Hamilton, Donald - Novel 02 (8 page)

 
          
“Don’t
be formal,” he said. “You know me. I’m the guy who wipes the goo off your shoes
after you’ve coughed up your breakfast. Just call me Galahad for short.”

 
          
She
did not say anything.

 
          
He
said, “Sure, this is the
United States
. Lane County, Nebraska, and I’ve just
spread the sheriff thereof all over his own pavement in front of his office
door. With a girl and his own deputy watching. Can you figure out what’ll
happen to me if that guy ever gets five minutes with me alone? My God,
Nicholson,” he said, glancing at her, “the only time I’ve ever talked to a cop
was a little matter of speeding. You should be telling me what a man like that
will do.”

 
          
“I
don’t believe it,” she said without conviction.

 
          
“You’re
all right,” he said. “He won’t be mad at you any longer. He’s forgotten about
you. But me, he’ll take me apart and run the remains through a sausage grinder.
This isn’t a big city where if you sock one cop it doesn’t really affect the
department’s prestige; they can afford to let the judge take care of it. A
county sheriff is something else again. He can’t afford to be laughed at.”

 
          
“There’s
a car,” she said. “It just pulled in from the side road. No, it’s going the
other way.” She looked at him, facing backwards, kneeling on the seat. “Shouldn’t
we… I mean, isn’t he bound to catch us if we just drive straight like this? Somebody
will have seen us.”

 
          
He
twisted the convertible past two wicked holes in the road and straightened it
out again at sixty. He could see the dust rising in the rear-view mirror.

 
          
“Listen,
Nicholson,” he said, “that’s a reasonably smart man back there, and he’ll
expect one of two things. Either that we’re going to get back to the highway
and hightail it out of there as fast as we can go, hoping that he won’t expect
the most obvious thing; or that we’re going to play it smart and cagey. That’s
what he’ll be hoping for. He’s come across smart and cagey people before. He
knows all about smart and cagey people… Get down,” he said, watching a car
approach. It looked like a Ford.

 
          
She
turned in the seat, slid down with her skirt bunched in her lap, and stared at
the approaching car. Emmett slowed down a little. The road was quite narrow.
The other car pulled out to the side. Emmett shifted into second and squeezed
the convertible past, raising his hand in appreciation of the other’s courtesy.
The blue-shirted farmer in the Ford waggled a hand in response. Emmett took the
convertible back to sixty.

 
          
“The
trouble with Mr. Ford,” he said after a pause, “the trouble with Mr. Ford is,
he made too damn many cars looking just alike.”

 
          
The
girl did not answer. After a little she drew her arm across her face and looked
at the wet smudge on the sleeve of her jacket. She pulled down her skirt and,
opening her purse, found a comb and began to comb her hair.

 
          
Emmett
said, “The way I figure it, that sheriff has two choices. He can get on the
phone and throw out a dragnet or whatever you call it; or he can get in his
car, hoping to catch us being smart and cagey. If he starts calling around we
haven’t got a chance. This car sticks out like a sore thumb. If he’s going to block
the roads he’ll have the bus depots and railroad stations watched. We could
crawl into a hole somewhere and hide for a day or two, maybe, but in the end he’d
get us; and we’d still be in Lane County, Nebraska.” He was silent a moment,
busy with driving. It was a little like steering a sled down a sleeted city
street. The car had no real grip on the washboard ruts of the road. Then he
said, “You understand, Nicholson, you’re going to have to talk to the police.
In fact, I’m damn well going to see that you talk to them. Don’t kid yourself a
moment that I’m worrying one little bit about what happens to you.”

 
          
“Don’t
be formal,” she said. “Call me Ann.” There was an edge of dislike to her voice.

 
          
He
glanced at her. “You’re going to talk to the police, and I’m going to be the
man who turns you over to them. You understand? I don’t care if you’re innocent
as the Virgin Mary. I don’t care if you’ve got a face like the Mona Lisa and
legs like Marlene Dietrich. I don’t care how much money you’ve got in your purse
or what you care to offer as a bonus. I want to make everything clear: I don’t
know what this is all about, but I’m not going to be an accessory to anything,
at any price. I lost my head back there. I was all set to help him get you
inside, carrying you if necessary, but when he hit you, something slipped. Don’t
count on its slipping again. It’s not going to. I’m a peaceful, law-abiding
professional man with an MS in chemistry, and all I want is to get to
Bakersfield
and take up my job with no police or sheriffs
looking for me. As soon as we get some place where I can approach the law
without getting hell beat out of me…”

 
          
He
stopped talking and they watched a car, dragging dust behind it, converge on
them from the left along a road that crossed the road they were on a mile
ahead. As they came closer they saw that it was a large maroon coupe with
chromium trim that glinted in the sunshine. It passed ahead of them and went on
across the plain to the right. Its dust still lay over the intersection as they
crossed.

