“Wherever you say, Laura.”
“I think you like me, Murray, underneath. Tell me, do you?”
“I like you, Laura.”
Laura turned her face up then, close to Murray’s shoulder. “To Paris, then, Murray—to Paris with lots and lots of money.” She waited, blue eyes looking into Murray’s brown ones, close, so close.
“All right then, if you don’t want to.” Laura got up. “I’m going to get dressed.” She walked away with long steps. “Goodbye,” she said angrily, making two distinct words of it. “Good bye.”
Jason was waiting, with binoculars in his hand, when Murray came back.
“That looked pretty good,” he said, “but that last—you should have kissed her then. Don’t wait to be asked any more; just kiss her next time. Tonight in the TV room, kiss her and hold her in your arms. She’s ripe for it.”
Laura was there, in the TV room, when Murray came in late that night. The lights were turned down as if for the TV screen, but it was off. Laura didn’t look at all as she had that first night. Her hair was dried and combined, but drawn back simply with the same gold clip she’d worn while swimming. She wore simple black tights and black jersey; and she was sitting in the corner of one of the large couches, hugging her knees.
“Murray?” she asked as he entered, her voice not much above a whisper.
He came down the aisle between the couches to where she was and sat down close beside her. Jason had been most explicit.
“I wish I could understand you,” she said.
He put an arm around her shoulder. She looked up at him and he kissed her gently.
“You do care after all,” she said when they drew apart again. “I’ve been so miserable; but now I don’t care if I understand you or not.”
He still held her, and she nestled her head on his shoulder. “You’re strange and different, and not a bit like the others—but I like you that way. I don’t think you care about me, really. Perhaps you don’t need anyone but yourself, but I don’t care about that either. I just want us to get the money and go to Paris together, and not think about the future.” She tipped her head back. “Kiss me again,” she said, and Murray did. “This is different from ever before.”
It was quite late when Murray got back to Jason’s study that night, but Jason was waiting. He looked closely at Murray’s face when he came in, and smiled when he saw the lipstick smears across the lips and on the cheeks and forehead.
“We’ve got her,” he said, “Now’s the time for some action. “I have it all figured out. It’s to be fitting… poetic justice. Now, she’ll put her arms around you like this and snuggle into your neck. I know how she does, only too well; but this time will be just once too often. This is what you do, Murray. Your arms around her like this, tight, your head forward, a jerk then, hard… That’ll be poetic justice if I ever saw it.”
Jason went to the desk then, and took out a tiny bottle of strong film glue and some surgeon’s scissors. “You’ll have to help me,” he said. “I want the ‘stop’ words and the ‘go’ words. I think it’ll be enough just to interchange them.”
Jason worked silently for half an hour and when he was finished he told Murray to be careful. “Do nothing till tomorrow night; keep away from her. I don’t know how easy it is to set it all off, so perhaps you’d better not even serve dinner tomorrow evening. I’ll order the jet just in case, but I won’t leave till after it’s over. I want it to be around ten or eleven in the TV room, low lights, soft couches… ” Jason’s eyes almost closed. “I can see it, the struggle, the surprise… It’s just what she deserves.”
Murray opened the door to the TV room the next night just at ten o’clock. The lights were all on this time, and Laura was pacing up and down the aisle between the couches. She had on a brown tunic with a high, concealing collar. “Where have you been all day, for heaven’s sake? I’ve been waiting and waiting.” She leaned towards him. “This is it,” she said. “Kiss me for luck.”
The kiss was quick and Laura drew back. “The jet’s been ready all day. I was so afraid Jason would take off, and we’d lose our chance. I didn’t dare ask him anything at supper; and, Murray, you weren’t there. He said you had a headache. Do you have a headache, darling? Anyway, you’ll have to forget it. Jason’s gone to bed, he always goes early. Go and get the money from the safe. Now hurry. I’ll wait for you here.”
“Not over already?” Jason said as Murray came back to the study. “I guess it doesn’t matter, as long as it’s done, but I would have liked it to have taken a bit longer.”
Murray paid no attention to Jason. He walked to the wall safe, “remembered” the combination and opened it.
“What in the world?” Jason asked as Murray took out the satchel that was inside.
“What are you doing?” Jason shouted then.
“Getting the money,” Murray said.
“Stop. Stop it, right now,” Jason said, before he remembered the alterations. He grabbed for the bag, but Murray walked towards the door as though Jason wasn’t there. Then Jason circled his arms at Murray’s waist and tried to pull him off balance. Murray felt the head pressing into his shoulder and the arms about him, and he “remembered” this embrace from the night before. “She’ll put her arms around you,” Jason had said; “she’ll hold you tight.”
Jason said, “Stop,” just once more.
Laura laughed when she saw Murray come into the TV room with the money. “He’ll be surprised, when his wife and his trusted butler run off with the loot.”
“No,” Murray said.”
“No what?”
“He won’t be surprised; he’s dead.”
“Oh, Murray. But why? Did he try to stop you?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve got to get out of here, then. Maybe you’re crazy, Murray. Maybe that’s what makes you so strange.”
