The air conditioner helped. They sat in the cabin and there was the liquor. He figured the liquor was better than the other stuff and it helped with Pat, it helped so he could handle things. Sometimes when he saw her asleep and how her face was drawn and the bones showing more, he killed the vague feeling that came to him then. That helped too. Later, later for sure, he’d promised himself to do right Later, when the pressure was off and the deal secure… He couldn’t be any good to her until then. Except for the liquor. When he gave her the liquor, that was less bad than the other.
What worried him was New York. There had been no money at Western Union. And nobody answered the phone.
He went twice a day. He sat in the back of the telephone exchange watching the young operator plucking at her switches.
“Nothing yet, sir. It just rings.” She looked over to Benny and gave him an encouraging smile.
“Keep trying.”
One red light kept blinking monotonously. Benny waited. Was that kid giving him the eye? He saw her glance at him, look away, and then do it again. Benny got up and leaned his elbows on the counter. “Nothing yet?” he asked.
She looked up and smiled. “I’m afraid not, sir.”
She didn’t have to be so damn cheerful about it.
A customer stepped up to get some change and she counted it out.
“You’ve been in here pretty regular, haven’t you?” She looked at Benny again. She had dimples whether she smiled or not, and Benny was watching them.
“Yes. Off and on.”
She giggled and looked away. He started to say something else, to take her up on the way she was acting, but then he checked it. He watched the operator’s speaker, the way it moved up and clown with her breathing, and then he looked at her arm. It was pink and plump, with two fat wrinkles where she bent it at the elbow. He pushed himself away from the counter.
“Cancel that call. There’s nobody home.” He went to the door.
“Sir?”
He turned to see her smiling again, dimpling. He frowned, reached for the door. It had a pneumatic check on it that didn’t work right and he had to yank.
“Sir?” she called again.
This time he came back.
“What is it?” He sounded in a hurry.
“I was wondering-” and she stopped, trying to make up her mind about something. “I was wondering if I should tell you this or perhaps you aren’t even the one. It’s against regulations, really, but he sounded so-uh-so strange about it, I was wondering if I shouldn’t ask you. I haven’t told anybody because it might be against regulations or it might be nothing at all, so you got to promise you won’t tell anybody I said this, will you?”
“Look, kid, if you’ve got something to say, say it.”
“Well, here’s what happened. I was on till twelve the other night, so about a quarter to twelve or so this New York call came in, asking for anybody at the pay-phone exchange, so I took it because naturally me being the only pay-phone exchange at this-”
Benny groaned. “Get on, willya? What was it?”
“So he said, ‘Quick, lady, take this down because I can’t talk much,’ and while I was trying to get it down fast he kept right on talking and then we were cut off.”
“Well, what did he say? Who was it?”
“We got cut off, or he hung up. I think he hung up.”
Benny wiped his face. “Jessis in heaven,” he said, and looked up at the ceiling.
“Do you think it was for you?” She gave him an innocent look.
“How do I know?” Then he lowered his voice, talking patiently. “Go right ahead, kid, just talk.”
“He didn’t have a chance to really explain, but I thought it might be for you because he said he was the man who’d been getting the calls from here, the calls from somebody called Tallow. Is your name Tallow?”
“Yeah, yeah, Tallow, lard, pig fat, go on, go on!”
“When you came back in I should tell you, he said, because he might not get to the phone any more. He said something like the wise father or something, and then it happened. We got cut off, I mean.”
Benny closed his eyes and let his mouth go lax as if he were asleep. “He said what?” His eyes stayed closed while he waited for an answer.
“He said something about the wise father.”
“Father? Whose father?”
“Oh, her father, he said. I remember now.”
“Fine now let’s try again. Her wise father?”
“Yes, something like that. And he didn’t say father, really, he said old man. That’s what he said.” She looked pleased.
Benny was silent for a moment, staring at the girl without seeing her. “Did he say perhaps that her old man-”
“Of course! He said her old man is wise.”
Benny repeated it, giving the last word a different tone.
“Her old man is wise.”
Pendleton.
