A sound made him pause in his pacing and look into the lower bunk. The sound was a snore. He saw that he was no longer alone in the cell; while he'd slept they'd put someone else there and he was now lying in the lower bunk. Fully dressed, as Benny was, except for shoes and coat. Even in the dim light of the cell, the man looked familiar to him.
Benny bent over him.
It was Mister Fleck. That surprised him, but what surprised him a thousand times more was that it was also the devil in his nightmare or vision, the devil without a pitchfork, the one who had laughed at him. The face of Mr. Fleck and of that devil were the same. And he remembered now why the laugh of that devil had sounded as though he'd heard it before. It was Mister Fleck's laugh, as Mister Fleck had laughed at him early in the evening, when he'd told Mister Fleck that he'd killed those women. The police hadn't believed him, but they hadn't laughed at him.
And suddenly he knew what he had to do to make the police really believe him, to make them believe that he'd done evil and must be punished.
He put his hands on Mister Fleck's shoulders and pulled him up to a sitting position. "Mister Fleck!" he said.
Mister Fleck's eyes opened and blinked. "Huh?" he said.
Benny was very earnest because this was very serious. "Listen, Mister Fleck," he said. "I'm sorry, but I got to kill you. I got to kill you like I killed them women so the police will believe I killed them."
"Huh? Benny—?"
"I want you to know, Mister Fleck, I ain't mad at you. Even if you laughed at me. It's bad to kill because you're mad and I want you to know I ain't mad. I just got to kill you. And besides, it won't be evil for me to kill you to make them believe me. It won't be evil, Mister Fleck, because you're a devil."
Mister Fleck opened his mouth to say something, or to scream, but nothing came out because Benny's hands were tight around his throat, and getting tighter. A minute later they let go, and something limp and dead fell back on the lower bunk.