Your Eyelids Are Growing Heavy

by Barbara Paul

  “We go by it,” the girl said unhelpfully.

  Gus and Megan ran the one block to the Kinderling Professional Building. Megan’s watch said three minutes remained before seven o’clock as they pushed through the revolving door and headed for the elevator.

  “Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”

  The unexpected voice hit both of them like a slap. They turned to see a watchman glowering at them.

  “You can’t come in here after seven without you sign in,” the watchman told them angrily. “You come back here.”

  “But it’s not seven yet,” Megan protested.

  “The hell it ain’t.” He pointed to a wall behind her. The clock there said 7:05.

  “Your clock’s fast,” Gus said.

  “It’s what we go by. You want in here, you come over to this stand here and sign your name.”

  Megan and Gus exchanged a glance; they hadn’t counted on that. Megan walked over to the stand and picked up the ballpoint pen attached to a light chain. She signed the register Charlotte Brontë and put Dr. Algren’s name in the “Destination” column. Gus signed Charles Dickens.

  The watchman glanced at the register and said, “That’s better. Now don’t you try nothin’ like that again.”

  “What!?” Gus’s indignation came spilling out. “Nobody was trying anything. You watch what you say.”

  “Hey—don’t you get smart with me, kid.”

  Megan tugged at his sleeve. “Come on, Gus—uh, Charlie.”

  An empty elevator car was waiting. The Kinderling Building had only ten floors and Harrison J. Algren was on the ninth. Gus pushed a button and the door slid closed. “Why did you put down Algren’s name? The directory was right there on the wall—why not just pick a name at random?”

  “What if I picked someone that that lout knew had already left? The mood he was in, he’d have thrown us out.”

  “Hm, yeah, you’re right.” Gus mused a minute. “Well, we’ve been seen.”

  “We knew it would probably happen. There’s always somebody around.” Megan closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall of the elevator car. The Volkswagen driver’s taking her parking place, the counter girl’s stealing her five dollars, Bogert’s prying questions, the watchman’s rudeness—just the normal, everyday abrasions of life that can drive you mad. She opened her eyes and moved her head. The vibrations from the elevator wall were giving her a headache. The Kinderling was not a new building; they were riding in what Megan thought must have been one of Mr. Otis’s earlier efforts.

  “You said Bogert was just being polite,” Gus said. “That’s unusual, isn’t it? Why was he being polite?”

  “The vice-presidency,” Megan said wryly. “It wouldn’t help him any to have a vice president for an enemy.” She sighed; in his own ham-handed way, Bogert was trying to mend fences. She shouldn’t have jumped on him the way she did. Next week she’d try to be more pleasant to him, she’d—

  With a start Megan realized she was thinking about Bogert to avoid thinking about Algren.

  “Hey, it’s not stopping!” Gus said.

  Megan looked up to see the 9 light fade out over the door and the 10 light come on. The doors slid open and a young woman in a nurse’s uniform stepped on the elevator with them. She pushed the button for the first floor, and the 10 light on the panel went out.

  Gus pushed the 9. Nothing happened. “Hey,” he said again, helplessly.

  The nurse looked over at him. “Did I make you miss your floor?”

  “Well, I dunno, we wanted off at nine.”

  “Oh, not again.” She seemed disgusted. “This elevator does that sometimes. It’ll take orders only from the last button pushed. The last floor button, I mean, not the panel buttons. I’m afraid you’ll have to ride back down and start over.”

  Gus muttered that it didn’t matter, and they finished the ride in silence. When the nurse got off, Gus pushed 9 and they started up again.

  “Gus, do you think you should have told her we wanted to go to the ninth floor?” Megan said. “Now that makes two witnesses.”

  Gus slapped his forehead. “Christ. I didn’t think.”

  They made it only to the fifth floor this time, where another nurse got on. Gus grabbed Megan’s hand. “Come on, we’re getting off.” If they had to depend on that elevator to get them to where they were going, they’d never make it.

  “What time is it?” Gus asked as they started up the stairway.

  Megan’s watch said 7:06. “That means it’s fourteen after by the clock downstairs.”

