“I see. I guess he must have been pretty hungry.”
“Now, I’ll just bet he was! It hadn’t occurred to me, but I can see now that he must have been.”
She’d brought a bottle in from the living room. A full one, so I guessed she must have finished the other one. Fay poured herself a drink, that mean little smile playing around her lips when she saw me frown.
“Yes, he must have been hungry,” she continued. “And I must be thirsty. You have parted the clouds, Collie, and at last everything is clear to me.”
“I want to say something. I’ve been thinking things over, and I think maybe I was wrong about today.”
“Yes? You think so—maybe?”
“About you, not Uncle Bud. I know what he was planning to do, but you didn’t have to be in on it. You’d’ve had to ride along with him after he’d done it, but you might not have known about it beforehand.”
“Go on. I maybe didn’t. I might not have.” She nodded over her glass. “It’s algebra isn’t it? You multiply the two minuses, and it gives you a plus.”
“Look, I—Did you or didn’t you? Just tell me.”
“Tell you? Oh, that’s against the rules, Collie. When you have to ask another person for the answer, it doesn’t count.”
“Well…well, at least tell me this. About yesterday and you finding out about me. Could you—would it have been all right? I know how people feel about those things, but I was through the worst of it and if I could have just gone on…”
“Yes. So would I have cared to accompany you for the rest of the journey? Well—” Her eyes glinted. “Would I or wouldn’t I? As I said before, my answer doesn’t count.”
I shoved my plate back. I poured coffee into my cup, slopping it over into the saucer.
Fay poured another drink of the whiskey.
“Aside from the rules, Collie, I can’t answer you. The question is posed on circumstances that no longer exist. Before three this afternoon I could have answered it, and you would have believed me. You’d have had no reason not to. But after that, after your little set-to with Uncle Bud, and your flat accusation that I was—”
“All right!” I interrupted her. “Why do you have to keep harping on it? What would you have thought if you’d been in my place?”
“Exactly what you did, my friend. I implied as much at the time.”
I got up suddenly and went to the door. I stood there, wanting to leave, feeling like I had to get away from her. And feeling and wanting just the opposite. Wanting, feeling—I didn’t know just what. I didn’t want her to think I was suspicious of her, but I didn’t want her to think she could get away with a double-cross either. I didn’t want to be afraid of her, or to have her afraid of me. I wanted…
I looked out into the yard, out at the raked-up piles of grass, withered heaps in the moonlight. And I knew that what I wanted, I wasn’t going to get. It was gone. It couldn’t be brought back to life any more than that mowed-down grass could.
“That door,” Fay said. “If you go through it you’ll find a walk and at the end of the walk there’s a lane, and at the end of the lane there’s a highway…”
“Yeah? That door is wide enough for two people.”
“These two?”
“Look,” I said. “I’m not sure I know what you want. You mean, just walk off and forget about the money? You’re willing to forget the whole thing, if I am?”
“The money has nothing to do with the matter, Collie. After all, it was supposed to be purely a means to an end, wasn’t it? Whether it would achieve that end—a happy partnership, we’ll call it—depends largely on us.”
“Well, sure, but—”
“So there’s our door to life. Let’s see if it’s wide enough for both of us.”
She got up and went into her bedroom. I listened to her moving around, wondering uneasily what she was up to. Because it should have been clear enough to me, but it wasn’t.
It was almost twenty minutes before Fay came back, her face made up and her coat and hat on. She nodded to me, and started for the door. I was too startled to move for a second. Then, I jumped up and got in front of her.
“Wait a minute! Where are you going?”
“Going?” She smiled up at me. “Why, I’m going out.”
“I said where? You’ve got nothing to see Uncle Bud about. You’ve got no business at Bert’s place. So where else could you be going?”
Her smile drew in at the corners. She stepped back from me, just a step but it seemed to take her awfully far away, and held out her hand.
“I almost forgot. The car keys, Collie.”
