The Fugitive Pigeon

Chapter 9

The noise alone, in that confined space, was practically enough to kill me. The gunshot went POWwwrrrangingggg, reverberating around inside the tiny room and my tiny head like J. Arthur Rank falling over his gong.

I thought for sure I was shot, killed, done with. What confused me was that I wasn’t falling, down. I stood there, stunned, baffled, and all my mind was capable of doing was wondering why I wasn’t falling down.

Could it be I wasn’t shot?

POWwwrranginggg! She did it again, frowning now as much in concentration as in either rage or grief. Her tongue stuck out a corner of her mouth, her slender shoulders were hunched up with the effort, and she just kept squeezing that trigger.

Twice. Was it even remotely possible I was still alive? With no more than six feet separating us, with that huge piece of machinery spitting authoritative pieces of metal at me, was there any reason at all to suppose I was still alive?

Of course, the gun barrel was weaving back and forth like the head of a cobra. And it was certainly true that I still wasn’t falling. So maybe, just maybe now, maybe she was missing.

But could she keep missing forever? I was in front of her, six feet away. No matter how bad a shot she was, sooner or later one of those bullets she was sending out into the world was going to find a home in a portion of me.

I jumped her.

She was slender, but strong, and she had an amazing number of sharp edges. Her elbows, for instance, were very sharp, very sharp. So were her teeth, which were imbedded briefly in my wrist. So was her knee, which kept trying to prove she wasn’t a lady.

I was hampered not only by the sharp parts of her, but also by the soft parts, which I tried to avoid touching. But if you think you can take a gun away from a sharp-toothed sharp-elbowed girl without touching any soft parts, you’re crazy. I wouldn’t behave with an old girl friend in a movie balcony the way I behaved with Miss Althea. And believe me, I got no pleasure out of it. I found the whole incident embarrassing and painful and not a little dangerous.

Anyway, I finally got the gun. My left wrist was bleeding, where she’d bit me, and I was limping because she’d kicked me on the right shin, and my left eye was watering because she’d stuck her finger in it, and my kidneys would require a long quiet time to forget her elbows, but at least I had the gun.

She stood there in front of me, gasping for breath, glaring at me defiantly. High spots of color shone in her cheeks, and she was cupping her right hand with her left as though I’d hurt her.

“You’ll pay for this,” she said. Do I have to mention she said it through gritted teeth? I thought not.

“Now, listen,” I said. “I did not kill your father, I swear it. I never killed anybody in my life. Your father was trying to have me killed, if you want to come right down to it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said.

“What about those two guys in the black car? They’re the ones that tried to do it.”

“Those are my father’s business associates,” she said.

“You’re darn right they are. And they—”

But that was as far as I got. The gunfire had apparently been heard in the house, because at that point the barn door burst open and Clarence came barreling in.

There’s a time for chivalry, and there’s a time for practicality. This was a time for practicality. I immediately ran around behind Miss Althea, grabbed her around the throat, stuck the gun in the delicately magnificent small of her back, and shouted, “One step closer and I plug her!” If my voice hadn’t gone falsetto about midway through that sentence, the whole performance would have been very impressive.

Nevertheless, it was impressive enough to stop Clarence in his tracks. “Let her go,” he said, but he knew I had the whip hand.

“Back on out of the barn,” I told him. “Go on, move.”

He backed on out of the barn, looking like Lon Chaney, Jr., making up his mind to turn into the Wolf Man. I followed, pushing Miss Althea ahead of me. I switched my grip from her neck to her arm, and out to the sunlight we went. I could feel her trembling, but whether from rage or fear I couldn’t tell.

Outside, there was another surprise. A tableau: Tim, still in his chauffeur’s uniform and now with the addition of his cap, holding a small pistol aimed at Artie Dexter, who stood sheepish and worried in the middle of the expanse of blacktop.

Artie Dexter!

First things first. I shouted, “Drop that gun! Drop it!”

Tim just gaped at me. So did Artie.

Clarence said, “Do like he says. He’s got a gun on Miss Althea.”

Artie said, “Charlie! What’s come over you, baby?”

Tim dropped the pistol.

“Pick it up, Artie,” I said.

“Right.”

To Clarence I said, “Is Mr. Gross coming out here?”

He said, “What? Are you kidding?”

“They were going to kill you, Charlie,” Artie told me. “They got their orders on the phone, I heard them talking. They were going to kill you and bury you out back. And when they got me, they figured to kill me too.”

“That’s a lie!” cried Miss Althea. “Clarence?”

“I can’t do nothing, miss.”

“We’ve got to get out of here, Artie,” I said.

“Take her along,” he suggested. “For a hostage.”

“Good idea. You two get into the barn. If I see either one of you coming after me, I’ll plug Miss Althea.”

