Уильям Макгиверн - Odds Against Tomorrow

“He wouldn’t take the keys. He wouldn’t leave us stuck here.” But the words sounded plaintive and foolish in his ears. “When did he leave, for God’s sake?”

“That idiot upstairs doesn’t know. He went out the back door. That’s all she could tell me.”

“Look, he didn’t take the car. I’d have heard him starting it.” Earl’s voice sharpened with excitement. “I can get it going, Lory. I’ll jump the ignition wires. Sambo didn’t figure on that. I’ll catch up with him someday, and—”

“Shut up!” Lorraine cried softly; a draft of air blew into the room, sweeping coldly about her ankles.

“What?”

She held up a warning hand. They heard the front door slam, and then Ingram came in, hugging his arms tightly against his body. He wore a short woolen coat that belonged to the old man and his hair gleamed with rain water. “It’s getting awful cold out,” he said, stamping his feet on the floor. “Goes right through you.”

“Where’ve you been?” Earl said. “We’re ready to leave.”

“Just down to the road on a little reconnaissance. Everything seems quiet.”

He watched Earl with a puzzled smile. “You people look like you just seen a ghost.”

“Lorraine’s a little nervous, maybe.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Ingram said, glancing at her with the same puzzled smile. “You got a good chance of making it. The cops don’t know about you or your car. Once you drop me off you’re free as birds. Isn’t that right?” he said, turning slowly to Earl. “The cops don’t want me. And you two can make it in her car. Isn’t that the way we planned it?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Earl tried to smile but his face felt stiff and cold all over. “We drop you off, and away we go.” The words came out as if he were drunk, twisting awkwardly on his tongue. “So what are we wasting time for?” he said, almost yelling at Ingram. “Everybody knows the deal. What are we yapping about it for?”

“You got it right,” Ingram said softly. “Everybody knows the deal now.”

He stared at Earl without explanation, without speaking, and the silence grew and filled the room with almost palpable tension. And then Ingram’s face seemed to crumble, and a strangling little moan sounded in his throat.

“We all know the deal, buddy,” he cried hoarsely. “The cops want me — they wanted me all along. But you didn’t tell me. That was part of the deal I didn’t know.”

“Now listen, Sambo, you—”

“Shut up! Shut up!” Ingram’s voice trembled with anguish and contempt. “You were going to let me walk right into their arms. You lied to me all along. I was heading for the chair, while you and her went free. That’s what you planned, wasn’t it? Goddam you, wasn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?” Earl said. He wet his lips, and the taste of his tongue was like a distillation of corruption and shame. “You’re not making any sense,” he yelled furiously.

“Crazybone came upstairs to tell about the radio,” Ingram said softly. “She thought I figured she was lying. She kept saying the woman lifted up the radio and smashed it on the floor. I told her she was imagining things.” Ingram’s smile strained the skin tightly across his shining face. “Sure, I stuck up for you, buddy. I felt like a heel for listening to her. But once you get a suspicion, it’s hard to keep it from growing. All I knew was what you told me. Then the radio got busted. So we couldn’t get any more news. It was hard not to start adding things up. I tried not to, buddy, I tried as hard as I could. But I started adding it up. And you know the answer I got.”

The bitterness in Ingram’s eyes and voice cut Earl like a whip. “She stumbled and knocked over the radio,” he said. “You believe me, Sambo, or that old fool, Crazybone?”

“She stumbled, eh?” Ingram turned and stared at Lorraine, appraising her slender legs and neat, efficient body with deliberate contempt. “Does she look like the kind of woman who falls over her feet? No more than a cat does, buddy.”

“You leave her out of this,” Earl yelled. An illogical anger rushed through him. “Forget about her. What’s she got to do with it, anyway?”

“She’s part of the big lie, isn’t she? Send him out to get his black hide nailed to the wall. Dumb colored bastard — what difference will it make to him? That’s the lie she’s part of. She’s as rotten as you are.”

“Now hold it. I’m warning you.”

“Oh, pardon me,” Ingram said, laughing bitterly. “I forgot my place, didn’t I? You white folks were just sending me out to get killed — that’s all. And I’m such a rude, low-down nigger that I got mad and forgot myself in front of a white woman. I surely am sorry about that.”

“Don’t take any lip from him,” the old man cried, his voice emerging from under the blankets in a muffled cackle.

“Keep still, both of you,” Lorraine said. “Ingram has a right to be angry, if he believes what Crazybone told him. But it just isn’t true. I broke the radio accidentally, Ingram. I swear it.”

“You should have broken them all, ma’am,” Ingram said slowly.

“What do you mean?”

“There was one you forgot about — the one in the car I drove into the mica pit. I climbed down there and the radio was working fine. So I waited to hear the news.”

Lorraine looked quickly toward Earl, her eyes dark and anxious, but he turned away, rubbing the back of his hand roughly across his lips.

“You know what the news said?” Ingram laughed shrilly and slapped his leg, his manner a cruel parody of cringing good humor. “The news said the police are looking for a colored rascal named John Ingram. Just listen to what that cut-up has gone and done. Tried to rob a bank, then went and kidnaped a doctor to take care of his wounded buddy.” Ingram glared at Earl, but his eyes were bright and hard as diamonds. “The name sounded pretty familiar, so I listened real close. Ingram, they said, was about thirty-five, used to live on Arch Street near Maple in Philly. Well, imagine my surprise. That’s me, I thought. Little ole me. Wanted by the police everywhere. The police, that’s how us colored folks say it.” Ingram continued to stare at Earl, his smile changing slowly, becoming bitter and cold and sad. “You can imagine how surprised I was, buddy. Can’t you imagine it?”

“It’s different than what you think,” Earl said, making a weary futile gesture with his hand. “It’s not all one thing or another, like you think. It’s a question of what you got to do, of how things really are—” The confusion in his voice swelled into empty, pointless anger. “But you don’t understand that, do you? It’s all black and white to you, isn’t it?”

“We’ve got to go, Earl,” Lorraine said. “Get the car keys.”

“Yeah, I was surprised by the news,” Ingram said, as if he hadn’t heard her; he was watching Earl with hurt, bewildered eyes. “After I saved your skin, after I brought your girl here and got a doctor to patch you up — after all that, you could go on lying to me. It wasn’t hard for you — that’s what I can’t understand. It was easy. You smiled and lied to me like it was the most natural thing in the world.”

“You don’t know how it was, I tell you. You just see it one way.”

“Get the car keys,” Lorraine cried.

“We talked about going to ball games together, remember?” Ingram said, clenching his hands tightly. “Like buddies. Sit in the sun and drink beer. Talk about what we’d been through. You remember all that?” Ingram’s voice was derisive and bitter, but tears were shining softly in his eyes. “Old times in the Army, baseball games, how you felt about your old man — no, I didn’t think you were lying to me. That was a great snow job, buddy.”