Dark Tunnel (20 page)

“Well, come on in.” He opened the door wide for me. “You look kind of tuckered out.”

His breath as I passed him was like alcohol spray. He closed the door and shuffled down the worn, brown-painted hall. A narrow staircase rose from the hall to the second floor and I saw a light at the top.

The old man pointed to a door opposite the staircase. “Just go in and sit down. Shiny’s in there. What’ll you drink?”

“Bring me the egg sandwich first. Empty stomach.”

“We don’t usually serve vittles,” the old man whispered. “It’ll cost you thirty-five cents.”

“All right. And a glass of beer.”

He looked at me suspiciously. “I thought you said you drank.”

“I alternate beer and whiskey,” I said. “When I can’t get grain alcohol.”

“I got grain alcohol,” he whispered proudly.

“That’s great,” I said. “Bring me some with my sandwich.”

He hobbled off down the hall to the back of the house and I opened the door and went in. The young men were still arguing, “—I tell you she’s frigid—”

Shiny looked up and saw me and half rose from his chair. “Professor! What are you doing here?”

“Shut up, Shiny,” I said. “I came here for a drink.” Before he could say anything else, I walked over and sat down opposite him and whispered, “If you want to talk, whisper. Everybody’s doing it.”

“What’s the matter with your face?”

“A cat scratched it. One of my many cats.”

“Jeez, professor, you’re a mess.” He hadn’t heard that I was wanted for murder.

“I’m in a mess,” I said, still whispering. The men at the other table went right on arguing. “The people who killed Alec Judd are after me. I’ve been running across country.”

“You look it. Jeez, why don’t you get police protection?”

“I can’t,” I said. “The police are after me, too.”

“Why? Whatja do?”

“Nothing. But they think I killed a man.”

“Who?”

“A Nazi spy,” I said. “But they don’t know it.”

“Christ, did you kill Mr. Judd, professor?”

“Do you think I did?”

“No.”

“Then drive me into Ohio. I’ll pay you double rates.”

“I can’t do that, professor. I’m on a call.”

“Call another taxi for your call. I’ll pay for it.”

“Hell, I can’t drive a fugitive from justice, professor.”

“Then give me your keys. Tell them I stole your car. I’ve got to get away.”

“I can’t do that.” His whisper was getting hoarse with fright and I couldn’t afford to frighten him.

I said, “All right, Shiny.” I was too tired to run much more—my legs were thirty years old and felt sixty—and if I was caught running away I’d probably be shot. Maybe if I stayed here and gave myself up to the police in the morning, I’d be able to talk myself out of a murder charge. Maybe more evidence would turn up.

The room was battered and dirty and run-down, but it was warm and bright. I didn’t want to leave it for the dark fields.

Shiny was sitting, watching me with some suspicion and more curiosity. One of the young men said, “Yeah, but when I went into the bedroom she was in bed and this guy was standing there with just the tops of his pyjamas on. That’s gotta mean something.”

The other said, “They’re all whores. Especially the frigid ones.”

The first wept brokenly in a high drunken voice, “She’s a whore. She’s a whore. And I loved her so truly.” He sobbed gustily and added, “And I’m a low-down bastard myself.”

Shiny said to me, “Who else got killed? You said the police thought you killed somebody.”

“Where have you been since I saw you in front of McKinley?”

The old man came in and put a large fried egg sandwich on a cracked plate in front of me. He stood there until I gave him thirty-five cents, and shuffled off.

“Bring me whiskey,” I said. “Two whiskeys.”

“I thought you said grain alkie,” he whispered in a disappointed way.

“Make it whiskey.” I ate my sandwich.

Shiny said, “Hell, I’ve been driving this call all over hell and gone trying to find a dame for him. He’s got no nose and none of the hookers in town will take him. He said he only had seven dollars.”

“Where is he now?”

“Upstairs with Florrie. She takes anybody. The funny thing is, though, he said he lost his nose in an industrial accident. Clipped right off.” He illustrated with his hands.

“Who’s Florrie?”

“The old man’s daughter. We call him the Tube.”

“The Tube?”

“Yeah, he eats through a tube. Cancer of the throat. You oughta see him pour whiskey down that tube.”

