The desperate hours, a novel

by Hayes, Joseph, 1918-2006

  "Look, I don't mind being ignored," he lied, twisting his tall, athletic body about in the small seat, "but you might give me a hint. I can't say I know anything, being only a poor lawyer who spends his young Ufe writing briefs that any college sophomore could write, but I'm not the town moron. Or am I?"

  "I'm sorry, Chuck." Just that. Flat. With a period.

  Chuck shrugged, offered a cigarette which was either not seen or ignored, then lighted one for himself. "Okay, okay. Then I'll talk. Look, Cindy—here's a fellow. He was walking along a street. The sun was shining. He was whistling. He hadn't paid much attention to the sun for a long time, this 57

  fellow, and when he whistled, it was usually because he was kidding himself into thinking he was a happy guy. But this time I'm telling you about, nothing in particular or stupendous had happened. Oh, he was running around with a girl, a very pretty girl, but he'd run around with girls before. Anyway, he was whistling, just because he felt like whistling. He was even kind of shocked at himself underneath—in a darned pleasant sort of way, though. Then he turned around a corner and wham! Something hit him in the face. A door. A blank door. Locked tight . . . Now the question is, honey, was this fellow kidding himseK all along?"

  Slowly—very slowly then—Cindy turned to him. For a split second that hard gleam was gone. Then it happened. The small face trembled, but only a moment, a quivering along the deU-cate jawline; then the face fell apart, twisting oddly, going all wrong. She was lowering her head, her lip shaking, and before he could speak around the sudden bulge in his throat, she was against him, full against his chest.

  His heart tightening, Chuck held her. Under his hands and his arms he could feel her flesh leaping and shuddering. The questions surged in him, but he said nothing. He caught the fresh scent of that lovely deep red hair, and waited.

  But when she didn't speak, or cr)', his mind leaped to its own conclusions and froze around them, the suspicions of the last few weeks hardening into words: "They don't like me, do they?"

  "What?"

  "Your people. Mr. and Mrs. Dan Hilliard. They don't think I'm worth much, do they?"

  Cindy, with her head buried against his chest, her mind battering like a trapped wild bird against the stiff helplessness that only added to her anger, decided that she had to tell him. Chuck would know a way, find a way. She had gone over it all, all evening long, and she could find no way out. But Chuck would know what to do. There had to be a crack in the wall if only a person were free enough and detached enough to see it; if only a person weren't tied up in this blind terrible anger that made you want to act, not think; kill, not talk.

  "Chuck, I have to tell you. Chuck "

  But then, just then with the words already forming in her throat, she remembered Glenn Griffin whispering hastily into her ear as he half-led, half-shoved her toward the door an hour ago: You tell anyone, we'll take your mother along on our little ride after while, redhead. Maybe the kid, too, in case the cops get wise to when we're blowing out of here tonight. Any shooting, you folks get it first, see.

  "Yes, Cindy?" Chuck prompted.

  "Take me home."

  "What?"

  "Please, Chuck, no more talk, no more questions. Take me home."

  "Not now. What were you going to say?"

  "Please, please, please."

  She was sitting up straight again, in her own corner, and he caught again the hard flatness in her blue eyes—almost as though she would like to strike him, as though she hated him.

  He took her home. What the hell, he was thinking, with the irritation erupting through him. She had slammed that door again, harder this time. He whipped the miniature car northward, hit the boulevard, driving fast. What the hell. Mr. Hil-liard looked upon him as reckless, restless, irresponsible. Okay. Fine. That's what he had been the last few years; that's what he was. The law office bored him. What do you want, Chuck— another war? No. No, thanks, no more of that. Among a lot of other things, he didn't want the dull routine of life such as his parents and the Hilliards lived. There had to be more to his life than that. And he was not going to be pushed into it, not by anyone, including the lovely red-haired girl who had just shut that door in his face. Why had she? Probably Papa HilUard had had his say: Chuck Wright isn't going to marry you, 59

  Cindy, you or any one else. And she had believed him. This was the brush-off.

  Anger curled in Chuck Wright. What else do you expect? Mr. Hilliard was right, wasn't he? You don't intend to marry her, do you? That much was for sure. Then why the balled-up, bitter-tasting resentment?

