by Jack Finney
Shirley said, “I feel I ought to scream at you for twenty-five minutes. But it would be a lie, I feel so good.”
“Well, I’d like to send him over Niagara in a barrel,” Jo said. “With spikes in it. We could have been shot, we really could!” Then she smiled. “But it was more exciting than anything I’ve done for days. Weeks. Months. Ever.”
Voice lazy and content, Harry said, “Yeah, you got to admit the old adrenaline sure flowed tonight.”
“By the bucket,” Lew said. “I could be a donor.” He sat slouched in a corner of the back seat, hands clasped behind his head, grinning. He leaned forward, feeling in his pants pocket, then reached over the seat-back to drop the folded poster they’d rescued into Harry’s lap. “Who’s Who in the Law,” he said contemptuously.
“You guessed, did you?” Harry turned to grin. “If you’d missed it, I’da gone in and got it first thing in the morning.”
“That’s not going to help you, Harry. I doubt if you’ll survive whatever I work up for you next week. Better take out a big policy for Shirley.”
“Yeah,” said Shirley, “and I’ll help Lew plan.” Then her voice altered. “But no more cops! Okay? We keep away from them!”
Neither of the men replied, but they both nodded, getting out of the car. As Harry locked it, Jo said politely, “You want to come in? For tea, coffee, a nightcap?” She yawned unexpectedly.
“No,” Harry said, then glanced at the sky. “Be strange,” he murmured, “driving to work and respectability in just a few hours.” He grinned at them. “G’night, Group: your fuehrer is proud of you.”
• • •
CHAPTER EIGHT
• • •
Harry’s trial over, the men resumed driving to and from work together. Jo finished a model Tuesday afternoon, the interior of a movie theater modified to show it divided in two; delivered it in the van; and brought home sketches for a new job, the “face-lifting” of a small apartment house. Shirley worked at the clinic. And the weather held, a typical Bay Area October, cool or even cold at night but the days more summery than the actual summer had been.
On Wednesday evening Lew and Jo had dinner on the balcony, Lew in jeans and long-sleeved plaid shirt, Jo in denim skirt and an old white blouse, the left sleeve streaked with black where she had wiped a drawing pen. Working together, they broiled hamburgers, then carried them out.
“You thought of anything for the Levys next week?” Jo said as she sat down.
His feet pressing the balcony railing, Lew tilted back in his chair; chewing, he held a finger up, meaning wait till he swallowed. “A couple possibilities,” he said then, “I’m not sure. What do you think of some sort of treasure hunt? A few choice items they’d have to come back with.”
“Like what?” Jo raised her feet to the railing, too, tipping back in her chair. Her skirt slid up, Lew eyed her, and she rolled her eyes.
“I don’t know. Sneak that dumb cop’s pants off when he wasn’t looking—I don’t really know. Can you think of anything?” He bit into his hamburger again.
She shook her head, and they sat silent for a time, eating. Then Jo said wistfully, “Lew, why can’t we go back to the four of us doing something again. Just for fun the way we did.”
“Well.” He considered it. “Actually I don’t know what more there is to do, just wandering around. We’ve about done all that. Anyway, I owe Harry something for that library stunt.”
“What’s your other possibility?”
“Well, I’m not too sure about this one; and it wouldn’t include Shirley. Of course it doesn’t have to this one time; Harry’s the boy I’m after. It would be something he’d have to get. Like we did. Just one thing, it wouldn’t really matter what. Because it’s where he’d have to go that makes it interesting.”
“Where’s that?” A sparrow appeared on the railing, and Jo leaned forward to set a fragment of hamburger roll down, but the bird flashed off toward the eucalyptus trees across the street.
“Well.” Lew hesitated. “To the top of a bridge tower.”
“Bridge? What bridge?”
“Golden Gate.”
She turned to stare at him. “Are you serious?”
“Well. Maybe. Why not? It could be done.”
“How, for heaven sakes!”
“Walk up the cable.”
She brought her feet and the chair legs down. “Lew, you’re crazy! You’re kidding, aren’t you?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Take a good look at the bridge cable next time you drive across. I’ve been looking them over, driving to work the last couple days, and those cables are thick. Immense. Maybe four feet across. And they come right down to bridge level at the center; walk along the sidewalk, and you can reach across the rail and lay your hand on the cable. On the ocean side, there’s even some little metal stairs to make it easy; an old lady could get up onto the cable there.”
