Three by Finney

by Jack Finney

  Harry’s fist hit the side of the man’s head with a loud popping sound like striking a melon, and the man’s arms flew out to the side seeking balance or support as he staggered sideways toward the curb in a bent-kneed shuffle. He kept his feet, swinging to face Harry, a hand curving around to the rear hem of his shirt and Lew understood that Harry was about to be shot and stepped off the curb, knocking the man’s groping arm up, and plucked pistol from holster as Harry rushed him. Harry hit him on the chin, sending him scuttling backward to the curb, the crowd parting as he struck curb with heels and went over, landing hard on his back with an audible thump.

  Lew shot a glance toward the street: Jo was slowing at the curb, looking anxiously toward them. “Harry!” he cried, and as Harry looked toward him, he jabbed his finger in a moving point. Harry whirled, saw Jo and the car, grabbed Shirley. A hand gripping her under the armpit to support her, he ran her across the asphalt toward the wide driveway and street. Sprawled on his back, eyes closed, the man on the walk groaned, rolled to his knees, groaned again, and lay forward on his forearms, head between them in prayerlike attitude. His green shirt lay rucked up over his back, exposing paper-white skin above the top of his pants. Attached to a belt loop, a thick bunch of keys on a ring lay on the blue cloth of his pants, and Lew reached down, gripped them and yanked, tearing the belt loop open. Gun in hand, he turned, spectators stepping quickly aside, and ran for the car.

  Harry and Shirley were in, and their door slammed. Jo drove the car slowly forward to the middle of the driveway, shortening Lew’s run, and he ran straight on, down the driveway and past the end of the car; Jo’s knit cap hung tautly stretched over the rear license plate. The front door stood open, and as Lew threw himself onto the seat beside Jo, she started instantly forward, his door slamming of itself.

  A hundred yards ahead the road angled right: watching behind them as they approached the turn, they saw no one following. Then, in the moment of turning, a red Mustang bounced down onto the street from the shopping-center lot, and swung in behind them. Fifty yards, and Jo curved onto the Tiburon road, merging with the traffic, not speeding. Lew turned to pass the key ring to Harry, smiling at Shirley, hand dropping to squeeze her knee, and she smiled wanly, her breathing hiccuplike, just short of a sob. “You’re okay now,” Lew murmured.

  “I know.” She nodded rapidly, swallowing. “Oh, God, it was so good to see you guys! I’d have gone—I’d have got in if it had been a police car! And if he’d been in uniform! But that awful man in a sport shirt! That terrible car! It was like being kidnaped!” She began to laugh, silently, shoulders shaking, tears welling. Harry had found the small key, and he turned Shirley away from him, fitted the key, and unlocked the cuffs. They had reached the next intersection, and, turn signal flashing, Jo swung off the highway back into Strawberry again. They watched, and a moment later the red Mustang flashed past the intersection behind them, the driver not even glancing their way. Jo drove on then, over and around the hills to their building, and parked in Lew’s space behind the apartments. Quickly, they got out, doors slamming, hurrying to be gone from here before someone else drove in. Walking around the back of the car, Lew snatched Jo’s cap off the back plate.

  Inside his apartment, Lew bolted the door, and turned to Harry, intensely conscious of his hyperexcitement; but controlled, it seemed to him, his thinking lucid. “Well?” he said. “What do you think? The cops on their way here?”

  Crossing the room toward the balcony doors, Harry said, “If someone down there knew us and identified us, then sure: they could be here in the next minute. If not, we may just be all right.” Standing at the glass doors he searched the street: Jo sat with Shirley on the chesterfield, steadily patting her forearm. Turning from the doors, Harry said, “We’re not surrounded at the moment anyway,” then clapped his hands together in sudden exuberance, rubbing his palms. “Let’s get in a fast drink while we’re waiting to find out!”

  Lew turned to the kitchen area, and began setting out glasses. He said, “They come here, we’ll identify ourselves right away as lawyers: lawyers worry cops. You got a business card?” He was still interested in his own reaction: was he really thinking clearly or only sounding like it?

