Little Tramp (Prologue Crime)
Page 13
He stared at her. Doll whispered something, but he didn’t get what it was.
“Arlene, put the gun down,” he said. He stood up and moved toward her.
“Don’t make me shoot you,” she said flatly. “I will, I swear it. Hurry, get into the car, both of you. We’re going to Daddy!”
He leaned down, helped Doll to her feet.
“My leg,” Doll gasped.
“Can you step on it?”
“It’s my ankle, I guess.” She leaned heavily against him and he tried to see Arlene better, but couldn’t make out anything. There was a curious tone to her voice, a frightening tone.
“You drive,” Arlene said. “Hurry up, I tell you.”
They moved over to the car. The engine was still running. The door on the driver’s side flapped open and for an instant he thought of Kryder lying down there in the lake, dead.
“Arlene, for God’s sake, put that gun away.”
“Shut up,” she said. She was sobbing. He saw the sharp jerks of her shoulders. “Get in the car and drive, I tell you.”
“Do as she says,” Doll whispered. “Something’s gone wrong—I was afraid of this before. I could sense it, Gary.”
Driving back toward town was hellish. Arlene sat alone in the rear of the car, holding the gun on them, talking sometimes to herself, sometimes to them.
“You do anything wrong,” she said, “I’ll kill you. I mean it!”
“You sure you want to see your father?”
“Yes. Drive to my home.”
“Look, honey,” Doll said. “We’re all hurt bad. Let’s take it easy. Why don’t you lie down back there? We’ll get you to a doctor.”
“My arm’s broken,” Arlene said. “I don’t need a doctor. I want to see my father, that’s all. I want to see him and you’re going to drive me there.”
“All right.”
Gary drove on, wondering what was in her mind. Her voice had sounded younger, like a child’s voice. Something pleading and lonely was in the tone. He didn’t understand. But he did understand the pressure of the gun barrel when she pushed it against the back of his head.
“She shot Kryder,” he said to Doll. “She shot him in the face. I saw his face go—it was like …”
“Don’t talk about it.”
“Are you all right, Doll?”
“I don’t know. There’s something inside. It hurts bad.”
“Arlene, will you let me drive to a hospital?”
“Later.”
They took a route as directed by Arlene, came up a long winding alley behind the large Harper estate. They parked the car in the shadow of an Australian pine hedge.
“Come on,” Arlene said. “We’re going in the back way.”
“There may be cops there.”
“No, there won’t,” she said softly. “There can’t be. I know Daddy—he wouldn’t do that. He wants me back and he’s going to get me.”
Gary looked at her. She was doubled over slightly, smiling at them in the shadows, the car’s parking lights gleaming on her flesh, shining on the bloody arm and the gashed face. Her eyes gleamed like an animal’s and she gestured with the gun. She was still faintly sobbing, her shoulders held oddly rigid.
“Quick, now,” she said. “Damn you! I’ll kill you. Move to the back door—right through there—follow the path.”
They slowly crossed shadowed lawn, the smooth green grass showing pale gray in the starlight. Gary noticed the garden he’d seen when he’d left by the rear kitchen door. They moved along a zigzag flagstone walk under a rose arbor, and on past a tremendous Chinese jasmine bush. The scent of jasmine breathed thickly upon the air.
Gary turned his gaze toward the looming bulk of the house, thrown like some gigantic dream against the paler sky. Lights showed in a far wing of the house, the windows glowing like large golden eyes.
As they entered the quiet room, Gary saw Franklin Harper. He was seated beside a telephone stand in a large-backed lounge chair, wearing a long royal blue robe. His iron-gray hair shone in dim lights that splashed softly against mauve drapes and across deep wine-colored carpets so thick Gary’s feet dragged. Harper saw them, grasped the arms of his chair and lunged to his feet.
“Arlene!”
He stood there a moment, staring. His face was sunken and drawn, the eyes burning behind an intense frown. There was sadness and confusion in the eyes and the mouth was touched at the corners with sorrow. He stepped out toward them, the heavy blue robe bellowing about his legs.
“Daddy!” Arlene said.