Benny rushed out of the exchange. He tore the door open with such force that it flew against the wall in spite of the pneumatic door lever. Benny made one stop. He checked at Western Union, but there wasn’t a thing waiting for him. The clerk double-checked, shook his head at Benny, and turned to the next customer. But the next customer said no, he had changed his mind. Tearing his message blank in two, he followed Benny out of the door.
When Benny was chasing down the small highway that led to Malcotte, he figured he had never before been so anxious to see Pat. Perhaps she wasn’t there any more and instead there was a trigger-happy goon sitting on the bed, shotgun across his knees, waiting for the door to open and the fire to open and the gut to spill all over the floor where the shotgun-But that wouldn’t be like Pendleton. Not at all. Perhaps a knife, or a rope, or even just an empty room with a guy sitting on the other side eating a meal, a good one, and Benny starving to death right there, tied to the radiator. That was more like Pendleton. But right then it didn’t mean much to Benny. He had his foot to the floor board and was chasing the short trembling shadow that flitted like a black sheet over the road just ahead of the car.
There wasn’t a soul in the motor court. The early-afternoon sun came down like a hammer, and when Benny killed the motor next to the cabin he could hear the air conditioner hum. Hand in one pocket, he crunched across the gravel, stopped. Just the air conditioner humming in the cabin and the white heat coming down like a hammer. Then he pushed the door open, fast. She didn’t even jump.
“That you, Benny?” Pat looked over her shoulder and said, “Hi.” She stood in front of the cool blast of the window unit, legs wide, arms over head, naked. A back like silk; no, like nylon, he thought. And her belly would be flat, curved in, even, her breasts sharp and impudent. He jumped at a noise.
“You alone?”
“Why, baby!” She came over.
“Didn’t you hear-”
“The shower curtain.” She put her slim arms over his shoulders and smiled. “Glad to see you,” and she gave him a small kiss on the mouth. “You glad to see me? Huh?” She stepped back.
“Yes.”
“Well? Look! You’re not even looking at me. Never mind.” She came back to him, pressing herself close. Her head was in the curve of his shoulder, rubbing against his neck like a cat’s. “Hi!” Her voice was husky. “Hi, baby.”
He coiled his arms around her back, a wild strong embrace, which he checked before it got done. He must be losing his grip.
“Baby?” she said. “Why, baby…”
He pushed her away. Time was running out. “Listen, Pat-Look, let’s have a drink, huh?” He sounded tense, staccato.
“You want one, baby?”
Time was running out.
“Sure, and you. You want one.” He went to the bathroom, where they kept the glasses and the bottle by the sink. “Stay there,” he called through the door. “Stay there while I’m fixing it.”
He fixed it, because time was running out. He fixed it strong and heavy to make sure she’d pass out, pass out not to be in the way, not to object, not to get hurt, perhaps.
“Here. Mud in your eye.”
She took the glass and winked at him over the rim. “To us?” she said.
He watched her almost with a stare, watched her sniff the glass, tilt it, and the liquid disappearing, slipping away slow and even.
“How was it?”
“Bitter.”
He turned away. Pat was lying on the bed, the thin sheet spread over her body.
“Sit here?” she asked.
“Sure. Sure, kid.” He started to pace, putting the bottle down, picking it up, not knowing what to do to push time.
“You’re calling me ‘kid’ again,” she said.
Her tone made him wary. He knew that tone. Next she would-Hell, and for a moment he relaxed. Right now, the way she was fixed, it wouldn’t make any difference if she decided to shoot him in the back.
Then he paced again.
“Benny,” she said. She was up on one elbow. “Benny, I’m talking.”
“Sure, talk. I’m listening.”
“Benny, you’re-you’re not sitting on the bed, Benny.”
He watched her closely, not caring how it looked, and then she weaved. Or did she? The other elbow now, to turn and see him better by the window. “You’re so slow, Benny. How come every time I’m fast, you’re slow?”
He licked the sweat off his upper lip and stopped by the bed. “Pat?” he said.
“Yes?” She opened her eyes. She opened them and fell back on the pillow. “Benny, why are you-you never-you never give-” And then she looked sunken and loose, her mouth open with the dull pull of unconsciousness. He looked away.
