Cornered! (13 page)

Her voice broke. Wade Miles looked at her curiously. “Your responsibility, ma’am? That some convict on the West Coast sends his killer brother out hunting for you? It don’t figure that way to me.”

Ann shook her head slowly, staring at the store front, unable to shake a guilt that she had run out of selfish instinct and, as a result, placed all of the innocent people in that store at the brink of death…

The loudspeaker had been set up in a patrol car. Deputy Miles touched Ann’s shoulder in a rough gesture. “Don’t worry, ma’am.” He motioned with the submachine gun. “We’ll get him.”

He trotted to the next sedan. Slowly three cars were driven to a point almost directly opposite the closed door of Bob Saywell’s store. The drivers hunched low, the men outside walked carefully in the protection of the sides away from the store.

With the automobile barrier formed and the back entrance covered too, Sheriff-elect Jenkins held the microphone in his hand and tried to get control of himself. Finally, he spoke, his electronically magnified words echoing down the snow-covered street.

“This is the sheriff, Quirter. We’ve got you covered all the way. You can’t make it out of there. Do you hear that, Quirter?”

Billy Quirter’s mind was whirling with a swiftness it had never achieved before. But it was not a reasonable movement. Billy Quirter, cornered, was not a reasonable man. And the pressure was up to a point higher than Quirter was conditioned to accept.

Thus he thought quickly, but not accurately. And he thought only that he was going to kill the girl, Ann, and make himself and Tony happy. Then he was taking Gloria out with him. He was going to get one hell of a long way from this stinking little dump and pick up Tony’s money. How many other people he had to kill in the process made no difference to him. The main thing was to kill the girl, take Gloria, and go. Everything after that would take care of itself.

He looked about the room, totally unemotional about the body of Ted Burley lying at the foot of his stool. He measured eyes. He found fear in every pair of them. Nobody moved.

Sam Dickens rested with his back against chair legs. Gloria held to him tightly. Both of them stared at Billy. Hugh Stewart sat immobile beside the counter. Bob Saywell was shaking on his stool beside Hugh Stewart. Reverend Andrews and Lottie sat very quietly at their table in the center of the room, faces white against the background of red labels of a display stack of large tomato cans.

Nobody said a word. You could not even hear anyone breathing, except for an occasional thin whistling sound from Bob Saywell’s nostrils. Everybody was waiting for death, Billy thought with a fleeting but powerful pleasure. And
he
was death. And so he was God right now. Not what the stinking reverend thought about, something unreal and thought up out of thin air; but a real God! Everybody was waiting for God’s decision.

“All right, Farouk,” Billy said in his whispering voice. “Turn out the light and raise the shades. It looks like a nice day outside.”

Bob Saywell tried to move and could not. He tried to speak and could not.

“I’ll tell you, fatty,” Billy said. “I’ll lay you right out with the Burley guy if you don’t move!”

“They’ll shoot me! They’ll think I’m—”

Billy’s voice suddenly went into nearly a scream.
“Move!”

Bob Saywell shoved his fat bulk from the counter stool and almost fell across the room. He switched out the lights and snapped up a shade on one of the two broad windows, closing his eyes against what would be a certain hail of bullets if he was mistaken for Billy Quirter.

Outside, fingers pressed more tightly on triggers. Deputy Wade Miles’s machine gun came up a fraction.

But Bob Saywell’s mammoth silhouette could not be confused for the figure of Billy Quirter. There was no shooting.

“Now the other one,” Billy Quirter said.

Bob Saywell got the other shade up. Then, stumbling, hands flailing at the air until he’d regained his balance, he returned to his stool.

Billy Quirter grinned faintly, watching his hostages out of the sides of his eyes, but looking through the steamed glass at the daylit street and the three patrol cars lined on the other side. He knew, because of the steaming of the glass and the darkened interior, that no one out there could see clearly into the store. Billy’s hand closed around his gun more tightly, then suddenly released it into his lap. He grabbed a cup from the counter and threw it through the large window nearest him. His gun came back into his hand as glass shattered and splattered, leaving a small ragged hole. The cold blew in, and Billy felt better.

He yelled, “Seven people in here with me. Seven live ones! You try to get me, there’ll be seven dead ones! And I’ll take a half dozen of you with me. Do you hear?”

