used to have the executions at five in the morning, but this makes it more cozy – the guards will come in and slit your right trouser leg. That’s so they can fit the electrode on when they strap you in the chair. Then they’ll lead you down a little corridor, if you can walk; if not, they’ll carry you. You’ll go into the execution chamber and up to a large square chair—’

  ‘Guard!’

  ‘One man will hold your arms, another your legs. In a minute the straps will be adjusted, a hood will go down over your head – but before it drops, you’ll—’

  ‘Guard!’

  My voice was so low and hoarse they did not hear. Bannister smiled.

  ‘It won’t do you any good to call the guards. Besides, you ought to be grateful to me, if you really think I killed him. I might have killed you, too, as you say I did Grisby and Broome.’

  ‘But why? What did I do?’

  ‘You were in the plot against me, weren’t you? Isn’t that enough? It’s too bad about you in a way, I’ll admit – you were just a tool. At least there’s some merit in your case; all you were to do was to pretend to kill someone. Besides, Grisby threatened to kill you if you didn’t go through with it. It wasn’t as though you wanted to.’

  ‘That ought to let me out, oughtn’t it? Besides, if I hadn’t written that letter telling you what he planned to do, you’d never have known about it – he’d have got you sure!’

  ‘Yes – but I never received the letter. You tore it up. If Broome saw it first, as you said at the trial, he didn’t tell me. Anyway, what you should have done was come to me directly. If you had done that, instead of doing just what they told you to, you wouldn’t be worrying about going to the chair now. You’d be as free to walk out as I am.’

  ‘Except that then you’d have had to kill me, too, like you did Broome!’

  ‘You forget that the plan would have fallen through if you had refused to do what they said. As it happened, it fell through anyway, but it wasn’t your fault that Grisby got killed. Or was it?’

  I got it this time. I started to tingle all over.

  ‘”They”? What do you mean – “they”? There was only Grisby!’

  He stood back and looked at me with his face working in surprise.

  ‘Only Grisby!’ he said.

  ‘Why, sure. You didn’t think – Broome?’

  Still he looked at me. Then he shook his head slowly, almost sadly.

  ‘I knew you were dumb,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t think you were that dumb.’

  My temples began to throb. I ran a hand over my forehead. It came away wet.

  I could hardly talk.

  ‘You mean – your wife?’ I whispered.

  ‘Why, certainly! She and Grisby planned it together, the whole thing.’

  I nearly dropped through the floor.

  Grisby and Elsa!

  I tried to catch my breath. Nothing seemed real any more. Bannister was just a vague blur. But I could hear him still. His voice came as through a fog:

  ‘That’s why I put Broome out there – I knew something was up between them. Well, well. They were clever, all right – you never even guessed it. But I did…’

  I began to remember things.

  I remembered Grisby talking to me about Bannister, ‘He’s all washed up and doesn’t know it.’

  I remembered Elsa – Elsa saying to Bannister, ‘Has it honestly never occurred to you that you might be better off dead?’

  Grisby and Elsa!

  And the night on the beach, when she stopped me from leaving. Pretending to be in love with me – why? Just so I’d go t
hrough with my part! I saw it all now.

  ‘Tomorrow!’ she whispered.

  A promise…

  Tomorrow I’ll go to the chair… because of her. Tomorrow!

  I remembered other things now, too. Something she’d said once when she came to see me before the trial.

  ‘I had to come, I had to! I feel somehow – somehow as though I were responsible for your being here.’

  Crying while she’d said it – crying often afterwards. Because I was in jail – or because Bannister had turned the tables and killed Grisby? She must have known all along that Bannister had done it – she must have!

  And Broome – the way he’d talked about her and about Grisby:

  ‘You don’t think he comes out here just to see Bannister, do you?’

  ‘You’ve got her all wrong,’ I’d said. And believed it! Believed it all the way up to now!

  Bannister laughed, I looked so stunned. It brought me back to earth.

