Джон Макдональд - The End of the Night

“You wheedle real well, Helen.”

“Well, if you’re not after money, what good has it done you to lug an unconscious girl around?”

“You weren’t unconscious. You acted like a polite nine-year-old child.”

“Are you telling me the truth?”

“It isn’t the kind of thing you make up, is it?”

She stirred uneasily and her face got slightly red. “Did any of you do anything to me when I was like that?”

“Something came close to happening, but it didn’t.”

“Why can’t you let me go?”

I looked directly into her eyes. “They wouldn’t like it and it wouldn’t be a good idea for me either. We killed Arnold Crown.”

She closed her eyes. For long moments she had a pasty color. As the glow of health began to come back she opened her eyes again. “The way you said it, I believe you. But what a foul thing! Why did you do it?”

“That’s a very good question.”

She tensed suddenly and sucked her lips white, and her eyes went round. “Three men and a girl. Are you the ones...”

“We’ve had a lot of publicity lately, Helen.”

That’s when I expected her to fall apart, when the full realization of her situation became apparent to her.

To my surprise she forced a smile. “Then I’m in a hell of a spot. You people don’t have anything to lose, do you?”

“That’s the general idea.”

“So it didn’t make any difference whether you picked me up or left me on the road — whether you killed Arnold or didn’t kill him.”

“No difference at all.”

“Is that what you’re after? That kind of freedom?”

“Lectures I do not need, Miss Wister.”

She frowned. “They know I’m missing?”

“I’d say eighty to a hundred million people know it.”

“And they know... who has me?”

“Yes.”

“What pure hell for my people. And Dal.” She stared at me with obvious conjecture. “All right. I want to get out of this. Is there any chance at all?”

“Hardly any.”

She closed her eyes again, but not for long. “So I’ll be killed. For kicks. Isn’t that the reason you people have?”

“We’re expressing aggression and hostility, miss.”

“What if it were up to you? You alone? It wouldn’t happen then, would it?”

“You’re judging a book by the cover.”

“I’m asking you. Do you have any desire to help me? If you don’t, I’ll have to take any chance I can. It would be the same with me as it is with you — nothing to lose.”

No tears, no begging, no hysterics. Yet a complete awareness of mortal danger. This was a woman. A woman in the same sense that the Spanish call a man muy hombre. A bright unquenchable spirit, the kind that won’t break. Gallantry is a fitting word. You can’t find many of those. I wondered if that architect knew what a wondrous thing he almost acquired.

I found another balk line across my soul, and knew I would help. I was becoming a veritable tower of virtue.

“Maybe I can help. Maybe. But you have to be a hell of an actress.”

“I guess you can say I’ve got a hell of a motivation.”

“We’ll be leaving at dusk. You’ve got to be barely able to move. You’ve got to be semi-conscious. The head injury is getting worse. You’re damn near in a coma, and going deeper all the time. You cannot let yourself respond to anything. Can you do that?”

“Yes, I can do that.”

“When the time is right, I’ll give you a signal of some kind, and then you have to start to die. We’ll be rolling along in the car. I don’t know how the hell to tell you to do it, but make it convincing. Then it’ll be my problem to get you out of the car without injury. It’s the only chance you have.”

She thought it over. “Suppose, because of the way I act, they get careless and give me a good chance to make a run for it. Without high heels, I can run like the wind.”

“It could be okay for you, but bad for them and bad for me. I’ll watch so you don’t get a chance to do it that way. It has to be my way.”

“What if I started screaming this minute?”

“I’d knock you unconscious with my fist. And if you think you’ve picked a good time to start screaming when we’re in the car, the girl with us will have a knife into your heart at the first bleat.”

“What are they like?” she asked me.

“You’ll see.”

“How did... someone like you get into such trouble?”

I smiled at her. “When I was a young girl I got raped by my uncle and ran away from home and I’ve been in this place ever since. You wanna buy me another drink before we go upstairs, Mr. Barlow?”

“You aren’t what you look like, are you?”

“Not lately.”

“But you were, once upon a time.”

“I was?”

“Now it’s the eyes, I think. That’s the wrong part. They don’t fit the rest. It’s your eyes that give me... a strange feeling.”

“And your teeth are so big, Grandma.”

“Please, please help me,” she said.

“I told you I’m going to.”

“It would be such a crummy stupid way to die.”

I heard somebody stirring around at dusk. Then I heard Nan’s voice. Somebody rapped on the door. I unlocked the door and opened it, after signaling Helen to lie back. Sandy looked in and said, “Kiss her awake, sweet prince.”

“She doesn’t seem to want to wake up.”

“Get her up, man!” I looked at him in astonishment. He had snapped the order, but with an obvious uncertainty. He was a little man, posturing, posing, trying to regain lost authority. Last night he had been relieved of command. No matter how hard he strained, he couldn’t get it back. And I suspected that the same thing had happened in all the other groups he had joined during his lifetime. With all his brisk energies Sandy would run things for a little while. Until finally he was pushed and he backed down. And then he would become the group clown. Good old Sandy. He’s a gasser.

I shrugged and went over and shook Helen. She simulated a return of semi-consciousness. I got her up into a sitting position and slipped her shoes onto her slack feet. She mumbled incoherencies. I pulled her up onto her feet and, half supporting her, walked her out into the sitting room.

“Bad shape?” Sandy asked.

“She doesn’t seem any better to me.”

Nan took her and guided her into the bathroom. As they passed Shack he reached out and gave Helen a massive, full-handed pinch on the buttock and winked at me with relaxed, expansive good cheer. “You make it good, doc?” he asked me. He had never been as friendly.

Nan, supporting Helen, looked back over her shoulder at him and pulled her lip up away from her teeth. “Good like you made it, you ox bastard?”

But there was no real rancor in her voice, and Sandy should have sensed that. He said, “I’ll keep the monster tied up so he can’t get to you again, darlin’ Nano.”

“Go chew a pill, you sick spook!” she snapped.

Shack gave a roar of laughter and clapped Sandy on the back. Sandy’s glasses jumped off his nose and swung by one earpiece.

“She found herself a man,” Shack said proudly. “She made a switch. You and Stassen split the blonde, Sandy.”

“Don’t bang my back, you goddam oaf!” Sandy yelled.

Shack banged him again and laughed. Sandy went over and sat down, brooding.

When Nan came out with Helen, the blond girl’s eyes were almost closed, and her head lolled loosely. She was doing well, but she was almost overdoing it. We put the meager luggage in the trunk and got into the car, Nan in front between Sandy and Shack, with Sandy at the wheel.

Within a half hour the big jolt of dexedrine and the other wild range of happy pills had built Sandy back up to his usual level of joyous optimism. He wanted a new car, and he wanted to prove a theory of his. So we cruised a big residential area of Pittsburgh which seemed like damn foolishness to me. When he found what he wanted, he parked a block beyond and went back alone. He said he didn’t need help. Within a shockingly short time he was back with a new Mercury. He said with roosterish pride that he had proved his theory that the last one to get to a private party doesn’t want to block the cars in the drive, so he leaves his keys in the ignition like a good fellow. Hurray for the good fellow.