  “In my wallet.” Harry dropped into the upholstered chair across from the women on the chesterfield.

  “And what do you think we claim illegal arrest?” Lew said; he stood pouring. “Because in that case you have every right to rescue your wife; he’d have no special standing. And I have a right to hel—oh, Jesus!” He clapped a hand to his back pocket, then brought out the pistol. “My god, Harry, what’s the penalty for this—life?”

  Harry rocked in his chair with sudden laughter, then drew the handcuffs from his back pocket. “If it is, so is this. We’ll be cellmates!” He laughed again, Shirley and Jo smiling sadly, and Lew began passing drinks around. “Well, hell,” Harry said then, still smiling, “if the arrest was illegal, everything’s all right. If not, then nothing is. Shirley, that bastard read you your rights?”

  She nodded. “While he was handcuffing me.”

  “He tell you the charge?” Lew said, handing her a drink.

  “Yes: resisting arrest. The night we were all down there.”

  “Well, screw all that,” Harry said. “It was an illegal arrest anyway, days after the fact.” He took a swallow of his drink.

  “That’s our defense, at least.” Lew sat down on an arm of the chesterfield. “But I’m afraid the arrest was legal; the son of a bitch is a cop, incredible as that sounds.” He looked down at Shirley. “He identify himself?”

  “Well, he stuck his wallet in my face; I didn’t know what he was showing me or what was happening. Then he said he was a police officer, and that I was under—oh!”

  “What!?” Harry sat forward abruptly, spilling a little of his drink.

  “My cake! He took my cake, and set it on the hood of a car! It could still be down there!”

  At this they roared, all of them now, longer and louder than her words justified, in sudden release from tension. Grinning, Shirley said, “Don’t laugh, Harry: it was your favorite, a chocolate log! I ordered it special.”

  “Hell with them then: let’s go down there and eat it!”

  “I’ll bring champagne!” Jo said. “We’ll have another party!”

  “And invite the cop!” said Lew.

  They finished their drinks, and Lew gathered up their glasses. “Let’s get in another while we can.” Jo and Shirley began quietly talking, and Harry stood to follow Lew into the little kitchen area.

  As Lew poured new drinks Harry said, “You know what gets me, Lew? We sit around worrying about legalities: was the arrest legal, for crysake. It had nothing to do with legality! That wasn’t an arrest, it was an act of revenge! It had nothing to do with what happened ten days ago: it was to get even with me. The only crime committed is that I talked back. Didn’t say, Yes, sir, Officer! And the punishment—handed out right on the spot! No trial!—is public humiliation for my wife.”

  Lew handed him a drink. “Yeah, well, we know that’s true, but it won’t be in a courtroom.” He picked up the other drinks, and walked out with them. Standing before the women as they took theirs, he said, “Shirley, how you doing?”

  “Very much better. You know, ever since I was about eleven I’ve wanted to be rescued from something by a good-looking stud. And now two of them! My cup runneth over. I want to give you about a fifteen-minute kiss.”

  “My fee is thirty.” He sat down in the upholstered chair.

  “I’ll pay! Harry, I want to marry you all over again.”

  “Beg me. Again.” He stood with his drink at the balcony doors, staring out at the street.

  “Jo, you were spectacular,” Shirley said. “That whole thing with the car was marvelous.”

  “Damn right,” said Harry.

  “Any time,” Jo said. “That was something I always wanted to do.”

  Silence for a few moments: they sipped at their drinks.
Then Lew said, “You know something? They’re not coming.”

  “Could be.” Harry leaned toward the glass doors to look both ways along the street. “Maybe nobody down there knew us. I didn’t see anyone I knew.”

  “You never do down there,” Jo said. “You hardly ever see the same face twice.”

  Grinning, Shirley said, “So we got away with it? Huck, is we free!?”

  “Oh—oh,” said Harry, and their heads swung toward him.

  They stood watching at the glass doors: the sun down, dusk near, it was still gray daylight, and down on the street a black-and-white Mill Valley police car moved slowly along the curb toward them, the uniformed driver leaning out his window to look up at the buildings, searching the house numbers. “Oh, god damn it!” Harry said.

