Then she went over to the piano, sat on the bench, and put her glass beside her. She began to play something, not what was on the phonograph. After a little while she started singing.
The Count waved toward the phonograph and moved his fingers counterclockwise. I reached out and switched the record off. Then I could hear what Mrs. De Anza was playing. It sounded familiar. She was singing in German, but switched over to English in a moment or two.
“Lullaby, and good night…”
She turned her head toward me, while her fingers still moved on the keys.
“Remind me to take my sleep caps into town, Nick,” she said. “Don’t forget. And some money out of the safe. I keep forgetting.”
I nodded. She turned again.
“Lay thee down now and rest…May thy slumber be blest…”
She was off key.
“Lay thee down and rest…”
She reached down with her right hand, tried to pick up her glass, and managed to spill it over her dress.
“Damn,” she said, and got up.
Then the telephone rang.
She dropped the glass and went across the room like a sprinter. But her hand was steady enough on the phone. I looked at her and tried to listen, but she kept her voice so low I couldn’t get more than a word or two. Then, all of a sudden, her face got wooden. No expression on it at all. I wondered if she was getting the word about her sanity hearing. If so, her face didn’t show whether the word was yes or no.
She hung up. She sat staring at the phone for a few seconds, and then, moving as though she’d had plenty to drink, Mrs. De Anza rose and walked stiffly out of the room. The silence grew.
After a while De Anza dropped a bead into the water; it made a soft splashing plinking noise. “Nick,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Can you make Turkish coffee?”
“I never tried.”
“I’d like some more. Would you ask Nita to do it, please?”
I nodded and went out to the kitchen. Rafael and Benita were eating. I passed the word and came back into the living-room.
Then I heard a car start.
“…That’s not the Buick,” I said.
De Anza tilted his head, listening.
“Hey,” McElroy said, “I must have left the key in my car.”
On my way to the front door, I looked toward the sofa and saw that her purse was gone. She’d taken it with her. That meant she was heading for Phoenix—or else it didn’t. You couldn’t call the shots with her. By the time I opened the door, the Cadillac’s tail-light had vanished over the slope.
For a moment or two I couldn’t trust my own voice. Then I said, “She shouldn’t be driving. She’s drunk. Coming back from town, she hit eighty and over most of the way.”
De Anza didn’t say anything. He had come up behind me and was looking out across the desert.
“Hell,” McElroy said.
“I…want me to try to catch her?” My voice sounded queer.
De Anza waited a year before he answered. Then he said, “Yes. She’s not sober. It might be—”
But by then I was running toward the garage. I was trying to remember whether I’d really done something to the Cadillac, or only thought about it.
I backed the Buick out of the garage and swung around fast. The door at my right opened and McElroy jumped in. I said, “Get the hell out of here.”
“Somebody has to drive the—”
I didn’t argue; I gunned the motor and we went roaring down the driveway. The engine was cold. That wouldn’t help. I didn’t know which way the Countess had turned, either, east or west. I shifted to second and then to high, played the choke, and got the Buick down to the highway in nothing flat. It was just luck that the dust showed her tire marks, swerving to the right, away from Phoenix. I made the curve and started to drive.
I didn’t know whether or not the Buick could take it. Anything could happen now. A tire might blow, at the speed we were reaching. Some bug I hadn’t found out about might develop. Or the Cadillac might be in the ditch already.
Beside me McElroy was leaning forward, staring along the path of the headlights. There was another car on the road, coming toward us. I dipped my beams but he didn’t bother. I snapped them back and forth, said, “Son of a bitch,” and pushed the throttle down. For a second or two I couldn’t see where I was going. I heard a scream of rubber from the other car, a noise from McElroy, and then we were past and there was a red tail-light ahead. A long way ahead.
“For God’s sake,” McElroy said under his breath.
“She’s hitting seventy.”
“How are you going to make her stop? Try blowing the horn. That car of mine—I’ve only had it a month.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t blow the horn, either. I knew what effect that would have on Mrs. De Anza. She’d just drive faster. Maybe she’d want to race.
The whole car was vibrating now. The motor was getting hot. I looked at the gas gauge; there was plenty. I held on to the wheel; it was trying to pull away. We were nearly at eighty, and a shimmy had started in the front wheels. “Better slow down,” McElroy said.
But the tail-light was getting nearer. I couldn’t keep the Buick on the road at this speed, with the shimmy; I had to hold on as hard as I could to keep the steering wheel from wrenching free. All I could do was go faster, till we’d passed the speed that was causing the shimmy.
Around ninety-five I managed that, and the tail-light wasn’t far ahead, but I had to concentrate on steering. At the slightest shift the Buick would sway and rock.
The Cadillac started to pull ahead. She’d seen us.
I fed more gas into the engine and spurted. We were on a straightaway. If we hit a turn, it would be just too bad. I couldn’t spare time to look at the speedometer now. The road was clear except for us. I was a pair of eyes and hands and a foot, nothing else. And at this speed I couldn’t stop the car from swaying.
“Jesus Christ, Banning, slow down!”
