by P. N. Elrod
“A lot of people are,” I said evenly, and smiled with my mouth closed. I was speaking normally, but taking no chances on revealing the length of my teeth.
“Waste of money,” said Pruitt, his nose still in the tabloid. “They die in a day or two and then you’re left with rotting plants and no money. People are fighting and dying, you know.”
“So you’ve told us, Madison,” she said. “I don’t notice you joining them, though.”
“My fight is right here, trying to bring the truth to—”
“Cookies?” said Bobbi, just a shade too loud. She put the roses on the piano and offered the plate of cookies to Pruitt. It was a skilled move on her part—he had to choose between the plate, his coffee, or the paper. A hard decision for him, but the food won out and he dropped the paper. He was further distracted from his train of thought as he tried to figure out how to help himself to a cookie with both hands occupied holding the plate and his cup.
“You’re not joining us?” Marza asked me as she wall-eyed Pruitt’s juggling act. If he dropped anything it would be on her.
“No, thank you.”
“Watching your weight, I suppose.”
“No, I have allergies.”
Pruitt finally gave the plate to Marza, then grabbed some cookies from it. They didn’t last long and disappeared all at once into his wide mouth.
“You’ll have to excuse Madison, he was raised in such a large family that he had to compete with his siblings for food, and learned to eat quickly in order to gain any nourishment.”
“You know I’m an only child, Marza,” he mumbled around the mass of crumbs in his mouth.
“Oh, I must have forgotten.”
Pruitt nodded, content to correct her, having missed her point.
“What do you do for a living, Mr. Fleming?” she asked.
I couldn’t say I was an unemployed reporter doing part-time jobs for a private investigator and opted for the next best thing. “I’m a writer.”
“Oh? What do you write?”
“This and that.”
“Fascinating.”
“Need a writer,” said Pruitt. He cleared his mouth with a gulp of coffee. “We need people good with words, articles for magazines, slogans—can you do that?”
“I’m sure anyone who knows even a little about the alphabet can help your cause, Madison,” she said.
“Great. You think you could help out, Fleming?”
I could see how he was able to get along with Marza, since he was totally oblivious to her sarcasm. I was beginning to like him for it. “ ’Fraid I don’t have the time.”
“For some things in life you have to take the time. People have to wake up from their easy living and realize they must join with their brothers to battle for the very future of man on earth.”
“H. G. Wells.”
“Huh?”
“That sounds like his War of the Worlds.”
“Who’s that again?” He pulled out a little book and scribbled it all down. “What else has he written?”
“Lots of things. They’ll be in the library.” I wondered how many English courses he’d skipped in school to go to political rallies.
“Madison can’t go there,” said Marza. “They won’t let him in.”
Pruitt got a look on his face that would have done justice to a New Testament martyr.
“Why not?”
“Because there is no true freedom of speech in this country,” he said.
“The people here think there is because their capitalistic lords say so, but that isn’t really true.”
“Why not?” I tried again, this time with Marza.
She shrugged. “The library didn’t happen to have a copy of some book he wanted. There was no English translation available and they weren’t planning to order one. Madison protested by setting fire to some newspapers in the reading room, and they had him arrested.”
“I had to bring to their attention that censorship to one is censorship to all.” He sniffed.
“His father paid the fine, but the library still won’t let him back in again.”
“Censorship.” He shook his tabloid. “This story is a prime example. A man speaks his mind in a so-called public place, and then the police arrest him because his political views disagree with the established order.”
“They arrested him because he shot at a heckler,” I said.
“That’s what the paper wants you to think. That ‘heckler’ was really an assassin for Roosevelt’s Secret Service. He’d been sent to silence a voice of freedom for the masses and only got what he deserved.”
My mouth sagged a little. Pruitt got the satisfied look of one who had scored a real point. A half dozen counterarguments popped into my head, but the best course was to say nothing. There was absolutely no point having a battle of wits with someone who was unarmed.