  Shirley said, “Maybe this has nothing to do with us; it’s not the same cop. Where’s our cop?”

  “Sitting in the chief’s office,” Harry said shortly, “explaining what happened to his gun.” The car outside stopped, and Harry said, “Our building: it’s us, all right. Shit! How did they know?”

  Silently they watched as the cop set his brake, opened his door, got out: dark-haired, hatless but in uniform, about thirty. He slammed the door, turning to start across the street, and now in the hand nearest them as he turned, they saw something pink—a square cardboard box which he held by the white string wrapped around it. “Oh, nooo!” Shirley moaned.

  “What!?” Harry swung around.

  “It’s my chocolate log! Oh, Harry . . . it was all ready, all wrapped. It’s got our name on it . . .”

  Lew and Harry turned simultaneously to walk quickly toward the bedroom. The women followed, and at the side window they stood watching the Levys’ entrance.

  The parking-area lights had come on, and the cop appeared, walking along the side of the building. “The only Levys in Strawberry,” Harry muttered. “All they had to do was look in the phone book.” The cop turned the back corner of the building, looked for and immediately found the Levys’ door, labeled by Harry’s business card inserted in the small brass frame under their bell. He pushed the bell, and stood waiting, pink cake box dangling from his hooked finger. Presently he pressed the bell again, and waited. Glancing at his watch, he turned away, with the cake.

  Back at the balcony doors again, they watched him reappear, walking down the driveway, cross to his car, get in, and start it, glancing up at the Levys’ dark windows. He drove on, and Shirley said, “Oh, Harry; I’m so sorry.”

  “Not your fault.” They all turned back into the room, faces solemn. “It’s mine: I eat too much. My god: done in by a chocolate log.” Harry suddenly set down his glass, and walked swiftly toward the door. “Got to get our stuff out of there!”

  “I’ll help,” Lew said.

  “No, no sense both of us getting busted.”

  “Harry, if they grab one of us, we’re all in the soup. Come on: everybody. Many hands make busy work.”

  “Is that how it goes?” Shirley said, walking to the door.

  “No,” said Jo. “Many hands make—is it quick work? That doesn’t sound right.”

  “Many hands . . .” Shirley said, and walking across the parking area they discussed it to the Levys’.

  In less than ten minutes they emptied the apartment of everything the Levys owned, carrying their armloads to Jo’s apartment, heaping the chairs, chesterfield, and Jo’s work tables with tumbled armloads of clothing, sleeves dangling; a jumble of Harry’s photographic and sporting equipment; a ragged tower of paperbacks; and Shirley’s few cooking utensils. Then, in the camper, Lew and Jo drove to the shopping center, Lew hidden in the back, Jo at the wheel; she would be least vulnerable to recognition, they thought; Harry and Shirley should not be seen at all. Jo parked beside the Alfa Romeo, most of the stores closed now, plenty of room. She looked around as she turned off the motor; no one seemed to be watching. She got out, and walked along the covered walkway to the drugstore; it was nearly dark now. She stopped, looked in the lighted drugstore window for a few moments, then turned to walk back, bringing out Harry’s ignition key. She got into the Alfa, started it, backed out, and drove away.

  Half a minute later Lew moved from the back of the camper to the driver’s seat, turned the ignition key Jo had left there, and backed out. He drove to Belvedere Drive, a quiet residential street a mile from the apartments. The Alfa sat parked at the curb, lights out, and he drew up beside it. Jo got out, stepped up into the driver’s seat of the camper, and drove Lew home. She drove on then, parked half a mile away on Reed Boulevard, and walked home in the dark.

  Supper was ready: Shirley had prepared it in Jo’s little kitchen from canned goods Jo kept in supply for her lunches. Each of them with a plate wherever he could find room—Jo and Shirley on arms of the chesterfield, Lew sitting on the floor, Harry leaning back against the sink—they ate, talking about what had happened; joking, laughing, still excited. The Levys would take Lew’s apartment tonight, they decided; Lew and Jo would use hers. Presently they grew quieter. Jo opened canned peaches for dessert. When Shirley walked to the kitchen to rinse out her dish, she said to Harry, standing beside her, “So okay: we’re all right tonight. We hope. But what about tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow we move.”

