The Players (27 page)
Authors: Gary Brandner
“You look tired, Eric. Wouldn’t you like to lie down? Can I make you some tea?” Paula knew she was babbling, but she had to try to distract Eric somehow. As the morning slipped into afternoon he had grown increasingly nervous. His hands played constantly with the knife.
The action at Wimbledon flickered on Paula’s television set. Barrett had just broken Doughty’s serve, and led in the first set, 5–3. Eric pointed the knife blade at the screen. “You don’t suppose your lover went to Wimbledon without you?”
“I don’t know, Eric. I told you he wasn’t coming here.”
“You’re lying to me, Paula. You’ve given him some signal that I’m here, haven’t you?”
“How could I? I’ve been right here in this chair ever since you came in.”
For a moment Eric looked puzzled, then his eyes turned crafty. “Oh, you’re clever, I’ll give you that. Clever enough to conceal your filthy affair as long as you did. Damned faithless wife!”
“Eric, I’m not your wife any more,” Paula said carefully. “You’ve been sick. You should lie down.”
“Oh, yes, you’d like that, wouldn’t you. Everybody wants me to lie down and take sleeping pills. If they get enough sleeping pills into me I may never wake up. Well, someone’s going to die here today, but it won’t be me.”
On the television screen, unwatched by captor or captive, Tim Barrett held serve to win the first set, 6–3.
Paula’s eyes widened suddenly as Eric rose from the sofa and moved toward her.
“What are you going to do?”
“Part of the trouble is you’re too pretty. That’s why you attract other men. That’s why you get in trouble. I can fix that.”
“Eric, don’t!” Paula jumped up and backed around the chair. She backed into the wall and was trapped.
“It will be best if you stand still,” Eric said. “Otherwise I may cut deeper than I want to.”
As Eric reached for Paula’s robe a fist hammered the door and Mike Wilder’s voice shouted through the panel.
“Paula, are you in there? Are you all right?”
Eric seized Paula and spun her around in front of him. He pressed the knife blade against the pulse in her-throat.
“Answer him,” he rasped in her ear. “But be careful what you say.”
“I–I’m in here, Mike,” she called, her voice faltering.
“Can he get in?” Eric whispered.
Paula nodded.
“Tell him to come.”
Paula felt his right arm grow tense across her breast She said, “C-come in, Mike.”
A key scraped in the lock, the door swung open, and Mike Wilder took two steps into the room before he stopped short at the sight of Eric holding the knife to Paula’s throat.
“Stay where you are or I’ll kill her,” Eric said.
Mike froze and Eric eased around him toward the door, keeping Paula and the knife in front of him.
Sir Oliver Teal appeared in the doorway.
“Eric, what are you doing? Put down that knife!”
“Get out of here, Father. You shouldn’t be here.”
“Let go of the girl, son.”
“I’m warning you, Father, get out or I’ll cut her throat.”
“Do as he says,” Mike snapped. “Out!”
Sir Oliver’s eyes flickered from one of the men to the other, then he backed into the hallway.
Keeping Paula before him, Eric sidestepped the rest of the way to the door and slammed it shut. He shot the bolt into place and flung the girl away from him. She stumbled and fell to the floor.
“Eric, you’ve got to stop this!” she cried.
“Stay where you are, Paula,” Mike ordered, keeping his eyes on Eric and the knife.
Eric held the weapon low, the blade angled upward at Mike’s midsection. He moved it back and forth in a short arc, his free hand held away from his body for balance. Mike tensed for the attack.
Without warning Eric sprang at him, the point of the knife stabbing at his belly. Mike danced to one side and lashed out with his right hand to deflect the knife thrust. The blade caught his arm and sliced it from wrist to elbow. Eric stumbled off balance for an instant, and Mike stepped back, momentarily out of reach. There was no feeling in his right arm.
The sight of blood soaking through Mike’s sleeve roused Eric to attack again. He forgot about the knife-fighter’s stance, and charged in with the weapon held high for a downward strike. Mike leaped to the rear and the knife split the air an inch from his chest. He stepped forward again, and put all his weight behind a left hook to the kidney.
Eric gasped, and the sudden pain paralyzed him for a second. It was all Mike needed. His first hook split Eric’s mouth like a ripe tomato. The second broke his jaw. Eric collapsed as though his bones had dissolved.
As Mike retrieved the fallen knife, footsteps pounded up the stairs and something hard banged on the door.
“Are you all there?” called a man’s voice.
