Girl out back

by Charles Williams

  “Glasses?”

  She nodded. “The poor old soul can’t read a word without ‘em. He’d dropped his old ones and one of the lenses had come out. He thought he had a spare set, but when he went to look . . .”

  I closed my eyes. They could kill you, but did they have to do this first?

  “. . . anyway, he found out he’d lost the spare ones so he came down Monday morning and asked me if I’d pick him up another set in Exeter. You remember, when I called you that was where I was going. They have his prescription there at the Berg Brothers.”

  You had to admit it. Purely as a work of art it was perfect. There wasn’t a flaw, or a superfluous brush stroke. It had all the cold and functional beauty of a cobra coiled to strike.

  “What did George think about it?” I asked.

  “Oh, he doesn’t know about it yet. Unless he heard it in town.”

  I kept my face perfectly still. “You mean you didn’t tell him?”

  She shook her head. Her eyes were moody. “No. We had a fight, like I told you. We haven’t spoken since”

  Don’t hope yet, I thought. I was almost afraid to breathe. “How about the other people you told? The ones who knew him, I mean? I bet they were surprised to know he had that money all the time.”

  “The people in Hampstead wouldn’t know him,” she said. “I haven’t told anybody but you.”

  I was limp, and wanted to put my head and arms down on the steering wheel and just rest. But what now? There was no way I could stop her from telling somebody else, and the instant she breathed one word of it anywhere in this country swarming with F.B.I, agents. . . . Was I any better off? It was just slower this way, prolonging the agony. No. No, no, no. I had to turn her off some way. But how? I couldn’t ask her not to say anything about it. She wasn’t that stupid. She’d guess.

  Well. I’d stopped Cliffords, hadn’t I?

  Jesus Christ, no. Not that. Not ever again. . . . I’d rather go on and get it over with. Not this kid. . . . She trusted me. She practically followed me around because she thought I was something special.

  Well? Hadn’t Cliffords? Are you all right, Mr. Ward?

  Stop it, I thought. I felt sick.

  “Didn’t he come home at all last night?” I asked.

  “Yes. But it was late.”

  Then he didn’t even know she’d been up there at all. Wait. . . . The warning bell was ringing in my mind. It was something she’d said. “—to wrap up the fish.” That bass! That big bass Cliffords had caught, the one I thought he’d thrown back into the lake.

  “You said something a minute ago,” I prompted her. “Something about a fish. What did that have to do with it?”

  “Oh. It was a great big thing Mr. Cliffords had caught. He insisted on me taking it. He said George might like to have it mounted to put in the lunch-room.”

  Well, we were back where we started.

  “Didn’t George ask you where it came from?”

  She shook her head. “I guess I wasn’t very nice. I didn’t want to take him any fish. But I couldn’t hurt the old man’s feelings. When I got down to the lake I threw it away.”

  I couldn’t take much more. This yo-yo routine was too rough.

  There was something else that didn’t jibe, too, but maybe it didn’t matter. Cliffords had said he’d phone her from the jail to collect his stuff and sell some of it. But she’d just been there. Why hadn’t he told her then; Probably didn’t think of it until she’d gone, I thought.

  “Does George know where you are now?” I asked. “I mean, does he know you came to Hampstead?”

  She shook her head. “He’s up the lake. Guiding for a man.”

  In other words, it was now or never. Nobody knew where either of us was.

  Why? I thought in agony. Why did they do it; Both of them—Cliffords, and now this kid—cut you off at every turn. You’d think they had spent a year studying the precise moves to back you into a spot from which you could not escape without killing them. They insisted on it; they left you no choice at all.

  I had to do something. I couldn’t sit here all day trying to make up my mind.

  “Barney,” she said quietly, “I get afraid of him when he’s like he was last night. He thinks there’s something between us. We know there’s not, but . . .”

  But there could be. She might as well have said it.

