The Wicked Go to Hell (8 page)

He held out his hand. His fingers curled and uncurled greedily, clumsily. Hal stared at them and thought of the crabs he’d caught that morning.

Angrily, he ejected the last bullet from the clip into his hand, felt the weight of it there and reluctantly thrust it hard into Frank’s palm.

“Ah, you’re hurting me!” said Frank, wincing.

“Yeah, and you’re hurting me too, Frank… Feel happy now, I hope?”

“Not happy—safe.”

“You damned!…”

Frank held out one hand to shut him up… He twisted his head slightly and his slack mouth showed how hard he was concentrating.

“Sh!” he said.

“You’re completely off your rocker!” cried Hal, throwing himself face down on the bed of seaweed.

“Shut up!…” said Frank urgently. “Can’t you hear it?”

“Sure, I can hear a clown talking and it’s seriously pissing me off…”

“There was someone walking about outside,” said Frank.

He had spoken with such conviction that Hal was not able to protest with the appropriate vigour.

“Oh,” he said after a moment, “you and your imagination!…”

“I’m not imagining anything,” whispered Frank. “When you can’t see your ears get sharper. This time, I’m quite sure of what I’m saying… Listen… There’s somebody walking around out there…”

Hal felt icy fingers around his throat. He suddenly felt cold and alone.

He listened hard… and heard the mingled rumble of wind and sea.

But there were other sounds too… There were particular sounds made by the wind. And sounds produced by the ramshackle hut.

“You’re raving,” said Hal uncertainly.

Hal listened again.

Yes, he could hear it. It really did sound like footsteps. But it could not possibly have been footsteps. Silently, he repeated with savage intensity: “
It can’t be! It cannot be!”
But what had made the stones move?

He had never felt so afraid in his life. He even realized that until this moment he had never felt true fear. Never!

“Give!” he said and held out his hand to Frank.

It was less an assertion than an order.

“Give what?” said blind Frank.

“The bullets! And quick about it…”

Frank shook his head.

“Three bullets? Come off it. What use would they be?”

“They could make three dead bodies when pointed in the right direction,” said Hal. “So hand them back to me…”

Instead of obeying, Frank slipped the bullets into his trouser pocket.

“What’s the use?” he said. “If it’s the cops, we’ve had it.”

“If it were the cops, they’d already have opened up with their sub-machine guns. This shack is just planks of wood… Do I need to draw a picture?…”

The two men stopped talking and listened. Their whole beings became a kind of radar: they picked up many sounds, they selected some and identified them in turn…

“Brace yourself,” said Frank.

The footsteps had stopped outside the door.

“Maybe it isn’t a man,” Hal thought. “It could be an animal.”

But what sort of animal would be wandering around an island not much bigger than the place de la Concorde?

“Go on, then! Open the door!” yelped Frank, who was now at his wits’ end.

Hal stood up, hesitated, picked up the empty revolver by the barrel and walked to the door. All that could be heard now was the sound of the sea and the wind. He reached for the small metal bar which served as a latch, lifted it and pulled. The wind swept yowling into the hut.

Hal stood where he was, petrified by surprise. He was not afraid now but what he felt was just as strong. Standing in the doorway was a woman. And it was the woman from two nights before.

For one brief moment, it was as if the universe had neither frontiers nor reality. He stared at the blonde young woman. But she no longer had the strength to return his look. She staggered. Only then did he notice that her clothes—shorts and a woman’s striped
marinière
—were torn and dripping with sea water.

The woman rested her forehead on the frame of the door. Her streaming wet hair hung down over her face.

“I must be dreaming…” thought Hal. “This can’t be happening…”

Frank’s anguished voice snapped him out of the state of uncertainty which had suddenly made his mind go blank.

“What’s happening, Hal?… Tell me!… Hal, are you there?”

Getting no reply, Frank was starting to panic again.

“Answer, for God’s sake! Hal! What’s going on?”

“We’ve got a visitor,” said Hal.

“A visitor!” cried Frank. “What are you talking about? Tell me!”

The sound of his own voice was reassuring.

The blonde woman attempted to enter. She swayed and collapsed into Hal’s arms.

