“I’ll take a break and stretch my legs,” Duke said. His body had responded instantly to challenge: every muscle was ready for trouble. “We’ve got a great day,” he said, stepping into the road.
“Sure thing. Can’t beat it. How about a smoke?”
“Well, no thanks. Just finished one.”
They were standing about three feet apart, their eyes narrowed as they smiled into the brilliant sunshine. “I’ll bet you played tennis in school,” Duke said, as the young man’s hand moved casually toward his back pocket.
“No, track was my sport. The eight-eighty.”
“Some difference,” Duke grinned.
The young man’s hand came up from his pocket and the gun he held was not much bigger than a pack of playing cards. “Don’t move!” he said, and his voice was suddenly hard and sharp with authority.
But the command came a fraction of a second too late; Duke was already moving. He struck downward with vicious force, and the edge of his hand chopped across the young man’s rising wrist — snapping a bone and sending the gun flying into the dirt at their feet. “Tennis player!” Duke yelled, caught in a furious, senseless anger.
The young man lunged at him, swinging for his jaw with his good hand, but Duke slipped the punch and struck him twice, once in the body and once in the face, and the blows drove him to his knees. “Lot of spirit, eh?” Duke said, as the man tried to grab him about the waist. “Dead game college kid!” He slapped his arms away and hit him again in the face, putting all his strength and anger behind the blow. The young man went over backwards and rolled to the side of the road, his body flopping like a rag doll’s in the dust. Duke picked up the little toy of a gun and dropped it into his pocket. He was breathing hard, and his heart pounded insistently against his ribs. It felt as big and solid as a bowling ball inside him, crowding everything else out of place. Booze, he thought, looking at the limp body lying in the road. Too much of it... But I still do all right. I still haven’t met the guy I can’t take.
He turned around and said, “Wise young punk—” and there he stopped, the grin fading from his face, staring at I the empty car. She was gone. Duke stood listening, an ear turning to the wind. There was no place she could go... Finally he heard her, in the woods to his left, running, heading toward the sea. He hesitated a moment, staring into the sky, listening to the plane. The cops were in it — which meant they’d been in it all along. It was everybody for himself now. Duke glanced up and down the empty road and then hopped the ditch that ran beside it, and melted into the green darkness of the woods. He could hear her ahead of him, running.
Twenty-three
Hank hit the brake as he came out of the curve and saw Duke’s car and the bakery truck parked sideways across the road. The skidding tires shot gravel through the air; he was almost hidden by the dust as he climbed out and crouched beside the car.
The countryside hummed with drowsy, commonplace sounds; a bird called plaintively from the low branches of a fir tree, and off to his right came the steady, sighing wash of the sea. When the dust settled he moved slowly toward Duke’s car, holding Grant’s gun in his hand, checking both sides of the road with his eyes. Then, from the direction of the sea, he heard a faint, indistinct cry. The bird flew from the branch chattering with angry excitement. Hank turned to the sound, listening for a second or so, and then he crossed the ditch beside the road and entered the woods at a scrambling run. Someone was moving ahead of him — not more than thirty or forty yards away — and he took his bearing on the dry noise of crackling leaves and branches.
He traveled a straight course, ignoring the branches and underbrush that cut and tore at his legs. Once he fell, his foot sinking six inches into bog mud, and he went down again when a ropy vine whipped around his ankle.
At the edge of the trees a shelf of rock jutted out high above the water and formed a small clearing. He was close to it now; already he could see tiny patches of blue sky glinting like decorations in the branches of the trees. He knew it was the girl running ahead of him; if it were Duke he wouldn’t have heard him — Duke made no more noise in the woods than a snake.
A sudden fear went through Hank, and he stopped short, staring about at the green shadows. Where was Duke? The fear grew in him as he lowered himself carefully to his knees, trying to control the sound of his heavy breathing. Where was his brother? He could hear the girl plainly; she was fifteen or twenty yards away, hidden by a screen of trees. She had stopped running; beyond the clearing that faced the sea, there was nowhere else to run. But he could hear the sound of her weeping, and the sound of the whimpering baby.
Where was Duke? Never where you expected him to be. Always ready to strike when your back was turned. He needed the girl and baby as hostages; that would occur to him inevitably. They were his only chance of getting clear. But he wouldn’t go directly to them. No... he’d wait to see who might be following.
Hank crawled back toward the road on his hands and knees, moving with infinite caution. After a dozen yards or so, he swung out on a wide circle to his left, traveling faster now, moving through the shadows in a half crouch; his body was hidden by the thick underbrush, and he picked patches of soft, moist earth to cushion his footsteps.
A moment later he approached the clearing once more — from the side now — following the rocky, curving shore line. Scrub firs grew thickly along the coast, and the sunlight was caught and held in the fine network of thick green branches. Turning a bend in the trail, Hank stopped suddenly, all of his muscles tightening spasmodically; Duke was standing with his back to him just a dozen feet away, motionless in the shadow of a tree. He was staring into the clearing, and in the silence Hank heard his deep, labored breathing. That sound had covered his approach. Duke held a gun in his hand, a tiny weapon not much bigger than a pack of cigarettes.
“Drop it, Duke!” Hand said. “Drop it fast!”
“Kid?” Duke’s voice was low and amused; he didn’t turn around. “Is that you, kid?”
“Drop it, Duke. Drop it, or I’ll shoot.”
“I was waiting for you, kid.” The gun slipped from his fingers and he turned slowly and looked at Hank. In the clearing beyond them they could hear the girl’s sobs.
“Go back to the road,” Hank called to her. “Go back to the road and wait there. It’s all right.”
“Sure, it’s all right,” Duke said, watching him with an ironical little smile. “I let her go. She’s okay. So is the baby. I told you they wouldn’t be hurt.” He jerked his head toward the clearing. “She thinks a big scene is expected now, that’s all. You know how dames are, kid.” In spite of the smile Duke’s face looked weary and old; a two-day beard smudged and coarsened his jawline, and his eyes were narrowed against the light filtering through the trees. He leaned against a tree trunk and hooked his thumbs carelessly on his belt. His red flannel shirt was open at the throat, and the sunlight glinted on the black hair springing up from his deep chest. “How did you get out?” he said. “Belle let you go, eh?”
He was guessing, Hank knew; shrewdly and accurately. But guessing... He said nothing and Duke shrugged lightly. “I figured it would be that way. That’s why I waited for you. I let her go, kid, and waited for you.”
“Fine,” Hank said. “We’ll both wait now. For the cops.”
“They were in it all along, I guess,” Duke said dryly. “Grant and his big brain.” He lifted a hand suddenly; in the distance they could hear cars approaching at high speed, the motors wailing through the soft green silence of the woods. “The boys in buttons,” Duke said. “The heroes.”