Cry Hard, Cry Fast

by John D. MacDonald

  He looked ahead. He could see the sign above the building. A red neon diamond with the word “Ace” spelled out inside the diamond.

  Jamison was sitting beside Kathryn Aller’s bed at nine o’clock when Dilby came in to look at the patient.

  “Here again, I see!” Dilby said in his exuberant voice.

  Jamison got up. “Good morning, Doctor. The nurse told me she had her eyes open earlier this morning.”

  “Well! Let’s see here.” Dilby fussed over the patient. He finally spoke her name loudly in her ear, slapping her cheek lightly with his finger tips. “Kathryn! Kathy! Wake up!” He turned and said to Jamison, “If you can find the right nickname, they respond better.”

  Kathryn Aller opened her unswollen eye. Jamison moved closer to the bed. The color was not precisely blue, nor was it pure gray. The expression in her eye was dreadfully blank. It did not focus on anything. It was merely open.

  “That’s a good girl,” Dilby said jovially. “Fine girl! Now let’s see you raise your arm. This one. The right one.” He touched her hand. She raised her arm. “Put it down, dear. That’s a good bright girl! Now the other one. Splendid. Nurse, get me a glass of water.” The nurse brought the water. Dilby got his arm under the patient, raised her up and held the glass to her lips. “Let’s see if you can drink this, Kathryn.” He tilted the glass and the girl swallowed obediently until it was empty. Dilby lowered her back and she lay with her head on the pillow, looking blankly at the ceiling.

  Dilby smiled affectionately at Jamison. “Coming along. She’ll do what you tell her to do now. Nurse, I think you can get her to eat normally now. We want to keep those muscles in tone. This afternoon get her into a robe and make her walk up and down the corridor.”

  Jamison said awkwardly, “Could… would it be all right if I did that? I mean the nurse could get her into a robe. I’d be glad to walk her.”

  Dilby said, “We’ll take all the help we can get, won’t we, nurse?”

  Jamison looked at the girl. Her eye had closed again.

  Dilby laughed and said, “Get in here at noon and we’ll even let you feed her. She’ll chew and swallow once the food is in her mouth, but somebody will have to order her to open her mouth each time and then poke the food in. Want to try that too, Mr. Jamison?”

  “I might as well.”

  “We’ll make you an honorary nurse’s aid around here. One thing, though. The way she’s reacting, she may come out of this zombie phase at any time, come back to complete awareness. When she does she may have a violent emotional reaction. Do what you can to comfort her, and get word to me.”

  After Dilby left, Jamison went outside. It was a fine morning, clear and warm, with a cloudless sky. He decided to walk down to town. He could look in at the garage. He wanted to see how the car looked. That would be a sufficient excuse. He remembered how delighted Gina had been when they had gone down and picked up that car. She had loved convertibles, loved wind in her hair. Her driving had always been more exuberant than accurate.

  “The thing I like best,” she had said solemnly, “is the way the new ones smell.”

  “You know, Gina, in the used car lots when they get a good clean car in, a recent model, they sometimes brush the upholstery with embalming fluid. That gives it a new car smell. Psychological salesmanship.”

  “How dreadful!” she had said. “How perfectly awful!”

  Gina’s sense of humor had always failed abruptly when the humor became the least bit macabre. She had had an almost pathological fear of death, of anything concerning death. Death to her was as darkness to a timid child. It was full of unknown horrors. And he had had to let the child walk off, alone, into the darkness, powerless to hold her back.

  His thoughts had dimmed the day. He wrested his mind away from thoughts of Gina, back to thoughts of Kathryn Aller. He passed a school and heard the thin sweet voices of a young class singing. He walked by his hotel and on down toward the south end of the town, toward the highway and the garage and the car in which, by all rights, he should have died. The rapid walking was stretching the lingering soreness and stiffness out of his muscles. Wednesday. The accident seemed a month ago. Not just two days ago. Incredible that it should be only two days ago.

  After a long, late, lazy breakfast Joyce smiled across the table at Paul and said, “What now, sire? Watch the changing of the guard? Float about on the canals?”

