The Baxter Letters

by Dolores Hitchens

  “It really doesn’t,” Jennifer said. “All those years ago … there was a revolt of the poor. And General Lucero was made dictator to put it down. Could it be that’s what the plan is now? To bring him out of prison—”

  “I don’t think so.” Mr. Dunavan was back at the box, looking at Bax’s collection of junk. “The General got too big for his britches once. They’ll be looking for more amenable stock. And then, unless the General can stand prison life better than most, he’d hardly be in condition to stomp on people as he did in the old days. Of course, we don’t know what prison has been like. Perhaps it’s been prison in name only, with plenty of good food, exercise, and other luxuries. You see, there are a lot of unknown quantities.”

  “The thing we do know is that my uncle is scaring people with these letters. I think that Mr. Shima was terribly frightened when he saw what was in the envelope I handed him. Mr. Fallon was much more guarded, but he didn’t show any happiness, either. Mrs. Appleton is scared to death. She seems to think that delivering the letter to her will put her in danger, serious danger. It’s as if …” She paused to frown. “It’s as if the delivery of the letter is what counts. I can’t understand it. On the surface, Uncle Bax seems to be warning them. But there must be more to it than that.”

  “There must be.” He put the stuff back into the box. “Anyway, let’s wait until Ron finds out what happened to the General’s wife. Maybe that will provide part of the puzzle.”

  He summoned one of the girl pages and turned the package over to her with instructions that it be put into the vault. Then he began to outline to Jennifer the work they had ahead of them for the day. For a moment she thought of interrupting, of telling him about the Coulter letter still in the apartment, of Tom’s fantastic scheme to make them rich, but the words died in her throat.

  There was no use worrying about it. She was not going to be able to tell him about Tom.

  Here with Mr. Dunavan she was Jennifer Hamilton, a stenographer who was hopeless stylewise but who felt, inwardly, eager and clean.

  Clean? Where in the world had that word come from?

  They broke for an early lunch. Mr. Dunavan’s newspaper friend had not called back. Mr. Dunavan had tried to wind up various affairs, put things in order for the man who would replace him here. But finally he told Jennifer that there were things that he had to figure out and that she might as well go to eat.

  She took her purse and went down in the elevator, and for once all thought of Uncle Bax had fled; she didn’t look around for Mrs. Appleton or anyone, but headed for the street. She hesitated at the big entry to let a knot of people dissolve, and a voice spoke at her elbow. It was Sara’s voice, and a quick glance showed her Sara herself, with Baron on a leash, just behind her.

  “Miss Hamilton—”

  Sara had on a gray suit and a little dark hat, dark gloves, black pumps, a little purse that hung from her wrist with a loop that had entwined itself with Baron’s leash. She was completely anonymous, a small quiet figure no one would look at once, let alone twice. Baron of course was big and noticeable, but this too seemed to cast a shadow over Sara and make her more invisible than ever.

  Jennifer stood still. “What do you want?”

  “You are to walk out on the sidewalk.” Sara’s tone was low and tense. “Turn right when you reach the street. Keep going in a straight line. In the third block you will come to a roofed alleyway, a sort of arcade. There is a large tobacco shop at the right-hand entry. You will slow down briefly there and give me time to look behind us. Then you will walk the length of the alleyway and come out one block south, and you will find a cab waiting. I see doubt and indecision in your eyes, Miss Hamilton, so I am going to digress for a moment. I have Baron on a leash, but at the softest command from me, he will attack you. You cannot outrun him. He will seek you out in the midst of any crowd. It would be most unfortunate if you decided not to obey me. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Strange. Mrs. Appleton had used an arcade in the same way, as a means of hiding and looking back …

  “You will walk at your accustomed speed,” Sara went on, a husky note of strain creeping into her voice. “Do not speak to anyone. When you emerge from the arcade and see the cab, you will enter it immediately. This is a perfectly ordinary cab, an ordinary driver. If you try to enlist his help, if you speak to him in any way, it will mean an attack by Baron and I should simply disappear. The cab driver is simply waiting there because he has been paid to stand by while I go to pick up a friend.”

