Stronghold

by Stanley Ellin

  It is the looking back that undoes her. Too late she sees the fallen tree up ahead, a tangle of limbs and the trunk angling right into that wall of underbrush, making a pocket she can’t get out of. But she tries. She clears those limbs, vaults the trunk, and then goes down full-length across branches on the other side.

  I move in on her. She is on her back, her ankle caught in a fork of the branches. A runaway doggie never properly trained to heel, the clothesline leash still around her neck.

  She glares up at me as I bend over her, the point of the knife at her throat. There is no sign of fear in her. She looks as if, given another chance with that gun, this time she would pull the trigger.

  “You’re giving me a lot of trouble, baby,” I tell her. “Too much trouble.”

  She whispers, “The deal still stands, Flood. Take your gang and go away. I’ll help you every way I can.”

  Help me every way she can. And while she’s saying it she is working her ankle loose from the branches. A little turn here, a little pull there, smooth and subtle, trying not to shake the branches. But I see them shake, and I jam my heel down on her knee hard. She screams, and I drop down and clamp a hand over her mouth to muffle any other screams. But there is no more noise from her. She’s out cold. Slack all over, the leg I tramped on twisted at an odd angle. Broken.

  I unhook the ankle from the branches, run a hand over the leg. I can feel the fracture just below the knee, but there’s no bleeding showing through the tight jeans, so it’s a simple fracture. Move her carelessly, the bone can go right through the flesh and she can bleed to death. The temptation to have it this way, the even hotter temptation to simply shove the knife into her belly, slice her open and let her guts spill out, no. To wind up minus one hostage, this hostage especially, and with nothing to show for it, no.

  The way she is, showing the hurt marks but able to sound off, makes her the handiest line of communication I can ask for.

  Live bait.

  Working fast, I find two branches that can serve as splints. I fit them on each side of the broken leg, then pull the leash from her neck to tie them tight with. No, I’ll need that length of rope. So I pull her shirt off, rip the sleeves away and use them to strap the branches to her leg. She groans when I do it, her head moves from side to side, but she remains out cold. I turn her over on her belly, slice the clothesline in halves and bind her wrists behind her. Roping her ankles together probably isn’t necessary, the shape she’s in, but I’m taking no more chances with this one. I tie her ankles together anyhow, then gag her with the remnant of the shirt. It isn’t time yet for her to do her broadcasting.

  She comes to when I get her over my shoulder, eyes opening, incoherent sounds coming from behind the gag. There’s no weight to her at all, but those bound legs thrust out ahead of me make an awkward package as I move downhill toward the road, always close to ramming them into a tree or some of the heavy growth I have to steer around. If that happens, I can be knocked right off balance, let go of her, set myself up as a beautiful target for a sniper. With her draped over me like this, I’m safe until we reach cover near the road.

  The cover is there, a good-sized tree about fifteen or twenty feet above the road, the rest of the way down to the road just high grass, perfect for the operation. I slide Janet to the ground and squat down, my back against the tree. Her eyes look glazed. “Can you hear what I’m saying?” I whisper, and when there’s no response I run a hand over one of those undersized breasts, then grip a nipple between my fingers and squeeze it hard. She makes strangling noises in her throat, shakes her head wildly from side to side, and I release her. “Can you understand what I’m saying?” and this time she nods yes.

  “Good. You’re going for a trip by yourself down to that road, baby. They’ll see you from that bus, and they’ll sure as hell hear you when I get that thing off your mouth. When they come to haul you away, you tell them that one hour from now—no more than that—if somebody doesn’t show up right in front of the house to talk business, they’ll be getting another bundle like this delivered to them. And it won’t be with just a broken leg. It’ll be in pieces, like something you have to fit together before you even know what it is. One hour, that’s the time limit. Do you have that straight?”

  She nods.

  “You understand this is the real thing? No more fun time?”

  She tries to say something through the gag, but when I reach for her breast again she cuts it short.

