'Sure enough.' Puzzled, Pete watched the young man drive away. He couldn't figure Owen Gann, generally or in particular. Generally he just didn't seem like the right type for the Klan, and in particular it didn't make sense to drive twenty-five miles into the country to look at a broken-down heap that he could have seen the next time Pete came into town. Now Gann was driving off in the wrong direction.
'Not that way!' Pete shouted. 'There ain't nothing that way but...' The beer truck turned off on to the side road, scraping its sides against the scrub pines. 'But Ol' Jim Bittle's place,' he finished, rubbing the stubble on his jaw.
Meticulously Roderick wiped the car free of prints: steering wheel, door handles, shift, keys. It would have been better, he realised with hind-sight, to have put on the gloves at the Ordinary railway station instead of the moment before entering the cabin.
He broke up evergreen branches and mashed them into his footprints in the mud. Suitcase tucked under his arm, he headed back towards the main road, walking on the grassy strip between the clay ruts. There had been a cabin of sorts a short distance down the road, with a car parked in front. The owner could probably be persuaded to give it up. As soon as he got to Norfolk, Roderick could rent a car.
Ahead along the rutty road there was the sound of a motor accompanied by a clashing and banging, like a marching band of muffled cymbals. Roderick ducked into the stand of evergreens siding the road. A truck hove into view; painted on the red surface in silvery letters was the trademark: SPENGLER'S BEER. Had that dumb Jim Bittle been planning a beer-blast to celebrate the kidnapping, or what? Incredible ill luck!
Once the truck had passed it took all his will power to leave his covert and return to the track. There was not yet, he assured himself, any need for panic. A man of reason has, has he not, infinite resources? He is never at a loss for the right response. Step by inexorable step, he proceeds towards the conclusion that he has willed. But the wolf, the hairy wolf, was pounding on that door, threatening to blow the house down.
What had Bessy said over the phone? 'The F.B.I, was just here, and they was asking about you!' And there had been that fat Negro who had twice anticipated Roderick's movements at the terminal, that surely exceeded the limits of simple happenstance. And now this!
Sweat pouring down from the bald crown of his head, Roderick began to run. Just when he reached the main road and stood in view of the Ordinary Motel, he had to duck back into the greenery along the road as the beer truck rocketed past once more, hell-bent for Ordinary.
Nothing could surprise Peter Boggs any more. First Owen going off like a madman down the road to Bittle's cabin, like to breaking an axle, and then his coming back like two madmen with the devil after him. Now this stranger, in his city clothes and out of breath, coming up from nowhere with his big black satchel.
'I'm, in a manner of speaking, lost,' the stranger explained with a sweet-sick smile. Pete nodded. 'And my car got stuck in the mud.'
'You want a push?'
'No! No, actually I wondered if I might buy this car from you. If it runs.'
'It runs—barely. But it should get you back to where you come from, if that's all you need. You come from around here?'
'How much would you say it's worth?'
Pete shrugged.
'Two hundred dollars?'
'I guess so,' said Pete, permitting himself a smile.
The stranger extended two bills of a denomination Pete had never seen before and took the ignition key in exchange. 'Just a second. I'll go in the house and root up the bill of sale.' Once inside, he held the bills up to the light in trembling, tobacco-stained fingers. How was he going to know if this money was the real McCoy? Outside the stranger had started up the engine. Pete wished he'd had a chance to take off the nylon cord tyres first. But two hundred dollars! He hoped Owen wouldn't be too mad when he found out the car was sold. What a piece of luck!
Roderick drove along Route 17 till he reached the outskirts of Hampton. Then he found a pay-phone in a bar and dialled Bessy's number. Bessy answered after just two rings. It's all over, Bessy. I'll bring you your money to the place we agreed to meet and you can hand back my darling daughter.'
'Guess again,' Bessy said mournfully.
'Don't tell me something else has gone wrong!'
'It's Alice. She's escaped.'
Chapter 14
It was as clear as clear could be, it was certain past all doubt, that Green Pastures Funeral Home was nowhere to be but then was her own home on Gwynns River Falls Drive anywhere to go? Besides, there was the matter of her promise to Bessy.
