The Man in the Net

by Patrick Quentin

  “You mustn’t be scared,” said Emily. “They can’t hear us in here. Angel and I have tried. It’s something funny about the cave. You can shout in here and right outside you can’t hear a thing. It’s all right. They’ll go away. Listen, they’re going now.”

  The shouts and the crashes were fainter now, weren’t they? Weren’t they fading away to the right?

  “After I left you,” she said, “I came here to be alone. And I heard the shouts and people running and I knew what it was. I went out. I didn’t know what to do. Then I found you.”

  With the slackening of tension, exhaustion came. He felt his knees sagging under him. Emily’s hand touched his.

  “You’re tired. You better lie down. Here … on my bed. Not on Angel’s. She won’t let anyone lie on her bed.”

  John obeyed the gentle tug on his sleeve.

  “Here,” said Emily. “They’re not beds really; they’re only blankets with pine needles under them. But we call them beds.”

  He sat down and then stretched himself out on the barely visible blanket, sinking into the soft embrace of the pine needles. Yes, his pursuers were way off to the right now. They were heading down the gulley—away.

  “We’ve got furniture and everything,” said Emily. “Orange crates from the store and candles and things. It’s our house. We come here most every night too and sleep. Mother never knows. We climb out of the window and we’re back just when it’s light. We practically live here. And Louise lives here all the time.”

  “Louise?”

  He felt Emily slip away from him; then he heard a struck match. As a flicker of light came, he turned violently to see her standing with a lighted candle in a coke bottle in one hand and in the other a large shabby, sunbonneted doll.

  “This is Louise. She …”

  “Put out the candle, Emily.”

  “It’s all right, they’ve gone.”

  “But they’ll be back, maybe.”

  She stood a moment looking at him gravely, then she blew out the candle.

  “All right. But that’s Louise. She’s the queen of all Angel’s dolls. I think dolls are dopey, but I don’t let on. You see, it was really Angel who found the cave. I really lied that day. I mean, it really actually is Angel’s cave and Angel gave it to Louise.” She came back and squatted down on the floor next to him. “So it’s really Louise’s cave, I guess.”

  This world of the children’s cave was as unreal to him as his panic flight through the woods. And, with the shock of what he’d found in the cow-barn still as raw as a wound, his mind had only the feeblest power to plan. He was safe for the moment; that was all that had seemed to matter. But now he started imperfectly to grapple with the future. He’d run away. He knew that, and he knew that by running away he’d admitted his guilt. That’s how they would see it—because they would want to see it that way. The thing in the barn was there to damn him utterly, but now there was this too: he’d run away. What then should he do? Try to get to Vickie? Gamble on the respect the rabble had for the Careys to keep him safe until the troopers came? And then give himself up?

  ‘I didn’t run away. I was only trying to get to the Careys because I was afraid of what the men would do…”

  Captain Green’s solid, uncompromising face seemed blurrily to watch him from the twilight above.

  Maybe that’s what he should do. Wasn’t it the only thing anyway? But not yet—not while the men were still in the woods and might at any minute swing back.

  A voluptuous irresponsibility descended on him. There was nothing to do at the moment—nothing but to lie here in the darkness on the pine needles, miraculously exempt from making a decision.

  “John.”

  Emily’s voice came through to him.

  “Yes, Emily.”

  “Was it Steve and the men—or was it the troopers?”

  “Steve and the village.”

  “They came up to your house and you ran away.”

  “Yes.”

  “What were they going to do to you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you ran.”

  “Yes.”

  “I hate them,” said Emily. “I hate them.”

  “Yes. And it’s worse now.”

  He had to tell her. Why not? There could be nothing valid between them until she knew and took her stand.

  “They found cement on the blue jeans and someone had called up a store in Pittsfield, using my name, and ordered cement. They were to dump it, he said, by the bend in the creek beyond the house. For a dam. I went to the bend and there were wheelbarrow tracks and a trail of cement. They led up to the cow-barn, and in the cow-barn …” How did you tell this to a kid? Suddenly, in his mind, he was back running into the cow-barn. He broke off.

