Oh Jesus. If Jack’s here on a Thursday then it’s almost dead certain Bert’s here too.
It’s just what she’s hoped to avoid.
Someone else speaks—it may be Bert’s voice; too indistinct to be sure—and several voices join in the laughter. She hears the rattle and chink of chips on the table.
There’s a whole damn gang of them in there. Jesus.
But there’s nothing you can do about that and this is hardly a bright time to turn around and flee. You’re almost home, child. Unless they’ve changed things all around in this house, Ellen is just up those stairs.
Let’s go.
She goes up the steps quickly, surrounded by the familiar cedar smell of the house.
At the top there’s one of those three-foot-high expandable gates across the doorway, the kind they use to prevent small children from falling down staircases. Rather than risk a noise by opening it she steps over it.
The rattle of poker chips always used to annoy her. It’s one of those sounds you can’t ignore. It used to keep her awake half the night.
On her left the gun room is unoccupied: bookcases filled with Bert’s big picture tomes on wildlife and ballistics; recliner chair, lamp, couch, gun rack bristling with weapons, big console TV under the shelves of pirated videocassette movies.
“You what?”
“Said I raise forty dollars.”
“Marjorie?” Bert is hollering. “You want to go get us some sandwiches? Slice up some of that venison from last night.”
“You gotta be out of your gourd, man. I got trip nines staring you right in the face.”
“You want to play cards or just brag about your nines?”
The sound of a nearby door latch. In sudden alarm she wheels back into the den and flattens herself against the wall just inside the doorway; and hears footsteps march forward along the landing.
She sees Marjorie Quirini go past in the hallway; recognizes Marjorie’s broad beam and the apron ties. There’s some squeaking and snapping as the child gate is opened and shut: Marjorie’s heavy feet plod down the stairs.
Christ. That was close.
She must have been dusting or something.
She goes back out into the hall. The bathroom on the right is empty. There are two possible routes here: through the bathroom to the master bedroom and then out into the landing; or forward to the landing and then along past the row of bedroom doors. But the landing is an open loft above the big front room and the voices are below that balcony. If the furniture hasn’t been rearranged the poker table is in full view of the landing.
So she goes in through the bathroom and opens the connecting door a crack.
No one in the big bedroom. She looks at her watch. Twelve-twenty.
Get a move on.
She remembers the fourposter bed. Bert’s previous wife bought it when they redecorated the place after the fire six years ago.
She goes past it to the door and softly eases it open.
This will be the worst part: the gauntlet between this door and the nursery twenty feet to the right along the balcony. Every step of it will be in sight of a good part of the big living room below.
“Look at that. The case nine. Four nines. I lose with jacks full. Can you believe it?”
“I told you not to mess around with my nines, stupid.”
Then she realizes. Of course. All I’ve got to do is lie down and crawl. They won’t see a thing.
She pokes her head out and looks both ways along the landing. Nothing stirs.
Someone coughs. “You want to deal the cards or just sit there looking stunned?”
She hears Bert’s voice clearly for the first time: “I think the son of a bitch shorted us the two kilos on purpose. I think he got a better price from somebody else.”
Feeling idiotic she gets down on her face and begins to crawl along the baseboard. Out under the railing past the edge of the balcony she can see the upper portion of the high plate glass picture windows that run across the front of the house.
Another voice now. Vaguely familiar but she can’t identify it: “What’s wrong with that? You get a better deal someplace, you take it. Hey—am I right or am I right?”
“Not after he agreed to the score.” Bert is petulant. “We had a deal with the son of a bitch.”
She’s halfway along the wall now. Hope to heaven nobody comes up the stairs right now.
Through the picture windows she sees the helicopter and now she realizes whose voice that is: George Talmy the pilot. So he’s still here after all.
She crawls as far as the nursery door. There’s a big cutout of Snoopy thumbtacked above the latch.
She opens it silently.
A big woman in a white uniform—a stranger—sits watching TV on a small portable color set with the sound turned way down.
