Chase: Roman

you're with?’
        ‘Glenda,’ Chase repeated.
        ‘Of course,’ Judge said. ‘She's a fornicator, just like you, just like the Allenby girl. And I still may kill you, all of you, bring you the proper judgment.’
        ‘Oh?’
        ‘You don't think they'll send me to prison, do you? They'll sock me away in an institution and give me psychiatric care. Though if they try to give me Dr Cauvel, I'll scream bloody murder.’ He laughed until he choked, blinked tears from his eyes. ‘I'll get out again, maybe not for ten years or fifteen. But they won't keep me until I die.’ He looked at the paper lying by his feet. ‘Besides, you've forced a confession from me. That might be just enough to cause a mistrial, if it's introduced as evidence.’
        Chase picked up the pistol which he had placed on the television set. ‘You made the silencer yourself?’
        ‘Yes,’ Judge said. ‘It wasn't that difficult. A piece of pipe the proper diameter, the shop tools at the school where I teach - presto!’ He smiled at Chase. ‘That would make a good picture for the front page, you standing over me with the murder weapon in your hand, triumphant and glorious.’
        Chase slapped him hard with the back of his hand. When Judge's mouth fell, he jammed the silenced barrel between the man's teeth and pulled the trigger. Once.
        He dropped the gun and turned away from the dead man, walked into the hall and opened the bathroom door. He put up the lid of the toilet bowl, and after a few moments, vomited into the water. He remained on his knees for a long time, coughing up bile before he could control spasms that racked him. He flushed the toilet three times, put the lid down and sat on it, wiping at the cold sweat on his face.
        It was done.
        No more lies.
        Having won the Congressional Medal of Honor, the most sacred and jealously guarded award the country had, he had only wanted to return to the attic room in Mrs Fiedling's house and take up his penitence again. They had not allowed him that much.
        Then he met Glenda, and things changed. There was no question about returning to the hermetic way of life, sealed off from experience. All that he wanted now was a quietude, a chance for their love to develop, a normal life. Cauvel, the police and Richard Linski had not allowed him that. The press, if it were found that he had solved the case himself, would not allow him that either.
        He had known, without admitting it to himself, from the moment he had decided to come out here on his own, that he intended to kill Linski in just such a fashion. While he cleaned up all signs of the fight in the living room, he knew it. But he had not faced up to it until he pulled the trigger.
        Examining his conscience, he felt no guilt. This was different from the women in the tunnel. They had done nothing to him, had offered no genuine threat to his peace. Judge, however, brought an end to hopes of peace.
        Chase rose and went to the sink. He rinsed his mouth out until the bad taste was gone, then returned to the commode, sat down and tried to think the rest of it through.
        He felt no guilt, because other people had driven him into a corner - and permitted him to escape by using the deadly skills the army had taught him. He had won by their rules. He was sorry for what he'd done, but the guilt was reserved for those Vietnamese women who would live as a part of him until he died. He had subconsciously ignored the gun on the television set, he now saw, taking the wound in his shoulder as further punishment and reason to act. Besides, Richard Linski had been as much a victim of national hypocrisy as he had himself. Play it rough in war and in business at home. That was the way of the nation, and he had become an acolyte to the religion.
        He no longer had to be a hero.
        He got up and left the bathroom.
        In the front room, he untied Richard Linski's body and let it sprawl on the floor. He wiped the chair with wet paper towels until there was no blood on it, replaced it at the dining-room table, then put the towels in the plastic garbage bag.
        When he considered the pistol, he realized there would be three slugs missing from the clip, but he could do nothing about that. It was no proof that Judge had shot at anyone or that he had not killed himself. He wiped the gun with a towel he had got from the linen closet and pressed Judge's hand