  Emily said, “And the cement was in the cow-barn?”

  “Someone had made it into a floor for one of the stalls— a new cement floor.”

  “So she’s there,” said Emily almost perfunctorily. “Mrs. Hamilton’s there. She’s dead and under the cement.”

  “I guess so, Emily.”

  “Who did it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But someone did it, didn’t they? Someone put her there and then tried to make believe it was you.”

  “Yes.”

  Telling her hadn’t helped. It had only made his predicament more sharply defined to him. Cement on his blue jeans; his voice ordering the sacks on the phone; Linda there under the new cement in his barn. It was all a monstrous illusion fabricated by an enemy. But who would ever believe that? Captain Green? A district attorney? A judge? A jury? A jury—twelve ruddy, blue-eyed men and women sitting in the courtroom, watching him as the town meeting had watched him, as the men in the meadow …

  “John? What are you going to do, John?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t do it.”

  “No.”

  “Someone did it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Shall I go out? Shall I see if they’ve gone?”

  “Not yet. Wait a bit.”

  “John.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to stay here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Because if you are going to stay here—Angel’s coming any minute.”

  He had been only half listening, answering mechanically, tied up to his own thoughts. His attention came sharply back.

  “Angel?”

  “Yes. She’s coming. She said so. We’re going to have a picnic with Louise. And I’m afraid.”

  Angel, kicking and screaming in his arms. You shan’t know the secret. You beat up your wife.

  “It’s the secret, you see,” said Emily. “She’ll be mad that you’re here because of the secret, and then—it’s the other thing. What she says—like Mother and all of them. You did it, she says, and …”

  Weirdly, from high in the shadowy area above them, came the faint hoo-ing of an owl. Emily clutched his arm. The sound came again. Where had he heard it before? The owl, of course, wailing out beyond the apple trees at night.

  “It’s Angel.” Emily’s lips were pressed against his ear. “It’s our owl signal. She’s up at the window. She’ll come right down. That’s what we do. Hoot and come right down.”

  John jumped up.

  Emily jumped up too. “Where are you going?”

  “Out in the woods again.”

  “But they’re still there. You can’t. And she’ll see you going out. She …”

  He started toward the aperture in the rock. Emily ran after him, tugging at his sleeve.

  “No, John. No. Stay. I’ve thought. It’ll be all right. We can fix her. We can fix Angel.”

  He stood hesitating between panic and the insistent tug at his sleeve.

  “Louise,” said Emily. “Talk to Louise.”

  She ran from him. He heard a match striking and she was returning with the lighted candle. In the quavering illumination, he could see the sunbonneted do
ll, propped against the cave wall on an orange crate. Emily put the candle down by the doll.

  “Sit down. Sit with Louise. When she comes, say Louise invited you.”

  “But she won’t believe me …”

  “She’ll pretend to believe you. She’s got to pretend about Louise. And say I came later. Say I don’t believe you, say that I say Louise is just a dopey doll who can’t invite anybody.”

  Emily ran back into the shadows at the furthest end of the cave. John paused a moment, thinking dimly: Has it come to this? Am I more frightened of a seven-year-old child than of all the men in the woods? Then he squatted down in front of the doll. He kept his gaze on the aperture. The circle of candlelight didn’t quite stretch that far. There was a vague impression of movement. Something was pushed through into the cave. A paper sack? Then a small dark head appeared, wriggling forward, and after it a small plump body. Angel scrambled to her feet and started finically brushing the dirt from her blue jeans. Then she bent and grabbed up the paper sack and, clutching it tightly to her front, turned toward the candlelight. She saw John and the round black eyes in the pudgy face shone like sequins.

  “Hello, Angel,” said John. “I was passing by and Louise invited me in. I hope you don’t mind. Emily’s mad. She says …”

  “Of course Louise didn’t invite him.” Emily was running out of the shadows toward Angel. “I found him here. He’d come in by himself. And he pretends that Louise … as if Louise could invite anyone—a stupid dopey nothing old doll.”

