She hadn’t been faking, but maybe that didn’t mean that she really cared. She’d been batting around on her own a long time. Drinking so much she didn’t know what she was doing, or not giving a damn if she did know. Hanging out in joints like Bert’s; getting on close terms with guys like Bert and Uncle Bud. A woman like that…
But Fay wasn’t a woman like that. Like it seemed she might be. She wasn’t cheap, shoddy, whatever else she was. She wasn’t that, even if this was some kind of a trick. And I sure hoped that it wasn’t for her sake, and mine. Because a guy like me, you sure never want to try to trick him.
For one thing, you probably won’t get away with it. He’s watching for it, he’s thought of every angle you might try to play. You make just one little move toward one of them, and he’s in there ahead of you. Moving in fast on you. He won’t take any explanations. If you’re smart, you won’t try to give him any. You tricked him—tried to take advantage of him. That’s all he sees. And about all you can do from then on is to keep out of his way. If you can. If he’ll let you. For he’ll never completely trust you again. He’ll be watching you closer than ever, and if you take one little step in the wrong direction—or even look like you are—you’ll never take another one.
I’d already had a fast one or two pulled on me. I was already damned watchful. I didn’t want to be—I wanted to be able to trust Fay—but I just couldn’t help it. So I sure hoped this wasn’t some kind of a trick.
I heard the kitchen door slam. I pulled the shade back and glanced out the window. She was coming across the yard. She had a dress on, and she was walking pretty fast; and yet she seemed to be sort of dragging her feet, hanging back. As though she was working against herself, forcing herself forward.
I felt the tension coming back. I sat up and began putting on my clothes, shoving the gun into my hip pocket. I heard her coming up the stairs. I reached for my shoes, and started putting them on as she opened the door.
She came in. She looked at me, her face stiff, her eyes nervous and frightened. I straightened up and stared at her.
“What’s up?”
“Collie, I—I—” She hesitated, took a deep breath. “I just talked with Uncle Bud, Collie.”
“Yeah?”
“I—he thinks we’d better come over there right away! I c-called him, and that’s what he said, Collie.”
I nodded. I finished tying my shoelaces, and stood up. She backed away a step.
“Go on. Why does Uncle Bud think we’d better come over there right away? Don’t you think maybe I’d better know?”
Her eyes wavered. Her face twitched as she tried to smile back at me. And then I guess she saw that I wasn’t smiling, that it just looked like a smile. She backed away another step.
“You’d better watch out,” I said. “You’ll be out the door in a minute. You might fall over the banister and break your neck.”
Fay looked over her shoulder quickly. She looked back at me, lips trembling, her face getting whiter than ever. I wondered how she’d ever gotten up the nerve to try this—even to get this far with the trick she was pulling. And knowing how frightened she was, I guess I should have liked and admired her for trying. But I didn’t. What I felt toward her was anything but liking and admiration.
“Go on. You’re not afraid to tell me, are you, Fay? After all, two people as close as us; sweethearts, I guess you’d call us—they shouldn’t be afraid of each other.”
A touch of red came into her face. She took another deep breath, hesitated, and then at last she got it out.
“The boy, C-Collie. He’s run away!”
18
I nodded and gave her a smile—a smile that wasn’t one. I said that, well, there wasn’t anything to get too excited about. The shape the boy was in, he couldn’t have gone very far. He was probably over in the house, hiding somewhere.
“N-no!” Fay shook her head. “I looked before I called Uncle Bud.”
“Well, let me look. We’ll look together. Stay nice and close together, you know, so that if one of us sees something he can point it out to the other.”
“B-but—”
“That’s what we’ll do. And we’ll do it right now.”
I took her by the arm, pushed her through the door. We went down the steps, across the yard, and into the house. We started going through the rooms, with me talking and kind of joking, and Fay stammering and answering me in almost a whisper.
“Well, his clothes are gone. It sure looks like he dressed himself and ran off.”
