“Brent.”
“With Charles? Are you crazy?”
“No, I’m not crazy. All right, now you get it. I’ve known from the beginning, and I’m perfectly sure of it now, that you know more about this than you’ve been telling, that you’ve held out on me, that you’ve held out on the cops. All right, now you can put it on the line. Were you in on this thing with Brent or not?”
“Dave, how can you ask such a thing?”
“Do you know where he is?”
“...Yes.”
“That’s all I want to know.”
I said it mechanically, because to tell you the truth I’d about decided she was on the up-and-up all the way down the line, and when she said that it hit me between the eyes like a fist. I could feel my breath trembling as we drove along, and I could feel her looking at me too. Then she began to speak in a hard, strained voice, like she was forcing herself to talk, and measuring everything she said.
“I know where he is, and I’ve known a lot more about him than I ever told you. Before that morning, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to wash a lot of dirty linen, even before you. Since that morning I haven’t told anybody because — I want him to escape!”
“Oh, you do!”
“I pulled you into it, when I discovered that shortage, for the reason I told you. So my children wouldn’t grow up knowing their father was in prison. I’m shielding Charles now, I’m holding out on you, as you put it, because if I don’t, they’re going to grow up knowing their father was executed for murder. I won’t have it! I don’t care if the bank loses ninety thousand dollars, or a million dollars, I don’t care if your career is ruined — I might as well tell you the truth, Dave — if there’s any way I can prevent it, my children are not going to have their lives blighted by that horrible disgrace.”
That cleared it up at last. And then something came over me. I knew we were going through the same old thing again, that I’d be helping her cover up something, that I wasn’t going to have any more of that. If she and I were to go on, it had to be a clean slate between us, and I felt myself tighten. “So far as I’m concerned I won’t have that.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“And not because of what you said about me. I’m not asking you to put me ahead of your children, or anything ahead of your children.”
“I couldn’t, even if you did ask me.”
“It’s because the game is up, and you may as well learn that your children aren’t any better than anybody else.”
“I’m sorry. To me they are.”
“They’ll learn, before they die, that they’ve got to play the cards God dealt them, and you’ll learn it too, if I know anything about it. What you’re doing, you’re ruining other lives, to say nothing of your own life, and doing wrong, too — to save them. O.K., play it your own way. But that lets me out.”
“Then it’s good-bye?”
“I guess it is.”
“It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
She was crying now, and she took my hand and gave it a little jerky shake. I loved her more than I’d ever loved her, and I wanted to stop, and put my arms around her, and start all over again, but I didn’t. I knew it wouldn’t get us anywhere at all, and I kept right on driving. We’d got to the beach by then, by way of Pico Boulevard, and I ran up through Santa Monica to Wilshire, then turned back to take her home. We were done, and I could feel it that she had called the turn. We’d never see each other again.
How far we’d got I don’t know, but we were somewhere coming in toward Westwood. She had quieted down, and was leaning against the window with her eyes closed, when all of a sudden she sat up and turned up the radio. I had got so I kept it in shortwave all the time now, and it was turned low, so you could hardly hear it, but it was on. A cop’s voice was just finishing an order, and then it was repeated: “Car number forty-two, Car number forty-two... Proceed to number six eight two five Sanborn Avenue, Westwood, at once... Two children missing from home of Dr. Henry W. Rollinson...”
I stepped on it hard, but she grabbed me.
“Stop!”
“I’m taking you there!”
“Stop! I said stop — will you please stop!”
I couldn’t make any sense out of her, but I pulled over and we skidded to a stop. She jumped out. I jumped out, “Will you kindly tell me what we’re stopping here for? They’re your kids, don’t you get it—?”
But she was on the curb, waving back the way we had come. Just then a pair of headlights snapped on. I hadn’t seen any car, but it dawned on me this must be that car that had been following us. She kept on waving, then started to run toward it. At that, the car came up. A couple of detectives were inside. She didn’t even wait till she stopped before she screamed: “Did you get that call?”
“What call?”
“The Westwood call, about the children?”
“Baby, that was for Car forty-two.”
“Will you wipe that grin off your face and listen to me? Those are my children. They’ve been taken by my husband, and it means he’s getting ready to skip, to wherever he’s going—”
She never even finished. Those cops hopped out and she gave it to them as fast as she could. She said he’d be sure to stop at his hideout before he blew, that they were to follow us there, that we’d lead the way if they’d only stop talking and hurry. But the cops had a different idea. They knew by now it was a question of time, so they split the cars up. One of them went ahead in the police car, after she gave him the address, the other took the wheel of my car, and we jumped in on the back seat. Boy, if you think you can drive, you ought to try it once with a pair of cops. We went through Westwood with everything wide open, it wasn’t five minutes before we were in Hollywood, and we just kept on going. We didn’t stop for any kind of a light, and I don’t think we were under eighty the whole trip.
All the time she kept holding on to my hand and praying: “Oh God, if we’re only in time! If we’re only in time!”
XII
We pulled up in front of a little white apartment house in Glendale. Sheila jumped out, and the cops and myself were right beside her. She whispered for us to keep quiet. Then she stepped on the grass, went around to the side of the house, and looked up. A light was on in one window. Then she went back to the garage. It was open, and she peeped in. Then she came back to the front and went inside, still motioning to us to keep quiet. We followed her, and she went up to the second floor. She tiptoed to the third door on the right, stood there a minute, and listened. She tiptoed back to where we were. The cops had their guns out by now. Then she marched right up to the door, her heels clicking on the floor, and rapped. It opened right away, and a woman was standing there. She had a cigarette in one hand and her hat and coat on, like she was getting ready to go out. I had to look twice to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. It was Church.
“Where are my children?”
“Well, Sheila, how should I know—?”
Sheila grabbed her and jerked her out into the hall. “Where are my children, I said.”
“They’re all right. He just wanted to see them a minute before he—”
She stopped when one of the cops walked up behind her, stepped through the open door with his gun ready, and went inside. The other cop stayed in the hall, right beside Sheila and Church, his gun in his hand, listening. After a minute or two the cop that went in came to the door and motioned us inside. Sheila and Church went in, then I went in, then the other cop stepped inside, but stood where he could cover the hall. It was a one-room furnished apartment, with a dining alcove to one side, and a bathroom. All doors were open; even the closet door, where the cop had opened them, ready to shoot if he had to. In the middle of the floor were a couple of suitcases strapped up tight. The cop that went in first walked over to Church.