On the Run (18 page)

“The master bedroom is the front east corner?”

“Right above this room, yes.”

“I think we’re through here, Mrs. Pettingill.”

“It’s such a lovely old house.”

“Isn’t it.”

“What will we do next?”

“The exteriors of the Perndell house, if that’s agreeable to you.”

As they were driving away, Mrs. Pettingill said, “Slow down!”

“What is it?”

“That’s him, I bet!”

“Who?”

“The husband. Weiler or Heiler or something. She met him in New York. He must have come on the bus, because that’s Del Barney driving him out here, and Del does taxi work when he’s finished on the mail route.”

Hefton looked back and saw a tall man in a wrinkled grey suit walking from a green car toward the front door of the house.

Judson Heiler sat on the glassed porch with the woman he had been married to. He was nearly forty. He had a big unlined face, mild blue eyes. He shook his head slowly. “I can’t get over it, Paula sweetie. My God, you look lush.”

“What are you going to do?”

“That’s a good question. That’s a very good question. I gave them their five years.”

“Did it have to be five? Did it have to be the whole thing?”

“Honey, it’s dull in there. My God, it’s dull. So every once in a while you have to jack it up a little. They didn’t think it was very funny. And then I had a habit they didn’t like. When anybody shoved me, I shoved back. I don’t like to be touched. You know that. I get annoyed.”

“But what are you going to do?”

“You keep saying that, don’t you? I have fifty-five dollars and an unlimited future. What I do is up to you, I guess.”

“I don’t understand you, Jud.”

“Sweetie, what we got here is a case of moral obligation. I did a lot of thinking. You know what our trouble was? You were trying to make me into somebody else. And I dragged my feet. I talked to the psychologist up there. I fought you, baby. I fought you with bottles and broads. With a bottle I could turn myself into somebody else without any help from you. And become somebody else in the snow job I’d give a woman. I’d lay in their arms and talk about you. I’d talk about my big old wife, and I’d wait for you to punish me. But you’d just go around with your face all pinched up, looking noble and decent and full of suffering, and there I was with all that guilt, and no place to put it.”

“I’m glad you understand. It took me a long time to understand too, Jud.”

“So here I am at long last, baby, saying you win.”

“I don’t understand.”

He shook his head. “Sure you do. I give up. Here is the raw material, and I become just what you want me to be. No dragging the feet. No guilt. If there’s no guilt I won’t have to go looking for punishment by writing bad paper.”

“Jud, you have everything wrong! I wrote to you to come see me so I could tell you that … I wish you well. There’s no hard feelings. That’s all, Jud. I want you to have every happiness.”

He smiled and frowned simultaneously. “Sweetie, you are not tracking. You can’t pull a man down and win your battle and then not pick up the reward. I’m here,
baby. I’m with you. You own me. You bought me the hard way. We go on from here.”

“No, Jud. No.”

He stood up, smiling. “You certainly look gorgeous. Honey, if you want to fight it a little, to save face, that’s okay too. I’ll be around. I’ll be around every day. And I’ll howl outside your window at night. I’ll sing our song. I’m loyal as a dog. I’m the sweet husband for you. And I know you, Paula. You
always
live up to your obligations. And I’m it. Sweetie, you should have gotten married if you wanted to be out of the target area. See you around. I can find my way out.”

As soon as Heiler left, Sid came out onto the porch. Paula ran to him to be held. She was trying to laugh but she couldn’t. “Did you hear him? Did you hear that? Did you ever hear such a crazy thing in your life?”

“He means it.”

“But I don’t want him back! It’s insane.”

“What if I hadn’t come into your life?”

“Well … I guess I would try to help him. I guess it was partly my fault. But I’d never take him back.”

“He’s going to be bothering you after I’ve gone.”

“I can handle it. Really. I can make him understand.”

“Can you? You seem a little shaken up.”

“I’m all right. Really. Only … don’t leave just this minute.”

He kissed her. “I’m going to leave a little before dawn.”

She hugged him with all her strength. “Out of my bed and off into the cruel cold world,” she whispered. “Oh, how I’ll miss you!”