“Collie. We’ve got to—”
“Yes, sir. That’s just the way it looks. And it looks like he probably did it when you were over there with me. When we were both pretty busy, with the shades pulled, and we weren’t paying much attention to anything for about an hour. That’s when it happened—it looks like.”
I grinned at her. I let go of her arm suddenly, let go with a jerk that jerked her shoulder.
“We’ve got to leave, Collie! He’s had plenty of time to get to the highway.”
“He wouldn’t get that far. I’m sure of it, and so is Uncle Bud. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be coming anywhere near here.”
“B-but—”
“Uncle Bud thinks the same thing that I do, that he’s passed out somewhere right around here. He’s got to that place, some nice secluded spot where no one can see him, and that’s as far as he’ll go. That’s what Uncle Bud thinks—and I got a hunch it’s what you think.”
“No! Aaah, no, Collie! I wouldn’t—”
“I told you. I told you that boy had to stay alive, and I told you why he had to stay alive. Now, where is he? Where did you leave him?”
“I—I—” She shook her head. “Is that what you think of me? D-do you really think I’d do that to him.”
And for a moment I wavered. For a moment, I could almost see why she’d done it—and why she’d done it in this way. Fay was afraid. She wasn’t sure of what I wanted to do, so she’d tried to take the decision out of my hands. She’d hidden the boy, left him where he’d be safe until she could get word to the cops. Then, she’d told me he’d run away, so that we’d have to run. It was the only thing she could do, as she looked at it. It was practically the same thing that I’d been thinking about doing.
So…so I had it all figured out, almost. We were on the same side of the fence. We both wanted the boy to get back to his parents. That’s the way I figured, the way I thought it was. But with a thing like this—a guy like me—figuring and thinking weren’t enough. I needed Fay to tell me—just to come right out with the truth without any tricks or hedging around. It was all she’d’ve had to do…and she didn’t do it.
She was too frightened, too anxious. And when a person’s that way, they almost always do the wrong thing. And what she did was the worst thing she could possibly have done.
She’d just hit me with one trick. Now, while I was still rocking from it, fighting to hang onto myself because I thought so much of her—now, she hit me with another one.
“Collie…” She forced herself to smile. “Let’s be nice, hmm? Let’s—I-let’s lie down a while, get all nice and calm so we can talk a-and…”
Fay came toward me, holding onto the smile; forcing herself every inch of the way. Her hand went up to the shoulder of her dress, tugged at it shakily, and slowly slid it down. She hesitated then, pleading mutely with her eyes. Blushing, shamed despite the fear. Then, she took hold of the other shoulder, and slid it down. And waited.
“S-shall we, Collie?” She was almost against me.
“What do you think?” I sneered and swung with my open hand.
Fay screamed and staggered backwards, doubled over and clutching at her breasts. She bumped into a chair, and screamed again. Then, she fell down on the sofa, sat there moaning, rocking back and forth.
“That was just a sample. Try something like that again, and I’ll really clobber you!”
“Y-you!” Fay gasped. “You—you—” The rocking stopped. She raised her he
ad slowly, and looked up at me. “I want you to know, I want you to remember I warned you. I’m going to kill you for that!”
“Maybe. Maybe you will. But right now you’re going to do something else. Fast and no maybe!”
She didn’t argue about it. Fay pulled her dress back up and led the way down through the trees. We came to the culvert that ran under the lane. She nodded and stood back, and I got down and lifted him out.
I didn’t know whether he was just unconscious from the exertion, or whether he’d been slugged. But there was a big bruise on the right side of his forehead. I looked down at it, at him, so little and so limp in my arms. And then I looked at her. And if I’d had my hands free just then—well, it was a good thing for her that I didn’t have.
We went back to the house and I put the boy down on the sofa. Fay stood watching, kind of defiantly, as I sponged his face and forehead with cold water.
