Whistle Past the Graveyard [= Give the Girl a Gun]

Chapter Fifteen

“Well, good night,” I said.

“Not quite yet,” Al told me. “It’s only a fifteen-foot drop from the window. I’m afraid you might walk in your sleep.”

Crossing to the wall, he removed the two sets of handcuffs.

“Stick out your left foot,” he ordered.

“I’ve got a boil on that ankle,” I protested. “Don’t go clamping a steel band around it.”

Shrugging, he rounded the bed and cinched the cuff around the ankle of my false right leg. He cuffed the other ring to the foot of the bed.

“You always sleep in your socks?”

“My feet get cold,” I said.

Rounding the bed again, he moved to the head, clicked one ring of the second set around my left wrist and attached the other ring to the center brass upright.

Then he put his gun away under his arm, said, “Sleep tight, pal,” turned out the light and left me alone.

I waited what I estimated to be about fifteen minutes, listening to him moving around in the bedroom next to me. Then there was a creak of springs as he crawled in. I shifted position slightly and my own springs creaked.

Instantly bare feet slapped to the floor next door. A moment later my door swung open, the light flashed on and Al stood there covering me with his tiny-bored Woodsman.

Opening my eyes, I said with simulated sleepiness, “Now what?”

“Nothing,” he said, switched off the light, closed the door and went back to bed.

Ten minutes later I heard the rhythmic sound of snoring.

This time I waited what I estimated to be a full hour before moving at all. Then I reached down so carefully that the old springs failed to creak at all, pulled up my right pajama leg and loosened the straps above and below the knee. When the stump was free, I slowly rolled to the right, set my left foot on the floor and pushed myself erect.

The ancient springs groaned horribly during this maneuver, but there was nothing I could do about it. Balanced on my good leg, with both hands gripping the head of the bed, I listened for some reaction from the next room while sweat trickled down the sides of my face. But Al’s snoring continued uninterrupted.

My left hand was still cuffed to the center upright of the brass head, and without a hack saw I could see no way to get it free. The only alternative was to take the head with me.

Bending my knee, I reached down with my free right hand and felt the bed leg on my side where it touched the floor. It was equipped with a roller caster.

Rising again, I gripped the head firmly by its center with both hands, first getting my left hand set while I guided the handcuff upward along the shaft it ringed so as to avoid the rasp of steel against brass. When both hands were in place, I pulled outward with gradually increasing pressure.

The casters were old and probably rusty. They resisted my efforts until my face was dripping with sweat. Then suddenly they responded with a squeal that raised my hair on end, and the bed moved out from the wall a good foot and a half. Simultaneously I lost my balance and recovered it by planting my stump on the edge of the bed, which caused the springs to add their groan to the general racket.

Rigidly I held that position, listening to the sudden and ominous silence from the next room. Al’s bedsprings creaked as he shifted restlessly. Then I began to breathe again as his snoring resumed.

Still I held my uncomfortable position for a full ten minutes before again daring to move. Then I risked another slight creak by regaining my one-legged stance alongside the bed. Steadying myself by hanging onto the head with my left hand, I gripped the underside of the bed frame with my right and lifted. With only a slight rasping noise the frame lifted out of the slot attaching it to the head. When I let it down again, that side sagged but did not touch the floor because the left side of the frame was still joined to the head.

Holding the handcuff chain with my right hand to prevent its rattling, I squeezed myself between the wall and the bed to the other side. There I repeated the operation, but this time when I let down the frame, it rested on the floor and the head was free.

Inevitably this created some noise. As usual the bed springs creaked, there was a loud thump when I let the frame down a trifle harder than I intended, and the casters squealed when the head started to slide and almost crashed into the wall.

I managed to steady it, however, and stood with my heart pounding, listening for sounds from Al.

Again the snoring had stopped.

I stood stock still, balanced on one foot with my shoulder against the wall and both hands steadying the brass head of the bed. But this time the snoring did not resume. Instead I heard bare feet slap on the floor.

