Glass Houses

by Stella Cameron

  “I didn’t,” Winston said. “You heard what the man said. You’re going to need whatever help you can get just to deal with the traffic and stay on the right side of the road. You’d never manage the shift as well. You’re a dreadful driver.” Amid blaring horns, a blur of shaking fists protruding from car windows, and yelled epithets, Rupert entered the traffic on East 43rd at a crawl. He hunched forward against the wheel, over which he could just see, and peered through the windshield. “Damn these tinted windows. Feels like being on the tube when the lights fail,” he told Winston.

  “Stay on this street until I tell you to turn. Can’t you go faster, Rupert? You seem to be making other drivers rather upset.”

  “No, I can’t go faster. Do we go past the Empire State Building? Now that’s a building, that is, and I’ve never had time to take a good look at it. All we’ve ever done here is hang out in antique shops and apartments that don’t belong to us.”

  “For crying out loud, Rupert,” Winston shouted. “You’ve got no sense of direction, you git. Empire State’s nowhere near where we’re going. Turn! Right on Lexington Avenue. No! Not Lexington, one more block, then right. Omigod, you nearly hit that bus. Wiggle your way around and keep Grand Central Station on your left. See it?”

  Rupert looked out of his window. “Got it. More like a Roman bath than a station.”

  “We’re on track,” Winston said.

  Nervy little poofter, Rupert thought. Winston ought to drive while he, Rupert, snapped orders so quickly they ran together. “Left! Two blocks, then right on Madison.”

  Winston would have to go. The opportunity would arise, and Rupert would take it. Winston would be no more. “Ree-ight. Right, right, right, moron.”

  “Right you are, Winston,” Rupert said, feeling a calm spread inside his mind. He missed dear Soames. There was something so comforting about the spineless little body that it relaxed one. Just thinking about his ferret gave Rupert solace. If he saw a pet store, there were bound to be some nice rats to watch. He liked the white ones best.

  “Tricky bit coming up,” Winston announced. “Left on 51st and past St. Patrick’s. Too bad there isn’t time to pop in and light a candle.”

  “What for?” Rupert decided Winston was going a bit soft up top.

  “I believe in hedging my bets,” Winston said.

  Rupert ignored the comment.

  “Turn right!” Winston pounded a pudgy fist on the dashboard and yelled, “Ouch. I can’t relax for a moment. Right.”

  Rupert squeaked around as the lights turned red. “You’ve got to give me more notice. Can you turn right on red here?”

  “How should I know? Shut up and do as you’re told. You’re the driver. I’m the navigator.” He rustled the maps spread over his lap. “According to that man, Fats Lemon, we may have to cross the entire country.”

  “I remember now,” Rupert said. “You can’t turn right on red.”

  “Shut up. I’m concentrating.”

  Rupert groaned, then yelped. An ambulance, lights flashing, headed directly toward them.

  “On the right,” Winston screamed. “Get on the right!”

  “It’s a one-way street,” Rupert wailed. “And we’re going the wrong way, you blithering idiot.” He veered to the curb, narrowly missing first the ambulance, then several yellow cabs swerving in to pick up passengers, and slammed on the brakes. Sweat ran into his eyes and burned. Beneath his suit jacket, his shirt adhered to his back and the collar, already sopping, began to turn cold.

  “What are you stopping here for?” Winston looked over his shoulder, his half-glasses steaming up. “Can’t you read the bloody sign?”

  Rupert looked, too. “Which one? There are at least eight signs on that lamppost. No Parking Alternate Tuesdays? Is it Tuesday? Is it an alternate Tuesday? Or do you mean, No Parking During Loading Hours. How should I know when loading hours are?”

  “I mean,” Winston said through gritted teeth, “the sign that says, DON’T EVEN THINK OF PARKING HERE! It’s the one at the top.”

  “That’s mad,” Rupert said.

  Winston made to hit him again, but Rupert covered his head and ducked. “Hit me one more time and you’ll drive.”

  “Haven’t got a license with me.”

  “We’ll get you one.”

