The Blackbirder

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  If she were discovered she had no resources. She didn't care. Fran would get rid of the girl quickly now. He wouldn't accompany her; he'd remain to force his lies on Julie. She wouldn't be there to listen. She would be riding to the highway with Coral. To reach the highway, that was why she was huddled here, prone on the cold floor. She knew better. She was here to talk to Coral Bly.

  She heard their voices now. She couldn't see but they were approaching the car. Coral said, “I think you're making a mountain, Spike. What if she did see me?”

  “I promised her. No one would see her. I must explain.”

  “You'll be up right after dinner?”

  “Absolutely, darling. You explain to Kent why I can't make dinner tonight.”

  “An old friend.” Her laughter and a decision. “If you're lying to me, Spike, I'll cut your heart out.”

  “I adore you.”

  The whir of the engine, the car leaving the drive. Julie lay there, bracing herself so no sound of her body could be heard. She waited long enough before cautiously rising. Speak not too soon, not too late. Her head lifted to the top of the seat. Higher— until she was mirrored.

  Even then Coral didn't notice at first. She must have sensed before she saw. Her voice was hostile but there was fright underlying it. “Who are you back there? What are doing?” She was pulling to the side of the road, slowing the car, obviously not knowing what she should do.

  Julie said, “I just wanted a lift.”

  “You'll have to get out— ” Her voice broke. “You're— ”

  “Yes, I'm the girl.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to ask you something.”

  Coral was brusque. “Well, ask it.” But she was nervous. She fumbled for a cigarette, half turned in the seat, let the match lift to Julie's face. She wasn't so nervous then. She must have seen in it hopelessness, gullibility, an idiot child. “Ask it. And then you'd better get back. Spike will be looking for you.”

  “How long have you known Fran— Spike?”

  The girl was puzzled. “About two years.”

  “Has he been in prison any of that time?”

  “Certainly not. How absurd!” Her eyebrows lifted.

  “I mean— interned.”

  “He is French. Why under the sun would he be interned? He was here before the war started.”

  “You're certain of this?”

  “Of course, I'm certain. He's been working for my father for almost two years.”

  Julie knew. She had known it on the steps. She should have known last night. He didn't have the prison look.

  “Is that all?” Coral Bly asked, “If so, you'd better get back. Spike can't protect you if you're trailing about the country. I'd take you. But I'm late as it is.”

  “Does he want to marry you?”

  “I don't see that it concerns you. But you ask— ” She was brittle. “We will be married soon. We'd be married now if it weren't for his foolish pride. He has the old-fashioned idea that a husband should be able to support his wife, after her own fashion. When his Parisian estate is released— and it doesn't look as if it would be long now— we will be married. Now, if you'll please get out— ”

  Julie's hands clenched in her jeans pockets. Clenched on the flashlight still there. She opened the left-hand door. Coral had her hands on the wheel again, the engine running. Julie didn't plan. She opened the door of the car and she brought the flash down hard on top of the copper head. Coral weaved and Julie hit her again, not too hard, but correctly, behind the ear. The girl slumped in the seat. She was out. She'd be out for at least half an hour.

  Julie tugged the coat from her, heavy beaver, laid on the seat. She went to the other side of the car, took the lap rug, laid it on the ground there at the side of the road. Coral was taller than she and dead weight. But Julie pulled, tugged, edged, supported her until she was out of the car, rolled in the blanket. She wouldn't freeze. She'd come to. It was she who would walk back to Popin's.

  Julie slipped into the fur coat. It smell of mimosa. She shut her teeth. The Riviera and mimosa blooming. Fran beside her. She sat behind the wheel and drove away. She hadn't wanted to hurt Coral. She needed this car.

  She had wanted to hurt her. She had wanted to hurt her the way Coral had made her hurt. She'd wanted to kill the beautiful, arrogant girl. She hadn't killed her. She hadn't touched her. Coral would go back to Fran's arms. She mustn't think of Fran, of Coral. A half hour and a little longer and the alarm would be given. She drove straight to Santa Fe. She didn't stop. She went through the town and out on the Albuquerque highway. South. To the border. She'd been alone before. She'd been alone a long time. Not this way. Not in desolation. Before she'd had the dream of Fran.