 
          
“As
for the sheriff,” Emmett said, “I’m hoping that he’s mad as hell. If he’s mad
enough he won’t want anybody but himself to catch us. He’ll maybe notify
somebody down the highway that he thought he saw us pass and to stop us if we
go that way. Then he’ll get in his car and start driving around looking for us,
hoping that we’ll try to be clever. He can’t turn out the countryside without
admitting that he had us and let us get away; and if he gets the state police
and a couple of other counties in on it there’ll be so much publicity that he
won’t be able to touch me if he does catch us, and somebody else may get us
first. So what I hope is that he’ll tear up the roads looking for us and then,
hoping that we’ve tried to be smart, go back to town and check all the garages
and hotels in case we’ve doubled back… And then, I rather expect, when he doesn’t
find us, he’ll give the kid deputy a black eye to make him keep his mouth shut,
get drunk, and go home and beat up his wife and anybody else who happens to be
handy.”

 
          
Ann
Nicholson had powdered her nose and defined her mouth neatly with clear red
lipstick. She looked at herself in the mirror and closed the purse.

 
          
“Isn’t
that,” she asked, “just wishful thinking? After all, he’s an officer, he’ll
have to, sooner or later, notify—”

 
          
“Why?”
Emmett demanded. “Nobody knows about it but us and the kid. We certainly aren’t
going to admit that we resisted arrest and assaulted an officer of the law. And
the kid isn’t apt to shoot his mouth off around town. And the sheriff isn’t so
fond of the
Chicago
police that he’s going to get himself
laughed about just to catch them a material witness… He’s worrying about Lane
County, Nebraska, not
Chicago
,
Illinois
.”

 
          
“You
don’t know that,” the girl said.

 
          
“No,”
Emmett said. “But I’ll damn soon find out.” The car hit a curve and shot around
it, the rear end whipping as the tires skidded in the loose gravel. “I’ve
always hated these damned convertibles,” Emmett said grimly. “I saw one once
that had rolled over with five people in it. Quite a mess.”

 
          
Ann
Nicholson shivered as the car trembled, skating over the washboard ruts left by
the graders.

 
          
“Damn
flashy job that anybody can spot three miles off,” Emmett said bitterly.

 
          
“My
father wasn’t aware that I was going to be running from the police when he gave
it to me for my birthday.”

 
          
“Just
one measly convertible for your birthday?” Emmett said. “Not even a Cadillac?
You must have felt downright neglected… My Dad bought me a bicycle for my
birthday once.”

 
          
“Please
don’t be childish,” Ann Nicholson said.

 
          
They
watched a car swing onto the road a mile ahead. When they caught up to it, it
had a delivery truck body and Kansas license plates.

 
          
A
man in a Stetson hat was reading the Sunday comics in the hotel lobby as they
came in. The clerk behind the desk was in shirtsleeves and there was
perspiration on his bald head. Emmett signed the register: Mr. and Mrs. John E.
Emmett, Chicago, Illinois, making the address agree with the license plates of the
car. He was aware of the girl beside him, watching as he wrote it down.

 
          
“That’ll
be four-fifty for a double room with bath,” the clerk said. He sounded ready to
make a deal.

 
          
“That’s
all right,” Emmett said.

 
          
He
took Ann Nicholson’s arm and they followed the boy with the bags into the
elevator. On the fourth floor they got out and followed the boy down a long dim
corridor, around a corner, and into a fairly large, barren room, the most
obtrusive piece of furniture in which was a large iron double bed. The air of
the room had the stagnant heat of a summer cottage that had not yet been opened
for the season.

 
          
The
boy set down the bags, raised the shade, and strained at the window until it
opened with a crash. The room looked better with sunlight entering it, but the
open window did not make it perceptibly cooler. The boy opened the bathroom and
closet doors, arranged the suitcases neatly, and set the aluminum rod case
carefully in a corner of the closet, while Emmett and the girl stood stiffly,
watching him. Emmett thought that they must look very much like lovers waiting
to be left alone. He squirmed out of the strap of his camera case and put the
camera on the dark ornate dresser that looked as if it had crossed the plains
in a covered wagon and had not been refinished since. The top was ringed with
yellow liquor stains, partially concealed by a paper doily, upon which stood
two glasses and an empty pitcher.

