Death Wish

It was mostly aluminum, very lightweight. Paul had asked if there was a target range in town where he might practice with the gun and the clerk had directed him to a rod-and-gun club ten miles up in the foothills; he had paid two dollars for the use of the range and had spent Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday burning up several hundred rounds of ammunition. By Sunday night his ears had been half-deaf and ringing, and his right hand had been numb from the repeated recoil, but he was confident he could hit a man-size target from several yards’ distance and for self-protection that was all you needed. Sunday night he had cleaned the gun meticulously and oiled it and wrapped it in a sock and fitted it carefully into the bottom of his briefcase. There had only been one bad moment—getting on the plane they had been searching the passengers; but he didn’t look like a hijacker or a dope smuggler and he knew it. They looked down into the briefcase but didn’t remove anything from it; he was passed through, politely enough, but he hadn’t stopped sweating for an hour. After that he had filled up with outraged indignation against the twisted system of values that made it a criminal offense to carry the means of your own preservation. He was sure what he felt wasn’t guilt; it was the fear of getting caught, which was a different thing. And they had no moral right to force a man to fear that sort of thing.

At any rate it was better than having to fear for your life. Only criminals and fools ever went to prison. If he were ever caught with the gun in his pocket it would be troublesome but he knew it wouldn’t be critical; he had Jack, he knew several high-powered attorneys, and he had sufficient moral justification to insure that the worst that could possibly happen would be a token conviction on some minor charge, a suspended sentence or a reprimand. The only ones who got jailed were the ones caught red-handed committing violent felonies and even then if you had any brains you could find ways to avoid imprisonment. That was the trouble with the system. Last year Jack had defended a fifteen-year-old boy in Family Court accused of threatening a store-cashier with a knife and taking eighteen dollars from the till. The store had large signs everywhere a

At the time it had seemed sad. Now Paul was thoroughly on the side of the storekeeper.

*  *  *

Jack, he thought. When the welcome-backs and the hearty shouts were dispensed with he went to the desk and phoned Jack’s office. “I tried to get you earlier.”

“I was at the hospital.”

His fingers reached the desk and gripped its edge. “You sound terrible. What is it?”

“Not now—not through two switchboards. Look, Pop, can we meet somewhere—around lunchtime? I’ve juggled my calendar, I’ve got two court cases this morning but I’ll be free after eleven-thirty or so if things don’t back up in court.”

“Of course. But can’t you at least——”

“I’d rather not. Look, suppose I come up to your office. I ought to get there about noon. Wait for me, will you?”

He spent most of the morning in the computer room feeding figures to the programmers. It was easier than thinking. Jack had never been the kind who hinted at mysteries; he wasn’t playing a game. It had to be something to do with Carol—but that was all the more puzzling. Paul had phoned last night, he had kept in constant touch from Arizona, and nothing had occurred that hadn’t been predicted—Carol was responding to therapy, the doctors expected to release her within a few weeks.…

He was back in his office by ten minutes to twelve. When Thelma buzzed he pounced on the intercom but she said, “It’s Mr. Kreutzer.”

Sam came loping through the door with a slothful smile beneath his moustache. “Well, how was it out there in all that sunshine?”

“Fine—fine.”

“How about lunch? Bill and I thought we’d just pop downstairs and grab a liverwurst. Join us?”

“Afraid I can’t. Jack’s coming by any minute.”

“We’ll squeeze him in, what the hell. We don’t discriminate against lawyers.”

“No, it’s family business. I’ll take a raincheck. How’s Adele?”

“Just fine. Kind of worried about you. She seems to feel we owe you an apology for that night. You were pretty upset, understandably, and I guess we shouldn’t have jumped all over you that way. Forgiven?”

“Sure, Sam. Nothing to forgive.”

“Then you won’t turn down an invitation. It’s our fifteenth, two weeks from tomorrow—that’s Friday the third. We’re having a little a

“Well—yes. Thanks, Sam. I’ll be there.”

“Great, great. Write it down in your calendar so you won’t forget it.” Sam glanced at his watch and shot his cuff. “Well, I’ll toddle along. See you.” And went.

By twelve-fifteen Paul had started to fidget. He drew a heavily crosshatched doodle around the Kreutzers’ party in his appointment book; went down the hall and washed his hands; came back to the office expecting to find Jack waiting, and found it empty and sat behind the desk fooling with the revolver.

When the intercom buzzed he shoved the gun quickly into his pocket and looked up as the door opened and Jack came in dragging his heels, his eyes faded and his drooping pinched mouth suggesting dejection and anxiety. He kicked the door shut behind him.

“Well, what is it?”

“Let me sit down.” Jack went to the leather chair and sank into it like a fighter collapsing on a ring-corner stool after the fifteenth round. “Christ, it’s hot for this time of year.”

“What’s the matter with Carol, Jack?”

“Everything.”

“But she was getting on so well——”

“Not all that well, Pop. I didn’t see any point getting you all disturbed over it on long-distance telephones. I put a better face on it than the facts deserved.”

“I see.”

“Please don’t do the chilly number on me, Pop. I thought it was best at the time. What was the point of worrying you? You’d only have loused up your work, or quit altogether and flown back here. There wasn’t a thing you could do. They haven’t even let me see her in two weeks.”

“Then I would suggest,” Paul said through his teeth, “that we hire ourselves another psychiatrist. This man sounds as if he belongs in an institution himself.”

Jack shook his head. “No, he’s all right. We’ve had consultations with three other shrinks. They’re all pretty much agreed. One of them voted against the insulin therapy, but other than that, they’ve all subscribed to the same diagnosis and the same program of treatment. It isn’t their fault, Pop. It just hasn’t worked.”

“What are you telling me?”

“Pop, they’ve tried hypnosis, they’ve tried insulin shock twice, and it just hasn’t worked. She’s not responding. She keeps drawing farther back into that shell every day. Do you want the technical jargon? I can reel out yards of it and cut it to fit, I’ve been listening to it for weeks. Catatonia. Dementia praecox. Passive schizoid paranoia. They’ve been slinging Freudian argot around like bricks. It boils down to the fact that she had an experience she couldn’t face and she’s ru