The desperate hours, a novel (15 page)

made up his mind not to try to estimate the number of miles he had walked, how many more lay ahead of him. He wasn't sure, though, that he would make it. Griffin, grinning, had been cruelly specific: "No cabs, Pop. Walk it. Do you good."

All along, from the first few minutes when Glenn Griffin had brought the barrel of his gun whipping down on his shoulder, Dan had been aware of the sadistic strain in the young convict. This ugly warping was deep in him, stronger even than his judgment or his need to escape. He wanted revenge; he was going to have murder committed by paying for it with the money that was in the mail, on its way to Dan's office. This held him in town, kept him in Dan Hilliard's home. Some police officer, who was probably unaware of Glenn Griffin's general whereabouts, who had perhaps forgotten Glenn Griffin completely, had been marked for death because of some old twisted grudge in the boy's mind.

The whole idea of revenge had been foreign to Dan Hilliard, not a part of his nature at all—until now. Now he comprehended, even while loathing, the twist in the young criminal. He understood because he himself had begun to feel the same dark urge. While it was still uppermost that he get those men out and away from his family, Dan Hilliard, his chest aching and each step driving shocks of pain up his legs and into his groin, became acutely aware for the first time that he wanted to see Glenn Griffin dead—dead for death's own sake as well as for the safety of his family.

It was this realization, as he forced one leg forward, planted it, then lifted the other, that added the last tightening to his unreal, walking nightmare. Whether it came an hour from now or ten years, he wanted to see Glenn Griffin dead.

Then why not now? Why not tonight and get it over with? Get a gun, conceal it, walk in the house, draw it, shoot.

Eleanor's pale face drifted at him across the blackness again. Dan, I'm pleading with you. Promise me, Dan, darling, promise me. 

He sagged against the stone buttress of the bridge looking ahead, picturing the dark wet miles ahead, asking, in a whisper, "What can I do, Ellie? I promised, but you don't know, dear. You don't see what I see."

He was under a garish street lamp that cast his shadow before him. He caught a glimpse of the slump-shouldered figure of himself, outlined darkly on the wet pavement, small-looking and shriveled. He frowned and, with great effort, twisted his head to make sure that he was staring down at his own shadow. He was. He was alone on that bridge.

He straightened, his breath a turning blade in his chest, and plunged forward again. At this moment headlights swept toward him, approaching from behind. A car careened by, a young girl's face appeared in the rear window, and a boyish voice echoed back at him as the car gathered speed and continued on: "Have another drink, old man."

Dan missed a step. They thought he was drunk. He didn't blame them. He wanted to smile. He envied those kids; he even loved them. All the safe people, unfrightened, living their unknowing lives.

He hit the rhythm again: one foot, then the other. He found that if he swung his legs forward, attaining a certain balance, he didn't drive the shafts of burning pain so high up into his body.

Without warning, then—he didn't even see the flash of headlights—a car screamed to a stop across the gleam of dark pavement. It looked familiar in a misty sort of way, as Dan stared at it. The police? A giddiness rose in him. They might lock him up for being drunk. Drunk! But when the door opened and a man stepped out and strode across toward him, he thought only that he must run. He had no strength or breath in him, but he knew that he should turn and run through the streets, down alleys, behind garages, anything, anywhere, rather than let this man reach him. He couldn't move.

"Mr. Hilliard. Let me take you home."

Dan recognized the voice, and finally, by peering through the three feet of dimness that separated them now, he put the voice to a face. Chuck Wright.

Incredibility struck him; he went hollow and empty, staring.

"Come on, sir, I'll give you a lift."

Dan didn't reply. The impossibility of the encounter still held him and he was without wDl as he crossed the damp pavement, opened the door of the car and sUd into the seat. The leather was cold, penetrating to the chill inside him; but the seat was soft, incredibly soft and giving, and he lowered his body into it with gratitude only slightly edged with the knowledge that somehow, in some way, he had made or was making a horrible mistake.

He closed his eyes then, and for a long time—he had no idea how long—he gave himself over to the luxury of softness and the close warmth of the car. Blankness.

The young man's voice lifted him from it. "I'll have to know now, you see," Chuck Wright was saying.

