When John belatedly realized what he was doing, he retrieved his hand. He continued to gasp for breath.
Richie said, “You’ve got no stake in this. Go down the hill and find the cops if you want. I won’t stop you. But I’ll get her and the punk before they arrive. There’s no way on earth to stop that. I don’t let anybody make a fool of me. Maybe you don’t understand that, John.”
In his own fight John had once again forgotten Sharon. He was suddenly aware now that she had fled. His chest was still heaving: he was not accustomed to such contests. With difficulty he asked, “She got away?”
“Behind the barn. But she’s not going to get up the hill without me seeing her.”
He was right. Erosion had produced the sheer dirt face of a minor cliff back there. “I’m staying,” John said. “You’re not going to kill them.”
“See? That’s why I like you so much, John. You got principles.”
“I only wish it were true,” John said. He found himself speaking to Richie as if to himself. “Then we wouldn’t be here at all. Trouble was, I couldn’t make my mind up about you. At first I thought you were just some kind of joker, and then, well, I don’t know what I thought after you ran down the truckdriver. I just tried to keep from thinking. Tell me this: how’d you know it would be me who answered when you came to my door this morning?”
Richie guffawed. “What a question! How could I know who lived there? I really was running out of gas.”
“You were cruising the neighborhood, looking for victims?” It gave John a chill to think of Joanie and the babies.
“You’ve still got me wrong, after all this?” Richie asked reproachfully. “You think I’m a burglar or something?” As he spoke, he continued the surveillance he had been maintaining on the barn.
“What are you? Who are you?” John’s respiration and heartbeat were not yet back to normal.
“A human being,” Richie said. “Keep that in mind. You mean, how do I spend my time? I’m working on a number of ideas right now. I’m trying to get on a solid footing for once.”
John pretended to himself, out of desperation, that this was a response on which he could build. “All right,” he said. “That sounds good. Then why—”
“I got delayed for a while,” Richie went on. “I made some mistakes when I was young, and I admit it. Nothing really bad, you understand, but it took me a while to find my bearings. I’m coming back strong now, though. You don’t have to be ashamed of knowing me.”
“Well, then, you don’t want to jeopardize your future. You’re still not in too deep to straighten things out. If you mean you’ve got some kind of record as a juvenile or young man but the slate has been clean in recent times, then you won’t want to mess it up now. Give me the gun. You haven’t shot anybody.”
Richie cocked his head. “Damn, John, you don’t give up, do you? You just shut your eyes and stick to your own version of what’s what. I just wish I could oblige you, I really do. But I can’t. I’m a marked man.”
“What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter what I do,” Richie said. “I can’t run forever. I might as well stay and go out fighting.”
John’s references in this area were all from TV. “You mean, something to do with the mob? Are you on the witness-protection plan or something?”
Richie stared at him. “Do you think they’d want to hear my side of it? I know some things I’ve done don’t exactly qualify me for a medal, but not everything everybody does is always perfect, is it?”
John was lost. Therefore he returned to an earlier statement. “But you just said you were coming back strong…?”
“I am, I am.” Richie nodded vigorously. “I wouldn’t kid you about that, because I know you care about me as a friend. And I don’t let friends down. Remember that, John. I think you are aware by now that I would put my hand in the fire for you: you name it, you’ve got it. But they won’t let me get clear.”
“I don’t understand this,” said John. “Who are they? And what does ‘get clear’ mean?”
“The people in charge,” said Richie, tossing the heavy gun back and forth between his hands, making John nervous when the muzzle was briefly pointed in his direction. “They’re never going to let me get my point across.”
“Well, I will,” John said. “What point are you trying to make?”
Richie gave him an affectionate smirk. “I’m not going to put you in jeopardy, too. Better you don’t have more than a vague idea. Then they can’t beat it out of you.”
“I don’t even have that.”
“Good!”
