Black-Eyed Stranger (21 page)

“Because—because … Sam, tell them.”

“Not me,” Sam said. “Let it go.”

“He would have killed Sam for interfering. Because of his pride, his—his kind of honor.”

Alan sighed and looked patient. “Ambielli died for his honor? Ah, Kay.…”

“Sam, please. You tell them.” He didn't move his head or open his black eyes.

“But, if what you say …” Her father at least looked less angry and more troubled now, “Surely Lynch could have spared us.”

“There were better ways,” Sam said. “Lots of better ways. I made a fine mess of it. Shouldn't have left my seat on the aisle. Come on, put me in jail. Glad to go. Quiet place. Just don't excite yourself, Katherine.”

“Don't call me Katherine.” She nearly wept.

“Excuse me, Miss Salisbury.”

She wailed.

Alan said, “Kay, I
can
listen and I've
been
listening. And what I hear simply does not add up. Suppose he feared for you, as you say? And risked his life for you, as
he
says?
Why
a man like Lynch—”

“A man of my type,” Sam muttered.

“Shut up, Sam Lynch. Yes, go on, Alan.”

“Why would he do that for you, Kay?”

Alan really asked. Surely he would listen to the answer. She considered carefully. “Why, because he loves me,” she said slowly. “It's the only word I can—” Alan's chin jerked up. “I'm not using it the usual way, not the ordinary sense, Alan!”

“What other sense is there?” Dulain said, white in the face. “I thought you had met just once. I must be wrong.”

Sam had his head in his hands. “Do you give up, sister?”

“No,” she blazed.

“Pray do.” Sam rocked in the chair. “Spare us. Spare
me,
and let it go.”

“One human being,” Kay began slowly, “can just … care for another.”

“Certainly,” Alan said.

“No,” she cried. “Alan! Dad?”

“I think,” Salisbury was deeply troubled, “I think
you believe
he was your friend, Kay. Whether I do …”

“Thank you for that much respect, Dad.” She forced Alan's eyes to hers. “Will you put this whole thing the way I suggest?”

He was stony-eyed. “Too late,” he said stiffly.

“Will you enjoy hearing all this in some courtroom?”

“Kay, please. Naturally, you are …”—she listened for the word to fall—”overwrought,” said Alan.

She stood up and she was very angry. She knew she looked glittery and dangerous. “Perhaps it was more what you think than you thought,” she said coldly. “Sam is a pretty glamorous figure to a romantic young thing, an innocent fun-loving child like me. Perhaps I wasn't fetched. I came. Perhaps it was … oh, a week end. Any courtroom would catch on quite quickly, as quickly as you, Alan. Are we going to let it go at that?”

Alan said, turning from white to red, “Why?
Why
are you fighting for him?”

“For Sam? Why, because I love him,” she said quietly, “although not quite as you understand it.”

Sam said in a matter-of-fact voice, “I'd rather be in jail than listen to any more of this stuff. Thanks just the same. Good try, sister. We'd crucify you if you tried that. Me and Dulain.”

“W-would you?”

“Just be quiet,” he said. “We've all got our reputations. Let some of us keep some of them.” He got off that chair. “You're a cute kid.”

She exploded into tears, and Alan caught her to him.

Chapter 21

“LET me go?” Sam said, low voiced. “Don't you think it would be better, if I go?”

Alan snapped, “You're not cleared of any of it.”

“Let me take Kay home.” The father was distressed. “She mustn't cry so. She's not herself.”

Sam said, “She's overwrought.” His head hung.

“Alan, for her sake,” Salisbury pleaded, “let him go.”

“I
can't.
”

“I'd be available to the Law,” Sam said. “I'm not good for her.” His mouth twisted. “Naturally, she's overwrought.”

Salisbury's face turned. “She's been so … frightened, so terribly scared.”

Sam looked across where she wept, and Alan held her. “Put it that she was scared,” he said. “It's understandable, isn't it? What do you expect from a young thing?” His hands were shaking, and he hid the fact in his pockets. “She's a cute kid, though. A man could die for her, you know it? Some hero type.”

“She's so young,” the father said, “and confused. Dreadful experience.”