Benny packed the new suitcase and took it outside. There was no sign of life. The white air felt as if it were going to start hissing with heat and the trees in the glen behind the cottage stood as if they had been poured into a mold. He put the suitcase in the back seat. Then he pressed the button that made the top come up, but nothing happened. It didn’t even hum or click. He ran back inside to get Pat.
When he realized that she was naked, he almost choked with rage. Everything was packed in the trunk. He ran to the car and grabbed the suitcase, but before going back he slid halfway into the front seat and hit the starter. It went plop and that’s all. The sweat that covered his body turned cold and sticky, and for a moment he didn’t move. He tried it again, knowing that it wasn’t going to work.
On the hood, where it humped down in front, he could see shiny finger marks in the gray dust.
If they were watching, he didn’t see them; if they were near, there was no sign of them. With terror creeping over his skin, he got out of the car and moved to the rear. Nerves. Nothing but crazy nerves. If they were here they would have waited for him in the cabin, they would have taken Pat before he came back. But perhaps not. This is the way Pendleton would do it. But he wouldn’t leave his daughter in the middle of it. A drop of sweat ran into the corner of his mouth. Licking at it, he grabbed for the suitcase and went inside. First of all he had to get her dressed. Then the car. Fix the car.
Pat’s skin felt cold and dry. He struggled with the dress, forgetting about the underthings. Then the shoes. Nothing to it. She was ready. He hesitated before picking her up, went outside again. It was true there were finger marks on the hood. So what? He pressed the lever that released the hood, making it dip up with a quick, spring-loaded gape. The battery cable was off. That happened sometimes. He jammed it back on, pulled the hood down, and looked around. Just like before, hot dust, white gravel, nothing moved. A cat scurried across the drive and squeezed under the floor of the next cabin. Benny stood in the bare space like a man in a ghost town; afraid of a quiet noon hour, anxious about the shrunken shadows along the edge of the cabins.
Then the noise. At any other time it would have sounded like the squeak of a bedspring. He sprinted to the cabin in three leaps.
It was dim in there and cool. Pat was lying on the bed just as he had left her. Except that now she was on her stomach.
“She started to snore, so we turned her over.”
They grinned. They came out of the bathroom and first the thin guy with the Adam’s apple grinned and then the stocky one with the bald head grinned too. They looked friendly enough, except for the guns. The thin guy was leveling his and then the bald one did too.
“Don’t bother to run.” The last time Benny had seen them, they had been holding cocktail glasses instead of guns. “We aim to bring you back alive, and running would spoil it.”
Benny knew where they came from. Bring him back alive. That would be Pendleton’s order.
“My name is John Smith,” said the thin one, “and this is my partner, Jack Brown.” The man smiled, lazy and slow. He had round, yellow eyes with sharp black dots to the middle, just like a chicken’s. Then he said, “Jack Brown, frisk the prisoner.”
When Benny took a step back both guns came up. He stopped.
“And now, friend, I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say. ‘Fellers, you got the wrong guy,’ aren’t you, Tapkow?” Smith grinned. Then he waited but Benny wasn’t saying a thing.
“Jack Brown.” Smith wasn’t smiling any more. “Frisk the prisoner.”
The bald guy stepped up to Benny and took the target pistol out of his pocket The hairless skull was right under Benny’s chin, and he could smell the sour sweat coming from the man.
“What a thing for a hero to be carrying,” Smith said. “Brown, show Tapkow what a hero he is.” Brown slammed his fist into Benny’s midriff without even taking a step back.
Benny doubled over, his tongue swelling against his teeth, a green pain rotating around his stomach.
“Jack Brown is a little primitive,” he heard the thin man’s voice saying, “but then, a hero like you wouldn’t frown at a little horseplay, now would you, Tapkow?”
Smith had stepped up and his hand touched lightly on Benny’s head. There was a small push and Benny fell over.
“Can’t you take it, hero?”
He lay on the floor, blind with pain. He didn’t feel like a hero, but he knew something Smith didn’t know: he could take it One way or another he could take it, and then his turn would come. He was breathing hard now, almost hoping that Smith would do something else. It would add to the fire, to the slow growing explosion that was building up under all that pain.
“Tell me, Tapkow,” the thin one said conversationally, “why is the lady friend sleeping so hard? We tried to make her perk up a little-we tried like all get-out Answer, Tapkow.”