  The road went on and on endlessly over the deserted mesa. The moon was out now, misted but shining. It wasn't until then that she realized. The ceiling had lifted. And Fran was the Blackbirder.

  Even now the alarm for her return might be given. The police sent to patrol the road. On and on. Not many cars but each one a menace. Through a town, a gaudy and drab Mexican town. Go on. She switched the radio. She knew the Albuquerque station from the Anstey radio. There was music, no police bulletins. The sky glow of Albuquerque. She took the cut-off road into town. On and on. The gas gauge was low, almost empty. She couldn't press on without gas. She couldn't buy rationed gas. She saw a parking lot, drove in. The attendant took the car, gave her a little stub.

  She walked away, one block to the main street. There were buses, a few cars. There were soldiers idling, laughing girls. Two M.P.'s swinging their clubs. Men and women. There were voices in English, voices in Spanish. There were picture theaters and restaurants, drug stores, shop windows, everything bright. For the moment she was covered by the city.

  She selected a larger restaurant, ordered coffee and a roll. She wouldn't take time for more. She must get away before they caught her. She'd added another crime: assault on an innocent girl. She was afraid to ask about the Greyhound station; she looked in the telephone booth, Fifth and Copper. She didn't know where Copper was but she wouldn't forget the street. The color of the girl's hair. She found Fifth, standing on the corner she saw the station a block away.

  She walked quickly to its doors. She didn't enter. The bus station would be the first place watched. She turned, crossed to the dark corner opposite. She was helpless, hopeless. She couldn't run any farther. She was caught. This was the end of the flight. She couldn't have endured it this long, all the violence and despair, the loneliness and terror, but that at the end of endurance Fran was waiting. He was waiting no longer. The spirit in her had died.

  This shadow where she cowered was a spired church. Marked with the cross. It would be open to the weary, the oppressed. She could rest a little before they came to take her. She went inside. There was scent of incense, she remembered then it was Sunday night, vespers must just be over. She slipped into a back pew, lowered her forehead to the cold, unyielding wood. If she could but remain here, if she could sleep until they came. If she could sleep forever. It didn't happen that way in life. You had to go on, you had to endure the ordeal. To be taken, to be returned, to face Paul's thin cruel mind, to be at his mercy— not have him at hers, as she had planned. She couldn't endure that. Yet she must.

  She couldn't. She lifted her head slowly. She needn't. She would go to the F.B.I., the real F.B.I., tell them everything. All about Maxl's death, what she knew of Jacques's death. She could give them the necklace, she didn't know what they would do with it but it would never be returned to Paul. She could tell everything from the very beginning. Everything but Fran. She needn't mention Fran. If she confessed to entering the United States without permission, if she confessed that was why she'd run and stolen and broken into houses and hit a girl on the head, they wouldn't ask about the Blackbirder. There was enough without the Blackbirder. She mustn't close that door of hope to other refugees. Whatever Fran had done to her personally, he was helping others.

  She would be locke
d up. The F.B.I. would intern her. That was the price of breaking the law. You must pay for breakage. It was so little. It couldn't be so bad to be locked up. Not in America. She wouldn't be ill-used. There wouldn't be marching gray ants below the prison window. She didn't know she'd been crying until she left the church. She wiped her face, the handkerchief smelled of mimosa. It didn't matter now. Come to me all you who are weary and oppressed. The words were as true as when He said them. Her burden was lifted. There was peace in capitulation.

  There was a hotel on the next corner but she didn't enter. She must avoid recognition, avoid the police. until she reached the F.B.I. She chose a bright, crowded drug store. The number was in the front of the book. She dialed it. Ring upon ring. No answer. She replaced the phone. No one at the office on Sunday night, She went out on the street. She must hide until morning. Hide where? She wouldn't be defeated now. She started walking, her hands dug into the pockets of her jeans, touching the few bills, the flashlight, the small black book. And out of what seemed a dim faraway she heard the whistle of a lonely train, she smelled the coal soot, she remembered a harsh but kindly voice, If you should want to look me up.

