Джон Макдональд - The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything

Suddenly Charla spoke, with anger in her tone. “Very clever, dears, but it won’t work, you know. Are you holding rags by the outlet?”

When the hiss stopped, Kirby began to cough, trying to sound as if he were choking to death. The furniture was beginning to crackle, and he hoped she could hear that. He felt heat on his face. He prodded Betsy. She was ready for her cue. She gave a scream of such convincing agony he wondered for a moment if the fire had somehow reached her. “Help!” she screamed. “Help me! Let me out!” She screamed again, and faded it off into a grisly bubbling sound.

He heard the commotion in the corridor. He knew what would happen next. They would feel the steel door, and feel the heat coming through it. The blankets were beginning to steam. There were shouts and a sound of hammering and then the door which he had unlatched was burst open, and just as he worked the watch to stop it all, he saw something aimed toward him in the murk, heard a sharp cracking sound. The flame stopped. The steam was motionless. The heat was gone. The blankets felt like slabs of molded oak. He worked his way out. Joseph stood just inside the door, almost in the static flames, aiming a long-barreled pistol with a rigid little tongue of flame protruding from the muzzle. Staying below the layer of smoke, Kirby searched the air between himself and the muzzle, and found the small slug suspended at the midway point. Assuming, he thought with a hollow feeling in his belly, a velocity of a thousand feet per second, and it had another seven feet to go before catching me squarely in the face, had I been seven one thousandths of a second slower—

Suddenly, to his astonishment, he saw that the bullet had a perceptible movement. He glanced at the gold watch and saw he had given himself a little over a half hour. It was the first thing he had seen move in the red world. He went close to it and timed its velocity, and it seemed to him that as he counted off ten seconds, it moved almost one full inch. It was a clue to the ratio between the two worlds. Two minutes per foot. Or a ratio of two minutes to one one thousandth of a second. Thus, one full hour of red time equalled three hundredths of a second of objective time. Suddenly he stirred out of his speculative trance. When he moved his face into smoke it felt like thick rubbery cobwebs. He pulled the girl up to a convenient height and, crouched below the smoke, pulled her past Joseph and into the corridor. Charla stood beyond the door, her expression anxious. The emotion he felt toward her was not fear or hate or anger, but merely a vast impatience, an irritability. He left Betsy suspended and went back in and plucked the lead snail out of the air and took it out into the corridor, aimed it at Charla’s bland honeyed forehead and pushed it as forcefully as he could, releasing it an inch from the center of her forehead. He went back toward the flames, slowly bent Joseph’s golden arm until the muzzle was directly under Joseph’s chin, aimed upward, the silent tongue of blue flame a half inch from the jowl. He gave the trigger finger a forceful tug. He towed the girl along the corridor to the steps up to the cockpit hatch. It was ajar. He pushed it open and went back and got her and forced her out into the night. The sun had set over the land and the sky was like a banked fire but it was not as difficult to see as he had anticipated.

As he towed her along the dock he staggered with his weariness. He did not know how long he could continue. He had to find a safe place. He moved off the dock and into deep shadows and set her upright and leaned her against a tree. He peered at the dial of the gold watch and found there were a few minutes left. He put his thumb on the watch stem and he knew it was a trigger. They deserved to die. Yet he had the curious feeling that he would also be destroyed if he pressed it. Why should he pass ultimate judgment?

Suddenly, in all his weariness, he had a feeling of antic pleasure, of a wild exhilaration. Bonny Lee was free. Wilma was safe. Betsy was safe. The world was new again, and there was nothing able to stop him. He turned and ran through the bloody twilight as fast as he could. He went back into the yacht. The lead slug was touching her smooth forehead. He pulled it away, pushed it toward the flames. He pulled the muzzle away from Joseph’s chin. He stepped back just as the red time ended. The pistol cracked, the flames crackled, Charla’s face was changed by a look of vast alarm. He spun the world red again, stilling the flames. He looked at them as he now knew his uncle must have looked at them in times past. Ridiculous people. Fair game. A mildly interesting irritant in a greedy world. Death had too much stature, too much dignity, to be awarded them now. The watch could provide more suitable punishments. But at the moment he was too exhausted to follow through. He found a cabin and stretched out, set the watch to a full hour, suspended a heavy ashtray a few inches over his chest and went peacefully to sleep.

He awoke much refreshed, stopped objective time again and went to see what he could do about Charla and Joseph. He took Charla off the yacht. When he was near where he had left Betsy, he took a breathing space and walked over and looked at her. She had taken three steps away from the tree, and she looked terribly confused.

He tugged the stubborn burden of Charla all the way to the nearest intersection, stopping frequently to look around for something suitable. He found it at the intersection, waiting for the light to change. It was a big gray truck with Navy markings. He peered in over the tailgate. About thirty men sat on the benches that ran along either side of the truck. They were not recruits. They had that bronzed competent look of career men, who, when faced with any unusual situation, would not be at a loss.

Sadly, slowly, he bent the short robe off the suspended figure of Charla. After the fevered dreams of performing this very act, it seemed wasteful that it had to be done with so little emotion. Regretfully he admired the exquisite structure and texture of her. He pushed her into a handy position, clambered over the tailgate and hauled her inside. He stretched her out across five military laps, pressed her down solidly, and climbed back out of the truck. It would give her, he thought, some unforgettable moments. He looked into the truck at the tableau in red marble, the bored male faces unaware of the rich burden. If he had gauged their reactions properly, the very first response would be the firm clasp of a bronzed hairy hand, right over her startled mouth.

It had taken twenty minutes to dispose of Charla. He went back after Joseph. He was not only a more difficult burden, but it was troublesome to think of some situation which would be as memorable to him as Charla’s awakening would be to her. He pushed and tugged and floated Joseph all the way to the intersection, then left him suspended in air while he scouted a nearby cocktail lounge. It was doing an excellent business. He walked through to the back beyond the rest rooms and found a storeroom. The door was ajar. The key was in the lock. He went back among the throng and selected three women. He picked three mature ones without wedding rings, three who looked glossy and competent and somewhat virulent. They had style, prominent jaw lines and a few well-concealed traces of erosion. He trudged them back to the hallway outside the storeroom, one at a time. As he undressed them, one at a time, in midair, and levered them into the small dark room, it occurred to him that he was becoming so adept at it he could apply for a position fixing department store windows. The third one gave him pause. She had a truly astonishing tattoo.

By the time he plodded in with Joseph, time was growing short. He stripped him hastily, shouldered him in with his new acquaintances and slowly pulled the door shut. Clothing was suspended in the air all around him. He tried to turn the key, but he could not. Time had almost run out anyway. He switched the watch to normal time, turned the key and took it out of the lock and immediately switched back to enough red time to leave and get back to Betsy. The second touch on the watch stem cut short the very beginning of a scream. The clothing had fallen to the hallway floor.