Then she laughed. It was high, horrible, hysterical laughter and Gary stared at her, at the wild eyes and the blood purling from her arm down onto the rug. She flung her head back, the bright hair tossing, and went into a kind of crouch, the arm swinging uselessly against her knees.
Harper’s voice was broken.
“What have you done to her?”
Gary watched the man. He heard Doll breathing close beside him.
“Nothing, Daddy,” Arlene said. “Nothing at all. They haven’t done anything to me, see?” Her voice was low and hoarse and she did not sound at all like Arlene. She spoke with a strained intonation that was close to love-like. “They wouldn’t do anything to me. I’ve come back to you. To you, Daddy—” She paused, then began breathing more rapidly. “Like you always wanted me. I know how you wanted me, Daddy” She paused, then began breathing more rapidly. “Like you always wanted me. I know how you wanted me, Daddy—and I’m back!”
Gary took two swift steps and suddenly heard himself talking. He talked straight at Harper and he couldn’t seem to stop. Doll moved to his side, and he felt a sharp need to speak quickly, before it was too late. He told the man the story, flatly. He heard the echo of his words in the large room. “That’s how it was,” he finished. “Exactly how it was.”
Harper stared at Arlene. “Is this true?”
“Yes,” she said, whispering. “You like it?”
“Please, Arlene,” the man said gently. “Get hold of yourself.” He seemed afraid to go near her.
She seemed to be working herself up, her breathing coming still faster now, still standing in the strange animallike crouch.
“Arlene—” Harper said.
She cursed him. She was abruptly insane, screaming into the silence of the room. Her eyes were bright and wild as the words spilled from her lips, and she raised the gun toward her father.
“I came back to kill you, Daddy,” she said. “You’re not going to hurt me any more. You’re not going to do to me what you did to Mother.” She swallowed, watching the man intensely now. “You’re going to learn!” she shouted.
“Baby—Please.”
“God damn you!” she screamed. “I hate you!”
His voice was desperate. “Baby. I’ve tried—listen to me.”
Her voice lowered, touched with thin hysteria, and Gary moved toward her. She whirled on him, gesturing with the gun, her eyes glassy now.
“I’ll kill you, too,” she said.
He stopped, watching her. There was no way to deal with her. She didn’t know what she was doing—her mind had snapped. She could easily kill them all.
Harper’s voice was tense, pleading. “I’ve tried to give you everything,” he said. “You don’t understand about your mother. You never did. It wasn’t my fault she died, Arlene—you’ve got to understand that.”
She laughed at him. The gun swept the room, quite steady in the small white hand with the red-tipped nails. Nobody moved. They were all wary now.
“No,” Arlene said. “You lie! You treated her the same as you treated me. And I know why you treated me like you have.” Again she laughed, watching the man, smiling slyly at him now. She moved her gun hand up, and began to pluck and tear at her shredded clothing.
“Arlene—stop!”
Her gaze was fast on her father as she tore at her clothes, working with a kind of frenzy now, baring her body to him. Grotesquely, trembling, she posed in front of him with a ter
rible coquettishness, her tortured mind twisting hate into a horrible last plea for love.
Harper voiced an unintelligible word, and moved toward her. She lifted the gun and fired, cursing as the bullet went wild. She tried to lift the gun again, to face him, but it was too much—she collapsed on the floor and lay still.
Harper watched her, transfixed, then slowly knelt at her side.
“She’s only fainted,” Harper said, relief in his voice. There was something else, too, but it was not so easily defined.
“You’d better get an ambulance,” Gary said, his voice sounding hollow, far away.
“Yes,” Harper said. “And we’ll have to clear you with the law, won’t we? Right away.” He knelt there, looking down at his daughter, and his fingers brushed her cheek, touched the thick shining hair. He slowly came to his feet.
Doll tried to say something, then ceased and pressed close to Gary.
“I knew my daughter …” Harper said. “But—never mind.”
He turned and moved tiredly across the room toward the telephone on a stand beside the lounge chair. It seemed as if the room still rang to the hysterical girl’s voice. Then, as Harper lifted the phone, his gaze roved to where his daughter lay and his shoulders seemed to straighten.
Gary took Doll into his arms and waited.
THE END
GIL BREWER
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eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4212-1
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