The desperate hours, a novel (3 page)

"Sorry to bother you, ma'am," he said in a voice that was almost a whisper, "but I guess I've lost my way. I'm trying to get to the Bulliard Dairy. I know it's in the neighborhood, but "

Then he stopped, and now he was looking over her shoulder into the sun-streaked front hall. The smile remained on his face, but a subtle alteration took place around the edges of his mouth, a tightening that froze the smile. Involuntarily, she turned.

After that, everything happened so fast and with such cool mechanical precision that she was paralyzed, mind and body, and that numb helplessness must have been what carried her safely through the next few minutes.

She heard the door behind her open, felt the knob hard against her ribs, then heard it close. The older man, who must have entered through the back door, turned from her and stomped up the stairs. A third man, much younger, who wore 19

the same strange gray-green garb as the big fellow, appeared in the dining-room door, then walked swiftly, lightly through the entire downstairs section of the house, opening doors, closing them. Eleanor saw, without really comprehending, the black gun in the hand of the young man in overalls who remained with her in the hall. She thought of the small automatic upstairs, concealed in the coil of spring under Dan's bed. She felt then a scream accumulating, powerful and uncontrollable, in her parched, locked throat.

"Take it easy, lady," the young man beside her advised softly. "Take it easy. You open your mouth, your kid'll come home from school and find your body."

She could feel her mind take hold, with a sharp click in her brain, as of a switch thrown. Instead of screaming, she lifted her hand to her mouth and bit down hard on the back of it, so hard that she tasted blood. But the scream was choked off in the back of her aching throat.

The boyish man returned, not looking at her, and said, "All clear down here, Glenn." Without another word, or even a nod from the one called Glenn, the youngster turned and went through the dining room toward the kitchen.

Eleanor heard the back door open and close and then a motor grind over in the driveway. Only then, after he had left the room, the boy's voice reached her—young, casual, subdued. He might have been one of Cindy's young admirers speaking. The naturalness of that voice in the hurricane-center of nightmare filled her with an incongruous terror that not even the gun had aroused. Outside, she heard a familiar sound: the garage door descending on the metal runners that needed oiling.

Then, in the silence, the middle-aged man came down the stairs; he carried one of Dan's suits flung over one arm. His animal-like face wore an expression that might have denoted pleasure, but his yellowish-green eyes, lost between the slits in

the bulbous pouches, seemed as depthless and opaque as marbles.

"Nobody home but the missus," the man reported.

Staring at Dan's tweed suit, Eleanor thought of her husband. Big, calm, reserved, never roused to anger. Even in the swift flood of panic and disgust—as she saw the older man's eyes crawl hungrily over her—the thought of Dan calmed her.

"Get in there, Robish," Glenn Griffin said, "and keep an eye open out front."

Robish, pulling his eyes from her, followed the order and went into the hving room and dropped himself into the large chair half-facing the wide front windows. He uttered a huge sigh. The back door opened and closed again. All three of them were in the house, the car concealed in the Hilliard garage.

"Now," said the one named Glenn. "Now, Mrs. Hilliard. We got a phone call to make, you and me. I guess you got the idea now. I guess you know what'll happen, you let go with anything fishy while you're talking. Case not, though, listen. We're playing for keeps. We don't want to hurt nobody, specially kids. But when the little guy who owns that bike out there gets home . . ."

"What do you want me to do?" Eleanor asked.

Glenn Griffin grinned again. "Smart little lady. Hope the whole family's smart as you, Mrs. Hilliard. Now."

Leaning against the telephone table, Eleanor listened to the very explicit, low-toned directions. Then she picked up the phone, dialed Long Distance and for the first time noticed the strange bloody tooth marks on the back of her hand. She gave the operator a number that she knew she should remember but could not. A number in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania . . .

"Pittsburgh!" Jesse Webb uttered an oath and stood up from his desk after talking to Carson, the young FBI man assigned to the case. "They've located Helen Lamar."

Tom Winston, catching the explosive note of disappointment and defeat, didn't turn from his desk. "They got her?"

