Catch-As-Catch-Can

by Charlotte Armstrong

  She thought, Laila … was my job. I should have kept her out of danger. Pearl could see the danger but I could not and I wasn’t good at the job. Now I must do every last ounce of trying that I can do to find her or I can’t stand it I couldn’t live any more.

  She kept going. She didn’t in her conscious thoughts hold Andrew Talbot, but every throb of her laboring heart beat in a hollow where his name had been.

  CHAPTER 18

  In the half dark, Talbot walked into the snarl of men and up to the cop and said tensely, “What happened here? That’s my car. Where’s Dee Allison?”

  The snarl broke apart. The argument, about to die of its own futility, ceased. The civilians dashed to their business at once. Some of them joined the TV technicians who were rolling out equipment in furious haste and lost themselves in that systematic disorder. Two workmen and a Mr. Bowman gathered together, out of their way. Mr. Bowman, who was dressed as elegantly as he would ever be in his life, took paper from his pocket. It was too dark to read but he began to mumble half-memorized phrases, anyway. His eyes were faintly glazed. A man approached him, turned him around, and began to smear make-up on his face.

  The cop said, “Is your name Talbot?”

  “Where’s Dee Allison?” Talbot was wild with alarm. Vince Procter shifted his weight from foot to foot beside him, peering at everything, enjoying the excited confusion.

  “Allison? That’s the redheaded girl? Yeah, well, she got hurt some. Not bad. Ambulance took her to St. Bart’s. That’s this end of Long Beach.”

  “Not bad? How bad?”

  “Knocked her out, but nothing broken. Nothing serious, as far as I know.”

  “Where’s Breen? He was in my car, too.”

  “Oh, he’s around. Or he was. He’s O.K.” The cop looked glad to be giving good news.

  Andy pulled air into his lungs. “That coupe belongs to Pearl Dean?”

  “Woman in the coupe? Yeah, she was injured all right. She was the worst. Ambulance took her, too. Gustavson went with a friend.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Fellow in the Buick. He was just groggy. Lucky, believe me.”

  Andy’s eyes swept the crossroads which was blurring fast, through the swift twilight to true nightfall. He crossed out his impulse to go running to Dee in the hospital. She wouldn’t want him there. She wouldn’t need him. She was in trained hands. Now, he must find Laila for both of them. “Where’s Laila Breen?” he demanded.

  “That we don’t know,” the cop said, settling into the ground as if he dug his heels in to talk. “Listen, what do you know about that deal?”

  “She was in the trailer.”

  “No, she wasn’t, Mr. Talbot.”

  “She must have been.”

  “She wasn’t there.”

  “Trailer smashed any?” Now Andy could see its aluminum glimmer across the way.

  “Not a bit,” the cop said. “Don’t look it.”

  “Could have gotten out, then?”

  “Here, you mean? Could have, but nobody saw her.”

  “Go on,” said Andy tensely. “That’s impossible.”

  “Well,” the cop said, faintly offended. He didn’t deal in impossibilities. “If you see her, you tell us. We didn’t see her.”

  “Nobody saw her?”

  “Looks to us like she never was in there. Not when it crashed.”

  Andy’s jaw cracked. “That’s impossible,” he admitted grudgingly. “Did you ask Pearl Dean what she’d done with her?”

  “Miss Dean wasn’t talking. Miss Dean was pretty unconscious, you know.”

  “What about Breen? Where is Breen?”

  “Breen? He was with us when we searched the trailer. Got pretty upset Yeah, he was around. Maybe he went in someplace, to phone or something. Probably the store.”

  “You’re not letting traffic through here.”

  “Not yet.”

  Andy turned his head to search the darkening crossroads again for Clive, for Laila, for a clue. The wrecker was carrying off his blue convertible but he made no move to check on where it was going or what damage had been done. He said, frowning, “Then, where could she go?”

  “Laila Breen, eh? Well, maybe if you get in touch with the hospital that Miss Dean could tell you what the score is. Although, I dunno.…” The cop was shaking his head dolefully.