He came to and whispered that he felt, “F-fine,” when I asked him. I guessed that he wasn’t really hurt, just weak and frightened by so many things he couldn’t understand. Most of the “bruise” turned out to be dirt. He had a little knot there on his forehead, but the biggest part of it—what I’d thought was bruise—washed off.
“Well…” Fay sloshed whiskey into a glass; gulped it. “I guess I missed that time, didn’t I? I didn’t hit him hard enough.”
“What happened? Did you fall down with him?”
“Did I?” She reached for the bottle again. “You’ve got all the answers. You tell me whether I did or not.”
“I guess you probably did.”
“You do, huh? You’d actually give me a break? Well, shove it, bright boy! I hit him, get me? I slugged him as hard as I could with a big rock. And if I’d had more time I’d’ve beat his brains out!”
I told her to quiet down; she’d disturb the boy. Fay yelled that she didn’t give a damn if she did disturb him.
“Why the hell should I? Didn’t I try to kill him? Well, didn’t I, you rotten, mean, hateful, son-of-a-bitch? Sure, I did! That’s the kind of a dame I am! I meant to kill him! I tried to! I did, I did, I did…”
And I knew that she hadn’t—I knew it in my heart—but still it was easy to believe that she had. Fay looked twenty years older, haggard and vicious, her eyes glaring crazily. She was all crazy meanness and viciousness, drained dry of everything else. And it was easy to believe she’d do anything.
I told her to shut up. She yelled all the louder, backing away as I moved toward her.
She’d never said anything dirty before—sharp and ornery, maybe, but never dirty. But now she cut loose; and the names she called me, the things she said. Well, I’ve heard some rough talk but never anything as bad as that. Some of the words, but never all at one time. No one had ever called me one of them without losing some teeth.
The red haze gathered in front of me. I had to get rid of it, let off steam some way, because if I didn’t I’d kill her. So I started yelling myself. I shouted back at her, cursing, calling her names. I yelled and she yelled, and how long it went on I don’t know. Everything was a screaming red haze, yells and filth and redness, and how long it lasted I don’t know.
But it was long enough.
Long enough for him to stop his car in the drive. To come up the walk and onto the back porch.
Whether he knocked I don’t know—we wouldn’t have known with the noise we were making. Probably he did knock, then just walked right on in like doctors do.
We heard the screen door slam, and that brought us up short. The room went completely silent. But by then, he was right on top of us. He’d heard it all. And, of course, he’d seen the boy.
He sauntered forward, casually; winked at me and smiled at Fay. “Mrs. Anderson, isn’t it? I’m Doctor Goldman.”
“H-how—” Her mouth twisted. “How do you do, doctor?”
“I just dropped in for a moment. I’m due at the office now, but I happened to be out this way and…” His voice trailed off, and he nodded toward the boy. “Your son? Collie didn’t tell me you had any children.”
“It’s her nephew,” I said. “He’s just visiting here for a couple of days.”
“I see. Fine looking boy. A little under the weather, is he?”
He strolled over to the sofa and sat down. Still acting casual. Acting as though he hadn’t heard the racket we were making, as though he didn’t know exactly who the boy was.
“Not feeling too well, eh, sonny? Never mind. You don’t need to talk. Let’s see if I don’t have something to…” He opened his medicine kit, snapped it shut again. “No, I guess not. I remember I was looking for some this morning before I left the office.”
He bent over the boy a minute or two longer. Afraid to look around, I guess. Nerving himself for what he was going to do. Then he stood up carelessly and picked up the kit.
“He could do with a B-1 shot,” he said. “You might mention it to his mother. I’d give him one, but I haven’t any with me.”
“A-all right.” Fay shot a glance at me. “Thank you, doctor.”
“Don’t mention it. Just sorry I couldn’t do something for him.”
He smiled and nodded to us—or, to be more exact, to the space between us. Then, he moved toward the doorway, looking at the floor just ahead of him, making a big business out of buttoning his coat.
