The Grey Beginning, page 23
Finally she said, “It is most interesting, Professor. I am grateful to you for rescuing the collection. If you would be good enough to instruct me as to how they should be preserved?”
“Well, see, the problem is they aren’t dry,” David said. “What they need is a temperature- and humidity-controlled, sealed glass case, but if you put ’em in that environment now, while they’re still wet, they will be ruined. I calculate three or four more days—”
“I don’t have four days,” Francesca said curtly. “Why can’t we use heat lamps?”
“That’s risky. I don’t have the proper equipment—”
“You will have to do the best you can. The house will be closed early next week, perhaps before then. If you can arrange to leave Saturday or Sunday…”
“Whatever you say, of course.”
It was not a pleasant meal. David was sulky and ill at ease, Francesca abstracted. I need not describe my state of mind. On the surface the interview was precisely what I would have expected: the grande dame dismissing the now inconvenient hireling, but expecting him to accomplish the impossible before she threw him out, and the hireling resenting the whole business. If there were hidden nuances I had missed, then I had missed them, and that was that. I was exhausted by surmises.
Finally the uncomfortable dinner drew to a close. David withdrew, his carton under his arm, presumably to spend the rest of the evening drying his scraps. I sat with Francesca for another hour, massacring my embroidery. My hands were quite steady, but my mind was not on my work.
When the clock chimed ten I got to my feet. It was the usual procedure; she was an early riser, and usually went to her room at ten-thirty. As I stood there saying good night, a strange feeling came over me. Everything in the room—furniture, fireplace, the woman sitting poised and groomed on the couch, her needle in her white hand—went flat and two-dimensional, like a painting. Frozen for all time, but unreal, dead. I suppose she spoke to me, returned my “good night.” I didn’t hear her. Painted faces cannot speak.
I wasn’t nervous or afraid. One good result of that long, agonizing day was that I had used up all those emotions. There was nothing left except a flat calm. I took off my jacket and skirt and put on my robe. I filled the pockets of my raincoat with the things I needed—passport and money, keys and wallet. They were big patch pockets; I stuffed one or two odds and ends of clothing in on top of the other things, to make sure they didn’t fall out.
I opened the door and left it ajar. I sat down and picked up a book at random. When I saw it was Browning’s Poems I almost tossed it away, but it didn’t matter; I was incapable of reading print, much less absorbing the content. I sat with the book open, turning pages; now and then a line caught my eye. “Then all smiles stopped together.” The Duke, remembering his last Duchess, who had been too indiscriminate in her affections. “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.” The stuff of nightmares, the dying sunset kindled ahead, the hills crowding in on the quarry at bay…. “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be…” I hope so, Robert; I certainly hope so.
I stopped even pretending to read. My watch held the slow time back. The minute hand stayed fixed for eons, then suddenly jumped and stopped again. At a quarter to eleven Francesca came upstairs. Her heels clicked past my door, not pausing; then came the sound of her door opening and closing. Half an hour later it opened again. A brief murmur of voices—Emilia, bidding her mistress buona notte. Her heavy footsteps, thudding away. She’d take the back stairs, the servant’s path to her room.
I closed the book. Stood up. Turned out the light. Blackness closed over me. The night was clouded, utterly dark. I didn’t need light or want it. I took off my robe, put on slacks and jacket, picked up my shoes and the parcel with Pete’s clothes. I took my coat out of the closet. I stood by the door waiting. Waiting can be an all-consuming activity, requiring every ounce of concentration. I waited.
At twelve-thirty I opened the door. One light shone at the end of the hall near Francesca’s room. Another lit the head of the stairs. I went up into the dark, feeling for each step. The key was in the lock. I turned it and went in.
The dim lamp in the corner of Pete’s room made me blink; it seemed bright after the Stygian darkness of the hall. The kitten, curled in the bend of Pete’s knees, raised its head with a soft inquiring mew. The light reflecting from its eyes made them glow phosphorescent green.