Of course I knew I wouldn’t shoot Miss Althea, but they didn’t. Red-faced with anger and embarrassment, Tim and Clarence went reluctant and pouting on into the barn.

“Come on,” said Artie.

We went around the house, me still keeping a tight grip on Miss Althea, who from time to time wasted breath by telling me things I wouldn’t get away with. To Artie I said, “Where’d you come from?”

“After you left my place,” he said, “two tough-looking guys showed up, asking for you. They acted kind of odd when I told them you were gone. I got to thinking about it, you saying you were in a jam, and asking about Agricola, and then those two guys coming along, so after a while I figured maybe I better come look for you. You said you were coming to Staten Island to talk to Agricola, so here I am. I tried to sneak up on the house, see if you were around, but those two plug-uglies caught up with me.”

“I don’t know what you two are trying to do,” Miss Althea said, “but you’re wasting your breath. You can’t fool me.”

Artie said, “What’s she talking about?”

I told him about Agricola being dead and this being his daughter who thought I had killed him.

“And you did!” she cried.

“Quiet,” I told her.

Artie looked back at the house. “We’d better hurry,” he said.

“Maybe we should have taken the Continental,” I said.

“Car thieves too!” Miss Althea cried.

“I’ve got wheels,” Artie assured me. “Don’t worry.”

“Killers!” cried Miss Althea. “Murderers!”

Artie leaned close to me, so we walked a moment shoulder to shoulder. In a confidential tone he said, “Did you, Charlie? You know, did you do the old guy?”

“For Pete’s sake!”

“He did, he did! You’re an accomplice!”

“Oh, shut up,” I told her. She was a real pain sometimes. I said to Artie, “You know me better than that, for Pete’s sake.”

“I thought I did, baby,” he said, “but all of a sudden you’re like wow, you know what I mean? Like sleeping on the rug all night, like you’re in a jam with the rackets bosses, like here we are with a chick for a hostage, this isn’t exactly the same old Charlie Poole from New Utrecht, you know?”

“You do what you got to do,” I said.

“Killer!” she yelled.

I pinched her arm to make her shut up. I told Artie, “She don’t know about her father, I guess. About him being in the rackets.”

She shouted, “Are you insane? My father was a farmer! You two are crazy, you’re both crazy! Help! Help!”

I had to really twist her arm a good one before she’d quit hollering. I didn’t want to do it, but there wasn’t any choice. “Walk faster,” I told her, “and keep your mouth shut.” And I kept her arm twisted up behind her a little, so she’d do both and not give me any more trouble.

We hurried on out to Huguenot Avenue and Artie went off to the right, saying, “Down this way. Hurry!”

Parked down the road, next to the fallen tree on which I had been sitting not too long ago, was the most nefarious automobile I had ever seen. It made the killers’ black car look like a churchgoer. This one, purring a bit with the engine on and a trickle of white smoke at the exhaust, was a black 1938 Packard limousine, with the bulky truck and the divided rear window and the long coffin-like hood and the headlights sitting up on top of the arrogant broad fenders. It was as gleamingly polished all over as a toy from Japan, with sparkling white sidewalls and glittering chrome hubcaps and door handles that semaphored the sun. And there was Chloe inside, sitting at the wheel, like advance scout for a foray from St. Trinian’s.

“Where?” I said. “Wha.”

“My aunt’s,” Artie explained. “She lets me borrow it sometimes.”

Miss Althea said, “You can get the electric chair for kidnaping, you know.”

“Anything to keep from being shot,” I said.

We reached the car and Artie pulled open the rear door. “Put her in there,” he said.

I did, and followed her in, and Artie shut the door and got into the front seat. “Get out of here fast,” he said.

Chloe said, “Hi, Charlie,” and asked no questions. We roared off.

“Our best bet is Jersey,” Artie said. “Take your next left.”

“Right.”

“The Mann Act,” said Miss Althea.

“What do I care?” I said. “I’m going to the electric chair anyway.”

I have been in apartments smaller than the interior of that Packard. There was enough floor space between the front and back seats for a crap game, all softly carpeted and softly clean. Everything in the car was clean, spotless. The upholstery, which had to be the original stuff, was scratchy gray plush, as new-looking as the enraged girl sitting grim-faced beside me. There were leather thongs at the sides, for elderly ladies and gangsters to hold on to, and small green vases containing artificial flowers hung in little wire racks between the doors.

The steering wheel of this monster was itself nearly as big as Chloe, who drove with the nonchalance of one who knows she cannot die. I, lacking that assurance, sat and cowered like the coward I was. If death didn’t come from behind me, in the shape of Clarence and Mr. Gross and all the other minions of the organization, it would surely come from ahead of me, in the shape of something hard and immovable for Chloe to drive headlong into.

“You’ll never get away with this,” Miss Althea told me.

As if I needed reminding.