  Angel stood clutching the paper sack, looking first at John and then at Emily. She blinked.

  “There are men out in the woods. I heard them. All those men. They came up from the village. They’re looking for John.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?” cried Emily. “It’s the secret that matters and he says Louise …”

  “He was bad,” said Angel primly. “He was very bad with Mrs. Hamilton. That’s why they’re looking for him.”

  “But I wasn’t, Angel,” said John. “That’s all a mistake. If you don’t believe me, ask Louise.”

  “She wouldn’t know,” said Emily jeeringly. “How would a stupid old doll know anything?”

  Very deliberately Angel stooped and deposited the paper sack on the floor. Then she turned her back on both of them and stood respectfully in front of the doll.

  “Good morning, Louise. Did you pass a pleasant night? Louise—is Emily a stupid, wicked dope?” After a fractional pause, she turned triumphantly back to Emily, her face flushed with malicious excitement. “She says, yes. She says you’re a stupid, wicked dope.” She spun back to the doll. “And did you invite John here, Louise? Did you figure out that the men were looking for him and you were inviting him here because they were wrong and because Mrs. Hamilton is bad anyway and sneaky, saying: Dearest Angel, it’s our secret, isn’t it, and I’ll give you one just like it, saying …” Once again, after a pause, she spun round to Emily and put out her tongue. “Drip,” she said, “you don’t know anything. Louise invited him. And Louise says …”

  Suddenly, from outside, John heard a man’s voice shouting. He stiffened. Almost immediately another voice called back. It was so close that it seemed only inches away and the whole cave took it eerily up in an echo, sending it fluttering around above their heads like an invisible bat.

  Emily’s eyes flashed to John: then she started running toward the hole in the wall.

  “I’m going to get the men. I’m going to tell them John’s here. I …”

  “No!” Angel flung herself on her sister, grabbing her pigtail, beating at her with her fist. “No. Louise says no. Louise says no.”

  The voice came again, just outside, calling, “Nothing here, Fred. Maybe he’s doubled back to the road.” John stood, digging his nails into the palms of his hands. He could hear the man’s footsteps crunching on dry twigs. He could even hear the slow, stertorous breathing.

  With a simulated whimper, Emily dropped down on to the floor. Angel straddled her imperially.

  “So—so John’s got to stay?” said Emily.

  “Yes, yes, yes.”

  “Forever? For as long as he wants to?”

  “Yes.”

  “And we’ll have to help him? Whatever he wants us to do, we’ll have to do because Louise says so?”

  “Yes,” said Angel.

  A dead branch snapped outside. John, holding his breath, heard the rustle of the hemlock twigs as a body pushed through them. Angel turned to him with a wide, dazzling smile.

  “You can scream in here,” she said. “You can scream and scream and scream, and outside you can’t hear a thing.”

  She opened her mouth into an enormous “o” and started to scream in a terrible high piercing shriek which splintered back and forth from the walls. John tried to swallow but couldn’t. Angel closed her mouth and gradually the clamor faded away. Outside the man’s voice, further off, called:

  “Okay, Fred. Back to the road then.”

  John felt his legs giving away. He threw out a hand to support himself against the wall. In front of him, illuminated by the candle like a saint in a niche, Louise sat stiffly, her head with the heavy sunbonnet sagging slightly forward.

  Angel squatted down on the floor by the paper sack.

  “Now we’re going to have our picnic,” she said. “And Louise says John can have half of Emily’s share.”

  17

  SHE WAS taking things out of the sack—a box of Fig Newtons, two bottles of Coke, sandwiches wrapped in napkins, a chocolate bar. Meticulously, she arranged them on the floor in front of Louise, a large pile for herself, smaller piles for Emily and John.

  “Louise says that John has to have the other Coke. Emily isn’t to drink anything.”

  The men had gone. Improbably he had been saved. In the relief from tension, his mind was suddenly, preternaturally alert. This had happened. Make use of it.

