Mischief

by Charlotte Armstrong

  An elevator whispered down. “Say, that’s Towers now.” Milner peered. “Fellow who tipped me. Thought he—oh …”

  “Oh, what?”

  “He’s got the girl. She found him.” Milner relaxed.

  “Eight,” said Perrin quietly and stepped on. The boy moved only an eyelash. But he knew.

  “Up? Up?” caroled Mrs. McMurdock. “Come, Bobo. Come, darling. Time for beddy-bye.” The little dog ran into the elevator and sniffed moistly at Perrin’s socks. Milner and he exchanged looks. The car started upward.

  “He loooves to ride,” said Mrs. McMurdock. “Doesn’t he, Bobo? Doesn’t he, boy? Loves to ride! Yes, he does! Just loooves to ride!”

  She did not know.

  CHAPTER 19

  Ruth, as she rode gently upward, stuffed her change into her little evening bag without looking down at her hands. She kept watching the blank metal door beyond which the floors were sliding by. She was the only passenger. The car made no stop but hers. As it sailed toward a soft landing and went into the little shuffle for the precise level of the eighth floor, she felt a perverse regret for the ending of an ordeal, a resistance to the necessity of shifting from one mood to another.

  She stepped out. Behind her, the car stayed where it was a second longer than was normal while the boy listened to the quality of the silence up here. It seemed to be mere silence. Disappointed, he looked at his lights, yanked the lever, and sailed upward.

  For Ruth, the corridor was just the same, just the same. She hurried to her left. She turned the corner.

  The door of 807 looked just the same … as bland and blank as all the others. Prepare to shift. Inside, the girl would be dozing, and Bunny fast asleep, and the debris of her parents’ dressing would be strewn about just as they had left it. Shift. The mood, now, is hushed. It’s the mood of— All’s well. Naturally. Of course it is. Ruth tapped gently.

  At once, a much agitated female voice cried, “Oh, yes! Come in! Oh, come in!”

  Ruth’s mood leaped like lightning. Her hand leaped to the knob. She burst into the room and met the frightened eyes of a stoutish middle-aged woman she’d never seen in her life before, who was half sitting, half lying, in a strained position on Ruth’s own bed. The woman’s black dress was awry over her stout leg and her mouse-colored hair was awry, too. “Who are you!” cried this stranger in a voice that was also awry.

  But Ruth put first things first.

  Her gold bag fell out of her hand. Without a word, she flew, hands up, across 807 to 809. She batted the partially opened door and it swung wider. 809 was unlit. Ruth aimed herself like an arrow at the light switch. She flashed around.

  She saw Bunny’s two bare feet twitching on the bed and the girl’s dark back bent. Ruth cried out, “What’s the matter?” She got one glimpse of Bunny’s bound mouth, and then saw the girl’s face blinking at her over the shoulder, the drowsy evil in the sullen careless glance, and she knew what the wicked hands were about to do.

  Making no cry, Ruth simply flew at her. Her hands bit on the shoulders, and with all her might she heaved backward, to get the evil away. Still, she did not scream. Instead, she called out in almost a cheerful voice, “It’s all right, Bunny. It’s me. It’s Mommy.”

  The shoulders rolled, writhed, and slipped away from her. The girl’s body turned with vicious speed. Ruth felt herself knocked backward and the small of her back was wrenched as it slammed against the other bed and she felt her neck crack with the backward weight of her head. She flipped herself quickly over and slipped downward to her knees, hearing silk rip. She fastened both hands on an ankle. She crawled backward, yanking and pulling, out from the narrow place between the beds. Get it away from Bunny. This was first. And Nell came, hopping, tottering, kicking … and her hands clawed for Ruth’s face, hunting Ruth’s eyes.

  O.K., thought Ruth. All right.

  Ruth had not always been a gracious young matron, a pretty wife, a gentle mother. In her day, she’d climbed many a tough tree and hung by knobby knees off ladders with pigtails dragging. And she’d chased the other kids off rafts and over rooftops. And she’d played basketball, too, on a tough team, even in so-called free style, which meant she had pulled hair and bitten and gouged with the rest And she’d run up and down the playing fields of many schools and been banged in the shins by hockey sticks. She’d had her bruises and given them. The world of direct physical conflict, violent and painful, had not always been beyond her ken.