“I’ll tell you, though,” John said, “I can’t conceive of any reason why you want to hurt either Sharon or Tim, a woman and a child who haven’t done anything against you except try to save their lives. What kind of cause or philosophy would justify what you’re doing?”
Richie pursed his thin lips, as if he were about to spit. “I wish I could always be a nice guy, I really do. But I just can’t afford to put myself in a position where I can be destroyed.”
“They’re hardly going to destroy you. They’re small and unarmed.”
“Ha!” Richie exclaimed. “I beg your pardon. The bitch just tried to claw my eyes out. I don’t care who does me dirty—man, woman, or child, they’ll pay for it.” He winked at John. “And the same guarantee covers my friends.”
John thought this an ambiguous statement, which could just as well be menacing as generous, but pointed out, “Even though you started it?”
“Listen,” said Richie. “Don’t think I’m going to accept responsibility for everything that happens in the entire universe. This is a free country.”
“I still don’t understand.”
Richie shrugged. “You know as well as I that lots of people died for our way of life, John. I’m not going to make a mockery of those sacrifices. I know, turn the other cheek. But to me that’s a poor example to set for young people. Talk about kids, there you are. Look at this one. He’s got no manners, no respect. Who knows how long he was sneaking around upstairs? If I hadn’t burned that paper, just to kid you a little, he would have stayed up there, would have had to be dragged out and maybe got himself hurt.”
Whenever John thought about Tim, he remembered breaking the telephone line and felt wretched. It was useless to talk of right and wrong with this man. John’s purpose now was only to delay the hunting-down of Sharon and the boy, and he thought he might try to do that by agreeing with Richie. “Maybe there’s something in what you say, but that’s all the more reason for getting away from them. Who needs them? They’re only slowing us down. You and I could hike out through the woods, the way I came. There’s a guy in a house down there with a car.”
Richie’s smile was benign. “I know you consider yourself a close friend of mine and that what you do is supposedly with my welfare in mind, even though it might result in me getting hurt or going to jail. If you’re honest, you’ll admit that. So we go down to get this guy’s car and if the cops aren’t laying for us, then this guy is.”
“By now the cops have surely left his place,” John said, with the pretense of being reasonable. “And it’s his gun you’re holding now. That’s the man I mean. He couldn’t give us any trouble.”
“No!” Richie cried sharply. “It’s the principle that’s at stake. I couldn’t live with myself if I let them get away with this.”
Richie went to the side of the barn and rummaged in the weeds there. John’s freedom to leave continued to be useless. He stayed where he was and tried to think of what to do next.
Richie emerged with a handful of some kind of rubbish, which he proceeded to put against the base of the barn doors. He struck one of the matches from the book of such that he had taken from the house, and had ignited the material before John recognized that it contained inflammable paper and rags and Richie’s purpose was to burn the barn.
John ran there and stamped at the rubbish, which, being damp, produced more smoke than flame.
It stank and made his eyes smart. Richie stood by, laughing, and made no move against him. It was the incident of the stairs all over again, and perhaps again was only Richie’s idea of a joke. Even so, in such a place fire could get out of control in no time.
It was while they were both so distracted that the policeman managed to steal into close range behind them and shout, at a volume that was probably exaggerated by the suddenness of it, “DROP THE SHOTGUN OR YOU’RE DEAD.”
John reacted as though to a gunshot, but Richie remained frozen in position, still smiling at the smoldering rags. John was sure a gunfight was imminent and he was in danger of being hit in the crossfire, but within the next moment Richie lowered the weapon, reversed it to point the muzzle his own way, and walked calmly toward the cop, in obvious surrender.
“HOLD IT,” the officer shouted. “HOLD IT RIGHT THERE.… PUT THE WEAPON ON THE GROUND.… BACK UP.… LAY DOWN FLAT AND TOWARDS ME.” He glared ferociously at John. “THAT MEANS YOU, TOO, YOU BASTARD. MOVE!”
“I don’t have a gun,” said John.