“I’ll take George along with me. I’ll put the rotor back in his car and give you the keys. The pink sheet from the rental outfit is in the glove compartment. Hire some kid to drive it to Syracuse and turn it in and pay for it. They don’t care who brings it back as long as they get their money and their car.”

“Does George know?”

“It’s going to come as a surprise to him.”

She pressed close to him. “Tonight I’m going to give you a lasting goodby, Sid. It will last until I see you again, believe me.” She backed away, flushing. “Now I’ve got to go tell Tom how Jud acted. He’s in there itching to know.”

“I’ll come with you. I want to hear him laugh. He has a very dirty laugh.”

“Sir, you are speaking of my benefactor.”

“I keep forgetting you’re a rich nurse.”

“Not rich,” she said with a smug and knowing smile. “Just terribly comfortable.”

Bertold-Jones-Hefton spent the last few minutes in his room at the Bolton Inn smearing all the areas where he could have left fingerprints. He coated the pads of his fingers with transparent model cement. He left the room at midnight. He paid his bill to a sleepy desk clerk and left an envelope at the desk for Mrs. Pettingill, explaining that he had been called away to do some retakes in the Buffalo area and would be back in several weeks to complete the job in Bolton, assuring her he would get in touch with her at that time, and thanking her for her cooperation. He had typed the note on the old machine available for guest use, typed his most recent name, scrawled a single backhand initial. When he had first arrived, pleading an arthritic stiffness from the long drive, he had talked the clerk into signing him in. So there was only one disguised signature in existence, and that was on the vehicle registration for the used Buick, and if all went well, it was unlikely that would be traced. Even if it was, he did not see how it could do them much good.

He drove away from the center of the village, wearing a dark long-sleeved sports shirt, dark slacks. The village slept. He turned the engine and lights off, drifted for the final hundred yards and put the car into the overgrown driveway of an abandoned house. From there he took the route across the fields behind the houses, the route he had scouted while taking the exterior shots of the two neighboring houses. He circled the Brower house in absolute stealth, gratified to note that the few street lamps were as feeble as he had assumed they would be. Aside from a night light in the room of the dying man, the house was in darkness.

He went to the prepared window, put the tiny pry bar between sill and screen and levered it gently. The hook parted with an almost inaudible ping. But he listened to the silence for a time, his eyes closed, before lifting the screen off the top hooks and setting it aside.

The prepared window made no sound as he eased it up. He went up and over the sill with a single lithe muscular silent movement, then crouched inside, knuckles braced against the hardwood floor, head tilted, listening. Soon he stood up, slid the window back down slowly and silently, by touch fitting the shortened screws back into the holes. He drifted to the front hallway and to the front door and listened again. He unlocked the front door. The latch made a single brisk clack, and once again he waited. He opened it eighteen inches, slid through, pushed the screen open. The spring made a soft pinging sound. He closed the screen door carefully, went back to the window, hooked the screen in place, shoved the bottom of it in against the sill, went silently back and reentered the house by way of the front door. He left the front door barely ajar. After a long pause, he started up the stairs, taking two stairs with each slow step, planting his feet close to the wall where they were less likely to creak.

Paula knew both her men were asleep. She could hear the familiar cadences of the sleep of the old man over the bedside monitor. And Sidney’s breathing had deepened, and his arm felt leaden where it rested across her bare waist. Sleep well, she thought. Be safe. Stay safe for me. You are my dear one. You are my life.

The old man was in a dream. He knew it was a dream and he knew he did not like it. He had been walking down some sort of a tunnel, and he had noticed that it was getting narrower and lower. Now he was forced to crawl on his hands and knees and soon there was not enough room for that, and he had to wiggle along on his belly. But the side walls had begun to brush his shoulders and he knew that if it got any narrower he would be stuck there until this miserable dream ended.

George, in his dream, was heatedly, irritably, impatiently undressing Mitz, eager to get down to that tawny sturdy exotic flesh, but under each garment there was another garment, and as the pile of clothing grew around them, she kept giggling, writhing, making it more difficult.