"She checked out over an hour ago. Why? Nobody knows. She just came in suddenly and checked out. They're still questioning the hotel people, but as far as they can dope it, she didn't receive a phone call, anything. At least not at the hotel. She'd be too smart for that, figuring we might be watching. If Griffin called her, they used somebody in between." He was striding up and down in the office, hands jammed into his pockets, head shot forward. "But maybe he didn't have to call. They could have it all timed. Hell, they think of these things, smart rats like that. Now you know where that leaves us, Tom? I'll tell you. Nowhere. That leaves us with a license number and the description of a car. A car they'll ditch soon enough, but they're taking their time on that, too. No trail. Three eggs like that can't melt into the ground, for God's sake!" He sat down abruptly and cracked the top of the desk with his fist. "Tom, where the hell is that car?"

All through the endless afternoon Eleanor HiUiard's mind returned again and again to the dust-covered gray sedan parked in the garage.

Ralphie arrived home at 3:30, but he didn't notice the closed garage door. She detained him in the living room, speaking swiftly and firmly. She had a terrible headache, she said; she had to have absolute quiet all afternoon; she was sorry, but he would have to go out and play until suppertime and he was not to come back until then. No, he didn't have to

change his clothes, not today. But Ralphie was hungry—as usual. Then he was to go to the drug store, get a sandwich; she gave him the money. Puzzled at his mother, who never before had complained of a headache, but pleased at the chance to buy a drug-store sandwich on his own, Ralphie climbed on the bicycle and went spinning down the boulevard.

"Nice work, lady," Glenn said, replacing his gun in his pocket.

She looked at him without expression, feeling nothing now but the hard stone in the pit of her stomach. "If you keep eating up everything, I'll have to shop before supper."

"I got a few more questions now, Mrs. Hilliard."

Then the process started all over again. The questions . . . This daughter, this Cynthia, what time did she get home from work? Did she drive her own car? Was she ever late? Okay then, just let her walk in.

"You won't have to do a thing but keep quiet, see."

If Cindy saw the garage door at all, she did not stop to question why it was closed. At 5: i8 she brought the coupe to a halt in the driveway, leaped out, and came into the living room through the sun porch. Eleanor was sitting stiff and still on the sofa. Glenn was standing, his ankles crossed casually, by the television set; the gun was in his hand. Robish was in the small combined library-den in the rear of the house, with the door between it and the long living room standing open. Eleanor could see him watching the driveway through the side windows. She knew that the young one, named Hank, was still in the kitchen, his eye on the back yard, listening to the news reports on the small radio.

Cindy burst in, in that way she had, always a little breathless lately, her checked coat flying, her hair flowing behind her. When she caught sight of her mother, she stopped, her hazel-flecked blue eyes snapping around the room, remaining a split second on Glenn Griffin.

Glenn grinned. "Come right in, redhead." 23

Before Eleanor realized that Cindy had moved, the girl whirled and started to retrace her steps, running this time.

"'Okay," Glenn Griffin said easily, but his voice lifted, "we still got your old lady, sis."

Robish burst in from the den as Cindy's step faltered at the sun-porch door. She turned, slowly, catching sight of Robish then, the big man planted in the center of the room, and, dismissing him instinctively, she faced Glenn Griffin, who had not moved a muscle.

"That's better, redhead," the tall young man said, grinning. "Now you're being real sensible." As his eyes flicked over her, the grin faded.

Cindy did not wilt, or go slack, or in any way indicate that she was terrified. She moved her feet one small inch farther apart and glared. "What do you want?"

"Spitfire, too." Surprise colored his tone. "Not sensible hke your old lady." Without taking his gaze from the girl, Glenn said, "Robish, get back to the window. The old guy's going to be pulling in any minute."

"I need a gun," Robish said.

"Get back there," Glenn Griffin told him, still not glancing at him, dismissing him.

"You think you can "

"Now."

Robish stayed only a second longer; then he turned about and disappeared into the gathering shadows of the den.

"Sit down, redhead," Glenn said, his voice hushed a httle. "Sit down and let me explain the facts of life. With that hair, you might feel like getting real brave. You can do that, just about any time you feel like it. You might even get away with it, not get hurt at all. But that's not saying what'll happen to the old lady ... or the kid brother ... or the father. We're waiting for him now, see, so take off your coat and sit right down in that chair."

