The Desperate Hours

by Joeseph Hays

  “Stop rubbing your knuckles, Deputy,” Chuck Wright said easily, but not angrily. “I don’t bully-” But he hesitated then, seeing a look in the other’s eyes.

  His attention attracted by an object on the top of the bureau, Jesse Webb stood up, strolled over, picked up the Japanese automatic, gave it a thorough examination, even checking the clip. Then he simply stared at Chuck Wright, waiting.

  “I’ve got a permit,” Chuck said at last.

  “Permit be damned!” Jesse Webb barked. “What’d you have in mind for this, Wright? And don’t take me around any more curves, boy. I’ve been around too many today. Now!”

  “I don’t want to have to use it,” Chuck Wright said then, and very slowly, his gaze meeting the deputy’s.

  Jesse Webb lifted his brows once, fumbled in his shirt pocket for his own cigarette, lighted it with a wooden match cupped in his palms. “You had me going for a little while,” he conceded, blowing smoke. “You’re not fronting for those bastards, are you, boy? You want to kill ’em just as much as I do.” When Chuck said nothing after that, when he didn’t move at all but his helplessness tempted him, just for a second, to trust this tall, laconic character, Jesse added, almost too casually: “What’s her name?”

  “Maybe it’s my own family,” Chuck said, stalling, cautious again.

  Jesse Webb smashed his right fist into his left palm, and the violent impact cracked like a pistol shot in the small room. “I said let’s not play! Your folks came home an hour ago from the Meridian Hills Country Club, and you yourself were in their house earlier. That’s how you came by that Japanese gadget, isn’t it? Now let’s have it, Wright. What’s her name?”

  Chuck Wright took such a deep breath that his shoulders heaved. “All right, Deputy. You’ve got it right—so far. But I’m not going to give you the name, and I’ll tell you why. You’ll get it soon enough, way you work, and you were right when you said those people needed time. They’ve gone to a lot of trouble —God knows how much—to keep this from getting to the police.”

  “What the hell do you think I’m going to do when I find out?” cried Jesse Webb, all the weariness and confusion there on his narrow face. “What kind of idiots do people think the police are? You think I’m going to blow up the house to get those rats?”

  “What will you do?” Chuck Wright asked.

  The question riled Jesse Webb, because of his own uncertainty in this matter, and Chuck saw his knuckles whiten as he pushed back his coat and clutched at his belt, planting his long legs. “I’ll be ready for them, that’s what. They can’t stay in there forever.”

  This brought Chuck Wright around full, sharp and flush against his basic fear, the fear that carried his reluctance: “There can’t be any shooting when they go, either. You read Mr.-you read that letter.”

  Jesse Webb shouted, “I know that, too!”

  “But there might be. You can’t control that completely, can you, Deputy? State Police, FBI, deputies, maybe the city cops —one guy, just one man, has to get the wrong idea, be tempted to try to pick one of them off when they come out.” He reached out involuntarily and took hold of the deputy’s arms with both hands. “You must have been in the war, Deputy. You don’t have the control we had then, and even then, by God, it didn’t always hold them when they got jumpy. There can’t be any bloodshed.” He was speaking in a low, hoarse whisper and shaking the taller man with both gripped hands. “There can’t be any blood—because it won’t just be those vermin who get it. You know who’ll be killed, don’t you? You know. If you don’t, damn you, what am I wasting my breath for?”

  After that, there was a long silence. During it, the tall man removed Chuck Wright’s hands, but without any suggestion or hint of anger now, or of annoyance. Shaking his head, he pushed the boy down to a sitting position on the bed and stood above him, saying in a soft, almost gentle manner, “There’s going to be blood, boy. I reckon you better get that straight right now.” He was a man arguing with himself, sharpening his conclusions for someone else so as to get them clear in his own mind. “Glenn Griffin’s not going to take anybody along for a ride and then just drop ’em off and thanks for the pleasant company. If you think that, kid, you don’t know the guy the way I do. So what are we going to do? We’re going to take the opportunity, when and if it comes, to get as many of those three as possible without sacrificing anyone else. What else can we do, boy? What else is there for us?”

  “I couldn’t make that decision for them. I can’t tell you, Deputy. I’m sorry.”