The baby napping in the crib is only a bundle of sheets and a clutter of toys from here.
The big nurse is lifting five-pound hand weights. Up slowly and down again. Her biceps look like Muhammad Ali’s.
Oh shit.
51 In the rack are six hunting rifles and four handguns. A heavy chain connects all of them, running through the trigger guards, fastened with a thick brass-frame padlock.
It’s the same lock. Her key opens it. As silently as possible she pulls the links of the chain through the trigger housing of the Luger.
Despite its heft it is the smallest caliber revolver on the rack. Any of the others would be a lot more powerful and menacing but this is the only one she’s sure she knows how to use because Bert forced her to memorize the procedures of shooting and reloading and cleaning the damned thing. If you’re ever alone up here, he kept saying—as if she ever was up here in the woods without the company of Bert or the Quirinis or half a dozen of the deer-hunting fraternity and their ditsy wives and girlfriends.
It isn’t loaded of course. She remembers his lectures about keeping loaded guns around the house. She unlocks the ammunition drawer and finds the box of .22 magnum cartridges; fumbles a bit loading the chambers but finally has it full; puts the box back in the drawer and locks everything up and carries the heavy revolver to the door.
She goes back through the bathroom and the master bedroom and out onto the landing. Belly-flat again she creeps toward the nursery.
“You want lettuce and mayonnaise?” That’s Marjorie, her big voice echoing from the kitchen.
“I’m dealing. Seven to a possible straight. Three’s, a pair. Nine on the flush, that’s three clubs. And a jack on the table. Treys bet. You guys want mayo?”
“Sure.”
“Why not.”
“Marjorie? Mayo’s fine, anything else you got. Maybe some horseradish.”
Jack Sertic’s voice now, reasoning calmly: “Hey, look Al, like he never gave us trouble before. He delivered three kilos on time. Good quality stuff.”
George Talmy again: “What you gonna do, Al, waste the poor bastard just because he comes up short once in his life?”
And now Bert’s reply, husky with insinuation. “George, the way you talk I get the feeling sometimes you believe you’ve been promoted from helicopter driver to partner.”
Jack laughs at him. “The amount of money you pay him, he qualifies as senior partner.”
George says, “You think I’m out of line, Al? I don’t like to feel I’m just some kind of servant around here, you know. But all the same I know who’s in charge. I don’t give you any real lip, do I?”
“Al, you gonna bet those threes or what?”
She shuts the door behind her. She doesn’t think she’s made any sound but the nurse looks around—alarmed perhaps by some subtle shift in the light.
The weights are on the floor by the chair. The nurse sees her, sees the revolver in her hand. The nurse’s eyes whip around past the crib to the table in the corner.
It draws her attention to the big pistol on the table.
“Don’t. I’ll use this if I have to.”
“You’re her, ai
n’t you.”
She moves across the room, keeping her distance, making a circle around the nurse. At the crib she looks down.
My God she’s grown. She’s beautiful. Radiant. My lovely child. Still got those funny freckles around her nostrils. They’ll be cute when she grows up. Dear Lord—it hasn’t even been three months but she seems twice as big … my darling …
She feels herself soften; as if her body is growing heavier. Tears flow into her eyes. I have missed you so much, my love …
Stop that!
She snaps her face around toward the nurse, who hasn’t stirred. But you can tell by the shrewd narrowing of her eyes that she’s gauging her opportunities, waiting for her moment.
“I’m her mother.”
The big woman answers with a grunt of sound that conveys no meaning.
“I’m taking her with me. Do you think I won’t use this on you if you try to stop me?”
“They told me about you,” the nurse says with dogged bovine obscurity.
“It’s important. You’ve got to understand I’m serious about this. She’s my child.” She hisses it vehemently: “She’s my child.”
The nurse looks at the revolver, looks at her face, looks her up and down. There is absolutely no clue to what she’s thinking. “All right, miss. What do you want me to do?”
