Alverato stopped and suddenly slapped his hand on the map. “Pay attention, Tapkow. It’s your neck too, you know.” Then he bent over the map again. “Here’s hills, woods, and kind of a ravine. Two miles of it. That’s where he’s going to wait.” He stopped, looking around like a conductor who had just waved his orchestra to a crashing finale.
Benny was looking at the map and thinking that Alverato was probably right. He was really ticking tonight. “I don’t think you’re going to get Pendleton in this, Al. He’s not going to be out there.”
“Who cares?”
“I thought-”
“Don’t. Just watch this thing shape up.” Alverato sounded eager. “I’ll handle this end myself. Just one more thing: Birdie, get that Mercury the Brady boys have been using. I want a souped-up car in this caper. Get Limpy Smith over here with some two-way equipment. I want a speaker in that car to broadcast to the walkie-talkie. We’ll carry three. Now here’s what you do, Benny: When you leave the club, turn on that speaker in the car, and as you drive, call off every half mile, you hear? Every half mile. When you see something start happening, call the mileage and yell out what it is. Clear?”
“I got it. But that speedometer-”
“When you start from the club it’ll be on zero.”
“O.K.”
“Now, when they rush you, just stop the car. They won’t harm the girl.”
“No. Not the girl.”
Alverato ignored it “And don’t use that car for a getaway unless there’s an emergency, hear?”
“Yeah. Just what do you call an emergency?”
“That I don’t get there, rockhead! You keep the car doors locked. If I’m not there by the time they break the windows, then step on it and don’t spare the pedal, boy.”
“You can count on it.”
“I’ll be there, though. I wouldn’t miss that for the world!”
“I wouldn’t want you to,” Benny said.
Nor would Pendleton have wanted to miss a trick. So he had placed another phone call, and this one too, he was sure, would be a roaring surprise.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Pat got excited the way he had seen her a few times in the past. The night club would be great, she said, and her eyes were sparkling with a sharp, nervous light. She hadn’t been getting that way much lately. She didn’t really get crazy any more.
Pat had wanted a strapless and a hairdo, so when she was ready she looked different than Benny had ever seen her look before. There was a sudden cold beauty about her that hardly reminded him of all the other times. Only her smile reminded him. In the cabin, in Louisiana, sometimes she had smiled that way.
Until ten it was fine. They drank, they danced. She danced with a lilt in her body that was as old as love, but Benny never let go. It was the hook sunk deep, he was thinking. It was the hook that had magic, worming forward, even reaching for him.
And then he began to get the signs. Calling him Tapkow instead of Benny, drinks tossed down too fast, and a few times that thing she did with her ear lobe.
And it wasn’t eleven yet.
He looked over the crowd again, but Alverato had been right. It didn’t look as though anything would happen here. Bare arms and tuxedos, some of the tuxedos with chesty bulges on one side. Birdie had done a fine job.
“We don’t have much fun any more, do we?” Her voice made him start.
“No fun?”
“I’ve always loved you for that keen repartee, dear. Where is that waiter?”
“Look, Pat, you’ve had enough. It’s getting late.”
“You’re just the escort, Tapkow, so be polite.”
“Pat, I’m telling you for your own good. We better go.”
“Is this Saint Benny speaking?” she said, but he ignored the sting in it and got up. He held her wrap for her.
“It’s hot.” Her voice was edgy now.
He must have got the dose wrong. She was running down too soon. Or maybe not. The dose had been right, but all the time she was running down sooner and sooner.
“Outside, Pat. It’s cooler outside.”
She followed him then and he didn’t bother to wonder why she suddenly obeyed.
Past eleven now. They stood under the marquee outside and waited for the car. It wasn’t a warm night and the crickets in the dark sounded slow.
“It’s cold,” she said, but when he tried to lift the wrap over her shoulders she stepped away from him.
The Mercury came up with a quiet hum. The got in and Benny locked the doors.
“I want the windows open,” she said, but he didn’t have to argue with her. She went right on. “What’s that humming noise?”
“The radio. It’s stuck or something.”
“Well, turn it off, Tapkow. Are you trying to drive me insane?”
“It’s stuck, Pat Here, take a cigarette.”
“You know, Tapkow, I don’t like the way you’re changing the subject” She had turned to him, looking pinched and mean. “Drive faster,” she said.
“Half mile.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing, Pat. Just reading the mileage.” He drove carefully. There was nothing in the rear-view mirror.
When a raccoon scurried through the headlight beams, Benny almost ran off the road. Pat bounced against her door but she didn’t say a word. She sat up slowly and then she began to scream. “God, my God!”
“Pat, it’s nothing.” He tried to see the road, and the mileage, and the screaming girl. “Pat, enough now.”
“God, God.”
He called the mileage again, controlling his voice, then reached over to the girl.
She stopped as suddenly as she had started and her voice was a hard, low sound. “Don’t touch me, Tapkow.”
“We’ll be home soon. Try to relax now.”
“We’ll be home soon; try to relax now,” she mimicked.
“Just stay calm. I’ll take care.”
“Of me, Tapkow?” Her laugh was like a rattle. She had started to pluck at the fur of her wrap. “I can do without you, Tapkow.”
He watched the road. “Sure,” he said.
“I’m through, Tapkow. You can start looking for another-”
He wished she were right He wished she would stop talking, digging.
“I want an answer, do you hear me?”
“Pat, you’re just wrought up. In a short while-”
“In a short while you’ll regret ever having laid eyes on me, Tapkow.”
She was building up to something.
“You don’t mean that. Really, Pat, you’ll be all right.”
“With you around?” That irritating ring had come into her voice. “With you around much longer I think I’ll die, Tapkow.”
It gave him a start and he almost missed calling the mileage. “You don’t want to talk like that, Pat.”
She laughed.
“You’ll make things worse, Pat.”
“Impossible!”
“You’ll be fine soon. I promise you, Pat” He had meant it.
“The sight of you makes me sick,” she said in a low voice, and then her hand shot out, knocking his hat off. “Sick, Tapkow, sick!”
“Sit in your corner.” He sounded hoarse.
“Sick, Tapkow, sick!”
It was the drug she didn’t have. It was hard to remember sometimes, but it was the drug.
“You’ll see, Pat. I’ll help you.”
“Sick, Tapkow, sick!”
“Stop that, damnit.” He took a deep breath and tried again. “We’ll go away together. And after a little while, Pat-”
“Why try?” It sounded casual at first, but then her tone became strong and sober. “Don’t you know how I hate you, Tapkow?”
It must be the drug.
“I mean this. Such hate, Tapkow!”
For once it was almost more than he could take.
“I hate you, Tapkow. Like this!” and with her scream her fist flung out, jarring his head.
He struck out like a hurt animal. “Sit there and shut up! Shut up!”
Mileage. An empty road.
“That’s all you can do, isn’t it? Hit and run.”
“I never have!” It was almost a scream. “I mean it, Pat, I’ll try all I can to make good what-I’ll help you, I mean it!” He had never felt quite so deeply before, so when she leaned forward and grinned, it hit hard.