  Andy swallowed. “You’re sure Miss Allison wasn’t badly hurt?”

  “So they said. She was knocked out. I guess that’s about all.”

  A little man wearing a stained and misshapen felt hat moved chattily in. “What happened was, this coupe.…”

  “Did you see it happen?” Andy bent a sharp look upon him.

  “No, but I heard it. Man! I was working right there in that house. Me and Al, that’s my partner, we ran out right away. We.…”

  “Excuse me,” said Andy. He began to walk across the trafficless intersection and Vince followed at his heels.

  “Whatcha going to do now, Mr. Talbot?”

  “Take a look at the trailer. Find someone who saw something. Find Breen.” Andy began to run. He hurried around the trailer, yanked on the sagging door, and vanished.

  Vince, lingering, looked behind him. Must have been a pretty fancy mess, he thought, but it was all over now. The usual miracle was happening. Another ten minutes, you’d ride by, you’d see nothing. You’d never know. Vince mused on the miracle. a moment Then he recalled himself to the business at hand and followed, around the trailer.

  The cop frowned around. He advanced on the civilians. “Get these cars all the way off the road, you people. I don’t care whose they are. And get this truck out of the intersection. Will it move? Who’s the driver?” He put his hands on his hips. “Who’s responsible?”

  Mr. Bowman said stiffly, “I own that truck.”

  “It’s got to be moved.”

  “It’ll be moved. Right away. That’s what we’re trying to do. It’s going to be televised. We’re going to put it right up against the house, see.…”

  “Then, put it. I don’t want no more talk, here.”

  “Coolie,” called Bowman. “Come here.”

  The little man in the old felt hat came closer.

  “Listen, ask the TV people, see if it’s all right to move the truck in, now. And then I want you and Al to make the check and stand by.”

  “Sure, boss. Hey, Al.…”

  The bigger workman got into the truck. “How do you? want it?”

  Bowman, transfixed, was looking at the little man. “Coolie, you’ll have to take off that hat.”

  “What hat? This hat?”

  The policeman snapped, “How about the truck?”

  Coolie ducked away and accosted one of the TV men. Bowman looked harassed. There ensued a loud discussion about moving the truck. And the dark came down.

  Dee’s feet, bruised through her soft slippers, were heavy and sore. Cars were coming up behind her, now; their headlights and shadows dizzied her sight. She felt confused. She could see the street light and traffic light ahead. She came stumbling slowly northward up the left side of the road.

  Traffic was moving. There seemed to be no sign of any accident. The whole scene was unfamiliar. She could not get her bearings. She stopped her weary slogging to look about her and consider. Just around the corner on the road’s shoulder some cars were bucking and backing.

  Then she saw in the vague light that was shed down only upon crossroads, a gleam of aluminum, ahead of her and across the road. She would have begun to run toward the corner toward the place where she could cross with the light and get to the trailer herself but there was a strangled sound somewhere near her in the dark. She looked and she thought she must have gone mad! Something must press upon and confuse her brain! Her cousin Give was half-crouching against a hedge.

  She was so close upon him that she could see his gray suit, his collar, and the startled roll of the eye in the pale oval of his face, and the weapon, which was the mad thing, a long gun, perhaps a
rifle, that rested across his white hands.

  There were alternatives for Dee. She could scream. She could run. She could go on thinking she’d gone mad.

  She chose none of these. If she was not mad, then he was. The long gun’s snout was tending toward the trailer across the road.

  She said clearly, in a cousinly voice, “What are you doing, Clive? Is it Clive? I can barely see—”

  But she could see. That his hands and arms moved nervously and secretively to thrust the gun into the thick shrub beside which he was standing. He turned his body and wavered like a shadow.

  “Where’s Laila?” Dee said calmly. “I’ve come back for her.”

  “In there,” Give said. She followed the shift of his head. “She’s asking for you,” said Clive. “She wants you, Dee. It’s lucky you came.”