  “This is like a weird sea voyage,” Paul said. “No responsibility. Nothing at all to do. Want to phone the kids again?”

  “Later. Let’s see. I’d like to take a long walk on a back road. Then come back famished and have lunch. Then go to a cowboy movie. Then phone the kids.”

  “Program approved. Let’s start our walk by the garage. I want to stop in and see how they’re coming.”

  Frazier and Donna walked into the garage. They stopped by the small high desk. Frazier felt the stiffness of tension in his shoulders. The garage was busy. Tools clanged on concrete. A motor raced. The air was blued with exhaust stink.

  The service manager came over and Donna said, “Hey there. Remember me? I’ve come to bail out Miranda.”

  “Sure. How you doing? The cashier will have the final bill, miss. Right over there. Going to take off?”

  “Think she’ll get us to Las Vegas?”

  “There and back, if you want to come back.”

  Donna laughed. “No thanks.”

  “The car is out in back.”

  Frazier said, “Is it okay with you if I check it over some before we take off?”

  The service manager shrugged. “Go ahead.”

  They went to the cashier’s window and Frazier paid the bill. The girl stamped the receipt and passed it out to him with his change and the car keys. They carried the suitcase and hatbox back through the garage and out into the wire-fenced yard. Donna walked directly over to an elderly tan Studebaker and patted the front fender.

  “Here she is! Pretty jaunty, hey?”

  He loaded the suitcase and hatbox into the rear seat. He walked around it, inspecting the tires. He got in and started the motor. He raced it. It sounded all right to him. He left it idling and got out, scratched his head.

  “What’s the matter, honey?”

  “Sounds a little ragged. I better check it over.” He opened the hood and stared in at the motor. “I can make some adjustments, Donna.” He took a five-dollar bill out of his wallet and handed it to her. “Why don’t you roam around and buy yourself something? This’ll take me a half-hour or so. Wait for me at that drugstore across the way.”

  “Well… okay. Thanks. Don’t get all dirty, Stan.”

  She walked back into the garage, glancing back once, smiling and giving him a wave of her hand. Frazier looked in the back end and found a ratty-looking screwdriver. He noticed that the spare was badly worn. He left the back end open. He went around and leaned across the front fender and reached into the mysterious motor with the screwdriver, careful not to touch anything.

  A mechanic parked a car in the back yard and walked back into the garage. Frazier, looking back over his shoulder, could see the Olds, see the edge of the two tires. The gun in the right pocket of the cheap jacket bumped against the fender of the Studebaker. He rehearsed his movements. Walk quickly and calmly over, hoist the lid, pull out the tire, lug it back and sling it into the rear compartment of the Studebaker, bang the lid shut.

  A tall well-dressed man with a bandaged face walked out into the rear yard with the service manager and walked over to the Cad. They stood and looked at it and talked. Frazier cursed them silently. The service manager went back inside. The tall man stood there, just staring, as if he had fallen asleep on his feet. Frazier seethed with impatience. To make matters worse a young couple came out and walked over to the Cadillac. They started to talk to the tall man. They all shook hands. The idling motor of the Studebaker began to generate considerable heat. He looked at the three people. Hell, it was obvious they weren’t with the garage. Maybe they had been in t
he same accident, or seen it or something. Or maybe the tall man was the insurance man, or the smaller man.

  If you did a thing calmly, as if it was your business, people generally accepted it. He had a habit that had been with him a long time. He counted to ten. At the count of ten he turned and walked briskly, though not too fast, over to the burned Olds. He took hold of the trunk compartment and lifted it up and grasped the tire. It came out easily, rim and all. Too easily. He remembered it as being heavier.

  There was a great whuffing sound he could not identify. And a great brass voice filled the world, saying, “Frazier, drop the tire and lay face down on the ground. You’re surrounded, Frazier. Give up!”

  The man in the high window had been grievously startled. He had seen the man in the yellow leather jacket and the plump girl in blue and gray come out and put luggage in an old car. He had watched them through the glasses for a few moments and then relaxed. The girl had gone away and the man fiddled with the car. A tall man and the service manager came out and looked at the Cadillac. The tall man was alone there for a time and then a couple joined him.

