William McGivern - The Seven File

“You’re the crazy one!” Belle was sobbing now. “All you wanted to do was go back to the steak house like a big shot. Nothing else counted. You’re the crazy one!”

“Belle, don’t—”

“It’s the truth! It’s all you wanted. Just walking into Donovan’s, or whatever it’s called, and pretending you were a big shot again. Pretending you were never in jail, and that you were fifteen years younger. Duke knew it. You didn’t want the money from this job, you didn’t want to make a life for you and me — you just wanted to make an entrance and order drinks like some down-homer in town with a bankroll.” Belle brushed a tear from her cheek. “Why didn’t you just go to an easy-loan outfit and borrow a couple of hundred bucks? That would pay for ten minutes at Donovan’s, wouldn’t it? Instead you kidnap a baby and sill people you never saw before in your life. Crazy! You’re the crazy one. You probably couldn’t get a table at Donovan’s. Those years in jail happened. Eddie. You’re old. You can’t change that by dreaming and doing exercises. You’re like old chorus girls who’re always torching for guys who gave them flowers thirty years back, old bags nobody wanted to—” Belle’s voice faltered. She took a step backward shaking her head slowly. “No, I didn’t mean that. Eddie. No, Eddie, you can’t—”

Grant was swearing at her then, softly and mechanically, and when the gun jumped twice in his hand, he was still swearing, spitting the words into the sudden terrible pain in her eyes.

And when she staggered and fell, whimpering his name into the floor, he was still cursing her in a weary, hopeless voice.

Hank stepped toward him, raising the iron bar. Grant tried to bring the gun around, but his face blurred with surprise and fear as he saw that he was going to be too late. “No!” he shouted, but Hank was on top of him then, the bar swinging viciously at his head. The blow landed just below Grant’s temple, and it drove him down to his knees. Hank didn’t wait for him to fall; he knew from the impact that he wouldn’t get up for a long time.

He picked up Grant’s gun and knelt beside Belle. She was lying in a widening pool of blood. “Baby,” he heard her say. She was staring at Grant’s closed eyes; their faces were only inches apart. “Eddie, baby, I shouldn’t have — about Dononvan’s. I shouldn’t have said that. They’d know you—” She tried to finish the sentence but the words died in her throat, died with her; tears stood out brightly on her chalk-white face.

Hank touched her shoulder, and then he stood and ran for his car. Duke had turned right, she’d said. He thought he knew where Duke was going...

Duke drove slowly along the gravel-topped road that followed the curving coast line. It was seven o’clock, and the flat, blue water was sparkling in the hot, brilliant sunlight. The early morning mists were lifting from the green fields, and the breeze off the sea was fresh and clean and cool.

Duke lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, savoring the satisfying bite of the smoke in his lungs. Another few miles, he thought. He held out the pack to the girl. “You want one of these?”

She sat beside him in the front seat, holding the sleeping baby in her arms. “No,” she said. He glanced at her and saw that she was staring straight ahead, her eyes dark and wide in her pale face. “Where are you taking us?” she said.

“Just up the road aways.”

“You don’t have to kill the baby,” she said. “She could never cause you any trouble.”

So she knows, he thought, taking a long pull on his cigarette. Duke didn’t like the job ahead of him. But it would be over fast, at least; a blow at the back of her neck, that was all. Then let the car go over and down — way down — taking both of them with it. Fast... thirty seconds at the most. His concern puzzled him. He wasn’t used to reflection. How was he going to feel afterward? Well — he’d know soon enough.

“You don’t have to kill her,” she said, watching him.

“Who said anything about killing her?”

“You think if we’re found together — the police won’t look for anyone else. Isn’t that it?”

“That idea crossed my mind,” Duke said dryly. He glanced at her, then back to the road. It was such a damned waste. He could see her legs reflected in the windshield, slim and beautiful, the color of honey in the sunlight.

“Please listen to me,” she said.

“Why sure.” He frowned slightly, knowing from the tone of her voice that she was going to beg. She had come alive suddenly; all the weary resignation was gone. Every cell in her body was fighting...

“You could trust me,” she said.

“I don’t see how.”

“You wanted me the other day, didn’t you?”

That brought a small smile to his lips. “You’re pretty observant, eh?”

“I’ll go anywhere with you — be anything you want me to be.”

“Now don’t start fussing. It’s too late, don’t you see?”

“No — listen to me. Let me take the baby home. I’ll say you dropped us off somewhere — anywhere.”

“I’d come through as quite a gent, wouldn’t I?” Duke said. “They’d probably even dust off the seat of the chair before strapping me into it.”

“No, no! I’d say I never saw you, never saw anyone. Then — later — I’d come to you, anywhere you wanted me to. I swear that, I swear that to God.”

Duke smiled slightly. Like all the women he’d ever known — when they wanted something badly they put the body on the block. What a funny kind of conceit! Their sacred goddam bodies...

“You’d like to live with me, eh?” He smiled at the reflection of her legs in the windshield. It was a crazy idea, but not impossible. Nothing was...

“I’ll stay with you as long as you want me. Just let me take the baby home. Just let her live.”

“You don’t have to take her home. We could leave her right here on the road, or near a village.” It could work out, he thought. She was a Catholic. They kept their words... A laugh bubbled up suddenly in him. Supposing they pulled it off — and the two of them dropped in casually on Grant some day. In Mexico maybe. Duke struck the steering wheel with the flat of his hand. He’d have a hemorrhage!

Duke realized that he was quite drunk. He blinked his eyes, focusing them on the sunny road that stretched ahead of him through the green fir trees. This was a surprise: liquor had never affected him this way before. He sat up straighter, hunching over the wheel. They weren’t home free yet. Caution was instinctive with him; he had an uncanny flair for danger.

“I would be good to you,” she said.

“Don’t oversell it.”

“I know I would.”

Duke was pained by her innocence; she sounded like a teen-ager ordering a double shot — covering fear with boldness. But this was what had attracted him to her in the first place.

“What would you do for me?” he said. “Let’s hear your sales talk. I like details.”

“You know,” she said, so softly that he barely heard the words. But he heard the shame in her voice, and saw the rising color in her cheeks.

In the rear vision mirror the road stretched straight as a string behind him. He slowed down, watching the mirror, seeing nothing but the fine dust spun into the air by his tires. The motor idled gently in the silence. A crow flew over them, crying an insistent warning. They were good sport, Duke thought, watching the bird’s arrowlike flight Great wing-shooting. If you could hunt crows, you could hunt anything. If men came back as birds, an old Indian had told him, damn few of them would be smart enough to be crows.

Duke smiled at the girl. “We might have fun, you know,” he said.