The Blackbirder (16 page)

She found newspapers in a box, stuffed the hole of the window. She didn't dare make a light. She left the blanket on a chair. The gun she pushed back into her pocket, the purse she clutched under her arm. She moved through into the dining-room, living-room, hall. Somewhere there must be an electric torch, usually in a hall. She searched drawers and chest, found it where she should have looked first, on the closet shelf. It worked. She dimmed it with her hand, climbed the stairs without sound. Her heart was louder than her footfall. If this house was not unoccupied, those who lived here wouldn't believe anything a strange Indian-dressed girl told them in the night. There would be one answer, the police.

Bedroom doors were open. Three of them. One at the head of the stairs, the two others off the hall to the right. No one was in them. Each room, each bath was in precise beautiful order.

She turned on the water in the center room bath, jumped a little at its sound. It ran warm. Suddenly she didn't care. There were no houses near on this side, only the stretch of parkland. She pulled the shade, hung the mackinaw over it. A black cotton stocking dimmed the light. She pulled off her clothes, ran a hot tub, luxuriated in it. Her head jerked; she mustn't fall asleep here. She turned on the shower then, even scrubbed her hair. It wakened her. She folded towels neatly, turned off the light, used the torch in the bedrooms. She was only borrowing. She found clean underthings; she took those most worn. She made a notation in her little book. She would send money to this house to pay for all she took. She folded Soledad's clothes, borrowed a bathrobe and slippers and went down again to the kitchen. She wasn't afraid now.

The bundle. It wasn't here. She must have left it on the waiting-room bench. For a moment hollowness sucked at her. She straightened her shoulders. It didn't matter. It might be better this way. If it were found, opened, reported, even printed in the little newspaper, Blaike would believe she'd got away. The hunt would roar on to Albuquerque.

She put Soledad's clothes in the blanket, left it neatly on a chair. There would be food here. She opened the cabinet doors, used the torch. Canned goods. Staples. Something hot. Soup. She brewed it, ate it with crackers, washed up the traces and returned to the upstairs. She noted what she had taken.

By torchlight she examined all the closets now. Two women alone lived here, one older, the best front room; one younger, this room. The one at the head of the stairs was for a maid or guest. The younger hostess wouldn't mind if she borrowed the blue jeans, a clean but old shirt. The girl was taller than Julie but she could fold up the pants legs. Most did in these parts. The shoes were too large; she would have to continue wearing those of Soledad. The bed waited, a heavy-blanketed bed. She needn't dress now. No one was coming here tonight.

If anyone did— If anyone did it would be three brown bears and she'd say, “I'm Goldilocks and I was so
very
tired.”

Julie took her purse and her gun and went to bed.

There was no sound in the house, no sound in the white world outside. The silence of snow was falling again outside the window. She'd slept late, past nine o'clock. For a moment on awakening panic touched her, realizing last night, where she was. But the silence of house and snow reassured her. She got up, dressed in the levis and shirt, borrowed socks. Before she left the room no one could know without examining the bed that anyone had entered it. She carried the mackinaw over her arm, the gun was inside her purse.

Cautiously she crept downstairs, made the rounds of the windows. There was nothing to see but unbroken snow. Even her footprints of the night before were covered. She turned the furnace up a bit before fixing breakfast for herself. There were a few eggs, a bit of butter in the box. The two women hadn't planned to be gone long. No bread, but crackers. Tea.

She took out the moccasins from the blanket, buttoned them, returned to the living-room. She had half a package of cigarettes left in her purse. She smoked one.

It was a little time before the presence of the radio impressed itself. News. She tuned in softly, barely a whisper, tried for wavelength. She could get only two stations, one had records, the other a soap opera. The records, interspersed with advertising, identified the source as Santa Fe. She sat there all morning until an eventual news broadcast. There was no mention of a missing girl nor of a murder.

She was comforted but apprehensive. Unless someone intruded she would do as she planned, remain here for two or three days. She wouldn't starve, she wouldn't freeze.

Once so long ago she had waited seven days in an empty house in occupied France. Part of that time with only a few cabbage leaves to gnaw. Luck had returned to her. There were even books here. She took one about the southwest, pushed a chair near the window but out of sight if anyone came to peer.