“Maybe, Laura.”
They hurried down the hall to the elevator. “You didn’t have to, did you?” Laura asked as it rose to the roof.
“I don’t know,” Murray said.
They came out on the roof port and ran to the jet. Murray “remembered” it, and sat at the controls, started the motors and took off. The jet climbed in a high arc and then headed out to sea.
In a small motel, near the jet port outside of Paris, Murray felt the arms go round him and hold him close and the head press into his shoulder.
“It’s over,” Laura said. “Kiss me.”
He kissed her, his head bent forward, his arms around her tight… tighter. She tried to turn, her lips pulling sideways as she struggled to avoid the hard kiss. “No,” she said. “You’re hurting me. Stop.”
But, stop, meant, go.
It was like Jason had said, the struggle, the surprise…
Fast Action Detective and Mystery, March 1957
The Coming
HE WAS STICK thin, and he walked as a scarecrow might walk, lifting his feel high and slapping them down. He was dressed like a scarecrow too, but the expression on his face was different, not blank or dumb, more like someone in a trance, lips parted, eyes half closed, head thrown back.
He looked as if he might not notice the village as he came to it, but he did. At least he saw the garbage can set out by the road. His eyes flickered wider and he turned to the side, opened the lid and looked in. The stench of rotting fruit came out but he didn’t seem to notice.
There was an elderly lady there on the porch watching, but he didn’t notice her either or didn’t care that she saw him.
“No, no,” she called to him. “Wait. I’ll get you something,” and she hurried inside. When she came out again with bread and butter carefully wrapped in waxed paper, he was going on down the road. “Oh,” she sighed, but he was too far for her to go after.
Nina sat at the dining room table, her homework spread out in front of her, but not studying. She sat as if in a trance, head thrown back, lips parted, eyes half closed.
She was old enough to be thinking
about her hair and fingernails and clothes but obviously she didn’t. Still, she might have been pretty if she hadn’t been so thin and pale, and if her eyelids didn’t always droop in a sleepy way.
Her mother came in as she sat leaning back this way by her homework. “I give up. I just give up,” her mother said.
Nina jerked her head back straight and opened her eyes wider. “No!” she said, startled.
“No what? If you don’t keep your mind on your work you’ll be set back again this year.”
“I tried, really, but it just happens.”
“If you can’t concentrate anymore than that, I give up. Take the baby outside now while there’s still some sunshine and try, try to keep your mind on what you’re doing.”
He came down the street just as Nina and her mother came out to take the baby carriage down the porch steps. His feet made a flapping sound in the street and they both turned to look at him.
He stopped near them. His eyes opened wider, his head tilted to the side and he looked at Nina and she looked back. His mouth worked up and down twice before any words came out. “One…one here…too…” he said.
“Nina,” her mother said, “get him some leftover meat loaf and some bread. Quickly now. We don’t want him hanging around.” And Nina turned and went in her usual way, not fast.
She came back with the bread and meat and handed it to the man. He took it, not thanking her or nodding even, but just looking.
“Go along now,” her mother said, but still he stood, holding the paper package as if he didn’t know or care what it was.
“Go along, I’ve no patience with tramps and I’ve a gun in the house and I know how to use it. Go along now.” She made pushing motions with her hands.
He stood, trancelike, a moment more and then he turned slowly and walked off with his high step, and Nina stood and watched him with her eyes almost shut.
“Take the baby and go down the other way. Don’t go far. Dad will be back and supper’s almost ready.”
He veered to the right off the main road, then took another right, went two blocks down and there was the girl. He came up beside her and said again, “One…one here.”
She wasn’t afraid. She just walked on and he walked beside her. “Maybe,” she said.
“Yes,” he said, “yes…”
“It seems so.”
They went without talking by the river and across the park and back then to the main road.
Her mother saw them from the kitchen window. “Nina!” she screamed. “Nina, come away home this instant.” The man stopped and stood where he was and Nina came at the same slow walk she always went.
“The baby, is he all right? Don’t you realize what that kind of man is like? Why he might…do anything. Don’t you know the way he looked at you? I give up. I just give up on you, Nina.” And when her father came home her mother told him about Nina and the tramp and how horrible he was and how he couldn’t even talk straight.
“He better watch out,” her father said. “He better keep away from here.”
Her father went to work at seven the next morning. As he came out on the porch he saw the tramp at the corner of the yard by the lilac bushes, just standing, long hair rumpled and sticking straight up, head thrown back, mouth open, looking more asleep, standing up there, than awake.
Nina, just coming down to breakfast, heard her father’s shout and saw him come back in the house.
“He’s dangerous,” he said, “standing out there like that. I think he’s just plain crazy. He won’t go when I tell him either. Get me the rifle,” he told her mother, “I’ll give him a good scare.”
He went out with the gun and shouted at the tramp. The man shook his head and blinked, but didn’t move to go. The window opened in the house next door and Mr. Morton poked his head out and pointed his finger. “You, you. Get out of town. We don’t want your kind around here.”