He remembered his curiosity and said, “Who got killed?”

“Schneider,” I said. “Dr. Schneider. He was a spy.”

“Who killed him if you didn’t?”

“Nobody you know. His son, and a woman called Ruth Esch. Listen, Shiny.”

“Yeah?”

“When you get back into town, tell the police to start looking for them. They probably won’t believe it but tell them anyway. This is, if I get away.”

“Not me. If you killed him that makes me a accessory or something. Listen, professor, you better get out of here. I won’t tell anybody I saw you.”

“I didn’t kill anybody. The same people killed Schneider that killed Alec Judd. A blond man and a red-headed woman.”

“A red-headed woman?” Shiny’s eyes snapped. “What does she look like?”

“Red hair with a permanent. Green eyes. About thirty. Pretty good-looking and painted to kill.”

“Jeez, professor, I had that dame on a call to-night. From McKinley down to Main Street. German accent?”

“Yes. When was this?”

“Around midnight.”

“When around midnight?”

“I don’t remember. Sometime before midnight.”

“Have you got your call-sheet?”

“Yeah.” He pulled the pad out of his pocket and turned a page. “Quarter to twelve. I drove her from McKinley downtown at a quarter to twelve.”

“Are you sure about the time, Shiny?”

“Yessir.”

“Will you swear to this in court?”

“Why not? It’s the truth.”

“Then I’ll drive into town with you until we see a policeman and give myself up.”

“Best thing for an innocent man to do, professor. That call should be down soon. He certainly takes his time.”

The old man brought our whiskey and I drank mine at a gulp. Shiny sipped his.

I heard a car in the lane. Probably the police. I was ready for them: I had at least one piece of evidence to give them.

“Look out and see who that is, Shiny. Will you?”

He went to the window and pulled aside the edge of the blind.

“Coupe,” he said. “Two people in it.” I heard the car stop. “They’re getting out,” he said. “Say, professor, there’s your red-headed friend.”

I ran to the window and looked out. The headlights of the car cast light enough to see Ruth Esch and Peter Schneider walking towards the porch with casual right hands in the pockets of their natty sports coats.

I
TURNED TO SHINY
and said, “Have you got a gun?”

“Nope. What would I want with a gun?”

“Don’t tell them I was here,” I said. As I started across the room I heard knocking on the door. I went through the door at the back of the room into the kitchen.

The old man was sitting at a wooden table with a half-gallon can and a glass of colorless liquid in front of him. He had a rubber tube in his hand which seemed to grow out of his shirt-collar.

“More whiskey?” he whispered, and began to get out of his chair. There was a louder knock on the door, and he started.

“Who’s that?” he said.

“The police.”

“So you got me knocked off, you—”

“Don’t be crazy. Don’t let them in. And don’t tell them I was here.”

The two at the door began to shake the knob. I had no time to ask the old man if he had a gun, and I went out the back door. I closed it quietly behind me and jumped off the railless back porch into a yard overgrown with weeds. I waded through the rank growth and stepped over a broken-down wire fence into a field. I could hear voices from the front of the house.

Avoiding the beam from the headlights of Schneider’s car, I ran crouching down the slope of the field into a gulley where a patch of trees hid me from the house. There was a small stream tinkling in the gulley and I followed its course because it was something to follow. It seemed I had been running for days, but the night was still dark.

The stream led me out of the woods into an open field. It was a field of turnips. The turnips stuck out of the ground like human heads in rows and made it very hard to run until I turned away from the stream and followed the turnip-rows.

When I had crossed the turnip field I had to climb another fence, and beyond that the ground started to rise under my feet. I climbed the hillside and stopped to look back.

I could see the dim outlines of the house I had left across the valley, and the headlights of the coupe still shining fixedly. As I watched, the headlights moved and I heard the sound of the distant engine. The headlights went up the lane away from the house and disappeared.

Perhaps Shiny and the old man had convinced them that I hadn’t been there, and they had given up the chase. Perhaps not.

My heart was pumping like a racing engine and I was beginning to sweat again. Moving more slowly, I climbed to the top of the hill. A horse standing on the other side of the hilltop shied away from me and galloped off down the pasture. I had a wild idea of trying to catch him and ride away on his back.