He helped her into the hut and then kicked the door shut behind them. He took hold of her by the waist and laid her down on the table. Gently he teased the hair off her face, which was unnaturally pale. It was indeed the same woman who had come to their rescue the night before last.

“Yes,” repeated Hal gravely, “a visitor… who comes by night, when the last hand is dealt… but whether she’s the queen of hearts… or spades, we’ll have to wait and see…”

“A woman?” said Frank, sitting up.

“Better: a pretty woman.”

“Impossible!”

Frank sprang towards the table and almost went sprawling because the bench was in his way. Feverishly, he ran his hands over the unconscious woman.

“But it’s true!” he said. “True! What’s she playing at here, Hal?”

“She’s playing dead,” said Hal, uncorking the whisky bottle.

“Is she really dead?”

“No way! Women are tougher than that! She must have been out sailing hereabouts and her boat capsized. But guess who she is?”

Frank did not understand the question.

“How should I know?” he said.

“It’s not so long ago that you were talking to her.”

“Huh?”

Frank gave a start.

“It’s that chick from the other day!”

“Ten out of ten!” said Hal as he pushed the neck of the bottle through the blonde woman’s teeth.

“What are you doing to her?”

“Rendering unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar…”

He stopped speaking, for the woman had just opened her eyes and was murmuring something.

“What did she say?” asked Frank, jostling his partner.

“That it’s awful.”

“What’s awful?”

“If you’d let her speak perhaps we’ll find out.”

Hal went on: “Here, give me a hand; we’ll lay her on the ground—she’ll be more comfortable, and so will we… It’s unnerving to see a woman laid out on a table.”

Frank felt around then gripped their visitor by the legs.

“Mind the bench!” said Hal. “That’s it, one more step to the left!… Perfect… Now put her down.”

He knelt down beside their recently arrived guest.

“Of all the!…” said Frank.

“Yeah. This is some coincidence!”

“Coincidence—you said it,” echoed Frank.

He gave a laugh.

The woman looked up at them and in her still-uncertain eyes there was a degree of disbelief which equalled that of the two men.

“Evening,” said Hal. “Well, well… Who’d have thought you’d miss us so much? You must have second sight…”

He stopped, for she was crying.

“Spare us the waterworks!”

“Leave her!” said Frank.

Hal smiled. The woman shrank back against the wall of the hut.

“You!” she said.

“Cut it out!” growled Frank. “Stop the play-acting and just tell us how you got here.”

“I was out sailing with my husband… We went a long way out to sea, this afternoon. As we were coming back there was a sudden strong gust of wind and the boat was blown flat on its side. I was thrown into the sea…”

She stopped and put one hand over her eyes.

“Then what happened?” persisted Frank.

“I went under, my husband dived in, helped me back to the boat and told me to hang on to the hull. He tried to right the boat but couldn’t manage it and then suddenly he just went straight down before my very eyes!…”

“RIP,” murmured Hal.

“Shut your trap!” snapped Frank. “What happened then?”

“I clung on to the boat for as long as I could. I hoped the tide would carry the wreckage back to the coast but the opposite happened. The wind started blowing me out to sea. I knew I’d die unless I did something! Then, as it grew dark, I made out this island… Far, far away… I’m not a strong swimmer, but I decided to risk it.”

“Risk is the word,” said Frank.

“Many times I thought I’d go under. So I’d float on my back to steady myself and regain my strength. And in the end, I got here.”

“Was that you shouting?”

“Yes.”

“Aha!” said Frank to his partner. “See? I was right!”

“So you were,” acknowledged Hal, before asking:

“There were just the two of you on board that damned boat of yours?”

“Yes.”

“What about the guests you had back there?”

“They all left yesterday morning.”

Hal stared at her coolly.

“Are you sure the unfortunate gust of wind wasn’t you?” he asked with a knowing smile.

She looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“What do you mean?”

“Your story don’t ring true, darling—it sounds like it was cobbled together… The boat gets blown over, you start drowning, your hubby fishes you out and then he’s the one who goes under… Next thing you get a trip across the Atlantic… And supposing you hadn’t bothered about which way you were going, you’d have fetched up in New York harbour one of these fine days!”

