Эд Макбейн - Strangers When We Meet

“I want to get it done quickly and then come straight home,” Margaret said.

“I’ve been shopping since I was eleven years old,” Mrs. Gault said. “I’m certainly not a slow shopper.”

“Besides, I’ll be walking. Don took the car.”

The idea of walking did not appeal to Mrs. Gault, but she did not think badly of her son for having taken the car. Her son, as she saw him, was a warm and genuine person who happened to have married a cold fish. Actually, he was warmest when Margaret wasn’t around. It was then that they recaptured old times, when she told him of little things he’d done or said as a boy, told him of how terrible it had been after his father — God rest his soul — had died. They had been very close then, and talking alone they recaptured some of that closeness, a mother and son talking the way no two strangers could ever talk, flesh and blood, her flesh and blood. It was good to reaffirm the bond. It was good to talk to her son without Margaret around.

Margaret put down the comb and picked up her lipstick brush. Mrs. Gault watched while she traced the outline of her lips. She could feel indifference emanating from the well-built girl who stood before the mirror. What is it? she thought. Am I not a good mother? What does this girl want from me now that she has my son? And her thoughts almost always ended with the identical four words: The hell with her.

“What are you going to buy?” she asked.

“Oh, just some odds and ends.”

“Well, if you’re absolutely set against my going with you...”

“I’m not. I just don’t want to make this an expedition.”

“... will you buy me a newspaper?”

“Certainly.”

“The Journal-American . It should be out by now.”

Margaret blotted her lips, then touched her little finger to the lipstick and dabbed each cheek lightly, spreading the color.

“Shouldn’t it?”

“I’m sorry, Mom. Shouldn’t what ?”

“Shouldn’t the paper be out by now? Where are you, anyway?”

“I just didn’t hear you, that’s all.”

“Maybe I’d better go with you. You’re in a fog. You’ll probably get killed by a car.”

“No,” Margaret said quickly.

Her mother-in-law stared at her.

“I... I want to go alone.”

“I wouldn’t force myself on you, believe me,” Mrs. Gault said, and she walked away from the open bathroom door and into the kitchen. The clock on the kitchen wall read 1:45. She sat at the pine-top table thinking how sad it was that her daughter-in-law didn’t love her. When Margaret came out of the bathroom, she studied her with a dispassionate eye. She honestly couldn’t see any resemblance whatever.

Adrienne Gault was a handsome woman with brown hair and blue eyes. Her bosom was large and firm, and she had the wide hips of a peasant woman, with the narrow waist of a young girl. But she certainly didn’t look like Margaret, and she resented anyone’s mistaking them for mother and daughter, as so often people did.

“Well, have a good time,” she said blandly.

“I’m only going shopping,” Margaret said. She glanced up at the clock. “I’d better go now.”

“Do you always dress that way to go shopping? You’d think you were going to a dance.”

“I like to be neat,” Margaret said.

“What time will Donald be home?”

“The same time as always.”

“He’ll be so surprised to see me,” Mrs. Gault said, and her eyes sparkled in anticipation.

“Yes,” Margaret said unenthusiastically. “I’ve got to go now. I’ll be back soon.”

The clock on the kitchen wall read 1:57.

He saw her instantly.

She was very easy to see, he realized. You looked, and you saw her at once. He stepped out of the car and said “Maggie” softly, so softly that he was sure she would not hear him. But she lifted her head as he spoke, and then she hurried toward the car. She wore a black tailored coat and black pumps, and there were dangling rhinestone earrings on her ears. She held the coat collar against one cheek as she walked with her head down, the ash-blonde hair catching the feeble wintry sunlight.

“Get in,” he said, smiling. He was very nervous. It amazed him that he could smile. What possible excuse could he offer to Eve should anyone witness this girl’s getting into his car?

“Why?” she asked.

“We’ll take a ride. I want to talk to you.”

“I don’t know what this is all about,” Margaret said. “I really don’t. I wish—”

“Let’s not argue here,” he said. “Won’t you get in?”

She looked at him for just an instant. Then she shrugged, went around to the other side of the car, and got in. He pulled out of the parking lot the moment she slammed the door behind her. She sat very stiffly, her hands folded in her lap. She had looked at him only once, and now she sat staring through the windshield, apprehension in her eyes.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” His own fear was growing. He had expected some measure of composure from her, but she sat stiffly tense and alert and her panic was spreading to him. The whole matter was taking on the aspect of a foolhardy, impulsive risk with nothing whatever to gain. He found his eyes darting all over the road, searching for faces he knew, faces he wanted to avoid. He began making excuses in advance to explain away the beautiful blonde who sat beside him on the front seat of his car. When the shopping center fell away behind them, he knew instant relief. He could feel his hands loosening their knuckle-white grip on the wheel.

“Where are we going?” she asked again. “What do you want from me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Whatever it is, the answer is no.”

Her words shocked him. Coupled with the fear he already knew, came the horrifying presentment that he had made a grave mistake. He had approached this woman erroneously, and she would now spread the story through the whole development, and he could see himself trying to explain it all to Eve. He stepped on the accelerator.

“Well?” she said.

“Well what? For God’s sake, relax, can’t you?”

“I’m sorry. Where are you taking me?”

“I told you, I don’t know. I’m just driving. It’s broad daylight. You’re absolutely safe.”

“From what?” she asked. “Don’t think because—” She stopped. She seemed to be very annoyed. “Don’t jump to the obvious conclusion, that’s all.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about my anatomy!” she said.

Coupled with his first fear and his later fear, there came a new and partially suspected terror. The girl was either stupid or incredibly direct, and both failings were dangerous. All he wanted now was to get away from her as quickly as possible in the hope she would keep silent once this was over.

Nervously, he said, “I only wanted to talk to you. Because you seemed so interesting. I wanted to find out more about you.” He looked at her hopefully. His words seemed to have had no effect on her. “Really,” he went on, “I wasn’t thinking... whatever... whatever you thought I was thinking.”

“I’ll bet.”

“I’ll turn back right now, if you say so.”

“Turn back,” she said.

“Sure,” he answered, relieved. He swung the car to the side of the road, waited for the car behind him to pass, and then executed a U turn.

“You do this often, don’t you?”

“No.”

She laughed derisively. “I’ll bet you don’t.” She seemed very angry with him, and he suddenly wondered what possible reason this complete stranger could have for being so damned annoyed. He hadn’t forced her into the car, and no one had pushed her to the shopping center.