  “No time. Back up. Now.”

  Rupert formulated an argument, but there was nothing for it but to get himself facing the right way as quickly as possible. Reversing slowly, following the endless stream of taxis swerving in and out to the curb, he finally reached the corner and managed, by some miracle, to back around it.

  “There,” Winston said, studying a map through a magnifying glass. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Now, keep your wits about you. Get out the toll money for the George Washington Bridge. We get to Interstate 80 and away we go.”

  Very deliberately, Rupert turned off the engine and set the emergency brake. “This is a legal parking spot.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “You are at my mercy.”

  “I can ruin you,” Winston told him hoarsely, taking hold of his sleeve. “Don’t you forget it. I can leave you with nothing. So don’t cross me.”

  A wise man knew when to back off and save the heavy artillery. Rupert disengaged Winston’s hand, set it on top of the maps, and patted it. “We’re overworked. It’s getting to us. Let’s decide what we’re going to do. Specifics, Winston.”

  “You push me,” Winston said, all petulance.

  “We don’t know what kind of car the FitzDurham woman and her boyfriend are driving. Or where we’re supposed to intercept them.”

  “Lemon said he’d be finding out soon. We’ve just got to get some miles behind us or we’ll never catch them, regardless of whether we find out about the car.”

  “You’re right And we’ll get going as soon as we know what we’re doing. Exactly.”

  “I’ve decided that once we’re past Chicago, we take Interstate 90 all the way.”

  “I thought staying on 80 would be a better choice.”

  “Why, dammit?” Winston said

  Rupert hadn’t given the route any thought at all, but he was always proud of his ability to think quickly. “Well, since we aren’t sure exactly where they’re going, other than somewhere on the West Coast, if we haven’t already been told which road to take, we’ll be in a better position on 80, if they’re heading for California, which is very likely.”

  “Why?”

  “The weather, of course. Why would anyone go to the West Coast when winter’s starting, and not go to California?”

  “Logical,” Winston said, gratifying Rupert. “Now can we go?”

  “Not until we decide.”

  “We’ve decided, Rupert, old sport.”

  “We haven’t decided how we’re going to do it when we catch them.”

  “Do it? You have such a crude turn of phrase.”

  “We get what we want,” Rupert said. “The photographs, the checks, and what money she still has. Then we kill them both. I thought that was already decided.”

  He could have predicted the shudder that jiggled through Winston.

  “The question is, how?” Rupert continued. “When we go in after them, we’ve got to be armed and ready,”

  “Armed? No guns, Rupert. You know how I feel about guns, and with good reason. We don’t have one, anyway.”

  “This isn’t the time to be squeamish. We’ll get a gun because that’s the most likely way for us to kill them.”

  “No, no, no.” Winston shook his head, setting his jowls wobbling. “Absolutely not. They’ve changed things here. You have to wait before they’ll let you have a weapon. And they ask questions.”

  Rupert restrained his temper. “Everyone who wants a gun, gets a gun. Still. This is a big, violent country. You still watch those John Wayne flicks. Nothing’s changed. We’ll kill them, and no one will even know. We’ll be out of the country again before some bumbling sheriff with a plate-sized star on
his chest starts trying to solve the case.”

  Winston said, “I think we should hire a hit man.”

  A policeman walked toward them with measured steps. Rupert sat, absolutely unmoving, and said, “Winston. That policeman’s coming to us. Smile. No, don’t smile. They suspect you if you’re obsequious. Gimme that.” He pulled a map between them. “We’ll tell him we’re lost and ask him for directions.”

  Winston plopped a stubby finger on the map and traced random lines there, leaving a damp trail as he went.

  Rupert’s heart pounded sickeningly.

  “Where is he now?” Winston whispered.

  With studied nonchalance, Rupert glanced up. The policeman was having a discussion with a barefoot gentleman about the finer points of the law relating to urinating in public.

  “All clear,” Rupert said. “He’s got more important matters to deal with than us now. We haven’t done anything, anyway.”