Mike nodded to Paula, who had started toward him, and she went over and unlocked the door. Two uniformed policemen rushed in, followed by Sir Oliver Teal. Mike handed the knife to one of the policemen, then sat down on the sofa. Sir Oliver knelt beside his son, and Paula hurried to Mike.
“Darling, your arm …” she said.
Mike stripped off his shirt and took a look at the wound. It was long and clean, not too deep. The blood oozed out slowly. He clenched his fist and all the fingers worked. No veins were cut, no tendons severed.
“It’s nothin’, ma’am,” he said. “Only a scratch.” Then he fainted.
• • •
On the unwatched television screen Alan Doughty won the second set, and the match was even at one-all.
“You’re mad, you know,” Paula said as she and Mike ran from the Wimbledon parking lot to the Centre Court grandstand. “You ought to be in hospital with that arm.”
Mike patted the fresh bandage gingerly. “Nothing to it They patched it up at the emergency station good as new. Anyway, I’m over here to cover Wimbledon. How would it look if I miss the finals? What’s happening now?”
Paula put the transistor radio to her ear and slowed her step for a moment to listen. “Sets are two—all, it’s 6–5 in the fifth set and … somebody’s serving for the match.”
“Who? Who’s serving for the match?”
“I couldn’t hear, there was too much static.”
“Come on, let’s get inside.”
Mike and Paula reached courtside just in time to see the last point of the match:—a booming overhead off a short lob that no mortal man could have returned.
In a gesture seldom seen in today’s big-money tennis, the loser sprinted forward and leaped the net.
“Congratulations, Alan,” he said. “You’re the champion. You earned it.”
Alan Doughty took the young man’s outstretched hand. “Thank you, Tim,” he said. Then he added the sincere compliment of a fine player to a defeated opponent: “I played well today.”
The players walked together to the side of the court where they shook hands with the umpire. Then Tim moved away to let Alan accept the applause of the crowd.
Tim walked over to the section of the stands where his parents sat.
Jack Barrett reached across the low wall and gripped his son’s hand. “I’m proud of you, Tim,” he said.
Tim looked deep into his father’s eyes. He saw something there he had never recognized before. He saw love.
• • •
As the reporters clamored for his attention, Alan Doughty held them off for a moment while he wrapped his arms around his wife.
“We did it love,” he told her.
“Thank God it’s over,” she said.
“Will you make a call for me after the ceremonies? I’ll be tied up with the reporters for a bit.”
“Of course. Who do you want me to call?”
“The doctor. Have him book me in for surgery on Monday. You and I will have tomorrow to ourselves, then I’ll go in and get that little job done I’ve been putting off.”
Hazel kissed her husband and watched with a swell of pride as he walked straight and tall toward the victory stand.
Mike Wilder watched Paula’s face as they listened to Alan Doughty’s short speech of acceptance.
“I want to thank all the people who have cheered for me, win or lose, over the years. We’ve come over a long road to be standing here today. This victory belongs to England.” When the cheers and applause finally subsided he added, “This was my last game. Never was there a better way for a man to go out. Thank you all.”
Paula wiped tears from her eyes and turned to Mike. “Why would he do that?” she asked. “Why would he retire from the game when he’s at the very top?”
“I’m not sure,” Mike said, “but somehow I’ve got a feeling we’re looking at one gutty Englishman.”
The reporters surrounded Alan Doughty then, and the television cameras moved in.
Paula said, “What do you have to do now, interviews and things?”
“No, I’d just be in the way. Let’s get out of here.”
As they walked arm in arm out to the parking area Mike said, “About that New York job … there’s one catch I probably should have mentioned.”
“Oh?”
“It includes a possible long-term arrangement with a heavy-smoking, nearsighted sportswriter. Will that have any effect on your decision?”
Paula brought Mike to a stop, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him on the mouth. “It will,” she said. “I’ll take it.”
Serving as inspiration for contemporary literature, Prologue Books, a division of F+W Media, offers readers a vibrant, living record of crime, science fiction, fantasy, western, and romance genres.
If you enjoyed this Fiction title from Prologue Books, check out other books by Gary Brandner at:
Walkers
The Boiling Pool
Rot
The Sterling Standard
Offshore
A Rage in Paradise
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Copyright © 1975 by Gary Brandner
All rights reserved.
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Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 10: 1-4405-4639-8
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4639-6
eISBN 10: 1-4405-4434-4
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4434-7