Killer, Come Back to Me

“Stop it, stop it!” Cleve got up from his chair. His figure cut the light, threw a shadow on the screen, swaying.

“Thanks for the trouble, Jamie. I’m tired too. Can—can I have these film clips of Denim?”

“Sure.”

“I’m going downtown to police headquarters tonight and turn in Robert Denim for the murder of Diana Coyle. Thanks again, Jamie. You been a great he

lp. Night.”

Five, ten, fifteen, twenty hours. Count ’em by twos, by fours, by sixes. Rush the hours by. Argue with the cops and go home and flop in bed.

Toddle off to your gas chamber, Robert Denim: that’s a good little killer!

And then in the middle of deep slumber, your phone rang.

“Hullo.”

And a voice said over the phone in the night, “Cleve?”

“Yeah?”

And the voice said, “This is Juke Davis at the film laboratory. Come quick, Cleve. I been hurt, I been hurt, oh, I been hurt.…” A body fell at the other end of the line.

Silence.

* * *

He found Juke lying in a chemical bath. Red chemical from his own body where a knife had dug out his dreams and his living and his talking forever and spread it around in a scarlet lake.

A phone receiver hung dangling on one greenish wall. It was dark in the laboratory. Someone had shuffled in through the dim tunnels, come out of the dark, and now, standing there, Cleve heard nothing but the film moving forever on its trellises, like some vine going up through the midnight room trying to find the sun. Numbly, Cleve knelt beside Juke. The man lay half propped against the film machinery where the printing light shot out and imprinted negative to positive. He had crawled there, across the room.

In one clenched fist, Cleve found a frame of film; the faces of Tally, Georgie, Diana, and Robert Denim on it. Juke had found out something, something about this film, something about a killer; and his reward had come swiftly to him through the studio dark.

Cleve used the phone.

“This is Cleve Morris. Is Robert Denim still being held at Central Jail?”

“He’s in his cell, and he won’t talk. I tell you, Morris, you gave us a bum steer with them film clips.…”

“Thanks.” Cleve hung up. He looked at Juke lying there by the machinery. “Well, who was it. Juke? It wasn’t Denim. That leaves Georgie and Tally? Well?”

Juke said nothing and the machinery sang a low sad song.

One year went by. Another year followed. And then a third.

Robert Denim contracted out to another studio. Tally married Georgie, Guilding died at a New Year’s party of over-drinking and a bad heart, time went on, everybody forgot. Well, almost everybody.…

Diana, child, is it cold out there tonight—?

Cleve rose in his seat. Three years ago. He blinked his eyes. Same kind of night as this, cold and raining.

The screen flickered.

Cleve paid little attention. It kept on flickering strangely. Cleve stiffened. His heart beat with the sprocketing noise of the machine. He bent forward.

“Jamie, will you run that last one hundred feet over again?”

“Sure thing, Cleve.”