He saw two well-polished shoes, black and pointed, stand next to his eyes. One of them lifted slowly and the tip nudged him under the chin. Do it again, he kept thinking. Do it again, harder.
“Answer, Tapkow:” The shoe clipped him on the cheek.
“Drunk. She’s drunk.”
“What a weird time for it! When will she pull out?”
“I don’t know. She’s drunk.”
“Is that how a hero gets his women, Tapkow? I’m ashamed of you. Brown, help him into the chair.”
While Smith held his gun level, Brown took Benny by the arms and with one easy heave bounced him into the rocker. For a moment Benny thought he was going to throw up.
“Has this been going on for long, Tapkow? Never mind, the lady isn’t here to defend herself, and I guess we’ll have to take her as she is. Jack Brown…”
“Don’t.” It was an effort to talk. “Listen to me, Smith. She’s terrible when she wakes up. You got to know what to do when she’s that way. Let her first-”
“You’ll be along, friend. You’re coming along alive, remember? Jack Brown, bring up the car.”
The bald guy left and Benny listened to his steps get fainter on the gravel. They must have parked on the highway.
“Seeing we’re just sitting around, Tapkow, explain to me what made you do it I’m a real student of human nature, Tapkow, so tell me what made you do it. Why, of all the dames in this world, why Pendleton’s daughter? Explain to me.” Smith’s chicken eyes were blinking with real interest, and then Benny caught on, because Smith was saying, “I once been in love myself, friend, so you can trust me. Tell me, Tapkow, you really gotta be a hero for this kind of a deal, huh?”
They didn’t know. Pendleton didn’t know. They thought he was having an affair, plain and simple.
“Tell me, Tapkow.” The thin neck came forward, eyes hooded. “Is she good?”
“Why you stinking…”
“Tut, tut.” The gun came up, level.
Smith walked around the bed and put his hand on Pat’s shoulder. He shook her, but she didn’t wake up. “I guess you heroes know what you’re doing,” Smith’s eyes had got slitty, “but for me it’s the hefty kind every time.” He turned the inert girl on her back with careless gesture.
“Keep away from her!” Benny almost forgot about the gun.
“Yes, friend, every time. Just look at this, Tapkow.” Smith moved his hand along her shoulder, then down. “There’s nothing but-”
Benny lunged.
The gun came around, but no shot Just as he had figured. They were going to bring him back alive; they were going to have their fun and bring him back for Pendleton all in one piece.
Smith had stepped clear of the bed and his gun was pointing at Benny’s middle. It jammed him in the belly when his hands clawed around Smith’s throat. He could feel the sharp edge of the Adam’s apple and started to squeeze.
“Friend,” Smith had a hard time saying it, “I won’t kill you, I’ll do you worse.” There wasn’t enough air any more, but Smith kept looking him straight in the eye. Then Benny saw the gun come up and over and then the flat of it slapped down on top of his skull. His legs folded gently under him and he sank to the floor.
Through the dull pain he heard the gravel crunch. He could just dimly see Smith’s pointed shoes, and they seemed to be wavering like boats on a swell.
“Take her.” That was Smith’s voice. Benny tried to force himself up, every muscle a knot of steel, but nothing happened. “When she wakes up, show her Pendleton’s letter. Drop her as arranged and then pick me up.”
The bedsprings moaned, somebody grunted, and then heavy footsteps walked across the boards. Benny hardly heard the car, and he didn’t know how much later it was when he saw Smith’s feet again-clearly now-where they rested side by side and a little under the rocking chair. The rocker was creaking.
“Tapkow, I know you’re awake.” Smith’s voice sounded bored. “Hey, Tapkow!” One of the well-pointed shoes blurred suddenly and a thousand painful colors exploded in Benny’s head. “That wasn’t a hard kick, now was it, friend? Let’s see you get up.”
Benny got up slowly and fought the nausea that welled up in his stomach. After a while he felt better. “Where’s Pat?” He sat on the empty bed, not looking up.
“The lady friend is on her way. Our own Doc Brown is taking care of her, and in no time at all her ever loving Daddy Pendleton is going to hold the poor little girl in his arms. Of course, that ain’t the way he’s waiting for you, friend.”
