Brian Garfield: Necessity

“Where’s the nearest hospital?”

“No idea. Don’t worry about me. No real harm ever comes to the iron duke.”

It’s another hot one in Van Nuys and she’s been sitting in this damn car altogether too long but on Ellen’s account let’s not take chances. It’s wise to check everything out.

That limo’s been sitting over there in front of the air freight depot for twenty minutes with the guy reading the magazine at the wheel and maybe his chauffeur’s uniform is a fake.

There’s nobody else hanging around looking like surveillance. But you can’t afford to be lax. Bert may be in the jail ward, betrayed by the confessions of his former employees, but he may still have people looking for his kid. And this is a risky place to be, a risky thing to do: suppose they’ve traced the Cessna to the field where they rented it in Plattsburgh? Suppose they’ve found some connection between there and here? Suppose the pestilential Graeme Goldsmith has found some way to trace you in this direction?

They wheel a crate outside on a hand truck. The chauffeur gets out and opens the deck; the two workmen lift the crate into the trunk. The chauffeur talks briefly with them and gets back into the limousine; she watches him drive away while the workmen go back into the depot.

Now then. Any other possibilities? Somebody over there in the coffee shop watching through the window?

Come on. Caution’s one thing. Paranoia’s another. Like the man said, you’ve got to learn to trust. Trust people and trust your instincts.

Given the vagaries of the postal service I wonder when that $30,000 will arrive at Doug’s house in Birmingham. I expect his wife will be a little surprised. She’s already asked a thousand questions, you know. While he heals he’ll tell her the truth and it’ll sound outlandishly far-fetched.

Well Mrs. Hershey will just have to trust him, won’t she.

She opens the window and switches off the engine and the air conditioner. Then she gathers up the baby.

“Christ, you’re getting to weigh a ton, you know that?”

Ellen replies with a sequence of cryptic noises.

She carries the baby across the field and hesitates outside the door. The rumble of his voice penetrates through from inside; she can’t make out the words but the timbre is as precisely identifiable as a telegrapher’s fist. She pushes inside. He has his profile to her and his feet up against the wall; he’s on the phone but he looks around to see who just came in and all the planes and angles of his face sort themselves into a whole new arrangement as if a kaleidoscope had been turned.

“I’ll call you back.” He hangs up. Drops his feet off the wall and swivels to face her and thinks about getting up out of the chair.

For a long interval he sits that way, poised, staring at her, and it’s hard to credit but there are tears welling in Charlie’s eyes.

She says, “I want you to meet my daughter.”