Sheriff-elect Jenkins, heart hammering, did hear. His men heard. The wind carried Billy’s voice down the street, and Ann heard. Martha Saywell heard. A good half of the residents of Arrow Junction, hiding in safety around the edges of the block, also heard. All six with Billy in Bob Saywell’s store heard. Hugh Stewart wondered why Billy had chosen to list Ted Burley as one of the living.

Sheriff-elect Jenkins found his voice once more as he stared at the steamed glass, trying unsuccessfully to see clearly into the blurred and distorted interior. “You can’t win, Quirter!”

He swallowed, twisting his head to glance down the street where Ann sat in the car. He put the microphone back to his lips.

“We know who you’re after, Quirter. You won’t get her! We’ve got the girl, Quirter. Do you understand? Now you’d better come out of there, no gun, your hands up!”

Inside, Billy’s mean grin appeared faintly once again. His mind darted with this information just given him by Harvey Jenkins. “All right,” he shouted. “I’ll make a deal with you. Send the girl in, I’ll send everyone else out.” Now he was certain he had it—had it absolutely. Make the deal just like he’d now announced—except he wouldn’t send Gloria out. He’d keep her and take her with him in the Chrysler just as he’d planned; he would also take the other girl, to kill later…

Harvey Jenkins was miserable, miserable with the realization that he’d just given Quirter an advantage in telling him they had Ann Burley. From behind, a state trooper wriggled up and said, “We brought in a doctor from Graintown. Just in case.”

Jenkins nodded dully. “Yeah, that’s good.” His tone was bitter now, no longer even trying to simulate eagerness. “Maybe we should bring in the undertaker too, huh?”

Billy Quirter shouted, “You hear me, Sheriff?”

“I heard you,” Jenkins said through the loudspeaker. “You’re crazy, Quirter. We’re making no deal like that.”

“I’m not crazy, Sheriff. I know what I want. I want the girl! Now I told you—everybody in here is all right now. They won’t be if you don’t send that girl in here. Seven for one. It’s a good deal. Take it. Or you’ve got seven corpses!”

“Listen, Quirter. Be reasonable. I swear I’ll play square with you. You leave those folks in there alone and walk out here with no gun, hands up, there’ll be no shooting. I promise. It’s the only way you’ll come out alive, Quirter!”

“I say you’d better listen to me, Sheriff!” Quirter screamed. “I want that girl! You get her and send her in and everybody stays alive. That’s the only way it’s going to go, do you hear me? Now I’ll give you a deadline to do it. Five minutes. My watch says ten-five. At ten-ten I start shooting in here!”

Harvey Jenkins lowered the microphone and looked wearily at Wade Miles beside him. Miles nodded. “He means it. He’ll do it.”

Jenkins turned around. Oddly, he was not frightened now. Oddly, he’d come to the end of his fear, and there wasn’t any more. He was in a kind of suspension. And he wondered, with the situation in front of his eyes now, how he could have been so frightened. It was really simple, in the end. You had a killer. You had to deal with him. If you won, you won. If you lost, you lost. He did not see how he was going to win, but he kept trying. He said to the state trooper, “Go get Reverend Styles. Maybe he can talk sense to Quirter.”

Deputy Miles said, “It’s fairly sure he’s got Reverend Andrews in there. If he can’t do no good—”

“Maybe he isn’t good enough. Reverend Styles has got more punch. Maybe he can swing it.” Sheriff-elect Jenkins nodded to the trooper. “Be careful. And tell Reverend Styles to watch his step coming back with you.”

“Right,” the trooper said, and wriggled away.

Inside the store, Billy Quirter listened to the small ticking of his watch. He examined the faces before him. One minute had gone by. Two. No one said anything for another thirty seconds. Then Dr. Hugh Stewart said, “You’re crazy to think they’ll send her in, Quirter.”

“Shut up, Doc.”

Three minutes were up. Outside, the trooper wriggled back alone. Jenkins looked at him.

The trooper shook his head. “The reverend said he couldn’t make it. Said he wanted to. But he said there was something important he had to get back to at home. Said he was saying a prayer for you.”

Jenkins nodded, eyes smoldering. “Yeah.” He turned and looked at the store front. Beside him, Deputy Miles said, “Thirty seconds left, Harvey.”

Inside, Billy Quirter looked at his watch. Ten seconds left. Eight. The room waited in strained silence. Five.

