Hit and Run jk-4

by Lawrence Block

  Which was just as well, Keller thought, because in order to play football there you’d have to cut down a couple dozen live oak trees, and anyone who’d do that ought to be hanged from one of them instead. They were magnificent trees, and while it might not be the best route back to his car, it was worth a few minutes just to walk on the greensward among these majestic oaks, with the light fading and the day drawing to a close and—

  A woman screamed.

  22

  “Stop! Oh, God! Somebody help me!”

  His first thought was that someone had screamed at the sight of him, recognized him as the Des Moines Assassin and cried out in terror. But the thought was gone before the scream had ceased to echo in the still air. It had come from fifty yards away, off to the left and halfway across the little park. Keller saw movement, screened partly by a tree trunk, and heard another cry, less distinct this time, and cut short.

  A woman was being attacked.

  Not your problem, he told himself, immediately and unequivocally. He was the object of a nationwide manhunt, and the last thing he was going to do was get involved in somebody else’s problem. And it was probably just a domestic quarrel, anyway, one of Nature’s noblemen kicking the crap out of his slattern of a wife, and if the cops came she’d decide not to press charges, and might even take her husband’s side and go after the cops then and there, which was why cops hated responding to calls of that sort.

  And he wasn’t a cop, and didn’t have a dog in this fight, as they would put it in the states he’d been spending time in lately. So what he would do now was turn around and leave the park and walk back up Euterpe — pronounced You-Tour-Pee — and figure out a route that would get him back to his car, and then find his way out of this town as quickly as he possibly could.

  That was the only course of action that made the slightest bit of sense.

  But what he was doing, even as he was working all of this out in his mind, was racing full speed toward the source of the screams.

  No question what was going on. There was nothing remotely ambiguous about the scene that confronted Keller. Even in the dim light, it was unmistakable.

  The woman, dark-haired, slender, was sprawled out on the grass, one hand braced against the ground, the other held up to ward off her attacker. And the guy was your stereotypical mad rapist from central casting, his hair a ragged dirty-blond mop, his broad flat mug sporting a week’s growth of patchy beard, and a teardrop jailhouse tattoo on one cheekbone to let you know he wasn’t just another pretty face. He was crouched over her, tearing at her clothes.

  “Hey!”

  The man whirled at the sound, bared his teeth at Keller as if they were weapons. He came up out of his crouch, light glinting off the blade of his knife.

  “Drop it,” Keller said.

  But he didn’t drop the knife. He moved it from side to side as if trying to hypnotize a subject, and Keller looked not at the knife but at the man’s eyes, and reached behind his own back for the gun in his waistband. But of course it wasn’t there, it was tucked away in the glove compartment of a locked car, damn it all, and he’d be lucky if he ever saw it again. He was facing a man with a knife, and all he had was a plastic bag from Walgreen’s. What was he going to do, give the guy a haircut?

  The woman was trying to tell him that the man had a knife, but he knew that. He didn’t listen to her but focused on the man, focused on his eyes. He couldn’t tell their color, not in that light, but he could see a keen manic energy in them, and he let go of his shopping bag and balanced his weight on the balls of his feet and tried to remember something useful from the various bits and pieces of martial arts training he’d had over the years.

  He’d had classes and one-on-one instruction in kung fu and judo and tae kwon do, along with some Western-style hand-to-hand combat training, though he’d never trained in any disciplined fashion, never stayed with any of it for any length of time. But every trainer he’d ever known had offered the same instruction when you were unarmed and the other guy had a knife. The thing to do, they all would tell you, was turn around and run like hell.

  The chances were considerable, they’d all agreed, that he wouldn’t chase you. And Keller was sure that was true with this drooling blond madman. He wouldn’t run after Keller, he’d stay right where he was and get back to raping the woman.

  Keller watched his eyes, and when the man moved, Keller moved. He sprang to the side, kicked high in the air, and caught the wrist of the hand that held the knife. He was wearing sneakers and wished they could have been steel-toed work shoes, but his aim and his timing almost made up for whatever the sneakers lacked, and the knife went flying even as the man roared in pain.

  “Okay,” he said, stepping back, rubbing at his wrist. “Okay, you win. I’m going.”

  And he started to back away.

  “I don’t think so,” Keller said, and went after him. The guy turned, ready to fight, and swung a roundhouse right that Keller ducked underneath. He straightened up and butted the guy in the chin, and when the guy’s head snapped back Keller reached out and grabbed hold of it, one hand closing on a fistful of greasy yellow hair, the other cupping the bristly chin.

  Keller didn’t have to think about what came next. His hands knew what to do, and they did it.

  He let go of the man, allowed the body to slip to the ground. A few feet away, the woman was staring, her mouth open, her shoulders heaving.