They sat without talking then. Benny lapsed into a numb stupor and Smith started to rock again. The slow creaking of the chair was like a warm, friendly drug, making Benny forget the terrible weight of his failure, and the horror that waited for him. For a while, that is. The creaking kept on; it got irritating. It started to scrape at his nerves and the sound became like a whiplash.
“Nervous, friend?” Smith was lighting a cigarette.
“Let me have a smoke, willya?”
Smith sucked the smoke in like a man starved for air, held it, and then with a luxurious sigh blew it in Benny’s face. “There you are, friend. Want another?” and he did it again.
The rocker kept up its slow, evil creak, almost like a scream that didn’t quite make it. Benny noticed how Smith’s feet rose off the floor on the backswing. “Smith, I’m not asking much. Just one fag, willya? I’m asking you.”
“On bended knee?”
“Yeah, sure, anything you say.” Benny slipped off the bed, kneeling close to the rocking legs. Smith looked pleased, rocking. Then came the backswing. Smith’s long face froze in surprise and his skull clicked hard against the wall behind. The gun exploded, tearing a fluffed hole in the mattress, and Benny was up, both hands around Smith’s foot and twisting with a vicious concentration. The chair tilted for a moment, then toppled sideways. Benny never let go of the foot. Smith was screeching in a hoarse, strange voice, thrashing on the floor and trying to turn his body with the twist of his foot. The gun was lying someplace, forgotten. Benny was switching his grip for the final, breaking twist when Smith’s other foot caught him in the groin. He stiffened, then slumped sideways. When he heard the snap, feeling the foot give a little, he let go and fell.
They lay on the floor, so close they could have touched each other. There were tears in Smith’s eyes and his thin mouth was stretched back over the gums making his face look like a skull. But Benny couldn’t reach over. The churning pain in his groin grew out like the tendrils of a vine, twisting through every fiber of his body, paralyzing him. His face was sweaty and creased, and all he could do was stare at Smith, stare at his face close by without being able to move. They lay like that, with the murder and hate a solid thing between them.
Then Smith blinked. Another slow blink and Smith’s face turned dark with strain. His hand crept over in a slow, considered way, found Benny’s face, and the nails gouged down slowly with a trembling intensity that pulled the skin down and apart. Benny moved away, rolled over, made it. The terrible effort left him shaky, and then he fell forward, his hands coiling around the thin man’s throat. Benny didn’t even watch; he just pressed. He pressed with the slow, deliberate force of a giant machine that knows nothing, needs to know nothing. He just squeezed till the end of strength. After a while the neck didn’t give any more, and Benny looked down. He saw that he was strangling a corpse.
When it was dark outside, Benny got out of the rocker and walked to the bathroom. He drank from the faucet, splashed a little water on his face. Before he left the tiled cubicle he drew the shower curtain in place, kicking his foot at the thing behind it and making sure nothing showed. Then he sat in the rocker again. He lit another cigarette, turned the chair so it faced the door, and picked up the gun. Then he sat.
When he heard the gravel outside he did not jump. He moved slowly. With one hand he flipped the safety off the slide. Four long steps took him across the cabin and he slid out of the back window. He left it open.
Brown wasn’t very bright. He pushed the door open and stood framed against the thin light of the night sky. “Hey,” he said. “Hey, I’m back.” When he didn’t get any answer, he stepped into the room and fumbled for the light switch. His other hand came up with a gun.
Benny could have potted him right there. He could have drilled him through the belly, or the head, or the chest, or any other place he felt like, while Brown stood in the empty cottage blinking his pig eyes to get used to the light. Benny waited. There was time.
“Hey!” Brown said again. “What the hell!” He sounded belligerent. Then he looked under the bed, in the closet, then in the bathroom. Benny couldn’t see him any more, but he heard the shower curtain being pushed back. After about a second Brown’s voice said, Ohmigosh!” He came stumbling through the door and said, “Ohmigosh!” again. Now Benny rested the barrel of the gun on the window sill.
“Freeze!”
Brown froze.
“Drop it!”
Brown let it drop.
“Fold ‘em on your head and don’t turn.”
Brown obeyed like a puppet and Benny climbed back through the window. He spiked the gun barrel into the short man’s spine and frisked him. There was a sap, a switch knife, a wad of bills, and a half-empty roll of Lifesavers.
