over. The car lurches, sways like a ship in a storm. I hit my head on the roof; there’s a jolt in my jaw like the impact of a boxer’s upper-cut, banging all my teeth together.
But the car doesn’t fall over. The next moment, I’m shaken again as our tires hit back onto the road. We’re still upright. Both cars, battered, engines smoking, stand silently on the empty road in the dark.
The man I saw on the El train gets out of his car. Another man gets out of the passenger seat. I see guns in their hands.
“Now we wouldn’t want any trouble, would we? Especially not with you two ladies present. So, you pretty pair, you get out of that automobile. Move over there.”
I’m not surprised to hear Irish-American accents. We do as they say. The gun barrels are pointing at our heads. Are they going to shoot Gwyneth and me, right here? Like a gramophone recording, a line I heard in Hell’s Kitchen replays in my mind – “Us Gophers are gentlemen, we don’t go around slitting ladies’ throats.” But somehow I sense that that rule doesn’t apply here. These men, they are here to do a job, and it involves killing. There’s a deep, black ditch alongside the road, and I’m standing on the edge of it. Like a grave.
“If either of you women move, you’re dead. Both of you, stand there as still as stuffed dummies in a Fifth Avenue shop window.”
One gun is still trained on us. The other gun now points at our car. “Now, you gentlemen. Get out of the car, stand in the light of our headlamps so we can get a good look at you.”
Chisholm steps from the car, but Axelson’s door is twisted and he can’t open it. I see him moving over to get out of my passenger door. But the two men hardly give him a glance. They’re looking at Chisholm, and both guns are pointing at him now.
“You, sir. The night before last, I saw you on the Ninth Avenue El train. I was looking out for you because your face looks exactly like a description we’ve been given, of a man calling himself by the very fancy name of Black Velvet.”
“Suppose your description’s wrong?” Chisholm speaks calmly. “Think about that: you’re in the process of attacking four innocent people. Already, you’ve done enough to go to prison for years. On the basis of a ‘description’ you’ve been given, by someone who wants you to do his dirty work for him.”
The man completely ignores what Chisholm is saying. “So, Mister Black Velvet. After we’ve finished with our business here, when we return to New York, we’ll be able to inform Jimmy Nolan that the man who came down to Hell’s Kitchen and talked big about the Irish cause and a shipment of explosives is, in fact, an Englishman. An English spy, to be exact. So Jimmy might be pleased, if we were to tell him that this so-called Black Velvet got killed.”
Chisholm looks utterly impassive. Five, ten seconds pass. Then he speaks.
“Well, if I’m your spy, then you might as well let these others go. I think our car still works: let them drive on their way. I’m the only one you want. I’ll tell you all you need to know.”
I can’t help it; I gasp. I know he will die if he stays with these men. Horrible thoughts run through my mind. Will they torture him before they kill him, to find out what they want to know?
“I’m not sure, Mister, about letting these other folks go. Witnesses, they can be very inconvenient things to have around. But yes, we’d be very interested in what you’ve got to say for yourself. You see, even for us to be able to tell Jimmy your real name – even that one little bit of information would be nice for him to hear. But I’m sure, before we’re done with you, that you’re going to tell us a whole lot more than just your name.”
I’m right. The gangsters want to extract information from Chisholm. The man carries on speaking.
“We’re looking forward to every single thing that you’re going to tell us. And you are going to tell us every single thing – whether you want to or not. So – come over here. If you don’t move, then I’ll shoot one of these two ladies, right now. And maybe the other one later. Just for my own amusement. So – move. Arms in the air.”
Slowly, slowly, Chisholm does as the man says. He takes one, two steps towards the two figures. The men are on either side of him now. And then – he moves like lightning. I see his arms move down, his hands grasp the throats of both men. I hear choking, and the scuffling of feet: the three figures struggle in the light of the headlamps. Chisholm stands between the two men, they writhe and shake in his grasp like snakes gripped in his hands. He’s stronger… but there are two of them. I take a step towards them: I’m going to help Chisholm –
“Missy, are you as stupid as you look? I told you not to move. So why have you stepped forward? Take a second step, and you’re dead.”