  Jesse turned abruptly away and stubbed out his cigarette. “Okay. Okay, kid. I honest-to-God don’t know whether you’re making a mistake or not. I honest-to-God don’t know what I’d do if I was in your shoes. But I’m in mine, and I got a job. So that’s the way it is. If I make a mistake-”

  The ringing of the telephone cut across his words. Without so much as a glance at Chuck, he picked it up. Chuck Wright stood up, a coldness in him now, a terrible certainty, as he heard the deputy say, “H’lo.” Then: “Speaking.” The tall man listened, his eyes swinging slowly to rest on Chuck but his face impassive. “Dead?” Again he listened. “Damn! What about the trooper?” He nodded automatically. “Fifteen minutes, Tom.”

  Chuck’s voice had frozen in his throat.

  “Put on your shoes, boy. You’re not sleeping anyway.” Jesse Webb involuntarily dropped his arm against the holster under his shoulder. “I’m going to take you for a fast ride. Show you the kind of filth you’re letting this girl of yours take chances with.” As Chuck drew on his shoes, Jesse Webb, at the door now, continued: “It may be good news, kid. One of ’em’s dead.”

  Dead seemed to Chuck Wright a flat and inadequate word, hardly the truth at all, when applied to the thing at which he stared, along with Deputy Webb, only eighteen minutes later. The siren still wailed in his brain. And the flashing bleakness of the city streets caught in the red glare, together with the sensations of terrific speed and intense cold, and now the sight of this under the blanket that the fat deputy was displaying so casually, all came together in him and he was sick. Hot, flushed and faint. He turned away, took a few uncertain steps along the edge of the highway, his eyes seeing in an unsteady flash the overturned trailer truck, the harsh white illumination of spotlights, the oddly white faces of the curious spectators, and above, that still dark and motionless sky. He was reminded again of the war, and with the memory a little of the heat that scalded his flesh faded away and left him standing, off from the others a little, listening, hearing but not quite comprehending.

  “You sure it’s him?” Jesse Webb was asking, and even his voice sounded stunned and dim with nausea.

  “It’s the young one all right, Jess,” the fat deputy said. Another voice caused Chuck to turn, to watch them there, all three figures edging away from the blanket now: Deputy Webb, tall, bent forward at the waist, hands in pockets, the fat deputy with his hat shoved back, and this third man in State Police uniform. This man was small and he had a hard, crisp look to him, and when he spoke, his voice reflected this: “MacKenzie didn’t even know the slob had a gun, didn’t even suspect it. Well, son, you ready to treat this thing seriouslike now? Two killings enough for you?”

  “Don’t start riding me again,” Deputy Webb warned in a whisper. “One of ’em’s dead, isn’t he? Don’t ride me, Lieutenant Fredericks. I didn’t plug your man.” With this he prowled away, inclining his head slightly toward the fat man. “What about the car?”

  But Lieutenant Fredericks followed, and Chuck could hear him speaking, sharply and curtly, while he took off his hat and wiped the silver-gray stubble of hair: “No matter who did it, Mac’s on a operating table, son. If we’d been moving all day ’stead of playing around-”

  Jesse Webb whirled, and Chuck frowned, listening: “Look, Lieutenant. I’m no superman. Where’s Carson? He’s been playing it my way, too. I don’t think knocking down some doors would have saved your man MacKenzie. I think ringing doorbells and flashing red lights
might have killed other people, though. I’ve tried to get the Sheriff back here, but he’s a hard man to reach when he’s hunting in the woods, hear? If he comes, he can take over. Meanwhile, you’ve got one dead Griffin and one wounded trooper. God knows I’m sorry about Mac, but you stay away from my throat, Lieutenant. I’ve got enough on my mind.”

  At this Lieutenant Fredericks replaced his hat on his head, swiped the handkerchief over his small, hard-edged face. “Personal grudges,” he said, “got no place in police work.”

  “Personal grudges, hell!” Jesse exploded. “Let’s get on with this investigation. Who does the car belong to? Where’d he get the car?”