  Time to go, he thought. Time to turn around and slip off into the night. By the time she pulled herself together he’d be gone. Who was that masked man? Why, I don’t know, but he left this silver bullet…

  He walked over to the woman, held out a hand. She took it and he drew her to her feet.

  “My God,” she said. “You just saved my life.”

  If there was a response to that, Keller didn’t know what it might be. The only ones that came to mind started with Aw, shucks. He stood there with what definitely felt like an Aw shucks look on his face, and she stepped back, took a look at him, and then lowered her eyes to look down on the man at her feet.

  “We have to call the police,” she said.

  “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

  “But don’t you know who he is? This has to be the man who killed the nurse three nights ago in Audubon Park, raped her and stabbed her ten, twenty times. He fits the description. And that’s not the first woman he attacked. He was going to kill me!”

  “But you’re safe now,” he told her.

  “Yes, and thank God for that, but that doesn’t mean we can let him walk away.”

  “I don’t think there’s much chance of that.”

  “What do you mean?” She took a closer look. “What did you do to him? Is he…”

  “I’m afraid so, yes.”

  “But how can that be? He had a knife, you saw it, it must have been a foot long.”

  “Not quite.”

  “Close enough.” She was getting her composure back, he noticed, and more quickly than he would have expected. “And you had your bare hands.”

  “It’s too warm for gloves.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It was sort of a joke,” Keller said. “You said I had bare hands, and I said it was too warm to be wearing gloves.”

  “Oh.”

  “It wasn’t all that great a joke,” he admitted, “and explaining it doesn’t do a lot to improve it.”

  “No, please, I’m sorry, I’m just a little slow at the moment. What I meant, of course, is that you didn’t have anything in your hands.”

  “I had a shopping bag,” he said, and found it and picked it up. “But that’s not what you meant.”

  “I meant like, you know, a gun or a knife, something like that.”

  “No.”

  “And he’s dead? You actually killed him?”

  She was hard to read. Was she impressed? Horrified? He couldn’t tell.

  “And you just turned up from out of nowhere. If I were some
kind of religious crank I’d probably figure you were an angel. Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Well, are you an angel?”

  “Not even close.”

  “I didn’t just offend you, did I? Using the term ‘religious crank’?”

  “No.”

  “So I guess that means you’re not a religious crank yourself, or you’d be offended. Well, thank God for that. That was a joke.”

  “I thought it might be.”

  “It’s not very funny,” she said, “but it’s the best I can do right now, with just my bare hands. Ha! That got a smile out of you, didn’t it?”

  “It did.”

  She took a breath. “You know,” she said, “even if he’s dead, we’re still supposed to call the police, aren’t we? We can’t just leave him here for the Sanitation Department to pick up. I’ve got my phone in my purse, I’ll just call 911.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “Why? Isn’t that what they’re for? They may not prevent crime or catch criminals, but afterwards you call them and they come in and take care of stuff. Why don’t you want me to—”

  She broke off the words on her own, and she looked at him, and he saw her take in the visual information, saw it all register. She put her hand to her mouth and stared at him.

  Hell.

  23

  “You’re safe,” he told her.

  “I am?”

  “Yes.”

  “But—”

  “Look,” he said, “I didn’t save your life so that I could kill you myself. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

  She looked at him, thought it over, nodded. She was older than he’d thought at first, well up in her thirties. A pretty woman, with dark hair that fell to her shoulders.

  “I’m not afraid,” she said. “But you’re—”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re here in New Orleans.”

  “Just for today.”

  “And then—”

  “Then I’ll go somewhere else.” In the distance he heard the wail of a siren, but where it was headed and whether it was an ambulance or a police car was impossible to say. “We can’t just hang around here,” he said.

  “No, of course not.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” he said, “and then I’ll get out of your life, and out of your city. I can’t tell you what to do, but if you could just forget you ever saw me—”

  “That might be difficult. But I won’t say anything, if that’s what you mean.”

  That was what he meant.

  They left the park, walked along Camp Street. The siren — ambulance, police, whatever it was — had faded out somewhere in the distance. At length she broke the silence to ask where he would go next, and before he could think how to respond she said, “No, don’t tell me. I don’t even know why I asked.”

  “I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to.”

  “Why not? Oh, because you don’t know. I guess you have to wait until they tell you where to go next. You’re smiling, did I say something ridiculous?”

  He shook his head. “I’m out here all by myself,” he said. “There’s nobody to tell me what to do next.”

  “I thought you were part of a conspiracy.”

  “The way a pawn’s part of a chess tournament.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No, how could you? I’m not sure there’s anything to follow. Where’s your car parked?”

  “In my garage,” she said. “I got restless, I went out for a walk. I live a few blocks over that way.”

  “Oh.”

  “And you don’t have to walk me home, really. I’ll be all right.” She laughed sharply, broke it off. “I was just about to say this is a safe neighborhood, and it is, really. You’re probably in a hurry to get… well, wherever it is you’re going.”

