Chase: Roman

around it to leave unmistakable prints.
        With the pistol out of the way, he searched for the two slugs which Judge had expended earlier. He found one embedded in the baseboard, and he dug it out without leaving a very noticeable mark. The other was behind the portable bar under the spot where the mirror had rested. He dug it out along with a large piece of glass that he had overlooked the first time.
        Using the same towel, he decided to begin wiping everything he had touched, but brought himself up short at that. There might be a good many fingerprints on things as it was, enough to mask his own a bit. If the police found the doorknob wiped clean, however, they'd not believe the suicide angle for a minute. He put the towel in the plastic sack.
        It was a quarter to twelve when he reached the Mustang and put the garbage bag in the trunk. He got in, started the engine and drove down the street past Linski's bungalow. The lights were burning. They would burn all night.
        On the way back to the motel, he began to think about Glenda and about taking her to bed again, soon, within the hour. This time, he felt almost certain, there would be no inability on his part. That thought, combined with the knowledge that Judge was out of their lives for good, served to liberate his spirit, loosen one bond after another until he felt as if he were soaring. Giddy, he considered how soon he should ask her to marry him; he wanted her as a wife, more than he had wanted anything.
        He had not forgotten Operation Jules Verne. It was just that he had come to see that he was as much a victim of his society as the Vietnamese women had been victims of theirs. Guilt should be tempered with hope and happiness, even for him.
        He thought about Glenda again, pictured her as his wife, liked the picture. In a few years they might even have a baby. Just one child. He didn't want her to become a baby machine. And if it were a boy, none of Them would touch him, none of Them would take him away when he turned eighteen and teach him to kill. Society had taught Chase how to play tough, and he would use every trick he had learned to protect his own.
        She was waiting in the room, sitting on the bed with the television whispering at her. When he knocked, she unlatched and unchained the door, looked out warily, then grinned.
        ‘What happened?’ she asked as she welcomed him inside.
        He began to unbutton her blouse, and the sense of capability did not leave him. He was shaking a little, but he did not think she would notice. He said, ‘He killed himself.’
        ‘ What?’
        ‘When I got there, I took my time sneaking into the place, wormed my way to the living room - and found him dead. He'd left a suicide note.’
        ‘But what took you so long?’
        ‘I didn't build up the nerve to go into the house until after ten. When I found him, I had to sit down and think it out. I wiped my prints off the doorknob and everything I touched, then took my time getting out of there in case someone might be watching from another house.’
        ‘You're sure he's dead?’
        ‘Yes.’
        She came against him, her hand on his arm, directly over the lump of his makeshift bandage. ‘What's this?’
        ‘I fell and cut myself.’
        She helped him take his shirt off, and she undid the bandage. ‘Cut yourself on what?’
        ‘A broken mirror,’ he said, feeling sick. ‘I broke a mirror in Linski's place and cut my arm.’
        ‘Come into the bathroom,’ she said.
        It had stopped bleeding and was crusted black and ugly. She bathed it tenderly and used one of the pillowcases to make clean strip bandages. ‘We should see a doctor about this.’
        ‘It'll be all right,’ he said. He took her head in his hands when she had finished tending him, and said, ‘Glenda, will you marry me?’
        ‘You're in shock,’ she said. ‘Don't propose marriage when you're not clear-headed.’
        ‘If you don't answer me now,’ he said, ‘I'm afraid I'm going to start screaming and be unable to stop.’
        She smiled, but quickly saw that he was serious. She said, ‘You haven't said you love me.’
        ‘Haven't I? My own stupidity. I do, and you know that I do. And I also should tell you that from now on I think I can also love you in the physical sense as well.’ He smiled at her. ‘Marry me?’
        She stood and unhooked her bra, stepped out