Four Past Midnight (20 page)

“What's happening?” Dinah cried. “What is it?”

“Stop that!” Craig shouted at Bethany. “Stop moving around! You're going to force me to do something I don't want to do!” He pressed the muzzle of the gun against the side of her head. She continued to struggle, and Albert suddenly realized she didn't know he had a gun—even with it pressed against her skull she didn't know.

“Quit it, girl!” Nick said sharply. “Quit fighting!”

For the first time in his waking life, Albert found himself not just thinking like The Arizona Jew but possibly called upon to act like that fabled character. Without taking his eyes off the lunatic in the crew-neck jersey, he slowly began to raise his violin case. He switched his grip from the handle and settled both hands around the neck of the case. Toomy was not looking at him; his eyes were shuttling rapidly back and forth between Brian and Nick, and he had his hands full—quite literally—holding onto Bethany.

“I don't want to shoot her—” Craig was beginning again, and then his arm slipped upward as the girl bucked against him, socking her behind into his crotch. Bethany immediately sank her teeth into his wrist.
“Ow!”
Craig screamed.
“owww!”

His grip loosened. Bethany ducked under it. Albert leaped forward, raising the violin case, as Toomy pointed the gun at Bethany. Toomy's face was screwed into a grimace of pain and anger.

“No, Albert!”
Nick bawled.

Craig Toomy saw Albert coming and shifted the muzzle toward him. For one moment Albert looked straight into it, and it was like none of his dreams or fantasies. Looking into the muzzle was like looking into an open grave.

I might have made a mistake here,
he thought, and then Craig pulled the trigger.

Instead of an explosion there was a small pop—the sound of an old Daisy air rifle, no more. Albert felt something thump against the chest of his Hard Rock Cafe tee-shirt, had time to realize he had been shot, and then he brought the violin case down on Craig's head. There was a solid thud which ran all the way up his arms, and the indignant voice of his father suddenly spoke up in his mind:
What's the matter with you, Albert? That's no way to treat an expensive musical instrument!

There was a startled
broink!
from inside the case as the violin jumped. One of the brass latches dug into Toomy's forehead and blood splashed outward in an amazing spray. Then the man's knees came unhinged and he went down in front of Albert like an express elevator. Albert saw his eyes roll up to whites, and then Craig Toomy was lying at his feet, unconscious.

A crazy but somehow wonderful thought filled Albert's mind for a moment:
By God, I never played better in my life!
And then he realized that he was no longer able to get his breath. He turned to the others, the comers of his mouth turning up in a thin-lipped, slightly confused smile. “I think I have been plugged,” Ace Kaussner said, and then the world bleached out to shades of gray and his own knees came unhinged. He crumpled to the floor on top of his violin case.

He was out for less than thirty seconds. When he came around, Brian was slapping his cheeks lightly and looking anxious. Bethany was on her knees beside him, looking at Albert with shining my-hero eyes. Behind her, Dinah Bellman was still crying within the circle of Laurel's arms. Albert looked back at Bethany and felt his heart—apparently still whole—expand in his chest. “The Arizona Jew rides again,” he muttered.

“What, Albert?” she asked, and stroked his cheek. Her hand was wonderfully soft, wonderfully cool. Albert decided he was in love.

“Nothing,” he said, and then the pilot whacked him across the face again.

“Are you all right, kid?” Brian was asking. “Are you all right?”

“I think so,” Albert said. “Stop doing that, okay? And the name is Albert. Ace, to my friends. How bad am I hit? I can't feel anything yet. Were you able to stop the bleeding?”

Nick Hopewell squatted beside Bethany. His face wore a bemused, unbelieving smile. “I think you'll live, matey. I never saw anything like that in my life ... and I've seen a lot. You Americans are too foolish not to love. Hold out your hand and I'll give you a souvenir.”

Albert held out a hand which shook uncontrollably with reaction, and Nick dropped something into it. Albert held it up to his eyes and saw it was a bullet.

“I picked it up off the floor,” Nick said. “Not even misshapen. It must have hit you square in the chest—there's a little powder mark on your shirt—and then bounced off. It was a misfire. God must like you, mate.”