It’s the voice of the man from the El. He’s got free from Chisholm’s grip. The other man wrestles helplessly in Chisholm’s grasp – but I hear a dull click, as the free man cocks his gun. He’s going to shoot Chisholm.
I can’t help myself. I take a second step forward.
I hear a loud crack echo through the air, but I don’t feel the impact of my fall, because something far harder has hit me in the chest. I can see stars: I’m lying on my back in dirt, at the bottom of the ditch, looking straight up through the branches of the trees, a network of black lines against the indigo night sky. Between the branches, the stars sparkle, more brightly than I’ve ever seen them since my childhood. I gaze at the stars, so bright, so far away. I’m no longer a grown woman: I’m a little girl again, on a warm summer night, long ago. In the long June evenings, I would sometimes lie out in the back field behind my home, watching the sky turn peacock-blue, then velvet-purple, as stars came out, one by one. Now and then I would see fireflies too. When the fireflies came, I felt that the stars had come down on the earth, all around me. I’d stay there as long as I could, counting stars, until Mama called me home.
I don’t know why I feel that I’m in the back field at home, with Mama calling, because I know that in fact I’m lying on my back in a ditch, in a lonely forest miles from anywhere, and awful things are happening. But my mind is telling me not to worry about those bad things, and not to try to make sense of anything. Everything is all right: I’m seven years old again, lying under a warm summer evening sky, and I feel strangely happy, except for this feeling in my ribs. The strangest feeling in the world. As if my chest is empty space inside my ribcage. I’m not breathing, and ridiculously I think: of course I’m not breathing. I no longer have lungs.
I see two black figures standing up against the sky, outlined against the glittering stars. They’re looking down at me. One of them steps down into the ditch, crouches next to me. It’s the oddest thing: he’s feeling the material of my dress, over my bosom.
“She’s soaked in blood. Good work. She’s gone, good and proper.”
The figures disappear. The two men have gone back to their car. Is this what it’s like, to be dying? To still be able to see, to hear, to try to make sense of things, as your own life ebbs away?
I hear the men’s car start up. Chisholm is dead too, I guess. And the professor, and Gwyneth? I’m finding it hard to think now, my brain is shutting down. One by one, the stars disappear above me. Yes, this is the end. And I remember stories about people who nearly died, but then were brought back to life, and they spoke of what had happened to them: they all talked about seeing a light, going into the light.
Light there is. But not a gentle glow. Suddenly everything is lit as if by the noonday sun, and I hear a stupendous roar, like the heavens are being ripped wide open. And I feel cold, like my bones are frozen.
But stranger than that, I feel snow falling on me. Flakes of snow drift down, oddly gray-colored in the lurid light above me.
So this is death, I think. Heaven or hell?
I hear laughing.
20.A young lady in a state of undress
Heaven, I’ve decided. Maybe I did something good, when I was a little girl.
I seem to be in a dim room, but suffused with a gentle brightness. Like sunshine through white drapes. It mus
t be heaven that I’m in, because I can see two angels. Elegant, human-like shapes dressed in white, looking down at me. My guardian angels. I sense kindliness in their figures, their faces. And then, they’re gone.
I’m lying down, I realize, and I find that I can move. First I move my fingers, then my arms. My chest feels tender, like it’s kept a memory of the bullet that sent me to this place. I seem to be wearing a kind of loose, white nightgown, like I’ve become an angel myself. I reach up, touch the sorest place, under my left breast. I feel firm, intact skin.
I sit up. I’m in a bed. There is sunshine, and it is coming through drapes. I don’t hesitate. I’m on my feet, and drawing the drapes back.
If this is heaven – which I’m beginning to doubt – it certainly is beautiful. In the view from my window, a cloudless azure sky looks down on endless, calm water. The light and the warmth of the air feels like bliss, and the scent of flowers drifts to me. I think: the first day of spring.
There’s a knock at the door behind me, and I remember my guardian angels.
“Come in.” It sounds so strange, to hear my own voice.
“Agnes, dear. Get back into bed.”
The angel’s voice is that of Gwyneth Gilmour.
“Gwyneth! Where am I?”
“Like I told you. Gilmour Lodge, Olcott. That’s Lake Ontario you’re looking at.”
“I