  She smiled uncertainly. “We already have.”

  He shook his head, chewing, then swallowed. “First thing tomorrow we throw our stuff in the car, and head for the nearest state line.”

  “What?”

  “Shirl, listen. This isn’t some little hit-and-run fender-bender: I took a prisoner away from a cop! And for that every cop in the county—Mill Valley police, deputy sheriffs, even highway patrol—will be very happy to nab me. And Lew.” He glanced at Lew, who nodded. “I beat up a cop, took his prisoner, we took his handcuffs, took his keys”—Harry grinned suddenly—“and Lew took his god-damned gun!” He tossed his hands into the air. “They’ll hang us!” Both men laughed genuinely, the women staring at them.

  “Everything but his pants,” Lew said, and they laughed again.

  Harry set his plate on the sink, and began wandering the living room. “I can’t even go to the office again. Ever. My full business address right under our doorbell for the cop to read: address, phone number, extension, and zip code. Everything but my photograph, front view and profile. Oh boy.” Passing Jo’s big supply cabinet, he reached out to touch one of the lineup of models on its top.

  “You think they’ll go to your office?” Shirley said. She stood shaking liquid soap into the sink, preparing to wash dishes.

  “Sure they will! Why not? They’ll find out who Lew is at the office, too. We can’t risk it anyway: I don’t want to serve a god-damn jail term! Become a felon. Be disbarred. No kidding, that’s what they’re planning for us. Right now. They’ll be back tonight.” He stopped at the glass doors to nod at his apartment. “And the cop I hit will work twenty-four hours a day, he’ll give up sleeping—oh, man, would he like to find us! They’ll have warrants out: we won’t dare risk being stopped for anything. They’re going to break their collective ass to find us! We really could do six months in jail. Any of us. All of us. That’s the handwriting on the wall, and what it says is—move. Fast and far. While we can.”

  After a moment Shirley said, “Well, we’ve talked about trying Seattle some day; now we can. Just throw everything in the camper—”

  “Not that pile of scrap. It wouldn’t make it over the next hill.”

  “Well, cram everything into the Alfa then, and leave the camper where it is.” She began running water into the sink. “How about it, you guys? Anyone for Seattle?”

  “Sometimes I’ve thought about Santa Fe,” Lew said slowly. “I’ve heard that it’s different there.” They laughed, and so did he but insisted, “Really. I’ve heard it really is.” He glanced uneasily at Jo. “If that suits you?”

  She didn’t reply to this but said, “Couldn’t you guys beat the charges? You’re lawyers.”

  “We might,�
�� Lew said. “Our defense would be the simple truth: bring out the cop’s real motive, no true arrest, we were within our rights. But he’d lie about what really happened; you know it. And juries believe cops, God knows why, these days. And judges pretend to. Frankly, I wouldn’t take my own case.”

  “What about notice at work?” Jo said.

  “I’ll phone Tom Thurber in the morning.”

  “And then we leave? Just like that?”

  “Well, the rent’s paid till the first, of course. On all three apartments. And the furniture. No lease, it’s month to month, and they’ve got our cleaning deposits. All we have to do is leave a note for notice.” The room was silent then, except for the little clinks and watery swishes of Shirley’s dishwashing. Lew sat looking at the others, frowning, and when he spoke again his voice was startled. “You know, it’s funny: it gets easier to move every time. I could leave in ten minutes from a standing start; pack most of what I own in my suitcase and backpack, and carry the rest under one arm. All our stuff will fit in the VW, with the skis on top. What about your tables though, Jo? And the supply cabinet?”

  “Well,” she said slowly, “I bought them used; I expect I could sell them back at the same place. Just take them over in the van.”

  “And sell the van when we sell the camper,” Harry said: he stood at the glass doors to the balcony watching the street. “First used-car lot we come to in the city. Might get a buck and a half apiece.”

  “You’ll want your models,” Lew murmured uneasily. “The Town.”