“I was thinking of the matches,” Albert said weakly. “I sort of thought it wouldn't fire at all.”

“That was very brave and very foolish, my boy,” Bob Jenkins said. His face was dead white and he looked as if he might pass out himself in another few moments. “Never believe a writer. Listen to them, by all means, but never believe them. My God, what if I'd been wrong?”

“You almost were,” Brian said. He helped Albert to his feet. “It was like when you lit the other matches—the ones from the bowl. There was just enough pop to drive the bullet out of the muzzle. A little more pop and Albert would have had a bullet in his lung.”

Another wave of dizziness washed over Albert. He swayed on his feet, and Bethany immediately slipped an arm around his waist. “I thought it was really brave,” she said, looking up at him with eyes which suggested she believed Albert Kaussner must shit diamonds from a platinum asshole. “I mean
incredible.”

“Thanks,” Ace said, smiling coolly (if a trifle woozily). “It wasn't much.” The fastest Hebrew west of the Mississippi was aware that there was a great deal of girl pressed tightly against him, and that the girl smelled almost unbearably good. Suddenly
he
felt good. In fact, he believed he had never felt better in his life. Then he remembered his violin, bent down, and picked up the case. There was a deep dent in one side, and one of the catches had been sprung. There was blood and hair on it, and Albert felt his stomach turn over lazily. He opened the case and looked in. The instrument looked all right, and he let out a little sigh.

Then he thought of Craig Toomy, and alarm replaced relief.

“Say, I didn't kill that guy, did I? I hit him pretty hard.” He looked toward Craig, who was lying near the restaurant door with Don Gaffney kneeling beside him. Albert suddenly felt like passing out again. There was a great deal of blood on Craig's face and forehead.

“He's alive,” Don said, “but he's out like a light.”

Albert, who had blown away more hardcases than The Man with No Name in his dreams, felt his gorge rise. “Jesus, there's so much
blood
!”

“Doesn't mean a thing,” Nick said. “Scalp wounds tend to bleed a lot.” He joined Don, picked up Craig's wrist, and felt for a pulse. “You want to remember he had a gun to that girl's head, matey. If he'd pulled the trigger at point-blank range, he might well have done for her. Remember the actor who killed himself with a blank round a few years ago? Mr. Toomy brought this on himself; he owns it completely. Don't take on.”

Nick dropped Craig's wrist and stood up.

“Besides,” he said, pulling a large swatch of paper napkins from the dispenser on one of the tables, “his pulse is strong and regular. I think he'll wake up in a few minutes with nothing but a bad headache. I also think it might be prudent to take a few precautions against that happy event. Mr. Gaffney, the tables in yonder watering hole actually appear to be equipped with tablecloths—strange but true. I wonder if you'd get a couple? We might be wise to bind old Mr. I've-Got-to-Get-to-Boston's hands behind him.”

“Do you really have to do that?” Laurel asked quietly. “The man is unconscious, after all, and bleeding.”

Nick pressed his makeshift napkin compress against Craig Toomy's head-wound and looked up at her. “You're Laurel, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, Laurel, let's not paint it fine. This man is a lunatic. I don't know if our current adventure did that to him or if he just growed that way, like Topsy, but I do know he's dangerous. He would have grabbed Dinah instead of Bethany if she had been closer. If we leave him untied, he might do just that next time.”

Craig groaned and waved his hands feebly. Bob Jenkins stepped away from him the moment he began to move, even though the revolver was now safely tucked into the waistband of Brian Engle's pants, and Laurel did the same, pulling Dinah with her.

“Is anybody dead?” Dinah asked nervously. “No one is, are they?”

“No, honey.”

“I should have heard him sooner, but I was listening to the man who sounds like a teacher.”

“It's okay,” Laurel said. “It turned out all right, Dinah.” Then she looked out at the empty terminal and her own words mocked her. Nothing was all right here. Nothing at all.

Don returned with a red-and-white-checked tablecloth in each fist.

“Marvellous,” Nick said. He took one of them and spun it quickly and expertly into a rope. He put the center of it in his mouth, clamping his teeth on it to keep it from unwinding, and used his hands to flip Craig over like a human omelette.

