Charles Williams - Hell Hath No Fury

I wiped the sweat off my face and stood back to look at it in the narrow beam of the flashlight. It would do. Once those matches caught the whole rat’s nest would take off like gunpowder. Well, I thought, they like to go to fires. This’ll give ‘em one to talk about.

* * *

When I awoke the next morning it was a minute or so before I remembered. I began to tighten up then. When I looked at my watch I thought of that clock ticking away the seconds and the hands creeping slowly around and the fact that nothing could stop it now. It was eight o’clock, and the next four hours and a half were going to be rough. Once it was started and I got moving I should be able to shake the nervousness and keyed-up tension, but the waiting was going to be bad. I had to act naturally. I couldn’t be looking at my watch every three minutes. It started off all right. As soon as I had a cup of coffee and got over to the lot, Harshaw and I got in another beef about something. God knows that was routine and natural enough. I can’t even remember what this one was about. It never took much to start us off because we always reacted to each other like a couple of strange bears. And the funny part of it was that I had begun to have a sort of reluctant liking for him. He was as tough as boot-leather and he barked at everybody, but you were never in doubt as to how you stood with him. He told you. But the fact remained the more I had to admit he wasn’t a bad sort of joe, the more I’d go out of my way to start a row.

“You know, Madox,” he said, leaning back in his chair and sticking a match to the cold cigar. “I can’t figure you out. You sell cars, but I’ll be a dirty pimp if I know how you do it.”

He was right. I’d hit a lucky streak the past few days and unloaded several of his jalopies. “Well,” I said, “it’s sure as hell not the advertising. Why don’t you go ahead and build a fence around the place to keep people from finding out you’ve got cars in here? They keep sneaking in.”

“So you sell three cars, and now you’re going to tell me how to run the place?”

“I don’t care what you do with it,” I said, and walked out of the office. I had to relax. At this rate I’d blow my top before noon. A Negro boy came in and stood around with his hands in his pockets looking at the cars the way they always do. You get the impression they’re waiting for some thing, but you don’t know what—maybe for prices to come down or cotton to go up.

Suppose I lost my head? I thought.

I went over and gave him sales talk you’d use on an oil man looking for Cadillacs for three of his girl friends. Or at least I think it was all right. He seemed to like it. I didn’t hear a word I was saying.

You can take care of everything except chance. Chance can kill you.

“How much the down payment?” he asked. That was all they ever wanted to know. You could sell Fords for eight thousand dollars if you’d let them go for five dollars down.

Somehow ten o’clock came and went. I walked over to the restaurant and had a cup of coffee. It was hard to sit still now, or stand still, or think straight about anything. At 11:45 Gulick went to get his lunch. Suppose he didn’t get back in time? Harshaw would leave anyway. It would look funny if I ran off and left the place completely unattended. I prowled around the lot, trying not to look at my watch. At 12:20 he came back and Harshaw left. Then it was 12:25.1 stood behind a car, looking at the watch, waiting. It was 12:30.

And nothing happened. There was no noise, no siren, nothing. The streets were as quiet as any weekday noon. It was 12:35, 12:40. It hadn’t gone off. Somebody had found it. The whole thing had failed. And I couldn’t try it again, if somebody had found that one. Was I glad, now that the pressure was off? I didn’t know.

Then it came. The siren tore its way up through the noonday hush, growing louder and higher, screaming. The firehouse was only two blocks away, and in a minute or so the fire engine came lumbering past the lot, headed down Main, with the cars beginning to fall in behind it. Gulick and I ran to the sidewalk, both of us looking wildly around for the smoke.

“It’s down there, in front of the bank somewhere!” he said, pointing. People afoot were running now, and cars were beginning to jam up down at the other end of the street.

“Stick around, and I’ll go take a look,” I said. Before he could answer I jumped in the car and shot out into the street. Most of the traffic and the people afoot were at least a block ahead of me. People were pouring out of stores and the restaurant, yelling at each other and running. And in the midst of all the uproar I discovered I was cold as ice and clear-headed, without any panic at all. A block before I got to the bank I turned left and pulled the car to the curb near the mouth of the alley in the side street. Two or three other cars were parked along here, so it didn’t look conspicuous. Two people went past, running, not even seeing me.

The side street was empty now. A few people still ran by on Main, but they looked straight ahead, their eyes on the smoke. I reached into the back seat. The blanket and piece of line were carefully folded up inside the coat to the seersucker suit I had put on this morning. I picked it all up, put the coat over my arm, and went down the alley, running fast. When I got to the end of it I slowed a little. A man came running past, but didn’t see me, and went on up past the side door of the bank. There was nobody else in sight except the stragglers going by on Main. I went up alongside the bank building to the side door, stopped, and looked in. This was where it had to be right.

It was just the way I’d figured it. The only person in the place was the old man, and he was standing in the front door with his back to me, watching the black column of smoke boiling into the sky two blocks away. I eased inside the door, turned, and started back to the washroom, watching him with quick glances over my shoulder. The rubber-soled shoes I had on made no sound at all, and he was intent on the uproar down the street.

I made it, and slipped inside the little room, praying the door didn’t squeak. I pushed it carefully until it was nearly closed, and I was out of sight. I took a deep breath. There was a half partition, presumably with a toilet behind it, and on this side were the usual wash-basin and mirror. The mirror didn’t face the door. I’d already checked on that.

I put the plug in the wash-basin and turned on the water, then stepped back against the wall where I would be behind the door as he pushed it open. I hung the coat on a hook, held the blanket in my hands, and waited, hardly breathing now. It was deathly quiet. The basin filled, then started spilling over on to the floor. Suppose he was hard of hearing and didn’t notice it? I cursed myself. I was doing too much supposing. A minute dragged by, and then another. Water was beginning to run out into the bank now. I turned my head and looked out the crack at the back of the door. I could see the front of the bank, only a narrow strip between here and there. He was nowhere in sight.

Then suddenly I heard the faint scuff of a shoe, just outside. He had already passed the area I was watching, was almost to the door. I wheeled around just as he stepped inside the washroom, pushing the door back towards me. He was clear of it and starting to bend over the wash-basin to turn the water off.

I hit the door with my elbow and slammed it shut at the same time I threw the blanket over him. He straightened, tried to turn, and screamed. There was no chance he had seen me. He fought the blanket wildly, trying to get his arms up. I pulled them down, took two turns around him with the line, and tied it off, then pulled his feet from under him and set him on the floor and threw two half-hitches around his ankles. He was still yelling, the sound muffled inside the blanket.