  “Easy,” the fat deputy said, and as Chuck turned and walked slowly along the edge of the highway, making his way toward a car some distance away, parked at an odd angle on the shoulder of the road, he heard behind him: “Damnedest thing of all, Jess. It’s gonna take some time to trace that car ’cause there are no plates on her. No identification of any kind. If it wasn’t for those plates missing like that, MacKenzie wouldn’t even have stopped in the diner. We can’t check the clothes labels till the stores open in the morning, but I’ve roused Bonham out of bed to start work on the motor serial. That’ll take forever. Then there’s the gun—if it’s registered at all, that is. Nothing else in the car to help. Only it looks like it might belong to a woman. Few hairpins-”

  Chuck, with the man’s voice fading behind him, was paused five yards from the small black coupe. The sight of it, more than the shocking evidence of violence all along the highway, reached him with the impact of a blow. He had no idea how long he stood there, limp and suddenly cold again.

  “Well, kid?” Jesse Webb’s voice asked near his ear. “Well, you know who that belongs to? Save us a lot of time.”

  “Maybe the other two have gone, too,” Chuck said without turning.

  “Possible. Let’s you and I drive by the house and find out.” But Chuck only shook his head, a haggard, negative movement that choked off the hope before it could take root. Give the name and address to Deputy Webb and let that hard-nosed State Policeman back there get hold of it, he was thinking, and then what? Sirens, spotlights, tear gas and a machine gun set up on the Hilliard lawn? No thanks.

  At Chuck’s refusal, Jesse Webb swore under his breath and passed him; he threw open the door of Cindy’s coupe, probed about inside with a flashlight. The familiar appearance of the car might have done it; whatever caused it now, an idea returned to Chuck Wright, an original idea, one he’d had a long time ago now, when he first learned what was happening. His mind darted in its original direction again. Perhaps there was something he could do.

  He turned and walked back to the shadowy circle of spectators, found the man whose cap he had noticed earlier, stepped up to him. “Your cab here? You want a fare?”

  “Yes, sir,” the taxi driver said, beginning to shamble toward his cab. “A man’s stomach can only take so much, huh.” Chuck climbed into the back seat, sat down stiffly, and gave the driver the address of the club. With the key to the back door of the Hilliard house hard in his palm, Chuck said, “Just step on it, and no talk. I’m tired.” But that was a lie; he wasn’t, not in the least now. “We’ll read all about it in the morning paper.”

  “Ernie,” Jesse Webb was saying, hunched over the counter in the diner twenty minutes later, waiting for the coroner’s preliminary report, “Ernie, look, I can’t explain why, but this can’t get in the paper, especially not in the morning paper. Believe me, I’ve got reasons.”

  Carson, the FBI man, who had arrived while Jesse was searching the black coupe, nodded. “Make it an accident. Unidentified victim.”

  Ernie, who was young and muscular with a blond crew cut, unbuttoned his trench coat. “I’ll pass the request along to the city editor, Jess. It’s the best I can do.”

  “Damn!” Jesse rasped. “You’ll do more than that. You’ll do what Mr. Carson said. Unidentified victim, accident. It don’t matter to you, but we got a case on our hands, and we can’t let this guy’s brother know we got him.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t go into that. Can’t you newsboys ever take a cop’s word for anything? It’s important, Ernie.”

  Ernie inclined his pockmarked young face and thought with pursed lips. “Jess, look at it this way. You’ve got a job. That’s one thing. I’ve got one, too, and that’s another. This is a story, a helluva big one and you know it. You’re asking me to sit on it and then the afternoon papers’ll blow it sky-high and I’ll be left up a creek.”

  Patiently, then, very slowly, Jesse said, “There are human lives at stake, Ernie.”

  “Who?”

  At this Jesse smiled. He liked men who knew their jobs; he liked men who did them. And he envied the straight-line, uncomplicated thinking of those men, like Lieutenant Fredericks, however much their methods annoyed him. “Stick with me, Ernie. There’s a story breaking, believe me. It’s bigger than this. If you use this one, if Glenn Griffin gets hold of this and gets scared-”

  Ernie held up a flat palm. “I said I’d try. Eli talk to Roland. But I got to write it.”