I ran down the hill to the end of the pasture and the horse circled me and ran uphill away from me. I climbed another fence and crossed another field of stubble and went up another hill. From the top I could see lights across the next valley, and the wind brought me the sound of music. I went down the hill and across the fields towards the lights. They were hidden now by a shoulder of hill but as I got nearer the music became louder. It sounded like a violin, and I wondered if shock and terror had affected my mind.

I climbed across another wire fence into a lane which ascended the hill. As I went up, the violin-music came clearer and I recognized the piece.
Turkey in the Straw,
played on and on and on. I walked up the hill in time to the music and heard the shuffling and stamping of feet.

Then I saw the lights again. A huge barn on the other side of the hill was blazing with light through every window and crack. The wagon-doors at one end were wide open and threw a sheet of white light over the barn hill. The music stopped and there were howls and squeals, and the stamping of feet.

The music started again and a whining insistent voice chanted rhythmically:

“Now swing your ladies round by the right,

Swing ’em round, roll ’em round.”

There was the sound of feet again, trampling in unison on the wooden floor. The fiddle played on and on like a mechanical fiddle.

Somebody must have built a new barn and the barn-dance celebrating it was still going on. But it must be nearly dawn. I pulled out my watch and looked at it in the light from the barn. The crystal was smashed and the watch had stopped at about 3:45.

It must have been broken when I ran into the steampipe in the tunnel. I thought of the tunnel, and shivered. I had never been a lone wolf or a cat that walks by himself, and my lack of a gun and the weariness of my legs made me feel more gregarious than ever. If Ruth and Peter were going to find me again, I wanted people around me. Any people would do.

Then I thought of the cars the people must have come in. I climbed the fence into the field and circled the barn, keeping outside the rectangle of light thrown through the barn doors. Inside the barn, brilliantly lit by a dozen gasoline lamps hanging from the rafters, I could see shirt-sleeved men and girls in bright dresses going through the figures of a square dance.

There were a dozen cars parked under trees on the other side of the barn and I climbed over the fence and walked towards them. I looked in the front window of the first one to see if the ignition key was there and a bass voice from the back seat growled, “Pull in your neck, buddie, or I’ll twist it for you.”

I glanced into the back seat and saw the glimmer of a girl’s white thighs, and delicately withdrew. The cars were not for me.

I turned around and walked into the barn as if I belonged. Nobody questioned my right to be there. There were a dozen kegs of beer in tubs of icy water standing on trestles along one wall, and I moved through the dancers towards the beer. None of them paid any attention to me, but a large hairy man sitting at the end of the row like a thirteenth keg stood up and stuck out his hand to me.

“Greetings, stranger,” he said above the sound of the fiddle and the shuffling feet. “Have some beer?”

I said I would and he drew me a foaming mug. “Here you are. Drink it up. Plenty more where that comes from. I buy so much I get a wholesale price on it.”

“You’re lucky,” I said.

“Of course I’m lucky. Always have been lucky, always will be lucky.” He belched voluptuously and wiped his mouth with the back of his thick hand. “Luckiest thing ever happened to me was when my old barn burnt down. Needed a new one for years and now I’ve got it. Gift of the insurance company. Lucky as a rabbit in clover.”

A man and a girl drifted away from the dancers and came over and asked for beer. The lucky man drew it for them and said, “Drink up. Build up your energy. Look at me. Always been energetic, always will be. Why? A gallon of beer a day keeps the doctor away, that’s why.”

The couple laughed and drank up and went back to dance some more. He sat down beside me again and said, “Say, how’d you get here?”

“I walked,” I said. “Ran out of gas and lost my way.”

“Where you from?”

“Arbana.”

“Hell, stay with me and I’ll drive you in, in the morning.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Any rabbits around here?”

“Millions of them. Trillions of them. Swarm all over, eat me out of house and home. Why?”

“I thought now that I’m out here I’d try to do a little hunting before I go back to town. Have you got a gun?”

The big man threw his left leg over his right knee, bent over with a grunt and began to unlace his left boot.