4
Finished with the dishes, Helen Jenkins put the butter in the refrigerator, closed the door, and leaned against it. Dan stared quizzically from the doorway where he stood guard when she was in the kitchen.
Each night she moved slower, the tension and exhaustion eating deeper. She feared she might suffer a heart attack. Her cardiogram at the last check-up had disclosed a deviation. She had reached an age, her physician said, when she could tolerate only so much stress. Ten years of caring for her crippled father had consumed her mentally and physically, even though she did love him deeply.
And now this horror that was in its seventh day, that seemingly had no end.
She pushed back her hair, which was beginning to string. She was badly in need of a permanent. Funny, the situation she was in, how the condition of her hair disturbed her so.
“I’m going to bed and read,” she said.
He blocked her way. He was a head taller, and thin to the point of emaciation. Unlike Sammy, he ate little, and was always doing something? pacing about, sitting down, getting up. His nervous hands, never quiet, drove her wild. This second they were adjusting the gun pushed inside his belt.
Suspicion swept his weary eyes. Usually she read in the cramped little living room while Sammy and he played poker.
“Sure,” he said, and stepped aside. But not before he had studied her intently for evidence that she was breaking. And if she did, she thought, what then? What would they do if she lost her balance, turned hysterical and screaming?
Not that she would. She had stood up under a lot these last years. She had watched her father deteriorate from a big, rugged man, full of zest for living, to a bed patient. She had watched her dreams for love and children and a home decline with him, the years that were her life slipping by, until by now so many had passed that she had run out of hope.
As she crossed the half-dark living room, Sammy glanced up from his usual position by a small table radio. Hour after hour, day after day, he listened to a music station, until she could scream. He was a paunchy runt with a beetle look. Every time he came near, she edged away.
Dan was another matter. Strangely, and against her will, she was drawn to him. He was quiet and intelligent, and had a boyishness about him that an older woman might find attractive. She had no doubt, though, that he would kill without compunction if crossed. As long as she minded him, like an obedient child, he would not harm her. Sammy might, and if he tried, she did not know what Dan would do. Probably he would drift away and leave her to Sammy, whom he humored in small matters.
Dan said,“She’s going to read in bed.”
Sammy wiped a thin coat of oil over the barrel of the thirty-eight he was cleaning.“You mad about something, Jenkins?”
“I’m tired.”
Sammy smiled.“Don’t get sick on us, Jenkins. We’d have to shoot you like an old horse, wouldn’t we, Dan?”
Sammy looked at the barrel.“You sit right over there where you always do, Jenkins.”
“Sit there yourself,” she snapped.
Sammy got to his feet slowly. Dan said,“Too hot a night to get all heated up, Sammy.”
Sammy turned toward him.“Too hot, huh? Okay for you to say ? but I got the watch tonight, and I’m not going to sit in that doorway from now to seven in the morning.”
“I’ll take it until midnight,” Dan said. Each night the routine was the same. They took turns watching her, while she slept, from a chair they placed in the doorway to the bedroom.
Sammy shrugged,“Anything you say, Dan. I’m just along for the ride.” He chuckled. “And my split.”
They tensed then, all three, as a scratching noise came over from the kitchen door, which trembled audibly as someone tried it. A soft brush o’f sound followed, so faint they could not distinguish what it was.
In a swift, almost fluid movement, Dan slipped to the door. Sammy stood where he was, his thirty-eight aimed on the door. Dan listened as his hand turned the knob. He dropped into a crouch behind the door, then pulled it open, staying out of sight of anyone who might be there, and leaving the party a dead target for Sammy.
Out of the night came the biggest black cat she had ever seen. He poked his head in a few inches in an exploratory manner. Dan said,“Come on in, kid,” and closed the door behind him. She herself felt the tensions and fears of days slip away. She laughed hysterically; it was good to see something from the outside world.
The cat walked uncertainly about the kitchen, not quite sure of his ground. Then he sat down on his haunches and looked up at them, from one to the next, and chose her. He sat up on his hind feet and stuck out a paw. Dan squatted down and shook hands with him. That ritual taken care of, the cat walked to the refrigerator and scratched on the door.“He’s hungry, poor guy,” Dan said.
She restrained the cat, who wanted to climb inside the refrigerator, while she located the calf liver Dan had bought that day. She placed it on a newspaper, and the cat devoured it as if he hadn’t eaten in a week, the rascal, because from his sleek fur and size she knew he was well fed.
Dan took the perfectly good kitchen towel and dragged it along the floor with the cat sinking his claws and teeth into it, trying to hold it.“I had an old black cat ‘bout half his size when I was a kid,” Dan said. “He was some cat. Me and the kids would play with him by the hour. He went everywhere we did, including the movies. We’d sneak him in, and half through the show he’d get tired and start meowing, and the manager would go up and down the aisle trying to find him, but we’d pass him from row to row.”
Afterwards, they settled down in the living room, and the old routine began. Dan and Sammy played poker, and she read with the cat curled up in her lap. Once Sammy said, .“Thought you were going to bed, Jenkins?”
She never read a word, and when Dan glanced her way once, she remembered to turn a page. Here in her lap she had a communication line to the outside world, if she could only think how to use it. If she had a piece of paper and a pencil, and a moment to write something
.
Then she began casting about for a personal article that anyone finding might associate with her, and eventually the idea came of attaching the watch. Fortunately, it had an expansion-type bracelet. Barely moving her fingers, she slipped the watch from her wrist, her heart pounding so hard she feared it would give her away. She wet her lips, then realized that even such a small act might tip off Dan. He had an instinct for reading her thoughts.
Slowly she moved the watch across her lap, inch by slow inch, until she had it near the neck of the dozing cat. And then she hesitated. He might resent having the watch put about him; he might arouse suddenly and resist or meow, and attract the attention of the two men. If he jumped down from her lap in protest, they would see the watch.
She decided on a quick move, one of desperation. She slipped the bracelet around the cat’s neck and rose almost the same instant, holding the cat firmly. She walked swiftly to the back door, which was verboten to her, a door she must never touch under threat of death. The cat struggled violently in her grasp, about to break free, and behind her Sammy shouted her name low and sharp and threateningly, and she heard Dan’s chair being pushed out. She reached the door as Sammy grabbed her, but before he could restrain her she opened it and tossed the cat out.
She turned swiftly to face him.“He had to go out,” she said.
He struck her across the face.“I’ve told you, Jenkins, you get a shot in your guts if you ever touch a door.”
Dan pulled him back.“He had to go out,” she repeated. He held her a second before releasing her. “Okay,” he said, “Get to bed.”
She went through the bedroom, and once inside the bathroom locked the door behind her. This was the only privacy she had. The bathroom had no window and was so small she could scarcely change her clothes. The building was ancient, and this apartment little more than a rabbit hutch, with only the kitchen, living room, the one bedroom, and this insidebath. They had nailed down every window in the place, which left only the kitchen and front-room doors as possible escape avenues.