He paused, looking down. He went a couple of steps further, and came to another stop. I watched him silently, then crossed in front of him.
Outside; the wind rustled the dead grass, and the curtains swirled away from the windows. They fell back softly, flattening against the screens. And in the kitchen the clock ticked off the seconds.
Fay’s breath went out in a sigh. Doc looked up. His eyes wavered at first, then they steadied and held mine.
“How did it happen Collie? How could you have done it?”
I shook my head. I didn’t really know how it had happened. It seemed simple enough, taken step by step, but I couldn’t explain now. And explaining wouldn’t change anything.
“Get out of the way,” he ordered. “Do you hear me, Collie? Stand out of the doorway at once!”
I shook my head again. Waiting for him to make the first move. Wishing he’d get it over with, so that I could do what I had to.
“You don’t know what you’re doing, Collie. I’m sure Mrs. Anderson can’t realize what she’s doing. Someone has duped you into this; they’re using you for their own criminal purposes.”
“It doesn’t make any difference, Doc. You’re not going anywhere. We’re leaving and you’re going to stay.”
“No, Collie! You can’t—” He bit his lip, looked at Fay. “Can’t I appeal to you, Mrs. Anderson? Can’t you understand, make him understand?”
“Fay,” I said, “we’re leaving. Get together anything you want to take and go on out to the car.”
I stared into his eyes, waiting and watching. Fay circled around behind him and went into her bedroom.
There was another gust of wind. The grass rustled again and the curtains swirled. And in the kitchen the clock ticked off the seconds.
“Well,” Doc said. “Well.” He shrugged. “I suppose, if that’s the way it has to be…”
He turned. Then, he whirled suddenly, hurled the medicine kit and dived for the door. I ducked and swung all in one motion. I pulled the punch, but it landed right on the button.
Doc’s head snapped back. His knees buckled, and I had to catch him to keep him from falling. I picked him up and carried him into the bedroom.
…His answering service knew that he’d come here. They phoned, just as I finished binding and gagging him with his own adhesive tape. I told them he wouldn’t get back to the office today. He was tied up on an emergency, and they were to check here again in the morning.
Fay was already waiting in the car. I put the boy down on the floor in the rear, got in with him, and we drove off fast. Down the lane and into the highway. Headed for Uncle Bud’s place.
Rushing towa
rd the end.
19
Uncle Bud kept on the move, switching from one place to another. But I guess that every place he lived would always be just about like the others. It would have the same features.
It would be a dump because he was tight with his money; because he seldom stayed at home if he had any place else to go. It would be fairly close in, a place he could circulate from easily. It would be a place you’d probably never find by yourself, one he’d have to tell you how to find.
This one—the place we went to that day when everything began rushing toward the end—was in the city’s old business district. Or on the edge of it, I should say. Fifty years ago it had been the main part of town, but then the railroad station had been moved and the highways built around the city instead of passing through it. That had put it on the downgrade, and now it was about as far down as it could go.
Flop houses. Two-bit hotels. Cheap bars and greasy-spoon restaurants. That was about all you saw there now, and you didn’t see any of them after the first few blocks. After that there were just empty buildings, or vacant lots where the buildings had been torn down, until you came to a bridge, a kind of a viaduct. It crossed the abandoned railroad right-of-way and opened into the abandoned highway. Right at the foot of it was an old garage building—well-built and still in pretty good shape—with living quarters on the second floor. And that was where Uncle Bud lived.
I drove the car into the garage part. Uncle Bud was waiting for us, and he led the way upstairs. He wasn’t at all upset about what had happened. It didn’t change the picture at all, he said. Not that much, Kid; no, sir, not even that much. Everything was working out fine and dandy, and we’d all be wearing diamonds in another day or two.
Fay went into the bedroom with the boy. Uncle Bud nudged me, whispered that I didn’t want to be too hard on the little lady. She was just jumpy, like little ladies got sometimes, and it was up to me and him to keep our heads, now, wasn’t it?