Nothing broke the stillness of all the day save the muffled radio. At the evening news broadcast she listened, but nothing of local import was given. When night fell she knew more about the territory between this village and El Paso. She had studied the map. She returned to her bedroom after supper, hooded the bed light with a blue bandanna from her hostess's drawer, read until she was sleepy.

The second day was without falling snow. A watery sun fell through the sky for an hour's interlude before leaden clouds engulfed it. Her nerves were unreasonably taut. Once the phone rang. She counted slowly until the sound ceased, leaving a greater void of silence. And once someone came whistling to the front door. She heard him coming. She was in the coat closet before he rang the bell, until a long time after he had gone away.

She ate early, cleaned up after her. She didn't go upstairs until after the 9:30 news broadcast. There was still no mention of her or of Jacques. In her bedroom she looked out the window at snow and darkness. She even went into the front room where she could see the road. She counted two cars at intervals. Across on the corner there was golden lamplight in a room, a child sprawled in a chair with a schoolbook.

She returned to her own bedroom. Tomorrow she'd better leave, not push her fortune longer. Wait for darkness, make her way into town. The bandanna over her head, the levis, the mackinaw. She'd have an easier time getting into the hotel than in the blanket. Watch the lobby for a safe moment, get her parcel, leave. She wouldn't need to return to her room.

She undressed, folded her clothes over the chair, ran water for a bath. It relaxed her. Her own underthings were clean and dry now, she put the young girl's down the laundry chute. Her unknown fairy godmother would never realize that she herself hadn't dropped them there. Julie Guille in ancient times wouldn't have known.

She slipped into the bathrobe, brushed her hair before the dressing-table mirror in the almost blacked-out light. Only a person who had lived with silence these days would have heard the sound. Someone outside the house below. She turned off the light swiftly, stood, ears pointed for sound.

It came. Someone circling the house. More than one person. At the rear now. Voices muffled. She snatched up her clothes, fled into the closet, dressed there. She even put on the mackinaw, tied the bandanna about her head. Gun in right pocket, torch in left. The purse was a hazard. She emptied it, stuffing its contents into the deep pockets of her levis.

The sounds were in the house now. She knew who made them. Not the women of the house. The rightful occupants wouldn't murmur, wouldn't walk softly.

There were no back stairs. The windows were high above the ground, too high for escape. She was trapped. Unless she could make it down the front stairs before the intruders started up. She couldn't. She knew by rustle they were even now in the living-room. She could wait until they came, hold them at bay with Jacques's gun. To what avail? To run with this pack biting her heels?

She couldn't escape them that way.

There was only one chance now of escape. It was ancient; in the time of Euripides it couldn't have been new. Sometimes it worked; that was why it was remembered. More often it didn't. If it didn't, she would submit. They weren't using the lights below, no reflection shone on the snow outside. They planned to take her unawares.

Without sound she opened her bedroom door, the full way, the way the other two bedroom doors stood. She flattened herself not behind it but against the wall on the other side of the opening. Normally they would search first in the guest room, the one at the head of the stairs, not in her center room. They would hunt together because they must know she was armed. She waited. She heard the step on the stairs, saw the faint glimmer of a torch. She listened to the plush of their steps at the head of the stairs. They did enter the first bedroom. She waited further, until they were inside that room, advancing to the inner bath.

Now! In that moment she moved, moccasin-footed, softer than they, a dark shadow in a dark corridor. Soundless, rapid, down the stairs. The front door at the left. She opened it. And she heard the thick voice, “My gun is pointing at your spine. Close the door quickly and do not move.”

She hesitated. One eel-like twist and she could be outside, running. She couldn't run fast enough. Not with two, no, three of them now. They hadn't come on foot. And Schein would welcome a chance to use that gun. A suspected murderess attempting to escape. Killed by the real murderer. Because she had ridden behind his bull neck on the night he killed. He might shoot her now before the others could come downstairs. She put full force into her closing of the door. The bang echoed like a shot in the quiet house. She didn't turn, she stood rigid.