  “A hit man’s the thing,” Winston said, his eyes unusually sharp over his lenses. “Tonight if we can arrange it. But no guns. Let’s have them forced off the road and into the water somewhere. They’ll drown, and no one will know the reason. We’ll be in the all-clear.”

  “Clear,” Rupert said. “We’re not talking about a blitz. That’s amazing, Winston.”

  Winston smiled and said, “Thank you. I think it’s rather good.”

  “But we’ll still have to get our hands on the photos and checks, won’t we?”

  “The water will probably ruin them.”

  “Mmm,” Rupert said. “Can’t have that, can we? I think we’re back to a gun.”

  “Strangling’s what I really have in mind,” Winston said. Really, he wasn’t accustomed to figuring out how to kill people. These things invariably got out of hand, and he liked predictability. “I was only testing you to see if you were concentrating. You weren’t.”

  Once more Rupert opted for moderate restraint. “The boyfriend is a strapping young detective. That much we do know. But we’re going to be able to strangle him?”

  “No. We’ll get a really strong hit man.”

  “Hit man equals bullets, equals guns.”

  “Sex!” Winston laughed and clapped his hands together. “Of course, sex. It’s always involved, and men will be men.”

  “Meaning?” Rupert asked.

  Winston sighed loudly. “Why do I have to spell out every tiny point for you? We’ll save the money for the hit man. You can get them while they’re, you know, doing it.”

  Rupert sniggered. “Moving targets might not be that easy.”

  “You’re disgusting,” Winston said. “You wait for the moment. The moment. Make it look like a murder-suicide.”

  “When?”

  Little wonder Rupert was so fond of rat-like creatures, Winston thought, they shared similar IQs. “They’ll get tired,” he said, trying for patience because Rupert showed signs of having one of his rare attacks of stubborn resistance. “Tired and horny and they’ll go to a motel. It’ll probably happen tonight, even if it’s late.”

  “Where will it happen?”

  “When they’re in bed!”

  Rupert turned his mottled purple nose in Winston’s direction, assumed his best attempt at a superior sneer, and said, “I meant where will this motel be? Which state? On which road? Where, dammit? We can’t just drive around the countryside looking for them, not in America.”

  “Hardly.” Winston ran a finger beneath his collar and stretched his neck. “What do you think I am? A fool? We’d better call that number Lemon gave us.”

  Rupert crossed his arms.

  “We don’t have a choice,” Winston pointed out. “He said he’ll be waiting to hear from us.”

  “I know we don’t have any choice, but he’s up to no good. I know you never liked Hill, but I’d rather deal with him than Lemon.”

  Winston raised his hand to land another slap on Rupert’s head, but thought better of it. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that, Rupert. Call the number.”

  With a very bad feeling, Rupert located the cell phone they’d acquired at Fats Lemon’s insistence and slowly punched in the number the detective had told them to call.

  “Yeah,” Lemon said as if from an outer space location.

  “Hello, this is Rupert Fish. You told me to ring this number and get directions.”

  There was the slightest pause before another voice said, “Yes, love. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to hear your voice. You’re finally going to understand what I’ve been through and how much you mean to me. Where are you?”

  Rupert’s left hand had turned numb on the wheel. He pressed the mouthpiece against his jacket and said, “It’s Kitty.”

  Fourteen

  “Making conversation with strangers isn’t easy,” Olivia said, breaking a silence that had lasted a long, long time.

  Aiden’s posture at the wheel was mostly relaxed, but by the pale dashboard light, she could see signs of fatigue in his frown. Occasionally he shifted position and rolled his head from side to side.

  Evidently he didn’t have any opinion on the ease of conversation with someone you didn’t know.

  “This is Indiana, right?” she said. It was, but the total quiet was making her desperate for a topic.

  “Has been for some time,” Aiden said, checking his rearview mirror.

  “We’ve been on the road around fourteen hours? You’ve been driving that long?”

  “I like driving.”

  “So do I. Please let me take a turn and you can rest.”