'And what sort of promise is that?' Dinah scoffed. 'A promise made to a desperate criminal!'
'Nevertheless,' Alice returned smugly, 'a promise is a promise.' (It may be that the notion of attempting an escape was also a little scary, but somehow this aspect of the subject was never openly discussed.)
'A prisoner of war is honour-bound to try and escape.'
'Where should I escape to? Answer me that! Home? Maybe Daddy would just bring me right back here. Or to the police? They'll just treat me like those people on the bus treated me, like the man with the beer truck treated me, because they only see my black skin.'
'What about Uncle Jason?' Dinah asked reasonably.
There was no denying that her uncle had always been nice to her, so Alice veered off on a new tangent: It's all very well to say "Go to Uncle Jason"—I suppose it seems a very simple matter for you—but have you thought where Uncle Jason is? He's in Baltimore, and you don't even know where you are.'
'We're in Norfolk,' Dinah said, though not quite confidently, since her source of information had been Fay.
'And how do you intend to get to Baltimore from a city that may or may not be Norfolk? You can't very well ride a bus without money for a ticket.'
'Oh, will you can it!' said Clara, coming into the kitchen, where this dialogue had been going on. 'I may have to be a goddamned baby-sitter, but I sure as hell don't have to put up with your crazy jabber.'
'I'm very sorry, I'm sure,' Alice said with an etiquette as lofty as the ineffable Miss Boyd's. Then, seeing that she'd offended Clara, she quickly went on: 'I can recite Jabberwocky. Would you like to hear it?'
'Yeah,' said Clara, though by the way she said it you would have thought she didn't really mean it. Alice was uncertain therefore whether to recite or not. She began, in a tiny voice:
'Twas brillig and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimhle in the wabe: All mimsy .. .'
'I'll mimsy you, Miss Uppity!' Clara growled in her manliest manner. She was wearing her usual off-duty ensemble of denim trousers and jacket, which contrasted strangely with the cloying smell of the spilt cologne. Half an hour's bathing had not been able to efface the smell.
'You wouldn't talk like that if Bessy were here.'
Shortly after the phone call from Roderick, Bessy had had an attack of trembling for which, she claimed, the only cure was a good stiff one and then a bit of a nap. Alice couldn't understand how anyone could go back to bed within three hours of getting up and had protested violently when Bessy had wanted to take her upstairs with her. She'd promised then to be very, very good and mind Clara in every respect.
'I'll Bessy you!' Clara said, not at all reasonably. 'Come here, smarty-pants!' Alice moved towards her reluctantly. 'C'mon, c'mon! Godammit.' A scrawny hand, all bumpy with purple veins, seized the soft flesh of Alice's upper arm.
'Ow! don't do that! Ow!' Then her head jerked back till the bones of her neck grated and she was looking at the cracks in the ceiling. Clara had hit her! Hit her across the face with her other hand. It was so incredible (grown-ups don't hit children, do they?) that Alice didn't make a sound. She was simply thunderstruck.
'You'll learn to put on your uppity manners around me, little black girl! You think just because you're white you gotta be treated like some goddam princess? Well, you ain't going to be, not here. No, you're black as I am now, and you're gonna get treated black.' Clara was pulling her out thro
ugh the swinging doors into the living-room, where Fay was nursing her 'baby' at her breast. She looked up from this tender task reprovingly.
'Fay, pull down the shades. I'm going to teach this here piccaninny a lesson or two.' Fay's full, pink-swathed figure bounced about the room, and presently they were in semi-darkness. Alice was made to sit on the sofa between the two women. The scent of their cologne was so strong that Alice felt like vomiting.
'Why?' she asked, forcing herself to sound calm, and imitating (though she did not know it) Miss Godwin. 'Why do you want to pick on me? I never did anything to you, did I? Did I?'
Clara laughed roughly. To me? No. No, you never did a thing to me, baby. But let me tell you some facts of life. I been living in this world for more years than I care to remember, and it's a white man's world, and I been living by the white man's rules, and did I ask them why? But now you are in my world, babydoll, and I make the rules here. Fay, take her arms.'
