Джон Макдональд - More Good Old Stuff

With training born of night fighting, Matt drifted over into the thick shadow of the rooming house, headed back toward the garage. His steps made no sound on the moist earth. He moved close to the door, put his ear against it.

With startling clarity, he heard the clang of a tool dropped onto a concrete floor. The padlock was gone from the hasp on the wide sliding doors. He got his fingers in the crack between the doors and heaved suddenly. The door slid back with a deafening shriek.

The black Chrysler, moist with rain, stood in the middle of the small garage. A mechanic’s light, with birdcage bulb, lay on the floor near the front wheels. Roy Bedford, the light shining up onto his face, outlining the high cheekbones, squatted motionless, looking toward him. “Hello, Matt,” Roy said softly. “Want something?”

Matt could not see Roy’s hands. Doubtless he held some sort of tool.

“I was looking for you, Roy. I thought you might be here.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Roy said easily. “Nothing relaxes me as much as doing a little work on the wagon. You know how it is.”

“Sure, Roy. I know how it is.”

Every muscle tense, he walked closer. For a moment he had the idea that Roy was going to let him circle behind him. The urge to maim, to kill, was acid in his throat, was cold sweat and tensed muscles.

But Roy stood up without haste and moved back into the shadows away from the car. Matt could not examine the car without permitting Roy to get behind him.

It was a play where the lead actors circled each other on the dim stage, touched by the clever lighting, speaking in soft tones, the desire to kill carefully masked.

Matt kicked a piece of metal. It rang across the concrete. He stooped quickly and picked it up. Roy seemed to have moved a great deal closer to him during the moment his eye was off him. The metal had a familiar feel in his hand. It was wet, and there were serrations on the edge of it. It was too short to be a weapon, unless hurled with great force at too short a distance to be avoided.

He lifted it high so that he could look at it without taking his eye from Roy. It matched the piece that had been wedged into his grille.

“Funny-shaped piece of metal,” he said softly.

“All sorts of queer scrap in an old shop like this, Matt,” Roy said.

“This piece is damp.”

“The car is wet. Probably dripped on it.”

He still could not see Roy’s hands. The caged light was a blinding thing, making the shadows velvet black, making sparkling highlights on the metal skin of the car. The rubber cord on the light stretched back across the concrete near his feet.

“Why did you kill Alicia?” Matt asked, his voice almost tender.

Roy was silent, his face impassive. “You talk like that, Matt, and they’ll come and throw a net over you.”

“Over me? You’re the mad one, Roy. You couldn’t have Alicia. So you tried to kill both of us. As it worked out, I lived and she died. You liked it that way. You hoped I’d be crippled for life. You’ve squashed everybody in your path. You married Susan knowing that you would kill Patience. The method had worked once, so why not twice? Everyone knows how you did it, Roy. A pity you’re not more insane. If you were, you might end up in a nice institution. This way, they’ll shave the leg on the great Bedford and strap him down in a nice armchair and put a hood, a black hood over—”

“Shut up!” Roy screamed.

Matthew stood on the rubber cord with one foot and kicked it with the other. The sudden blackness was as violent as a shot. Noiselessly Matt moved toward the car. He stood, strained with the effort of listening, his fingers clenched around the piece of metal, his hand poised to throw.

Suddenly the car creaked, as though bearing someone’s weight.

There was a chance that he might be silhouetted against the lesser darkness of the open door. He moved away from the car, stepping cautiously. As he moved, his foot touched some tool on the floor. It shifted with an almost imperceptible grating sound.

He staggered and fell as Bedford leaped onto his back. He fell forward trying vainly to turn, his arms pinned, trying to avoid hitting his head on the concrete floor.

The dark garage exploded into pinwheeling lights, into nothingness...

He was being jiggled and it made his head hurt and something was digging into his cheek. He bit down on the moan, stifling it, as the vivid memory of the moment of falling flashed back into his mind. Slowly he realized that he was in a moving car. The thing against his cheek was the door handle. The inside of the car lightened briefly as they passed under a streetlight.

He knew that if he lifted his head and Bedford was driving, he would probably be pounded into immediate insensibility. It was hard to think clearly.

He felt as though one whole side of his head had been shattered.

When the car went around a corner he permitted himself to lurch, turning his head slightly. Through slitted eyes he saw Bedford, oddly relaxed behind the wheel, a small smile on his lips.

A confident smile, Matt thought. What has he got to smile about? What can he be planning to do? Matthew had no way of knowing where they were. Roy was driving slowly, so as not to attract attention.

Suddenly, out the window beyond Bedford’s head, he saw the high outline of a building, barely made out the white letters VALL. The Furnivall Company! The road passed the plant, then turned down across the sidings, down a gentle slope toward the main railroad tracks.

As they went slowly around the corner, Matt heard the distant huff of the train, the lonely call of the whistle. Why should Roy be smiling?

He shut his eyes as Roy turned and looked over at him, counting slowly in his mind to ten, then risking opening them again.

Roy took the car out of gear. They were on the slope headed down toward the main track. Roy opened the door on his side, stood up with his head and shoulders out in the night, one hand on top of the wheel, steering.

The roar of the train was closer. Much closer. The way Roy was standing he couldn’t see Matt. His mouth dry with sudden desperate fear, Matthew raised his head, saw the Cyclops eye of the pounding locomotive. The crossing signals flashed red.

Matthew, a hoarse cry in his throat, opened the door on his side. He grabbed Roy Bedford’s wrist, pulled with all his strength, pulled until Bedford was forced back in through the door, falling awkwardly across the wheel. Matt released his hold, rolled backward out of the door he had opened, thudded with sickening force against the steel upright of the crossing signal, hearing above the deafening roar of the locomotive one thin, high scream, cut off by a crash which sounded almost faint against the pound of the big steel wheels.

As the twin brakes screamed and slithered, steel on steel, Matt put his cheek against the wet gravel and began to cry like a heartbroken child.

Patience trudged over to the flat rock and sat down with a sigh. Her cheeks were flushed from the walk along the beach. At Matt’s urging, she had unpinned her severe hairdo. The wind whipped at her dark hair.

He gave her a cigarette, lit it, then sprawled on the sand at her feet, looking out across the gray sea.

“You were wrong, you know,” she said.

“About what?” he asked. “I’m wrong once a day like clockwork.”

“About Evan being in love with me. He went out to the rest home again this morning to see Sue. He’ll bring her back to life. He said she smiled at him the last time he went out. When he talks about her his eyes shine and he gets hoarse and funny.”

“Don’t laugh at men in love. I know they’re funny. You can reach out and kick one from where you’re sitting.”

She didn’t answer and he looked up at her. Her eyes were grave and steady.