Dan opened his eyes reluctantly. Chuck Wright drove a miniature sports car of foreign design. This was a larger car.

"I'm going to take you home and go mside, Mr. HilUard, and one of you—you or Cindy—is going to tell me what gives."

Behind the level flatness of the boy's voice, even while he heard the words, Dan felt this other, somehow more vital question working its way up in him.

"I'll do anything I can to help, sir. You're in some kind of trouble, aren't you?"

Then the question took a double-shadowed shape: Why was Chuck driving this car and where had Dan seen it before?

"No trouble," Dan said, and his voice, in the canvas-enclosed interior of the car, sounded normal, absurdly normal. "Is this your car?"

"My father's, I borrowed it."

"Why?"

Chuck shrugged. "Carburetor on mine's acting up."

A lie, Dan Hilliard's mind cried, with renewed alertness. He had it now. This large car, a convertible, was the one that had followed him earlier, the one he'd eluded back there before he crossed the river in the gray sedan. Chuck Wright had been following him then. Why?

"If you don't want to talk, sir, it can wait till we get to your house."

The significance of the young man's intention struck Dan for the first time then. What did the boy know? How much had he guessed? And what would it mean? Of one thing Dan was staunchly certain: Chuck Wright must be prevented, at all costs, from taking him all the way home.

Dan was tempted to close his e)'es again, to stretch his knotted muscles, pushing aside everything. He had done his part. He had done everything within his power. Wasn't it only fair now that he should have these few minutes of blankness?

But even as he thrust the temptation aside—with an effort summoned from some deep recess of his character that he had not known existed in him—a slyness took over his thoughts. The boy wanted an explanation. He had to have one. He was stubborn and he would go into the house and demand to know what this was all about. Very well, then Dan would give him an explanation.

The idea came to him from nowhere. "You haven't got a little drink on you, have you?" Dan asked.

He heard the abrupt catch of breath; he watched covertly the young man's rather blunt-looking profile as the lips opened, then closed, then opened again.

"Not a drop," Chuck Wright said quietly.

Dan was careful not to let his words blur. "Damnation," he said. "Thought you were the drinking type. Chuck. You never know, do you? Can't make snap judgments, can you?"

"No, you can't," Chuck agreed thinly, an incongruous disapproval replacing the surprise in his tone.

"Shows to go you," Dan said. "Tell you what, Chuck, old

fellow—now that you're into my little family secret, y'see, you can skip taking me home. Just drop me off at that liquor store in Broad Ripple and I'll walk rest of the way."

"Anything you say, Mr. Hilliard."

"Not shocked, are you. Chuck? You won't hold it against Cindy, will you, fellow? Man in my position . . . discreet. I'm always discreet about it. Notice the neighborhood I was in tonight? Nobody knows me there, of course. Nice people, though. Can't afford to be snobbish." He halted himself, for fear of going too far. He had made his point; the effect was in young Wright's set face and manner.

But what had he forgotten? His mind wasn't working properly. Something

Then it came to him, in the long silence, and he spoke again, minutes later: "Lost my car tonight. Parked it in front of a bar. Thought I did. Gray car." In what he vaguely hoped was a man-to-man manner, he lowered his voice: "Own private car, y'know. For own private pleasures. You sure you don't have a drink?"

"Positive."

After that, more silence as the corners rolled by, the blocks, the miles. Had he covered everything now? Did Chuck believe him?

The stiff and unnatural silence held until Chuck brought the long convertible to a stop along the curb in front of the lighted store in which, only last night, Dan had bought the whisky for Robish.

"It's a long walk from here to your house," Chuck said at last as Dan opened the door.

Long walk? Dan looked back in his mind over the miles he had already walked and those that he had thought he would have to walk, and he choked down a wild giddiness.

Was he making a mistake? Would this competent-looking young man make an ally? If he loved Cindy, as he had practically admitted he did in the office this afternoon

"Wouldn't want to embarrass Cindy, would we, Chuck?" he said in conspiratorial tones, standing on the sidewalk. "Cindy already embarrassed enough about her father. Worried sick. Poor Cindy. Don't hold it against her, Chuck."

"No," said the boy bleakly.

