Корнелл Вулрич - A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

“She asked for it and she got it,” Larry remarked bitterly.

His father looked up sharply. “You knew?”

“All the time. He used to come down week-ends and she’d meet him at the Berkeley-Carteret.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“She was your wife,” Larry said. “Wouldn’t I have looked great.”

On a little table down at the foot of the stairs the telephone started to ring, and they both stiffened and their pale faces grew even paler. They turned and looked at each other without a word while it went on shattering the ominous stillness of the house with its loud pealing.

“I’ll get it,” Larry said suddenly. “I know all the answers.” He got up and went down to it, while his father gazed after him fearfully. He waited a minute to brace himself, then swiftly unhooked the receiver. “Hello,” he said tensely. Then with a quick let-down of relief, “No, she hasn’t come back from the beach yet.” He exchanged a glance with his father, halfway up the stairs. “Why don’t you pick her up there instead of calling for her here at the house? You know where to find her. She won’t be back for hours yet, and you’d only have to hang around here waiting.” Then he added: “No, I don’t mean to be inhospitable, only I thought it would save time. ’Bye.” He puffed his cheeks and blew out his breath with relief as he hung up. A couple of crystal drops oozed out on his forehead. “Helen’s boy-friend,” he said, turning to the man on the stairs. Helen was his sister. “If he does what I told him, it’ll give us a couple of hours at least.”

The older man spoke without lifting his head at all. “What’s the use? Better phone the police and get it over with.”

Larry said: “No.” Then he yelled it at the top of his voice. “No, I tell you! You’re my father — I can’t, I won’t let you! She wasn’t worth your life! You know what the doctors said, you haven’t much time anyway— Oh, God.” He went close and jabbed his knee at Weeks to bring him to. “Pull yourself together. We’ve got to get her out of here. I don’t care where it happened, only it didn’t happen here — it happened some place else.”

Twenty-one years of energy pulled forty-two years of apathy to its feet by the shoulders. “You — you were in New York. You are in New York right now, do you get me? You didn’t come down here, just as none of us expected you to.” He began to shake his father, to help the words and the idea that was behind them to sink in. “Did anyone see you on the train, at the depot just now, or coming into the house? Anyone who knows you by sight? Think hard, try to remember, will you, Dad?”

Weeks ran his hand across his forehead. “Coming in, no,” he said. “The street was dead, they were all down at the beach or on the boardwalk. The depot I’m not sure about, some of the redcaps might know me by sight—”

“But they only see you one day every week. They might get mixed up after a day or two in remembering just the exact day. We gotta take a chance. And make sure they see you tomorrow when you do come down, that’ll cover today. Talk to one of them, lose something, stumble and get helped up, anything at all. Now about the train. The conductor must know you by sight—”

Weeks’ face brightened all of a sudden, as the idea began to catch on, take hold of him. The self-preservation instinct isn’t easily suppressed. He grasped his son by the lapel of his coat. “Larry,” he said eagerly, “I just remembered — my commutation ticket—”

Larry’s face paled again. “And I,” he groaned, “forgot all about that. The date’ll be punched — we can’t get around that—”

“No, wait a minute. Just today — something that never happened before all summer — my mind was haywire I guess on account of what I’d found out — but when I got to Penn Station I found I didn’t have it with me, I’d left it at the office. I had to buy an ordinary ticket to get down here—”

“Then it’s a push-over!” exclaimed Larry. “It’s a Godsend. It’d be a crime not to take advantage of a break like that. Doesn’t it convince you what the best thing to do is? If I were superstitious I’d call it—” He stopped short. “Wait a minute, round-trip I hope? Or will you have to step up and buy a return ticket at this end?”

“It’s here,” panted Weeks, fumbling in his coat. “I was burning so, I didn’t even notice—” He dragged it out and they both gave a simultaneous sigh of relief. “Swell,” said Larry. “That unpunched commutation ticket is going to be an A-one alibi in itself. Hang onto it whatever you do. But we’ll fix it all up brown. Can you get hold of someone in the city to pass the evening with you — or better still two or three friends?”

“I can get in touch with Fred German. He always rolls up a gang of stay-outs as he goes along.”

“Go to a show with ’em, bend the elbow, get a little lit, stay with them as late as you possibly can manage it. And before you leave them — not after but before, so they all can see and hear you — call me long-distance down here. That means your name’ll go down on the company’s records from that end. I’ll have your cue ready for you by that time. If she’s not dead yet, then the rotgut made you sentimental and you wanted to talk to your family, that’s all. But if I have everything under control by that time, then I’ll have bad news for you then and there. You can stage a cloudburst in front of them and continue under your own speed from that point on. But until that happens, watch your step. Keep the soft pedal on. Don’t be jerky and nervous and punchy. Don’t give ’em an idea you’ve got anything on your mind. The better you know people, the better they can tell when something’s wrong with you. Now all that is your job. Mine” — he drew in his breath — “is upstairs. Got your hat?” He took out his watch. “Get back to the station, the six o’clock pulls out in ten minutes. They’re starting to drift back from the beach, so go to

Charlton Street, one over, and keep your head down. Don’t look at anyone. Thank God she wasn’t much on getting acquainted with her neighbors—” He was leading him toward the door as he spoke. “What’re you going to do?” asked Weeks with bated voice.

“I don’t know,” said Larry, “but I don’t want an audience for it, whatever it is. All I need is darkness, and thinking how swell you’ve been to me all my life — and I can do the rest, I’ll pull through. Stand behind the door a minute till I take a squint.” He opened the door, sauntered out on the bungalow doorstep, and looked casually up in one direction, then down in the other, as though seeking a breath of air. Then suddenly he was back in again, pushing his father irresistibly before him. “Hurry up, not a living soul in sight. It may not be this way again for the rest of the evening. They all sit on their porches after dark—”

Weeks’ body suddenly stiffened, held back. “No, I can’t do it, can’t let you! What am I thinking of anyway, letting my own son hold the bag for me? If they nab you doing this they’ll hang it on you—”

“Do you want to die at Trenton?” Larry asked him fiercely. The answer was on Weeks’ face, would have been on anyone’s face. “Then lemme do it my way!” They gripped hands for a second. Something like a sob sounded in Weeks’ throat. Then he was over the threshold and Larry was pushing the door silently after him.

Just before it met the frame Weeks pivoted abruptly, jumped back, and rammed his foot into the opening. There was a new urgency in his voice. “Helen. I see her coming! She just turned the corner!”

“Get back in!” snapped Larry. “Can’t make it now. Her eyes are too good, she’ll spot you even from a distance.” He closed the door on the two of them. “He with her?”