  “So!” she hissed with her teeth closed. There was lightning on her eyeballs as she got her hands in that yellowish hair and yanked and the girl screeched and fell forward, twisting, and Ruth rolled on the hard floor to get from under her.

  She felt the teeth in her forearm and pain as claws ripped at her cheek. Ruth’s long rosy nails went into the other’s flesh, where she could, and with the sharp spurs of her heels she slashed at the other’s shins. Her own head thudded on the carpet and hands like wires sank in her throat.

  She wouldn’t have screamed, anyhow.

  She pulled up her knee. Silk ripped, velvet tore. She put her sharp golden heel in the wildcat’s stomach and straightened her leg and Nell went sprawling. Ruth walked on her knees and dove on her, got the hair, whammed the head to the floor.

  But the head bounced. The body in the dark dress was taut and strong. It wasn’t going to be that easy.

  Ruth heard herself growl in her gullet, now it was free. Fast as the fighting went, she yet summoned with a cold brain old strengths, old tricks, and when they were not enough, she began to invent … She had realized, long ago, that she fought, here, something wild and vicious, that wanted to hurt, that didn’t care how. Probably mad, and strong by that perfect ruthlessness.

  But Ruth, too, was fortified. She was wilder than the tomboy she used to be. She was more vicious than the girl athlete. She was Bunny’s mother and she was easily able to be absolutely ruthless in that holy cause.

  She said to herself, O.K. All right. And she was not afraid.

  It never crossed her mind to scream. It seemed her sole and simple duty and even her pleasure to fight with all her body’s strength and her mind’s cunning. (Outside of any rules, if that was the way it was, and O.K., too.) It did not cross her mind to wonder who would win, either. She sank her own strong teeth in the enemy’s wrist, while she tried with her mind to think just how she was going to conquer … what trick would do it … even as she was tossed and the merciless elbow was crushing her breast.

  Miss Ballew managed to get her feet to the floor but her weight would not balance over them. The column of her leg would not stand, the knee joint would not lock. She knew now she would be forever haunted by remorse and shame if she did not force herself to help in this emergency. But she was not well. Her heart hurt. There was a sharp pain in her side. Her mind knew that her body was lying, and her heart pitied the body’s treasonable victory, as her lips prayed cravenly for someone else to come.

  CHAPTER 20

  The moment he was inside the lobby, Jed knew that the hotel, in itself, was aroused. The alarm was spread. He saw it in the stiff pose of a different head behind the desk. He knew, too, that there had been, and yet was, a search going on. He saw that in the veiled turn of all the eyes, in the porter’s spine. Looking for someone? For whom? For him, no doubt.

  It came to him that he was taking a certain risk in the mere act of stepping back within these walls. Sure, they were looking. Once more his mind played back its recorded impressions, a glimpse of the fellow in the brown suit weaving among the chairs, and his beckoning hand and the doorman’s response, and the doorman’s belated prance to his normal duties. The man in the brown suit had been looking for someone, all right. For whom, if not for Jed?

  All the way across the lobby, he could see that very suit, the same man, over there right now, waiting for an elevator. The clerk to whom Jed had given warning was beside him, and all the way across the lobby, Jed knew when they spoke his name.

  What was this?

/>   They were looking for him and they, for some reason, were not looking for him. He saw himself split in two, the object of their search, and merely Towers who had just checked out of 821. They hadn’t put it together yet. They would, sooner or later. And easily. For instance, right over there lounged the boy-who-had-brought-up-the-ice. Who was, all by himself, the missing link. When would his haunting eye catch sight of Jed and recognize?

  Jed guided Lyn so that she stood with her back to the elevators and he, bent as if to listen to her, could watch them with an eyebeam over her head. Those two men were authority. Obviously. Were they only now going up to see what was wrong on the eighth floor? If so, they were darned late! Wires must have got crossed. It had been a long time.

  (A long, long time for a helpless, frightened little girl to wait in the dark for her daddy or his equivalent.)

  He ground his teeth. What was going on? Lyn stood obediently, her head thrown back to look up into his face. She didn’t know why they were standing here. She trusted there was a good reason.

