Kitten with a whip (20 page)

"What'd you do that for?" Jody complained.

"Might as well both stretch our legs a minute. Still a long drive ahead." He got out stiffly and went around to her side of the car and opened the door for her. She

hesitated, then shrugged and slid out. Her shoulder brushed his chest.

"Somr," she said. "Did I hurt you?"

"No. He told himself, Shes built her own trap. She's pushed me and pushed me, so engrossed in her own ego that she doesnt realize she's followed me into the cage. She doesnt see that my only way out is to destroy her.

Jody stood beside him, looking around, plucking her dress away from her body. "It's hot as all hell," she grumbled. "Ill sure be glad to get away from this lousy weather. Maybe I ought to take off my shp. No, it might blow out of the car. David, the next town we hit, you've got to buy me some kind of a suitcase."

Now, he thought. She's close and unsuspecting, you can have her greedy lying throat in your hands before she knows what's going on. Listen to her jabber about herself. She'll probably think when you first touch her that you're trying to embrace her and by the time she gets the idea ...

Embrace.

The word blazed up in his mind with the startling light of an incendiary bomb. We first endure, then pity, then embrace. His sweat turned cold as he saw what he was about to do. This same night, in his civilized posture of superiority, he had promised himself that he might both pity and endure evil but that he would never embrace it. He would never descend to Jody's level to prowl among the beasts. Yet now, only a few hours later, he was reaching out for evil with both of his hands.

The picture came clear and he still couldn't believe it was nis image in it. There stood David Patton, good citizen and good guy, a mere arm's length from being a murderer. Was this what two days with Jody had reduced him to—acting in imitation of her shabby soul? Once he did, he would never be whole again. He would be part of her.

No, he begged himself to listen, I won't let that happen. Jody's paths have nothing to do with mine. I woke uv, I turned back in time. I'll do my best to be proud of that much, no matter what happens later on.

The fear, the knowledge of how close he had come

to the pit, made him suddenly weak. He grabbed hold of the open door, afraid he might fall. Jody peered at him closely in the dashboard glow. lou really are shook," she decided. "Better get back in. Your face is all white."

He obeyed and she took his place behind the wheel. He watched as she investigated the controls, started the car eastward again in a spurt of pebbles. She would never guess how near she had come to an unmarked grave in the wilderness and he would never tell her. Perhaps she had just gotten, all unknown, one of those couple of big breaks mat she was counting on to make her rich and famous. At any rate, it would be his secret, a warning-bell of a secret for him to carry the rest of the way through life.

He no longer had any doubt about what he was going to do. It was as if the first answer had been a mirage to pass through on the way to the truth. He saw clearly now that when they reached Mexicali, he would turn her over to the poHce. Her and himself as well, for he had a bill to pay, too. And afterward? Well, he'd just have to brace against the shocks as they came. Better to wreck his life—and maybe later patch it up—then desert it altogether. He*d been tough enough to fight clear of this other evil so maybe he a be tough enough to stand up and take his medicine.

Not maybe. Of course.

His mind reUeved, he let his head loll back against the seat, relaxed. It was good to feel the tensions drain away. Tecate appeared before them, not a Ught showing, and feU behind. He closed his eyes and let himself sail through the night. He heard the smooth roar of the engine as Jody pressed harder on the accelerator, rocketing them toward their goal. David began to doze immediately.

He was dreaming, a long ago boyhood dream about being left alone in his room in the dark, when a sudden swerve of the car brought him wide awake. In a flash of time, his brain registered a spinning kaleidoscope of impressions, none of them making sense. Out of his dream a monster shape loomed over them, a truck with no headhghts, hurtling at them on the wrong side of

the road. He heard Tody scream, "Oh God, I didn't see it comingl" He heard the wail of the tires as she tried to brake. There came a moment of terrible noise in which all motion seemed to halt. And then he was falling, spiraling down into the moist hot black.

Chapter Eighteen

His first sensation was the coolness, the hot spell had finally broken. He was squinting up at a ceiling, regular squares of gray soundproofing material. He tried fuzzily to reconcile it with the roof of his station wagon but the effort was too much. He slipped back to sleep, wondering what he was dreaming.