“Lean against that wall, Doc Brown. No, face the wall. Step back a pace. Now lean. On your index finger. You can use both of them, bonehead.”
Brown did. With pointed index fingers pressing against the wall, his weight turned the end joints up, making a crease where the fingers bent.
“Comfortable, Brown?”
The man grunted. “No, sir,” he said.
“Fine. Stay that way.”
After a little while beads of sweat grew on the man’s bald head and the ends of his fingers turned purple. A slow drip of saliva started to hit the floor below Brown’s face, but he never made a sound.
“Comfortable, Brown?”
“No, sir.”
“Where’s Pat?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
Benny kicked him in the ribs, making the man double over. Brown let go of the wall and banged his head against the thin partition. While Benny watched, Brown picked himself up slowly, put his fingers against the wall again, and leaned.
“You’re a game one, aren’t you, Brown? Where’s Pat?”
Brown turned and said, “I don’t know.”
But Benny didn’t hit him again. He frowned, tapping his foot on the floor. “I guess maybe you don’t, Brown.” He hesitated a moment, then said, “You can get off the wall. Sit on the bed there.”
“Thanks.” Brown eased off the wall carefully and went to the bed. Benny watched him sit there, rubbing his fingers.
“Cigarette?”
“No, sir. Can I have a Lifesaver?”
Benny tossed him the roll. Brown peeled one out and sucked on it.
“Now from the beginning. Pendleton hired you?” Brown nodded. “He hired you for the job?”
“He hired Smith. I’m with Smith.”
“Yeah. To pick me up?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
“You got Pendleton’s daughter. He’s sore and wants her back. He don’t want you messing around with his daughter.”
“That all?”
“Sure.”
“How were you going to take her back?”
“Put her on a train.”
“Alone?”
“No. With another guy.”
“Did you?”
“No, sir. She skipped.”
“What?”
“Halfway back to town she wakes up and feels sick. She says, ‘Where am I?’ I say, ‘You’re going home to your dad,’ and I give her the letter from Pendleton. It explains there about us taking her home.” Brown stopped.
“Go on, what next?”
“We get to town and she says, ‘Stop at the drugstore, I gotta go in there.’ I stop and wait. After a while she don’t come out and I go in. Miss Pendleton is gone.”
“So?”
“I come back to ask Smith what next, and Smith is dead behind the shower curtain.”
“Yeah. I know that part.” Benny paced back and forth, not knowing what to ask next. There was nothing else to ask.
“O.K., Brown, on your feet.” Brown got up. “Pick up your friend there and put him on the bed.”
Brown struggled with the body in the narrow bathroom. The corpse was stiff already. When he got him out he put Smith on the bed, trying to straighten him, but it didn’t work. Smith was an ugly sight.
“Never mind that. Just leave him.”
Brown stood by the bed, looking down at Smith without moving.
“Brown, can I buy you?” Benny stepped behind the man.
“No, sir.”
“I pay better.”
“I’m with Smith.”
“O.K., Brown,” and Benny whipped the gun butt down on the bald man’s head. He swung hard, figuring that Brown had a head like a rock. He was right. The butt glanced off and Brown toppled forward.
“Ohmigosh,” Brown started to say. Benny swung again and connected.
He stepped over the limp man on the floor and with his handkerchief he wiped the discolored neck of the corpse. Then he wiped the shoe that stuck out at the wrong angle. After wiping the. 45, he pressed it into the dead man’s hand, but it wouldn’t stay there. He let it drop to the floor. After he turned off the light in the cabin, he left. He could hear the air conditioner humming in the dark, and then his motor kicked over. He hit the highway in a sharp skid and took off toward Haute Platte.
All that night he looked for Pat, not caring about the two men back in the cottage-one dead, one still alive-not caring about the cops or the stares he got because of his swollen, torn check. But he didn’t find Pat anywhere, neither in town nor around it.
At four in the morning they found him sitting behind the wheel of the convertible. There were dark rings under his eyes and the stubble on his jaw made him look pale and drawn.
“Saves us a trip to your cabin,” said the old cop. “Come with us.” Benny followed them, for once without hope.