“Sure. Sure. Sure. And romantic, too. And I upset her. She thinks she owes me something. Better let me go.”

“Kay, darling.” She was tearing her heart out. Alan looked over her head. “A reaction,” he grimaced. “Lynch, you can be found.”

“Why, sure,” Sam straightened. “That'll be easy. I won't be far. You'll find me. And about where you want me.”

“Then, get out!” snarled Alan.

Sam's head turned to look at the door behind him. Reilly thrust his head in. “Lynch wants to leave,” said Alan Dulain. “I think it's safe to let him go.” A strange expression crossed Sam's face.

Baby Hohenbaum wiggled on the bank closer to the roof of the car shelter. From here he could see the shack's exit door. He lay quietly on the cold ground. He didn't feel the cold. He felt little of anything. The boss was gone, but he knew what to do.

All Kay could hear was her own stormy weeping, although she knew Alan spoke. She knew that he had nodded.

“Then I'll say so long,” Sam said, too softly to be heard by her. “So long, sister. You've been marvelous.”

The father's hand lifted, uncertainly. But Sam went quickly through the door and quickly closing it shut the light off behind him. The dark heap, high in the darkness, all attention now, lay still. Reilly said, “Sam, I don't get this.”

“Oh, you'll see,” Sam said. He started for his car.

Katherine wept.

“Hush. It's all right. I understand. Hush, darling.” Alan stroked her hair. “It's all over now.”

“He's gone, Kay.” Her father crooned. “Now, soon, we'll go too. You'll be better. Mother will …”

“Gone?”

She stopped her weeping. She stopped hearing even their voices. Her ears examined the world outside. The night sounds boiled up. Something slid on the roof.

The lake was chuckling in the dark. Her hair stirred of itself.

“Somebody is going to die,” she said.

She wrenched away from Alan. “Gone? Sam's gone? But he mustn't go. Not until the police come. You don't understand.” She ran out, eluding her father's hands, passing the man on the porch. She knew Sam mustn't go alone. There was the big one, loose somewhere.

Somebody was going to die!

She knew it as she had known it before. Death was around and about. Sam's gun was back there on the table. He had no weapon. Death waited for him. Somewhere.

No, no. He must stay. He must keep within, wait for protection.
She
would keep him. Somehow. Although she had no means, nothing to use. Words were no good. Too slow, too thickened, battered by a million tongues. She had her bare hands, her quick feet, running in the dark toward the car shelter, the wild folly of her heart that had no fear for herself, but could not tolerate his dying.

She caught him as he was opening the car. The only thing she had, the only instrument, was her own body. Well, she would put one hundred and fifteen pounds of girl's flesh against the death in the air. If it would not keep him, she had nothing else.

So she threw herself against him in the deep darkness and her arms embraced his hard tense shoulders and the impact of her softness and sweetness, hurtling out of the dark, astonished and defeated his stiff defenses. He touched her. She felt his arms softening around her and the bitter alien identity going, and a healing tenderness clasped them both. She thought, this is what it is to be safe. All it is. Ever. Don't want each other hurt … ever …

But Alan Dulain came running to the rescue. His heels jarred on the earthy path, and he switched on his flashlight. The bold beam hunted them and found them and they, embracing, were spotlighted, and the safe dark fell away.

The blob on the roof shifted. The muzzle of Baby's gun sneaked like a snake's tongue through a gap in the ragged shingles and steadied.

Below, as the dark armor was peeled off, danger sung around them like a blade flashing, and Sam's breath sucked in. He pulled her arms down, fastening them at her sides with his own. He turned her. He made a shelter all around her as tall and as wide as his bones, as thick as his flesh, as frail as his life.

As the gun cracked, a cry tore out of a husky throat and the beam of light, shocked, flew away. Reilly, husky with excitement, yelled, “Roof! Roof!”

Baby scrambled, but the nervous light pursued. Reilly winged him the first time. The second time, he stopped him.

But in darkness Kay was slowly pressed on the cold metal of the car in which the door handle scraped cruelly on her sliding back, as the whole warm weight of Sam's body slackened and bore her down.