When he awoke again, the ceiling was still there but in better focus. Now he could grasp that he was in a room. Not home, an unfamiliar room. An air conditioner outlet purred in one comer of the ceiling, keeping him cool despite the dim rectangles of sunHght against the closed blinds. He tried to sit up, find out where he was, but the effort sent a burst of pain exploding through his body and he whimpered.

A face slid immediately into his field of vision, a softly

molded face framed in neat dark hair. The compassionate

eyes gazed down on him and the lips smiled tenderly.

Virginia?'' he asked. His voice came out of his dry

throat as a croak.

"Hi, honey," she murmiured. "You sure you're awake?"

"Virginia?"

"Yes, darling." She held a glass of water before him and he kept ms eyes on her while he sipped through the bent glass tube. He was desperately afraid she woiild vanish. He groped out a hand and she took it. The warm famiHar pressure of her fingers reassured him. "Don't go away," he pleaded.

'Tm right here, David. I've been here all the time. You're not supposed to worry about anything. Mrs. Clark, next door, is keeping Katie for us and everything's all right."

He held tight to her hand and stared slowly around, taking in more of his surroundings. The high bed on which he lay between guard railings, the unHghted

night-lamp above him, the sterile looking furniture —it came to David then that this was a hospital and that he was a patient. "Where?" he managed.

"You were in the Tijuana hospital first but you don't remember that. As soon as I got home, the police called. They'd been phoning half the night. Oh, darling, I was worried sick. They arranged for an ambulance to bring you back to San Diego. That was about noon."

Noon. Then it must be Monday, nearly twelve hours since . . . His memory came awake in a rush, the terrifying instant of the juggernaut towering over him, the crash, the dizzy sensation of plunging into emptiness. "The truck," he said. "On the wrong side of the road—"

"I know. It must have been horrible. But it's all over now." Virginia gently freed her hand. "I'd better buzz for the nurse. She wanted to know when you woke up.

He watched her push the button dangling from a cord. It's all over now. That meant he had miraculously survived the head-on high-speed colhsion. He was ahve and safe. He tried to look at his body but he couldn't see much except the sheet drawn up to his shoulders, and he couldn't summon enough strength to push it off. But he had to know. "How am I doing?" he asked. "Anything left of me?"

"You're doing fine, honey, reaUy. I talked to the doctors and they said you weren't baa off at aU, considering. You're awfully bruised and this arm is broken and maybe a couple of ribs, but that's all. Of course, you won't be much of a handball player for a while." She was speaking hghtly as if amused., but all at once her face contorted and she dabbed angrily at her eyes with her handkerchief. "Oh, David, when I think what could have happened! You could have been killed!"

"Can't kill me," he assured her weakly. "Too tough. A way out of everything."

*No, it's all my fault." She seized his hand with both of hers. The handkerchief was damp through and he realized how much she had been crying before he became conscious. It made him want to cry himself, the proof that he was loved that much. Virginia said, her words running together, "I never should have left you.

Mother wasn't that ill. She's just got to get it through her head that my place is with you, now and forever. If I'd been home you wouldn't have gone running oflF to Tijuana and gotten into all this trouble. I promise I'll never leave you again, darling, I promise that."

All this trouble . . ^ Even while he was shaking his head so Virginia wouldn't think it was her fault, it occurred to David that she hadn't said one word about Jody. Surely, she must know the whole story now. Where was Jody? What had happened to her? He was afraid to ask and afraid not to. Cautiously, he murmured, "What about . . ."

He had almost decided to say "the others" when Virginia misinterpreted his hesitation. "The car? They tell me it's pretty much of a wreck. But don't worry about that either, David. The insurance will cover it, and they already know that the truck's headlights were burned out."

So he still didn't know. Before he could explore the subject further, the door pushed open and a middleaged nurse breezed in, imposing and cheery. "Well, so we finally decided to come to! How are you feeling, Mr. Patton?" Her voice rang out as if he were dear or a child.

"I guess I'll live."

"That's the spirit." She took his pulse and nodded. "Fine, fine. You'll be up and aroim.d in no time."

'We feel very lucky," Virginia said. "When you think what it might have been."