  Then, suddenly, I got it. The whole thing solved itself at once. Of course I couldn’t do anything to her, even if I were able to bring myself to do it. There was another reason. Nunn suspected us; so did Otis. If anything happened to her, the police would pick me up for questioning within hours.

  But if you merely turned it around, it fell right into place for me. It was made to order. All I had to do was get her out of the country. Today. Now, before she had a chance to speak to one other living person. Run away with her. Sure, they’d know we had gone together, but that just made it better. Wouldn’t that answer all Ramsey’s questions at once, if he had any? I didn’t know anything about Haig’s money; all I’d been doing was chasing some other man’s wife.

  I turned and gave her a long, somber look. “Do you mean that?”

  “What, Barney?”

  “About being afraid of him?”

  “I don’t know really. But . . .

  “You’ve got to leave him,” I said. “We’re going away together.”

  She stared. “We—we can’t do that.”

  I caught both her arms. “Today,” I said harshly. “You’re not going back there at all. If he ever hurt you I’d kill him.”

  “Barney, you’re squeezing my arms . . .”

  I turned them loose and dropped my head contritely. “I’m sorry,” I said. I took a deep breath and exhaled it shakily, still looking down at my hands clenched in my lap. “I—I’ve got to tell you something, Jewel. You’ve never been out of my mind since that first minute I saw you. Wait. . . . I know how crazy it sounds. Of course it’s been only a little over a week. But don’t you see? Time has no meaning any more. It would be the same in five minutes, or a thousand years.”

  “Barney . . .”

  “Let me finish, please. I’ve got to tell you this. I see you everywhere I turn. I lie awake at night seeing you. I pass women on the street that are tall, or have eyes almost that same . . .” gray, I thought, “. . . sea-mist shade of gray, or a little gesture of the hand, or a line somewhere, or one random fragment of grace that reminds me of you, and then you’re all around me. It’s so terribly real I could almost reach out and touch you. Do you know what that’s like, or how long you can stand it?”

  I glanced up at her then. I was in, all right. You could see it in the hushed and tremulous expression and the softness of the eyes as she studied my face. From here on it was only a mopping-up operation.

  “I love you, Jewel,” I said. I kissed her, and her arms went up about my neck, clinging fiercely. I kissed the closed eyelids, and moved my lips across her cheek to whisper in her ear, “Darling, darling. Oh, darling. . . .”

  * * *

  “But, Barney, we’ve got to take time to think. This is all so fast.”

  “There’s nothing to think about. We’re going away this afternoon. Look. We’ll go to Florida. We can both get divorces there, and we’ll be married. I’ve got some money of my own, and I’ll get a job. You’ll be out of that swamp, where you can wear decent clothes, and be around people.”

  She stirred a little in my arms. “All right, Barney. I know it’s wrong, but I guess I can’t help it either. I’ll go with you anywhere.”

  You’re wonderful.”

  “Do you want me to meet you in Sanport? I could take the bus.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want to be away from you that long. We’ll go together. We’ll go back to town and I’ll cash a check, and put my stuff in the car.”

  She pushed a little away from me and glanced up. “But I’ll have to pack. . . .”

  “I don’t want you to take anything. I want to buy you
everything new. And choose it all myself.”

  “But there are some pieces of jewelry my mother gave me. And pictures. Things I’ve got to take.”

  I thought swiftly. She probably wouldn’t leave without the usual flotsam and sentimental rubbish women always clung to with such mulish perversity. At least, not without an argument that would take longer than going after them.

  “You’re sure he’s up the lake?” I asked. “There’s no use having a nasty scene or maybe a fight.”

  She nodded. “He’s fishing with some man. It’ll only take me a few minutes to pack what I want to take. Do you want me to meet you here?”

  “I’ll go with you,” I said.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “From now on,” I said, “you go nowhere without me, you tawny-haired angel.” At least, not till we got out of this country. “And, besides, we could leave your car there.”

  “All right,” she said.