Bobbi put her cup down and suggested more rehearsal. It was gratefully accepted and the ladies returned to the piano. Madison stretched his legs out, crossed his arms, and yawned loud and long. The volume was sufficient for yodeling and the size of his mouth—a quantity of crumbs were still trapped in his molars—was an inspiration to well drillers everywhere. He wound up his musical solo and shut his eyes. From the not-so-subtle movements of his jaw, he seemed to be rooting out the last remnants of cookie with his tongue. I settled back in my chair to listen and wondered what the hell Marza saw in him, not that she was any social bargain herself.
Her true worth, as Bobbi had said, was as an accompanist. Her hands went solidly over the keyboard with expert ease, though she had to hold them at a low angle to keep her long nails from clicking against the ivory.
They did a warm-up on scales, and then Marza began one of the songs Bobbi would sing for the broadcast. It was a rich slow number and made a good showpiece for her voice, which was excellent. I sighed and let the sound wash over me, soothing and exciting at the same time. Perhaps later in the soft darkness of her room I would ask her to sing again.
They finished and held a consultation over it and I cast around for something to read, my eye catching on a fresh copy of Live Alone and Like It on the end table. I flipped through, noticing it was a gift to Bobbi from Marza. It would be. I was just starting to read a chapter with the unbelievable title: “The Pleasures of a Single Bed,” when the room got unnaturally quiet.
Pruitt stared at some point behind me, mouth and eyes looking as if he’d borrowed them from a dead fish. Marza and Bobbi were also frozen and doing a reasonable imitation of gaffed sea life. My back was to the door, and with a sinking heart, I turned to see what inspired the tableau.
Advancing slowly from the wide-open door, with large silver crosses clutched in their hands were James Braxton and Matheus Webber. Both of them looked determined, but very nervous.
What made the bottom of my stomach drop out was the revolver Braxton held stiffly in his other clenched fist. His finger was right on the trigger, and I didn’t know how much pressure it would take for the thing to go off. If the damned idiot forgot himself . . .
I stood up cautiously, my hands out and down and my eyes fixed on Braxton’s. His were little pinpoints in a sea of white, gleaming with fearful triumph. Mine must have been just as wide, but without the triumph, only the fear. Unless that gun had wooden bullets, I had no concern for my own life, but anything else was another matter. If he shot at me, the bullet would pass right through, going on to Bobbi and Marza, who were right in the fool’s line of fire.
From somewhere I heard myself speaking, pleading, “Please don’t do anything, Braxton. These people are innocent, please don’t shoot.”
The seams on his brown face twitched a little, but I couldn’t read him. I didn’t dare try any kind of hypnotic suggestion—the least mistake on my part could kill Bobbi.
“I’ll do what you want, just don’t shoot,” I told him. “These people . . . they’re . . . they’re not like me, I swear they’re not. They know nothing about this.”
“That
remains to be seen, you leech,” he said. He punctuated this by a wave of his cross and took a step forward. I flinched and fell back, but also stepped to one side. Bobbi and Marza were still out of sight behind me. Maybe they were marginally clear, but only if Braxton were a good shot.
Matheus was as keyed up as the rest of us, but he looked around and tapped Braxton’s shoulder. “Mr. Braxton, look—they had coffee.”
His eyes snapped to the tray and cups. “Is that true? Did you have coffee?”
Only Bobbi understood the significance of his question. “Yes, we did, and cookies, too. Didn’t we Madison?”
Pruitt’s head bobbed several times.
I heard Marza shift next to Bobbi. “That’s right, we all had coffee and cookies.” She spoke slowly, as though to an idiot child. In this case she wasn’t too far off the mark.
Braxton shook his cross at me. “But not him.”
I repeated my flinching act and moved another step to the side. “Braxton, they know nothing at all. You have no reason to involve them—”
“Shut up.”
He had the gun and I still couldn’t see Bobbi, so I shut up.