She sat up.

“I forbid you to think such horrible things!”

“Oh! I’m just saying…”

“Herbert is dead!” she cried with genuine feeling. “We’d just had lunch and—”

“You said that it was getting on for evening when you started back, when the boat got turned over…”

“Because we’d been partying all night—”

“Ah! So you had! Many happy returns!”

The interruption did not appear to bother her. She seemed inert.

Meekly she went on:

“…We didn’t have lunch and I’d had something made up for us which we’d eaten out at sea…”

She was crying quietly as she spoke.

“We must do something,” she said.

“We can’t do anything for someone who’s been rolling around on the bottom of the sea for hours,” said Frank. “There are plenty of fish down there. They can take care of him.”

Hal looked at the woman carefully.

“Still,” he said, “it could have been an accident after all. But to be honest, we don’t give a damn if you did him in or not… It’s just that it would be better if we were all on the same side, if you take my meaning. If only because it would make dealing with each other easier.”

When she did not turn a hair at this, he went on, finding a guilty pleasure in provoking her.

“Because, of course, now that you’re here, we can’t afford the luxury of letting you go. Anyway, if you did try to leave the island, the odds that you would get sucked down in the mud or drowned would be shortissimo.”

She was just beginning to understand her position, and there was a look of silent disapproval in her eye. She let out a groan.

“Is she good-looking?” asked Frank suddenly. He was breathing noisily.

The question took Hal by surprise. He looked at the woman again, now through different eyes.

“She could be my type…” he conceded. “You know, blonde, and eyes that could be violet at certain moments…”

“I wish I could see her,” sighed Frank.

“You’ll see her, all right! She’ll be staying here for some time and you’ll be cured long before the three of us go our separate ways.”

The woman sat up.

“It’s out of the question!” she said. “I won’t! I don’t want to!…”

Hal burst out laughing. He put one knee on the wooden bench and trimmed the smoking wick of his lamp.

“Listen, sweetie, in this life there are what are called circumstances. Circumstances decided that you should end up here with us… Well, you just have to put up with it. Fate… you see, there is such a thing… Fate, along with its sidekick, Chance! You helped us, so now it’s our turn to help you. If we hadn’t been here, you would now be by yourself on this island crying with cold and fear. Tomorrow you’d have tried to get back to the mainland on foot and you’d have gone to meet your maker with that pretty mouth of yours full of sand…”

“He’s got the gift of the gab, hasn’t he?” leered Frank.

“We wait!” said Hal.

She shook her head.

“Wait for what?”

“Wait until some time has gone by between us and the cops. The cops are just like everybody else. They’ve got memories, but believe me, memories are not intended just for remembering things, but, more importantly, for forgetting them!”

“Aw, put a sock in it!” cried Frank. “Have you finished rabbiting on? Lady, when he starts talking he gets drunk on his own words!” He went on: “Let’s leave it at that! OK, so we make room for Widow Wossername here. I can’t take any more of this!”

“Oh!” cried the woman.

She burst into tears… Her chest heaved, racked by sobbing… She fought for breath.

“You’re being a bit hard on a young woman who was very nice to you,” observed Hal.

Frank sidled up to him.

“You mustn’t hold it against me,” he said meekly.

He waved one hand about on the off chance of locating the woman. He touched her hair and started stroking it.

“Don’t hold it against me…” he repeated. “I feel so down.”

She freed herself with a horrified shrug. He felt the full force of the revulsion he inspired in her.

“You can cut that out!” Frank said angrily. “Don’t get smart with me or I’ll make sure you join your better half down among the fishes! I could do it, you bet I could, blind as I am!”

He lay down on his seaweed bed and starting crying with frustration.

Hal shrugged his shoulders and gathered up an armful of grass, which he spread out in another corner of the hut.

“Come, lie down here,” he ordered the woman, “and cry your eyes out all you want if it makes you feel better. Tomorrow’s another day and it won’t be anything like today.”

Head bowed, she did as she was told.

She was still asleep when the two men woke up next morning.