“YOU WON’T HAVE A LIFE, EITHER, IF YOU DON’T MOVE!“
John lowered himself to the prone position. Either his chin must rest in loose dirt and pebbles, or one or the other cheek must do the same. He would have liked to put a hand up as a cushion but was afraid to. He chose to lower the left side of his face. He saw the thick-soled shoes coming. They stopped for a moment while a hand picked up the shotgun. Then, judging from the sounds, the weapon was emptied of its ammunition and hurled aside. The shoes resumed their march toward him and went past. Immediately thereafter his wrists were seized and manacled together in the small of his back.
“ON YOUR FEET.”
It could not be done without the use of his hands, roll and jerk and struggle as he might. The policeman cursed at and derided him.
“I’m sorry, Officer,” he pleaded. “I can’t get any leverage.”
The disgusted cop ordered Richie to help. John was astounded to see that Richie wore no handcuffs, though he was the criminal and had been armed.
“All right,” said the policeman, a stout young man whose face was purple with excitement. “I got only one set of cuffs, so I won’t try to take you in myself. I’m going to radio for backup. Blink an eye while I’m waiting, all I need’s an excuse to kill you.” His scowl was directed principally at John. He motioned with the outsized pistol he held extended in both hands.
“Would you mind?” Richie asked, as they started the march. “Are you the same one who came by here earlier? How’d you know somebody was here after all?”
The cop was breathing heavily behind them. “I looked through the window and saw the bottle broke by the fireplace, liquor on the floor.” He stopped talking to breathe awhile. “But it didn’t hit me till I was down the road a ways: out of the ordinary in a house with nobody home. Could of been the cat, of course.” He gulped some breath.
“Congratulations,” said Richie. “Nice work.”
“Shut your damn mouth,” said the officer.
“There’s a boy in the b—” John said as fast as he could, but before he could get it out he was kicked savagely just below his manacled hands and projected against the police car, which they had now reached.
“You,” the cop told Richie. “You stand where I can watch you. I shoot expert on the state range. I’ll drop you if you run.” To John he said, “I just wish you would resist, you piece of filth, I really do.” He reached inside the car and brought out the handpiece of the police radio. Speaking into it, he called himself Swanson and announced his apprehension of both fugitives at the top of Rose Hill Road.
“Got more address?” was the audible though crackling response. “State guys will need it.”
“Off County Two-forty A, about a mile north of the traffic circle,” said the stout policeman, whose yellow-and-brown shoulder patch identified him as being with the PD of Smithtown, which was probably a township comprising a number of villages.
From what the radio dispatcher said, the state police were involved as well: this was obviously more than the hit-and-run and breaking-and-entering. John had long since suspected that but had lacked the resolve to insist on getting Richie’s version, which he would anyway have been disinclined to believe. Now, however, despite the officer’s threat, he spoke again, tensing himself for the expected blow.
“Did he die? Is that what this is all about?”
Having lowered the radio mike into the car, the policeman addressed no one in particular. “It’s what I said from the start: he’ll act mental once he’s caught.” He was breathing more easily now, though his jaw and the hand that held the pistol looked as whitely tense as ever.
John found the response very cryptic, but he feared asking for an elucidation might further infuriate the officer. He instead made another attempt to speak of Sharon and Tim. “There’s a boy in the barn and a young woman somewhere in back of it. They don’t have anything to do—”
“Sure there is,” said the cop.
“Is it okay if I yell to them to come out?”
“You’re not going to make no noise at all. You’re going to listen.” The officer’s left hand plucked open his top left pocket and removed a little card. He proceeded to read the statement of “rights” so familiar from crime movies and TV shows. But it had an altogether different resonance under these conditions. John had to accept the fact that he was being arrested unjustly. Having been Richie’s victim all day, he was now being victimized by someone officially representing the interests of society. Was there no one to speak for him?
He shouted in the direction of the barn. “Sharon! Come out! The police are here.”