Nina’s father said, “If I see you around my house again I’ll take a shot at you and I mean it,” and he shook the gun.
The man didn’t say anything. He didn’t look frightened or cowed. He just turned and walked away at his jerky walk.
“The guy’s nuts,” Mr. Morton said.
“He’s been lookin’ at my Nina.”
“A guy like that isn’t safe to have around. You can’t tell what they’ll do next,” Mr. Morton said. “I used to know one like that in the army. Never really did anything s’far as I know, but you just can’t tell, and you with a girl and all.”
Later that morning Nina sat in the tenth grade room, but everything around her seemed dim and unreal, worse than usual even. When she was called on she could only mumble and blink.
The music was in her head. The poetry without words, the song without a tune, the rhythm without a beat. She could do nothing but listen. The undercurrent of unhappiness colored it as usual. The knowing she would not pass the tenth grade, would never graduate and that they would all be unhappy about her. But this was worth it all, this world feeling, this life-beat, this song… of the universe.
Suddenly a picture came to her mind. This had never happened before. It was a picture of a grove of trees and a black bridge and a cindery hill with railroad tracks on top. In the grove was a tiny fire and a tin can of water on a stone beside it. The water steamed and was bubbling a little on the side closest to the flames. Then a train came and there was a rush of wind and sound.
She woke with the teacher shaking her shoulder and slapping her cheek. “Go down to the nurse, Nina, and tell your parents you must have a complete physical and soon. I’ll send them a note about it. You go now. Mary’ll go along with you.”
“No.” Nina shook her head. “I’m all right now. I’ll go by myself.”
She went out of the room and down the stairs, but she forgot about going to the nurse. For the first time in her life she had a strong desire to be in a particular place. Always before it was only the music she wanted, but now she wanted the railroad tracks and the grove.
It took almost an hour to get there. Then she scrambled down the cinder bank dirtying her hands and the back of her skirt, but she didn’t care. She never cared about such things, but now less than ever because there was the grove and the man.
He sat leaning aback against a tree, the tea in the tin can only half gone, now lukewarm and forgotten. A drop of saliva trickled from his open mouth, his hands lay palms up, dirty with the grime of weeks or months even. He sat as if asleep, only not sleep.
Nina touched his shoulder gently. “I’m here,” she said, and then, when he didn’t move, she sat down facing him.
He woke to her slowly, easily, and looked at her without surprise. “N…never…one before…only me,” he said.
“Now us,” Nina said.
His eyes opened wider now and his forehead puckered in concentration. “There’s some…something between us we must…must find.”
“I saw this place,” she said.
“I know.”
“Is that what you mean?”
“No. More than that.” His face relaxed again. He closed his eyes. “I can’t think. I haven’t done it for so long now.” He handed her the can of cold tea. “Want some?” Then he sank back against the tree, gone again.
She took the tea and drank it all, strong and bitter, and then she lay down on her back and looked at the clouds. After a moment she closed her eyes too, and drifted with the music and the poem, but it was different now because he was beside her and there were two of them. Maybe this was the way to find it, the thing between them.
Nina’s mother waited and waited, and then her father came home and they ate supper, leaving a part of the meal warm in the oven.
“May she just forgot. She sometimes does.”
“But not usually as late as this.”
“Wait a bit longer and we’ll see. She’s been worse than ever these last days.”
They called her classmates then but all they heard about was the bad, bad time in school where she was worse than
ever before and the teacher couldn’t wake her for a while. And finally they said what they had thought about before and they called the police about the crazy tramp who had looked that way at Nina.
It grew late and still no one found Nina or had news of her. After a while her father took the gun and Mr. Morton came and the man from across the street and they all went out together to help hunt.
If the police had found them it might have been different, but it was her father. This grove was a place where tramps came now and then, and so they looked there after other places. It was late, after midnight, and they found them asleep side by side.
They woke to stare into the gun and the lights.
Her father poked the gun in the man’s ribs hard and called him bad names and swore. The man sat up, blinking and squinting.
“Kidnapper! Rapist!”
“You’re in real trouble now, you crazy bum.”
“Let me show him,” her father said and pushed the rifle hard into his ribs again and into his stomach.
He rolled over. Their grasping fingers held rotten, tearing cloth, and he was running, high-kneed, wobbly and not very fast.
Nina got up too then and tired to follow but one of them held her. Her father raised his gun and shot at the running figure twice.
Nina cried out. “We found…some…thing. We found it and now it’s gone.”
“Dirty rapist!”
“He never…even…no…no.”
The men were shadow figures in a dream. She closed her eyes. This was the music.
She had chopped her hair off. She was dressed like a boy. Flat-chested and slim-hipped still, she was sexless. Under the dirt and pallor it was hard to see the youth of her face. She could almost be any age.
She walked as a scarecrow might walk, lifting her feet high and slapping them down, but the expression on her face was not blank or dumb, more like someone in a trance, lips parted, eyes half closed, head thrown back.
The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller, Vol. 1 Page 8
