Тэлмидж Пауэлл - Manhunt. Volume 5, Number 1, January, 1957

“What do you mean?” Julia said.

The yellow-haired one stepped up to her, grabbed the front of her jersey and yanked down on it, ripping it. Then he moved back again.

“Whichever way you want,” he said.

Julia Harper stared at them.

“We like to watch,” one said.

“Run,” her husband said. “Run, Julia — run.”

“Well?” the yellow-haired youth said.

Julia Harper looked at them, then slowly lifted her arms and pulled off the jersey. Then she went on just as the yellow-haired youth told her. There was silence now, with only the sound of the waterfall.

Occasionally, Harper heard her cry out. The last of them was over there behind those bushes with her now. Harper had shouted himself hoarse. He still tried to shout off and on. He stared, his eyes sick and gone. He was defeated.

The bushes were not high. Now and again he could see one of their heads come up above the bushes, grimacing. Twice he saw Julia’s feet. There was very little noise now. Finally, the fellows came out from behind the bushes, looked at Harper, then walked over to the car. The yellow-haired one, who had been playing with Linda, turned and walked over to Harper. The rest of them came along.

They did not speak. They just looked at him.

“I’ll get you,” Harper said. “Don’t ever forget that. I’ll get you — I’ll get you...”

They formed a straight line in front of Harper and looked down at him soberly and shook their heads in unison. They stood there shaking their heads for a few seconds. Then abruptly, they turned and ran for the yellow and chrome hot-rod, climbed in, and drove off.

Linda came and stood in front of her father and shook her head.

Harper screamed at her. “Stop — stop it!”

She giggled and began running in circles.

“Julia?” he called. “Julia — are you all right?”

He looked up and she had just stepped out from behind the bushes. She had her shorts on and the torn yellow jersey. She moved slowly and she looked pale and sheened with sweat, and as if she might have been crying. Her hair was damp and snarled, and brown pine needles clung in its dark richness. Lipstick was smeared all around her mouth.

“I couldn’t do anything,” Harper said. “Don’t look at me like that. There was nothing I could do. What could I do against all of them? Untie me — quick.”

She untied him, and he saw the blazing anger and disgust in her eyes. She walked to the car and got in and sat there. Harper gathered the blankets, the picnic basket and put them in the car. He avoided the gallon thermos. He put Linda in the back seat, then quickly slid behind the wheel.

“We’ll call the cops,” he said. “Soon as we get to town. First phone we see. We’ll stop and phone the cops.”

Julia began sobbing, staring straight ahead.

He reached toward her, touched her shoulder. “You all right. We’ll stop at a hospital — right away.” She spun away from him, turned and looked at him. Then she flipped the sun-visor down and looked at herself in the mirror. She found her white-beaded purse. Her hands were trembling. She took out her lipstick and as she began to outline her mouth in deep red, apparently oblivious to the way it was smeared, sobs broke convulsively from her.

“I couldn’t do anything,” Harper was saying. “They knocked the hell out of me, Julia. I couldn’t do any—”

“No! No! Of course not!” She threw her purse to one side, tears of anger and frustration streaming down her face. “They — they would’ve — beat you—”

“You saw how it was.”

“Oh, yes. Sure.” She was sobbing without restraint now. “I’m glad you didn’t — do anything.”

“What?” he said, thoroughly puzzled.

Julia straight-armed the sun visor back into place. “I said, I’m glad you didn’t do anything, Dell. Because I liked it, Dell. I liked every minute of it. Every God damned minute of it!”

Knock him off and keep the entire haul. Easy. Just a bit of planning, that was all.

Clayton Falls was quiet that Wednesday morning as are most small southern towns in the cotton-picking season. The few cars, angled into the curb in front of the parking meters, belonged to the shopkeepers. The business establishments stretched for three blocks and then dwindled into residences, filling stations and, at one end, the town’s only hotel.

Jim Peterson, the town constable, sauntered along chatting idly with the merchants as they let down their awnings, washed windows and prepared for the start of a day’s business.

Mark Mathews, owner of the town’s printing establishment, hailed Peterson from across the street.

Peterson waved a greeting and continued on his way. As he crossed an intersection, he saw a prewar car parked in front of the town’s only bank. A young man sat with the motor running, smoking a cigarette and idly watching the smoke drift through the window.

Inside the bank, they would be getting ready to open. This young man was probably waiting for that, Jim Peterson thought.

But when Peterson was about ten feet from the car, the bank doors burst open violently and a rather effeminate looking young man in a tropical hat and suit with a briefcase in one hand and a gun in the other rushed out. Peterson went for his gun, but there was an orange flash, an explosion in his stomach and everything went black.

When they had shot past the few small houses on the edge of town the gentleman in the Panama suit reached up, took off his hat, removed some bobby pins, and let a mass of golden hair fall loose. The “gentleman” was obviously a girl. Another movement removed her tie and grasped a zipper at her collar that ran neatly out of sight to the crotch of the pants. In a second she was out of the quick change outfit, and clad only in a bathing suit.

The young fellow driving the car checked his watch and then half turned to the girl with a smile, “Three minutes. In two more we’ll be on our way.”

“So far so good,” the girl said and continued stuffing the loot into a motorcycle saddle bag. When she finished, she opened a small ladies’ suitcase on the floor, removed a pair of riding jeans, a white blouse, riding boots, but she did not remove the heavy window sash which it also contained. She then stuffed the clothes she had been wearing into the suitcase.

They had been passing through a heavily wooded section, but now ahead and to the right and about fifty yards away there was a break in the line of trees. They approached swiftly and braked to a sudden dusty stop. The driver reached back, grabbed the suitcase, ran about twenty yards off the road with it and pitched it into the stagnant green waters of an old gravel pit.

When he got back to the car, the girl was behind the wheel racing the motor for a quick getaway. He slid in beside her with a grin.

“Five minutes, forty seconds,” he said, after a glance at his watch.

“Should be at the bikes in three minutes,” she said, taking a sharp turn without slowing down.

The young man reached under the seat and pulled out a black leather motorcycle jacket and slipped into it.

“How do I look?” he asked. “Like a Wild One, huh?”

“We’re not out of this yet.”

“Look, three minutes after we get on those bikes, we’ll be out on the highway. And nobody’ll be able to tell us from a couple of ordinary citizens on a motorcycle trip. We got out-of-state plates and drivers’ licenses plus phony identification papers. What are you worrying about, Baby? You planned it real well.”