“You two—sit on the couch. Now!”
Bobbi and Marza made haste to join Pruitt. Good.
“What are you going to do?” Bobbi asked.
Braxton smiled at me. “I’m going to wait. We’re all going to wait for morning.”
“But why? What do you want?” demanded Marza.
He ignored her and stared at me grimly. Bobbi knew very well what such a wait meant, but hid it. The three of them fell silent, their stares divided between me, Braxton, and the gun.
“What kind of bullets, Braxton?” I asked.
“The best kind. They were expensive, but I judged them worth the cost.”
“Silver?” I mouthed the word, not wanting the others to hear.
He smirked.
Bobbi moaned and her head swayed. “Oh, God, I’m going to be sick.” Marza put a protective arm around her.
“What do we do, Mr. Braxton?” Matheus was bug eyed at Bobbi’s white face.
“What?”
“I’m going to be sick.” She gulped air and jerked to her feet.
“Follow her,” he told the kid. “The rest of you stay where you are.”
Bobbi ran to the bedroom with Matheus close behind, but she shut him out when she reached the bath and slammed the door in his face. He was still very much the kid and hardly had the gumption to go inside after her. Through the walls I heard her coughing, then the rush of water when she flushed the toilet. She took her time at it and Braxton started to fidget.
“Look,” I tried again, “we don’t need to be here.”
“Quiet and keep your eyes down.”
“What do you want?” asked Marza. A large chunk of her veneer had come off in the past few minutes. She looked much more real to me now.
Braxton pretended not to hear and called to Matheus. “If she’s done, get her out.”
The water was still running. Matheus knocked gingerly on the door. “Uh . . . miss . . . uh . . . you all right?”
Bobbi mumbled a no and turned on a sink faucet.
“You have to come out now.” She didn’t answer. He appeared at the bedroom door, shrugged helplessly at Braxton, and went back again.
“I’ll go get her,” said Marza.
“No.” Braxton was not about to let the situation get any more out of hand.
“How did you find me?” I asked, distracting him.
“What? Oh, it was the old lady. I knew you would go see her eventually, so we waited at her hotel and followed you from there. This time we were more careful about it.”
“Smart, real smart.”
He made a little formal nod of acknowledgment like an actor in a play. He must have cast himself as Edward Van Sloan to my Lugosi. The only things missing were the accents and evening clothes.
“Miss? You’ve got to come out.” Matheus sounded a little more impatient now, and that gave him confidence. “I mean it, come out of there.”
The water cut off and the knob rattled. “Don’t rush me, big shot,” she growled. She pushed unsteadily past Matheus and stood in the doorway. The tableau hadn’t changed. She took a step toward me.
I shook my head minutely. “You look done in, Miss Smythe, you’d better sit down.”
She nodded, figuring out the reason behind my sudden formality. She had no wish to have Braxton breathing all over her neck looking for telltale holes. Things were safe for the moment; her lounging pajamas had a high Oriental collar. She glided back to the sofa, glaring at him.
“You mugs have no right barging into my home. My neighbors are bound to hear all this and call the cops.”
He waved her down. “I have every good reason behind my actions, however strange they may appear to you. If you do not yet understand my mission, I promise you that you soon will, and when you do, you shall approve of what I am doing.”
“It’s the police state,” said Pruitt, gaining a revelation from God knows where. “Who are you with, the Secret Service?”
“Secret Service?” said Matheus, looking blank. He was standing next to Braxton now, keeping me covered with his cross.
“Yes, the Secret Service, you fascist.”
Marza spoke through her teeth, which were exactly on edge. “Madison, this is no time for politics, so shut up.”
“I’m telling you—ouch!”
“I said shut up.”
“Who’s a fascist?”
“Matheus—”
“But he called me—”
“Everyone quiet!” Braxton must have felt the situation physically slipping out of control. He was already sweating from the strain and certainly not used to it. He’d never last until morning the way things were heading.