  “You’re learning,” I tell her, then pull the gag off and give her a hard shove to start her down the slope. She rolls over and over, screaming all the way down until she winds up on the edge of the road and the screaming suddenly stops. From the look of her, out cold again.

  If I had a gun, I can lay low here and parley with whoever comes to get her. Without a gun, I’m a rabbit in a trap if they move in around me. But no rush. Time to take off when I see the first one show down the road.

  I get down behind the tree, my eyes on that bus a hundred yards away, and wait.

  What gives me the feeling that I have gone through exactly this kind of watching and waiting before?

  The waterfall.

  That toy waterfall on the back slope of the ridge. Janet, naked on a blanket, that tight little ass getting the sunshine. J. Flood, demon cameraman, getting ready to snap the picture of a lifetime.

  So here we are again, baby, and how do you like it this time?

  I wait.

  Then I hear it. A grinding of gravel under slow-moving wheels. And see it. First a flicker of sunlight on metal, then the car itself. Green body, white trim. Police.

  The bend of the road, the overhang of the trees allow me only glimpses of it as it crawls up to the bus, stops there. A courier. Or maybe General Duffy himself. Somebody in the bus has seen that half-naked, trussed-up body on the road, has called back to headquarters about it, and now it’s decision-making time for the general.

  Janet doesn’t move. I scoop up some pebbles, toss them at her, and now she moves, her head jerking from side to side.

  “They’re here, baby,” I call to her. “When they get to you, talk fast,” and then I belly-crawl up the slope and get to my feet and head in the direction of the house.

  Marcus Hayworth

  Four o’clock.

  David leaves to once more scout the house from the edge of the woods.

  Four-fifteen.

  Uri Shapiro phones. He and Ethel Quimby have been phoning regularly. His voice is low, hard to make out. Someone must be there with him in his office. “Has anything happened yet?”

  “No.”

  “Marcus, is it all right if I come up there now? I’m no use here in the store. I can’t think straight.”

  “Yes, come right up.”

  Painful to hear him sound like this. A philosophical sort of man, almost pontifical in manner no matter the provocation, he now sounds terrified.

  But he is no different from the rest of us. We are all terrified, though it shows in different ways. I go back into the parlor and see Anna Marcy in her rocking chair, Elizabeth at her knitting, and I see how old they have suddenly become. Both have been defying all their years until now, and now all those years show.

  And David. Before he departed on the second mission, he was not quite the same David any more. Cracks showed in the self-assurance. His speech, his motions became more and more abrupt. The eyes were abstracted. At one point he said uncertainly to me, “I wonder if—” and after I waited for the rest of it and finally asked, “Wonder what?” he only looked at me blankly as if he couldn’t comprehend the reason for my question.

  And I am terrified too, but strangely, it seems to be lodged only in the pit of the stomach. Somehow, in my mind I am able to stay sufficiently remote from events to evaluate, calculate, plan moves in this deadly game, so that the mind miraculously grows more and more precise in its functioning while that one spot in the stomach absorbs all the punishment.

  I force myself to face one agonizing questi
on squarely. If I had been bolder with Flood, if I had agreed to meet his every demand only on his assurance that the women would not be taken away as hostages after delivery was made—

  No.

  No chance of that. He would never yield up the hostages until he was safely out of the country. Safely settled elsewhere. And even then—

  Am I sure of that?

  Yes.

  In that case, everything must be done as we are now doing it.

  I try to put myself in Flood’s place. Surely he knows by now that he can’t communicate with the outside world. Possibly he’s had one of his men scout far enough away from the house to learn that the road is blocked in both directions. So I am Flood, watching the time crawl by, driven wild by frustration. What do I do? What is there to do?

  A fire. The garage would go up like kindling. And that kind of fire would be observed miles away. An alarm would go out, the fire department and the police would race for the scene, would somehow get past those roadblocks to the house itself. That’s all Flood can want. Somebody, anybody, to hear his ultimatum.

  Fire.