  Jennifer’s throat was dry. She looked down at Baron and he looked back; there was nothing in his dog’s eyes that said he could kill. Could he?

  “Do not try to lose yourself in a crowd,” Sara warned. “Do not try to run for a bus or another cab. Baron could beat you to it.

  “Mr. Fallon sent you for me?”

  “That is correct.”

  “If Baron attacks me, it might prove embarrassing for you and for Mr. Fallon.”

  “Baron bears no identification, Miss Hamilton. What seems to be a license tag is not, really. And after the attack Baron would not be able to talk, to tell anyone anything. And neither would you.”

  And Sara would melt away, Jennifer thought. Who would notice the gray ghost who had dropped the leash?

  She began to push through, out into the street. There was a wind up off the river, but it seemed sluggish and damp. Her skin prickled. In the apartment Mr. Fallon was waiting for her. It wouldn’t matter this time whether she wanted sugar in the tea or not. Whatever had been in that sugar—if there had been something—would now be injected in a businesslike way directly into her veins. And she would talk.

  “Think not only of yourself,” Sara’s voice said quietly behind her. “Think also of Mr. Burch, the man who pretends to be your husband. You may be sure that something unfortunate will happen to him if we have trouble with you.”

  “Why did you wait?” Jennifer asked, not looking back, beginning to feel the shock, the sense of sickness, that had been delayed by surprise.

  “That is our business.”

  The stream of people on the crowded sidewalk went past like phantoms; the whole street had taken on an air of nightmare; she could hear the scratch of Baron’s nails on the pavement even through the rumble of traffic; and the soft efficient tick of Sara’s pumps was the beat of a metronome. She had to think of something to do. She gripped the old purse hard, trying to shake off the feeling of dreaming. Wasn’t there help anywhere?

  Tom was at the apartment. By now he would have mailed the letter to Nueva Brisa and returned, had his second cup of coffee and begun work on the manuscript.

  No he wouldn’t, said that unpredictable inner voice; by now he’s returned and he’s pacing the apartment, thinking of ways to spend the money.

  He’s not thinking of me, of my possible danger.

  When I’m not there he never thinks of me. I don’t know where that idea came from, but it’s the truth.

  She came to the corner, the curb. The light was red; she halted. Baron’s nose touched the back of her knee, gently. He would be gentle right up to the end, perfectly behaved. But then—

  The spires around her tilted in glassy orbits; the smeared sky drifted like smoke, and she shut her eyes. She felt the pressure of the crowd as the light changed. “Please move on, Miss Hamilton,” came Sara’s whisper. “It would be most unfortunate if you should fall. Very unfortunate. Please don’t try it.”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “There is nothing to be afraid of, except Baron. We are not monsters.”

  Yes, you are—

  The noonday crowd pressed and pushed, and she opened her eyes and stumbled along, trying to keep up. She knew that Sara and the dog were right behind her, a terrifying guard.

  “You’ve been to my apartment. Snooping around. You took Baron there.”

  “Perhaps.”

  At this moment Mr. Dunavan was in his office, ostensibly to work out some problems for the ma
n who must succeed him, but mainly because he wanted to hear from his friend Ron. Because she wanted to know what had happened to the General’s wife. There was no way at all to communicate with Mr. Dunavan. They had talked about the danger, the possible risk, and then she had stupidly walked out and into a trap.

  She could rush into one of the buildings which they were passing, taking a chance on catching an elevator about to depart. But Baron would overtake her. She could go to a cop on the street, and open her mouth, and Baron would be there, tearing her throat, before the cop even woke up enough to draw his gun.

  Ahead, on the sidewalk, loomed an obstruction: a loading elevator had come up through the pavement, taken something aboard, and was preparing to descend. Jennifer’s heart gave a great lurch. She couldn’t breathe. If she dared …

  “Be very careful,” Sara said in a half-whisper. “Pass to your left. Please keep an even step.”

