The Hellfire Club (29 page)

Her hand fluttered over the shift lever and moved the car into drive. Waving his red arms, Dick Dart was racing toward her.

The car shot forward. She twisted the wheel, and the right front fender struck him with an audible thump. Like the girl in the story, he disappeared. Nora fastened her shaking hands on the wheel and sped downhill.

BOOK VI

FAMILIAR MONSTERS

P
IPPIN UNDERSTOOD THE NATURE OF HIS TASK
. T
HAT WAS NOT THE PROBLEM
. T
HE PROBLEM WAS THAT THE TASK WAS IMPOSSIBLE.

56

STREETS, BUILDINGS, STOPLIGHTS
flew past her, other drivers honked and jolted to standstills. Pedestrians shouted, waved. For a lengthy period Nora drove the wrong way down a one-way street. She had escaped, she was escaping, but where? She drove aimlessly through a foreign city, now and then startled by the stranger’s face reflected in the rearview mirror. She supposed that this stranger was looking for the expressway but had no idea of where to go once she got there.

She pulled to the side of the road. The world outside the car consisted of large, handsome houses squatting, like enormous dogs and cats, on spacious lawns. It came to her that she had seen this place before, and that something unpleasant had happened to her here. Yet the neighborhood was not unpleasant, not at all, because it contained . . .

Sprinklers threw arcs of water across the long lawns. She was in a cul-de-sac ending in a circle before the most imposing house on the street, a three-story red-brick mansion with a bow window, a dark green front door, and a border of bright flowers. She had arrived at Longfellow Lane, and the house with the bow window belonged to Dr. Daniel Harwich.

Her panic melted into relief. She had reached the end of the street before she realized that Mrs. Lark Pettigrew Harwich might not welcome the sudden appearance of one of her husband’s old girlfriends, however desperate that old girlfriend might be. At that moment, coffee mug in one hand, Dan Harwich emerged from the depths of the room and stood at the bow window to survey his realm. A fist struck her heart.

Harwich gave Nora’s car a mildly curious glance before taking a sip of coffee and raising his head to look at the sky. He had changed little since she had last seen him. The same weary, witty competence inhabited his face and gestures. He turned and disappeared into the room. Somewhere behind him, pouring coffee for herself in a redesigned kitchen, very likely lurked wife number two.

Nora cramped the wheel and sped out of the circle, wondering how on earth she was going to find a telephone. She turned left onto Longfellow Street, another treeless length of demi-mansions old and new, all but identical to Longfellow Lane except for being a real street instead of a cul-de-sac and the absence from any of its numerous bay windows of Dr. Daniel Harwich. At the next corner, she turned left onto Bryant Street, another stretch of wide green lawns and sturdy houses, and began to feel that she would spend the rest of her life moving down these identical streets past these identical houses.

At the next corner she turned left again, this time onto Whittier Street, then onto Whitman Street, another replica of Long-fellow Lane, the chief difference being that instead of an asphalt circle at the end of the block there was a stop sign at an intersection, and directly beside the stop sign stood the metal hood and black rectangle of a public telephone.

57

THREE FEET FROM
a chintz sofa piled with cushions, Nora felt herself slip into a collapse. She sank a quarter of an inch, then another quarter of an inch, taking Dan Harwich’s unresisting hand with her. Then an arm wrapped around her waist, a hand gripped her shoulder, and she stopped moving.

Harwich pulled her upright. “I could carry you the rest of the way.”

“I’ll make it.”

He loosened his grip, and Nora stepped around the side of a wooden coffee table and let him guide her to the sofa.

“Do you want to lie down?”

“I’ll be okay. It’s letting go of all that tension, I guess.” She slumped back against the cushions. Harwich was kneeling in front of her, holding both her hands and staring up at her face.

He stood up, still staring at her face. “How did you get away from this Dart?”

“I hit him with a hammer, then I ran into him with the car.”

“Where?”

“Outside some motel, I don’t remember. Don’t call the police. Please.”

He looked down at her, chewing his lower lip. “Back in a sec.”

Nora put an arm behind her back and pulled out a stiff round cushion embroidered with sunflowers on one side and a farmhouse on the other. There was still an uncomfortable number of cushions back there. She did not remember the chintz sofa or this profusion of cushions from her earlier visit to Longfellow Lane. Helen Harwich’s living room had been sober and dark, with big square leather furniture on a huge white rug.

Now, apart from the mess, the room was like a decorator’s idea of an English country house. Dirty shirts lay over the back of a rocking chair. One running shoe lay on its side near the entrance to the front hall. The table on which she had nearly cracked her head was littered with old newspapers, dirty glasses, and an empty Pizza Hut carton.

Harwich came back with a tumbler so full that a trail of shining dots lay behind him. “Drink some water before it slops all over the place, sorry.” He handed her the wet tumbler and knelt in front of her. Nora swallowed and looked around for a place to put the glass. Harwich took it and set it on the table.

