“Tell me what you want, miss.”
“I want you to get down on the floor. Then you pull the door open-all the way open, right back to the doorstop-and then you crawl out onto the landing. You stay close to the wall and you crawl on your belly all the way into the master bedroom, so they can’t see you from down below. I’m going to be right behind you with this gun. Do you know anything about guns?”
“Some.”
“This is a twenty-two magnum. That mean anything to you?”
“High velocity, I guess.”
“You’re a nurse. Ever worked in an operating room?”
“No. I’m not an RN. I’m a practical nurse.”
“But you’ve had some training in anatomy.”
The nurse nods, acknowledging it.
She curls her thumb over the hammer of the revolver and levels it toward the nurse’s wide face. “If I fire it right up your asshole-I’ll let you picture what it’ll do to your insides. It’ll rip all the way through and probably tear the top of your skull off on its way out.”
The nurse’s expression never changes but her throat thickens when she swallows. It’s reaction enough.
“All right, Melinda. Down on the floor and open the door. Let’s go.”
The baby yawns.
52
The baby’s eyes pop open and she recognizes the familiar green flash of them. She smiles down and croons very softly to Ellen; cradles and cuddles her; wraps the sheet a little tighter around her.
The baby stretches-arms and legs thrusting out in all directions, shoving her hand, painfully poking a breast-she has to hold the kid in both arms to keep her secure but she’s still got the gun in her hand and her eyes on the nurse; and the nurse clearly has made up her mind not to take stupid chances but to wait for a sensible opportunity.
Don’t give her one.
“Go to sleep, Ellen. Go to sleep, little baby. When you wake up everything’s going to be wonderful.”
The baby’s mouth works. But the eyes drift shut and after a few minutes she points toward the door with the revolver and the nurse gets down on hands and knees, pulls the door open wide, drops flat and worms her way out of the room.
Stay right behind her now. Don’t let her go around any corners out of sight. Keep her in view at all times.
Below, Jack Sertic says, “It’s not like there’s a deadline or anything. We can fill the gap. I’ll phone Montreal, the stuff can be airborne in two hours.”
“Never mind,” Bert says. “We’ve got enough to handle with the flight coming in tonight and the one coming in Saturday midnight. Talking about eight, ten million wholesale. What time’s it?”
“Twelve thirty. Few minutes past.”
The baseboard has dust webs and flecks of dried mud from hunting boots. Marjorie never was much good at keeping things clean.
“Got the firepots ready out on the field?”
Come on, Melinda, you can move faster than that.
“I hate these midnight pickups any more. Are these cards made? You get older, you start going to sleep earlier. I don’t keep the kind of hours I used to. You want to cut the cards? When I was a kid I was a real night owl, never saw the sun before two, three in the afternoon sometimes. But I don’t know. Now I’m lucky if I stay awake for the ten o’clock news on channel five. Queen, four, nine, big ace. Dealer control. Ace bets five. Come on, everybody fold, I’m not proud, I want the antes.”
If the baby wakes up now and starts to cry …
Watching the heavy haunches roll from side to side she’s thinking, Melinda-what an absurd name for this water buffalo. My God-from this angle this scene is pure farce.
“What’s the bet?”
“Al bet five bucks on the ace.”
“Without me.”
“Fold.”
“Hell with it. Take the antes.”
“Shit. I got wired aces-back to back-and what happens? They chicken out on me. What a bunch of pinheads. How’m I gonna make my fortune off you pinheads?”
“Your deal, George.”
In the bedroom she pushes the door nearly shut and stands up; she crosses to the bathroom door and looks through to the hall and then quickly turns and points the revolver at the nurse; but Melinda is still lying on the floor waiting for instructions.
Presumably Marjorie is still downstairs preparing sandwiches for the boys. If we time this right we can sneak out the back while she’s serving lunch in the front room.
“Okay.” She keeps her voice down. “Don’t talk. Stand up. Face the wall there until I tell you to move.”
She goes back to the door and stands with her ear by the open crack, listening to the clink of poker chips and the voices of the men below as they idle away time waiting for an airplane in the darkness.
Now the stillness ticks. She caresses the baby, hugs her close, listens to the sound of her breathing-reconstructing on the psychic bridge between them the lines of contact and understanding that are familiar but too long disused. We’re going to have to learn each other all over again.…
Two things happen simultaneously: two voices. Melinda whispering, “I got to stand here all afternoon like a bump on a log or what?” and, down below in the front room, George Talmy’s voice-“Hey, those look real good. I never get tired of good cured venison.”
“Shut up,” she hisses at the nurse. She hears Marjorie’s voice below: “You want beer or what?”
Bert: “Beer’s fine. Just bring us a six-pack, we’ll sort it out. Thanks, Marjorie.”
She comes past Melinda, moving swiftly now. “Come on. Keep quiet. Move.”
She opens the child gate. A bit of a squeak; nobody is likely to question it-if they hear it and think about it at all they’ll take it for the nurse going downstairs to get a bite of lunch.
She goes downstairs first, going down sideways one step at a time, keeping the gun and one eye on Melinda behind her while she negotiates the stairs. At the second step up from the bottom she stops. She warns Melinda with a gesture and the nurse stops three treads above.
Keeping the revolver leveled and cocked she watches the nurse unblinkingly while she listens to the sounds from the kitchen: the opening of the fridge, the scrape of something being removed from a fridge shelf, the chunk of the door closing, Marjorie’s footsteps and voice: “You want glasses or just drink out of the cans?”
Bert’s voice is faint: “Just the cans. Stays colder that way.”
Marjorie’s footsteps recede.
Down to the bottom of the steps now. Cradle the baby. Keep the gun on the nurse. Whisper: “That way. Out the back door. You go ahead of me now.”
Then they’re out the back door and elation washes over her. Ellen darling-we did it. That was the hardest part.
She wags the gun at the nurse. “Walk. That way.”
Into the woods-and she sees it when the nurse hesitates, thinking about letting that long branch whip back into her face. “Don’t do it, Melinda. I’m watching you. Keep going.”
Down to the pioneer road. No sign of the dog. The baby burbling now, soft questionings, not yet fully awake. Melinda hiking along the center hump of the road, white shoes filthy.
It’s hard to walk with the baby in her arm and the gun in her hand; she can’t see her own feet and it’s hard to watch the baby and the nurse and the uneven ground at the same time.
“Slow down. Stay closer in front of me.”
“You know you ain’t going to get away, miss. You know that, don’t you?”
“I like it better when you don’t talk.”
They go on, an odd procession. She’s beginning to listen for the sound of Charlie’s airplane but all she can hear is their own footfalls and the cicadas and a conversation taking place in the trees among the birds.
It’s turned into a beautiful day, my darling Ellen. In your honor I’m sure. Do you like airplanes? It’ll be noisy of course but I imagine not as noisy as that helicopter you’re used to. I hope you like Charlie. I hope he likes you. What are your views on moving to San Diego? I expect you’re going to-oh!