  Running up four flights of stairs always looks easy on television. After one flight Megan and Gus were both breathing hard. After two, they were heaving with the effort. On the third flight they were pulling themselves up by the rail. On the fourth flight Megan got a stitch in her side.

  “I have to stop a minute, Gus,” she gasped.

  Gus flapped his hands in frustration. “Well—rest fast, will you?” he panted. “We’re going to miss him!”

  Megan groaned and started up the stairs again.

  Wheezing and drooping, they finally made it to Dr. Algren’s office. The door was locked and no light showed under the door.

  Gus swore and kicked the door while Megan pressed a hand against her side. They were too late. After all that, and they were too late.

  Back to the elevator. The indicator said the car was at the second floor, the first, light out.

  “That’s him!” Gus yelled, losing his grammar to his excitement. “Come on!” He headed toward the stairway.

  But Megan pushed the elevator button. “This is faster, Gus.”

  “But—”

  “It obeys floor buttons. This time we’ve got a floor button. Come on back.”

  The overworked elevator labored its way back up to the ninth floor. By the time they reached the lobby, Megan’s side had stopped hurting. They both erupted from the car the minute the doors slid open.

  “Hey! Not so fast! You gotta sign out.”

  Megan thought about using her gun right then. She ran over to the stand holding the register while the watchman scowled at them disapprovingly.

  “Dr. Algren,” Megan said, jotting down the time after her name, “did you see him leave?” The watchman looked over her shoulder to make sure she’d put down the right time and didn’t answer. “Look, it’s important. Do you know where he’s going?” She handed the pen to Gus.

  “He don’t tell me about his private life and I don’t tell him about mine,” the watchman said smugly. “You got a problem?”

  “That damned elevator of yours made us miss our appointment,” Gus growled, signing out. “Why don’t you get it fixed?”

  The watchman favored them with a big smile. “Yeah, we’ve had a lot of trouble with that one.”

  Sadistic creep, Gus thought. He swallowed his anger and forced himself to cringe. “Please—my sister’s sick. We’ve got to see Dr. Algren tonight. Don’t you have some idea where he’s going? Please, can’t you help us?”

  Appealed to in this humble and fawning manner, the watchman grew magnanimous. “He leaves his car in a lot around the corner on Atwood Street. That’s prolly where he’s headed.”

  They ran out without thanking him. “No, this way, Gus,” Megan said, grabbing his arm. “We’ve got to get the car.”

  The minute Gus ran around to the passenger side of the car, another car braked quickly a little way back, waiting for the space. By the time Megan got the engine started, the traffic backed up behind the waiting car was beginning to honk angrily. Megan pulled out and whipped around the corner onto Atwood Street.

  “Where’s the lot?” Gus asked. “That must be it, on the left.”

  Atwood Street had only two traffic lanes and didn’t invite hovering, but Megan was afraid they’d miss Algren if she drove around the block. She pulled as close to the line of parked cars on her right as she could, leaving the engine running. They had a clear view of the lot’s one exit.

>   “Look—isn’t that Algren?” Gus said excitedly. “Getting into that Mercedes?”

  Megan felt like screaming. “Gus, I don’t know what he looks like!”

  His head jerked toward her, then back to the lot. “I’m pretty sure it was. I can tell when he drives out.” They watched the Mercedes start up and back out of its parking place.

  “Come on, you dumb broad! Move your car!”

  Megan nervously put her arm out the car window and gestured to the angry driver behind her to pull around. There was plenty of room and no traffic was approaching from the opposite direction—as he could easily see. He just wanted to yell. As his car drew even with Megan’s, the man called her an even more impolite name and pulled away.

  “What is the matter with everybody?” Gus said, appalled. “Has the town gone mad?” Just then the Mercedes drove out of the lot and turned left. “That’s Algren! In the Mercedes! Follow him, Megan!”

  “I am following him,” she said testily, following him.

  “Where’s he going? Do you think he’s going home?”

  “All these back streets—I think he’s just circling around the traffic now.”