Fay, though in other ways still a child, had a grown-up's strength; it did no good to struggle against her.
'I hate you,' Clara whispered, but though her previous tone had communicated just this sentiment, she pronounced these three words with something like affection. With one hand she began unbuttoning Alice's dress at the back; with the other she held a doubled-up extension cord.
'I've never given you any reason to hate me,' Alice pointed out, still striving after calmness.
'I hate you because you're white. That's reason enough, and more.'
'But she ain't white, Clara,' Fay protested. 'She's almost as black as you.'
'Shut up, stupid. She only looks black. Inside, she's all white.'
Alice had braced herself against the expected blow, but the extension cord came down not on her back but across her bare thighs, left exposed by the too-young dress. She yelped with pain.
'Now, don't you make any noise, or you'll only get it worse.' But of course her only hope lay in waking Bessy, so she screamed again, louder. Clara's thin hand clamped down across Alice's face, not just silencing her but—since it pinched her nostrils shut—smothering her as well. Alice tried to struggle free, but Clara seemed to be on top of her, she couldn't move, she felt herself grow faint... The doorbell rang. 'Damn!' said Clara.
She began buttoning up Alice's dress. 'Fay, you go answer that.'
'I hope it's not a John,' Fay whined. 'Because I haven't finished feeding my little Alice yet.'
It was indeed a John, the same hawk-faced man who had been here just last night.
'Well, hello again,' said Clara. 'We can't hardly keep you away these days, can we?'
'Hello, um, Clara.' Farron was scarcely audible. He lifted his eyes from the floor, before they had lifted quite to Clara's face he eyes encountered Alice. A thin tip of tongue licked across his thin lips. Is, um, is she ...?'
Clara's hand came down to play in Alice's kinky hair. 'You asking after my little cousin Dinah here? Naw, Farron, forget about it. You could never get that much money.'
Farron had come to stand over Clara and Alice. Alice snuggled back into the sofa, obscurely frightened. 'What's that smell ?' Farron asked.
'It's that goddamned Fay,' said Clara. 'She broke my cologne bottle.' They started talking about the cologne bottle and forgot about Alice. They were halfway up the stairs when Clara called back: 'Fay, you look after little Dinah good and proper now, understand? She isn't supposed to go outdoors. Otherwise ...' There was a slap of leather against wood, and Alice saw Farron's legs tremble.
When they were alone, Alice asked, 'Does Clara ever hit you, Fay?'
'Oh, lots of times.'
'Why don't you tell Bessy about it?'
'Can't. If I do that, Clara says she'll kill me dead.' Fay stuck her thumb in her mouth and made a popping sound, either by way of demonstration or simply to punctuate her remark.
'How?'
'With a poison stick. She has a poison stick that she hides in her closet, and if I don't do just what she says she'll touch me with it, and anywhere she touches me, even my littlest toe, then I'll die!'
Fay, Alice decided, was surely the stupidest, most gullible grown-up that Alice had ever met, and she had met some very stupid grown-ups.
'I know a fun game,' said Alice.
Fay began to chew on a strand of loose blonde hair with anticipation. 'What is it? Do I know how to play?'
'Hide-and-go-seek. I hide somewhere, and you have to find me. You want to play that?'
Fay bit into the pink fudge that was her lower lip. 'I'd like to, but I don't think I'd better. Clara wouldn't like it, if you ran away.' There were, it seemed, limits to Fay's credulity.
Then I know another fun game. It's called Don't-Peek. We both close our eyes, and the first person who peeks is the loser.'
After a few games of Don't-Peek, Alice realised that this idea had been no better than the first. By the clock on the wall she measured the time it took Fay to peek, and it was always less than a minute. Not nearly time to do what she had in mind. The episode with Clara had resolved all her hesitancies about escape.
'I know an even better game,' she said determinedly. 'But we'll need some bottles and plates.' She dragged Fay and her baby into the kitchen. There were two cartons of empty Coke bottles under the sink, and Fay took down a stack of saucers from the cupboard. Alice showed her how to stack them: a bottle, a plate, a bottle...
Fay squealed with delighted expectation: 'If you put another one on top of those now, it's going to fall down for sure.'
