“Not after he agreed to the score.” Bert is petulant. “We had a deal with the son of a bitch.”
She’s halfway along the wall now. Hope to heaven nobody comes up the stairs right now.
Through the picture windows she sees the helicopter and now she realizes whose voice that is: George Talmy the pilot. So he’s still here after all.
She crawls as far as the nursery door. There’s a big cutout of Snoopy thumbtacked above the latch.
She opens it silently.
A big woman in a white uniform-a stranger-sits watching TV on a small portable color set with the sound turned way down.
The baby napping in the crib is only a bundle of sheets and a clutter of toys from here.
The big nurse is lifting five-pound hand weights. Up slowly and down again. Her biceps look like Muhammad Ali’s.
Oh shit.
51
In the rack are six hunting rifles and four handguns. A heavy chain connects all of them, running through the trigger guards, fastened with a thick brass-frame padlock.
It’s the same lock. Her key opens it. As silently as possible she pulls the links of the chain through the trigger housing of the Luger.
Despite its heft it is the smallest caliber revolver on the rack. Any of the others would be a lot more powerful and menacing but this is the only one she’s sure she knows how to use because Bert forced her to memorize the procedures of shooting and reloading and cleaning the damned thing. If you’re ever alone up here, he kept saying-as if she ever was up here in the woods without the company of Bert or the Quirinis or half a dozen of the deer-hunting fraternity and their ditsy wives and girlfriends.
It isn’t loaded of course. She remembers his lectures about keeping loaded guns around the house. She unlocks the ammunition drawer and finds the box of.22 magnum cartridges; fumbles a bit loading the chambers but finally has it full; puts the box back in the drawer and locks everything up and carries the heavy revolver to the door.
She goes back through the bathroom and the master bedroom and out onto the landing. Belly-flat again she creeps toward the nursery.
“You want lettuce and mayonnaise?” That’s Marjorie, her big voice echoing from the kitchen.
“I’m dealing. Seven to a possible straight. Three’s, a pair. Nine on the flush, that’s three clubs. And a jack on the table. Treys bet. You guys want mayo?”
“Sure.”
“Why not.”
“Marjorie? Mayo’s fine, anything else you got. Maybe some horseradish.”
Jack Sertic’s voice now, reasoning calmly: “Hey, look Al, like he never gave us trouble before. He delivered three kilos on time. Good quality stuff.”
George Talmy again: “What you gonna do, Al, waste the poor bastard just because he comes up short once in his life?”
And now Bert’s reply, husky with insinuation. “George, the way you talk I get the feeling sometimes you believe you’ve been promoted from helicopter driver to partner.”
Jack laughs at him. “The amount of money you pay him, he qualifies as senior partner.”
George says, “You think I’m out of line, Al? I don’t like to feel I’m just some kind of servant around here, you know. But all the same I know who’s in charge. I don’t give you any real lip, do I?”
“Al, you gonna bet those threes or what?”
She shuts the door behind her. She doesn’t think she’s made any sound but the nurse looks around-alarmed perhaps by some subtle shift in the light.
The weights are on the floor by the chair. The nurse sees her, sees the revolver in her hand. The nurse’s eyes whip around past the crib to the table in the corner.
It draws her attention to the big pistol on the table.
“Don’t. I’ll use this if I have to.”
“You’re her, ain’t you.”
She moves across the room, keeping her distance, making a circle around the nurse. At the crib she looks down.
My God she’s grown. She’s beautiful. Radiant. My lovely child. Still got those funny freckles around her nostrils. They’ll be cute when she grows up. Dear Lord-it hasn’t even been three months but she seems twice as big … my darling …
She feels herself soften; as if her body is growing heavier. Tears flow into her eyes. I have missed you so much, my love …
Stop that!
She snaps her face around toward the nurse, who hasn’t stirred. But you can tell by the shrewd narrowing of her eyes that she’s gauging her opportunities, waiting for her moment.
“I’m her mother.”
The big woman answers with a grunt of sound that conveys no meaning.
“I’m taking her with me. Do you think I won’t use this on you if you try to stop me?”
“They told me about you,” the nurse says with dogged bovine obscurity.
“It’s important. You’ve got to understand I’m serious about this. She’s my child.” She hisses it vehemently: “She’s my child.”
The nurse looks at the revolver, looks at her face, looks her up and down. There is absolutely no clue to what she’s thinking. “All right, miss. What do you want me to do?”
Carefully now. Aim the revolver at her. “Stand up.”
The woman gets out of her chair and looms. Got to be at least five-eleven. Maybe six feet.
“What’s your name?”
“Mrs. Strickland.”
“First name?”
“Melinda.”
“All right, Melinda. Go over there and face the wall. Put your hands on top of your head. I want your nose right against the wall.”
The nurse obeys. “Now what?”
“You don’t move until I tell you to move. You speak only if I tell you to speak. Not before. Understand? Say yes.”
“Yes.”
“Now don’t move.”
Testing it, she takes a pace back and a pace forward, making a few noises, cocking and uncocking the revolver, holding it ready, watching the nurse. The nurse doesn’t move.
An actress on the television screen is emoting: shouting, striding back and forth, declaiming her lines, chewing up all the scenery on the set. The volume is turned very low; the shouting is barely audible. “You lied to me! You told me Steven was my natural brother! For twenty years you’ve been living this beastly horrible lie and you’ve made me part of it!”
All right. Got to take the chance.
She reaches down into the crib with both arms and sets the revolver down amid the plastic toys. While she checks the baby’s diaper and wraps the thin sheet around Ellen (a blanket? no; the day is too hot for it) she keeps looking up at the nurse’s broad back; and she keeps talking in a quiet steady voice:
“Listen to me now, Melinda. If you shout-if you do anything at all to draw their attention-I’ll shoot you. Then I’ll take the baby and run for it. They’ll stop to examine your dead body and that’ll give me time to get away.”
Ellen hasn’t awakened yet. If we’re very lucky she won’t wake up until we’re out of the house. One hand under her spine now; the other under her head. Pick her up. Cradle her in the left arm, Ellen’s head in the crook of your elbow. Make sure you’ve got her in a firm grasp.
Now pick up the revolver again with your free hand.
And keep talking all the way:
“You understand? Even if you’re dead you’ll still slow them down. You’re just as useful to me dead as you are alive. If I have to kill you to save my baby then that’s what I’ll do. You think about that, Melinda. Think hard.”
Straighten up now. Adjust the baby in your arm. Don’t drop the Goddamn gun-be careful, idiot!
“You can turn around now. Go over to the door.”
The nurse lowers her hands and looks around. If she’s surprised by what she sees she gives no sign of it. There is menace in her uncomplaining cooperation. She walks on white rubber-soled shoes to the door and stands there, just waiting. Very calm. What does it take to upset the cow?
The television is peddling caffeine-free coffee. She comes past it and waggles the gun at the nurse. “Are you listening, Melinda?”