“You’re going to leave a ring,” she said.

“I don’t give a shit.” He grasped her right hand in both of his. “Why don’t you want me to call the police?”

“Right before I got abducted by Dick Dart, I was about to be charged with about half a dozen crimes. It sounds a little funny, given what happened, but I’m pretty sure that kidnapping was one of them. That’s why I was in the police station.”

Harwich stopped kneading her hand. “You mean if you go to the police you’ll get arrested?”

“Think so.”

“What did you do?”

She pulled her hand away from his. “Do you want to hear what happened, or do you just want to call the FBI and have me hauled away?”

“The FBI?”

“Couple of real charming guys,” she said. “They had no trouble at all assuming I was guilty.”

Harwich stood up and moved to the other end of the sofa.

“If this is too much for you, I’ll get out of here,” Nora said. “I have to find this doctor. If I can remember his name.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Harwich said. “I want to hear the whole story, but before that, let’s see if we can take care of Dick Dart.” He stood up and took a cellular phone from the mantel. Nora started to protest. “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything about you. Try to remember the name of that motel.” He went across the room and pulled a telephone book from beneath a stack of magazines and newspapers.

“I can’t.”

“Did it have a sign?” He held his finger over a number.

“Sure, but . . .” She saw the sign. “It was called the Hillside. ‘Like the strangler,’ Dart said.”

“Like the strangler?”

“The Hillside Strangler.”

“Jesus.” Harwich punched numbers. “Listen to me. I’m only going to say this once. The escaped murderer Dick Dart checked into the Hillside Motel in Springfield this morning. He may be injured.” He turned off the phone and replaced it on the mantel. “I suppose you’ll feel safer once Dart is off the streets.”

“You have no idea.”

“So talk,” Harwich said.

She told him about Natalie Weil and Holly Fenn and Slim and Slam, she told him about Daisy’s book and Alden’s ultimatum, she described the scene in the police station, Natalie’s accusation, her abduction, Ernest Forrest Ernest, the Chicopee Inn. She told Harwich that Dart had raped her. She told him about the library and the shopping spree and being made up” she told him about Sheldon Dolkis.

While she spoke, Harwich scratched his head, squinted, circled the room, flopped into a chair, bounced up again, interjected sympathetic, astounded, essentially noncommittal remarks, and finally urged her into the kitchen. After gathering up the dirty glasses and utensils and stashing them in or around the sink, he made an omelette for them both. He leaned forward, his chin on his elbow. “How do you get yourself into these situations?”

She put down her fork, her appetite gone. “What I want to know is, how do I get out of it?”

Harwich tilted his head, raised his eyebrows, and spread his hands in a pantomime of uncertainty. “Do you want me to take a look at you? You should have an examination.”

“On your kitchen table?”

“I was thinking that we could use one of the beds, but if you prefer, I could take you to my office. I have an operation this afternoon, but I’m free until then.”

“There’s no need for that,” Nora said.

“No serious bleeding?”

“I bled a little, but it stopped. Dan, what should I
do
?”

He sighed. “I’ll tell you what baffles me about all this. This woman, this Natalie Weil, accuses you of beating her, starving her, God knows what, and the FBI and most of your local police force believe her. Why would she lie about it?”

“Screw you, Dan.”

“Don’t get mad, I’m just asking. Does she have anything to gain from having you put away?”

“Can we turn on the radio?” Nora asked. “Or the TV? Maybe there’ll be something about Dart.”

Harwich jumped up and switched on a radio beside the silver toaster at the end of a counter. “I guess I don’t have the fugitive mind-set.” He moved the dial to an all-news station, where a man in a helicopter was describing a traffic slowdown on a highway.

“The fugitive mind-set,” Nora said.

“I’m only a jaded old neurosurgeon. I lost all my old wartime instincts a long time ago. But I’d better hide your car.”

“Why?”

“Because about a minute after they show up at the motel, they’re going to be looking for an old green Ford with a certain license plate. And it’s in my driveway.”

“Oh!”

The telephone rang. Harwich glanced at the wall phone in the kitchen and then back at Nora before pushing himself away from the table. “I’ll take this in the other room.”

No longer certain of what she made of Dan Harwich or he of her, Nora turned back to the radio. An announcer was telling Hampshire and Hampden counties that the temperatures were going to stay in the high eighties for the next two or three days, after which severe thundershowers were expected. In the next room Harwich raised his voice to say, “Of course I know! Do you think I’d forget?”

She stood up and carried her cup to the coffeemaker. Dishes and glasses filled the sink, and stains of various kinds and colors lay on the counter. Then she heard the words “Richard Dart” come from the radio.

