The Rainy Season

by James P. Blaylock

  “I knew that you would tell me the truth,” Mr. Appleton said to her.

  “I gave it to Jen,” Betsy told him now.

  “Ah,” he said. “I know about Jen. You gave it to Jen. Good. That was good. You found it in the tower?”

  “Yes. In a trunk. Under some stuff.”

  He laughed outright now. “Then it was May, after all! And all these years it was there! I guess I shouldn’t be bitter. I should be thankful for small things, for the knowledge that it’s here at all.”

  The car slowed abruptly, and she realized that he was pulling over, off the road. To their right lay a kind of woods—lots of big trees, darkness, patches of deep shadow. A barbed-wire fence ran along the edge, and the hillside rose beyond it. There were no houses around? and no cars. … Only one, she saw now, parked under the trees. The light came on inside the car when the driver opened the door, and Betsy saw that it was Elizabeth. The light went out when the door shut, and Elizabeth was only a shadow outside in the night. She waited there by her car while the old man got out.

  He leaned back into the car and said to Betsy, “I’ll only be a moment, my dear. Sit tight.” Then he shut the door and the car went dark again. Betsy looked into the trees and listened to the sound of their voices. A car passed on the road, its headlights sweeping the turnout, and she watched as its taillights disappeared around the next bend, and then the night was empty and still.

  57

  “DID YOU BRING the money?” Elizabeth asked him. The night was cold, threatening rain, and the clouds lay low over the hills, so that the air was misty.

  Appleton nodded. “I brought the money. I believe I told you half a dozen times that the money is irrelevant to me. You don’t need to threaten me, Elizabeth. … What is that!”

  “It’s a big long shiny pistol,” Elizabeth said, holding it out for him to see. “I found it in your drawer. I think it’s loaded.” She spun it around her finger, like a television cowboy, nearly dropping it, catching it again.

  “For God’s sake,” he said. “You don’t need that.”

  “Don’t I? Get the money. Now. Get the money or I’ll make you crawl from here to Jamboree Road on your hands and knees.”

  “Of course. Where’s the crystal?”

  “Safe,” she said. “I haven’t touched it. I didn’t bring a hammer. I was joshing you. My idea of a joke.”

  “Show it to me.”

  “Get the money first, since you don’t care about it anyway.” She cocked the pistol, holding it with both hands, pointing it at the ground. It was heavier than she would have thought, and she wondered what would happen to it if it got wet. She had never cocked a pistol or shot any kind of gun before in her life. It didn’t seem like it would be too hard.

  Rain began to fall again, and without another word Appleton turned and hurried toward his car. He opened the trunk and took the suitcase out. Even in the rain and the roadside darkness she could see it was the right one, the one from the closet. He brought it to her, setting it on the hood and clicking open the latches. She reached past him and took out the shirts that still lay on top, dropping them onto the muddy ground and stepping on them. Beneath the divider lay the money—fifty and hundred-dollar bills visible, just like she remembered. A lot of them.

  There was a flash of lightning, and she leaped in surprise, knocking the barrel of the pistol against Appleton’s shoulder. He fell back, his face wild, looking at the pistol, holding up his hands. Thunder crashed; the rain fell harder. He slammed the lid of the suitcase, and Elizabeth stepped forward and clicked the, latches shut. She picked it up, opened the car door, and pitched it in.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Sayonara.”

  “The crystal, Elizabeth. At least have the integrity to—”

  “The crystal is at the mission,” she said to him. “I lied to you. I lied like a rug. The mystery woman gave your crystal away this afternoon. You’re too late.”

  “You’re lying now,” he said.

  “No.” She shrugged. “Not now I’m not. Now I’m telling the truth. I don’t care enough to lie about it anymore. I’m done.” She stepped back, holding onto the pistol tightly, watching his face. Would he try something? He was soaking wet, bedraggled. He looked old, old and furious.

