‘Oh,’ said Ed, disappointed. ‘They always do it in the movies.’
‘In the movies they don’t have solid cedarwood doors.’
Behind them, Calvin Muldoon was already up off the floor and coming up the stairs. Ed turned around and pointed the pump-gun at him, along the length of the landing.
‘You come any nearer and I’ll blow your head off!’ he shouted, in what he hoped was a convincing tone of voice. Muldoon raised his hands, but still kept on coming, in a slow and sidling kind of a walk.
Just then, across on the other side of the landing, Peter Kaiser’s bedroom door opened, and there was Peter himself, in a white T-shirt with PK embroidered on it, and white shorts.
‘What the hell goes on here?’ he said, irritably.
Ed swung the pump-gun around and fired. There was an ear-splitting bang, and an Indian tapestry that was hanging only two feet away from the open door of Peter’s bedroom was ripped into black ribbons. Peter slammed his door shut instantly, and locked it.
While Ed was distracted, Calvin Muldoon tried to make a silent rush up the landing on tippy-toes, but Ed whipped the gun back around just in time, and levelled it at Muldoon’s head with an expression of such fierceness that the poor man was brought up short, teetering on his toes.
‘I warned you,’ Ed told him, harshly. Muldoon backed off, his hands raised high.
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘It’s okay. Take it easy. I was only doing my job.’
Della meanwhile had been trying to pick Shearson’s lock. She was hunkered down in front of it, her teeth bared in a grimace of concentration, her fingers trembling as she tried to sense the levers inside.
Ed said, ‘Hurry up, will you? They’re going to go off and get guns of their own before we know where we are.’ Calvin Muldoon was already backing down the staircase, and Ed heard his brother call from the living area, ‘Are you all right, there, Calvin? Didn’t get yourself hurt, did you?’
Della said nothing, but reserved her attention for the lock.
Peter Kaiser’s door opened again, only an inch or so. There was a pause, and then Peter said, ‘Is that you Hardesty? Can you hear me?’
‘I can hear you,’ Ed told him.
‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Hardesty, but whatever it is you won’t get away with it. This house is locked up tighter than a prison.’
‘Let me worry about that,’ Ed called back.
Peter thought for a moment, and then he said, ‘If you harm Senator Jones in any way – and I mean this – you’ll have every police force in the country after you.’
‘He won’t be harmed, unless he’s stupid,’ said Ed.
‘You won’t get away with it,’ Peter repeated.
Della said, ‘Come on, you pig of a lock. Come on.’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ Ed exhorted her.
Now, Calvin Muldoon was climbing back up the staircase, crouched low on knees and elbows. Ed couldn’t see too clearly through the carved wooden banisters, but he glimpsed a nickel-plated .45 automatic in Calvin’s right hand. He was frightened now. There wasn’t any doubt that the Muldoons were as well armed as the Marine Corps, and that they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot if they thought it was part of their job. He wondered if he ought to fire a warning shot along the landing, but he didn’t know how many shells were left in his pump-gun, and so he decided not to.
Della said, ‘Done it,’ in such a quiet voice that Ed didn’t hear her. But then she pushed Shearson’s door open, and Shearson’s alarm bells went off, and amidst the shattering, blinding noise, Ed realised that she had saved their skins at the last possible moment. Holding the pump-gun in his right hand, he pushed Della through the open door with his left, and then backed in after her.
‘I hope you know you scared the pants off me just then,’ Ed told her, and he was so genuinely frightened that his voice sounded strangled and high. The bells kept on shrieking, so they could scarcely hear each other speak. ‘Let’s go get Shearson,’ shouted Della.
They locked the double doors behind them, and then strode purposefully down the short corridor that led to Shearson’s bedroom. Ed kicked open the louvred door, and pounced into the room with the pump-gun held high, like something out of Starsky and Hutch. He needn’t have bothered. The huge king-sized bed with its puffy white coverlet was empty, and Shearson Jones was standing instead on the far side of the room, next to a small cocktail cabinet, dressed in a vast white nightshirt, and lighting up a Partagas cigar.
The alarm bells were so shrill in here that Ed didn’t even attempt to speak. He simply waved the rifle at Shearson, and inclined his head towards the door.
Shearson puffed at his cigar, and shook his head. He mouthed the words, ‘no way.’
Della, in her bright green wrap, walked directly over to Shearson and yelled something in his ear. He stared at her for a moment, and then thoughtfully laid his cigar down in a silver ashtray. He opened a louvred wardrobe door, and tugged out pants, shirt, and a dark blue sweater that must have taken the wool of two dozen sheep. Without another word, he gave the clothes to Della, and led the way out of the bedroom.
‘What did you tell him?’ shouted Ed.
‘I told him we only had one shell left in the gun,’ Della told him. ‘I also told him what part of his anatomy was going to get hit first.’
Ed raised his eyebrows. ‘He believes that I’d do that? I mean, maim him that way?’
‘No. But he believes that I would.’
They reached the doors of Shearson’s suite, and Della quickly unlocked them. Shearson stood by, as fat and white as an apparition of Falstaflf. Della shouted at him, ‘Do what you’re told. That’s all. No jokes, no tricks, no nothing. I don’t have much of a sense of humour tonight.’
Shearson made a moue amidst his four double chins.
Gradually, Della drew the door inwards. As she did so, the alarm stopped ringing, and there was an extraordinary silence, still crowded with ghostly after-images of clangorous bells.
They waited. Ed glanced down, and saw the sweep hand of his watch counting out more than thirty seconds. The landing outside was utterly silent, and yet the Muldoons had to be there, and maybe Peter Kaiser, too, if he’d summoned up the nerve.
‘We’re coming out now!’ called Della.
There was no reply. Only silence, and darkness.
‘If you try to stop us. Senator Jones will be seriously wounded,’ she said. ‘Not killed, but wounded in a way which is going to cause him agony and distress for the rest of his life. Do you understand that?’
Still no reply. Della looked back at Ed, and then at Shearson Jones, and from the expression on her face she was obviously trying to calculate the risks of taking an enormously fat senator and a nervous farmer-cum-actuary on a run for freedom that could get them all killed.
‘Ed,’ she said, ‘you could still stay behind. I’m not saying that Shearson would give you a particularly nice time, but it could be better than dying.’
Ed shook his head. ‘I’m coming, and that’s all there is to it. Don’t worry about it, Della, I won’t hold you back. Just say the word and we’ll go.’
Della looked at Shearson. ‘You hear that, my darling? You’re coming on a little trip.’
Shearson sighed. ‘My father always told me to stay clear of women with oversized breasts,’ he replied. ‘Their sense of loyalty can always be assessed in inverse ratio to the measurement of their bazumbas.’
Ed prodded Shearson’s fat side with the muzzle of the pump gun. It was like prodding a pillow. Shearson looked round at him, offended, but Ed gave him what Sally had always called his ‘nice alligator’ smile in return.