She shook her head, her eyes closed tightly.
“Don’t go on the honeymoon, Angela. Don’t go with him. Tell him you’ve made a mistake. It’s not too late. You’d be doing the right thing. Otherwise...”
She shook her head again. Weakly, she murmured, “Ben, take me back.”
“I’ll be waiting for you, Angela. Get rid of him. He’s no good for you. Do it yourself, Angela. Tell him, tell him.”
“Ben, take me back,” she mumbled. “Please take me back. Please. Please. Please please please please please—”
“Will you tell him? Will you tell him you want it annulled?”
“Ben, please please—”
“Will you?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll tell him.” She did not care that she was lying. She only wanted the nightmare of this ride to end, wanted to get away from the man beside her. “Yes,” she lied again, and then she gave the lie strength and conviction. “Yes, take me back and I’ll tell him. Take me back, Ben.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re not really going to tell him.”
“I am!”
“Do you love me?”
She could not answer.
“Do you love me?”
“No,” she said, and she began weeping bitterly. “I love Tommy, I love Tommy! Why are you doing this to me, Ben? Why are you torturing me like this? If you ever cared anything for me, take me back! Please take me back!”
“All right,” he snapped suddenly. He slowed the car, and then executed a screeching U-turn. His foot pressed against the accelerator once more. Angela did not look at the speedometer.
Tommy was waiting at the curb when the MG pulled up before the Carella house. Angela leaped from the car and rushed into his arms, and he held her for a moment and then said, “What the hell’s the idea, Ben?”
“It was just a wedding gag,” Ben said, grinning feebly. “Kidnapping the bride, you know? Just a gag.”
“You’ve got one hell of a sense of humor. You’re lucky I don’t knock you flat on your ass. You had us all going nuts here until we noticed your car was gone. Goddamnit, Ben, I don’t think this is the least bit funny. I don’t think it’s funny at all. Goddamnit, I think I will knock you on your ass!”
“Come on, where’s your sense of humor?” Ben said, and again he grinned feebly.
“Oh, go to hell, you bastard,” Tommy answered. He put his arm around Angela. “Come on, honey, let’s go inside.”
“You want me to go home?” Ben asked sheepishly.
“Go, stay, do what you want. Just keep away from Angela.”
“I was only kidding,” Ben said.
The men surrounding the body of Birnbaum the neighbor were not kidding at all. There was something very unfunny about murder. No matter when it happened, or where, it was still uncomical. There were some who maintained that the worst murders were those that dragged a man out in the wee hours of the morning. There were others who despised early evening murders. But each murder seemed the worst when it was happening, and each of the men who stood looking down at Birnbaum’s lifeless shape agreed — though they did not voice it — that the worst time to be killed was in the late afternoon.
The 112th Squad had sent one detective over because the murder had been committed within its boundaries and because the case would officially be theirs from here on in. Homicide, informed that four bona fide detectives were at the scene, decided not to send anyone over. But a police photographer was taking pictures of the corpse fastidiously, if without the energetic grasshopperiness of a Jody Lewis. The assistant medical examiner was officially pronouncing Birnbaum dead and instructing the stretcher bearers on how to carry him out to the meat wagon waiting next to the curb in front of Birnbaum’s house. Some boys from the lab had put in an appearance, too, and they were attempting now to find foot imprints from which they could make a cast. All in all, everyone was pretty busy compiling the statistics of sudden and violent death. Unfortunately, none of the investigators felt the need to make a telephone call. Had the need presented itself, one or another of the men might have wandered into the Birnbaum house that stood forty feet from the shielding line of shrubbery behind which they worked.
In the attic of the Birnbaum house, Cotton Hawes felt his strength returning. For the past ten minutes, he had lain silently, his eyes flicking from one corner of the attic to another, and then back to the patiently waiting powerhouse squatting on the floor near the window. The attic was filled with the discarded paraphernalia of living: bundles of old magazines, a green trunk marked “CAMP IDLEMERE” in white paint, a dressmaker’s dummy, a lawn mower without blades, a hammer, an Army duffel bag, a radio with a smashed face, three albums marked “Photographs” and numerous other items that had undoubtedly cluttered the busy life of a family.
The only item that interested Hawes was the hammer.
It rested on top of the trunk some four feet from where he lay.
If he could get the hammer without being heard or seen, he would promptly use it on the sniper’s skull. Provided the sniper didn’t turn first and shoot him. It would not be too pleasant to get shot at close range with a rifle.
Well, when? Hawes asked himself.
Not now. I’m not strong enough yet.
You’re never going to get any stronger, Hawes thought. Are you afraid of that big bastard crouched by the window?
Yes.
What?
Yes, I’m afraid of him. He can break me in half even without using his rifle. And he may use it. So I’m afraid of him, and the hell with you.
Let’s go, coward, Hawes thought. Let’s make our play for the hammer. There’s no time like the present, the man said.
The man didn’t have to face Neanderthal.
Look, are we...?
All right, all right, let’s go.
Silently, he rolled over onto his side. The sniper did not turn. He rolled again, completing a full turn this time, coming to rest a foot away from the trunk. Swallowing hard, he reached out for the hammer. Soundlessly, he slid it off the trunk and gripped it tightly in his right hand.
He swallowed again and got to his knees.
Okay, he thought, we rush him now, hammer raised. We crease his skull before he knows what hit him.
Ready?
He got to a crouching position.
Set?
He stood up and raised the hammer high.
Go!
He took a step forward.
The door behind him opened suddenly.
“Hold it, mister!” a voice said, and he whirled to face a big blonde in a red silk dress. She was reaching into her purse as he leaped at her.
Chapter 12
It cannot be said of Cotton Hawes that he did not ordinarily enjoy wrestling with blondes whose proportions matched this one’s. For here was truly a blonde. Here was a handful, and an armful, and an eyeful; here was the image that automatically came to mind whenever anyone muttered the magic words “big blonde.”
Standing on a runway in Union City, this girl would have caused heart stoppage. Third-row bald heads would have turned pale with trembling.
On the legitimate Broadway stage, this girl would have set the theater on fire, set the customers on their ears, and set the critics rushing back to their typewriters to pound out ecstatic notices.
In a bedroom — Hawes’s imagination reeled with the thought.
But unfortunately, this girl was not on a runway or a stage or a bed. This girl was standing in the doorway to a room no bigger than an upper berth in a Pullman. This girl was obviously not planning to set anyone but Hawes on his ear. She reached into her purse with all the determination of a desert rat digging for water, and then her hand stopped, and a surprised look came over her lovely features. In clear, crystal-pure, ladylike tones, she yelled, “Where’s my goddamn gun?” and Hawes leaped on her.