  They went past. Ahead of them was another intersection. Since some of the big downtown stores were not too far away, the foot traffic was heavy here. She tried to walk without hurrying, without lagging, but it was hard. Knots of people formed to block her, and occasionally she was caught in a rush and had to extricate herself by stepping sidewise or even backward.

  The woman and the dog were always there. Sara didn’t want to think of herself as a monster. She preferred the image, no doubt, of the faithful companion sitting under the Tiffany lamp doing embroidery while she waited for her master’s call. She was a woman out of the past, a Victorian remnant, an anachronism. She was Mr. Fallon’s colorless small slave.

  Mr. Fallon had been involved in the plot long ago with Bax. What part had he played? Had there been more to that plot than merely removing the General’s wife and child from the country? Had treachery been necessary to set the General up for a prison term? Perhaps.

  Mr. Fallon had his picture back, if there had been a picture tucked into the letter she had delivered. Bax had returned to him the evidence of his part in the plot. It should have warned Mr. Fallon to flee, but it hadn’t. He had to know more. Perhaps he didn’t even believe in Bax’s warning.

  She found that her trembling legs had carried her to the roofed alleyway that Sara had predicted. It was an extremely busy place with many pedestrians and even some commercial traffic in small hand-trucks. Overhead were large expanses of dull dirty glass which let in daylight of a sort and illuminated the crowds and the litter. The place had a smell of its own, a smell like old cabbage leaves trodden in dirt, or like overused towels waiting for the laundry. A sign said, Downstairs To the Turkish Bath and another said, All This Week, Sale On Wigs. Piped music blatted from the doorway of the tobacco store.

  This was where she must slow down while Sara looked back.

  People hurried past her as she lagged; they bumped her, brushed her, touched her with the edges of coats, with handbags, shopping bags, elbows, sleeves. She was within touching distance of all these people and not one of them could do anything for her. All of them might as well have been a million miles away. The air was suffocating in here off the street, a dry fog of blown dirt and the smell given off by a place used by too many people.

  She was growing strangely tired. It seemed that her walk had lasted for ages, an interminable march with death at her heels, a skeleton-waltz in which she must go not too fast nor too slow. One shoe-heel dragged, and she staggered.

  There were pillars, spaced along the right-hand side of the arcade, old wrought iron pierced out in a design of leaves and other stuff, painted black, long since gone to dust and rust. She wanted to rest against one of these, but was afraid to do it.

  Behind her Sara made a sound, not loud, not harsh, not quite a word. If she hadn’t been taut for the least indication that she was doing something wrong, she wouldn’t have heard it. The sound wound down into a breathy squeak. Jennifer was afraid to look back. Perhaps someone had stepped on one of Sara’s neat pumps and had bruised her toes. Perhaps Baron’s leash had twisted her hand. There was no further sound, and though Jennifer fearfully braced herself, no movement from Baron. The noise of the crowd hurrying past drowned out any toenail scratch.

  Jennifer roused her flagging energy, steadied herself. She tried to think of a means of escape but there wasn’t one.

  A small hand-truck pushed by an overalled man loomed up before her and she had to sidestep quickly, and in turning she caught a glimpse of Sara behind her, lagging far back, a half-eye’s glimmer that showed her something was wrong.

  Chapter 14

  Still keeping step, Jennifer risked another glance. Sara seemed to be in some kind of trouble. She was walking crookedly, her posture was off-center and the arm holding Baron’s leash was clenched stiffly at her side. Her face had an amazed, unfocused expression.

  Baron no longer pulled on the leash. He was lagging, too, and looked behind him anxiously.

  In that instant the most compelling, irresistible urge swept over Jennifer. Run. Her legs actually bunched in preparation for the sprint, and she felt the sudden thump of her pulse in her ears, her throat, and all the way to the top of her skull.

  There was a screaming inside her, demanding release. She shook with the effort to control herslef. She mustn’t bolt. This business of Sara’s was a trick, a test for her, an examination of self-restraint that would determine whether she should live to get into that cab. She couldn’t give way and make a dash, because she would die before she got anywhere.