  Jesse Webb nodded. He had the feeling then that all these precautions, plugging one hole after another, were all so much waste motion. After his talk with Chuck Wright, after he’d clarified all the potentials for himself and could find no way out for the people, whoever they were, he had begun to give in to this sense of hopelessness. Strange thing, too—he had, in the last few hours now, almost forgotten Uncle Frank and whatever personal reasons he might once have imagined important in this case. What concerned him now—and on a deep, personal level—was the plight of that family, the man who wrote that letter. As yet, he hadn’t even reached the question of what Hank Griffin’s actions tonight—why was he alone in that car? —might mean in relation to those people and to the other two convicts. Jesse would get to that, though. He had, it now appeared, plenty of time—since he was working his way to the name of those people in the most laborious, tedious and roundabout manner; since, dammit, that Wright boy had disappeared after taking one look at that black coupe.

  As it turned out, however, Jesse had no time at all. Before he could believe it, although he didn’t waste any time on amazement now, the long wait was over. In the completely casual and matter-of-fact way that one never expects vital matters to reach a climax, the anticipated moment arrived. He looked up from the counter, saw Tom Winston half-turning from the phone, motioning to him with one beefy hand. He slipped off the stool, telling Ernie again to try, please, to keep the death of the kid dark for a while, and then he walked along the counter, turned and joined Tom Winston at the same phone Hank Griffin had used over an hour ago now, somewhere around 2 o’clock. Tom’s wind-reddened globe of face looked up at him, and a grin that held no amusement leaped along his full lips as he spoke, whispering so that none of the others at the counter could overhear: “Come outside, Jess.”

  They went out, using the door through which Hank Griffin had plunged just before his death, and then Tom Winston touched Jesse Webb’s arm—a very unusual gesture for Tom Winston. “The gun,” he said. “Jess, the little black automatic Griffin used on MacKenzie. It’s registered. It’s in the name of Hilliard. Daniel C. Hilliard.”

  That was all there was to it. After all those hours, it was as simple as that. Jesse’s mind didn’t stumble; it did not have to swing slowly and uncertainly backwards, examining the list of customers that had been found in Mr. Patterson’s house by the dump; it did not have to go over, one by one, the names of the people who had written checks to Mr. Patterson yesterday morning. The name Eleanor Hilliard leaped sharp and clear to the foreground of his thoughts. Nor did his memory exert any special effort in crawling over that map of the neighborhood north of the city limits, pinpointing the exact block involved. He had it all, it once, and there was in him no explosion of joy, no violence of excitement, no particular triumph. Only a slow cold something stirring far down inside. And still more questions
now, the inevitable ones: What now? Where do you go from here?

  Then Jesse Webb began giving more instructions, in a very low and controlled voice, his eyes concentrating on the puffs of steam leaping from his lips as he spoke in the cold air.

  Forty-five minutes later—it was almost 4 o’clock but the sky would not brighten even slightly before 6—Jesse Webb, driving a dark brown car whose appearance could in no way be associated with the police, was approaching the Hilliard house from the west on Kessler Boulevard. He didn’t like the knock in the motor of Ernie’s car, which he had borrowed, but the reporter had called after him that it wouldn’t give out on him if he didn’t have to give it the works. In a very short time now, he would have a complete report on Daniel C. Hilliard and family, but he could already judge a few things for himself: good income; typical sort of life; excellent neighborhood, not upper crust but middle-class comfortable. Also, he had taken the responsibility of not informing Lieutenant Fredericks of what he had learned.

  If it came to a showdown, he’d have to take the matter over Fredericks’ head and let someone else, perhaps Carson or Carson’s superior in the Bureau, make the decision. Until such time, he’d do it his way—and hope. Winston would give the information to Carson, of course, and further action would be decided upon at 4:30 in the kitchen of Joe’s restaurant in Broad Ripple. Meanwhile, four patrol cars had been alerted, their positions shifted to cover, still inconspicuously, the possible exit routes from the Hilliard house. But they had no specific instructions, as yet, as to what to do in the event Griffin and Robish attempted to escape in the company of the Hilliard family. This unresolved and therefore doubly dangerous state of things was what that kid, Chuck Wright, feared, and Jesse wished he could blame the boy for holding back the name which Jesse now had, anyway.