No longer eating, her hamburger on its paper plate in her lap, Jo sat slowly shaking her head in rejection, and he said, “Jo, they’re made to walk on. There are a couple wires strung all along each one for handholds. Bridge workers do it.”
“Bridge workers, yes! But Harry’s not a br—”
“Harry’s done climbing; plenty of it. And rappelled down, which is more dangerous. We both have. Higher climbing, and more dangerous than walking up the cable.”
“If it’s so easy, what’s the point!”
“It would be at night.” Lew grinned. “The fog coming in, the wind sort of whistling through the wires. Walk up that damn cable with the ocean a million miles straight down under your feet. Have to walk up, and bring something back; that’ll learn him!”
“Bring what back? How would it get there?” Her eyes widened. “Oh no!”
He began to laugh. “Yeah! That’s the trouble! I’d have to put it there!”
“Lew, no. I mean it! No! It’s ridiculous! Like boys playing chicken! I won’t have you—”
“I didn’t say we were going to: it’s only an idea, is all. But it just wouldn’t be that hard, Jo. It’s been done. More than once. I don’t mean bridge workers, I mean that every once in a while somebody has just hopped onto a cable, and walked on up to the top. Some go part way, and change their minds. In the daytime they’re seen and arrested. But no telling how many have done it at night. It’s no problem then; I’ve been thinking about it. Do it very late. Wait for a time when there isn’t a car in sight. Then hop up onto the cable, grab the handrails, and walk up fast, don’t stop to think. Any car comes along, freeze till it’s g—”
“Lew, stop. Just listening to that gives me the chills. It’s nightmarish! Even the bridge workers don’t do that!”
“Yeah, well, I’ll admit it’s a sobering thought. Stand on the walk looking over the rail in daytime, and that water’s a long way down. Be twice as far time you climbed to the top. But still . . . to finally stand up there, Jo. On the very top of the tower. At night, and look around. Across the Bay, and out over Marin. Walk around up there, and look out at the ocean—Jesus. It’s why people climb, you know.”
“Lew. Please think of something else. The treasure hunt. That sounds like fun, it really does, and I’ll help you figure out things for them to get. But I don’t even want to talk about you walking up that cable at night.”
“Well, it was just a thought. Any dessert?”
“No; I could open some canned peaches.”
“That’s not dessert. Ice cream is dessert. Chocolate cake is dessert. Canned peaches are nothing. We doing anything tonight?”
“No, unless—California Split is on. In Tiburon. We’ve been waiting for it to come back.”
“What time? The Levys want to go?”
“Eight twenty-five is the earliest we could make. No, they’ve seen it; I talked to Shirley at noon.”
“Well, all right, let’s see it. I like Elliot Gould, don’t you?”
“So-so.”
“You think I look like him? A little?”
“No.”
“Okay, I thought you looked like Faye Dunaway, but now I don’t.”
• • •
On Thursday Jo finished a job, the facade of the face-lifted apartment house, and when Lew got home they went food shopping, driving down to the shopping center in Lew’s VW. Daylight saving had ended, but it was still light, the sun near the horizon. Tonight the fog and chill were rolling in over the hills, and Jo wore her white knit sweater and cap, Lew a tan pullover sweater. Jo needed india ink, and they parked at the stationery store around at the side of the big center. Leaving the car there when she’d finished, they walked on, crossing one of the interior streets, to the big main building facing the freeway, and the Safeway store there. At the Safeway entrance they saw Harry and Shirley just leaving their car, up ahead by the bakery. They waved, and Shirley waved back, continuing on into the bakery; under a blue cardigan sweater she still wore her white work dress. Harry came walking toward them in tennis shorts and blue sweat shirt.
“Hi, where to?” he said, stopping. “Safeway?” Jo said yes, and to Lew Harry said, “Walk me to the camera shop.” Jo went on into the big whitely lighted store, and the two men began walking along the store’s long glass-fronted length.