  She scuttled to the corner street light to find the address. Professor Otis Alberle, 417 North Hermosa. A taxi, no. She mustn't mark herself, she must remain a part of the crowd. She was shaking now lest she be taken before she could ask directions, reach North Hermosa. She braved another drug store, spoke to the cashier: “What bus do I take to Hermosa?”

  The girl was friendly. “Monte Vista-Sawmill. Going east.” She pointed. “Across the street on that corner.”

  Julie crossed, stood in the shadow of the cigar store. She wasn't alone waiting. There were four or five others. University girls, uniformed boys, a woman and a small boy. The bus came slowly. Julie climbed on in the midst of the others. She spoke softly to the driver. “Will you tell me where to get off to reach the four hundred block of North Hermosa?”

  “Sure.”

  She sat behind him, her back to the other passengers. The mimosa-scented coat collar half covered her face from the window. The wheels crawled under the pass by the Alvarado, up the hill, past schools, past hospitals, past the wide blocks of the University, on and on into dark residential streets. She was the last one on board. And her eyes were uncertain on the driver. “You didn't forget Hermosa?”

  “No, ma'am.” He was young. He chewed gum. He couldn't be one of theirs. “You a stranger here??”

  “Yes.” She didn't want to talk but he was talkative. It would be more suspicious if she were silent.

  “Army?”

  “No. University.”

  She let him ramble on about the football team, the coach, the war. He said finally, “Here you are. End of the line.” The bus stopped. “Up that way. This is Hermosa.” There was one young girl waiting on the corner. She and the driver exchanged hello's.

  Julie started up the street. 417. She used the torch. Not this. A few more. This was it. A clipped hedge, leafless now, a small white stucco house, gray in the darkness; a red-tiled roof, black now. There was a wide path, evergreen garnishing either side of the door. A studio arched window, shades half-drawn, the amber comfort of a lamp shining through.

  Julie took one breath. She walked up and rang the bell.

  The porch light beamed. She held her fists clenched. A man opened the door, the same young rumpled professor she'd seen at the station. She asked, “Professor Otis Alberle?”

  “Yes?”

  She saw beyond standing in the living-room the grizzled woman, in a housedress now. Julie called, “Please. It's I.”

  The man's puzzled head turned toward the older woman. She came into the hall.

  Julie said, “Don't you remember? You told me should I need— ”

  The man didn't stop her. She stepped into the hall. The woman said, “Why, it's the girl I told you about. The one from the train, Otis.”

  Julie said, “I do need help.” Her voice faded. “I need it terribly.”

  The woman's name was Mrs. Helm. She said, “Now whatever you have to tell us can wait until you've had this hot milk. I know when a person's used up. I haven't been a settlement nurse for years in Chicago for nothing. I can tell a person's condition quick enough.”

  Her son-in-law had a mild smile. “I'm sorry we've no extra coffee.”

  “Hot milk's better,” Mrs. Helm stated. “Time like this it's better. You drink it up then you can tell us anything you want. I spotted you on the train. I told Otis, didn't I, Otis? I said, ‘That girl's in trouble. She doesn't want anyone to know but she's in trouble.’ Cool as you please but every time that man— you remember the one?— looked at you, you shivered. Inside you. I know. I've seen people in trouble.” She broke off proudly. “I'm a grandmother.”

  “I'm a father,” the professor twinkled. “Don't forget that, Mother Helm.”

  “Your daughter?”

  “A boy. Three days ago. Both of them fine. I'm staying to help out when Margie— that's my daughter— gets home from the hospital. She'll need me. You can't get help these days. The war. Feel better now?”

  “Much better,” Julie said.

  The two watched her, waiting, trying not to be curious, trying to ignore the unprecedented intrusion of something strange in their nice normal existence.

  “I'm in trouble,” she began.

  “That man?”

  “Partly. I want to talk to the F.B.I. They aren't at the office tonight, Sunday, you know. I was afraid to stay alone until tomorrow, afraid if I did I wouldn't get a chance to talk to them then.”

  It was like a movie, a cheap book. They were amazed to but they pretended they weren't.