  I go outside, half expecting to see smoke roiling up from among those treetops on the crown of the ridge, but there is no smoke. Not yet. I am standing there watchfully when Uri Shapiro drives up. He gets out of the car, trots over to me anxiously. “What is it? What do you see?”

  I explain to him, and he nods. “Yes, fire. It’s a possibility. Ah, God, that madman. That madman. Marcus, what’s going to come of this? How will it end? How will you even know it’s ended, the way you’re doing it?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. Ken’s truck—the one he uses for outside boat-repair jobs—that truck has a phone in it, doesn’t it?”

  “I think so. Yes.”

  “That’s what we need. There’s no way out for Flood now but that back trail down to the highway. With Ken in the truck on the highway keeping watch there, he can stay in touch with us here by phone.”

  “Would Flood risk the highway? Out there in the open, no car of his own—”

  “With the road here blocked, what other way out does he have? And if he takes any of the women with him, he can decoy some car on the highway into stopping. Ken can let us know before anything like that happens.”

  “But if he takes any of the women with him—”

  I cut him off with the familiar old phrase, “We must move as the way becomes clear, Uri, one step at a time. I’ll phone Ken now.”

  The boatyard’s workday ends at four, but Ken is always there for a while after that. He is not there now. Nobody is there, says the watchman who answers my call, except himself. Mrs. Quimby came by in the car a little before quitting time and picked up Mr. Quimby and they just took off.

  “Where?” I ask. “Do you know where they went?”

  “No, sir, Mr. Hayworth. Most likely back to the house.”

  “Thanks.” I’m about to put down the phone when the man says, “Oh yeah, Mr. Hayworth. I’m sorry about your daughter. I hope everything comes out all right.”

  “What?” Then I realize he is talking about the accident we fabricated for Janet. “Oh yes. Well, thank you.”

  “You know, Mr. Hayworth—”

  The impatience raging in me is too much to control. “Damn it, I can’t talk now!” I say and hang up abruptly. Let him charge me with bad manners. Better than being able to charge me later with failure to prevent murder.

  I dial the Quimbys’ number. Ken answers. “Marcus, we were just on our way up there. What’s going on? Has anything happened?”

  “No. Ken, you have that phone in your truck, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then don’t come up here in the car. Use the truck.”

  “You need the phone? Why?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get here.” A worrisome thought strikes me. “Ken, about the children. You’re not—”

  “No, no, we’ve got a sitter for them.”

  “All right, I’ll be waiting for you.”

  I go into the parlor and see Anna holding a warning finger to her lips. Elizabeth, her head against the back of the chair, her knitting in her lap, is sound asleep.

  Anna whispers to me, “What did thee want of Kenneth?” and when I tell her, she nods. “A good idea.”

  “I hope so.”

  “We live in hopes, Marcus.” She starts up as the phone rings, deafeningly loud it seems to me in my state of nerves, and she goes to the phone, casting an anxious eye at Elizabeth, who never stirs from her sleep. I follow and am at her shoulder when she answers. “Yes,” she says. “Yes.”

  Bad news. I can tell from her voice it’s bad news.

  She holds the phone out to me. “The police,” she says. “John Duffy. He must speak with you.”

  The police. John Duffy.

  I don’t want to answer that call.

  The police know. John Duffy knows.

  And this is how it will end. With the armed assault on the house Flood wants, with gunfire.

  At best, my relationship with Duffy is strained. As Banker Hayworth, I have his grudging respect. As Friend Hayworth, I bewilder him, sometimes anger him. To him I am the dangerous eccentric who signed peace petitions during the worst of the Vietnam war, who protested his always heavy-handed treatment of the long-haired youngsters flocking into town during summer seasons, who appeared with an outraged delegation at the town hall after those notorious Labor Day raids against nude swimmers and marijuana smokers when our detention cells—built fifty years ago to hold half a dozen occupants at most—were packed like the Black Hole of Calcutta for that weekend by forty young people, almost all of whom were found not guilty at their trials. Worst of all, John Duffy feels that my leasing the Oates’ house to McGrath and Erlanger and their tatterdemalion commune is a slap in the face deliberately aimed at him, which it is not, nor was ever intended to be.