  She drove fast. I stayed close behind her. We met no one at all on the road, but after we made the turn-off and were down in the bottom almost to the camp we had to pull over for a car that was coming out. There was a man in it alone, and he wore a long-visored fishing cap. I frowned, not caring much for it. But she should know whether or not that was the man he was guiding, and she continued on. I followed.

  We came around the last bend and into the clearing. It was quiet and deserted except for a late model Ford parked near the cabins. She stopped, and I turned around so I’d be headed out toward the highway.

  When we got out I nodded toward the Ford. “Is that his car? The man he’s fishing with?”

  She looked doubtful. “I’m not sure. There were two different men, and one of them went out alone. I don’t remember which was which.”

  “Well, we’re here. Let’s get started.”

  We walked over to the lunch-room. It was open, except for the screen door.

  “I locked up when I left,” she said.

  Well, it couldn’t be helped. If we ran into him, it was going to be a lot more awkward on account of my being with her, but that was the way it bounced. I had to be sure she hadn’t talked to anybody. I opened the screen and we went in. The room was empty. He could be in back, I thought, but presumably he would have heard us by this time and come out. She hesitated, and I knew she didn’t like the idea of going in to see, but I couldn’t help her there. It was bad enough this way, but if he came in and found the two of us in their bedroom the whole thing was apt to turn hairy in large quantities.

  He didn’t strike me at all as the well-we-might-as-well-be-civilized type.

  “It’s so quiet,” she said.

  I’d noticed that, and usually liked more noise myself. I was about to say something when the screen door opened quietly behind us and he came in. God alone knew where he’d been. Under the best of circumstances his face wasn’t anything you’d need in your dreams unless you wanted to grate a coconut, but now there was a frozen savagery about it I didn’t like at all.

  He didn’t say anything. He leaned against the door jamb and looked dangerous. He was good at it.

  She was behind me. “I’m leaving, George,” she said.

  Nothing moved except his lips. “You figure you’ll be better off with glamor-boy here?

  “I’m going away,” she said. “That’s the only thing that matters, isn’t it?”

  “Get a place with a back door,” he said. “So you can both keep in practice.”

  “Look, Nunn,” I broke in. “There hasn’t been . . .”

  “Shut up,” he said. I’ll get to you in a minute.”

  “Go pack your bag,” I told her. “You’ve told him you’re leaving. That’s all that’s necessary.”

  She turned and went through the doorway behind the counter. He started to come toward me. I was blocking his way at the opening between the counter and showcase.

  “She’s afraid of you,” I said. “Stay out of there and leave her alone.”

  I could see he didn’t have a gun. He wore nothing except a pair of dungarees and a sweaty T-shirt. He looked like something carved out of knotty wood.

  “You forget whose place this is?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “But why don’t you stop acting like an idiot. All she’s doing is leaving. It happens every day.”

  “Yeah. It does with you around, sport.”

  He made no move to swing at me, or go past. Instead he stepped down the counter and leaned over it. When he straightened he had a hunting knife in his hand. It had a thin and wicked blade about eight inches long.

  He started back toward me. “You want to see what a man looks like standing in his own guts?”

  He meant it. He wasn’t the bluffing kind. I backed up a step. There was nothing under the counter or in the showcase I could hold him off with. I didn’t like it at all any more. About one more step backward and I’d be in that hallway on the other side of the door, and in the close quarters there I was going to have knife in me somewhere no matter what I did.

  Then something slid past my side, just under my right arm. It was a .45 automatic. I grabbed it from her hand and leveled it at him. Instead of stopping, he lunged at me, and I knew the chamber wasn’t armed. It was his gun, of course, and if she had armed it we’d have heard her. There wasn’t time. I swung it at the side of his head and was lucky enough to connect. He fell into me like a bum tackle, rolled off, and fell to the floor. She cried out behind me.

  “Get back,” I snapped at her.