Carefully now. Aim the revolver at her. “Stand up.”
The woman gets out of her chair and looms. Got to be at least five-eleven. Maybe six feet.
“What’s your name?”
“Mrs. Strickland.”
“First name?”
“Melinda.”
“All right, Melinda. Go over there and face the wall. Put your hands on top of your head. I want your nose right against the wall.”
The nurse obeys. “Now what?”
“You don’t move until I tell you to move. You speak only if I tell you to speak. Not before. Understand? Say yes.”
“Yes.”
“Now don’t move.”
Testing it, she takes a pace back and a pace forward, making a few noises, cocking and uncocking the revolver, holding it ready, watching the nurse. The nurse doesn’t move.
An actress on the television screen is emoting: shouting, striding back and forth, declaiming her lines, chewing up all the scenery on the set. The volume is turned very low; the shouting is barely audible. “You lied to me! You told me Steven was my natural brother! For twenty years you’ve been living this beastly horrible lie and you’ve made me part of it!”
All right. Got to take the chance.
She reaches down into the crib with both arms and sets the revolver down amid the plastic toys. While she checks the baby’s diaper and wraps the thin sheet around Ellen (a blanket? no; the day is too hot for it) she keeps looking up at the nurse’s broad back; and she keeps talking in a quiet steady voice:
“Listen to me now, Melinda. If you shout—if you do anything at all to draw their attention—I’ll shoot you. Then I’ll take the baby and run for it. They’ll stop to examine your dead body and that’ll give me time to get away.”
Ellen hasn’t awakened yet. If we’re very lucky she won’t wake up until we’re out of the house. One hand under her spine now; the other under her head. Pick her up. Cradle her in the left arm, Ellen’s head in the crook of your elbow. Make sure you’ve got her in a firm grasp.
Now pick up the revolver again with your free hand.
And keep talking all the way:
“You understand? Even if you’re dead you’ll still slow them down. You’re just as useful to me dead as you are alive. If I have to kill you to save my baby then that’s what I’ll do. You think about that, Melinda. Think hard.”
Straighten up now. Adjust the baby in your arm. Don’t drop the Goddamn gun—be careful, idiot!
“You can turn around now. Go over to the door.”
The nurse lowers her hands and looks around. If she’s surprised by what she sees she gives no sign of it. There is menace in her uncomplaining cooperation. She walks on white rubber-soled shoes to the door and stands there, just waiting. Very calm. What does it take to upset the cow?
The television is peddling caffeine-free coffee. She comes past it and waggles the gun at the nurse. “Are you listening, Melinda?”
“Tell me what you want, miss.”
“I want you to get down on the floor. Then you pull the door open—all the way open, right back to the doorstop—and then you crawl out onto the landing. You stay close to the wall and you crawl on your belly all the way into the master bedroom, so they can’t see you from down below. I’m going to be right behind you with this gun. Do you know anything about guns?”
“Some.”
“This is a twenty-two magnum. That mean anything to you?”
“High velocity, I guess.”
“You’re a nurse. Ever worked in an operating room?”
“No. I’m not an RN. I’m a practical nurse.”
“But you’ve had some training in anatomy.”
The nurse nods, acknowledging it.
She curls her thumb over the hammer of the revolver and levels it toward the nurse’s wide face. “If I fire it right up your asshole—I’ll let you picture what it’ll do to your insides. It’ll rip all the way through and probably tear the top of your skull off on its way out.”
The nurse’s expression never changes but her throat thickens when she swallows. It’s reaction enough.
“All right, Melinda. Down on the floor and open the door. Let’s go.”
The baby yawns.
52 The baby’s eyes pop open and she recognizes the familiar green flash of them. She smiles down and croons very softly to Ellen; cradles and cuddles her; wraps the sheet a little tighter around her.
