The kid noticed that and stared at him once more, round-eyed. Then she turned to Eleanor.
“I’m going home to see my daddy. Is he your daddy?”
Eleanor said no, we were just friends. I thought she stressed the “friends” ever so slightly for my benefit, but I couldn’t be sure.
The girl asked, “Why don’t he put the ashes down?”
“He doesn’t want to get the floor dirty.”
“Well what’s he going to do with them then?”
Eleanor suggested, “Show her, Paul.”
Paul obligingly tipped his hand and emptied the ashes into the cuff of his trousers. The little girl studied the cuff and abruptly sped off down the aisle. I thought that would be the last of her, but she was back in less than a minute with another paper cup.
“He can put them in this.” She handed the cup to Eleanor who passed it to greasy Paul. Paul dumped the ashes out of his cuff into the cup, fingered around for the match a moment, and threw that in too. I wondered if greasy Paul was always so thoughtful of the floor. Any floor. If he was, he certainly wasn’t the sloppy gent who had messed up Eleanor’s bathroom.
Eleanor thanked the child and she sped off down the aisle. She passed back and forth several times after that but she didn’t stop. Eleanor watched her, smiling and amused.
The train began to slow its speed. The conductor opened the door behind us to shout the meaningless name of a town ending in “—field. This way out.”
I stamped cut my cigarette and glanced at Eleanor. She was inspecting her face in a small mirror.
Paul nudged my liver with the pocketed gun.
“This is th’place, fella.”
He stood up and stepped out into the aisle. Eleanor followed him. The newspaper fell from my lap as I stood up and I kicked it under the seat. The man and woman stood about two feet apart, waiting. I was supposed to get in between them.
Paul ordered, “Follow her.”
I did. He brought up a close rear, crowding me forward against Eleanor.
The engine began its reliable jerking routine, preparing to stop. The first jerk caught Eleanor off guard and threw her back against me. She fell against my chest and I put up my hands to steady her. Her body seemed tense and she quivered to my touch. She grabbed the seat handles on either side and regained her balance. I followed to the end of the car.
The child and her mother were occupying an end seat. As we went past the kid looked at Eleanor and said goodbye. Eleanor returned it. On an impulse, I did too. The kid waved. We went through the door and down the metal steps. The cold wind smacked me in the face.
According to the dingy, painted sign over the small station this whistle-stop was Pleasantfield. East of the Mississippi people live in pleasant-sounding places. West of the river however they are more honest.
The sedan had pulled up behind the station. If it were not for the snow and the cold there would have been a handful of Pleasantfield loafers on hand to watch the train go by. And so see me get in the sedan. I wondered if the little girl was watching us through the train window.
I also wondered if it would be a hole in the ice for me. I was no skater, either. At least I would find out how it had been done — the hole in the ice business I mean. Was it a tap on the side of the head, a dazed moment while the skates were fastened on, and the plunge into the water? It would be a light tap — I had to stay alive to swallow water. For a few minutes.
The Chinese girl settled herself in the front seat beside the driver and threw back her coat. It was warm in the car. Paul put himself in the rear seat with me, sitting back in one corner, half-turned, facing me. The gun was out of his pocket. It was a blue Colt automatic. He handled it in a curious way: he let it lie in the flat of his hand and he held his hand sideways, palm and gun up. I saw that his index finger was missing, he used his long finger on the trigger.
The moment the sedan pulled away from the station I sensed a change in attitudes. No one said anything; no one had to. It was in all our thoughts. We no longer were the traveling companions we had been for the benefit of the train passengers. There was no one else around to see, no need to keep up a pretense. I was definitely and openly on the short end of the stick.
The man behind the wheel drove back to the highway and turned west. We rapidly overtook the train and in minutes it was far behind. The driver pulled a wrinkled pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket and gave them to Eleanor with an unintelligible grunt. She put three between her lips and lit them, after which she placed one in the driver’s mouth, handed one to Paul and kept the last for herself. Then she put the pack in the coat pocket. I gazed out the window and watched the snow banks zip by.
We drove perhaps ten to twelve miles without a word being said. Abruptly the driver glanced at Eleanor and grunted, “Now.”
She held out her hand to Greasy and he gave her the Colt automatic. She handled it the right way, with a bead on the bridge of my nose. The eyes behind the gun were cold and hard once more. I sat without moving.
Paul said to me, “C’mere,” and yanked a long white scarf from a side pocket of the car. He wrapped the scarf tightly around my head and face, covering my eyes and nose. When he finished I had to breathe through my mouth if I wanted to breathe at all. And I did. It wasn’t easy.
The driver grunted a question. Paul struck a match. I felt myself growing panicky and gulped in a great mouthful of air. The heat of the match was near my lips. There was a moment’s silence.
Then Paul answered, “Okay.”
The sedan whirled sharply and sped down a gravel road, the tires throwing up tiny rocks against the underside of the car. I had fallen over against the greasy gunman and he pushed me upright.
The road curved several times in long easy glides; at other times the driver would make sharp turns around the square corners common to country crossroads. He was robbing me of my sense of direction and doing a good job of it. The pace was kept up for the better part of ten or fifteen minutes and then the sedan straightened out and leaped ahead. After that there was only the natural, slow curves of the roads.
Someone in the front seat, and I guessed it was Eleanor, turned on the car radio. It was set at a Croyden station which came in strong. She listened to some dance music interspersed with inane commercials until the end of the fifteen minute program and then just played around over the dial to see what could be found. Her choice finally settled on some soft chamber music out of Chicago.
The car dipped down a shallow incline and the radio completely blanked out for a few seconds. It came in again as we sped up the other side of the incline.
I puzzled over that.
Suddenly I remembered the obvious answer. We had passed under a solid bridge. There is a huge, cement railroad bridge just outside Boone that knocks out automobile radios like that. A two-lane highway dips underneath while a couple of railroads pass overhead. Radio waves don’t follow the cars under the bridge.
The one we had just passed under was not the one on the outskirts of Boone. I didn’t know where it was but it could be found again in a hurry, if need be, by simply following the railroad lines between Boone and Croyden. With Pleasantfield not too far in the background.
It was funny to think of their elaborate safety precautions being tossed to the winds by a little quirk like that.
The car slowed to a crawl, turned sharply to the left, and the gravel road was behind us. Outside a barking dog bounded alongside the sedan. In short minutes we stopped.
Paul took my arm, “C’mon.”
I stumbled out into the snow; the dog sniffed at my feet. Eleanor took my other arm to guide me along a brick wall, digging strong fingers into my wrist that might have been a message of some kind. The dog stayed close to my heels.