  He said: ‘Why do you suppose Grisby wanted to kill me, if not because of her? Hadn’t you thought about that at all?’

  My mouth was so dry I could hardly talk.

  ‘He said it was to – to get a lot of money.’

  ‘He told you about the partnership insurance between us?’

  ‘No – I found out about that later. I thought that’s what he must have meant.’

  ‘But didn’t you see how absurd that was? How could he collect if he was supposed to be dead himself? He couldn’t! The only way he could hope to get it was through Elsa. She’d inherit everything – and get the partnership insurance, too, if both Grisby and I could be proved dead. That’s why your part was so important – that and to throw suspicion off himself for my murder. Of course, all this is just guesswork, but how else could he get the money but through Elsa?’

  Elsa! I couldn’t believe it!

  ‘Oh, it was the perfect crime,’ Bannister went on. ‘I’ll give them credit there, at least if they planned it the way I think they did now. That’s why I said it’s too bad about you going to the chair for it – you were just the tool.’

  Suddenly it didn’t make much difference about going to the chair any more. Elsa—

  Now Bannister seemed to be talking far away. I could hardly hear him:

  ‘Of course, Broome knew about Grisby and Elsa. That’s why he was there – to keep an eye on them. He didn’t know about the plan to kill me – at least he didn’t that I know of – and certainly I didn’t know it either. But he was keeping close watch, and he did know that they planned to run away together. The night before you were going to fake Grisby’s “murder” – when Grisby came out to have dinner with us – what do you suppose he was doing when I left him alone with Elsa, with Broome listening? Arguing about the South Seas – whether Tahiti was the best place! Broome heard it all outside the window; he told me right after.’

  So Elsa was going to meet Grisby in the South Seas! I had been dumb, all right. She must have laughed plenty – me thinking she was in love with me, when it was Grisby all the time.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you got Grisby. Why didn’t you get her, too?’

  The question startled him. He breathed liquor into my face.

  ‘Kill my wife? That would be killing me. If anything happened to her – if I lost her – what would I have to live for? She’s life, youth, everything that otherwise would be denied me…’

  The guard looked in at us.

  ‘Hey, guard!’ I yelled. ‘I’ve been trying to get you. Bannister practically told me he killed Grisby – to keep him from running away with his wife!’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’

  ‘Call the Warden. Hold him till he comes!’

  Bannister laughed.

  ‘He’s hysterical,’ he said. ‘Well, I did all I could for you. Laurence. No one could have done more. The cards were just stacked against you, I guess.’

  ‘Yes – and you stacked them!’

  ‘Better let him alone,’ said the guard. ‘He’s only working himself up.’

  Bannister nodded.

  ‘Well, good-bye, then,’ he said.

  I was so choked up I couldn’t say a word. I just stood and watched him go out – my last chance to beat the chair, as I figured it. Even the way he walked, with that funny jerky stride, seemed to be mocking me.

  Back in the cell, I threw myself down on the bunk and cried like a baby.

  Elsa! Elsa and Grisby!

  It didn’t seem possible…

  I heard the guard calling my name.

  ‘What’s the matter with you? This is the third time I’ve called. There’s someone to see you.’

  I tried not to sound as though I had been crying.

  ‘I guess I didn’t hear.’

  ‘Well, get a move on.’

  I followed him out to the visiting cell – and nearly dropped. Beyond the screen was – Elsa!

  V

  I stared at her.

  She raised her veil. Her face was white.

  ‘I saw him!’ she said. ‘I think he saw me, too! It was just as I was coming in. He was getting into a cab. I didn’t look back. How awful, if he should find me here. But I had to come – I had to see you. Laurence—’

  I couldn’t talk. I just looked at her.

  She backed away.

  ‘Why – why do you stare at me like that? Has something happened?’

  I looked down at the floor. My body sagged. She thought it was because I had given up.

  ‘Oh, Laurence – There must be some way out, there must be!’

  I looked up at her again.

