She slipped the lock from the hasp and let the iron bar drop to the floor. The door was pushed open violently, almost upsetting her, and Hank came out in a crouch, his left hand ready to strike.
“No, no,” she said, backing away from him. “Duke’s gone with the baby. He’s going to kill her. Eddie said they wouldn’t. He kept saying that all the time.”
“Where’s Grant?”
“I sent him upstairs for a minute. But hurry! You’ve got to hurry. Before he comes down. The car turned right I heard it turn right. Your car is still here. Go after him. Tell him he can’t do it.”
Hank picked up the iron bar in his left hand and started up the steps to the kitchen. He would have to go out the front door; Duke had the keys to the back door and the kitchen windows had been nailed shut. He was conscious strangely of a sense of no-consciousness; he wasn’t thinking, planning, hoping, fearing. A stiff strand of blood-matted hair fell down over his forehead, and the pain in his right hand was like smouldering fire. But he was hardly aware of these things.
In the kitchen he stopped for an instant, staring into the living room. Belle was coming up the stairs behind him, panting heavily, and this was the only sound in the house. Should he tiptoe toward the front door? Or make a run for it? Better to take it naturally; Grant would assume the footsteps were Belle’s.
He moved into the living room, staring at the front door, estimating the time it would take to start the car rolling — and then a voice beside him said, “Drop it. Junior. Drop it fast!” Hank turned, feeling the heavy, sickening stroke of his heart as Grant came toward him, his big pale face tense with fear and anger. “Drop it, goddam you,” he yelled suddenly. “What do you think I’m talking to you for?”
Belle stopped in the doorway, a little scream of terror breaking past her dry lips. “Eddie, Eddie, don’t! There’s been enough — don’t.”
Grant stared at her, his big chest rising and falling slowly. “You let him out! You gave him a chance to put me in the chair. That’s what you did. That’s how you pay me back.”
“You said you wouldn’t hurt the baby!” Tears trembled in her swollen eyes. “You said that, Eddie, over and over. Didn’t you, Eddie—”
“Go ahead, shoot both of us,” Hank said, his voice low and savage. The iron bar swung at his side. “You killed Adam Wilson. Duke’s going to kill the nurse and baby. So you kill us. You’re in the wholesale business now.”
“Shut up, I’m warning you.”
“Go to hell! You’re nothing now. You’ll be dead in three weeks. You think you can beat this? You think you can kill five people and drive away like a summer tourist? What kind of a fool are you?”
“Eddie, he’s right. Help him to stop Duke. That’s your only chance.”
“Shut up!” Grant shouted, his body trembling with impotent fury. “We had this deal made. Creasy’s got the money, you hear that?” Grant sounded as if he were strangling on the words; they came out thick and swollen from his straining throat. “He called us, he’s got the money. No hitches, nothing. We were ready to leave when Duke got back. And you threw it all away. You crazy, sniveling bitch, you threw it all away. The only thing I ever wanted, the only thing...”
“You’re the crazy one!” Belle was sobbing now. “All you wanted to do was go back to the steak house like a big shot. Nothing else counted. You’re the crazy one!”
“Belle, don’t—”
“It’s the truth! It’s all you wanted. Just walking into Donovan’s, or whatever it’s called, and pretending you were a big shot again. Pretending you were never in jail, and that you were fifteen years younger. Duke knew it. You didn’t want the money from this job, you didn’t want to make a life for you and me — you just wanted to make an entrance and order drinks like some down-homer in town with a bankroll.” Belle brushed a tear from her cheek. “Why didn’t you just go to an easy-loan outfit and borrow a couple of hundred bucks? That would pay for ten minutes at Donovan’s, wouldn’t it? Instead you kidnap a baby and sill people you never saw before in your life. Crazy! You’re the crazy one. You probably couldn’t get a table at Donovan’s. Those years in jail happened. Eddie. You’re old. You can’t change that by dreaming and doing exercises. You’re like old chorus girls who’re always torching for guys who gave them flowers thirty years back, old bags nobody wanted to—” Belle’s voice faltered. She took a step backward shaking her head slowly. “No, I didn’t mean that. Eddie. No, Eddie, you can’t—”
Grant was swearing at her then, softly and mechanically, and when the gun jumped twice in his hand, he was still swearing, spitting the words into the sudden terrible pain in her eyes.
And when she staggered and fell, whimpering his name into the floor, he was still cursing her in a weary, hopeless voice.
Hank stepped toward him, raising the iron bar. Grant tried to bring the gun around, but his face blurred with surprise and fear as he saw that he was going to be too late. “No!” he shouted, but Hank was on top of him then, the bar swinging viciously at his head. The blow landed just below Grant’s temple, and it drove him down to his knees. Hank didn’t wait for him to fall; he knew from the impact that he wouldn’t get up for a long time.
He picked up Grant’s gun and knelt beside Belle. She was lying in a widening pool of blood. “Baby,” he heard her say. She was staring at Grant’s closed eyes; their faces were only inches apart. “Eddie, baby, I shouldn’t have — about Dononvan’s. I shouldn’t have said that. They’d know you—” She tried to finish the sentence but the words died in her throat, died with her; tears stood out brightly on her chalk-white face.
Hank touched her shoulder, and then he stood and ran for his car. Duke had turned right, she’d said. He thought he knew where Duke was going...
Twenty-two
Duke drove slowly along the gravel-topped road that followed the curving coast line. It was seven o’clock, and the flat, blue water was sparkling in the hot, brilliant sunlight. The early morning mists were lifting from the green fields, and the breeze off the sea was fresh and clean and cool.
Duke lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, savoring the satisfying bite of the smoke in his lungs. Another few miles, he thought. He held out the pack to the girl. “You want one of these?”
She sat beside him in the front seat, holding the sleeping baby in her arms. “No,” she said. He glanced at her and saw that she was staring straight ahead, her eyes dark and wide in her pale face. “Where are you taking us?” she said.
“Just up the road aways.”
“You don’t have to kill the baby,” she said. “She could never cause you any trouble.”
So she knows, he thought, taking a long pull on his cigarette. Duke didn’t like the job ahead of him. But it would be over fast, at least; a blow at the back of her neck, that was all. Then let the car go over and down — way down — taking both of them with it. Fast... thirty seconds at the most. His concern puzzled him. He wasn’t used to reflection. How was he going to feel afterward? Well — he’d know soon enough.
“You don’t have to kill her,” she said, watching him.
“Who said anything about killing her?”
“You think if we’re found together — the police won’t look for anyone else. Isn’t that it?”
“That idea crossed my mind,” Duke said dryly. He glanced at her, then back to the road. It was such a damned waste. He could see her legs reflected in the windshield, slim and beautiful, the color of honey in the sunlight.