  He said, rapidly, “Do you mind? I just want to see … Talk to me. Make some remarks, hm?”

  “You’re being mighty mysterious,” Lyn said lightly. It was so plain she trusted he had good reason. “Mine not to wonder why. Me and the six hundred. Lyn, number six hundred and one.”

  He felt his jaw crack. “Keep talking.”

  The elevator took on its passengers … two men, one woman, and a scampering little dog.

  “Nothing is quite so numbing as to be told to say something. Makes your mind a blank. Just like on long distance. Hm … I like raspberry pie very much but the seeds do get in my teeth. I’m very fond of cucumber sandwiches in the summertime. Is this better than the weather? Am I doing all right?”

  “You’re fine.”

  Jed was far-sighted, been so all his life. He could see from here the indicator moving on the dial. He could not read the numbers but then he knew already where the eight came. He said bitterly, “Why in Christ’s name didn’t I lock the damn door!”

  “If I ask questions,” said Lyn placidly, “I won’t be making remarks, will I? Cross out ‘will I.’”

  “The door between,” he growled. What he was telling he didn’t know.

  “Oh, between. Well, that’s nice. That’s quite illuminating.”

  “If I had any brains …”

  “Oh, you have, Jed. I think you have. Good-looking as you are, you must have a brain. I think it’s very possible. Lessee, what’s my favorite flower. At a time like this, I ought to know so I could tell you. But I like too many kinds, too much. But you take roses.”

  Although he kept his eyes on that dial, he knew Lyn’s face was full of peace. She had no right! His glance flicked down. She had her hands in the big pockets of her coat and her back was bent in a sweet, almost yearning arch, in order for her face to turn up to him, and her eyes were sweet and sane and full of peace because she believed … She was a little fool to believe in anybody!

  “You look about nine years old,” said Jed with a whipsnap of anger. And he sent his eyes again to the dial.

  “Oh, I don’t think so. I think I probably look about nineteen and just as if I’ve got a terrible crush on you, a bobby-socks-type crush. And you look like thunder, Jed. If I knew what the matter was I’d try to help. But you know that, of course.” (I even trust you to trust me.) “Mine only to keep talking, eh? Why, then, I’ll go ahead. Babble. Babble. Do you care for the chamber music? No, that’s a question. Well, I always say it depends. And it does. Everything depends …”

  The hand on the dial had stopped … must be at about four. It seemed to be stuck there. Was it out of order?

  “Come, boy. Come, boy. Ah, naughty Bobo! (Loves to ride!) But this is home, boy. Home! Now, Bobo must be a good boy. Biscuit? Bobo want his biscuit? If Bobo wants his biscuit … Oh, what a naughty, bad doggy! Bobo! Listen to me! No … more … ride. Do you understand, sir? Beddy-bye, now. Come, Bobo.”

  Bobo retreated to the inner corner of the elevator and sat down.

  Mrs. McMurdock giggled in her throat. “So ki-yute! Isn’t that— Little monkey! Bobo, boy, Mama will leave you. Biscuit, biscuit?”

  The hotel’s people stood silent. Mrs. McMurdock was a guest. Bobo was a guest. A guest need not know all there is to know. They wore small chilly smiles, not too impatient, not too amused, either.

  Bobo frisked between Milner’s ankles.

  “Shall I pick him up, madame?” the elevator boy said most respectfully.

  “No, no. Now, he must learn,” said Mrs. McMurdock. “Now, he’ll mind in a minute.” The trouble was, Bobo did look as if he would mind, any minute.

  The hotel’s people cleared their throats with professional patience. It wasn’t going to be very pleasant placating that woman on the eighth floor, admitting to her that her wicked intruder had got away.

  In the lobby, Jimmy said, “Hey, kids, sumpin’s funny! See that fellow over there, one with the girl? Say, what was the room again?”

  “Room 807.”

  “Yeah,” drawled Jimmy. “Yeah …”

  Jed’s eyes flickered in his stony face.

  “… partial to rum,” Lyn said, “with pink stuff in it. And your sure can get thirsty, talking so much. Filibuster is running down, Jed. Don’t elect me senator, anybody. Is it all right now? Can we go?”

  In Jed’s head exploded the loud NO for an answer.