  “Let’s get Betsy into my car,” Elizabeth said to him. “I’ll take her back down to Phil’s.” She could see the dark figure huddled in the back seat of Appleton’s car.

  She was probably scared to death, especially if she could see the pistol. Elizabeth didn’t really give much of a damn who took Betsy home, except that it would look better if it was her—easier to keep her story consistent that way, play the hero right up until the end.

  Appleton shrugged, nodded, then turned around and walked toward his car again. But instead of getting Betsy out, he opened the driver’s side door and climbed in, starting the car up. Full of disbelief, Elizabeth hurried forward, carrying the still-cocked pistol. He rolled down the window and looked out at her.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she asked. “Don’t screw this up any worse than you’ve already screwed it. We can walk away from this. It’s over.”

  “You never quite understood anything, did you, Elizabeth?”

  “I understood enough to win the game, which is more than you understood. I understand enough to know when the game is over.”

  “About the girl, I mean. About why I wanted the girl.” He wasn’t smiling, but there was no defeat in his face, no backing down.

  Elizabeth stared at him. She brought the pistol up slowly, pointed it at the open window. He laughed out loud. The laughter was forced, but full of real contempt.

  “You might shoot me for money, my dear, but you would never shoot me for the sake of the girl. You’re greedy, but you’re not gallant.”

  She realized then that the window was moving upward again, and that the car had started forward, driving away. She watched as it bumped up onto the road and headed east, deeper into the hills, its taillights disappearing around the distant bend.

  “You’re right again,” she said out loud, and she walked back to her own car in the rain.

  The gun was still cocked. Hell. She had no idea how to uncock it. Fire it? She brought it up level, holding it with both hands, aiming at a tree fifty feet away on the hillside. Squinting her eyes, she sighted down the barrel and squeezed the trigger. There was a deafening explosion, the gun leaped upward, and a satisfying chunk of bark spun away from the edge of the tree trunk. The sound rang in her ears for a minute after the night was quiet again. Thrilled with the noise, she was tempted to fire all the bullets, straight up into the air like a New Year’s Eve drunk, but she walked back to her car instead, suddenly anxious to be through with this and go: there were dry clothes in the trunk, a ton of money in the back seat, and a full tank of gas.

  Too bad for Betsy, she thought, but everybody couldn’t be a winner.

  58

  ELIZABETH PULLED OFF into a dark parking lot, got out of the car, took her suitcase out of the trunk, and climbed into the backseat, locking the doors behind her. She pulled off her wet clothing one piece at a time, toweled herself off, and changed into dry clothes. She shivered, the car cooling off fast now that it was stopped and the heater was down. She looked at the suitcase, savoring the thought of the money that lay within, but not looking at it yet, drawing this moment out. It would be dangerous as hell to count it here in the lonely darkness, but she had to get some idea of what she had earned for her troubles. Was she an heiress, or just comfortable?

  She climbed over the seat into the front again, settled in, and started the car, turning up the heat, turning on the dome light and brushing her hair out in the mirror. She reached behind, found the towel on the seat, and used it to mop the makeup from her face. The pistol lay on the seat beside her. She picked it up and put it in her lap. “Ready?” she asked out loud, and smiled at herself in the mirror, then turned and pulled Appleton’s suitcase out of the backseat. After glancing out the windows,
she unlatched the case, tilted the lid back, and pulled the flap out of the way.

  She looked eagerly at the money, stacks of bills rubber-banded together—nearly two thousand dollars showing on top. She took out one of the stacks, slipped off the rubber band, and flipped through it.

  For a moment she sat without moving, then dropped the bills back into the suitcase, fanning them out. The money was fake. Photocopies. Green-gray paper, thin as newsprint—obviously fake when you looked at it. The bills on top were real enough, but everything below …

  Forcing herself to remain calm, she rolled down the window, then unbanded each pile in turn, dumping out the fraudulent bills, laying the authentic top-of-the-pile bills carefully aside. Outside, the bits of paper flew in the windy rain, swirling up against the aluminum and glass windows of the little strip center in front of her, cartwheeling across the parking lot until they were borne down by the weather, settling into puddles, catching in bushes. When the suitcase was empty, she pushed it out the window, too, then counted the money that was left. Eighteen hundred dollars. Crappy old wrinkled bills.