  John Duffy and James Flood.

  Ten years ago it was Duffy who made the arrest when Jimmy Flood accidentally fired a bullet through the arm of a trash collector in front of his home. It was Duffy who tried his hardest to get the boy put away. It was the lawyer hired by me, after Flood senior came drunkenly blubbering to me for help, who managed to get the child placed in my probation. It was Duffy’s triumph when Jimmy, in college, made headlines by becoming the most violent of student activists.

  It must be an even greater triumph for Duffy now that Jimmy Flood has made me and my family his victims. And that I myself connived to cover up the crime. In fact, made myself an accessory to it by not reporting it to the police.

  Duffy and Flood.

  Flood wants a confrontation between them, a deadly showdown, and now Duffy will be glad to provide it. Like a pair of gunslingers in a western movie, they will have it out on the public road, only in this case they will have it out with my family between them. And surely, neither John Duffy nor James Flood will be the first victim or the only victim when the assault is made.

  A showdown. A lunatic showdown and then official regrets to all the bereaved at all the burials.

  “Marcus”—Anna is thrusting the phone at me, a hand over the mouthpiece—“thee cannot just stand there. Whatever there is to say to John Duffy, thee must say it.”

  I take the phone, braced for the angry outburst to come. “Yes?”

  There is no outburst. Duffy’s tone is almost apologetic. “Mr. Hayworth? I’ve got a couple of alleged perpetrators here—”

  “What?”

  “A couple of alleged perpetrators. Name of Raymond McGrath and Louis Erlanger. You know who I’m talking about all right, Mr. Hayworth. Now look, I got a pretty good idea what you folks up there are getting handed to you by these characters. So all you do is come right down to headquarters, and we’ll straighten it out one, two, three. Or if you want me to bring them up there—”

  “No.” So he doesn’t know yet! But McGrath and Erlanger? Of course, those roadblocks. “No,” I repeat sharply. “No need to come up here. I’ll be ther
e right away.”

  “Yeah. You do that, Mr. Hayworth.”

  I put down the phone. I must be there right away. If I’m not— Meanwhile David is out of reach and the Quimbys are going to show up soon. So it is poor Anna who will have to shoulder the load. She seems more steady of nerve than Uri Shapiro. I tell her, “Duffy’s arrested Ray McGrath and Lou Erlanger. I think he’s found out about the roadblocks.”

  “Does he know yet about James Flood?”

  “I don’t know for a certainty. I’m going there now. Meanwhile, tell Uri about this, and David when he gets back. And tell them not to leave here, not to do anything until they hear from me. When Kenneth gets here in the truck, he’s to drive around to the highway and park where he can keep an eye on that trail from my house. He’ll know where the best place is. Make sure to get the number of the phone in the truck, ask him how we call him on it.”

  “And he is just to remain there?”

  “Until he hears from me. I’ll make it as quick as I can. If I have to, I’ll call you from town.”

  “I will take care of it.”

  She says she will, and she will.

  Uri is pacing the roadside. Getting into the station wagon, I call to him, “I have to go to town. Anna will explain,” and as I turn down the road I see him in the mirror, standing there, gaping after me.

  Headquarters. As far back as anyone’s memory goes, it had been called the station house. Then Duffy was appointed police chief, and now it is headquarters. The blue uniforms of our old force have become a military-gray, the sidearms and belt of cartridges conspicuous. The easygoing, neighborly manner of the men in the old uniforms has become the sharply aggressive style of the men in the new uniforms.

  Duffy’s style.

  But, I ask myself, does he have any choice of styles? The older generation of Scammons Landing wants law and order at any cost, the younger generation wants anarchy, and it is the older generation who pays the bills. And John Duffy is the man in the middle. An angry and blundering man trying to handle an impossible job.