“No — I’ve got it.” She sat perfectly still, one hand touching the pencil. The room was quiet, and in that instant of oppressive silence her other hand moved reluctantly to the writing tablet.
“Get with it,” Grant said.
She moved her hand back from the pencil. “No — I can’t.”
“You’ll write it now, or a little bit later maybe. But you’re going to write it.”
“No,” she said, and Grant’s frown deepened at the sudden conviction in her voice. “You’ve hurt them enough. I won’t do this to them.”
“You won’t be worrying about them if you don’t do what I tell you,” Grant said. “You’ll have enough to do worrying about yourself.” He leaned toward her, putting his hands flat on the table, and the overhead light gleamed brightly against the dangerous anger in his face. “We’ve got a full day to work on you, baby. We’ve got time to bring you around slow. But I like to work fast. And I know quite a few tricks. You learn things in jail. You learn things from crazy bastards who spend all their time figuring out ways to hurt people they don’t like. You want to find out what I learned? It’s up to you, baby. What’s it going to be?”
She was gripping the sides of the chair with her hands, and all the color had drained from her face.
“Well, how about it?” he said gently.
“No — no,” she said, in a high, straining voice. “I won’t do it.”
“We’ll see about that,” Grant said, walking slowly around the table. He brushed past Belle, paying no attention to her; his eyes were fixed on the girl. “You’re going to wish you’d never been born.”
“Don’t touch her, Eddie,” Hank said.
Grant turned on him, and his gun came out so quickly that Hank hardly saw the motion of his hand. “Sit down!” he said, his voice swelling angrily.
“I don’t think you can afford fireworks,” Hank said. He didn’t believe this; there was little chance that anyone was within half a mile of the cottage. But he was aware of a profound change within himself. Earlier he had come to a state of fatalistic acceptance; they planned to kill him anyway, so what happened before that didn’t matter very much. That had been his armor. But it wasn’t enough now. She and the baby were alone and helpless. He had to protect them until he died. That was more important than the dying. Staring at Grant he said, “You’ll wake up the area, Eddie. Is that what you want? Company? Are you getting bored?”
“Nobody’s going to hear the shot,” Grant said.
“There might be a hunter fifty yards from the house,” Hank said. “Or a fisherman over on John Adam’s pond. You’re taking a chance you don’t need to, Eddie. You’re starting to act like Duke.”
“Yeah?” Grant’s face was hard and impassive; he had got his first compulsive rage under control. “Maybe you’re right at that. Gambling’s a luxury at this stage of the game. But there’s a way without any risk at all.” He turned slightly toward Belle. “Go upstairs and get the kid.”
“What’s the idea, Eddie?”
“Just bring her down, that’s all.”
“You wouldn’t hurt her,” the nurse said, in a soft, incredulous voice. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“Put it this way,” Grant said, smiling slightly. “I’d hate to. Belle, do what I tell you.”
“Eddie, I—” She wet her lips, avoiding the sudden anger in his eyes. “It wouldn’t be right. A baby—”
“Get her, I said,” Grant yelled. “You think this is a goddamn debating club? Do what I tell you!”
Belle stumbled toward the door as if his words had struck her with a physical impact. “It’s wrong, you know it’s wrong,” she said.
“Please don’t,” the nurse said, in a breaking voice.
Belle stopped in the doorway and looked at her. “Nobody had said ‘please’ to me for years,” she said slowly.
“Please,” the nurse said again, but she was crying now and the word was an indistinct sound in the silence.
“Sure, sure,” Belle said, staring at Grant. “Nobody is going to hurt that baby. You promised she wouldn’t be hurt. A fine word of honor you’ve got. I couldn’t ever look at myself again if anything happened to that kid. I’m a mother. I’ve got feelings, Eddie.”
“Belle, get moving,” Grant said in a thick, choking voice. “I can’t take any more of this.” The gun had swung around to her and Hank saw that he was ready to shoot; he was breathing with a kind of desperate urgency, as if he couldn’t get enough air, and his eyes were blazing with fury.
This wasn’t what Hank wanted; the explosion had to be between Duke and Grant.
“I think you’d better write the note,” he said to the nurse. He spoke as quietly and calmly as he could, trying to reduce the dangerous tension in the room.
“Yes,” she said quickly, desperately. “I will.”
“Okay, okay,” Grant said. The gun came down to his side and he wet his dry lips. “That’s what I wanted in the first place...”
They watched in awkward silence as she wrote the note. The light shone on her dark head and touched the tears on her cheeks with flickering brilliance. There was no sound but the soft pull of the pencil, and the uneven catch in her breathing.
When she stopped writing, Grant picked up the note and read it through several times, nodding his head slowly. “You could have done this right away and saved all the commotion.” Then he stared at Belle until she flushed under his intent, impersonal scrutiny.
“There’s no reason to look like that,” she said uneasily. “It wouldn’t have been right, Eddie. You know that.”
He walked into the living room without answering her. “You know it. Eddie,” she said, staring after him anxiously.
Hank walked around the table and put his hand on the girl’s shoulder. She had lowered her head on her arms and was weeping helplessly.
There was nothing he could say; words of comfort or hope would be grotesque. He patted her arm gently, and at last she raised her head and pressed her cheek against the back of his hand. It was an impersonal response, he knew; she was like a frightened child turning impulsively and instinctively toward the kindness in the stranger’s voice.
Sixteen
By six o’clock Monday night the film which had been shot in Thirty-first Street was delivered to the Bradleys’ by two agents wearing the uniforms of a rug-cleaning service. The film, along with screen and projector, was inside a neatly wrapped carpet.
Crowley set up the screen in the long dining room, after closing the doors and drawing the blinds on the windows. He seated Ellie and Dick Bradley to the right of the projector, Oliphant Bradley and Mrs. Jarrod to the left, and now they stared up at him, their faces pale anxious blurs in the semidarkness.
They were watching him with a mixture of fear and hope, he realized: they hoped for miracles, but feared he was going to play a conjurer’s trick on them. And he felt the same way himself...
Crowley snapped a switch and a beam of blue-white light illuminated the square screen at the end of the room. “Before we start I want to point out a few things,” he said. “This will be a long session. Don’t be discouraged if we seem to be getting nowhere. Keep watching. Now, about what to watch for: first of all, faces you’ve seen before, people who may have worked for you, or with you at some time in the past. Secretaries, chauffeurs, maids, gardeners, butlers, handymen. Anyone you might have had contact with at clubs, parking lots, garages, shops, restaurants.” Crowley ticked off categories on his fingers. “Caddies, locker room attendants, bartenders, waiters, elevator operators, maintenance men, shoeshine boys — speak up if you see anyone you’ve known before. Mrs. Jarrod, I want you to watch particularly for anyone you’ve ever seen around this house — delivery boys, window-washers, plumbers, painters, part-time maids, part-time catering help, that sort of thing. Do you all understand?”