Incredulously, Swanson asked, “You’re yelling when I specifically told you not to?”
“Look,” John pleaded. “I’m desperate. I want you to at least hear my side.”
He was surprised when Richie spoke up. “He didn’t do anything wrong, Officer. He just came along for the ride.” It was an eccentric way to put it. Nevertheless, John was grateful.
Swanson’s nose and mouth showed revulsion. “What else would you say?”
“Please,” John said. “Will you please listen? You got completely the wrong idea here. I know you’re just doing your job, but believe me…” He was well aware of the unlikelihood of Swanson’s taking him seriously, and he even forgave the officer for being skeptical. After all, how could Swanson know the truth at this point, with the limited and distorted information available, evidence of which was the handcuffing of himself instead of Richie? But where was Sharon? She could set the policeman straight if only she would come out of hiding.
He shouted to her again, and now Swanson approached him in a hostile manner, holding the gun in an attitude that would suggest a pistol-whipping was imminent. But at that point Richie, who had used the policeman’s focus on John to sidle ever closer, forcefully struck Swanson in the temple with the rock he had been concealing in his reversed hand, probably ever since he got up after the search of his prone person.
Swanson fell to his knees. Richie tore the pistol from him and was raising it surely to deliver the coup de grace, but John hurled himself forward and shouted.
“Don’t do it! Christ sake, he’s a cop!”
Richie shrugged, lowered the pistol, and kicked the officer in the face. Swanson feebly covered his eyes, and Richie slugged him in the back of the head with the gun butt. Perhaps the blow had been hard enough to kill him, but John could not have done much to stop it. At least he had blocked the shot; he had not simply stood there and let events take their course.
Richie took the keys from the fallen officer and freed John from the handcuffs. “Hell,” he said, “it’s good luck he came back!” He seized the officer’s cap and popped it on John’s head. “You look a lot like him. Take his coat.”
“What?”
The pistol dancing in his hand, Richie said, “We’ve now got the way out I was looking for.” He ran and fetched the shotgun from where Swanson
had made him drop it, then returned to the fallen officer, squatted, and took extra cartridges from Swanson’s belt. He proceeded roughly to strip the policeman of the jacket, Swanson’s unconscious head lolling on a limp neck.
Richie handed the garment to John. “Get into this. We’re getting out of here in this car.”
John did not oppose the plan, for the simple reason that he was certain Richie would kill the officer if he did so. Also, fleeing from this place would remove the menace from Tim and Sharon.
He received explicit instructions. “Put the jacket on and straighten the cap. You drive. You’ll look enough like him to get us through the roadblock.”
As John took the driver’s seat, the radio began to squawk. The dispatcher wanted more directions for the state troopers.
Richie had seated himself alongside, the shotgun between his knees. He seized the mike and addressed it in a garbled voice, covering and uncovering it in rapid succession with his palm. “Can’t copy,” said the dispatcher. “Got a loose connection, or what? Check it out.” Richie hung up and turned down the volume as the dispatcher kept asking.
John backed the police car out to the driveway and swung onto the road. He hoped that Sharon and Tim were watching from places of concealment and would come out when he had gone, tend to Swanson, and realize that what he, John, was doing was done only under duress.
He asked Richie, “You don’t really think we can fool Swanson’s partners at the roadblock?”
“The block we’ll come to first is the state cops—they’re the ones who don’t know how to find the way up here!” Richie deftly elevated himself, turned, and slithered over the headrest into the rear, taking the shotgun with him. He spoke from the floor. “Goes to show you how dumb they are. Don’t slow down when you get there. Step on the gas. Turn on the siren and flasher.” He leaned over the seat and pointed. “There.”
The siren began to wail, with a different note from that one heard outside and at a distance from a police car. Perhaps the difference was a matter of relative power, though by now John’s own role had grown too complex to assess. With the current imposture it might have been farcical were not Richie quite capable of producing wholesale carnage: he now had two lethal weapons at his disposal.