by Alice Orr
For once, she didn’t talk back.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he added, “but I will if I have to.”
He probably shouldn’t have told her he didn’t want to hurt her. Real tough guys liked hurting people. Memphis figured she’d seen too much of his act by now to believe he was that tough anyway. She did still believe he’d killed that girl back at the Stuyvesant Club, but that wasn’t likely to cut much ice with her if she saw a chance to give him the slip. He had more chance of controlling the other guys than of keeping her in line. With that in mind, he moved the knife blade next to her throat and glared over her shoulder at the gang lined up against him.
“Take your hands off her,” the tall, well-built one yelled.
“Stop right where you are,” Memphis warned in his best tough-guy voice. “You come any closer and I’ll have to cut her.”
That stopped them, the muscular one out front and the lanky one just behind.
“Bennett, are you all right?” the tall one asked.
“Yes, Quint,” she said. “He hasn’t hurt me.”
“I haven’t hurt her yet,” Memphis added, “but I can and I will.”
“Don’t worry, Bennett,” the one she called Quint said. “I will take care of this.”
Memphis heard something in that besides just friendly interest. Maybe she was his girl. Memphis could tell by the way she’d gone rigid against him that she was too scared now to keep from letting it show. Maybe she cared something special about this guy and didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. Memphis could use that.
“Tell him to back off,” Memphis said low enough for only her to hear. “I’ll take him on if I have to. He’d be no match for me even without this blade in my hand. I’m a street fighter, and he’s not. You know that’s the truth.”
Memphis could almost feel her considering those words.
“Tell him,” Memphis growled, and jerked her harder against him. “Or you’re going to have his blood on your hands.”
Memphis was just saying what he had to say to get the job done. He wasn’t sure whether he could follow through on his threats or not. He was only sure that he had to get these guys out of his face while he planned what to do next.
“Don’t come any closer, Quint,” she said. “I don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“I’d say he’s capable of just about anything.” That was the other one talking. He’d moved up next to Quint. “He’s already done one murder tonight. What matter could it be to him to do another?”
So they’d found that girl’s body, then snapped their own two and two together to come up with good old Memphis as the guilty party. He wanted to say it wasn’t true, but that wasn’t the smart thing to do right now.
“You got that on the money,” Memphis said. Speaking of money, he wondered if one of these dudes was the guy who’d gotten him to come to the Stuyvesant for his pay in the first place. “I’ve got nothing to lose by taking her out and maybe you guys along with her.” Memphis was getting sick of hearing himself say he had nothing to lose. He didn’t like how true it sounded.
“Hey there, what’s going on here?” one of the carriage drivers called out in a heavy brogue from the curbside.
“You guys stay out of this,” Memphis said, and glowered at the driver while still keeping an eye on the two from the sports car.
“Why don’t you just leave the lass be, man?” the driver coaxed as he took a step toward Memphis.
“Hold your ground,” Memphis said, “or I’ll have to hurt her.” He brandished the knife very near her face to show he was serious.
“Okay. Okay.” The driver lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender and stepped back. “Don’t go doing anything rash.”
“I’ll do what you guys force me to do,” Memphis said, making himself sound so menacing he almost believed it himself.
“You’ll do what I tell you, and you will do it this instant.” That came from the lanky guy, the one Memphis wouldn’t have figured for being so forceful. Then he noticed what the guy had in his hand and where he had it pointed.
“Royce,” Bennett cried out. “Put the gun away. You’ll only make things worse.”
“How much worse can things possibly be?” Royce asked, and kept the muzzle leveled straight at them.
Memphis had to sit on the impulse to pull her behind him. The only chance he had was that this guy wouldn’t hurt her. Memphis had already started moving, pulling her along with him, in the direction they’d been headed before these two cowboys horned in.
“Do what Bennett says, Royce,” her boyfriend chimed in. “There’s too much possibility you’ll hit her if you shoot.”
Memphis decided to head for the car, which just might have the keys in it. If that didn’t turn out to be the case, he’d have to make a run for it, maybe let her go after all and just take off as fast as his legs could carry him. But probably not fast enough to outrun a bullet.
“Trust me, Quint,” the one called Royce was saying. “I’m a masterful shot.”
That was exactly what Memphis didn’t want to hear, and something in old Royce’s tone said it was true. Still, that wasn’t the thing that made Memphis stop short for a second before it flashed through his mind that he had to make that dash for it now. He was looking straight into Royce’s eyes. What Memphis saw there was that this guy was going to shoot. He had Bennett in his sights just as sure as he had Memphis there, but that didn’t seem to matter. The glint in Royce’s eyes signaled loud and clear that he was about a hair away from pulling the trigger.
Before that hairsbreadth of time could pass, Memphis did just about the stupidest act of his life. He pulled Bennett around behind him and held her there. He kept moving up the street all the time he did that, positioning himself between her and the shooter and pushing her along. She wasn’t resisting, the way Memphis would have expected her to do. Maybe she’d gotten a good look at Royce’s eyes, too. She must know that Royce had a clear, clean shot straight to Memphis’s heart. He could see that himself and it nearly took his breath away. Memphis steeled himself for facing his last minute on earth.