  ‘No… I’m done for.’

  Her eyes moved back and forth over mine. All at once tears rolled down her cheeks.

  ‘I love you so much,’ she said.

  I found my voice. I blatted out:

  ‘So much that you’re sending me to the chair for something I didn’t do. So much that you used me for a tool. If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be out at sea somewhere—’

  It was just as though I had hit her.

  She staggered back.

  ‘Why, Laurence! You don’t know what you’re saying!’

  ‘Oh, don’t I! You and Grisby cooked up the whole thing – you let me make love to you so I’d stay on the job and go through with my part. You don’t give a damn about me and never did. It was Grisby all the time. You were going to meet him down at Tahiti – I know all about it. Bannister told me everything. He got it all from Broome.’

  ‘But – but that’s crazy!’

  ‘What did you do, come down here to gloat, like Bannister did? Well, you can get out – I’ve had enough. I’ll go to the chair – I’ll go and be glad of it.’

  ‘Laurence – wait! Who told you this? It isn’t true. Listen to me – you have to listen to me – it isn’t true.’

  ‘I listened to you once before and look what it got me.’

  ‘But I can’t have you go to your – to your death, with such thoughts. Don’t you see? It isn’t true – I—’

  ‘You! Do you know what I’d do if I was out there? Yes, right now – this minute! I’d take that lily-white neck of yours in my hands—’

  ‘Laurence!’ she screamed. Her hands went to her throat.

  ‘I’d choke you like Bannister choked Broome. I’d smash you against the wall like I did the rat in my cell. Then, at least, when they killed me it would be for a reason – not just because you let me make love to you one night on the beach. And you even held back on that!’

  The tears were streaming down her face.

  ‘Please, please, listen to me!’

  ‘I suppose you weren’t going to meet Grisby down in the South Seas… after he killed Bannister?’

  She was silent.

  ‘That’s all I wanted to know.’

  I turned and started to go out.

  ‘Lau
rence, wait!’

  Something in her voice made me stop.

  ‘Grisby asked me to meet him there, yes. He’d been after me for months to go away with him. Is that what you mean?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Not just that he asked you – that you said you’d go.’

  ‘But I didn’t!’

  Now I had her.

  ‘Broome heard you and Grisby arguing about it. That was the night before I drove him down to the beach. You must have said yes – it was that night he told me he had decided definitely to kill Bannister. Bannister beat him to it, that’s all. But don’t tell me you didn’t know.’

  ‘Please! He argued with me because I told him I couldn’t do it – I couldn’t meet him at Tahiti or anywhere. That’s what Broome heard – only he couldn’t have heard all of it. Because I said it would kill Marco for me to leave him. You don’t understand what I mean to him – everything, his life!’

  ‘So you fixed it with Grisby to get him out of the way.’

  She moved over closer and leaned against the screen.

  ‘Oh, how can you say that? I pitied him – I told Lee it was hopeless, to forget it, I couldn’t leave Marco, I was too much a part of him. He asked me if it would be different if it weren’t for Marco. I was unhappy, you know how unhappy I was. I said everything would be different. I didn’t realize what he meant to do, or that he would think I would go with him if it weren’t for Marco. But it made him so happy, I couldn’t tell him the truth – that I didn’t love him, it was impossible.’

  I began to see that Bannister might have been all wrong about her. I saw, too, how Broome could have been on the wrong track, hearing little bits here and there.

  ‘Listen!’ I said. ‘That may all be, but you must have known that Bannister was the one who killed Grisby – you must have! Yet you didn’t say anything at the trial.’

  ‘What could I say? That Marco killed him because of jealousy over me? Is that what you mean?’

  ‘Partly.’

  ‘But I couldn’t say that. So far as I knew, Marco hadn’t the slightest idea that Lee wanted me to leave him, or that he was paying me any particular attention. Of course, when I found out Broome was a detective, I was afraid. But even knowing that he had been watching me, even knowing how jealous Marco could be—’