  Instead, she came on past me, stepped over his legs, and went around the counter. She sat down on one of the stools and put her face down in her arms. She was just weak and sick.

  I bent over him and felt his head where the trickle of blood showed on his scalp above the left ear. There was no fracture. He groaned and stirred his legs. I picked up the knife and tossed it back on the shelf under the counter. Straightening up, I pulled the slide of the gun back to arm it. A cartridge flew out. I looked down at him and shook my head. He was a rough type. It took guts to charge a gun you knew was ready to shoot.

  “He have any more guns around here?” I asked.

  She sat up. Her face was pale and very still. I supposed as a way to break up house-keeping in the old urbane manner this could stand a little polishing. I’d had enough of it myself; I’d never cared much for these muscle routines.

  “Two,” she said. “A rifle and a shotgun.”

  “Maybe you’d better bring ’em out.”

  They were a 30.30 and a Model 12 shotgun. I went down and threw them in the lake off the end of the float. It was a shame to treat good guns like that, but this thing was sour now for fair. They’d probably have been able to kiss it off with nothing but a double order of frozen silence all around if she’d been alone; but after that humiliation he’d kill either or both of us if he could.

  I went back. She was coming out the screen door with her overnight bag. When I looked inside he was moving. He had his head and shoulders against the wall and was trying to inch his way up. A bright thread of blood ran down the corded neck and into his T-shirt. He looked at me, but said nothing. I turned and went out. She was putting her bag in the car. I looked back at him before I let the screen door slam, and he was on his feet, weakly clutching the end of the counter and vomiting.

  I was getting behind the wheel when I heard the door slam again. He walked unsteadily toward us as I reached for the starter, and stopped about ten feet away, staring at both of us.

  It didn’t seem to be a situation that called for a great deal in the way of conversation. I pressed the starter and we drove on out of the bottom.

  Fifteen

  I stopped once and threw the .45 out into the timber at the side of the road.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m sorry it had to be that messy.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. She was looking a little better now, but she didn’t want to talk about it. Neither did I.

  I thought swiftly as I gunned the car back tow
ard Hampstead and the highway. It has to be done just right now, and in as natural a way as possible. If we were running away together, we wouldn’t flaunt the fact all over town. We’d meet somewhere and simply go, knowing it would be a matter of public knowledge within hours, anyway. And I could not let her talk to anybody, anybody at all under any circumstances, until we were away from here. The only thing to do was take her home and leave her there while I cashed the check and made the last trip to the shop.

  She didn’t have to be seen going in. The three houses along that street were old ones that went in for privacy. They were on big lots, heavily planted, with a fenced alley at the rear. I could take her in that way. No, I thought. Why be silly about it? Overdoing the cloak-and-dagger would be carrying it too far in the other direction. We’d merely drive right into the garage and go out through the side door and into the kitchen. It was only four or five steps, and could be seen only from the house directly across the street. If Mrs. Macklin happened to be looking out the window at just that moment, who cared? We were merely being clandestine, not furtive. It’d give her a chance to sound “Boots and Saddles” after we were gone, and harry on the pack.

  I made the turn on to the highway. Jewel put a hand on mine on the steering wheel and moved a little closer. She glanced up and smiled faintly. “It won’t take long, will it, Barney? I mean, before we can start?”

  ”No,” I said. “An hour or two, at the most. You won’t mind waiting for me at the house, will you?”

  She shook her head. “That will be all right.”

  I swung off the main drag in the outskirts of town and circled to get on Minden at the outer end. The house was the second from the corner on Underhill, a short side street that intersected it. I made the turn into Underhill, and then swung into the driveway. The garage door was open. I went on in.

  Patting her on the hand, I said, “Sit tight for just a minute.”

  I pulled down the garage door and let myself in at the front of the house. Going on through, I unlocked the kitchen door and stepped out to the garage again. She had already got out and was standing there with her bag. I took it and followed her in.