The cry “What— ” came from the upper hall.

Running steps now. No attempt at quietness. Blaike and whoever was with him. The torch a pond of light on the stair carpet.

“Turn on the lights.” It was Blaike who called as he ran.

And it was Albert Schein who said with grisly satisfaction, “It is all right. I have her covered with my gun.”

She didn't turn until Blaike snapped on the hall light, said, “So you were here.”

“Isn't that why you came?”

It wasn't Popin with him. Popin wasn't in this. It was a member of the police department, ugly gun in ugly holster, a dark, bewildered face. “I wouldn't have believed it. Mrs. Anstey, she never would have believed it.”

Julie said, “I haven't hurt anything. I'll pay back everything I've borrowed. I've kept a list. I'll have the window fixed.”

Blaike told the policeman, “You check it over with these people. We'll see they suffer no loss. And thanks for your co-operation, Sena.”

“Wait a minute.” Her voice didn't come out strong, demanding. It quivered. She appealed to Patrolman Sena. “You aren't going to arrest me?”

He said, “If it was me alone I'd have to arrest you. But the F.B.I. has first call these days.”

“F.B.I.?” She looked at Blaike's amused smile. She looked at the gloat on Schein's face. “They aren't F.B.I.”

Blaike said, “I'm afraid we are, Julie.”

Sena believed them. The implications of his belief covered his simple face. He was more than a little proud of helping the secret service. She couldn't prove to him that they were impostors, foreign agents masquerading as government men. Their credentials must be perfect; they had passed muster of the police. She risked an answer scornfully, “Why would the F.B.I. want me?”

“Merely for questioning,” Blaike stated. “Come on.”

Schein said, “First we take her gun.”

She handed it to Blaike, said, still scornfully, “You needn't check. It hasn't been fired.”

He put it in his overcoat pocket. “This way.” His hand was strong under her elbow.

She walked proudly, head erect, as if she weren't bludgeoned by defeat.

An officer waited in a police car outside the wall.

La Fonda lobby was as always sedentary. The hatted house detective raised a knowing smile. Flanked by Blaike and Schein, Julie walked to faint music back to the elevator. The same pretty Spanish girl, uncurious. Up to third. The death walk to Blaike's room. She wouldn't be detained long in this hotel. Held for questioning. Not by the F.B.I. By the Gestapo. She knew that sort of questioning. How long before death would be a boon, how long before she would be screaming for its release? What did they want to know? But of course they didn't want to know anything. They didn't even want to kill her. They wanted to return her to Paul Guille.

Blaike held open the door. She stood motionless. “Enter,” Schein barked. She walked inside.

“Your coat?” Blaike took it. “Sit down.” He pushed forward the armchair. Schein took the straight one by the desk. “Drink?”

“I am not a drinking man,” Schein repeated.

She said, “No.” The percussion of fear beat over every inch of her. She was colder than she had been that night in the snow. Begin. Get it over with.

He poured a small Scotch from a bottle. “You'd better take it. You need it.”

She swallowed it slowly. It put a false warmth into her. She asked, “How did you find me?”

“Someone reported a window broken at the Ansteys'. I have been working in close cooperation with the police. The fact that it was stuffed with newspapers from the inside meant something. And some neighbors mentioned they thought they'd seen a bit of light.”

She asked, “You aren't of the F.B.I.?”

“I assure you I am. If you want to examine my papers, go ahead.” He took them from his inner pocket, held them out. She ignored them. He replaced them. “Schein has been working for us as a counter-espionage agent in Yorkville. Both of us after one thing.” His eyes narrowed on her. “You know what that is.”

She shook her head.

“The Blackbirder.”

“I know nothing of that. Only what you yourself told me.”

Schein said, “You were with Maximilian Adlebrecht the night he died.”

She turned to him, looked him up and down slowly from the pasted toupee to the black box toes. Distastefully. Then she said, “You killed him.”

He was as motionless, as potbellied, as a plaster Buddha. He said. “The police send me after you. They have found a brown coat in a locker. A coat like that one worn by the girl with Maxl. There is much blood on it.