Without in any sense suggesting that she was following an order—without, in fact, removing her coat as commanded but glancing at Eleanor with a hint of a reassuring smile that failed to come off—Cindy crossed to a chair and sat down. She even lighted a cigarette, steadily, returning the young man's arrogance by simply ignoring his presence.

"How long have these animals been here. Mother?" she asked.

Glenn laughed, a short explosive snort of sound, derisive and ugly.

"I've lost track of time," Eleanor said. "Some time after noon. Cindy . . ." She had meant to voice a warning, but she stopped herself. "There's another one in the kitchen."

"In other words," said Cindy, blowing smoke, "the house is crawling with them."

Eleanor was watching Glenn Griffin's face at that moment, and she felt a tightening of her own terror; a hand clenched her heart. The young man's face, a faint unhealthy jaundiced pallor at all times, went icy white, colorless, and the flesh around his even white teeth drew back into a stiff grin. He seemed to stand there undecided for a long time, perhaps half a minute; then, soundlessly, he turned and, in that graceful feline glide of his, he walked into the hall and through the dining room toward the muffled chatter of the radio in the kitchen.

There he remained until the sound for which Eleanor's nerves had been tensed reached her.

"Griffin!" Robish barked from the den.

Glenn Griffin materialized again. "No lights now, not a word out of either of you. Got that?"

Eleanor nodded dumbly.

"Got that, redhead?"

Cindy had her eyes fixed on the wall beyond Glenn Griffin's poised body as he stood in the hall doorway. She seemed to look through him as though he were glass, or simply not present at all. Eleanor longed to put out a hand. This couldn't be. This was no time for Cindy's stubborn temper.

"He's trying to open the garage," Robish said. "You want me to grab him now?"

"Not with all those cars going by," Glenn said. "He'll come in." He lifted his voice. "You watching, Hank?"

"He's not coming in this way," the other's voice called from the kitchen.

Again Eleanor felt the scream gathering like some terrible inhuman force in her chest. She listened to the familiar footsteps, brisk and energetic even after a hard day: up the two steps, across the tiled sun porch. This time Glenn did not waste time: he pointed the gun directly at the door, directly at Dan HiUiard.

First, Dan saw his wife—a statue, pale, haggard. He stopped short. The room was filled with the fading blue-gray twilight. Then he saw Cindy, sitting straight, smoking, her small face angry and defiant. At once, he thought of Charles Wright: had Cindy announced something to Ellie? Only then, because there was the faintest sort of shadow movement from the direction of the hall, did Dan see Glenn Griffin. And the pointed gun.

He felt his breath hold, and before anyone could move or speak, although he felt Eleanor straining half out of her chair, he had the whole picture straight and clear. He recalled the news reports on the radio in the car less than fifteen minutes before; he realized he had been a fool for not comprehending as soon as he saw the gray sedan through the windows of the garage. But such a far-fetched thought would not have occurred to him. However, he wasted no time now in bewilderment or amazement or rebellion at the situation as it stood.

Eleanor saw the unnatural redness mounting her husband's craggy face, spreading violent under the tilted hat. Dan's mind, she knew, worked slowly but thoroughly, wasting no time on suppositions, moving straight ahead, but with caution, into whatever faced him. And she wondered, relaxing only a Uttle,

why she had dreaded this moment more than any other of the day. Before Dan spoke, she knew that his would be the first meaningful words that met Glenn Griffin all day.

"I suggest you put the gun away, Griffin," Dan said, "If you fire it, you'll have the whole neighborhood down on you in less than three minutes. The Wallings next door are home, and they'd hear the shot, even with the woods in between. If they didn't, someone driving by would."

The only sound in the dusky room was something between a whimper of hysteria and gasp of relief and gratitude from Eleanor. Dan felt a movement from the direction of the den, but he did not shift his eyes from Glenn Griffin's.

"You try something, mister, you all get it," a heavy, dull voice said from the den, "You dumb, mister?"

"No," Glenn Griffin said, very slowly. "He's not dumb at all, Robish," The odd grin was flickering into place. "He's a smart boy, smarter than we figured, maybe." There was an edge of warning in his quiet tone.