“But where—” I broke off. “Oh,” I said. “You’re…you’re just going for a little ride? You want to get a breath of air?”
“The car keys, Collie.”
I gave her the keys, sort of laying them in her hand without quite letting go. “What does this prove, Fay? You just get up without any warning and start to leave. I suppose it wouldn’t have bothered you, if I’d done that?”
“Do you? Do you so suppose? Well, treasure the thought, my friend. Some wastrel who doesn’t care about inflation may give you a penny for it.”
She jerked the keys out of my hand, and left. Just before she started the car, I heard her laugh—angry and teasing. Or maybe disgusted and disappointed. I took a fast step toward the door, then I snatched up the whiskey bottle and went into the living room.
I sat down with my back to the windows. I made myself sit there, not moving or looking around until she’d driven away. But why I did it, I don’t know. It didn’t mean anything. Feeling like I did—wanting to stop her, worried about where she was going and what she might be doing—it meant just the opposite of what it should have meant.
We couldn’t go through the door together. We couldn’t walk together very far on the other side of the door. So she’d proved her point…if that’s what she’d meant to do. And how did I know that Fay had?
Maybe it had all been a build-up, a way of pointing me in one direction so she could move in another. Why not? Fay couldn’t get me to clear out, and leave her and Uncle Bud or someone else with my share of the loot. So she’d picked up with another plan, another way of cutting me out of the deal. She’d know just how to go about it. Right from the beginning, she’d been able to get me so rattled and mixed up I didn’t know what I was doing.
Sure, she’d sent me away that first time. But Fay must have known I’d come back. I didn’t have any place else to go, and—
“Mister…” It was the boy, standing in the bedroom door. “Mister, I’m sick. I got to—to—”
His tiny body swayed, doubled at the waist. He put his hands over his mouth, and there was a gurgling sound. Then I swept him up in my arms and ran with him to the bathroom.
I wasn’t quite fast enough. He was vomiting before I could get him over the toilet stool. The stuff gushed out of his mouth, splashing over the bathroom floor. Just when I thought there couldn’t be anything left in him, it started coming out the other way.
“Sorry.” Gasping for breath, he tried to apologize. “I’ll—I’ll clean it up, mister.”
“No, you won’t,” I said. “Never mind, sonny. You just cut loose as much as you want to.”
I had him sitting on the stool at the time. I was down in front of him, mopping and wiping with a towel. And there was something in his expression that stabbed through me like a knife.
“Y-You’re not—m-mad at me?” he said.
“Mad?” I chucked him under the chin. “Hell, no, sonny! Why should I be mad at a little boy for being sick?”
He looked at me doubtfully. Apparently, he’d been expecting a spanking, and he still couldn’t believe that he wasn’t going to get one.
“Honest?” he said skeptically. “You’re really not mad?”
“Honest. I’m not mad, and no one else is going to get mad. Because if they do—if anyone even looks like they’re going to say a cross word to you—I’ll, well they’d better not, t
hat’s all!”
He was sick; terribly sick. But a smile slowly spread over his face, and I think it was the most beautiful smile I have ever seen.
Then his arms went around my neck, and he pressed his face against mine. And the words he whispered to me…I guess they were the nicest I have ever heard.
“I like you, mister. I like you very much.”
…It was around eleven o’clock when Fay got home. I’d dozed off in my chair, and I waked up when I heard the back door slam. There was another bang as she dropped a bag of groceries on the kitchen table. She came into the living room, threw her hat and coat into a chair, and sat down in another one.
She didn’t look drunk; I mean, she didn’t wobble or stagger. But you could see the booze in her eyes, see it in her tight twisted little smile.
“The rats are still in the harness,” she said. “I’m saving the pumpkin to make a pie.”
I didn’t say anything. Right just then, I didn’t trust myself to.
“That’s pie without an e, Collie. You multiply it by the frammis, and it gives you Cinderella. Coach on, or would you like to try for the jackpot? If you win, you get a window to throw it out of.”
