Suddenly he remembered the cold rush of liquifying gas. Cold was useful, too. It made metal brittle; he’d used that gimmick in a story once. What an idiot not to think of it sooner, now that it counted.
Hastily he fumbled with the small valve, opening it wide, and turning the indicator until the stream was at its chilliest. Then he directed the flow against the middle of the cuffs, watching the steel grow a coating of frost. He let the process continue for several minutes, then shut off the gas, and used all his strength to bring leverage against the frozen metal by wedging the cuffs between the heavy pipe and the side of the tank. With modern steel it might not have worked; with this, success came with almost ridiculous ease. The metal snapped, and he was free.
Morland sprang to his feet, swaying a little from the pull of cramped muscles. He approached the house very catiously, careful not to break a single twig. What he saw through the window almost drove him wild with fury. Kessler had Kathy on his lap. Julie, her face grey and years older, watched in helpless horror. As for the girl, she seemed like an automation worked by wires.
There was an axe among the garden tools. In three strides Morland reached and seized the thing. He’d crash in there and chop the punk to bits; he’d splatter him all over the room; he’d — damned if he would! It was crazy, foolish stuff again. The boy would shoot him dead, and that would be the end for all of them. No; instead lure Kessler out here. But he wouldn’t come; Morland knew that. The boy would merely say, “Come in with your hands up, or I’ll fix the women,” or words to that effect. And Morland would have no choice. That still wasn’t the answer. He had to get him outside without making him suspicious. But how?
Then he had it. The generator. Shut that off, and the lights would go out. Kessler would ask the women, find out about the generator in its little shack, and come out to fix it. Then Morland would be waiting with the axe.
Hurriedly, he went to the shack, but once there, he hesitated, trying to figure all the angles. Would it be better to go up to the highway for help? There wasn’t time; it would take ten minutes to get there, and traffic was light on a week night. Lord knows how soon he’d find help; and the women would still be hostages. No, this was the only way.
It was the work of moments to pull the cut-off switch and stop the full-throated hum of the generator. The lights grew dim in the house, then died out. Morland, axe in hand, waited at the locked door.
He heard Kessler questioning the women. Then the boy said, “I don’t like this; I smell trouble. Know what? I think your daddy got loose, Kathy, honey. He’d like to sucker me out there in the dark. But I ain’t no sucker; people are learning that. I want a flashlight; gonna do me some shooting.”
The women were reluctant to help him, but after Kathy gave a little squeal of pain, Mrs. Morland knew it was hopeless, and gave Kessler what he wanted. The boy locked them in the windowless dressing-room, and flash in hand, came to the side door. This was bad; Morland knew he couldn’t lay for Kessler there; he would be seen first, and shot. The whole plan was coming apart at the seams.
Quickly, his brain feverishly active, Morland scuttled back to the generator house. But the way Kessler was waving that flash, it was impossible to ambush him. He came along, all too cautiously, quite sure of himself, even puffing a cigarette. Morland had no doubt the boy could use that gun; the way he held it was a clear indication of that.
Morland played for time. He grabbed a rock and flipped it far to the left of Kessler. The flash flickered that way, and the killer drifted over for a look. That gave Morland a chance to get to the butane tank. With a few quick twists he shut off the main valve on top; no gas could get to the generator now. Then, before Kessler got near the shack, Morland ducked in and opened the gas valve of the generator. Nothing came out, of course, the main valve being closed. Just in time, he slipped out and returned to the tank, crouching behind it in the dark.
Kessler warily entered the shack, put the flash on a shelf so that it lit up the generator, and prepared to get the thing going again. From his place by the tank Morland could see Kessler locate the switch and jiggle it. Now was the moment, as the boy bent close to the generator, puzzled by the lack of response to the switch, cigarette-end glowing as he puffed nervously.
Morland opened the tank’s master valve wide. There was a hissing roar in the little shack as butane surged from the generator’s open petcock; and almost simultaneously a whoomp of igniting gas as the flammable stuff, pouring out in heavy concentration encountered the glowing cigarette. The screaming was a sort of anticlimax.
By shutting off the main valve in a hurry, and the use of a fire extinguisher from the house, Morland managed to save most of the shack, as well as the generator. There was little he could do for Kessler, although he honestly tried. After he had comforted the two women, who were verging on hysteria, he ventured on a feeble joke.
“Damn it, we’ll be out of butane again, and the thing was just filled!”
A Good Friend
by Richard Deming
One is taught, from childhood, to have patient confidence in ultimate justice, but on occasion that patience may wear dangerously thin.
The police never even questioned me, because I had no apparent motive. I think Evelyn suspects, but she can hardly bring the matter up without disclosing that she’s aware of the motive. We get along better by neither of us ever mentioning the matter, because bringing it all out in the open would inevitably involve confessions on both sides.
If it ever upsets her to speculate that my reaction might well have been to turn on her instead of doing what I did, she gives no indication of it. I guess she knows I love her, and is content to let sleeping dogs lie.
It all began the night I was initiated into the Elks.
In the ten years we had graduated from high school together, I hadn’t run into Tom Slider more than a dozen times, but I still regarded him as a friend. So when I discovered he was also an Elk, I was pleased.
We had been pretty close buddies in high school, even though Tom did a few things of which I couldn’t approve. He was always such an angle shooter.
Take the day the senior boys held a meeting in the school auditorium to vote on what to wear at graduation and where to buy it, for instance. The vote was for dark suits, all of the same cut and style, and it was decided to order them all from Boyd’s Clothing Store, downtown.
Tom slipped out of the auditorium as soon as the vote passed. Later I learned he had rushed down to Boyd’s and made a deal to receive a free suit if he could swing the Claremont High graduating class there.
He was always doing things such as that, never anything which might land him in jail, but just a shade unethical. Whenever I fussed at him about it, he would just laugh and tell me he wasn’t crooked; he was just opportunistic.
The night I was initiated into the Elks, as soon as the meeting adjourned, the members present all crowded over to where we new inductees were standing in a self-conscious row to shake our hands and congratulate us. Suddenly I felt a whack between the shoulder blades, turned around and found Tom Slider grinning at me.
“Tom!” I said, gripping his hand. “Are you an Elk?”
“I’m even a past exalted ruler,” he said. “Congratulations, Brother Morgan. I’ll pop for a drink.”
We went downstairs to the bar and had several. I didn’t get to talk to Tom much, because brothers who had missed me upstairs kept coming over to introduce themselves and congratulate me. I did learn that he was still a bachelor, though, and was currently between jobs. He said he had shucked his travelling job because of a disagreement with his district sales manager. He had a couple of possible jobs lined up, he told me, but he wasn’t in any hurry to get situated because he had a few bills stacked away to tide him over. He said he planned to wait until exactly what he wanted came along.