Jud Heiler sat under a maple tree in the front yard of the dark house across from the Brower house. He shook the bottle and estimated there was a couple of inches left. Did the whole tour, he thought. No hold on me.
Drink if I feel like it. No damn parolee. He took two burning swallows, gagged, and set the bottle aside with exaggerated care.

Over there my true love sleeps. A great big gorgeous broad, full of competence. All ready for taking care. That was the penalty for being strong. God gives you a weak one to take care of. One little divorce can’t interfere with an essentially symbiotic relationship, ducks.

He beamed across at the old house. He thought of her in there all sweet in her bed, and he had a little pang of uncertainty. At first it had been fine, and then it hadn’t been so good, and then he had begun to dread it, and finally it just stopped happening. The psychologist was very understanding. Guilt and anxiety. Psychological impotence.

With no guilt any more and no anxiety any more, it would probably be just as good as in the beginning. If she’d take it a little bit easy until he got used to it. Hell of a vital woman.

He peered into the darkness, thinking he saw some sort of vague and shadowy movement near the front door. He watched, but he didn’t see anything else.

He wondered what he should do. There was a lot of time. The thing to do was serenade her. Make her aware of old Judson out here in the night, singing his heart out. But what was
their
song? Couldn’t remember it. Bad form. Women like the little sweet stink of nostalgia.

He lurched to his feet, accidentally kicked the bottle over, dived for it and saved but about one inch in the bottom. Very wasteful. Very careless. Drink it to save it, lad. He finished it and set the bottle down very neatly and carefully. He brushed his knees off, deciding that in the absence of a special song, any good old song would do. He had the feeling that he was in fine voice.

“Dum dum dum dum. Do re mi fa so.” Lot of resonance in the old pipes.

When the world steadied down a little, he would march over into the yard and try a nice melodic mating call.

In the upper hallway Bertold-Jones-Hefton had oriented himself with the calculated risk of a single sweep of the needle beam of his penlight. So the target
for tonight would be behind the door on the left or the door on the right. Eenie, meenie, miney, moe.

He put his hand on the knob and turned it a fraction of an inch at a time. When he had turned it all the way he pushed and it opened slightly. He listened at the opening and heard no sound of breathing inside. He pulled it shut and released the knob as slowly and cautiously as he had turned it.

He tried the opposite door and found it locked. This made sense to him. The target was a cautious man who knew there was a contract out on him and had nevertheless stayed alive for over two and a half years. He risked a single oblique flash of the tiny light. It was an old-fashioned keyhole. He had come prepared to cope with locks. If the key was in the lock, on the inside, he had a pair of needle-nose pliers, exceptionally thin, with which he could reach in and grasp the key and turn it as readily as it could be turned from the inside. He probed and found the key was not in the lock. His set of master keys and skeleton keys were tape-wrapped to reduce jingle. He found the one he wanted by touch alone, inserted it into the lock, and tested it gently. He felt the tumbler begin to move and exerted a gentle pressure. When he was past the midway point the bolt snapped over with a dismayingly loud sound, bringing his heart up into the base of his throat. After several seconds he put his ear against the door panel, and when he heard the rhythmic rasping snore inside the room, he was able to breathe again.

He took three long minutes to open the door, enter the room and close it again. The room was pitch dark, and he could not risk a light. He went down onto his hands and knees and began to work his way toward the bed, reaching a cautious hand in front of him after every forward movement. The snoring was louder. He skirted a chair and touched what he decided was the foot of the bed. He worked his way along it. When he reached the head of the bed, he straightened up, still on his knees, to make certain from the sounds that there was but one person in the bed. After he had squeezed his eyes tightly shut many times and opened them wide, he was able to achieve just enough night vision to show him the vague
outline of the sleeper. He was on his back, his left side toward Bertold.

When Bertold was certain, he took the silent weapon out of his shirt. It was based on that homely tool of the Japanese assassin—a sharpened length of umbrella rib. But this was a six inch length of slim, superb steel set into a practical, homemade wooden handle, narrower than an umbrella rib, sharp enough to make a minute and almost painless puncture in the skin, but blunted enough to slip between ribs rather than catch in the bone itself.