The Nothing Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

was soaked to the skin before I'd gone twenty feet. I slid into the seat, shivering yet not really conscious of the cold. I uncorked one of the bottles and raised it, staring blankly through th streaming windshield.
    Until the last time-her last hell-raising visit to Pacific City-I'd been as easy on her as a man could be who was through with his wife. I'd put it to her as I had in the hospital: that it was just simply a case of not loving her any more. But it hadn't worked, and I'd seen it wasn't going to work. In a way, I was actually holding out hope to her. So, the last time, I'd got tough, tough and nasty. And it seemed to have done the job.
    She hadn't been in Pacific City for three months. I'd have sworn that in another three months or so she'd be filing for divorce, that she'd made the break final and marry someone else. That was what she would have done. That, I was sure, was what she would have done. Except for Lem Stukey.
    Lem wanted something that only I could deliver. He'd been looking for a way to force me to deliver. So I figure he'd started wondering about her, and he'd got in touch with her and started her to wondering: _Think it over, keed. There ain't no other woman; you can't get him to go out with a babe. And the guy's drinkin' himself to death. Something's botherin' him, see? Maybe he done somethin' wrong while he was in the army, and he split with you to keep from mixing you up in it_…
    Well, Ellen would know that I hadn't done anything "wrong." She'd know that her Brownie wasn't the kind to commit bigamy or get himself an incurable dose or engage in espionage, or involve himself in any similarly shameful situation or activity. Still, I'd seemed quite contented with our marriage before I entered the army, yet afterward-as soon as I was shipped back to the States-I'd insisted on splitting up. And since there wasn't another woman, since I wasn't in love with someone else, why…?
    Stukey had prodded her. He'd kept her mind on the puzzle. And the truth must have finally dawned on her or she wouldn't be here.
    It was rather strange, of course, that he'd told me she was back, but- I shook my head. It wasn't strange. Very little went on in Pacific City that Lem didn't know about. I'd know that he knew she was back, and his failure to tell me would have seemed suspicious. As it was, he hadn't carried the matter off too well. He'd overacted-been a little too offhand. I hadn't thought him capable of embarrassment but obviously he had been.
    I held the bottle to my mouth, swallowing steadily. Swallowing and swallowing. A hammer seemed to swing against my heart, numbing it, and another hammer swung against my back, driving through from my back to the heart. And it seemed to push forward, numb and lifeless, and press out through the skin.
    Then it slid back into place. The numbness went away. It beat slowly but firmly.
    I lowered the bottle. It was more than a third empty. I'd just killed myself, but I wasn't dead. There wasn't, I thought, listening to the roar of the ocean, anything that would kill me. I was going to go right on living, forever and ever, and… How could I? How could I live in a world of snickers and whisperings and amused pity?
    I corked the bottle and started the car.
    I drove up to the center of town, circled the Civic Center (WPA 193 8), and turned back in the direction I'd come from but on another street. It was probably unnecessary, this maneuvering, but you could never be sure with the Lem Stukeys of the world. They operated with a peculiar shrewdness that transcended intelligence. They had climbed to their pinnacles by doing the unexpected. At any rate, I had plenty of time. Time, with me, was endless.
    There was no tail on me; I made sure of the fact. I drove through the wind-hurled downpour to the piers, wound the car through the dark chaos of sheds and warehouses, and parked in the shadows-if shadows there were in this blackness-of a sheet-iron storage building.
    I uncorked the bottle