As Harry began describing an incident of his recent courtroom experience, Lew casually noted a man standing up ahead at the other end of the store front: then he saw his face. Today he wore a short-sleeved sport shirt patterned in acid green, actually a blouse, hanging well down over the top of his pants, but only partially hiding the bulges of holster and folded handcuffs in the back. The pants were dark blue uniform trousers, too short, the ankles exposed; and above the blouse, the long, too thin and too bony face of the cop they’d encountered some ten nights before, almost at this very spot. Even in repose the face looked hostile.
It was too late to touch Harry’s arm and turn back. The man would see it and recognize them, understanding that their turning back was an admission that they were who they were. Keeping his face calm, walking along listening to Harry, Lew turned his eyes from the man ahead. He might not recognize them; with luck they’d simply walk on by.
The man’s head turned casually toward them, eyes uninterested. Then they narrowed. Lew glanced at him momentarily without apparent recognition, looking back at Harry again; listening, nodding. But it didn’t work: abruptly the man stepped forward, directly into their path, blocking their way, brown eyes bright and belligerent. “Hold it; hold it right there!” They stopped, Harry looking at him in blank surprise, and Lew spoke first, hoping to somehow end this quickly.
“Yes?” he said in polite question, face unrecognizing, ready to bluff it out.
But Harry’s voice overrode Lew’s. “What do you mean, ‘Hold it’? Who the hell are you!?”
The man hardly heard him; he stood staring at Lew. “Yeah,” he said softly then, and nodded. “You was the guy at the liberry.” Suddenly excited, he said, “I seen you!” poking a forefinger at Lew, jabbing the air at his chest. “You flang the keys!”
But there was a tinge of uncertainty in his voice. It had been dark, the street poorly lighted, the distance between them great, and Lew knew he should deny it—making his voice sincere, brows rising in innocence, persuading the man he was mistaken. But he couldn’t: everything about this man had the quality of almost instantly antagonizing him; the nasal accent, the permanent look of know-nothing hostility, the aggressively short hair and blatant sideburns, even the skinny ankles. “Li-brary?” he said, stressing the pronunciation, brows lifting in a parody of pleasant exchange, helpless to stop himself. “Why, yes, I often visit the li-brary. To read Byron, Keats, Shelley. And others of my favorite poets.”
“Your favorites, too, no doubt?” Harry added with leering politeness.
The man stood slowly nodding. “A wise-ass. A real wise-ass. The both of you. You was the other sumbitch at the liberry, wasn’t you,” he said to Harry. “They was two of you in there!” Again his eyes narrowed, studying them intently. “And you was the guys fuckin’ around here that night!” His voice tried for the triumphant note, but again it had the sound of a question: they’d been wearing caps then, been dressed very differently. “Wasn’t you!” he demanded. “With the wimmen!” He began looking rapidly around him, hunting for the women that would confirm his impression.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Harry said pleasantly.
“Don’t talk to me like that, god damn you! I’m a cop!”
“So what?”
“Why, god damn you”—the man’s voice had lowered in sudden rage—“you’re askin’ for it!” A woman passing by glanced at them, then looked quickly away, hurrying on. “And by God and by Jesus, I can give it to you! You hear? I’ll make you wish you was dead!”
Almost conversationally Harry said, “Tell me something. If you will, Officer. If you please. Sir. You don’t come from around here, do you.” He waited. “Well? You ashamed to answer?”
“Hell, no, I’m not ashamed. I’m from Oklahoma, and proud of it.”
“That figures. Been here what? Couple years, maybe?”
“Eighteen months: so what?”
“Well, I’ll tell you so what. I’ve lived here in the Bay Area a hell of a lot longer than that. Since before you even heard of it. I belong here. Now I don’t seem to have broken any law you know of or can prove. So how come, tell me how come some unemployed jerk from nowhere comes drifting up here and lands himself a job on the cops, how come he thinks he’s been handed the power to make me wish I was dead? Because he doesn’t like what I said! Where’d you get that kind of power! Who gave it to you!” A middle-aged man stopped on the walk to stand staring; Harry glanced at him, and he moved on.
“You’ll find out, shitheel.”