Craig cried out and his eyelids fluttered.

“Do you have to be so
rough?”
Laurel asked sharply.

Nick gazed at her for a moment, and she dropped her eyes at once. She could not help comparing Nick Hopewell's eyes with the eyes in the pictures which Darren Crosby had sent her. Widely spaced, clear eyes in a good-looking-if unremarkable—face. But the eyes had also been rather unremarkable, hadn't they? And didn't Darren's eyes have something, perhaps even a great deal, to do with why she had made this trip in the first place? Hadn't she decided, after a great deal of close study, that they were the eyes of a man who would behave himself? A man who would back off if you told him to back off?

She had boarded Flight 29 telling herself that this was her great adventure, her one extravagant tango with romance—an impulsive transcontinental dash into the arms of the tall, dark stranger. But sometimes you found yourself in one of those tiresome situations where the truth could no longer be avoided, and Laurel reckoned the truth to be this: she had chosen Darren Crosby because his pictures and letters had told her he wasn't much different from the placid boys and men she had been dating ever since she was fifteen or so, boys and men who would learn quickly to wipe their feet on the mat before they came in on rainy nights, boys and men who would grab a towel and help with the dishes without being asked, boys and men who would let you go if you told them to do it in a sharp enough tone of voice.

Would she have been on Flight 29 tonight if the photos had shown Nick Hopewell's dark-blue eyes instead of Darren's mild brown ones? She didn't think so. She thought she would have written him a kind but rather impersonal note—
Thank you for your reply and your picture, Mr. Hopewell, but I somehow don't think we would be right for each other—and

gone on looking for a man like Darren. And, of course, she doubted very much if men like Mr. Hopewell even read the lonely-hearts magazines, let alone placed ads in their personals columns. All the same, she was here with him now, in this weird situation.

Well ... she had wanted to have an adventure, just one adventure, before middle-age settled in for keeps. Wasn't that true? Yes. And here she was, proving Tolkien right—she had stepped out of her own door last evening, just the same as always, and look where she had ended up: a strange and dreary version of Fantasyland. But it was an adventure, all right. Emergency landings ... deserted airports ... a lunatic with a gun. Of course it was an adventure. Something she had read years ago suddenly popped into Laurel's mind.
Be careful what you pray for, because you just might get it.

How true.

And how confusing.

There was no confusion in Nick Hopewell's eyes ... but there was no mercy in them, either. They made Laurel feel shivery, and there was nothing romantic in the feeling.

Are you sure?
a voice whispered, and Laurel shut it up at once.

Nick pulled Craig's hands out from under him, then brought his wrists together at the small of his back. Craig groaned again, louder this time, and began to struggle weakly.

“Easy now, my good old mate,” Nick said soothingly. He wrapped the tablecloth rope twice around Craig's lower forearms and knotted it tightly. Craig's elbows flapped and he uttered a strange weak scream. “There!” Nick said, standing up. “Trussed as neatly as Father John's Christmas turkey. We've even got a spare if that one looks like not holding.” He sat on the edge of one of the tables and looked at Bob Jenkins. “Now, what were you saying when we were so rudely interrupted?”

Bob looked at him, dazed and unbelieving. “What?”

“Go on,” Nick said. He might have been an interested lecturegoer instead of a man sitting on a table in a deserted airport restaurant with his feet planted beside a bound man lying in a pool of his own blood. “You had just got to the part about Flight 29 being like the
Mary Celeste.
Interesting concept, that.”

“And you want me to ... to just go on?” Bob asked incredulously. “As if nothing had happened?”

“Let me
up!”
Craig shouted. His words were slightly muffled by the tough industrial carpet on the restaurant floor, but he still sounded remarkably lively for a man who had been coldcocked with a violin case not five minutes previous. “Let me up right now! I demand that you—”

Then Nick did something that shocked all of them, even those who had seen the Englishman twist Craig's nose like the handle of a bathtub faucet. He drove a short, hard kick into Craig's ribs. He pulled it at the last instant ... but not much. Craig uttered a pained grunt and shut up.