  He turned into the Hilliard driveway, and he noted a small but, to him, interesting fact: Mr. Hilhard had failed, for the first time within Chuck's memory, to put his car in the garage for the night. Tsk-tsk, he thought satirically, tsk-tsk, Hilliard —what will happen to our little world if we start breaking with our trivial little ironclad habits?

  The house was dark except for a hall hght upstairs.

  Chuck jumped out, came around to open Cindy's door. She still sat there. She looked unable or unwilling to stir.

  He felt a strange melting sensation in the pit of his stomach. His pride forgotten, youthful anger gone, he touched her arm. For a split second he was sure that she was going to crumble against him again. Her gaze still held the look of stolid hatred. And, no matter how he figured it, that didn't jibe with the other, with his own conclusions about her tonight. It seemed almost distinct from her, an impersonal force.

  "Chuck," she whispered suddenly, "do you have a gun?"

  He couldn't speak. There was no answer to that question that seemed to come from nowhere, staggering him, taking his breath.

  "Cindy, can I help? What do you mean? Cindy!"

  But she was already up and out of the seat, running toward the house, her breath sounding above the click of her heels. He followed her to the rear door, the one she always used because there was no key to the side door and her mother carried the one to the front door. She turned there, while her hand fumbled at the lock. "Forget it. Chuck. Can you forget everything?"

  "No," he said and took the key from her trembling hand

  and inserted it and unlocked the door. "Cindy, you can't go in now, like this. Let me come in with you. We've got to "

  "No!" The whisper threatened to grow loud. "No," she hissed. "Leave me alone, Chuck. Just stay away and leave me alone, that's all!"

  She slipped into the house, closed the door. Chuck whirled about, strode to the car. He discovered, without really noting the fact, that he still held the key to the back door of the Milliard house in his palm. He shoved it into his pocket, stepped into the car, maneuvered it in reverse past Cindy's coupe, past the blue sedan, onto the boulevard which was now dark and totally deserted.

  This time the door was slammed and locked. Bolted tight. But Chuck couldn't say what the hell. At least he knew he couldn't make it stick. Not now. What would a girl like Cindy HiUiard want with a gun? If nothing else, he'd have the answer to that one. Hed get the answer tomorrow morning, first thing.

  Dan heard the back door open and close. He had come up to bed at 11, following orders, of course. Since then, he had lain there with his hand stretched between the twin beds, holding Eleanor's closely but without pressure in his grasp. In the darkness he imagined the minutes passing. As yet, although his mind had worked its way into, through and around the problem thousands of times, he had not decided what he would do if Glenn GrifBn insisted upon taking any of them along when he left. He dared not rely on impulse when the time came—it was well after 11 and the woman should arrive any minute now— and yet he could not devise any threat strong enough to prevent GrifRn's doing exactly what he pleased then, as now.

  Young Chuck Wright was driving as Dan always suspected he drove; he heard the angry screech and spin of tires, then the receding motor. Dan realized that he was sitting up in bed. Why?

  There was a low indistinct rush of voices in the kitchen. Dan stood up and went into the lighted upstairs hall. "Cind
y?" he called.

  Behind him Eleanor inquired with taut concern, "Dan?"

  "Stay in there, dear," Dan warned her, then called down the stairwell again: "Cindy?"

  The dining room light clicked on, and a flow of hght reached the downstairs hall.

  He was moving then, carelessly, quickly, going down the stairs, when he heard: "What's it to you, Hank?" Robish's voice, blurred with whisky, rougher than usual, harsh with intensified venom.

  Dan paused in the front hall and looked into the dining room. He heard Glenn Griffin approach from behind him, and he knew the gun was on him. But what he saw before him made him forget that. Cindy was backed against the bufTet, her arm upraised before her face and her eyes hard and brilliant, glittering. Robish was in front of her, his head twisted on the almost invisible neck, his small eyes on Hank Griffin, who sat at the table. The room reeked with the whisky, and the table was scarred by the glasses on it. Dan took in everything in a sickening and terrifying flash. His mind clicked: Now it's happening; now it's going to happen.

