“Do you know where that address is?” he said, clearing his throat.
She nodded quickly. “Yes, it’s not far from here. Tenth and Edgely. You go two blocks left, then turn left again and it’s just after the stoplight.”
“That sounds simple enough.”
“You won’t have any trouble. I... I keep my car near there, so I know the neighborhood.” She was smiling, but her body looked as if it were being pulled to pieces; her shoulders were rigid with tension, and a pulse fluttered desperately in the silky hollow at the base of her throat. “You won’t have any trouble, I promise you,” she said.
“Well, thank you very much, ma’am. I’ll hurry along then. The man waiting for me said not to be late. Good night, ma’am.”
Ingram waited for half an hour in the shadows of a warehouse at the intersection of Tenth and Edgely Streets, stamping his feet on the hard pavement to drive some warmth into his body. She had picked a good place to meet him; the area was dark and silent, a neighborhood of garages, small factories and shuttered-up shops. But he shifted coldly and miserably in the shadows, without confidence or hope; the heat of the coffee had faded almost instantly, and when he coughed it roused up the heavy ominous pain in his chest. She wasn’t coming... he knew that now. Otherwise she’d have been here long ago. Maybe she was sitting in a police station telling them what he looked like. He didn’t know what to do, but he didn’t have the strength to do anything but wait.
He tried to shore up his defenses, but his efforts were helpless and inert; he was just too cold and sick to care. Maybe she’d come after all. Maybe she’d just been delayed. Earl was important to her; he’d seen that in her eyes. But what good would a car be to him? With cops everywhere, with Earl wounded and sick?
He moved suddenly back into the shadows; a car had turned into the street a block away from him, its light flashing on the rain-black pavement. Ingram stayed deep in the shadows until the car slowed to a stop. He didn’t move until the front window was cranked down, and he saw the blur of her pale face in the light from a street lamp. Then he hurried across the street, sliding into the front seat as she leaned over and opened the door for him. He sank wearily into the soft cushions, his body limp and grateful in the warmth of the car. As she twisted around toward him he smelled perfume in her hair, and saw the pale smooth flash of legs in the dashboard light. The womanly essence of her made him feel weak and helpless, almost like weeping
“Where is he?” she said fiercely.
“A long way off. I got to get started back.”
“How badly is he hurt?”
“Well, he got hit in the shoulder. It won’t kill him, I guess, but he don’t look good.”
“Why did you make him do it?” she said, striking the steering wheel with the palm of her hand. “Why? Why?”
“I didn’t make him do nothing,” he said sullenly.
“He wouldn’t do it on his own. Why didn’t you — you bastards leave him alone?”
Ingram was wearied by her foolishness. “He’s in it now, ma’am. Talking about how and why won’t get him out.”
“Where are you going to take him?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. We don’t have much choice. We just got to run. Try to get out of the state.”
“He won’t ever come back, will he?”
Ingram smiled faintly. “Not unless the government starts pardoning bank robbers. Give ’em civil-service jobs or something.”
“I knew it was the bank,” she said. “I heard the radio report. I thought he was dead. I felt it all through me.”
“He’s not dead. But he may be if I don’t get started back pretty soon.”
“I brought some whisky and food from the apartment. Luckily I shopped yesterday. There’s a boiled ham, some canned goods, bread, butter and two bottles of rye.”
“That’ll help a lot.”
“I’m going with you,” she said sharply.
“He just wants the car.”
“I don’t care. He needs me.” Her voice was coldly, harshly determined. “He’s nothing to you. He’s mine. Do you understand?”
Ingram let his hands fall limply into his lap. What the hell difference did it make? “You know where the Unionville Pike leaves the city?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the route. Let’s go...”
It wasn’t until they were checked through the roadblock ten miles from Crossroads that Ingram’s mood began to change; they had a chance after all, he realized with a touch of wonder. A chance. He sat in the front seat with the black countryside rushing past him and felt hope stirring warmly in his frozen body. With the girl at the wheel, they had a chance. She was cool and smart, driving easily and efficiently now, watching everything with her sharp eyes. Another woman might have wrecked the car, or got stopped for speeding. But not this one. She knew what she was after; he saw the determination in the set of her jaw, in the tight grip of her gloved hands on the wheel.
She had been cool as a cucumber at the roadblock. When the trooper flashed his light on the car she had rolled down the front window and said, “What’s the matter? I’m in a hurry, officer.”
Lying in the rear of the car, Ingram heard the trooper say wearily, “People are always in a hurry. Particularly when it’s raining and the roads are dangerous.”
“I’m an excellent driver. My husband says I’m more confident than most men.”
“I’m glad you’re confident,” the trooper said. “It’s a cheery thought on a bad night. Don’t make any stops along the road tonight. Don’t pick up hitchhikers. Don’t pick up anybody. Got that?”
“But what’s the matter?”
“We’re just checking for somebody. You got nothing to worry about. Come on, get it rolling.” The trooper walked back to the next car, his torch swinging easily in his hand. They weren’t bothering too much about the traffic heading toward Crossroads, Ingram knew; it was people coming out they were watching.
But with the girl at the wheel they could get out; he and Earl could hide in the rear, one in the trunk maybe, and this girl could take them right under the cops’ noses. They weren’t watching for a woman, that was certain...
Even his cough seemed better now. It wasn’t even midnight yet and they would be at the farm in fifteen or twenty minutes. By tomorrow morning they could be two hundred miles away. He straightened up, savoring the feel of the warmth and strength in his body. “Kind of slow down along here,” he said, watching the road carefully. “There’s a town ahead, Avondale, I think. After that we make a turn and head into the country. It won’t be long now.”
There was a cheerful, almost arrogant lift to his voice. They had a chance, a damned good one. And because of him. Not Earl. Him...
Chapter Fifteen
The sound of the car woke Earl. He had been sleeping in fitful snatches for an hour or so, waking with sudden starts and then lapsing again into splintered and troubled dreams. There was no comfort in either state, little difference between nightmares and reality. He knew his wound was bleeding and that he was feverish, but the unnatural heat of his body didn’t seem to warm him at all; he could hardly move his hands and feet; they were stiff and solid as blocks of wood.
He had been dreaming of a hot evening on a beach somewhere near Naples. The whole company had gone in swimming, trying to get clean and to scrape off their beards in the salty water. Then planes had come in low from the mainland with tracer bullets sweeping in front of them like the feelers of angry insects. The company had scattered, some men trying to pull on their clothes, and others running in naked hysteria toward the shelter of the rocky cliffs. But the dream was all wrong, Earl knew; there had been no planes that day. They had laughed and splashed around in the water like kids on a summer holiday. The planes must have been somewhere else...