  The money that had been in the suitcase in his closet had been real, but he had switched it, anticipating everything. No wonder he was so complacent out in the canyon. He had been ahead of her all along. He hadn’t trusted her! She should have taken the damned money when she’d had the chance. She should have stolen it and blown out of here, given up this whole weird business before Appleton knew she was gone. Shit! She pounded the steering wheel with both fists, then crossed her arms in front of her, holding herself hard, realizing that she was on the verge of crying.

  Now what? Cut her own losses and run? It would be easy to go back down to the shop and let herself in, just steal everything and anything of any value. If she cleaned out the safe and the petty cash, took all the estate jewelry, the watches, the little collection of old Limoges boxes, the trinkets, anything else small that she could sell on the road …

  This was pitiful. In six months she’d be living out of the back of her car. And of course she would look guilty as hell, and for more than just stealing a bunch of crap out of the shop. Unless Appleton came to his senses, she’d be complicit in Betsy’s disappearance. What the hell did Appleton want with her?

  She saw that she had to dump it on Appleton now, all the blame, sell him down the river. And if Betsy ended up saved, then the girl would tell them that Elizabeth had tried to help her out there in the hills, which was true. Hell, she would have shot Appleton to save Betsy, but of course it would have endangered the girl. …

  She shifted into reverse and backed out fast, her wheels throwing up a storm of paper bills. Time was the thing now. The longer she took getting back to Phil’s, the worse she would look. She considered for a moment putting her wet clothes back on, just to make a better impression, but now that she was moving, she couldn’t bring herself to stop.

  59

  PHIL DROVE SLOWLY around the plaza. The shops were closed, but the cafes were open, and he looked into each one. It was too strange that Appleton wasn’t in his shop with Betsy, unless Elizabeth had simply made the whole story up. But why in the hell would she? She was plenty capable of making up stories, but there had always been some kind of method to her madness. This was simply irrational. Appleton might have taken Betsy to dinner, not knowing how long he’d have her. …

  They weren’t in Byblos Lebanese Cafe, or in Felix’s. He drove past Watson’s, slowing down to look in through the windows. He made another circuit, turning off down Glassell Street, swinging around the block and coming up again from the other end watching the sidewalks. No sign of her. Then it occurred to him that the old man might simply have taken her home. If Elizabeth had called him and told him what was up …

  Anything was possible, even that Hannah Darwin had come back down here after running out of the house. She was certainly desperate enough and tenacious enough to try almost anything. He kept an eye out for her car, but there was no sign of it, and after another five minutes of futile driving around, he headed back home, suddenly anxious to get there. The lights were with him, traffic was thin, and he was rounding the last hilly curve below his driveway when he realized that someone was following close behind him, blinking the headlights. He pulled down into the driveway and parked. It was Elizabeth, back again. She was in a hurry this time, and she didn’t look pleased.

  60

  “I’M SORRY,” ELIZABETH said, talking breathlessly, gazing into Phil’s amazed face. “I misread this one. I don’t know what he wants. When I said that I had told you that Betsy was there with him, in the shop, he went off on me. He just blew up. I don’t think that he wants to let Betsy go.”

  “What do you mean, let her go?” Phil asked.

  “I mean he thinks he can trade her to you for the crystal, that he can cut some kind of a deal. So I didn’t tell him that the crystal was at the mission. I played along with him. He wouldn’t stay in the shop, because he was afraid you’d find him there …”

  “He was gone when I got there,” Phil said. He slammed his door shut and headed for the house.