  Her face changed. One second, sweet and pretty, and pleased with the nonsense she was able to spin. The next it had lost all that pretty animation, light, and color. Jed did it. By the look he bent on her, he wiped the pretty peace off her face.

  He said, quietly, “I’m a rat, Lyn. A complete rat. Go home.”

  “But, Jed, I’ve been wait—”

  “Don’t wait any more. Never wait for me.”

  He stepped around his suitcase. His face was flinty. His muscles surged. He went across the lobby in a walk so smooth and fast that he seemed to float.

  He knew that bellhop straightened with a start The hell with that!

  He pushed on the door to the fire stairs.

  Ah, God, NO!

  He shouldn’t have run out on that little kid! What kind of rat did such a thing? A rat like Towers. A complete, no-good … He was sad, he’d been sad over it a long time. So sad his heart was heavy.

  Ah, NO!

  A pair of socks wasn’t all he had left and lost up on the eighth floor. And left, forever. Gone, like smoke! Yeah. You can’t catch it back again, no more than you can a wisp of smoke. Thing like that, you can’t retrieve.

  And who would know? Towers would know.

  This trip, all the way down to the lobby and out, wasn’t even as good as a detour. There wasn’t a way back from this side road to the main track. No way on again, in again. Rat forever, amen.

  But he went up. Went up with all the great strength of his long powerful legs, three steps at once, then two, but pulling on the rail, around and around, climbing the building more like a monkey than a man going upstairs.

  Passed the buck. Towers! Let the old lady take care of it Towers! White! He sobbed breath in.

  He thought, I don’t know what I’m doing … know what I did … Never even thought to lock that door. Could have made sure to keep her out of there. Could have done that much. He and he alone (not Eddie. Eddie was out on the bathroom floor)… Towers alone knew what kind of sitter that Nell turned out to be. Knew the poor little kid was waiting. The old biddy couldn’t know that, and where was she all this while? Arguing? No reason to think …

  No, no. What Towers alone knew was that, reason or no reason, there would always and forever be some risk with that Nell around. But a risk for somebody else, of course. For somebody else’s kid. A little thing who couldn’t do a thing about it. So Towers figured the risk to his own six feet three, to his man’s hide, to his … what?

  Now, he couldn’t remember any risk for Towers. For nothing, he ran out. For the sick shadow of nothing at all, he
’d lost what he’d lost.

  This complete revulsion was making him sick. O.K. Cut it out, Towers. What’s done is done. Take it from here.

  Eighth floor?

  He must be in pretty good condition.

  Yeah, condition!

  There was the elevator. And there they stood, talking. Questions and answers, with the elevator boy. The hell with them. They didn’t know there was a risk. Or they’d hurry. He couldn’t understand why they hadn’t hurried. Jed rushed past.

  Aw, probably Bunny was all right. Probably. Pray so, and if so, here’s Towers heading right back into the middle of this jam, for nothing. Doing no good. But maybe not for nothing. He didn’t know. All he knew was, while he could still move for himself, he was going to make sure. He was going to bust in there and if the old biddy hadn’t found her yet, Towers was going to untie the little kid and the hell with everything else … and five seconds more, one second, one pulse beat more was too long.

  Room 807’s door was wide open. The old biddy, crouched on the edge of the bed, took one look at Jed’s wild figure and heaved in her breath and let out a scream to wake the dead!

  But Jed was in 809 before it died.

  Nell, hair hanging over her eyes, had one knee on either side of the slim body of a woman, supine on the floor. Their hands were braced, hand against wrist, arms against aching arms. The woman on the floor had blood on her mouth and her cheek was torn and her breathing was shallow and difficult. But her eyes were intelligent and they yet watched for her chance.

  Jed took little Nell by the short hair of her head. He ripped her away. She came up in his grasp, screeching, and hung from his hand, limp in surprise like a sawdust doll.

  In the corridor, Milner and Perrin saw the racing figure and in their startled ears rang the woman’s scream. Perrin got his gun in his hand as they began to run.

  The door of 807 was wide.

  “The man,” croaked Miss Ballew, voice thick and hoarse. “That’s the man!” Oh, she knew him. By the indescribable. By the habits of motion, the line of the back, the tip of the shoulder, the cock of the head.