  While Emily hovered in the shadows beyond the candlelight, he sat down on the sandy dirt next to Angel and began to eat. Mrs. Hamilton is bad and sneaky, saying Angel, it’s our secret … Angel had said that. It may not have meant anything, but she’d said it. Perhaps … But that shouldn’t come first. The men thought he’d doubled back out of the woods to the road. That was the important thing at the moment. Keep them thinking that way. At least it would give him time.

  Craftily he said, “It’s kind of Louise to let me stay.” Angel had started to eat the chocolate bar. “Louise likes you. I like you too. I think maybe I love you. It’s only Emily pushing into everything that makes me so mad.”

  “Then Louise wants to help me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would she make Emily do something for me?” Angel had finished the chocolate bar and was wiping her fingers on the wrapper.

  “Louise says that Emily has to help you before she can eat her lunch.”

  “But Angel…” began Emily.

  John looked around to her quickly. “You come here on your bicycles, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Hidden in the hemlocks at the back.”

  “Could you do something for me?”

  “If I’ve got to.” Emily’s whine sounded dangerously overplayed to him, but Angel didn’t seem to notice it. Smugly she announced:

  “She’s got to.”

  John said, “You know the dirt road down from the Fishers’, Emily. It’s not far. Take your bicycle there, ride it down to the highway and leave it by the side of the road. Don’t let anyone see you. Then come back here. Later, when you go back to the village, tell them you were riding your bicycle down the dirt road and I ran up and asked to borrow it. They’ll find the bicycle on the highway and think I thumbed a ride from there.”

  Angel was staring at him. “So you’ll pretend you’ve gone away and be here?”

  John was still watching Emily. “You think you can do that?”

  She broke into a delighted smile. “Of course. I’ll go this
very minute.”

  She ran to the opening, dropped down and wriggled away out of sight. Angel didn’t even turn her head. She sat a moment looking from the sandwiches to the Fig Newtons. She took a Fig Newton.

  It should work, John was thinking. If there was anyone he could trust, it was Emily. Once she’d got the bicycle to the highway, he was safe for a while or as safe as he could be under the precarious protection of Louise. And if he could stay here! It was only then that he actually admitted to himself that this way there might be hope. He hadn’t planned it. It had just happened. But now that it had happened, wasn’t it the lesser of two evils? He knew exactly how it would have been if he’d given himself up. Even if Vickie had been able to protect him until the troopers came, he would have been arrested with everything lined up remorselessly against him. The plan of his enemy would have worked out exactly as it had been intended to work out. But now that he was here and still free, couldn’t he fight back? Someone in the community had done this to him. Someone. Steve Ritter? If, somehow …

  Angel’s voice came through to him. “Emily’s a slave, isn’t she? A great fat stupid grind-her-under-your-foot slave.”

  He looked at her and she giggled.

  “I keep on saying you’ve done bad things to Mrs. Hamilton. I keep on saying it over and over. It makes her so mad. That’s why I say it. Just to make her mad.”

  Restraining a hope which he knew was far too fragile to bear any weight, he said, “But you say Linda’s bad too.”

  Angel brushed crumbs off her fingers, looked at a sandwich and then started to unwrap the napkin from it.

  “Mrs. Hamilton’s bad. She’s bad and sneaky.”

  “Sneaky? Why is she sneaky?”

  “Hiding,” said Angel. “Hiding in the Fishers’ house when the Fishers are away. That’s sneaky, isn’t it? And it’s bad. When people are away, you don’t hide in their houses. It’s bad.”

  In the candlelight her round plump face above the clutched sandwich was heavy with disapproval.

  John said, “You found her hiding in the Fishers’ house?”

  “She was there and there was someone with her. I was coming up the road and I saw the car drive away and then I saw her coming out of the house and she saw me and she thought I hadn’t seen her and she tried to sneak back into the house and I knew it was bad so I went up to her and I said out loud so she knew I’d seen her, ‘Hello, Mrs. Hamilton.’ I said it and she stopped trying to sneak back into the house and she came up to me and she smiled and she smiled. Oh, she’s sneaky.”