  Dee saw the open door at the side of this house on the corner. She was convinced in one sudden surge of her imagination that Laila was somehow hurt and in that house. The scene was vivid to her, as if she were already there and could see Laila lying still with her black hair spreading, her eyes a little frightened. Give had her elbow and Dee flew across fifteen feet of dark grass. The inside of the house was pitch dark. She could see nothing.

  He filled the doorway behind her. He grasped her.

  “Laila?” she gasped.

  He grasped her fiercely. “How did you get here?” he cried into her ear.

  “Where is she? Where’s Laila?”

  “I don’t know, Dee.”

  “You do know,” she flamed. “Pearl told me.”

  So he grasped her at her throat “Then shut up,” he said. “Shut up and get in here.”

  She struggled, but he had her.

  Crises were a dime a dozen to Clive Breen. Damn Dee. He’d had it all so clear. He’d found the rifle by the light of a match in a kind of lumber room in this house. Shells, too, all handy. It had seemed an omen. A hint. It was an idea. He’d been thinking it all out—watching quietly in the dark of the hedge.

  Pearl Dean, who knew about him, was dying. Estelle, who knew about him, he could manage somehow. Laila, who knew about him, must die. The only one who knew and was hale, whole, free, and shrewd and dangerous and here, was the cabdriver.

  Maybe he’d have shot that cabdriver. Maybe he wouldn’t have had enough nerve. Or decided it wasn’t wise. He’d felt calm and collected waiting there, examining the disadvantages either way. But now came Dee muddling him, getting him mixed up again between the true and false.

  He was not sure that she had seen the gun. If she had, he didn’t know what he’d do. If she had not, he’d talk himself out. He’d talk her into being on his side. If he could talk her into being on his side, it wouldn’t be so bad. It was like a light, a real hope. It was really a better idea than the gun and he preferred it. The trouble was, unfairly, outrageously, if she’d seen the gun, she’d probably be against him. And he didn’t know, he couldn’t tell.…

  He kept whispering, “Dee, you’ve got to understand. I won’t let you go until you listen to me. You’ve got to listen. I never meant to do anything wrong. You’re going to believe me. I’ll make you believe me. I’m not going to let you go until you say you understand.”

  Dee thought, Why, he’s frantic! Her head hurt. His hands hurt her. She thought, Andy was right. Clive’s thought about the money from the beginning. Why didn’t I see that Andy was right? She thought, with a feeling of wild satisfaction, Well, he didn’t shoot anybody. And he hasn’t got Laila!

  Outside, all was haste and apparent confusion. Cars bucked and roared. The red truck was shifting position. Men were shouting. Nevertheless, in someone’s plan there was order and in the next orderly step, a signal was given. Out of the dim scene at the crossroads, the Baxter house sprang up. Glowing, all bathed in the converging shafts from a battery of lights, it floated out of the darkness, sharp and crisp, every nail in the boards and tar paper over the windows was caught and seen.

  The fierce light cast a sharp shadow past the open side door, but Dee could see, in some reflection, that they were struggling in a forlorn-looking kitchen. The door through which she had entered this house was the back door. Clive drew her through a doorless pantry. But light poured on the house and pierced and penetrated the very walls. She could see his sweating face and starting eyeballs. It crossed her mind at last. Clive didn’t have Laila, but in some madness, he had her. She couldn’t get away from him. She was Clive’s prisoner.

  And he was imprisoned by the light. Not a mouse could move through that door any more, and be unseen.

  Near it, now, a man was shouting. “Get a better light around this way, you guys. Got to catch them working on this door.”

  “What about the front door, Mel? You want a shot inside?”

  “See if you can set up fox it. We can’t, we can’t. Can, we’re going to do it.”

  “What’s the time, now?”

  “Get the lead out, Gil.”

  “We start shooting on the truck, Mr. Bowman. After the commercial, we get the back door and then.…”

  “I ain’t going in there with no camera, bub. You might as well.…”

  “Frame it in the door. Listen, I want to.…”

  “More light on the doors.”

  “Listen, you guys, it’s after six already.”