  "What's the matter with you?" Robish demanded again of Hank. He was standing in such a way that Cindy, who might or might not have seen Dan appear, could not move past Robish. "Got to search her, don't I? Searched the old man, didn't we? You trust a dame, do you, kid?"

  Dan could see Hank's profile as the boy stood up at the table. He had been drinking, too, or at least Dan surmised he had; his dark eyes were sharp and bright and filled with expression

  for almost the first time, "Get up stairs to bed, miss," Hank Griffin said, each word chpped off and distinct.

  "Oh no, oh no," Robish said hazily, and Dan cursed himself wrathfully for following Glenn's order and bringing the whisky into the house; it could be something this small that would ignite the dynamite. "Gonna search her, might have a gun, got to search the pretty little redhead."

  Then Robish turned to Cindy. Dan felt the pressure inside rising, and he said, quietly, to Glenn: "You going to let him get away with this. Griffin? Because if you are "

  The boy's words, still soft, still quiet, almost chiding, cut across Dan's warning to Glenn: "You're drunk, Robish. Let her by."

  Robish turned fully, a slow massive movement. "You giving orders, too, Hank?"

  "This time."

  Robish uttered an obscenity. Ignoring Hank, he turned again to Cindy. But Hank moved before Dan could. He reached Robish in two steps, whirled him about, and then, his arms flashing in two successive movements that Dan could not see, he stood very close to Robish, his back to the hall. Dan saw Robish's head snap back; he saw the sudden blood; he heard the faint, almost plaintive groan.

  Hank stepped away then. "You going up to bed now, miss?"

  Cindy sUthered past Robish and joined Dan in the hall as Robish shook his head twice, his eyes blinking.

  Then there was a low roar from that broad working throat. The jaw hardened, the eyes disappeared in the bloody contorted face. One arm went out to Hank, but Hank stepped easily aside. Glenn ran toward his brother as Robish took one bearlike step.

  Out of nowhere the automatic appeared in Hank's hand.

  "Hank, you damn fool," Glenn Griffin breathed harshly.

  Robish was blinking at the gun in Hank's hand. Dan's automatic, the one Robish didn't know existed. He didn't move. 63

  Then, very slowly, he turned and stared owlishly from one to the other of the two brothers. He lifted a hand to his face, pulled it away. All this was very slow and silent and dreamlike in the sudden hush.

  "Turning on me, huh," Robish muttered at last. "All of you. Turning on your old pal." The drunken maudlin words, filled with surprise, seeped from between thick, moist lips. He was staring at Hank. "Prize fighter, I could tear you apart. You better stay away from me." He took a tentative step toward the hall; his eyes flicked over Cindy. "Should've known better. Couple brothers. Stick together. Should've pulled it on my own." He was apparently trying to smile: the attempt was grotesque. "Kid going soft. Likes this joint. Told me so. Likes it fine. Likes the pretty little red-headed gal, too."

  "Crazy talk," Hank snapped. "Loony!" He glanced from Glenn to Dan, avoiding Cindy's eyes.

  "Okay, you wait," Robish was saying, rocking in front of Dan who felt his nerves clench in anticipation of some new violence. "Second time I been pushed around here, ain't it, mister? Okay."

  Still muttering, Robish crossed the hall, his step unsteady, and disappeared into the dimness of the Uving room. Dan watched Hank slip his gun back into his pocket. Glenn glared at his brother.

  "What's it to you?" Glenn demanded.

  "It ain't safe to touch the women."

  "Yeah," Glenn said skeptically. "You want to have to use that thing? You know what happens if one of these heaters goes off, don't you?"

  Hank frowned under his brother's steady, accusing gaze. He glanced toward the hall. "Get the hell to bed," he said, his tone hard and resentful. "What you think you're looking at?"

  "Thank you, Mr. Griffin," Cindy said then, her eyes on Hank.

  She held Dan's arm. They turned to the stairs. Eleanor was

  halfway down, halted on the steps, facing down, her face waxen.

  It was at that moment, while Dan's mind was still struggling to assimilate the conflicting impressions of the last few unlikely minutes, that they heard, from the living room, the sound of a door closing. It took several seconds for the significance of that sound to reach them.