I didn’t answer. I poured it on. I heard metal begin rattling somewhere. The road was climbing. There was a crest ahead and then a dip and beyond that the road wasn’t straight any more, I thought. It was hard to tell in the moonlight. But in the distance I saw a pair of headlights, very small, and they were off to the right. This wasn’t flat desert any more, either. The ground was getting broken up.
“Banning! Slow down!”
There was still another m.p.h or two left in the Buick, and I reached for it and got it. I was creeping up on the Cadillac. What I’d do when I caught her I couldn’t tell yet. But somehow, some way, I’d manage.
McElroy kicked my foot off the accelerator.
I drove my elbow into his side as hard as I could. That was a mistake. The Buick went out of control. The steering wheel pulled out of my hand. I grabbed for it, wrestled with it, felt the bottom go out of my stomach as we skidded. I don’t know why we didn’t go over. We should have. We should have been killed.
What happened was that we ended up thirty feet off the road, bogged down in sand, but right side up.
I forgot about McElroy. I went into reverse and tried to gun the motor, but nothing happened at all. Even if the motor were still running, we were in deep sand.
McElroy had jumped out of the car. I got out, on my side, and stood there, looking west. I couldn’t see any tail-light. There was only the desert, cactus and Joshua and sage, and a mesa off to the left, looking like a sand castle on the beach. I could hear McElroy breathing hard, and I could hear myself breathing, but outside of that there wasn’t a sound except for a soft, deep drone far away.
Then I heard him moving. I couldn’t see very well; it was too dark. But he got up crouching, and his outline and the way he moved told me it was going to be a fight. That was okay. That was the way I wanted it, too.
His arm swung, and it was an awkward swing, almost overhand. He didn’t know a thing about boxing. I started anot
her one for his chin, ducking a little and rolling my head with his punch—and that was my mistake. The bastard had a rock in his hand.
It nearly took part of my scalp off. It hurt like hell. I wasn’t even sure whether or not my own fist had connected, but I knew it hadn’t done much damage. Everything seemed to stop moving except the flat desert skyline, and that started to tilt slowly sidewise. My head, inside, felt cold as ice.
McElroy was coming in again, I thought, but I couldn’t be sure, because there were two shadows of him that kept jumping apart and thudding together again. I heard rasping breathing. I was scared to death of the rock McElroy was holding, but I knew that somehow or other I was going to stay on my feet. I didn’t know how, because I couldn’t hang on to that toppling skyline much longer.
I kicked out, hard. It wasn’t the French savate trick, it was just a kick. But it worked. It landed. The rock missed me and before McElroy could do anything else I’d got my balance and jumped him. There wasn’t any skill there either. I wanted to get my hands on him. I wanted to get in close where I could grab his arm.
We smashed together. My head was low; I jerked it up against his jaw. The trick now was to keep him so busy he couldn’t use that rock. If he still had it. I didn’t take any chances. I grabbed for his wrist. With my other hand I reached for his face, trying for his eyes, digging for the nerve centers around the jaw. He pulled his head back and I smashed the heel of my hand under his chin. He went over backwards, with me on top of him.
…Then it was too late.
I couldn’t stop it any more. I didn’t want to stop it. I had to keep on hitting him. My arm was like a machine. My fist was a piston. It was going to go on like this forever. There weren’t any more thoughts. There was just this boiling hot feeling spreading out like whisky from my chest, pouring up my spine and into my head, down into my groin and my legs, building up to an explosion inside me that I couldn’t stop now. I was big and strong and rich. Big…rich…big…
Somebody was shaking and pulling at me. It didn’t matter. Nobody was big enough to stop me. Pain couldn’t stop me.
An arm hooked around my neck and pulled me over backward. I went down rolling and fighting. It was funny. My fists hit empty air now, but I was still punching them into flesh. I could still feel McElroy’s body give and bounce when I hit him. I knew I wasn’t hitting him any more, but I couldn’t stop.
“Nick!”
I jumped up, shaking my head, trying to get the light out of my eyes. It was dark, wasn’t it? It had been dark, but now there was a bright light shining. I had to find McElroy. I wasn’t finished. I had to find something to hit and go on hitting.
There was someone standing in front of me. I swung at the white face in the light. I stumbled forward ready to sink my fists again into the give and bounce of something I hated—
“Nick!”
It wasn’t McElroy in front of me. It was the Countess. I knew it and I didn’t know it. Part of my mind knew her, but most of me just wanted to go on striking and smashing, anything, anything so long as it was alive.
She understood. She saw it in my face. She saw me coming at her, and the damnedest look came over her that I’d ever seen in my life. She was scared and yet not scared. She opened her mouth wide and took in one tremendous gasp of air, and then she seemed to blur as she fell toward me.
I could have killed her. I don’t know what stopped me. I was dizzy, and the fight wasn’t out of me yet, and I didn’t know what I was doing. I knew her, but she was McElroy too, for just a minute as she came at me. I couldn’t stop my arm from moving. I swung at her with my fist. If it had hit it could have killed her. But she ducked under it, and I lost my focus on her face because now she was too close—
She was flat against me. She wrapped her arms around my neck and plastered herself against me as though she wanted to come out on the other side. I could feel her body grinding into mine. She didn’t try to kiss me or anything, she just held me close and tight, and when I tried to move to get loose, she moved too, as much with me as if she were part of me. I couldn’t get free.