Chapter 22

WHEN she woke she said, angrily, at once, “You drugged me. You doped me.”

Her mother said, “We had to, sweetie. You're home. It's morning.”

Kay sat up and a great woe possessed her. “Did he die?”

“Not … yet, darling.”

Kay seized her mother's little hand. “Where is he, mother?”

“Hush, he's in the hospital. Up there.”

“Up there? So far?”

“Katherine.” Her mother's face was pinched and different. “Sweetie, he's going to die. At least, it's terribly possible.”

“I know, Mother. I know. I know that.” She looked at her room. “So strange here. Not the same.”

“It'll be strange a little while. It's strange to me, too.”

“Yes, must be. Do I look strange? Mother, do
you
understand?”

“Some of it,” Martha said wanly. “The detective who came to talk to me found a note. I don't understand … all of it.”

“Sam … Sam said to tell you …” She didn't go on.

“I … rather liked him,” her mother said.

Katherine kissed her. “What time—?”

“It's not late. Alan's here. You look all right, sweetie. Not too strange.”

“I want to get up. Mother, have you called?”

“Just now. Your father just called.”

She dressed herself in a suit because she would be going out.

Alan was in the big room with her father. “Feeling better?” Alan was tender. He was concerned. “You look more like yourself,” he approved.

“Sam isn't dead?” He winced as she asked, as she looked at him. “What will happen if he lives, Alan?”

“I don't know, dear. Let's not—”

“There'll be no trouble about Ambielli,” Salisbury said, hovering. “It was self-defense, and I'll so testify.”

“Hohenbaum could talk a little,” Alan admitted.

“But he is dead?” Alan nodded. She shivered.

“Kay, if Lynch lives, we are going to try to save you as much embarrassment as we can,” her father said. “But it's a sensation. Don't look at the papers.”

“No, I won't.” Their eyes met, as if they were both grown up, she and her father. There would be embarrassment, they knew.

“So far …” Alan twitched.

“You told it my way?” she asked sharply.

“We haven't told much at all to any reporters. We're besieged, of course.”

She sat down to her breakfast. Her parents, although their lingering hands patted their love to her, withdrew. Left her with Alan. She tried to eat her breakfast. She couldn't taste it. The cup nearly slipped from her hand.

“Waiting to see which way the cat jumps? Whether he lives or dies?” She pressed both hands on her mouth.

“Kay, darling,” Alan was gentle, “we all realize you were a bit hysterical last night. We'll just forget about it. Just don't, please … not any more. You're home, dear. You're safe now.”

She thought,
safe?
“You'll forgive it, too, Alan? Aly hysteria?”

“Of course.”

“And understand it?”

“Of course, I understand,” he chided. “Sam Lynch did kill the man who had been frightening you so. You saw him do it. Of course, you were grateful to him.”

“That's a … neat pattern,” she said slowly, “but it isn't so. You see, he killed the man who was frightening
him,
and
I
made him do it, and he was grateful to
me.
” She looked at him. Alan was troubled. “Am I still hysterical?”

“You were, last night. The way you ran out so recklessly. That really proves it.”

“It's hysterical to take a notion you don't want somebody else to die. Then, I guess Sam was hysterical?”

“Whatever he tried to do, he made a mess of it,” Alan said lightly.

“Yet here I am,” she said thoughtfully. “Weren't you hysterical in that sense, Alan? About me?”

“You're sounding rather bitter, Kay. I did the best I could. Tried to keep my head.”

“Didn't … blunder?”

He said, “What makes you angry with
me,
Kay? Why do you want to hurt
me?
”

“Ah, no. I don't. I may. Because I can't marry you and I'd better say so.” He looked as if he'd felt a whip on his face. “You have no respect,” she explained gravely. “You don't respect me. I don't feel that you do.”

“I'm sorry. I feel that I do.”

“You'll forgive me my foolish hysterical gratitude? You never listened at all.”

He said crisply, “I know it was more than gratitude. And I understand that, too. After all, I saw the two of you.” She looked at him with widening eyes. “And I could have believed it was your extreme youth and your romantic impulses and the heightened emotional atmosphere. In fact, I still believe it.” He lifted his chin. “I'll wait.”