“Yeah, well, you’ll find out something, too.” Harry stooped, leaning forward to bring his face closer to the other’s. “That’s not the reason you’re on the cops: that’s not the job!” He stood erect again, and spoke quietly. “You catch me breaking the law, arrest me. But until then, cop or no cop, it’s just man to man. You aren’t God because they pinned a badge on you. You start tough-talking me, I’ll tough-talk you.” Harry turned to Lew. “Look at him!” he said incredulously. “A god-damn king couldn’t be madder than this guy! It’s like some dirty commoner spit on his robe!” Again Harry shoved his face forward. “You think a cop is some kind of king!? Nobody dares talk back to him? ‘Yes, sir, Officer,’ no matter what you say? Well, buddy, I won’t let you shove me around. Try it, and you won’t wish you were dead. You’ll be dead, you stupid asshole.”
The man stood speechless, eyes rapidly moving from one face to the other, then he nodded as at some finality. “Couple of mother-fuckers,” he said in a low voice, still nodding. “Couple of real mother-fuckers, aren’t you!”
“Yeah.” Lew nodded, leaning forward to bring his face close. “Your mother,” he said. The man’s eyes widened, he stood stunned, and Harry stepped forward, brushing him aside.
They walked on, Harry without looking back, but Lew looked: the man behind them stood hunched, neck pulled to his shoulders, watching them from under his brows; his face had gone paper-white. His eyes met Lew’s and he swung away.
Turning into a passageway that cut through the face of the long building, they walked through to the other side. There they entered the camera shop, and Harry stood waiting, his face serene, merely glancing once at Lew to smile. A clerk arrived, and Harry leaned forward on the counter on his big forearms, hands clasping, and began questioning him about several types of film. Presently he bought two rolls of different kinds. Standing erect, pulling out his wallet, he saw in the rack a new kind of film labeled “professional.” He discussed it with the clerk, nodded, and bought a roll. He asked for mailer envelopes; the clerk hunted and found they were out of them. While he was waiting, Lew wandered the store, reading display signs, looking at photo blowups, trying to distract himself from what had happened outside. He didn’t like the encou
nter now; neither the cop’s part in it nor his own; his mind kept rerunning every word and move of it like a looped film, and he wanted to stop.
He strolled to the store windows, and stood looking out at the walkway, and the parking area, much smaller here on this side of the building. Faintly, he heard a woman’s voice outside calling someone: “Lew,” he almost thought she had said, then he heard it more loudly: “Lew! Harry!” It was Jo’s voice, and he turned, and shoved through the door.
She was running along the walkway toward him, people turning to stare. “Lew! Lew! Harry!” Behind Lew the store door knocked open violently. “It’s Shirley!” Jo cried, eyes wild, and Lew felt his stomach knot: She’d been hit by a car! “She’s been arrested!” Jo whirled to point toward the distant end of the long walkway ahead. “He’s handcuffing her!”
Harry plunged past them full tilt, arms rising to pump hard; people yanked themselves out of his path. Then Lew and Jo were after him, sprinting on their toes, and Lew’s mind began to work. “Listen. I don’t know what’s going to happen; Harry may go wild.” Digging for his keys as they ran, he said, “Go move the car. Out in back. In the street by the cleaners so we’ll know where to look. With the motor running.” He shoved the keys at her, Jo snatched them, and angled off across the street.
Harry, and then Lew, hurtled out onto the parking lot at the end of the long building, heads twisting, searching: along the covered walkway across the end of the building a dozen people stood staring in open-mouthed uneasiness at something in a vacant parking slot. Between Lew and Harry and the empty slot stood a sun-faded old blue sedan, its rear fender an unmatching gray: they couldn’t see but could hear on its other side feet shuffling on the asphalt, harsh, gasping breathing. Harry ran on, around the back of the old car, and Lew whirled to run around its front, pushing through the crowd on the walk.
The rear door of the old car stood open on torn, dirty upholstery. Directly beside it, arms handcuffed behind her, Shirley frantically fought with the man in the acid-green shirt. His arms clasping her bearlike, he stood struggling to shove her in through the open door of the old car, actually lifting her off her feet now, Shirley writhing wildly, kicking back at his shins, straining her head down to bite at his forearms, blocking the narrow entrance with her legs, tears of rage sliding down her face. “Help me, god damn you!” the man cried to the crowd. “She’s under arrest! You’re deputized!” But no one moved, and a man turned his head to one side and spat.