 
          
“Did
you put the car in the shade?” Emmett asked the boy. What he wanted to ask was,
had the car been put where it could not be seen from the street.

 
          
“Yes,
sir. The parking lot’s got shade most of the afternoon.”

 
          
“Well,”
Emmett said, “see if you can scare up half a dozen cokes and some ice.” He
relinquished a five-dollar bill.

 
          
“Yes,
sir.”

 
          
He
watched the boy leave, wondering what there was about the kid that recalled
something unpleasant; then he realized that the boy had freckles. He was almost
as freckled as the sheriff of Lane County, Nebraska.

 
          
When
the door had closed, Ann Nicholson walked slowly towards the bed, pushing the
damp hair back from her face. Her pale satin blouse looked like a rather grubby
boy’s shirt, dust-stained, with the sleeves rolled up and the collar open; it
was quite wet across the back and shoulders where she had been in contact with
the cushions of the car. Her black purse and shoes, even streaked with dust,
looked incongruously dressy against the damp open-necked blouse, and the
smudged, badly rumpled skirt of her gabardine suit. She laid the purse aside,
sat down on the edge of the bed, and reached down to push at one shoe until it
fell off to the floor, then, changing her legs around, at the other. Then she
sat rubbing her foot in her lap, unaware or too hot and tired to care that her
skirt had worked up to reveal the limp folds of a white silk slip and the tops
of her stockings.

 
          
“Why
did you register like that?” she asked without looking at him.

 
          
“Don’t
get skittish,” he said. “We’ll be out of here before dark; I just figured we
needed a break while I figured out what I’m going to do with you.”

 
          
She
glanced up. “I thought you were going to turn me over to the police.”

 
          
He
said wryly, “Well, it’s occurred to me that I don’t officially know you’re
wanted, Nicholson. If I take you to a police station they’re going to want to
know where I heard about it, and I don’t want to bring that sheriff into it. He’s
apparently decided to keep his mouth shut since we weren’t stopped on the road.
I don’t want to do anything to make him change his mind.” He saw her smile
involuntarily at his predicament. “That’s all right,” he said grimly. “It’s
funny. You can laugh if you want to.”

 
          
She
stopped smiling. “Just the same, I don’t like it,” she said with weary
distaste. “That man knew perfectly well we weren’t married, and the boy, too.
It makes me feel a little… cheap.”

 
          
He
said, “For a girl wanted by the police, you worry about the damnedest things.”

 
          
“I’m
hungry,” she said after a long pause. “I think I’m going to faint if I don’t
get something to eat pretty soon.”

 
          
“I
doubt it,” he said.

 
          
She
looked up angrily.

 
          
He
said, “You’ll faint if you this and you’ll die if you that and you’ll kill
yourself if you do the other thing.”

 
          
“Do
I really sound like that?” she asked, looking up, startled.

 
          
He
did not want to like her, and he wished she would not persist in showing a
rather likable honesty and directness.

 
          
“Don’t
take it to heart,” he said, and pulled off his tie and threw it at the dresser.
He had changed back to his brown suit in a filling station, hoping to look more
like a young businessman vacationing with his wife. He could feel the
perspiration on his legs scratch stickily by the wool of his trousers as he
moved to the telephone. “What’s the time, please?” He put the instrument down
and set his watch back one hour. “Five thirty-five,” he said. “We gained an
hour back there, somewhere.”

 
          
Ann
adjusted the tiny platinum watch on her wrist. “Where are we?” she asked
without interest.

 
          
“Boyne,
Colorado.”

 
          
“Colorado?”

 
          
“Sure,”
he said. “We left Kansas a couple of hours ago.”

 
          
“I
guess I must have been half asleep,” she said, and looked up at him quickly. “You
must be dead. You didn’t get any sleep at all last night.”

 
          
He
shrugged his shoulders. After a moment he asked, “Do you mind if I look in your
purse?”

 
          
“Yes,
of course I—” She stopped herself and her shoulders sagged a little. “Oh, go
ahead!”