  “I ought to be.”

  “But you’re not?”

  “No,” he said. It was true, he wasn’t in a hurry, and he wondered why. They fell silent, walked past another large two-story frame house with porches on both floors. A rocking chair, he thought, and a glass of iced tea, and someone to talk with.

  Without planning to, he said, “Not that you’d have any reason to believe me, and not that it matters, but I didn’t kill that man in Iowa.”

  She let his words hang there, and he wondered why he’d felt the need to say them. Then, softly, she said, “I believe you.”

  “Why would you believe me?”

  “I don’t know. Why did you just now fight that man and kill him and save my life? The police are looking for you everywhere. Why would you run such a risk?”

  “I’ve been wondering that myself. From the standpoint of self-preservation, it was a pretty stupid thing to do. And I knew that, too, but that didn’t help. I just… reacted.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “So am I.”

  “Are you?”

  What he said, instead of answering her question, was, “Ever since the assassination in Des Moines, ever since I saw a picture of myself on CNN, I’ve been running. Driving around, sleeping in my car, sleeping in cheap motels, sleeping in movie theaters. The only person I ever really cared about is dead and the only possession I treasured is gone. All my life I’ve always figured things would work out and I’d get by, and for years they did, and I did, and it feels as though the string’s pretty much played out. Sooner or later I’ll slip up, or sooner or later they’ll get lucky, and they’ll catch up with me. And the only good thing about that is I’ll get to stop running.”

  He drew a breath. “I didn’t mean to say all that,” he said. “I don’t know where it came from.”

  “What difference does it make?” She stopped walking, turned to face him. “I said I believed you. That you didn’t do it.”

  “And I think I said it didn’t matter. Not that you believe me, that does matter, though I don’t know why it should. But whether I did it or not, that doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it does! If they framed an innocent man—”

  “They framed me, all right. But it’s a hell of a stretch to call me innocent.”

  “That man in the park just now. He wasn’t the first man you ever killed, was he?”

  “No.”

  She nodded. “You were awfully proficient at it,” she said. “It looked like something you might have done before.”

  “I left New Orleans years ago. That’s unusual, most people who start out here never leave. The city gets a hold on a person.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “But I had to get out,” she said, “and I left. And then after Katrina, when half the city left, that’s when I came back. Trust me to get everything backwards.”

  “What brought you back?”

  “My father. He’s dying.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So’s he. He didn’t want to go to a hospice. This is a man who wouldn’t let them evacuate him during the hurricane, and he said he’d be damned if he’d leave his house now. ‘I was born in this house, chère, and I shall damn well die in it.’ As a matter of fact he was born in a hospital, like most people, but I guess you’re allowed to exaggerate when you’re being eaten alive by cancer. And I tried to think what I had to do in my life that was more important than nursing him and letting him die at home, and I couldn’t think of a thing.”

  “You’re not married.”

  “Not anymore. You?”

  He shook his head. “Never.”

  “Mine lasted a year and a half. No children. All I had was a job and an apartment, and they were nothing I couldn’t walk away from. Now I do substitute teaching a couple of days a week, and hire a woman to tend to Daddy when I’m working. What I make doesn’t do much more than cover what I have to pay her, but it makes a change.”

  Chère, he thought. Like the singer? Or was it short for Sharon or Sherry or Cheryl, something like that?

  Like it mattered.

  “That’s my house on the
next block. With the azaleas and rhododendrons in front, so overgrown they’re hiding the downstairs porch. They ought to be trimmed, but I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “It looks nice. A little lush and untamed, but nice all the same.”

  “The ground-floor sitting room’s got his bed in it, so he doesn’t have to bother with the stairs, and I made up a bed for myself in the den for the same reason. The whole second floor’s empty, and I can’t remember the last time anyone had occasion to go up there.”

  “Just the two of you in that big house?”

  “There’ll be three tonight,” she said, “and you’ll have the entire second floor all to yourself.”

  He waited in the hallway while she saw to her father. “I’ve brought a man home, Daddy,” he heard her say.

  “Well, aren’t you the little hellion.”

  “Not like that,” she said. “You’re an old man with a dirty mind. This gentleman’s a friend of Pearl O’Byrne’s, he needs a place to stay. He’ll be upstairs, and if it works out he might rent that front room.”

  “Just be more work for you, chère. Not saying the money won’t come in handy.”

  He felt like an eavesdropper, and walked out of earshot. He was looking at a framed print of a horse jumping a fence when she emerged and led him to the kitchen.

  She made a pot of coffee, and when it had dripped through she filled two large mugs and set them on the kitchen table, along with a sugar bowl and a little pitcher of cream. He said he preferred his coffee black, and she said so did she, and returned the cream to the refrigerator. They talked while they drank their coffee, and then she said he must be hungry and insisted on making him a sandwich.