  All the while, Clive fled from the light. He dragged Dee with him, hunting darkness. But the little house was wide open. Across the front, inside, living room and dining room partitions were mere indications. The bedroom on the inside back corner was vulnerable, too. All the interior doors were braced open. Now light attacked from the front and the side. Clive nuzzled the bedroom windows but they were barricaded somehow. No way existed to the outer darkness, except through the light that poured upon the little house from two sides. Bathroom door, closet doors, were all braced open. There was one door, only one, that was not open. He had found that door before. Toward that, desperately, he dragged her.

  He shoved her against it. It did not yield. So he got his arm around her neck with her throat pinched in the crook of his elbow. He turned the doorknob with his free hand, yanked, shoved her inside, and as they both tottered, he pulled the door inward. He fumbled around the lock. He knew the type. He pushed the button set in the door’s edge. Now it would lock. He shut the door with a sharp click and then they fell.

  They were in a small lumber room, utility room, the California equivalent of a cellar. There was the upright cylinder of a water heater. Even in this place, the merciless light sprang through every crack and chink along the window. So Dee could see some rusty tools, an old ironing board, two guns hung high on the wall, a short heavy stepladder standing at an angle, old crates and boxes of junk in the corner. Rolls of soft builder’s paper lay parallel upon the floor. They had stumbled upon the unexpected step-up that these rolls of paper made.

  And even as they found this refuge, and as they fell, Clive, still holding her throat in the sharp pressure of his bent arm, was still whispering fiercely, “You got to believe me, Dee. Say you believe me and I’ll be glad to let you go.”

  But she couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t make a sound.

  CHAPTER 19

  Talbot came in long strides across the road again.

  Traffic was flowing as if the accident had never been. Bystanders were gathered now, for a different sensation. Every idle eye, magnetized by the light, was fixed on the Baxter house and the men and the microphones and the cameras around it.

  Andy accosted the lookers-on with questions, but they were not willing to be too long distracted from this present enchantment. Many had not seen the accident at all. No one had seen any long-haired girl in a coral-colored suit. No one knew where a tallish dark man in gray could have gone, although some had seen him. Some had seen the redhead. Some remembered the big woman in black. Some could tell him what he already knew.

  He found a vague little man who said he thought he had seen such a girl, yes. There was something in the back of his m
ind. It was mixed up with the idea of height, something high … he couldn’t just place his impression. Andy gave him up.

  Meanwhile, Vince was asking at the gas station. They met on that corner. “Nothing doing,” Vince said. “Those guys couldn’t see a thing around the trailer.”

  So they ran together toward the store. It was closing. The proprietor was in a hurry to get over there and watch the program that was going to be telecast from the Baxter house. Talbot blocked his way with questions. “Long dark hair, down her back. Pink suit.…”

  “Hey, wait a minute, Mr. Talbot.” Vince was plucking his sleeve.

  Andy looked at his twitching face. “What’s the matter?”

  “She was wearing a coat, a blue coat. I thought I told you.…”

  “What! You’re sure!” Andy’s mind reeled at the possibility of a mistaken identity, after all.

  “Sure she was. Over the suit. This Clive, the guy in gray, he brought her a coat and a hat. Didn’t I tell …?”

  “Hat!” Andy groaned. He took hold of Vince’s jacket and nearly held him off the ground. “What else didn’t you tell me?”

  The proprietor of the store said in thin skeptical tones, as if to say he had come into the middle of the picture and didn’t care for it, “Excuse me.…”

  “Wait a minute. Did you see such a girl?”

  The man pursed his lips. “Couldn’t say. Listen, I want to watch this show. If you’ll excuse me.…”

  The light changed. Traffic moved.

  Andy stood still. “Where did Clive get the coat and the hat?”

  “He went into a house after them, the first time I.…” Vince swallowed and shut his mouth suddenly.

  Andy said, “I thought I’d seen you someplace before.” He towered. His eyes bored down.

  “Yeah, I just remembered myself.…”

  Andy’s fingers met hard on Vince’s arm. “You were parked around the corner. I even asked you.… You had Laila Breen in your cab there, then!”