There was just one second longer while she held me that I still needed to strike and smash with my fists. The old hot exploding feeling still boiled. If I could have hit her I’d have done it, and gone on doing it forever. But she was too close. I couldn’t get at her. I couldn’t—
And then it was over. All of a sudden the fight went out of me. I’d had enough. I’d done enough. It was funny, the way the exploding feeling seemed to drain out of me while she held me like that, tight and hot against me, draining all that violence out, drawing it off into herself.
I felt weak and cool.
I pulled back, and she let me go. She stood there; that was all. She stood there with her mouth a little open, breathing hard and deep, looking right through me.
Then her eyes focused a little, not much.
“You’d have killed him,” she said, and began to laugh, as though something had broken and the laughter was spurting out. She sounded like a crazy woman. Maybe she realized that, for she stopped right away. She lifted her narrow shoulders in a shrug. Then she turned away from me and went to kneel beside McElroy. There was something different in the way she moved. The tension had gone out of her.
After a long time, I said, “Is he dead?”
She looked back at me.
“No,” she said—and her voice was different too, calmer, somehow surer. “He needs a doctor, though. Let’s get him into the car.”
“I…yeah. All right. The Buick—”
“Don’t bother now,” she said. “Here. Take his shoulders.”
I didn’t know if I could lift McElroy. I felt weak. I tried not to look at his face. It was pretty well smashed up.
The lights, I saw, were the lights of the Cadillac, angled just off the road.
We carried McElroy there and got him on the back seat. I walked around to the driver’s side.
“I’ll drive,” Mrs. De Anza said.
“Okay. What about the Buick?”
“Forget it.”
I climbed in beside her and shut the door. The Cadillac swung around. We headed back along the highway, picking up speed. But it was an easy acceleration now, not that nervous, jerky gunning. I looked back at McElroy and then at Mrs. De Anza.
“What made you come back?” I asked.
“Saw your lights go off the road.”
“Did you see what happened?”
She didn’t answer. I said, “You came back…you were watching us. You didn’t try to stop us till—”
“Till what?” She wasn’t paying much attention.
“Did you see that rock he had?”
“Don’t count on me as a witness.”
“What do you mean, witness? He’s all right. You said he just needed a doctor.”
“I’m no expert. I was thinking he might charge you with assault, that’s all. Now keep quiet and don’t bother me. I want to think.”
An assault charge? Jesus, what had I got myself into now? I tried to think of a dozen things at once. The police—no, wait. It takes two to make a fight. McElroy was under suspicion for Gavotte’s killing. Being in a scrap wouldn’t look so good for him, either, especially when I mentioned that rock he’d tried to brain me with.
If they believed me.
…Sherry wouldn’t believe me.
She knew me. She’d seen this happen before. She was always afraid of my breaking loose. I’d told her that it wouldn’t happen any more—and I’d felt sure that it wouldn’t. It was only when things piled up on me too much that I really blew my top—that way. But now…
This was the thing she was afraid of in me. But she didn’t realize that I never could hurt her. She didn’t understand that. So, when she found out what had happened, I’d be finished. I wouldn’t have a chance.
If she found out.
I glanced back at McElroy. He hadn’t moved.
Suppose I got to
Sherry first? Suppose I talked fast enough to convince her we should both get out of Phoenix right away? What would she say?
“You can’t get me what I want, Nick.”
The spotlight. Maybe not. Not now, anyway. But I could get her some money, couldn’t I? If I went to her right now with seven thousand bucks in my pocket and said, “Let’s take off,” we could be a thousand miles away before morning.
Why seven thousand bucks?
I knew, of course. The floor safe back at the De Anza place. I had to get to Sherry before McElroy did. I had to convince her. And the only way I could do that was, somehow or other, getting my hands on that money. Once I’d done that, I wasn’t going to worry too much about Lieutenant Hobson. Money goes a long way.
It could take Sherry and me a long way from Phoenix.
Chapter 18
Mrs. De Anza Didn’t speak again until we pulled up in front of the ranch. When we stopped I could hear McElroy breathing noisily in the back seat, almost snoring. He was still out. She glanced at him once and looked away.
“Leave him,” she said. “Come inside with me. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
I didn’t like the way she said it.
She was a different woman as she crossed the patio toward the door. It wasn’t only that she had become completely impersonal now. That minute in the desert had done something to her, or for her. There was even something new about the way she moved. She wasn’t jittering any more. When she’d got out of the car, she’d done it all in one piece, fast, but somehow not in a nervous hurry.
I followed her into the house.
She went straight into the living room. It was thick with the usual sweetish smoke. The Count was standing at the bar. His dark glasses gave him a funny disguised look as he lifted his head and smiled.
“Ah, Irene,” he said.
She didn’t even glance at him. She was looking around the room for something. She didn’t say a word.
“I’ve come to a decision about you, Irene, my dear,” De Anza said, still smiling. “I think it’s time you had a rest. A month or two in a sanatarium would—”
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