This was the first hurdle. How do you tell a boy of ten that someone wants to kill him? How do you convince him he must come away with you, a stranger, known for only a few days?
Joe helped me awaken him, pouncing and purring, happy to find an intelligent person who was willing to play with a cat in the middle of the night. When the boy stirred sleepily I spoke. “Pete. Wake up. It’s me, Kathy. Don’t make a noise.”
His hand went out, reaching for the cat. “Signora? Is it morning?”
“Not yet. I have to talk to you, honey. It’s important. A secret, just between the two of us—and Joe, of course.”
He sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He looked even younger than ten; his hair stood up in little tufts, and the bones of his arms were as fragile as twigs. I hated what I had to do. I had rehearsed the speech so often that it came out flat and unconvincing. I didn’t believe it myself.
“You’ve got to listen to me, Pete. Listen carefully. Someone is trying to hurt you. You aren’t sick. The attacks—the bad times you had—came because they put a drug in your food. You’ve heard of drugs. They can make people do strange, dangerous things. I want you to come with me—now—to someplace where you’ll be safe. You and Joe. I know you find this hard to believe, but you have to….”
Then came the first surprise of the night—the only pleasant surprise. He was nodding his head. His pupils were dilated; his eyes looked like little jet marbles rimmed with blazing silver.
“You believe it,” I said, gulping.
“I know it. This drug—I don’t know that—but I know I am not sick. I am afraid. Always afraid. Only no one would believe me. Where will we go, signora?”
My icy calm quivered under a burst of relief and thankfulness. Over the first hurdle and still running—and he was a marvel, a miracle, cool and unafraid.
“I know a place, Pete. First get dressed. Something warm and comfortable…. Here.” I pulled slacks and shirt, sweater and socks from the dresser drawer.
He moved instantly to obey, stripping off his pajamas and reaching for the clothes I handed him. His thin little body quivered, but not, I thought with fear.
“We must take Joe.”
“Of course. That’s why I got the carrier today. And this coat and hat for you. No one has seen them; if they start looking for you—”
“I know. Like the movie. You were clever to think of it, signora.”
Bless him, he was cool as a cucumber—a lot cooler than I was. I watched him entice Joe into the carrier and put his favorite game—the one I had bought him—in his coat pocket. After a moment’s thought he stuffed a few of the comic books in the other pocket. “I have not read them,” he said. “Now, signora, I am ready.”
He stood straight and fearless, the unbecoming cap pulled low over his forehead, hiding his hair. The coat was too big; it hung below his knees and covered his hands to the knuckles. I knelt beside him and turned back the cuffs. My hands lingered, but I didn’t hug him. We were brave adventurers, partners in a daring escape. This was no time for sentiment.
“Okay,” I said. “This is the plan. We’re going down the back stairs, through the kitchen, to the garage. To my car. Get in the back seat with Joe and crouch down. I hope we can get away without being seen, but just in case—”
“I know. Now, signora, I will lead the way. I know it better than you in the dark.”
“Yes, sir!”
He gave me an aloof kindly smile, like a general encouraging a loyal subordinate.
I locked the door and took the key. Anything to prolong discovery. He let me carry Joe. Joe was shifting around and murmuring. I hoped he wouldn’t decide to yell, but the carrier had a flap that snapped over the grille at the open end. I had chosen it for that reason. It was our only piece of luggage. We were traveling light, not even my purse to get in the way.
The second hurdle was behind us when we got out of the house without being seen. I had not expected much difficulty there, but the next jump wouldn’t be so easy. There was no way I could get the car out of the garage without starting the engine. The stableyard was perfectly level. Alberto and Emilia slept in the house, so David was the only one I had to worry about. He might waken when he heard the car start, but it was not his job to care who came and went. I hoped, and assumed, he would not interfere. But there were so many things that could go wrong….
I swore under my breath when I saw there was a light in David’s window. After a moment’s indecision I decided not to wait for it to go out. He might decide to work all night.