Frank tore off the bandage, which had stayed stuck over his wound. He blinked at the light.

“Can you see?” asked Hal, who was observing what he was doing.

“No,” said Frank, “but there’s hope… I can already tell the difference between light and dark… It’s just like as if I were looking through frosted glass, if you follow me…”

Hall nodded: “Good. It’s coming back slowly… And the wound isn’t weeping any more—you’re on the mend.”

“Did you sleep well?” asked Frank.

“No.”

“Me neither… Feeling that she was there, the scent of her… It’s a long time since I had a woman anywhere within reach…”

“True,” said Hal, “and it gets to you!”

“And how! My mouth goes dry just thinking about it!”

“She asleep?”

“Yeah,” said Hal after glancing at the woman.

“Is she really good-looking?”

“A stunner!”

Frank sighed. He stood up and forced himself to open his half-closed eyes… But the pain started to come back.

“I’ll have to bathe my eyes in water that’s been boiled,” he said. “That’ll do them good, won’t it?”

“A power of good.”

“Do you buy this story about a capsized boat and the husband who drowned?”

Hal thought for a moment. He gestured vaguely with one hand.

“What’s it matter? After all, it’s not that important. It’s a plausible enough story and you can’t ask any more, not even of a story…”

“I could hear her breathing in the dark…” said Frank dreamily. “And I wanted to get up and go and press my face down on her mouth…”

“You’re not the only one.”

“What! You too?”

“And how! I swear, if you hadn’t been there, I’d have had me some fun. Quality goods and tasty with it!”

“You’ve got it bad!” laughed Frank.

But his laughter jarred and sounded false.

“You think so?”

“Well, I mean to say… She’s been a widow ever since yesterday…”

“Widows,” sniggered Hal, “are a like fish: mustn’t wait too long before you gobble them up!”

“So you want her yourself, you old goat?”

Frank’s face was bright red—and it wasn’t on account of his temperature.

“And you don’t?” asked Hal.

“Leave me out of it. For the moment, I’m blind.”

“So what? Making love is something that’s usually done in the dark!”

Frank stood next to the woman, whom he could vaguely make out through the thick fog which enveloped her.

“The way things are going,” he said, “I’d be surprised if she stays prissy for long.”

The still-sleeping woman sighed deeply.

“Was that her?” asked Frank.

“Yes. She’s starting to wake up.”

“And to think I can’t see it! What’s she doing?”

Hal had moved nearer to the blonde woman. He stood watching her with some satisfaction, with his lips drawn back over his sharp teeth.

“She’s doing what all women do when they wake up,” he said quietly. “She looks as if she’s dreaming.”

“And to think I can’t see it! I can’t see it!” said Frank, almost weeping while he desperately screwed up his eyes. “I could kill myself!”

“Cheer up! Mustn’t start getting gloomy ideas!” said Hal in an effort to soothe his friend.

“Gloomy ideas! Brother, you said it!”

The woman was now staring at them in silence. She was hollow-cheeked with grief.

“Still, it’s not everything,” muttered Hal. “I’m going to make some coffee.”

He leant over her:

“What’s your name?” he asked.

She answered:

“Dora.”

“Sounds like someone in the films,” said Frank. “Still, some people like that sort of thing…”

Hal leant down farther. There was a glint in his eye. Dora did not pull away from him. She seemed transfixed.

Delicately he kissed her on the mouth.

Frank could not hear anything and felt anxious.

“What the hell are you two up to now?”

The kiss went on and on. Though it was not really a kiss, for it was one-way traffic. Hal gave it; Dora endured it.

Frank started getting very jumpy.

“What are you up to? What are you doing?”

“We’re looking at you,” answered Hal. “We’ve both got eyes, so why shouldn’t we make the most of them?”

“You swine!…” cried Frank. “You’re mocking me… But usually it’s the deaf who get laughed at, not the blind!”

“But you’re not blind,” said Hal. “Don’t exaggerate. Don’t lay it on so thick.”

“OK, OK!” said Frank, feeling crushed. “So I’m not blind, you’re right. It’s just that I can’t see!”