  The man in the window yawned. The sun was hot. The yawn squinched his eyes shut. When he opened them the man in the yellow leather jacket was halfway to the Olds. He watched almost stupidly while the man yanked the telltale tire out. He clicked the ready switch and said to the cars, “Come on in. On the double. He’s in the yard.” He pulled the other hand mike over, clicked it on, waited a moment and then blew into it. The speaker on the post in the corner of the yard whuffed. He gave his orders to Frazier and picked the rifle up, worked the bolt, put the stock against his shoulder and looked down through the scope, centering the cross hairs on Frazier’s chest.

  Frazier darted to the left, out of the field of the scope. The man swung the scope over and saw that Frazier had a gun in his hand, had grabbed the slim pretty girl who had been standing by the Cadillac and swung her in front of him, an arm around her waist. The two men with the girl stared. The smaller one started forward and the bigger one grabbed him, pulled him back.

  Frazier was looking wildly around in all directions. He pulled the girl toward the Studebaker. The man in the window saw one of the cars alerted by the radio swing in toward the front of the garage, out of sight, stopping to block the exit.

  Frazier shoved the girl into the car and got in behind her. The man in the window saw that the girl would be over behind the wheel, with Frazier holding the gun on her. He wondered if he should try the microphone again. The car began to move forward. It turned and the man in the window could see Frazier’s right elbow. It rested on the window sill of the car, sharply bent, as he held the gun on the girl.

  The man in the window made his decision. He had previously adjusted the scope for firing down from an angle. He centered the cross hairs on the exposed elbow, moving the rifle with the movement of the car, squeezing the trigger off gently. He prayed that the jar would not yank Frazier’s trigger finger.

  Through the scope he saw the elbow leap and smash, deformed with impact. The other door opened and the girl tumbled out onto her hands and knees. The car kept going and hit the side of the building near the doorway into the garage. The girl got up and the smaller of the two men ran to her, held her in his arms. The big man ran to the car, yanked the door open, hauled Frazier out, shook him, threw him aside, reached into the car and brought the gun out. Men came running.

  Soon the man in the window could no longer see Frazier. He stood the rifle in a corner, took out his handkerchief and wiped the palms of his hands. When he looked down again he saw the girl in gray and blue struggling to get through the crowd around Frazier. He leaned close to the live mike and said, “Grab that girl there in gray sweater, blue slacks. She was with him.”

  chapter 18

  ON Thursday, May twenty-eighth, Jamison walked Kathryn Aller around the hospital grounds for the tenth consecutive day. The bandage on her head was much smaller. Her dark blonde hair was neatly brushed. There were a few greenish and yellowish traces of the great bruise which had puffed and darkened her face. She wore a gray tailored suit, a white blouse, crepe-soled moccasins.

  “Once around again?” he asked, and heard the sound of his own voice and realized how much he sounded like Dilby. Bluff professional cheer. The girl did not answer. He liked the way she walked. Tall, composed, with slender grace. She handled herself well, even though she was unconscious of it. She could follow the simplest orders, yet once they were completed she would remain frozen, in stasis, unable to go further. Given simple food and told to eat, and with the fork placed in her hand, she would feed herself. Given meat, knife and fork, she was helpless. When she walked she avoided simple obstructions.

  He took her arm and gently guided her toward the bench. “Now we’ll sit for a while and talk, shall we?”

  At the bench he took her shoulders, turned her around and said, “Sit down, Kathryn.” She sat on the bench and he sat beside her.

  Dr. Dilby called it an impairment of consciousness, traumatic. He said that sometimes, rarely, it could be caused by emotional shock. He said he wondered if there wasn’t some of that involved in this case, along with the actual physical injury. Dilby said to try to stimulate her into talking, into accepting increasing responsibility for herself.

  “Can you say hello, Kathryn? Try. Say hello. Hello.”