  “… so I agreed to meet him farther out in the canyon,” Elizabeth said, following him in and shutting the door behind her. “I told him I’d bring the crystal. I just wanted to get Betsy, whatever I had to do. But when he found out that the crystal had gone to the mission—that was it. He did not want to hear that. God, I don’t know. Maybe I phrased it wrong. I tried to get Betsy out of that car, but he just drove away. It was all I could do not to get run down.” She slowed down now. He believed her. No need to load it on. He had to believe her, because she was his only link to Betsy now. And besides that, here she was, spilling her guts.

  “Which way did he drive?” Phil asked. “Back down or into the hills?”

  “The hills,” she said truthfully.

  “Unless he turned around and came back down … The freeway’s faster. He would have to drive all the way up through El Toro to catch it if he went that way, through the canyon.”

  “He did. Because he didn’t turn around. I drove straight back down here and there was nobody behind me.” That was a lie: she hadn’t driven straight back down. She had killed half an hour, maybe forty minutes, screwing around with the money, changing clothes “We can beat him,” Phil said. “We can make it. Easy. Let’s go.” He dug around in his wallet, coming up with a slip of paper. “I’ll call the mission, just to warn … just to warn Colin. We can work this out.”

  “I know we can,” Elizabeth said. “I really do feel I sorry for him. He’s been waiting for years for this. It’s his daughter, you know? What he did to her was creepy, but that was a long time ago, and if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that he’s been waiting in order to make things right. If we can get to him I can talk to him. I’m like a second daughter to him myself. Seriously.” Phil was already on the phone, listening, looking anxious. He hung up. “Nobody’s answering. I guess I’m going to have to call the cops back. They’re going to think I’m crazy.”

  “Don’t,” Elizabeth said. “They’ll just hang us up. Let’s just go. He wouldn’t hurt Betsy. That’s what’s driving him, you know? What happened … what he did to his daughter. That’s been eating him up. He wouldn’t make it worse by hurting Betsy. He’s got a gun, though. I know he carries one. And if something starts with the police, somebody could get hurt.”

  Phil put the phone down, and Elizabeth was flooded with relief. The police were what they didn’t need. She realized that Jen was standing behind Phil now, at the base of the stairs. Elizabeth nodded at her, but Jen was moving, heading for the door, thank God. She was a determined-looking thing, and Elizabeth knew the woman didn’t like her or trust her. She could see it clear as day in her eyes. Phil was easy, but this silent woman could be a problem. Phil held the door as Elizabeth pushed past him, clumping across the porch and heading toward the car.

  “I promise you,” she said to Phil. “I can reason with him. He flew off the handle out there when I to
ld him about the crystal, but he’s harmless. He wouldn’t hurt a bug.” They climbed in, and Phil fired the car up and was moving immediately. She kept talking, leaning forward. “He’s desperate, and he’d say anything, but he’s smart enough to know that hurting Betsy wouldn’t help him. Look, I could call him on the cell phone, if you think …” She took the phone out of her purse and held it up, suppressing a sudden desire to laugh. What fun it would be if she did call him!

  “I don’t think so,” Phil said. He turned left onto the highway, and Elizabeth braced herself as the quick turn pitched her into the door. She put the phone back into her purse, laying it atop the pistol, which was wedged into the small purse along with her wallet and car keys.

  The sight of the pistol made her think of the money again, and it occurred to her now that Appleton might easily have it with him. Of course he would. It would be in the trunk of his car.

  61

  MRS. DARWIN SAT in her car below Phil's house, by the ditch along the roadside. The car that she had cut off earlier and that had gone into this same ditch was gone. A tow truck had been hauling it out when she had swung past ten minutes ago, and so she had gone right on by, looping around again in a big circle through the hills to kill some time. Now the coast was clear, and she had gotten back not a moment too soon. There was activity at Phil’s house: Elizabeth was there, the dirty little sneak-thief. Her car was parked in the drive. Mrs. Darwin recognized it as the one that had been parked on the turnout the day before yesterday. The other woman was there, too. They were bustling around inside, maybe confronting each other.

  She watched carefully, but saw no sign of Betsy. What the hell did this mean?

  They were coming out!