Desperately I drew my lungs full of air and emitted it slowly in what I hoped sounded like a gentle snore. When there was no immediate further sound from the next room, I repeated the snore, then repeated it again.

To my tremendous relief I heard Al roll back into bed. But my relief wasn’t so great that it made me reckless. I continued to issue a gentle snoring sound until it was drowned out by the real snores from Al’s bedroom.

I waited a full quarter hour before chancing another move. Then I lifted the light brass head completely off the floor, my heart moving to my mouth when the casters came loose and dropped to the floor with twin rattles. But when Al’s snoring continued uninterrupted, I was glad to be rid of the caster’s squeals.

Pulling the brass head under my left armpit, I used it as a cumbersome crutch. It was not heavy, being of hollow brass tubing, and it worked with remarkable efficiency. If Al had decided to put me in the double bed instead of the single one, I don’t think I could have managed, because using the head of a double bed as a crutch would have been too awkward. But the single one made a fine crutch.

Nevertheless it took me nearly ten minutes to reach the door of my room, for with each step I had to bring the legs of my improvised crutch down softly while I precariously balanced on one leg, and I had to make sure they were firmly set on the floor and would not slide before I made another hop forward. In between hops I listened for indications that Al might be awakened by my movements.

Getting through the door was difficult, and getting through Al’s door into his bedroom required even more skill, for it was narrower. But somehow I managed it.

Fortunately Al didn’t awaken until I was nearly to his bedside.

Then he sat up abruptly, stared at me in the moonlight filtering through his window and started to thrust his hand under his pillow.

Bracing myself on my brass crutch, I swung my leg forward and planted my foot in the center of his chest.

He went backward as though shot from a catapult, hit the open window and went through it, taking the screen with him. Below I heard the breaking of branches as he passed through a tree just outside the window on the way down.

Clambering off the bed, I got my crutch under my arm again and felt beneath Al’s pillow for his gun. With it in my hand I made my way to the wall where his suit hung, and then had to thrust the gun under the cord of my pajamas in order to have a free hand with which to search for the handcuff keys. I found them in a side pocket of his coat.

Altogether a good five minutes passed before I was free of the brass anchor I had been carrying around and could hop to the window with the gun in my hand. Below I could see no sign of my recent captor. As I puzzledly studied the moonlit terrain, I heard the car start.

The carport opened on the kitchen side of the cabin, but before I could hop to the kitchen window, steadying myself against the walls and pieces of furniture as I went, the car had backed out and roared away up the dirt lane.

It was small satisfaction to know Al had been forced to drive off wearing only pajamas, for he had left me stranded miles from nowhere. And the cabin had no telephone.

The first thing I did was return to my bedroom, free my artificial leg from the grip of the second handcuff and strap it back on. Then I dressed in slacks, sweat shirt and jacket, packed my tuxedo in the suitcase and set the suitcase on the kitchen table.

Then I went through the clothing Al had left behind.

There was nothing of interest in his suitcase except that all his underwear and socks were silk. But his wallet, which I found in the hip pocket of his trousers, gave at least a limited amount of information about him.

According to a driver’s license in it his legal name was Alberto Toma, he was barely twenty-one instead of the twenty-two I had guessed, his occupation was “salesman” and his home address 1812 Sixth Street. I suspected that might be his actual address, since it was in the heart of the slum area which bred most of our local racketeers.

There was no point in sticking around the cabin any more. Checking the money compartment of the wallet, I discovered it contained slightly over two hundred dollars, mostly in twenties, then thrust the wallet into my pocket. The Woodsman I stuck under my belt beneath the jacket, picked up my suitcase, turned out the lights and left.

It was four o’clock in the morning by the time I had walked as far as the river road, and four-thirty before I reached an all-night service station which had a phone. A taxi from town arrived for me forty-five minutes later, and it was six before I finally reached my apartment.

Setting my alarm for three hours later, I collapsed in bed.