  That’s exactly what he was doing. Algren avoided as much of the Oakland congestion as he could by sweeping east and then cutting back north.

  “North Hills,” said Megan. “He’s heading toward North Hills.”

  “What’ll we do if he spots us?” Gus worried. “It’s not too bad here, but there are all those open stretches on the way to North Hills. He might try to outrun us, or stop and call the cops, or, or something else, I don’t know what. Don’t get too close!”

  Megan gritted her teeth and said, “Gus, stop talking. Just stop talking and help me watch. I’ve never tailed anybody before and you’re not making it any easier.”

  They both lapsed into silence and concentrated on keeping the Mercedes in sight. Algren worked his way north, crossing the Allegheny River by the Highland Bridge, and started maneuvering the curved roads north of the river.

  Traffic was surprisingly light, so Megan dropped back a little. They passed a series of short stretches with only the rare building beside the road—an undeveloped, neglected-looking area separating metropolitan Pittsburgh from its northern suburbs. The road was not good and the light was beginning to fail. They lost sight of the Mercedes frequently, every time it rounded a curve.

  Megan had been taught to brake going into a curve and accelerate on the curve itself. Consequently as she was coming out of a curve she almost ran down Harrison J. Algren.

  He was standing in their lane, waving both arms frantically. The Mercedes was on the shoulder, its hood up. Megan jerked the wheel and pulled the car over into the left lane as Algren jumped back off the road. Megan got the car back into the right lane and drove as far as the next crossroad. There she pulled off to the right and parked the car out of sight of the main road. She and Gus just sat for a minute, getting their breath back.

  “Engine trouble,” Gus said with a note of awe in his voice. “He’s got engine trouble. He’s in a Mercedes and we’re in a Plymouth and he gets engine trouble. Megan, I think the gods are beginning to smile on us at last.”

  “Could he see us?” she asked tensely. “Do you think he recognized us?”

  “I doubt it. Visibility’s pretty bad this time of day.” It was about eight o’clock; the daylight was fading fast but it wasn’t yet dark enough to activate the street lights.

  “Then this is it.” She checked her bag one more time; the gun was still there. “We’ll never have a better opportunity. He’s alone out there and there’s not much traffic. This is even better than his office. Let’s go.”

  “Wha, wha, how are you going to do it?” Gus stammered as he got out of the car. There was a boulder in his stomach and his throat seemed to be shrinking shut. “Just walk back down the road and—”

  “No, we’ll stay off the road. We’ll cut through here.” She gestured toward a tangle of brush and scabby gray trees. “Gus. Last chance. I’d like you to come with me, but if you want to stay in the car I’ll understand.”

  Gus shook his head and gestured to her to lead the way. His throat had closed up completely.

  Megan slipped the strap of her bag over her shoulder and started out. She hadn’t gone a dozen steps before the bottoms of her trousers were filled with burrs. The ground was uneven and covered with stones, beer cans, broken glass. A couple of rolls of rusted barbed wire. Once, a rubber doll, green with age. Megan glanced back at Gus, picking his way through the rubble.

  She came out at the top of a small cliff overlooking the road. Algren was a little farther back along the road, leaning against his car and waiting for someone to come along. Perfect.

  She gestured to Gus to stay where he was and began inching her way back through the concealing brush to a spot nearer to where Algren was standing. When she found the place she was looking for, she was practically staring down his neck.

  She moved a beer can and quietly stretched out on her stomach. Algren was standing with his back to her, arms folded patiently across his chest. Megan slipped the twenty-two out of her shoulder bag and braced her arms on the ground. She had a straight line on Algren, at a slight downward angle.

  What are you doing here lying in the dirt getting ready to shoot a man in the back?

  Megan pushed the thought away and adjusted her position a little. When she’d first learned to use the gun, she’d found it pulled a little to the left. She compensated. Nothing left to do but squeeze the trigger.

  At just that moment Algren turned his head slightly, and Megan got a clear look at his profile. Her stomach lurched; it was the first time she’d seen his face. She’d been hoping against hope that once she saw the face of the man who’d raped her mind, that whole lost weekend would come flooding back in her memory. It didn’t happen. She was looking at the face of a stranger.