'Now, this game is called Tower-of-Babel, and here's how we play it. I get the kitchen and you get the living-room. Whoever makes his stack first'—she handed Fay a carton of bottles and six saucers; Fay left her doll lying on the counter—'has to run and catch the other one. For instance, if I get my stack done then I run in and tag you and say, "You're it!" and then I've won. But if you get all your bottles and saucers piled first, then you run and tag me, and then you're the winner.'
'What does the winner get?'
'The winner gets to be Queen of Babylon. Okay?' She led Fay back out into the living-room, to a spot that afforded no view into the kitchen, and started her building her Tower. 'Now, in case any of your saucers should break, here's an extra supply.'
Back in the kitchen, she quietly pulled the linoleum-topped table in place underneath the high half-window. Standing on the table she was tall enough to pry open the window halfways but still too short to climb out through it. From the living-room there was a sound of crashing and shattering, followed by a fit of giggling. Alice pulled out three drawers from the kitchen counter (the first held cooking utensils, the second pot-holders and dish-towels, the third two bottles of Bessy's cheap gin) and stacked them criss-cross on top of the table.
'Are you building your tower?' Fay called into the kitchen.
'Oh yes,' Alice said. 'And I'm almost finished.' In testimony she kicked the carton of coke bottles and threw a saucer on the floor. 'Ohhh, it fell down!'
She took a medium-sized paper bag from the niche beside the icebox and put in a quart carton of milk and a loaf of bread. Unfortunately, there was no lunch meat left. This way she would have something to eat during the day, and it would look, to a casual observer, as though she were just carrying home groceries. She found her copy of Just-So Stories underneath School for Sinners and put that in her grocery bag. Then, just out of mischief, she stuffed in Fay's baby.
She peeked into the living-room where Fay sat discouraged, picking her nose. 'I'm almost done,' she screamed, frightening Fay into a second flurry of building.
Grocery bag in hand, she mounted to the table top, then climbed up the makeshift, unsteady steps. Raised as far as it would go, the window was just wide enough to crawl through. With a prayer that the carton would not split, she threw the bag down into the weeds. She climbed through the window head first, then realised she would have to go back and try it the other way. She didn't fancy dropping six feet—more than six feet—on to her head! There was a crashing sound behind h
er—Fay's second tower crashing down. Her toe reached back for a foothold on the topmost drawer, she felt the drawer teeter and slip away. Closing her eyes, she pushed herself through the window and off the sill. She landed with a clatter of kitchen utensils. She was free. She picked up the grocery bag and started to run.
The milk was so warm and ooky it was like yogurt, and the spout hadn't opened out the way it should have, so that she'd spilled milk all down the front of her dress. And her feet! Her feet were raw in these wretched, toe-crimping saddle shoes. But she couldn't very well go barefoot over the blistering, July-afternoon pavements. When she'd sat down on the kerbstone to have her lunch, she'd taken off the shoes and put them in the grocery bag, but as soon as she started walking again ...
She was tired, terribly tired, so tired she wouldn't think in a straight line. She'd walked and walked for hours, and she simply couldn't find a way out of the city. Norfolk was a trap for pedestrians: it was bounded on every side by water. The only road going north went through the big bridge-and-tunnel across the Bay, but it was closed to foot traffic. If only she could get a map of the city, but when she'd gone into a filling station to ask for one, the attendant had treated her with unimaginable rudeness. Really, it was most perplexing and impossible.
Discouraging too, perhaps? No, she wouldn't let herself
become discouraged, and this brave resolve she strengthened by reciting to herself a verse from a poem that her father used once to read to her:
In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud: Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloodyt but unbowed. But the poem made her think of her father... Her own father... A tear plopped into the warm milk.
Almost a block away, where the other people had been sitting down along the street, a car stopped and four men in red and white silk gowns, like Episcopal choir members at Christmas, got out. Similarly-gowned men were appearing from other directions, and there were policemen, in two different kinds of uniforms. Alice reasoned, from these many evidences, that a parade was about to begin, or perhaps it had just ended. Ordinarily she would have enjoyed seeing a parade.
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