  Aiden laughed, and she didn’t think it was meant to be a grateful laugh. Since they’d left New York, the only stops they’d made had been at what he called “rest stops,” where travelers didn’t rest. They used the bathroom and got “free” coffee from a stall where Aiden said you always paid more than you would anywhere else because it was a donation. Olivia hadn’t worked out what the donations were for, but she’d appreciated even the worst coffee and shop-bought biscuits.

  “I really am a good driver, Aiden. I got my license when I was seventeen—on my first try—which isn’t what usually happens in England. And I’ve been driving ever since. Even Mummy says I’m what she calls passable. Mummy isn’t big on praise.”

  Aiden was coming to like the sound of Olivia’s voice. Soft and a little husky, she spoke clearly and the accent pleased him. She didn’t chatter, or hadn’t for some time until now, and she was polite—even when he wasn’t. Also, given their extraordinary situation, she was calmer than should be expected of her.

  “I’m sure you drive well. The truth is, I’m a lousy passenger.”

  “That’s an excuse,” Olivia said. “You need a break.”

  “I wouldn’t get it with you driving on the side of the road you’re not used to.”

  “We’re on motorways. What difference does it make?”

  “It makes a difference.”

  Boswell stood on the back seat and rested his head on her shoulder. She hugged his massive neck. “There’s hardly anything on the road, Aiden. Please change places and get some sleep.”

  “No, you’re not driving.”

  She watched stars in a black sky, and the dim shapes of sparse trees, the occasional glint of water in some small lake. “There’s no way you can just keep driving like this. You’ll fall asleep at the wheel, or starve, whichever comes first.”

  “I’ll take another apple.”

  “They’re all gone. So is the cheese. There’s no food left, except for a jar of something called pimento spread.”

  “That can be tossed at the next opportunity.” He glanced at her, but didn’t smile.

  Olivia’s stomach did a little flip. It flipped every time he looked at her, or she looked at him, or thought about him—which was all the time. All of which didn’t mean anything. Not really. She was justifiably aware of him because regardless of everything that pointed to him being trustworthy, she had no proof that he wasn’t part of some terrible plot perhaps the s
ame plot that had brought her here in the first place.

  If Mummy and Daddy ever found out what she was doing, they would never again allow her to as much as protest when they questioned her common sense. They would feel fully justified in adding to their ode to Theo’s brilliance and bemoaning the mystery of producing so accomplished a son while their daughter was an incompetent nincompoop.

  “Are you sleeping?” Aiden whispered.

  “No,” she said sharply. “Just thinking.”

  “I was afraid of that. I think it’s dangerous for you to do too much thinking. Keep your eyes peeled for an eats sign.”

  “A neat sign?”

  “Eats. An eats sign—for a place where you can eat. Diner, or something. You gotta be starving. You’ve given just about everything we had to me. We’ll stop and get some hot coffee and some food.”

  She didn’t fool herself into thinking the only reason he would stop was to feed her, but she’d enjoy thinking it was part of his motive. And she salivated at the prospect of food.

  Ahead a signboard gleamed and Olivia leaned forward, pulling out her glasses and cramming them on just in time. “The next exit,” she said, not caring that she sounded ridiculously excited. “What luck. Can you believe it? You asked, and here we are. Food and lodgings and services, it says. Usterbee. That’s the town. Population… That can’t be right. Population, eighty-seven?”

  “Real metropolis,” Aiden said. He still got a kick out of the little, almost-forgotten towns across the country, although tonight, or this morning as it was now, he wasn’t getting pleasure out of too much. “Let’s do it. We’re both hungry and you have to be so tired, you’re punchy. You haven’t had much sleep in several days. You’ll feel better once I feed you. Pray the local eatery isn’t closed.”

  The lights were on at Dierdre’s Want To?, set all alone in the middle of a large, lonely parking lot. Shutters covered the bottom halves of the windows, but there was movement inside. A swaying neon sign over the door advertised, “Cozy Cabins For Rent.” Ranged around the edges of the area were the dim forms of clapboard huts with steeply sloped roofs. The advertised lodgings, probably. The absence of any cars outside these suggested zero occupancy.