“The boy’s been sick, Fay. I’ve taken him to the bathroom a half a dozen times.”
“My, my! Well, you just tell him he has to take you the next half dozen.”
“Damn it, it’s not funny! What the hell’s the matter with you, anyway? I told you he’s sick.”
“And I heard you!” Her voice sharpened. “What do you want me to do about it, ring for Doctor Kildare?”
I told her she’d done too damned much already, stuffing a kid full of junk when he was already upset. “You must have known it would make him sick. You load him up on the worst stuff you could think of, beans and pie and—”
“Sure, I did!” she yelled. “I force-fed him, didn’t I? I ran a hose down his throat and pumped it into him! I tried to kill him! Why the hell don’t you say so?”
“Now, wait a minute. I didn’t say—”
“Aah, shut up! Go file the point on your head. But just don’t try to kid me. Don’t tell me you hadn’t thought of it.”
I blinked. I didn’t know what she was talking about. I’d been pretty mad when she first came in, pretty sore and worried, so I guess I’d talked kind of rough.
“You’re not that stupid,” said Fay. “Sure, you’ve thought of it. We’ve got him, haven’t we? We collect just as much if he’s dead, and we save ourselves a lot of trouble.”
I shook my head. I just sat there shaking my head.
Fay grinned at me, her eyes narrowed. “Can’t take it, huh? Well, in a case like that there’d seem to be only one logical alternative.”
“You’re drunk. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Want to bet? Let’s bet pumpkins. Yours looks pretty green from here, but I’m a sport.”
She reached for the bottle on the table, and took a swig from it. She hefted it, studying me, two trickles of booze running down the corners of her mouth. Then, she shrugged and slammed it back on the table.
“To hell with it,” she said. “To hell with you. I’m going to bed.”
Fay pushed herself up from the chair, picked up her coat and hat. Wobbling a little now. That last jolt of whiskey had hit her hard.
“Midnight,” she mumbled. “So it’s the end of the ball. Li’l Cinderella’s gotta crawl back under her cork. Well, what’s layin’ on your larynx, stupid?”
“Nothing had better happen to that boy,” I said. “There’d sure better not anything happen to him.”
“Yeah? Well, right back at you, brother rat. Paste it into your hat. Line that pumpkin with it.”
“You heard me! You may be drunk, but you know what you’re doing.”
Her eyes flickered. Her face twisted suddenly, like maybe she was going to vomit. Then, she turned and staggered toward her bedroom door.
“Stupid,” she mumbled. “S-s-stupid an’ can’t help it. H-he can’t, but…”
Fay went through the door, kicking it shut with her foot.
I stayed where I was for a while afterwards. Thinking that the boy might need me to help him again, and just thinking in general. About myself, about Uncle Bud, about her. Thinking in circles, and not getting anywhere. That stuff she’d said about the boy, about it being better for us if he was dead. Maybe she was trying to chase me off with that talk, to scare me into leaving for my own good. Or maybe she was doing it for her—their—own good. Or maybe she really meant it. Or maybe she was just testing me out to see how I’d take it. And if they really planned on having him dead, and if I wouldn’t go along with the plan…
Maybe. If. If and maybe.
How the hell was I going to know? How could you know what people would do if they’d go in on a deal like this one?
I made myself stop thinking about it. My head just wouldn’t take it any more, all that chasing around and around. So I started thinking about the little boy. Not the one we had, Charles Vanderventer III, but the first one. That little kid who was heading for Paris tonight.
I wondered if he’d meant what he kind of seemed to mean. Whether, you know, he’d been wise to what I was doing and had deliberately let me get away with it.
I guessed he hadn’t. It was hard to be sure—he was such a sharp, fast-talking youngster—but I guessed he hadn’t. I mean, he just couldn’t have! No kid would have felt like that, felt that another kid would be better off kidnapped.