  She licked her lips. Her throat worked. “Hello.” Though her voice was low, and of pleasant timbre, there was absolutely no expression in her tone. It was as flat as the “mama” of a doll.

  “Look at me, Kathryn. Here.” He touched her chin, turned her face toward him gingerly. She looked at him and through him.

  “Can you say my name? Dev. Dev. Say it. Dev.”

  “Dev.”

  “That’s the way, Kathryn. Now what will we talk about? Would you like to hear a letter I got today? It’s from that girl who was here, the one who was hurt the same time you were. I’ve got it right here. Here we go.

  “‘Dear Mr. Jamison. They are nice to me here. They say my leg won’t have to be bandaged much longer. I can do lots more things for myself. It isn’t so hard using just one arm when you get used to it. The papers from the camp came today. There are pictures. I didn’t know Maine looked like that. There is a list of what I have to have. I have nearly everything except a riding habit. I thought at first that was like a smoking habit. Ha ha. They sail too. Did you know that?

  “‘I will be glad to go there because nearly all the people here are old. A boy I knew drove way over here to see me, five hundred miles. He brought candy but I gave it away because I am not eating sweet things any more. He stayed two hours and he bored me. He’s young and acts silly. He used to be one of my best friends. I have told them here that you will come and see me here before I go to camp in July. Will you?

  “‘You said I should ask for what I need. For the measurements for my riding pants, I am five feet five, and twenty-three inches around the middle and thirty-two inches around the fanny, but by the time I will need them for riding on a horse for the first time, I will be maybe only thirty around. The X-rays of my arm and hand were good, they say. If you could send me a picture of you I would like it very much. Very sincerely yours, Susan.’”

  “Isn’t that a nice letter? When she gets out of that convalescent home, she’s going to go away to summer camp. Then in the fall she’s going to a private school in Baltimore, where my wife went when she was young.”

  Kathryn Aller stared straight ahead. Sometimes it made him feel like a fool, talking to her when there was absolutely no response.

  Sometimes, looking at her still face, her quiet mouth, he wondered what a kiss would do to her. It was standard procedure for princesses, sleeping variety. It made him feel both excited and guilty to think of that. It seemed an extension of the dreams of small boys.

  “Kathryn, you are a lovely woman,” he said. He sighed, put his hand on hers. “Well, come on, old girl. Time to walk you back inside.” He stood up and looked dow
n at her. “Stand up, Kathryn.”

  She did not move. He frowned. That was a simple order she had obeyed readily before. “Stand up, Kathryn!”

  She did not move. He looked at her closely. Her lips were moving. Her eyes had narrowed a bit. She was looking beyond the far trees, and for the first time her eyes seemed to have focus. He sat down suddenly beside her and took her cool hand.

  “Kathryn! Are you waking up? Are you waking up, dear?”

  She looked down at his hands on hers and then looked sharply, quickly into his face. Her eyes were alert, alive, frightened. She yanked her hand away, pushed back away from him, sliding along the bench and stood up.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her voice thin with alarm.

  He got up and she backed away from him. He took two running steps and caught her wrists, held her strongly. She struggled. “Let go! Where am I? What is going on?”

  “Kathryn. Please. Listen to me.”

  “Let go of me. Let—go!”

  “I can’t. You have to listen. Kathryn, listen to me. Today is the twenty-eighth of May.”

  She struggled on for a few seconds and then stopped struggling and stared at him. “It’s the seventeenth!”

  “No, it isn’t. You’ve been sick. You were hurt. In an accident.”

  She frowned. “Was Walter…” She shook her head as though trying to clear it. “No. I was… I was… The car spun around and…”

  She put her chin down against her chest and began to cry. He held her wrists helplessly. He released her wrists. She took a wavering sideways step and then moved forward, leaned against him. He held her, his arms around her. Her long body trembled and she made stifled sounds. After a while he gave her his handkerchief, guided her to the bench. She sat down heavily, wearily.

  With the handkerchief against her eyes she said, “My head aches. I’m so awfully tired.”

  “These are hospital grounds. We can go back in and you can go to bed.”