  Glenn understood first. "Stay down here," he barked to Dan. Then to Hank: "Cover 'em."

  Glenn ran across the dark living room, through the sun porch, cursing as his leg struck furniture twice, delaying him.

  Robish was outside. Glenn was outside. Dan, frowning, realized that for the first time he was in the house and two of them were not. The pressure of her hand on his arm told him that the same thought had taken hold of Cindy.

  He looked at Hank. The boyish face was passive again, very quiet and pale above the fixed black automatic that he held upon them, not casually as his brother held a gun, but pointed, certain and direct.

  The idea in Dan's mind took shape completely and fully, all the details sharp, racing. Robish might get away. If so, nothing in the world could keep the police from arriving, sooner or later, at this house. Nothing. If all three men were in the house then, and armed—this was the disaster that Dan most wanted to avoid. If Glenn caught Robish outside now, the big man was still useless to him drunk and unarmed. The time for the arrival of the money was close, so there might be the woman to deal with, but that was one of the chances. If Dan did nothing now, he knew that Glenn would not risk leaving the house later without taking one or perhaps two of the family along. He had already decided that this was the way it would be, and he had not yet hit upon any device strong enough to prevent it. He could depend on Cindy's acting fast now; he could depend on Eleanor's getting upstairs to the telephone. He hadn't shot a gun of any description for six or seven years, but in the 65

  dark, and inside, he had as good a chance as Glenn who was outside and unprotected.

  His first and immediate problem was to get hold of Hank's gun, in whatever way he could without risk to anyone else. If the boy should shoot him, neither Glenn nor the boy would waste time wreaking revenge on a dead man by murdering his family. They would go, and fast. Very fast. Dan had to depend on that assumption.

  All this, in less than half a minute, went through his mind, and he made the decision.

  In the house, all doors locked and the family safely huddled upstairs in one room out of range of Glenn's gun, Dan had a chance to hold off Glenn and Robish, perhaps to force them to get in the car and leave. A slight chance, perhaps, but he had no other.

  It came to him then exactly how he would get hold of Hank's gun.

  "Faint," he whispered to Cindy.

  Cindy, not questioning, not waiting even a second, collapsed on the floor with no sound at all but the rustle of her clothes . . .

  ,s Dan Hilliard reached his decision, it never occurred to him
that he was taking advantage not of the evil of these men but of the one decent impulse he had glimpsed in any of them. But if he had thought of this, he would not have hesitated. He could afford no fine moral distinctions.

  He uttered a small breath of surprise as Cindy fell, as was expected of him, and stooping over her, he watched Hank Griffin out of the corner of his eye. The boy looked bewildered, as Dan had hoped, the dark eyes flashing after his brother; on his own, even with the gun in hand, he seemed uncertain, poised for action or flight.

  "Give me a hand. Griffin," Dan said, attempting to lift his daughter.

  Still the boy hesitated, straining to hear whatever sounds Glenn and Robish might be making outside the house.

  "Dammit," Dan said, "can't you see this child is sick?"

  Hank made up his mind then, and seeing this, Dan was forced toward still another decision: he couldn't kill the boy. The others, yes, but not this child who was no older than Cindy. 69

  Hank, with the gun in one hand, came forward, bent down, placed his other arm under Cindy's shoulders.

  The gun was directed toward the front door, It was the second Dan had hoped for, anticipated. He struck out, fast and smoothly, his fist catching the boy's wrist. The automatic clattered to the floor. Dan made a dive for it.

  The metal felt moist and warm in his hand. Behind him he heard a small cry of astonishment and pain and turned to see Cindy sitting up now, her mouth clamped over the boy's wrist, biting hard. Hank's face writhed in pain, and over it fell the awful sense of betrayal that even then sent no shame through Dan.

  "Get out," Dan said curtly. "Cindy, lock the other doors and get upstairs. Ellie! Ellie, get on the phone up there, fast, and keep Ralphie with you, away from the windows."

  Cindy was already up and moving, flipping off the dining-room light. Dan heard the click of the side door lock and watched Hank, dazed, his face mean and ugly now, stepping toward the front door.