I turned the radio on low. The newscaster was just winding up his last broadcast for the night:
“…No further developments in the Vanderventer case at this time. And now a few words about that plane disaster I mentioned a moment ago. The deluxe trans-Atlantic airliner crashed at La Guardia Airport, shortly after eleven tonight, when two of its motors failed simultaneously during the takeoff. All of the crew and all but three of the passengers were killed. Among the fatalities was ten-year-old Jacques Flannagan, son of motion-picture actor Howard Flannagan of Hollywood, and Margot Flannagan Wentworth D’Arcy Holmes of Paris and London. In accordance with their divorce agreement, the boy spent six months a year with each parent. He had left this city earlier tonight, following a brief visit with his grandmother…”
13
That next day.
Just about everything happened that day. Just about everything seemed to go wrong.
It was the day the boy almost died. It was the day Bert tried to kill Uncle Bud. It was the day I robbed Doc Goldman’s office. It was the day Fay tried to—to what?
Everything happened. Everything went wrong. Everything got worse than it had been.
So maybe I’d better take it from the beginning. I’d better start with Fay shaking me awake. Yelling at me to get up, and me darting my hand under the pillow, and coming out with the automatic I’d taken off of Uncle Bud. I didn’t mean to kill her, naturally—I hadn’t got to that point then. It was just that I’d gone to bed late and gone to sleep a hell of a lot later, and when she—But let’s go back to the beginning.
“Collie! Collie, stop!”
I heard her screaming from a long way off. Screaming my name, yelling for some guy named Collie to stop. And for a moment it meant nothing at all to me. It was just a voice, just a name; it was coming from just one more of the twisted, white faces that had swarmed around me all night long.
They meant nothing. The only thing that mattered was this thing that someone had put in my hand. Something hard and cold and heavy. I looked down at it while the screaming went on, not really looking because my eyes were open, but I couldn’t see with them. I just knew I had it and that I must have it for a reason, and the only reason I could think of was—
“Collie—don’t! D-DONT!”
“Huh? What?”
“The boy, Collie! H-he’s—put it down!”
I saw that the face had a body. The two merged, then slid down the wall and into a chair. And my mind began to wake up. It moved up from the darkness
slowly, patching up the past, trying to make the day something I would wake up to.
“Going to put the grass back,” I mumbled. “Put everything back like it was. Wasn’t very pretty, but…but…”
“Aaah, hell,” she sobbed. “Aaah, damn it to hell.”
My fingers loosened, and the gun dropped to the bed. I sat up, feeling the old sickness clutch at my stomach. I stared at her, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. Hating her and myself and this whole world I’d had to come back to.
“What’s the matter?” I said. “What’s wrong with the boy? What did you do to him?”
“Do to him!” Fay’s head jerked up. “Why, damn you, I—Aaah, what’s the use? He’s sick, that’s what’s the matter. He looks like he’s dying. I just woke up a few minutes ago, and I went right in to see how he was and he—h-he—He can’t seem to get awake, Collie!”
“All right. Get back over there with him. Just stay there until I get over. Don’t bother him or try to feed him.”
“Feed him! How the hell could I?”
“Go on. Get out!”
Fay got out. I threw on my clothes, shoved the gun into my hip pocket, and ran down the stairs. It was noon. The hot sunlight hit me like a club, stirring up my stomach all over again. I stopped and was sick. I ran on a few steps and then I vomited again. I stood panting, bent over, waiting a few moments. But that seemed to do it for the time being. The sickness was gone as much as it was going to go. I ran on into the house and into the boy’s bedroom.
Fay was in there with him. I brushed her out of the way, and bent down by his bedside. I studied him, listened to his breathing. I turned on the light and went down on my knees, bringing myself closer to him while I looked and listened.
His skin was flushed, hot, but damp looking. His eyes were partly open—sort of slitted. They were glazed, but he blinked a little when I passed my hand in front of them. He hardly seemed to breathe at all. His breath had a faint sweetish smell, and there was the same smell to his body. His pulse was pretty slow, but the beat wasn’t bad. I mean it seemed fairly steady.