“. . . this vicinity. Police in Springfield discovered a mutilated male corpse and signs of struggle in a room at the Hillside Motel on Tilton Street. Springfield police have indicated the possibility that the fugitive serial killer has been injured, and are conducting a thorough search of the Tilton Street area. Residents are warned that Dart is armed and extremely dangerous. He is thirty-eight years old, six feet, two inches tall, weighs two hundred pounds, has fair hair and brown eyes, and was last seen wearing a gray suit and a white shirt. The fate and whereabouts of his hostage, Mrs. Nora Chancel, are likewise unknown.”

Smiling an utterly mirthless smile, Dan Harwich came back into the kitchen and stopped moving at the sound of Nora’s name.

“Mrs. Chancel is described as being forty-nine years of age, five-six in height, slender, weighing approximately one hundred and ten pounds, with short, dark brown hair and brown eyes, last seen wearing blue jeans and a long-sleeved dark blue shirt. Anyone seeing Mrs. Chancel or any person who appears to be Mrs. Chancel should immediately contact the police or the local office of the FBI.

“Police have not yet been able to identify Dart’s latest victim.

“In other local news, State Senator Mitchell Kramer resolutely denies recent charges of mishandling of . . .”

Harwich switched off the radio. “Give me the keys.” Nora handed them over.

“Your life is a lot more adventurous than mine.” He smiled almost apologetically.

“I’m making you uncomfortable, so I’ll go,” she said. “You don’t have to keep me around out of charity because we used to be friends.”

“We were a lot more than that. Maybe I ought to be uncomfortable now and then.” He grinned at her, and his eyes flickered, and for a second the old Dan Harwich shone through the surface of this warier, more cynical version. “Back in a flash.”

“In the meantime, try to think about what I ought to do, will you? Can you?”

“I’m thinking about it already,” Harwich said.

58

WHEN HARWICH CAME
back, Nora said, “I get the feeling your wife isn’t expected anytime soon.”

“Don’t worry about her.” Harwich arched his back. “Lark’s not in the picture anymore.”

“I’m sorry. When did that happen?”

“The disaster took place on the day we got married. I think I got involved with her to get away from Helen. You remember Helen, I suppose?”

“How could I forget Helen?”

“Probably the only time you were thrown out of somebody’s house.” Harwich laughed. “In the end, she didn’t want to live here and I did, so I bought her out.
Bought
is the word, believe me. Two million in alimony, plus ten thousand a month in support payments. Thank God, last year she suckered some other poor bastard into marrying her. At least I covered my ass when I married Lark. She signed a prenuptial—two hundred fifty thousand, all her clothes and jewelry and her car, that’s it. On the whole, I should have been smarter than to marry someone named Lark Pettigrew. I let her redo the whole place, and now I’m living in this dollhouse.” He gave Nora a rueful, affectionate look. “The woman I should have married was you, but I was too stupid to know it. There you were, right in front of me.”

“I would have married you,” Nora said.

“That last time? You turned up here like Vietnam all over again, I mean, you were
wild.
And I was already seeing Lark, anyhow. What I’m saying is, I should have married you instead of that miserable witch Helen.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. Do you know? It’s probably better we didn’t. I don’t seem to be very good at marriage.” He made a wide gesture with one arm and laughed. “Lark took off about three weeks ago, and the week after that I fired the cleaning woman. I don’t mind the mess. Damn woman used to rearrange all my books and papers. Excuse me, but I never understood why I should have to learn my
cleaning woman’s
filing system.”

She smiled.

“Christ, what’s the matter with me?” He clamped his eyes shut. “All this stuff happening to you, and I’m talking about bullshit instead of helping you.”

“You’re already helping me,” Nora said. “You don’t know how often I think about you.”

He leaned over the top of his chair and closed one hand around one of hers, squeezed, and released it. “I think you should stay here at least a day or two, maybe more. I have that operation this afternoon, but I’ll come back around four or five, get some food, we can see if they picked up Dart, talk things out. Let me pamper you.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Nora said. “You’d really let me stay?”

Harwich leaned forward and took her hand again. “If you even try to get away, I’ll lock you in the attic.”

Her pulse seemed to stop.

“I can’t believe I said that.” He gripped her hand, which wanted to shrink to a stone. “Nora, you’re like a godsend, you remind me of real life, can you understand that?”

“I remind you of real life.”

“Yeah, whatever that is. You do.” Harwich let go of her hand and wiped his eyes, which had suddenly filled with tears. “Sorry. I’m supposed to be helping you, and instead I come unglued.” He tried to smile.

“It’s okay,” Nora said. “My life is a lot messier than yours.”

He rubbed his finger beneath his nose and withdrew into himself for a moment, gazing unseeing at the plates stacked at the edge of the table. “Let’s make up your bed.” He stood up, and she did too, returning his smile. “Do you want to bring in your bags, or anything?”

“Right now, all I want to do is rest.”

“Sounds good to me,” Harwich said.