  She aimed again—but knew as she did she’d never be able to shoot him in the back. Algren had had no scruples about taking her unaware, but that didn’t mean she had to be like him. There was no way around it. She was going to have to face him.

  She got to her knees—but found she could rise no farther. Her legs had petrified while she was lying there. Two stones, articulated pillars. She sent message after message to her legs, but they wouldn’t respond. They just would not move. She felt a flash of panic: was she going to let Algren slip through her fingers now because all of a sudden her damned legs wouldn’t work? She threw a desperate look back at Gus. Help me, her expression cried.

  He made his way toward her on all fours, wanting to scream and scream and scream through his paralyzed throat. Megan dropped her free hand against one leg and shook her head helplessly. Gus kneeled beside her and gently worked the gun loose from her right hand. He looked down through the brush at Algren standing unaware by his car. Gus didn’t aim the gun; he cradled it in his hands as if warming it.

  They stayed like that, side by side on their knees, until the street lights came on. Almost immediately the sound of an approaching car reached their ears. Algren stepped into the road and began waving his arms. A Cadillac eased around the curve and pulled to a stop.

  Megan and Gus could hear Algren asking the driver for a lift to the next service station. The driver said yes; Algren went around and got in the passenger side.

  The Cadillac pulled away. It wasn’t until the last sounds of the departing car had faded from hearing that Megan found her legs could move again.

  CHAPTER 13

  Snooks sat in her car for a while, but the July evening was so pleasant she got out and strolled around a bit. Then she settled herself on the front step of the Howe Street apartment building to wait. They had to come home sometime.

  Her backside was beginning to get numb about the time the street lights came on. She thought about walking to Walnut Street for a quick beer, only a block away. She decided not to. If Megan and Gus came back while she was gone, she’d miss her chance. Once they were
inside, they could ignore her ring. She contented herself with meandering up and down Howe Street, never out of sight of the apartment building. Eventually she went back and sat down again.

  When at last they did come, Snooks struggled to her feet in alarm: she’d never seen them look so … stricken. In their different ways, both Megan and Gus were affirmative, upbeat people. But right then they could have passed for case studies in depression.

  They weren’t even surprised to find her camped on their doorstep. They stopped when they came up to her—and stood there in a helpless, indecisive manner. As if thinking: There’s this person standing in our way. What do we do now?

  Snooks’s heart sank; she understood. The thing she’d feared most was happening, had happened. “Tonight?” she asked them. “It was tonight?”

  They stared at her blankly, like two idiot children incapable of understanding even simple sentences.

  “You found the hypnotist.” It wasn’t a question. “Well? Did you do it? Did you go through with it?”

  Megan turned her head away. It was Gus who answered her. “No, we didn’t do it. We tried to. But we couldn’t.”

  Snooks leaned weakly against the front door as a wave of relief washed through her making her whole body shudder. It was a surprisingly strong physical reaction, telling Snooks in graphic terms not open to misinterpretation just how deeply and how personally she was involved with these two people. After a moment she pulled herself together and spoke briskly: “Megan, give me your keys.”

  Megan handed over the keys obediently. Snooks unlocked the door and herded her charges ahead of her up the stairs. In Megan’s apartment, this time it was Snooks who took the big armchair as the two would-be murderers sat together on the sofa.

  “All right, talk,” Snooks commanded. “How did you find him?”

  “Gus found him,” Megan said disconsolately.

  Gus Bilinski, Boy Detective. “How’d you do it, Gus? Talk to everybody in town who knows how to hypnotize people?”

  “Just about,” he sighed. Gus explained the procedure he’d used, how he’d first made the mistake of thinking their man had to be one of the shadier practitioners of the art. He told Snooks about the hypnosis-and-psychodrama session at the University Health Center just four evenings earlier and his own suspicions of the reputable man directing the project. He told her how he’d ended up in that man’s office in Oakland Tuesday morning. How the interview had gone, how he’d made an appointment for Megan.