The baby stretches—arms and legs thrusting out in all directions, shoving her hand, painfully poking a breast—she has to hold the kid in both arms to keep her secure but she’s still got the gun in her hand and her eyes on the nurse; and the nurse clearly has made up her mind not to take stupid chances but to wait for a sensible opportunity.
Don’t give her one.
“Go to sleep, Ellen. Go to sleep, little baby. When you wake up everything’s going to be wonderful.”
The baby’s mouth works. But the eyes drift shut and after a few minutes she points toward the door with the revolver and the nurse gets down on hands and knees, pulls the door open wide, drops flat and worms her way out of the room.
Stay right behind her now. Don’t let her go around any corners out of sight. Keep her in view at all times.
Below, Jack Sertic says, “It’s not like there’s a deadline or anything. We can fill the gap. I’ll phone Montreal, the stuff can be airborne in two hours.”
“Never mind,” Bert says. “We’ve got enough to handle with the flight coming in tonight and the one coming in Saturday midnight. Talking about eight, ten million wholesale. What time’s it?”
“Twelve thirty. Few minutes past.”
The baseboard has dust webs and flecks of dried mud from hunting boots. Marjorie never was much good at keeping things clean.
“Got the firepots ready out on the field?”
Come on, Melinda, you can move faster than that.
“I hate these midnight pickups any more. Are these cards made? You get older, you start going to sleep earlier. I don’t keep the kind of hours I used to. You want to cut the cards? When I was a kid I was a real night owl, never saw the sun before two, three in the afternoon sometimes. But I don’t know. Now I’m lucky if I stay awake for the ten o’clock news on channel five. Queen, four, nine, big ace. Dealer control. Ace bets five. Come on, everybody fold, I’m not proud, I want the antes.”
If the baby wakes up now and starts to cry …
Watching the heavy haunches roll from side to side she’s thinking, Melinda—what an absurd name for this water buffalo. My God—from this angle this scene is pure farce.
“What’s the bet?”
“Al bet five bucks
on the ace.”
“Without me.”
“Fold.”
“Hell with it. Take the antes.”
“Shit. I got wired aces—back to back—and what happens? They chicken out on me. What a bunch of pinheads. How’m I gonna make my fortune off you pinheads?”
“Your deal, George.”
In the bedroom she pushes the door nearly shut and stands up; she crosses to the bathroom door and looks through to the hall and then quickly turns and points the revolver at the nurse; but Melinda is still lying on the floor waiting for instructions.
Presumably Marjorie is still downstairs preparing sandwiches for the boys. If we time this right we can sneak out the back while she’s serving lunch in the front room.
“Okay.” She keeps her voice down. “Don’t talk. Stand up. Face the wall there until I tell you to move.”
She goes back to the door and stands with her ear by the open crack, listening to the clink of poker chips and the voices of the men below as they idle away time waiting for an airplane in the darkness.
Now the stillness ticks. She caresses the baby, hugs her close, listens to the sound of her breathing—reconstructing on the psychic bridge between them the lines of contact and understanding that are familiar but too long disused. We’re going to have to learn each other all over again.…
Two things happen simultaneously: two voices. Melinda whispering, “I got to stand here all afternoon like a bump on a log or what?” and, down below in the front room, George Talmy’s voice—“Hey, those look real good. I never get tired of good cured venison.”
“Shut up,” she hisses at the nurse. She hears Marjorie’s voice below: “You want beer or what?”
Bert: “Beer’s fine. Just bring us a six-pack, we’ll sort it out. Thanks, Marjorie.”
She comes past Melinda, moving swiftly now. “Come on. Keep quiet. Move.”
She opens the child gate. A bit of a squeak; nobody is likely to question it—if they hear it and think about it at all they’ll take it for the nurse going downstairs to get a bite of lunch.
She goes downstairs first, going down sideways one step at a time, keeping the gun and one eye on Melinda behind her while she negotiates the stairs. At the second step up from the bottom she stops. She warns Melinda with a gesture and the nurse stops three treads above.
Necessity Page 17