Pete put the carrier into the back seat. Then he turned to me. “Signora,” he whispered, “will we break the Mercedes?”
I could have kicked myself for not thinking of it.
The trouble was, I didn’t know how to break the Mercedes. I had no idea how to open the hood. There’s one thing any vehicle needs, though, and that’s a set of intact tires. I inspected the rack of tools hanging on the wall; there was just enough light from the open door of my car to enable me to select an awl, sharp-pointed and heavy-handled.
“I’ll break it,” I murmured. “Get in the car and crouch down.”
Puncturing the tires wasn’t as easy as I had thought it would be. Mine always seemed to go flat when they ran over a pin, but I had to pound and jab before I heard air start to hiss out. I had dealt with the two back tires when a flashlight beam caught me full on.
The shock stopped my heart for a second. I had not heard a sound of warning, and believe me, I had been listening.
“Turn off that light,” I said. My voice was ragged with anger and terror.
He turned the light away, but he didn’t switch it off. Holding the awl behind me, I edged toward my car.
“What are you doing?” David said. I could hear him now, coming down the stairs.
“I left something in the car.”
“Something you need desperately at one in the morning?”
“What business is it of yours?”
“I’m making it my business. Why do I get the strange impression that you are doing a moonlit flit—without the moonlight? Flitting is easier in the dark, I admit.”
I said, “If I want to leave, that’s my affair. What do you care?”
“I don’t. I don’t give a good hearty damn whether you stay or go straight to hell, so long as you are alone. I’ll just have a look in the back, and if you have no passenger—”
“Stay away from that car, David. I swear I’ll run you down if you get in my way.”
He made a soft ambiguous sound that might have been a smothered curse or a jeering laugh. My first miscalculation—and possibly my last. How I had patted myself on the back for having the intelligence and the courage to admit that David might be involved. But I had not really believed it, not in my blood and my bones, my heart and my soul. If I had believed it, I would have known that lighted window raised the odds against us a thousand to one. I’d have thought of some other plan. Too late now. Too late for anything except…My fingers tightened around the heavy wooden handle of the awl. Could I use it? I had to. I had to prevent him from stopping us, from giving the alarm. The path to the gates was clear, but the gates would be locked, they always were; by the time I got them open, he’d have caught up with us. And there was his motorcycle. Even if a miracle occurred and we got out of the gates, he could follow.
“Kathy,” he said, in a different, softer voice. “Think what you’re doing. There is still a way out of this. Maybe you don’t realize…” He was moving as he spoke. I could tell from the soft sounds his feet made on the stairs. Then I saw him in the open doorway, a featureless shadow against the lighter stones of the courtyard.
He spoke again. “Kathy, please listen to me.”
I almost dropped in my tracks. His voice came from the dark at the foot of the stairs. He was still inside the garage.
From the hulking shadow in the doorway came a hoarse laugh. “No, signora. Eccola—la carabina. Capisce?”
He wanted to make certain I understood. A switch clicked and lights blazed out. Alberto stood there, his heavy lips parted in a grin, the rifle cradled in his arms.
Every ounce of feeling in me vanished under an overwhelming surge of frigid rage. “God damn you all,” I said. “You’re not going to touch him. You’ll have to shoot me to get at him. At least you may have a hard time convincing the police it was an accident this time.”
I wrenched the door open and got into the car. The keys were in my hand. The headlights went on, sending Alberto’s shadow darting blackly across the stones. I could hear the child gasping, like a runner after a sprint. We didn’t have the ghost of a chance, but I wasn’t going to give up until they dragged me kicking and biting out of the car.
I turned the key. At the first cough of the motor Alberto jumped back, moving with the light-footed agility of a boxer. He held the rifle loosely, carelessly. There was no hurry. One shot would do it.
