The Seven File

Fifteen

It was shortly after two on Monday afternoon that the phone sounded through the oppressive silence of the lodge. Grant lifted the receiver, frowning nervously, but after a few seconds his expression cleared, and he said, “That’s fine, everything’s going right on schedule.” He winked at Duke who was sitting at the fireplace, and made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. “Okay now, there’s nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. You just remember what I’ve told you... that’s right. Fine... fine.”

Grant put the receiver back in place and slapped the table with the flat of his hand. He began to laugh then, his voice high and giddy with relief. “Like clockwork, Duke,” he said. “The blind closed right on the dot of twelve.”

“They’ve got the money then,” Duke said.

“Sure they’ve got it; they’re playing ball. We’re going to pull this off, Duke.”

“Great,” Duke said. Since his run-in with Hank in the girl’s room, he had been drinking steadily, sitting and staring into the red eye of the fire. A frown hardened his dark features, and the leaping flames gleamed on the backs of his hands and cast a faint sheen on his thick black hair. “We’re coming to the payoff,” he said.

“That’s right. Tonight Creasy sends a note telling them about the money. The Bradleys get it in the morning. The cash register rings tomorrow night. Creasy picks up the dough, and it’s all over.”

“Except for the loose ends,” Duke said.

“Yeah.” Grant rubbed a hand over his face. “The loose ends.” He glanced at the door to the kitchen; Hank and Belle were in there finishing up the lunch dishes. The nurse was upstairs with the baby. “You got any ideas?” he said.

“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

They sat close together, speaking so softly that their voices were covered by the crackle of the fire. Duke took a sip of his drink. They were silent, avoiding each other’s eyes. Finally Grant let out his breath slowly. “What are we going to do?”

Duke smiled faintly. “You’re running things. It’s up to you.”

“Don’t clown around.”

“We’ll do what we got to do, Eddie. There’s no choice. Not the way I see it. Maybe you got another idea.”

“No — but how’s it going to look?”

“We’ll make it look all right.”

“Duke—” Grant hesitated, swallowing something in his throat. “You mean both of them?”

“Hold it,” Duke said.

Belle came into the room, carrying a white porcelain dish filled with clean, damp diapers. “I just rinsed these out,” she said. “Takes a little load off the girl.” Belle’s manner was righteous and complacent, but her eyes were slightly glazed over; she was proving something but she wasn’t quite sure what. “Can you move back a bit, Eddie? I want to hang ’em before the fire.”

“For Christ’s sake, we’re talking.”

“All right, you’re talking. It won’t hurt to move your chair, will it?”

“Hang the diapers in the kitchen.”

“They won’t dry, Eddie. I know.”

Duke said quietly, “Take the diapers and yourself back where you came from, Belle. This isn’t a nursery.”

“Well, that’s a fine—”

“Beat it!” Grant said. “Will you do what I tell you? We’re busy!”

“And that’s more important than the baby being clean and comfortable. Sure.” Belle shook her head and wandered back into the kitchen. They heard her say to Hank: “The brain trust is in session in there.”

Grant stared at the doorway for an instant, and then turned back to Duke. “Both of them? The nurse and the kid?”

“That’s my idea. You got another one?”

“Will it look all right?”

“The cops will have their answer in one package. The nurse and the kid. They won’t look any farther.”

“A note would help,” Grant said. “From the nurse to the family. Saying she’s sorry, maybe. Wouldn’t that help?”

“That’s pretty good. In fact, it’s damn good.” They sat without speaking for another minute and then Duke looked at Grant and said irritably, “Well, what are you waiting for?”

“Okay, okay. I’ll get the note. Don’t worry about it.”

“And I’ll get some wood. We’d freeze if I waited for anybody else to stir his tail.”

As Duke limped toward the front door Grant walked into the kitchen and said to Hank, “I need some paper and a pencil. You got any?”

“I think so.”

“Fine, get ’em.” Then he looked down at Belle who was sitting at the kitchen table. “Go upstairs and tell the nurse I want her. Come on, move.”

“All right,” Belle said, trying to strike a note of disinterested dignity, but she had been drinking steadily that morning and the words slurred together in a liquid murmur. Grant ran himself a glass of water at the sink and said, “You might try some of this stuff for a change. It’s a little-known beverage called water.”

“Dear, dear,” Belle said, patting the back of her head. “Some people around here are just getting lousy with virtue.”

“Beat it,” Grant said sharply. “You aren’t funny, you’re pathetic.”

“All right, I said I was going.” Her defiance wilted under the coldness in his eyes. She knew he was disgusted with her, that he thought her a slatternly nuisance; he made no effort to hide his feelings. It wasn’t fair, she thought, getting unsteadily to her feet. It was cruel... If he was tired of her, well okay. They’d had good times together, they’d meant something to each other. She wouldn’t spoil all that now. She’d bow out. She had some pride after all. It wasn’t fair of Eddie to make her feel so cheap and small. She hadn’t done anything to be ashamed of...

As she left the room, Hank returned with a pencil and a notebook. “These okay?” he said to Grant.

“Yeah, they’re fine. Just put ’em on the table.”

“Everything going all right?” Hank said casually.

“What do you mean?”

“I was just wondering if you’re going to make it. What’s your guess?”

Grant stared at him for a few seconds in silence. Then he said slowly, “I don’t have to guess, Junior.”

“You’d better be nicer to Belle. That’s a friendly tip. If you don’t brush her off gently, she might blow the whistle on you some day. Women are like that.”

“You’d better write an advice to the lovelorn column,” Grant said. “Better than that, you better just shut up. Understand?”

“Sure.”

Grant sipped his water, still staring at him. Then he said, “Why do you care? Don’t tell me you’re pulling for us.”

“Just because you’re underdogs? No, it’s not that,” Hank said.

“We’re not underdogs. We’re on top. That’s how I planned it.”

“You didn’t plan on the nurse,” Hank said. “You didn’t plan on me.”

“That’s right. So we’ll improvise. You watch.” Grant turned as the nurse came into the kitchen, with Belle holding her elbow lightly.

“Sit down,” he said, nodding to a chair in front of the pencil and pad. “You’re going to write a note to the Bradleys. In your own words, you tell ’em the kid is okay, and you’re sorry if they’ve been scared or worried. You got that?”

She sat down slowly at the table, and one of her slim hands moved across the table and touched the pencil. “Is that all?” she said, watching Grant without expression.

“That’s the start. The rest goes this way: tell them you’re sorry you took the baby, but that you needed money. You didn’t know what a terrible thing it was until it was too late to turn back. Ask them—” Grant gestured irritably. “To forgive you, I guess is all right. Put it in your own words without trying for anything fancy. You want me to run through it once more for you?”

“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.