Джон Макдональд - Flight of the Tiger

“I’ll go with her if she’ll let me. But how?”

“Take the MG. Don’t tell me which direction you’re going. I don’t want to know. Take it and then put it in a parking lot someplace and mail me the ticket on it.”

“Some very unpleasant people might arrive here any minute, Mr. Cassidy.”

“I’m not worried about that.”

Ben said, “Maybe you ought to phone for police protection. I don’t know who it might be. That Lemon person, or the people who’ve hired him, or Gorman’s people. Or Gorman himself and that man of his named Brath.”

“I’m not worried. Take the revolver with you.”

“Thanks, no.”

“Take it. It will equalize some pretty big odds, boy.”

“I don’t even know if she wants me along.”

“I saw her grab your hand. And you’re a link with the past, when she wasn’t running. She’ll want you along, but she won’t ask you. I know her. Proud, stubborn — and damn’ scared. Lost her confidence in anybody connected with the police.”

He lowered his voice on the last few words as they heard Helen coming down the hallway. She had changed with remarkable quickness to a wool suit. She carried her bag and had a light coat over her arm. Her lips had a controlled, bloodless look.

“What are you going to do?” Cassidy asked.

“Please give me a lift into town and I’ll get a bus. I can’t thank you for all you’ve— Please just drive me into town, John.”

Ben felt oddly shy about speaking. He said, “Mr. Cassidy has offered us the use of the MG. We can leave it in a parking lot somewhere and mail him the stub.”

She looked at him. “Us?”

“If you wouldn’t mind. A couple is less conspicuous than a girl traveling alone. And — I want to help.”

“I don’t want to cause anyone any more trouble.”

“I’m on leave. Dick was my good friend. I wouldn’t feel right about not going along.”

She made no attempt to conceal her relief. “I think I’d like to have you along for — part of the way, Ben. But we’d better hurry.”

Ben ran up to the cabin. It took him about three minutes to pack. He hadn’t shaved, but there was no time for that. He trotted back down, carrying his suitcase. Cassidy’s son Mike had the tarp off the MG. It had a luggage compartment in the back. Her suitcase was already in there. He put his in beside it and snapped the lid shut. She was tying a scarf around her hair. She kissed Mrs. Cassidy and they shook hands all around. Mike showed him the controls on the MG, then folded the tarp and put it in the trunk compartment. That reminded Ben of the revolver he had put in his suitcase. He wondered if he should get it, and decided that was too melodramatic. There would be time enough later.

Their departure seemed oddly festive. He thought of how the guys in the group would see it: a sunny day, a sports car, a very lovely blonde, two suitcases in the back end. That Morrow sure got himself a deal, didn’t he?

“Hurry,” she said. “Please.”

He drove the car down the long drive. She turned at the crest of the drive and waved, and then they dipped down to the highway. He waited for a gap in traffic, thinking how ironic it would be if one of the oncoming cars contained the men they were trying to avoid. He turned north on Route 9.

“Any special place?” he asked, trying to make a joke of it.

“Just fast and far, Ben.”

“Not so fast we get picked up, though.”

He could sense by the way she held herself that some of the tension was going out of her. He concentrated on getting used to a small car. The tight steering bothered him for a time. The little car seemed to fit flat against the road, and the smallest turn of the wheel brought a quick startling response. He found he had to steer every moment. Yet there was a good, quick, clean feel about the acceleration. The bucket seats could have been more comfortable, and it was a bit disconcerting to-see the pavement rushing by so close. He could see it out of the corner of his left eye; it looked as though he could reach down quite easily and touch it.

She bent down out of the wind and lighted two cigarettes and gave him one of them.

“Thanks,” he said. “They’re nice people, those Cassidys.”

“The best. They adored Dick. They were hurt when I told them we’d used a made-up name. It was a joke of Dick’s. He said it appealed to his bigamist tendencies, to be with Mrs. Richards up there, and with Mrs. MacLane back at the apartment.”

“These men may give Cassidy a bad time.”

“He won’t let them.”

They had to speak loudly to make themselves heard over the wind. They went through Red Hook, took the Hudson by-pass. Ben made as good time as he dared.

A little after one o’clock he pulled into the parking lot of a roadside restaurant just across the river from Albany. They went in and the hostess gave them a table for two against the back wall.

After they ordered, he said, “It’s such a funny way to run. I know what danger you’re in, Helen, but I keep getting a holiday feeling.”

She wouldn’t look directly at him. “I know.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ve been thinking about that ever since we left. I’ve got nearly two hundred dollars, and that’s all. I don’t dare try to cash a check. I’ve been thinking about articles and stories I’ve read. I guess it isn’t too hard to get new identification. I could open a small savings account under a new name, get a driver’s license under that name, and use the driver’s license to get a Social Security card and number. I guess I could become a waitress, or clerk in a store or something.”

“And then what?”

“Oh, I don’t want to think beyond that, Ben.”

“How about your family?”

“What’s best for them?” she asked angrily. “To have me dead or jailed or missing? People disappear all the time. I can get settled and then, somehow, I’ll get word to them that I’m all right, and not to worry.”

He realized she was thinking the same way he had been. He had just twenty-five days of leave remaining — and then he would have the same problem. Or maybe he should start now, use the twenty-five days to cover his tracks. That way, the trail would be cold when the Air Force started hunting him. And it wouldn’t be as lonely if the two of them were running together.

He knew he would have to tell her soon. “How far will we go in the car?” he asked.

“Farther than this, Ben,” she said. “Much farther.”

“We shouldn’t leave it too far away.”

“At least as far as Utica or Syracuse, Ben.”

“Then how far do we go?”

“That’s as far as you have to go. Maybe you could just leave me and take the car back.”

“I want to stay with you until you — get settled somewhere.”

“No.”

“Be practical! A couple is less conspicuous.”

She looked tired. “I guess it’s pretty obvious that I feel better having you along,” she said.

“Then let’s leave it that way.”

They finished eating and left. She insisted on paying her half of the check, and her half of the gas they had to buy. They drove west on Route 20, into the sun, up and down the long rolling hills. At dusk they were well beyond Richfield Springs. He saw a handsome new motel ahead. There was a small restaurant adjoining it.

“This okay?” he asked.

“I guess so.”

He parked and went into the office. An elderly pleasant-faced woman came out to the desk. “Would you have two rooms for my sister and myself?”

“Certainly. Want to look at them?”

“I guess not.”

“Fill out this card, please. Six dollars apiece.”

Helen and Benjamin Salter, he wrote. There was a place for the license number of the car. He had to go out and look at it. Helen stood beside the car. He said in a low voice, “Same first names. The last name is Salter. You’re my sister.”