Cornell Woolrich - Nightwebs (A Collection of Stories)

“All right, I’ll run down and bring you back a shot of everything.” But as she passed the two men a second time, short as the delay had been — and necessary, she felt, for appearances’ sake — Gil’s face was almost agonized, as though he couldn’t wait for her to do as he’d told her and get out. Maybe the other man couldn’t notice it, but she could; she knew him so well. The detective, on the other hand, not only offered no objection to her going, but seemed to be deliberately holding his fire until she was out of the way, as though he preferred it that way, wanted to question Gil by himself.

She got in and drove off leisurely, and as she meshed gears, at the same time cached the wad of unlawful money under the elastic top of her stocking. Gil’s motive for so badly wanting her to get in the car and get away from the house, and stay away until the fellow left, must be this money, of course. He wanted to avoid being caught in incriminating possession of it. That must be it; she couldn’t figure out any other logical reason. Still, they couldn’t keep on indefinitely running bases with it like this.

She’d stepped up speed now, was coursing the sleek turnpike to the village at her usual projectile clip. But not too fast to glimpse a group of men in the distance, widely separated and apparently wading around aimlessly in the fields. She had an idea what they were doing out there, though. And then a few minutes later, when that strip of woods, thick as the bristles of a hairbrush, closed in on both sides of the road, she could make out a few more of them under the trees. They were using pocket lights in there, although it wasn’t quite dusk yet.

“What are they looking for him this far back for?” she thought impatiently. “If Gil says he let him off at the station platform—” Stupid police. That malicious Mrs. Burroughs, paying them back now because she’d sensed that the old fool had had a soft spot for Jackie. And then in conclusion: “How do they know he’s dead, anyway?”

She braked outside the village grocery. She subtracted a twenty from the money first of all, tucked that in the pocket of her jumper. She hadn’t brought any bag; he’d rushed her out so. Then she went in and started buying out the store.

By the time she was through, she had a knee-high carton filled with stuff. “Take it out and put it in the rumble for me, I’ll take it right along with me. Let me use your phone a minute; I want to make sure I’ve got everything.”

Gil answered her himself. “I just got rid of him this minute,” he said, in a voice hoarse from long strain. “Whew!”

She said for the benefit of the storekeeper, “Do you need anything else while I’m out?”

“No, come on back now; it’s all right.” And then sharply: “Listen! If you run into him , don’t stop for him, hear me? Don’t even slow down; just drive past fast. He’s got no authority to stop you; he’s a city dick. He’s done his questioning and he’s through. Don’t stop for anyone and don’t let anyone get in the car with you.”

The store manager called in to her just then from out front: “Mrs. Blaine, the rumble’s locked. I can’t get into it. Where’ll I put this stuff?”

“The whole key rack’s sticking in the dashboard; take it out yourself. You know the one, that broad flat one.”

“That key ain’t on it any more. I don’t see it here with the rest.”

“Wait a minute, I’ll ask my husband. Gil, where’s the key to the rumble? We can’t find it.”

“I lost it.” She couldn’t really hear him the first time; his voice choked up. Maybe he’d been taking a drink just then.

The storekeeper said: “Maybe it’s just jammed. Should I try to pry it up for you?”

“No, you might spoil the paint job.”

Gil was saying thickly in her ear: “Never mind about the rumble; let it alone. Get away from that store.” Suddenly, incredibly, he was screaming at her over the wire! Literally screaming, like someone in pain. “Come on back, will ya! Come on back, I tell ya! Come on back with that car!”

“All right, for Heaven’s sake; all right.” Her eardrum tingled. That detective certainly had set his nerves on edge.

She drove back with the carton of stuff beside her on the seat. Gil was waiting for her all the way out in the middle of the roadway that passed their house.

“I’ll put it to bed myself,” he said gruffly, and drove the car into the garage, groceries and all, he was in such a hurry.

His face was all twinkling with perspiration when he turned to her after finishing locking the garage doors on it.

She woke up that night, sometime between two and three, and he wasn’t in the room. She called, and he wasn’t in the house at all. She got up and looked out the window, and the white garage doors showed a slight wedge of black between their two halves, so he’d taken the car out with him.

She wasn’t really worried at first. Still, where could he have gone at this unearthly hour? Where was there for him to go — around here? And why slip out like that, without saying a word to her? She sat there in the dark for about thirty, forty minutes, sometimes on the edge of the bed, sometimes over by the window, watching the road for him.

Suddenly a black shape came along, blurring the highway’s tape-like whiteness. But in almost absolute silence, hardly recognizable as a car, lights out. It was gliding along, practically coasting, the downward tilt of the road past the house helping it.

It was he, though. He took the car around, berthed it in the garage, and then she heard him come in downstairs. A glass clinked once or twice, and then he came up. She’d put the light on, so as not to throw a scare into him. His face was like putty; she’d never seen him look like this before.

“Matter, couldn’t you sleep, Gil?” she said quietly.

“I took the car out for a run, and every time I’d stop and think I’d found a place where I was alone, I’d hear some other damn car somewhere in the distance or see its lights, or think I did, anyway. Judas, the whole country seemed awake — twigs snapping, stars peering down—”

“But why stop? Why should it annoy you if there were other cars in the distance? What were you trying to do, get rid of something, throw something away?”

“Yeah,” he said, low.

For a minute she got badly frightened again, like Monday morning, until he, seeming to take fright from her fright in turn, quickly stammered:

“Uh-huh that other bag of his, that second bag he left behind. He’s coming back, that guy, I know he is; he isn’t through yet. I was on pins and needles the whole time he was here, this afternoon, thinking he was going to go looking around and find it up there.” He let some sulphur matches trickle out of his pocket. “I was going to try to burn it, but I was afraid somebody’d see me, somebody was following me.” He threw himself face down across the bed. Not crying or anything, just exhausted with spent emotion. “The bitter end,” he panted, “the bitter end.”

A minute later she stepped back into the room, astonishment written all over her face.

“But, Gil, you didn’t even have it with you, do you realize that? It’s right there in the guest-room closet, where it’s been all along!”

He didn’t turn his head. His voice came muffledly: “I’m going crazy, I guess. I don’t even know what I’m doing any more. Maybe I took one of our own by mistake.”

“Why did all this have to happen to us?” she sobbed dryly as she reached out to snap off the light.

He was right, Ward came back. The next day, that was Wednesday, two days after It. He had a different air about him, a disarming, almost apologetic one, as though he were simply here to ask a favor.