Грэм Мастертон - Famine

‘For Christ’s sake,’ Ed exhorted her.

Now, Calvin Muldoon was climbing back up the staircase, crouched low on knees and elbows. Ed couldn’t see too clearly through the carved wooden banisters, but he glimpsed a nickel-plated .45 automatic in Calvin’s right hand. He was frightened now. There wasn’t any doubt that the Muldoons were as well armed as the Marine Corps, and that they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot if they thought it was part of their job. He wondered if he ought to fire a warning shot along the landing, but he didn’t know how many shells were left in his pump-gun, and so he decided not to.

Della said, ‘Done it,’ in such a quiet voice that Ed didn’t hear her. But then she pushed Shearson’s door open, and Shearson’s alarm bells went off, and amidst the shattering, blinding noise, Ed realised that she had saved their skins at the last possible moment. Holding the pump-gun in his right hand, he pushed Della through the open door with his left, and then backed in after her.

‘I hope you know you scared the pants off me just then,’ Ed told her, and he was so genuinely frightened that his voice sounded strangled and high. The bells kept on shrieking, so they could scarcely hear each other speak. ‘Let’s go get Shearson,’ shouted Della.

They locked the double doors behind them, and then strode purposefully down the short corridor that led to Shearson’s bedroom. Ed kicked open the louvred door, and pounced into the room with the pump-gun held high, like something out of Starsky and Hutch. He needn’t have bothered. The huge king-sized bed with its puffy white coverlet was empty, and Shearson Jones was standing instead on the far side of the room, next to a small cocktail cabinet, dressed in a vast white nightshirt, and lighting up a Partagas cigar.

The alarm bells were so shrill in here that Ed didn’t even attempt to speak. He simply waved the rifle at Shearson, and inclined his head towards the door.

Shearson puffed at his cigar, and shook his head. He mouthed the words, ‘no way.’

Della, in her bright green wrap, walked directly over to Shearson and yelled something in his ear. He stared at her for a moment, and then thoughtfully laid his cigar down in a silver ashtray. He opened a louvred wardrobe door, and tugged out pants, shirt, and a dark blue sweater that must have taken the wool of two dozen sheep. Without another word, he gave the clothes to Della, and led the way out of the bedroom.

‘What did you tell him?’ shouted Ed.

‘I told him we only had one shell left in the gun,’ Della told him. ‘I also told him what part of his anatomy was going to get hit first.’

Ed raised his eyebrows. ‘He believes that I’d do that? I mean, maim him that way?’

‘No. But he believes that I would.’

They reached the doors of Shearson’s suite, and Della quickly unlocked them. Shearson stood by, as fat and white as an apparition of Falstaflf. Della shouted at him, ‘Do what you’re told. That’s all. No jokes, no tricks, no nothing. I don’t have much of a sense of humour tonight.’

Shearson made a moue amidst his four double chins.

Gradually, Della drew the door inwards. As she did so, the alarm stopped ringing, and there was an extraordinary silence, still crowded with ghostly after-images of clangorous bells.

They waited. Ed glanced down, and saw the sweep hand of his watch counting out more than thirty seconds. The landing outside was utterly silent, and yet the Muldoons had to be there, and maybe Peter Kaiser, too, if he’d summoned up the nerve.

‘We’re coming out now!’ called Della.

There was no reply. Only silence, and darkness.

‘If you try to stop us. Senator Jones will be seriously wounded,’ she said. ‘Not killed, but wounded in a way which is going to cause him agony and distress for the rest of his life. Do you understand that?’

Still no reply. Della looked back at Ed, and then at Shearson Jones, and from the expression on her face she was obviously trying to calculate the risks of taking an enormously fat senator and a nervous farmer-cum-actuary on a run for freedom that could get them all killed.

‘Ed,’ she said, ‘you could still stay behind. I’m not saying that Shearson would give you a particularly nice time, but it could be better than dying.’

Ed shook his head. ‘I’m coming, and that’s all there is to it. Don’t worry about it, Della, I won’t hold you back. Just say the word and we’ll go.’

Della looked at Shearson. ‘You hear that, my darling? You’re coming on a little trip.’

Shearson sighed. ‘My father always told me to stay clear of women with oversized breasts,’ he replied. ‘Their sense of loyalty can always be assessed in inverse ratio to the measurement of their bazumbas.’

Ed prodded Shearson’s fat side with the muzzle of the pump gun. It was like prodding a pillow. Shearson looked round at him, offended, but Ed gave him what Sally had always called his ‘nice alligator’ smile in return.

‘Are you going to tell me who you are?’ Shearson asked them. ‘Do I get to know why you’re kidnapping me? Are you Symbionese Liberation Army? Are you Israelis? Not that it really makes a great deal of difference.’

Della ignored him. ‘I want you to step out of this door with your hands up,’ she instructed him. ‘And I’m just going to warn you that if you attempt to get away, or do anything at all except what I tell you to do, then Ed here is going to take your balls off as fast as you can say Vatican choir.’

‘Well, you can’t be Israelis,’ said Shearson. ‘Israelis never have such a colourful turn of phrase.’

‘Move!’ said Della, and pulled him towards the door.

Shearson grinned at her as he stepped out on to the landing. ‘Whatever happens, my dear,’ he told her, ‘I’d like you to know that you were a great lay.’

With Shearson ahead of them, Ed and Della walked out of the bedroom and along the landing. There was no sign of Peter Kaiser or of either of the Muldoon brothers. The house was so silent they could almost hear the dust falling.

Ed looked nervously from one side to the other as he escorted Shearson down the staircase. Shearson was humming to himself under his breath, and that unsettled Ed even more. It sounded as if Shearson knew something that he and Della didn’t.

They crossed the living area. Shearson remarked loudly, ‘I wish you’d tell me what devious political purpose this kidnap is supposed to serve.’ And almost instantly, every light in the living area was switched on, and both Muldoon brothers stepped out from passages at the side, with automatics raised in both hands.

Later, Ed remembered what happened in such detail that he couldn’t believe it had all been over so quickly. He had thrown himself forward, right on to Shearson’s back, and toppled the senator to the floor. As he did so, he had twisted himself around and seized Shearson’s neck in the crook of his arm, wrenching it back, so that Shearson’s head protected his chest. Della had dived behind one of the sofas.

Calvin Muldoon had dodged down beside a chair, squinted along the sights of his Colt .45, and fired twice. One shot had shattered a white porcelain lampshade base into a blast of snowy shrapnel. The second had echoed its way down one of the passages.

There had been a second’s silence, and then Calvin’s brother had fired a wild shot that broke a window on the other side of the room. There had been another second’s silence. Neither dared to shoot again in case he hit the senator. There had been a sharp smell of gunsmoke in the air.

‘Muldoon!’ Ed had called out. ‘Muldoon – there’s nothing at all you can do.’

‘You just try to move and I’ll get you,’ Calvin Muldoon replied. ‘Either that, or I’ll get the woman.’