The Fugitive Pigeon

by Donald E. Westlake

  Clarence backed out of the room again and motioned with the gun. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Tim said, “What do I do about Mr. Agricola?”

  “Leave him be. Call Mr. Gross, tell him the farmer bought the farm. You got that? The farmer bought the farm.”

  “The farmer bought the farm,” said Tim.

  Clarence said, “His number’s in the pad there, on the desk.”

  “Right,” said Tim.

  Meanwhile I had come out to the hall. Clarence turned his attention to me again and said, “Downstairs, you.”

  We went downstairs, me in the lead. I said, “If you’d just let me explain,” and paused because I expected to be interrupted. But Clarence didn’t say a word, so I went on, saying, “I didn’t kill Mr. Agricola, I really didn’t. I’m the wrong type to do something like that, you can see that just looking at me. All I wanted to do was talk to—”

  “Turn right.”

  We were at the foot of the stairs. I turned right, and walked toward the kitchen.

  “—Mr. Agricola about what was going on, why anybody would want to kill me, because I didn’t do anything. Somebody was making a mistake somewhere, and all I wanted to do was talk to Mr. Agricola.”

  “Through that door there,” he said.

  I opened the door and stepped out into the sunlight. That blacktop, that sunlight, the silence and emptiness made me think of firing squads.

  “Over to the barn.”

  I walked toward the barn.

  “I wouldn’t kill him,” I said. “Honest to God, I wouldn’t kill him. I wouldn’t kill anybody. Why would I do something to Mr. Agricola? I wanted him to tell those two guys not to kill me, what good would it do me—”

  “He couldn’t do that,” Clarence said. “He had his orders, like anybody else. Open the door and go on in.”

  I pulled open the barn door, which creaked and groaned, and went on in to darkness and a musty smell.

  “Orders from who?” I said.

  “Never mind,” said Clarence. “Walk straight ahead.”

  The barn wasn’t being used for anything. Empty stalls, empty bins, empty nails stuck in the walls, empty loft up above. Sunlight gleamed in cracks in the outer walls, filling the interior with soft vague indirect lighting as though we were underwater in a lagoon.

  The left rear corner had been closed off into a tiny windowless room lined with rough-plank shelves. This was empty now, but not for long; Clarence pushed me in and shut the door behind me. I heard a hasp lock click shut. I was alone.

  Now what? I supposed Clarence had decided he couldn’t do anything about me on his own account, and so he’d just locked me away here for safekeeping until he found out what was what from Mr. Gross. I also supposed Mr. Gross was the man higher up, the one Mr. Agricola had taken his orders from.

  So it was Mr. Gross I should be trying to see, not Mr. Agricola.

  Well, it didn’t look as though I’d get to see him. If anybody wanted to set up a Charlie Poole pool, I would put my money on the two guys in the black car for the next people I’d be seeing. And the last.

  A rotting old barn like that, there wasn’t any reason I couldn’t escape from it. I kicked at one of the exterior walls, experimentally, and managed only to hurt my big toe. I hit my shoulder against the door, and hurt my shoulder. I hit my palm against one of the interior walls, and hurt my palm.

  While there were still a few parts of me that didn’t hurt, I decided to quit.

  How long would it take? Clarence and Mr. Gross would have to talk together, guardedly, on the telephone. Then Mr. Gross would have to get in touch with the two men in the black car, and they’d have to drive on out to Staten Island again. An hour at the least, maybe two hours.

  I sat down on the dirt floor, and gave myself up to depression.

  It was only fifteen minutes before I heard someone unlocking the door out there. I scrambled to my feet, and my mouth got dry while my palms got wet. I kept clearing my throat and clearing my throat; when that door opened, I was going to have to talk faster than I had ever talked before in my life. And I wasn’t even sure what I was going to say.

  The door swung open at last, and it was Miss Althea standing there, as beautiful and improbable as a Disney heroine, but distorting her beauty was a terrible frown of grief and rage that stroked her face with heavy angry lines. In the right hand she raised toward me was, incredibly, a gun, a great big automatic. Her hand was barely large enough to hold it, and she had to bring her left hand up to help keep it steady.

  “Hey,” I said. “What are you doing?”

  “You killed my father,” she said. Her voice was hoarse with strain.

  “No no,” I said. “No, I didn’t, no.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” she said, and pulled the trigger.

  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.

  Chapter 10

  At the tollbooths to the George Washington Bridge, Miss Althea stuck her head out the window and screamed, “Help! They’re kidnaping me!”r />
  The toll taker in his uniform looked blankly at her.

  “They’re kidnaping me!” she insisted.

  The toll taker made a disgusted face, to show what he thought of modern kids, out running around with no sense of values, making noisy senseless jokes. He took the half-dollar from Chloe, and we rolled on past there.

  “He’s in the plot, too,” I said.

  “Oh, shut up,” she said. She flounced back in the seat, folded her arms, and glared furiously at the back of Chloe’s head.

  We had taken an extremely roundabout way of returning to New York, leaving Staten Island by the Outerbridge Crossing and driving up past the Holland and Lincoln tunnels and all the way up to the George Washington Bridge, just in case the car had been seen by anyone who could describe it to the organization’s underlings, who were surely by now all in hot pursuit of us and our hostage.

  As to the hostage, we were keeping her because we felt safer with her to hide behind. It seemed unlikely any organization tough would gun down the daughter of Farmer Agricola in order to get at an unimportant nephew like me.

  On the trip up the Jersey coast, after filling Artie and Chloe in on the details of what had happened to me since last night—and that it had all occurred in less than sixteen hours, including time out for sleep on Artie’s bedroom floor, was itself as astonishing as anything else—I made a long and unsuccessful attempt to explain to Miss Althea Agricola just who and what her father had been and why I had gone out to the farm to see him. But she refused to believe any of it, and nothing I said would shake her firmly seated ignorance.

  At first it had seemed incredible that she could have remained unaware of her father’s true self, but in the course of her denials, facts about her life came out which helped to explain it. In the first place, her mother had died when Miss Althea was still an infant, so Farmer Agricola was her only parent. In the second place, she had spent practically all of her life in boarding schools, and was only rarely at home on the Staten Island farm. Summers had been spent with other relatives in various parts of the world. She was only at home now because there was a two-week hiatus between the end of her summer visit to an uncle and aunt in Southern California and the beginning of the fall semester at the girls’ college in Connecticut at which she would be a junior this year.