The thing he least expected happened next. Quint grabbed Royce’s arm and started wrestling him for the gun. Royce was shouting protests, but Quint kept on struggling to take the gun from Royce’s grasp. Memphis knew what he had to do. He tightened his grip on Bennett’s arm and started to run toward the car. He didn’t like turning his back on the scramble for the gun, but he had to make the best time possible and he could move a lot faster forward than backward.
The car hadn’t looked that far away, but now that he was trying to get there quickly he felt as if he had miles to go. He still held Bennett in front of him out of the line of fire. She kept trying to see past him.
“Get a move on,” Memphis said. “That guy’s just as likely to hit you as me no matter how good a shot he says he is.”
As if to prove that true, a shot rang out, and Memphis thought he might have heard it zing by.
“Quint!” Bennett cried out. She tried to run past Memphis, but he held her tightly.
Memphis looked back to see the two men still grappling.
“You’re coming with me,” he said, and started running with even more speed this time.
They were almost to the car. He didn’t need her to start giving him a hard time now, but that was just what she did. She pulled against his grip and made him drag her along.
Memphis stopped dead in his tracks. “Bennett,” he said forcefully, calling her by her name for the first time. “If we get out of here, maybe old Royce there will stop trying to shoot your boyfriend or you or me or anybody else he gets a bead on.”
She took a second to let that sink in before he could feel her resistance go slack. He pushed her the rest of the way to the car and around to the driver’s side. He didn’t have time to think the prayer that surely was in order. He had to bend down to open the low door of what he now recognized to be a Jaguar XKE. A light came on along the mahoga
ny dashboard just as Memphis realized he’d been holding his breath waiting for this moment. He let it out again with a sigh when he saw that the prayer he hadn’t spoken had been answered anyway. The key was in the ignition.
BENNETT LET HIM shove her across the driver’s seat and over the gearshift in the center of the small car. She had to pull her skirt up to make it. She was no longer paying much attention to the fact that the tops of her stockings were showing. She was too busy trying to understand what had happened in the street. Memphis Modine was right about one thing. Royce had looked determined to shoot somebody, and Bennett couldn’t be certain who that somebody might have turned out to be.
She remembered what her mother had said more times than Bennett could count. Royce Boudreaux is irresponsible. He is immature. He cannot be counted on. Bennett had always known that was at least partly true. Till tonight, however, she hadn’t understood that a person as irresponsible as Royce might also be dangerous.
She had never had a gun pointed at her before. Now she knew that it didn’t matter whether the one with his finger on the trigger was supposed to be friend or foe. At the moment of staring down the black hole of a gun barrel, that gunman became the enemy.
But what about Quint? “I have to go back,” she said, and groped for the door handle on her side.
“No,” Memphis shouted as he turned the ignition key and the car engine roared to life. He grabbed her wrist with one hand while he grasped the steering wheel with the other. “All you’ll do by going back there is maybe get your boyfriend killed. Besides, I’m not letting you out of this car.”
As if to prove that, he let go of her arm long enough to switch gears into reverse and gun the car backward into the street. He must have driven one of these British models before. She knew they had a different way of shifting from other cars. Yet he hadn’t ground the gears at all in executing their exit from the curb. He shifted again, and they sped forward, too fast for a takeoff into city traffic. Fortunately this lane was empty ahead of them, and cars must have slowed down behind. She heard some angry honking from that direction, but Memphis didn’t appear to pay it much mind. He was too busy steering and shifting and checking the rear and side mirrors, perhaps to see if Royce and Quint had taken up the pursuit.
Bennett considered the possibility of opening her door and jumping out of the car. They were moving a little too fast for that at the moment, but she might be able to manage it when he had to slow down at a corner or for a traffic light. Unless he had no intention of slowing down for anything. He wouldn’t want to attract police attention. But then, the police were sure to be after them soon if they weren’t already, and this car would be fairly easy to spot even in Manhattan traffic. Mr. Modine kept saying that he had nothing left to lose so he might as well take whatever risks presented themselves. That probably included taking on some of the most aggressive drivers in the world. Bennett wondered if she might not be in even more danger now than she had been during the rest of this perilous evening. Then she remembered the streetlight shining off the barrel of Royce’s gun. Playing chicken with New York cabbies was certainly less risky than facing a firearm in the hands of a fool.
“Where are we going?” It seemed she was always asking him that.
“I’ll be damned if I know,” he said.
He doesn’t know his way around the city, she thought, and I do. There had to be some advantage in that.
They were headed west on Central Park South, toward Columbus Circle. He was still moving the car fast and recklessly, though he did maneuver in and out of lanes with skill. Bennett wondered if he had really meant to let her know he was unfamiliar with the city. That seemed like a blunder to her.
“What I do know,” he said, as if reading her thoughts, “is that I’m getting us out of this part of town. Your part of town. I know my way around enough to do that. I have to keep driving in this direction till we’re just about ready to drop into the river. Then I head downtown.”