  “I feel— I feel ashamed coming to you this way. You don't know me. You don't know anything about me. But I didn't know what to do.”

  “You did right,” Mother Helm decided. “And what good are any of us if we can't tell when a person's in trouble and give them a hand?” She looked defiance at Otis.

  He said, “We'll do anything we can, Miss— ”

  “Juliet Marlebone.”

  “Well now, Juliet,” Mrs. Helm began, “you want to stay here tonight. No, it's no trouble at all. There's twin beds in the guest room. I can only sleep in one of them at a time. There's a bassinet, too— that room's going to be the nursery— but you won't crowd me and I won't crowd you. If Otis doesn't mind. It's Otis's house.”

  The mild man couldn't have refused the dominant mother-in-law if he'd wished. But he didn't wish. He was undeniably enjoying this vicarious entrance into raw life. It wasn't something that normally dared invade the University cloister. He said, “Miss Marlebone is welcome.”

  “Then tomorrow— ” Mrs. Helm looked down her nose. “Are those all the clothes you have?”

  Julie nodded. “I lost mine. I borrowed these.” She took a deep breath. “I can't let you do this without knowing that it might make trouble for you.”

  Mrs. Helm bristled. “Trouble? Because a friend stays the night?”

  Otis was a little dubious. “You're not an escaped Nazi?”

  “Look at her!” Mrs. Helm snorted. “Just look at her and ask that!”

  “I'm not,” Julie told him honestly. “I'm running away from the Nazis. I've been running from them for three years. But I've done things I shouldn't in getting away. There's probably a police alarm out for me now. I hit a woman and took her coat— this one. I only borrowed it but that's hard to prove. And I stole her car— borrowed that too. It's downtown in a parking lot. I'll mail her the stub tomorrow but that won't excuse what I've done. There've been worse things than that— ”

  “You've not murdered anyone?” Otis was more dubious.

  “No, I haven't. But I've seen two men murdered because they spoke with me. You see, I'm not talking about little trouble when I say trouble. I haven't any right to involve you. I hadn't any right to come here. I came because I was desperate. I haven't a friend.” Her eyes were empty. “Those I thought were friends— aren't.” She
held her hands tightly together. “I don't want you to be in trouble. I don't want you to treat me as a guest. If you'd only let me hide tonight in your attic or your basement. Then you could pretend you didn't know I was there. I wouldn't ask that only I must stay safe until I can talk with the F.B.I.”

  Mrs. Helm Was subdued now. “You can't have done anything really bad or you wouldn't be trying to reach the F.B.I.”

  “I have to tell you the truth. In normal times, under normal conditions, some of the things I've done would be really bad. Nor am I trying to excuse them. It is only that when you are fighting for your life, and for the life of someone dear to you, you forget values. You do things you know are wrong because you must. No one dies easily.”

  Otis's eyes were quiet, understanding. He said, “We have no attic, no basement. Few southwestern homes do, Miss Marlebone. If we did, we would still offer you a bedroom. And if trouble comes, we'll stand by you, helpless as we will be in the face of real trouble. We can't do otherwise. We wouldn't know how to turn a beggar into the snow.”

  “Thank you.” She raised her eyes. “I want you to know that I was as helpless as you when I left France three years ago. I learned because I had to. To live.”

  “We could be forewarned. Who might come?”

  Julie said, “I know I wasn't followed. But the police will have my description. If they can trace me, they might come. Or those men— the ones I believe to be Gestapo agents— they might come. I don't believe anyone will. There's only the driver of the bus to remember me, if it occurred to anyone I might stay in Albuquerque. But no one knows I have"— her smile was small—"friends here.”

  “Tomorrow you will see the F.B.I.?”

  “If I remain free until then. Do you think they would be willing to come to me? They do go around to investigate tips. In New York they once called on a woman I knew. I'm afraid to appear on the street. By tomorrow the police will all be waiting for me. If the police get to me first, I won't reach the F.B.I.”

  Otis was dubious again.

  “Because the police in Santa Fe believe that Blaike— the man in gray— and his friend are members of the F.B.I. They believe it so entirely that they released me in the custody of those men last night. I know them to be connected with the Nazis.”