"Won't mention it to her, will you. Chuck?"

"No."

Standing unsteadily but not drunkenly on the sidewalk, hearing Chuck Wright's "Good night," clipped and short—no sir now—Dan felt the weakness clamp down on him again. The torture of those miles and the activity of the night clutched at his legs, dug at the backs of his knees. When the red tailUghts had blurred in the distance, he stepped from the curb, crossed the still-damp street, feeling the sharp bite of wind against his drained face.

A cloud of astonishment filled his brain: Where had the cunning come from? How had he thought to make up that story? And, more important, had he been believed?

Even though he stayed on a dim and untraveled street, walking east, he saw a police car halfway down the second block. He made a turn at the corner and quickened his steps. But the possible meaning of what he saw didn't strike him fully until, three blocks later, he saw another, this one parked alongside a dark ice-cream parlor. A wide white stripe ran down the side of the car, and he made out the words "State Police." This time he almost broke into a run, the impulse a shooting sensation down his legs. The boulevard itself looked deserted.

An awesome urgency drove him forward. Now he had forgotten all physical pain, the gray sedan, the long tormented hike, Chuck Wright. A leaden anguish weighed him down. He pulled his hat lower with a vicious wrench of which he was not even conscious. Bent forward at the waist, lips tight against the compulsion pulling at him, he warned himself, over and over: Don't run. Remember, if they stop you, you're tight. Walking home from the bus. Don't run.

Then, after a moment of blankness, he was, by some miracle, turning into his own driveway. There was a light in the living room. Cindy's car and the family sedan remained in the driveway. The garage door was closed. Nothing moved, inside the house or out. The profound quiet sent him charging the last few yards to the side door.

The living room, beyond the dimness of the sun porch, was deserted. What did it mean? He rattled the door handle.

Silence. Then, in the distance, a train whistle hooted forlornly on the wind.

The hall was only partially in view. He heard himself calling in a whisper. Cindy appeared then, coming across the living room swiftly. He heard her words: "It's Dad."

Still, when she faced him, the door open, he knew that it had not been his approach that had caused the electric tension, the terrible silence.

Cindy was white. Not pale. White. "It's Ralphie," she said, her voice quivering for the first time.

Dan pushed past her, the run breaking through his legs like a wave. . . .

For possibly five seconds Dan Hilliard stood motionless in the hall, held rigid in the shock of stark terror over the nightmare scene before him. He had been expecting something like this for so long that now that it was before him, he had to fight his way briefly through a cloud of stunned incredulity.

He saw Eleanor on the lower steps, her eyes unrecognizable with fright. He heard Cindy pause behind him on the edge of the living room. Glenn Griffin lounged in the dining room doorway across the hall. Dan saw Robish then: the savagely parted lips, the jaundice-colored skin of his face a blackish red now. The big man had been staring up the stairs, but he turned the revolver on Dan as Dan felt a movement go through his body, an impulse that Robish sensed before Dan knew he had moved a half-step.

"Where's Ralphie?" Dan asked.

"Upstairs," Eleanor said quickly. "Sleeping."

Glenn Griffin's dark eyes glinted with mockery. "This time I ought to let Robish handle him. Pop. That kid's going to foul up everything."

"Put that gun away," Dan said in a dry whisper, remembering the parked police cars.

It might have been the whispered tone, or it might have been the squared hulk of Dan's body, very still, very tense; or it might have been the terrible shimmering blackness in Dan's eyes—whatever caused it, Glenn recalled something about this man Dan KQlliard and he took a step toward Robish.

"Forget it, Robish," Glenn Griffin advised, his gaze still on Dan with a narrowing caution—no derision now, no sardonic grin. "The old lady covered it on the phone. That dumb teacher don't suspect a thing."

It occurred to Dan to ask what all this meant, but everything was happening too fast. He saw Robish lower the gun then, almost automatically; but the downward arc broke. Something came over the brute face; baiBement trembled there, and then there was a hardening of his jaw muscles that spread rigidly down the immense body. "You don't give the orders any more," the heavy voice said. "I got this now." Not so slowly then, he brought the gun up again, and this time it was directed at Glenn Griffin's belt.