He was right about one thing. The part of the city he was talking about, the Far West Side, was definitely not her side of town. She knew it only vaguely from having driven through it on occasion, but she didn’t have much specific knowledge of those neighborhoods. Still, she would probably know her way around better than he did. She reassured herself of that as he screeched off Central Park South and launched into the crowded traffic circle around the statue of Christopher Columbus.
She noted that he drove with confidence, as if he knew these streets like the back of his hand. Maybe he wouldn’t need to slow down or stop after all. Maybe he was like one of those cabbies with a natural talent for weaving through traffic without a hitch no matter-how heavy the congestion. If that was the case, she wouldn’t be likely to have the opportunity to jump clear of the car. She would have to look for some other means of escape. Giving up and settling passively into captivity was simply not an option for the daughter of Dilys St. Simon.
Bennett looked around the car. The glove compartment was just above her knees, but she doubted she could get it open without Memphis noticing, especially since it very possibly had a light inside. She wasn’t sure what she would find inside anyway. Maybe something to stick him in the hand with and make him slow down long enough for her to get out. That seemed too harebrained a plan to work even if she could find a weapon of some kind. Speaking of which, she wondered where exactly the knife was right now. He wasn’t holding it, so he must have put it back into his pocket in order to drive. Or—her heart skipped a hopeful beatmaybe he had laid it down in his lap and she could make a grab for it.
She was careful not to be obvious about shifting her glance in his direction and downward. The light from the dashboard wasn’t very bright, but she could make out the front of his tight jeans below his open leather jacket. She had to stare to see in the dim light. There was nothing in his lap. She squinted to see the space between his thighs more clearly. All she could detect there was the full bulge beneath his pants, which definitely was not the hunting knife. Even making that observation silently to herself caused her to blush, and she glanced quickly away.
“If you’re looking to get out of this car, you can forget about it,” he said.
He had seen her jerk her head too fast away from staring at his crotch. She said nothing in reply. He was probably right that she couldn’t get out of this car. She had better concentrate on some other course of action. What could that be? Leaving some kind of trail to be followed would be one possibility, but she couldn’t think of any way of managing that. She had a vision of Hansel and Gretel in the woods, dropping crumbs that were immediately snapped up by birds. She understood exactly how futile their efforts had been. She was beginning to feel equally stymied herself.
She sighed and hung her head for a moment as a wave of what felt like resignation to defeat washed over her. What she saw on the car console made hope leap into her heart once more.
Chapter Eight
Bennett preferred that her automobile be a place where people couldn’t get to her, so she wasn’t as familiar with mobile phones as she might have been. Still, she’d used a similar model in Forth’s car and was fairly certain she could manage this one. Now, if Royce had done his part by programming some numbers into the automatic dialing memory, she would be all set. She had figured out a way to send a message, a cry for help. She understood, of course, that this was the electronic equivalent of putting a note in a bottle and casting it out to sea. She could only hope that her call for help would reach landfall.
The probability of that had a lot to do with who Royce had programmed on that first memory button. Bennett assumed it had to be somebody important in his life. With Royce, that presented interesting possibilities. His woman of the moment could have that number-one spot, or his favorite aunt who was a soft touch for a loan on a fairly regular basis, or maybe his bookie. That last was probably the most likely, which meant that Bennett’s SOS might fall on ears too cynical to care. She told herself not to think about the negatives. This
was her one shot at alerting somebody out there to her whereabouts, and she had to take it.
Memphis was concentrating on traffic for the moment. Bennett took that moment to review what she knew about how this contraption worked. To make a call without lifting the receiver, she had to hit the call button. Then, instead of dialing, she would go to the memory button, and finally, to the send button. She knew that there was a speaker in the system that let everything from the other end of the line be heard in the car. That was a problem. She glanced down at the cellular console as inconspicuously as she could manage. She was looking for a control to adjust the volume of the monitor. She was sure there must be one. Unfortunately, its location was not obvious from her vantage point. If she was going to try this, she would have to risk Modine hearing both the dial tone and the phone being answered on the other end. To prevent that, she could create a noisy diversion of some kind or wait for that to happen naturally.
He had made a right turn into Columbus Circle, past a line of motorcycles to the left. The circle could be confusing even for seasoned New York City drivers. Traffic was feeding in from what seemed like a dozen directions. Cars cut in front of each other in an aggressive jockeying for position. He who hesitates is lost, as they say. Modine didn’t hesitate in his circuit around the loop. So far so good, for him at least. Bennett was counting on his having more difficulty exiting the circle than he’d had getting around it. Sure enough. She got her wish.
She could tell that what he wanted to do was turn immediately west out of the circle. However, the first cross street ran one way to the east. When he saw that sign he was obviously stymied for a moment. He’d have to cut across traffic to make the turn. He darted a glance over his shoulder, probably looking for a way to cut in. That moment’s hesitation accomplished exactly what Bennett had said a small prayer for. Manhattan drivers were not known for their patience, and tonight proved to be no exception to that rule. Horns began blaring immediately. Even cars to either side of them chimed in. This was Bennett’s chance. She might not have another one. The instant he turned back to the wheel, she moved her hand as surreptitiously as possible over the phone unit. Modine was preoccupied at the moment, and that worked to her advantage. She hit the button to activate the phone and started talking at the same instant.