"That's the truth." The nurse bent over David, closely scrutinized his eyes. "Feel up to having another visitor, Mr. Patton? We don't want you tiring yourself out but this man from the poHce department has been waiting to talk to you."

Here it comes, David thought. His head began feehng heavy on the pillow and his heart jogged faster and faster. He could see the sheet move with each pounding beat. He had survived the accident; he told himself he must be grateful and have guts enough to face the consequences. But he was so very tired—and frightened. "Nurse," he began and then bit his lip. There was no use putting off the inevitable. "No, I'll see him."

"You don't have to," Virginia said. 'There's no rush."

*1 want to get it over with/* he said with dogged weariness. "I have to eventually/*

The nurse sailed out. He waited limply for the policeman to appear, watching the door through the foot railing of his bed. He couldn*t keep his thoughts straight. How much could they do to him? Was there any way out of it? Courage was a splendid thing, David realizeo, but a man needed at least a minimum of physical strength to keep it binning brightly. He felt burned out.

The detective came in, a bronzed and hefty young man in. a brown tropical suit. He introduced himself as Ehlers and pulled up the extra chair. And he apologized for the intrusion, which David found strange considering the circumstances. "Won't bother you very long, Mr. Patton. Just want to check out what we already know about what happened."

"Rea]ly, he*s very weak," Virginia told Ehlers coldly.

"No," David contradicted her. "Where do you want me to start, Mr. Ehlers?"

"Sergeant," Ehlers informed him, getting out his notebook. "You just hsten and tell me if we got anything wrong. Now—you were heading east along Mexican Highway Two between Tijuana and Mexicah, about two o*clock, right? And just the other side of Tecate, coming over a rise, you rammed into the hay truck. Any idea of your speed?"

Tm afraid not. You see, I was—"

"WeU, it doesn't make much difference. It was the truck's fault all the way. No lights, wrong side of the road. The guy was probably loaded on vino, maybe even asleep. We'll never know for sure." A few more innocuous questions, and Ehlers flipped his notebook shut. "This report is for the Tijuana police, understand? So there won't be any kickback on you later. We like to keep our citizens in the clear." He grunted to his feet, as if ready to depart.

David looked up at him anxiously, without any comprehension at all. Why hadn't Jody been mentioned? Didn't Sergeant Ehlers understand that he was ready to confess the whole works? There was no need to try to trap him. "But what about the rest of it?"

"There isn't any more, at least not as far as you're

concerned. Oh, you mean the two in the truck? They're both dead, of course, but that*s not your worry."

David shook his head, straining to make out the sense of it. '*There were two in the truck?"

''Yeah. The Mexican farmer and the girl he had riding with him. The three of you were scattered all over the highway. A lucky thing for you, getting thrown clear. That wagon of yours was sure flattened.'' Ehlers grinned, started for the door, turned back. "Kind of a comic thing. About the girl . . ."

David tensed. "Yes?"

"Well, you know what they say about an ill wind. Your bad luck was our good luck. This girl—she made it across the border and we might never have caught up with her if it hadn't been for the accident. Maybe you read about her in the papers, teenage kid who Dusted out of Juvenile Hall the other night."

David didn't reply. He stared fixedly at Ehlers, fascinated.

"Her name was Jody Drew. That ring a bell? She was a real Httle—" Ehlers glanced at Virginia and didn't say what Jody was. "Anyway, she'd been hiding out in a motel down in Tijuana with her husband. We didn't even know she was married, but she was. The upshot was, she and her husband had a fight and she killed him, knifed him in the back. Then, as far as we can figure it, she panicked. She got a ride east somehow, changed her mind and started hitchhiking back to Tijuana in the hay truck when she finally ran out of luck. No good reason for her running one way, then turning back, but she was a pretty erratic character all around." He shrugged.

"She's dead," David murmured.

"We're just as happy. I didn't teU you, she came near to cutting a matron to death when sne broke out of the Hall. Nobody's going to miss her." Ehlers touched his hatbrim in Virginia's direction. "Well, Mr. and Mrs. Patton, I got to run along and wrap up the paper work on this thing. Hope the questions didn't wear you out too much."