“Braxton, please listen,” I said.
He liked the pleading tone in my voice and considered my request like a magnanimous ruler. “All right, what is it?”
“What Miss Smythe said was true, this is no place to settle things. There’s a hotel detective downstairs—”
“You think there is leech.”
So they had slipped by Phil somehow. It was time to change tack. “I can’t help what I am, I’ve tried to tell you that.”
He shook his head. “And I am sorry for you. I think I know what kind of hell you face each night.... I will end it for you.”
Good God, he thinks he’s doing me a favor. “No, not here, please, at least for the sake of the ladies.”
“We will remain here. You seem to care for these people. I do not wish to use them as hostages for your behavior, but I see no other way.”
He sounded very certain of his hold over me. He was either stupid or had an extra ace up his sleeve he hadn’t yet shown. I was inclined to think he was stupid. He was badly underestimating my will to survive and believed crosses and silver to be a strong check. The only thing actually holding me back was trying to come up with a way of safely disarming him without revealing my true nature to Marza or Pruitt.
I glanced at Bobbi to see how she was doing. Perched stiffly on the edge of the sofa, her whole posture was tense, natural enough under the circumstances, but something in her manner struck me as odd. Her left arm lay across her knees, the right hand resting on the left. The long sleeves of the pajamas were pushed up to the elbows. Her gaze caught mine and her mouth twitched in an almost-smile and she winked, her eyes dropping to her hands. Her right index finger was tapping once a second against the crystal of her watch.
I got it, or thought I did.
“Matheus,” I said, sounding reproachful. “I asked you to talk with him. I was pretty reasonable about it all. Remember, I could have hurt you then, but I didn’t. Does that fit in with the things he’s been saying about me?”
“It was a trick,” he said. He spoke with the haughty conviction of a convert. “Besides, you left us stranded and stole the car.”
“I left it at a fire station, for cryin’ out
loud. You two were bothering my family, I had to do something.”
“We were trying to warn them about you.”
“How would you feel if I did the same to your folks? Do they know what you’re doing? What do they think of this quest you and Braxton are on? Do they approve?”
That one hit a sensitive spot and the kid went all red, right up to the ears. “They wouldn’t understand.”
“So you haven’t told them. Maybe you should. Write a letter: ‘Dear Mom, tonight Braxton and I held four people at gunpoint—’ ”
“Enough!” Braxton was actually stamping his feet. “Matheus, I warned you how he would twist things. He’s one of the devil’s own and will try and confuse you.”
“Not me, Braxton, you’ve already done that. You don’t want the kid to think for himself. You might lose your only hold on him.”
“Shut up.”
“I figure he’s really smarter than you, but you don’t want him to find that out.”
“Shut up!”
I am not overly brave, and baiting a nutcase holding a gun is not something to do for fun, but it is a hell of an attention getter. Everyone was gaping at me, each with expressions varying from rage to puzzlement to worry, and one in particular of intense concentration. The last and most welcome face belonged to Phil, the hotel dick. He had just walked in the still-open door and was trying to sneak up on Braxton. In this hotel he never got much practice at being quiet, so it was costing him some effort. I opened my big mouth again to cover any creaking floorboards.
“Yeah, I guess the truth hurts. It must be nice to have someone around to agree with you all the time, or do you pay him money for it? There’s not enough of that stuff in the world to make me want to put up with your kind of bull—”
Then Phil lunged, both hands grabbing Braxton’s arm and dragging it down. Marza and Pruitt screamed as the gun went off and thunder and smoke filled the room. A furrow appeared in the floor near my left foot, and I foolishly jumped back from it.
There was a good fifty-pound difference between them, and Braxton’s light frame didn’t stand a chance. He went down like a tackling dummy, his knobby joints knocking hard against the floor. Phil was on top and his extra weight had pushed all the fight out of the little guy. A second later Phil was in possession of the gun and getting to his feet.