  A shop selling radios and television sets had a crowd in front of it, staring at the screen of a color set in the window. Once sheltered in the fringes of this group, she dared to look back again. Sara had come a short way farther into the arcade, but not much. She had paused beside one of the iron pillars, and the dull light from the glass overhead played about her. She met Jennifer’s gaze without any recognition; she looked wrapped in upon herself, engrossed in a private matter, alone. The dog stood quietly beside her. The leash hung limp.

  Jennifer stood rooted. What was she supposed to do? With her eyes on Sara like a bird staring at a snake, on guard for the first sign of reprisal, she edged deeper into the little crowd. Sara put out her free hand as if to brace herself against the pillar, but her arm went past it. She had somehow misjudged. She fell against the pillar and as if the impact had torn or twisted something inside her, her lips opened in a great gasp for air, or perhaps in a soundless scream.

  There was nothing at all visible to explain this behavior. Her suit was still neat, the blouse unruffled, the little hat primly in place, everything tidy. She was intact, untouched.

  But looking at her, Jennifer felt sick.

  She worked her way through the small crowd, came out on the other side, went on down the arcade. She was now only fifty feet or so from the other end. But Sara went on leaning against the pillar with the dumbfounded expression of the disaster-struck. Sara was not coming with her to the cab. Sara, it appeared, could not move away from the pillar. She was all twisted to one side as if a terrible hurt lay there, to be protected. Her lips appeared to tremble a little as if she were trying to get words out through them, and during this time Baron waited. He stood patiently, perhaps expecting the word or the signal to go after Jennifer, but whatever came out when Sara tried to speak obviously wasn’t it.

  Was this some kind of charade, a pretense? Was Sara attempting to confuse her? Jennifer stared harder, trying to take in every detail of the figure in the distance. But there was nothing to see. And in fact the hurrying people who passed close to Sara seemed to find nothing out of the ordinary about her. No one even looked at her. A few passersby glanced at Baron, one or two even giving the big impressive animal a smile. But Sara attracted no attention whatever.

  The sudden thought struck Jennifer that Sara had actually finished what she had been sent for. After all, all that she had told Jennifer to do had been to get into a cab. A waiting cab. Someone else could be waiting at the cab—Mr. Fallon, for instance.

  She turned. Her shaking legs took her on.
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br />   At the end of the alleyway she turned for a last look. Sara and Baron hadn’t moved. The pale glow falling from overhead gave them a look of unreality. A puppet dog, a puppet woman. Or as if Sara were waiting for a photograph to be made, to be added to Bax’s collection.

  She looked for a cab, and sure enough one was waiting. She went over to it, unsure, not knowing how the game was supposed to be played out, and stooped a little to glance in at the driver—a perfectly ordinary taxi man—and he shook his head at her and mumbled something, obviously an invitation to go away. So she went away. At the corner a crosstown bus waited and she got on that and rode for a while, safely away from the arcade where Sara had stopped.

  If Sara’s real job had been to take her to Mr. Fallon, wouldn’t she have guided Sara into a cab right at the curb in front of the building? What had all the slipping and spying been about?

  Her head ached. It was almost time to get off the bus and go back to the office. She had to tell Mr. Dunavan about Sara’s strange little game, of course. “When I went out a while ago, there was Mr. Fallon’s Sara and the dog. She told me to walk several blocks and through an arcade to where a cab was waiting. And I did. And I thought for a million minutes that Baron was going to kill me if I did the least thing wrong. Only he didn’t do anything. And neither did Sara.”

  It sounded incredibly silly.

  Or, for variety, put it this way. Believe in Sara and her job and the plan that went with it, only, pretend that at the crucial moment Sara had … well, broken down.

  Broken down. Years ago, somewhere in among the pigs, rabbits, potatoes and alfalfa, there had been a horse called Rudy. Never worked; her father kept him and let him graze his days away, and when Jennifer had had the notion to ride him, her father had explained that this was a race horse, a thoroughbred, and that in his last race he had broken down and must never be ridden again.