“Will he do it?” Jenkins whispered to the cold breeze. “Will the bastard really do it?”

The seconds were running out. Three left. Two. One…

Billy Quirter fired a bullet into the supine corpse of Ted Burley.

Bob Saywell came a half a foot off his seat, then collapsed in a dead faint, tumbling to the floor in a soggy heap of perspiration. Hugh Stewart held his breath, swearing inside. And Billy said softly to him, “Let fatty be.” Then he raised his voice.

“That’s one, Sheriff!”

Sheriff-elect Jenkins did not swear silently, but loudly and steadily.

Billy jerked his head first at Hugh Stewart, then at Reverend Andrews. “Both of you—around here. Drag the plowboy over to the door and heave him out. Make a try for it, you’ll wind up just like the country hick here. Now do what I say, and fast!”

Hugh Stewart looked at the man’s eyes and knew there was only one thing they could do: what he told them, and quickly.

He stood up, glanced at Reverend Andrews. The reverend, amazingly calm, walked around the counter with him. They dragged the heavy body of Ted Burley toward the door.

“Okay,” Billy Quirter said, “heave him out now. Then back to where you were.”

They did just that. They got the door open, shoved the body out, then closed the door and returned to their seats.

Outside, Sheriff-elect Jenkins leaned limply and defeatedly against the car and stared at the sprawled figure in front of the store.

“It’s like I said,” Deputy Miles breathed. “He meant it.”

Billy Quirter’s voice knifed out again.

“You get the picture, Sheriff? Now send the girl in. Because if you don’t, another one gets it. You’ve got five more minutes!”

Inside the store, there was no doubt
that Billy Quirter would keep it up. Another of them was going to die in five minutes. Every one of them, including Bob Saywell who had revived in a heap on the floor, knew it.

Bob Saywell tried desperately to faint again, certain he would be the next; but it wouldn’t work. Hugh Stewart sat at the counter, stone still, heart beating fast, looking for some slight chance to go for Billy and finding none. Sam Dickens sat unmoving, soothing with words a terrified Gloria, whose bluff exterior had at last crumbled. And Reverend Andrews sat with Lottie, his hand tightly clasped around one of her plump wrists as though to feed her the necessary strength and courage to keep this up.

Two minutes went by.

Outside, Sheriff-elect Jenkins, in hurried conferences with the State Police, realized that there was absolutely nothing they could do. If they tried rushing the store, there was no telling how many would die. Deaths were a certainty that way. And they couldn’t, certainly, give the girl to Quirter.

So they had simply to wait for the second five minutes to go by and another body to be thrown out.

Jenkins cursed the fear that had initially forced him to make the mistake of revealing the fact that they had the girl. He was wondering, with great guilt and self-accusation, why he had been afraid all of his life of things that could not have been half so bad as he had thought they would be…

Three minutes were gone.

Jenkins was not alone with a feeling of guilt. Ann sat in the car down the street, staring at the store and at the crumpled body of her husband. She felt as though blood were running off her own hands, the blood of Ted Burley, the blood of whomever else Billy Quirter was going to kill in the next two minutes. She sat there silent and still, face beautiful in the cold winter light, certain in the guilt that she had brought this terror to this place.

Four minutes gone. And who would die next? Hugh Stewart…?

She bit her lip until she tasted blood. The trooper beside her said, “Easy, Mrs. Burley. Maybe you’d better not look any more. Maybe—”

Her movement was so fast that he didn’t have a chance to stop her. She threw open the door and ran down the snow-covered street. “All right! I’m here! I’m the one you want!” Tears stung her eyes as she shouted, “Get it over! Hurry!”

With Jenkins swearing as he watched her, a half dozen troopers yelling for her to turn back, Ann kept coming. Inside, Billy Quirter finally saw and heard her and knew, at last, that he had his target.

A fixed, deadly smile on his lips, he raised his gun carefully. He watched her run in the peculiar method of a woman, watched her come closer and closer to afford him the better target. Then he saw her exactly through the hole he’d smashed in one window.

Two things happened at almost the same second.

With the diversion, Reverend Andrews, who had been waiting for the right moment, picked up one of the large tomato cans from the stack behind him and sent it flying over Hugh Stewart’s head straight at Billy Quirter. It was a good, accurate throw, and the can caught Billy squarely on the left cheekbone just in time to throw off his aim a little.