David came out of the garage, across the glare of the lights. I knew who it must be, but I wouldn’t have recognized him; he was only a blur of movement, a streak of speed. He tackled Alberto low, knocking him backward. The rifle hit the ground. David made a dive for it, but Alberto was up again, quick as a cat. His booted foot crashed down on David’s hand. David’s face was a white oval in the glare; his mouth opened in a cry I heard even through the closed window. With his other hand he grabbed Alberto’s ankle and pulled. The two bodies closed, writhing in a monstrous tangle of limbs. I slammed my foot down on the gas.
I brushed the gatepost as I turned, felt the car shudder and heard the scream of tortured metal. The car rocked and skidded as it swung around the house and onto the drive. Branches reached out black arms that raked at the windows and clawed at the windshield. The gates loomed up ahead. I hit the brakes, fought the sideways slither of the wheels, and got out, leaving the door open. The key was there, on the nail inside the lodge door. When I ran to the gate I saw Pete was out of the car and started to yell at him; then I shut up. He already had the bar off its supports. After I had turned the key he pulled one section of the gates back while I opened the other. He was crying. His face glistened in the headlights, but he didn’t utter a sound.
When we got back in the car I could see the glow of light from behind the villa—not one light but a whole battery of them, all around the stable area. The car splashed through puddles as I sent it down the steep road at a speed I’d never have dared attempt in daylight. We hit a pothole with a jar that jammed my teeth together, and I let up on the gas. I couldn’t risk a broken axle or a flat tire.
We had passed through the sleeping village and reached the main road before I could speak. “Okay back there, Pete?”
“O-kay,” said a very, very small voice.
“I think we made it. Remind me to tell you someday that you are my number-one draft pick.”
His breath caught. “You are the same for me, signora. Joe does not like to ride in a car.”
“I noticed that.” Joe’s protests were piercing and heartfelt. “Most cats hate cars.”
“Will I come in the front with you, signora?”
I started to tell him no, it wasn’t safe, before I realized he needed to be closer to me. And I needed him closer, too. I was operating in the deceptive calm that follows a shattering shock—or a series of them, in quick succession. I said, “Come up. Be careful.”
He tumbled over the seat and rearranged himself. His tears had been dealt with in manly privacy. His face was streaked and grimy, but quite dry.
“Signora?”
“Yes, Pete.”
“We will not go to Dr. Manetti?”
“Do you want to go to him?”
“No! He will send me back.”
“That’s the way I figured,” I said. “Pete, did you ever tell Dr. Manetti someone was trying to hurt you?”
“No. He will not believe me.”
It made me sick to think of the quiet terror in which the boy had lived for so many weeks. He had only one advantage—a child’s fatalistic acceptance of the illogical. He knew they hated him and wanted him dead. He didn’t have to know why. The adult world was incomprehensible anyway. This was only another manifestation of its innate senselessness. And with the cunning of all small, hunted animals, he had learned not to trust any of the hunters.
“We aren’t going to Dr. Manetti,” I said. “For a start, we’re going to telephone your aunt and uncle in Philadelphia.”
“Maybe they don’t want me,” Pete said. “I write them letters, but they don’t answer.”
His voice was flat and unemotional, but I knew that had been another hurt, and not the least of the ones he had endured. I said quickly, “I’ll bet they did answer, Pete. Letters don’t always reach the people to whom they are addressed. Can you remember what happened after you heard about the plane crash? You were with your aunt and uncle then; did they tell you you were going to live with your grandmother, or did she come and get you, or what?”
He didn’t understand the implications of the story he told me, but it confirmed my worst suspicions, and my fondest hopes. No, no one had told him he was to leave until he found Aunt Vera packing his suitcase. She cried all the time she was packing it, though she tried not to let him see. Uncle Ben had been angry, very angry; his face was red and he talked in a deep, growling voice. He had had to leave a lot of his things behind. They could only take one suitcase on the plane, Uncle Bart said.
“You mean Uncle Ben,” I corrected. The lights of Florence were a puddle of brightness in the valley below. We were almost there.