 
          
He
sat down on the bed beside her, she drawing away a little, and opened the
purse, emptied it piecemeal, and sat frowning at the accumulation of
commonplace items on the bedspread. He riffled through the roll of bills to
make sure it contained nothing but bills, glanced in the coinpurse, opened the
expensive compact, and tore the end off a pack of Philip Morris to see that it
contained nothing but cigarettes. He began to replace the things by the
handful.

 
          
“Please,”
she said stiffly. “I’d prefer to put them back myself, if you don’t mind.”

 
          
He
stopped and sat back, studying her face. It was drawn and shiny and tired, and
not very clean. There was not much lipstick left on her mouth, and what there
was seemed to be distributed in small flakes.

 
          
Her
gray eyes found him briefly and looked away. “Would it… would it help any if I
gave you my word that I really don’t know what it’s all about?”

 
          
He
turned away from her and rubbed his eyes. “No.” He got up and walked to the
closet and felt through her jacket, finding nothing but a forgotten wad of
cleansing tissue in one pocket. He took her hat from the shelf and examined it.
She was watching him when he turned around. She licked her lips, rising.

 
          
“Should
I… take my clothes off?”

 
          
Her
eyes challenged him, then they wavered and she looked down, flushing, and began
to slowly unbutton her blouse. He said, “For Christ’s sake, sit down!”

 
          
She
glanced at him uncertainly, and sat down on the edge of the bed. After a time
her fingers fastened up the buttons they had released. There was no triumph in
her face.

 
          
“Why
don’t you tell me what you’re looking for?”

 
          
He
said harshly, “Anything. Anything that’ll make sense of this mess. Any damn
thing at all that’ll tell me how you can be a material witness to a murder you
claim not to know has happened. But,” he said, “I’ll settle for the clipping
the nurse said you carried. About this Kissel you’re supposed to be going to
see. At least I’d know somebody was telling the truth.”

 
          
Ann
lifted her head quickly. “I must say I’m getting a little tired of the way Miss
Bethke…”

 
          
Emmett
did not say anything, and her voice died away. After a while she reached into
her purse, glanced at him through her lashes with a touch of mischief, and
pulled out the mirror and nailfile. With the file she poked beneath the leather
backing of the mirror until she had brought a folded slip of paper within reach
of her fingers. She pulled it out and offered it to Emmett.

 
          
He
said wryly, “Hell, maybe I should stick to chemistry.”

 
          
She
did not smile. He looked down at the clipping. It was one column wide, fairly
long, and had been trimmed neatly with scissors.

 
          
LONG JOURNEY’S END

 
          
Tall,
thin, graying physicist Reinhard Kissel, who walks with a cane as the result of
injuries suffered at the hands of the Gestapo, had waited almost three years to
be allowed to take the final step in a journey which began a few months after
Hitler’s bloodless annexation of Austria. At that time a middle-aged instructor
at Vienna’s Kaisersinstitut, Dr. Kissel slipped across the Swiss border a few
hours ahead of the secret police, charged with disloyal and seditious
utterances against the new regime.

 
          
In
Paris, which he reached some time later, Dr. Kissel was an undistinguished
member of the colony of expatriate intellectuals existing precariously in that
uneasy prewar capital. With the fall of France, however, the tall man with the
harsh voice became an almost legendary figure who for two years improvised
radio equipment in dimly lighted cellars for the use of those who maintained
France’s contact with the outside world. Captured by the Nazis in 1942, Dr.
Kissel was saved from execution by Germany’s desperate need for trained
scientists. After an experience with the Gestapo that left him with a broken
nose and a crippled foot, he was sent into Germany where he was put to work in
a laboratory under heavy guard.

 
          
The
guards knew very little about electricity; Dr. Kissel, a great deal. A
short-circuit in a high-voltage line set the laboratory on fire, and in the
resulting confusion the scientist escaped. He was recaptured and consigned to
the concentration camp at Glaubnitz. The disorganization that preceded the
final collapse of the Nazi regime enabled him to escape a second time. He was
taken into custody as he made his way into the American zone on crutches, his
injured foot never having properly healed.

 
          
Last
week, Dr. Kissel’s three year wait was rewarded. The Department of Immigration
and Naturalization approved his entry into this country. Small but progressive
Fairmount University, near Denver, Colorado, invited him to fill the vacancy in
its physics department left by the retirement of Dr. William O. French.
Accepting, patient Dr. Kissel hoped that the mountain climate would give him
relief from the chronic sinus infections that had plagued him since his beating
at the hands of the Gestapo.