Lost (25 page)

But it was Leona's face that was ashen and frightened, not Mamie's. She stepped quickly to Mamie and reached for her, but Mamie swung out hard and pivoted before she was drawn up at the waist. Through the fur coat, she could feel Leona's body shaking. Mamie twisted in the clasping arms.

The other woman, still stooping, was trying to talk to Patsy. Mamie heard her say, “What's your name?” and Patsy glanced aside to murmur her reply. “You look awfully familiar,” the woman said. Leona let Mamie down, keeping a grip on her forearm, and rushed toward Patsy as the woman said, “Why, you're the little girl I saw in the newspaper, aren't you?” Suddenly, Leona caught Patsy's hand and they were moving. “Aren't you?” the woman said, now staring at Leona. “
That's the little girl!
”

And they were practically running. Leona told Walter to hurry,
hurry
; the dime-store lights slid by them, bright boxes clattered to the floor, and all the pretty colors blurred away.

Outside, Mamie tried to plant her shoes and brace herself, but they were moving so fast that she was momentarily dragged through the air. “Hurry!” Leona said. “Hurry, Walter. Try to keep up. Take Patsy's hand. That's it.” She dipped down and grabbed Mamie in the crook of her arm, and they were crossing the street, running for the garage and the old car.

They fled down the winter sidewalk, past stores decorated for Thanksgiving, past a huge wedding cake in a baker's window. Leona's hair was coming undone, her feet skittered on the ice, and now it was snowing quite hard. “Let's go!” she said, with the wind blowing the snow straight at them. “Come on, let's go!” shooing them before her like chickens, picking them up when they lagged behind, and carrying them until she could let them down again. “Run!” She could hear the fright in her voice. They had only a few minutes to get away. That woman knows who we are. She'll get the police.

At the end of the storefronts, Leona saw the Buick parked outside the garage, ready for her. Still pushing the children along, she hurried to get her key from the mechanic, who was now working on a red car in the driveway. The mechanic said, “It'll start for ya—I just now drove it out.” Then he told her he'd left the key in the ignition, and Leona turned to go. But Patsy stopped, and then Walter stopped with her. They stood gazing at the little red Ford. “That's Mommy's car,” Walter said. “That looks like my mommy's car.” Trembling and out of breath, Leona said there must be hundreds of cars like that one, and caught Patsy's hand. “Come on, now, Walter. Never mind. We have to go. Oh, my God,
hurry
.”

12

“How's it comin'?” Sherman said, leading the Chinaman toward the red coupe.

From the shadows under the hood, the mechanic squinted at him through the snow. “Just about finished,” he said. “All you needed was a fan belt.”

With a shrewd and nimble watchfulness, Sherman again scanned the layout of intersections and stores. No police in sight. And no sign of Mamie. He had been driving all night. “I thought I heard it squeakin',” he said.

“I see you got your groceries,” the man remarked, collecting his tools and drop cloth and slamming the hood.

“Yeah,” Sherman said. “How much do I owe ya?”

“I better check.” The mechanic went into the garage.

Still glancing from side to side, Sherman put the sack of groceries in the back seat and took out a Hershey bar. The Chinaman jumped into the car and immediately sat down, his tail twitching. Sherman snapped off some pieces of the chocolate and flipped them to the dog; then he ate a few pieces himself. “Is this your favorite?” he said, teasing the dog as he chewed. “Or what? What's your favorite?” But the dog wouldn't bark or break his concentration from the candy, a rich, brown drool leaking from his muzzle. Sherman fed the dog the rest of the bar. What's taking so long? he wondered. Thirty miles back, a man in a restaurant said he'd seen the woman in the Buick headed this way, but now all trace of her had vanished. Again, Sherman scanned the streets. Through the snow, he saw the mechanic come out.

Sherman counted six dollars from the wad of bills in his pocket and took the receipt. He was about to show the mechanic the picture of the woman when the man said, “You sure you're old enough to drive this baby?”

“Yeah,” Sherman told him, his voice suddenly cold and flat. “I'm old enough.” He returned the picture to his pocket.

“Okay,” the mechanic said, backing away. “You are if you say you are. That's my motto.”

Through the snowstorm, the red coupe headed out of town. With his head pounding, Sherman sat erect but low in the driver's seat, peering above the rim of the steering wheel. On the seat beside him lay the bottle containing his last pill, saved since yesterday noon. The sleepless hours of driving were beginning to take their toll. His eyelids drooped and blinked. The road was already slippery with new snow—he'd have to be careful not to end up in a ditch. He took his foot off the accelerator and pumped the brake pedal. In swerving dips the Ford slowed to a crawl. The dull ache throbbed in his temples and his eyes watered until he could hardly see. He squeezed his eyes shut momentarily, blinked, and saw a rusty neon sign appearing in the falling snow.
HORSESHOE COURT
.
TOURIST COTTAGES
.

As he drove past the horseshoe-shaped drive, he drowsily glanced in at the little string of cottages and went on down the road. He drove another thirty or forty yards before it struck him. What had he just seen? He let a car pass, shifted the Ford to reverse, and crept back. There it was, parked at one of the cottages: the blue Buick.

Still, it startled him.

“
That's it!
” he yelled. “
That's it! That's it!
”

Its grille dappled with snow, the Buick faced the road; it had been parked back toward the cottage. Suddenly everything around him grew sharper. Again he shifted gears. Inching forward, he glanced at the road, then back, the parked Buick rotating slowly on the axis of his sight. He saw the woman and three kids coming out of the cottage and rushing for the car. Then, clearly, he saw that one of the kids was Mamie.

“
Mamie!
” he shouted, “
Mamie! Mamie! Mamie!
” pulling himself up on the wheel, bouncing in the seat. He couldn't stifle his outcry, his voice contained in the closed car. He was filled with joy. He smacked the steering wheel, turned quickly into the front entrance of the drive, and stopped the car just beyond the motel office.

From that distance, he watched the woman as he made his plan. He wanted to surprise her. He wanted her to beg. Uncapping the bottle, he swallowed his pill. “Boy,” he said to the Chinaman, “do you see what I see?”

That awful woman, Leona thought; she's called the police by now. Her nerves were so on edge she didn't know what she should be preparing for. She could feel the gravity of the danger bearing down on her. She needed some kind of defense, something to restore her equilibrium. She leaned into the trunk, pushed aside the other suitcases, and opened the lizard-skin briefcase. It was as if everything she had done had led her inexorably to this moment. Grasping the Browning automatic in its mass of crochet cotton, she transferred it, cotton and all, to her purse.

“Is that a gun?”

Ambushed by the child's voice, Leona flinched and glanced back. Not three feet away, Patsy stood watching. And stepping away behind Patsy was Mamie.

“Can I see it? Can I see in your purse?” Patsy said, her voice almost a whisper.

“No,” Leona said, and they stared at each other. “Patsy, I'm not playing now. I told you to get in the car.”

“Okay,” the little girl said, “but you don't have to be mad at me,” and turned away.

Leona slipped her hand into her purse, gripped the cold pistol, and flipped the safety off.

The snow continued to fall, heavier and heavier. With the doors on the passenger side open, she lifted the children, one by one, into the car: Patsy and Walter in back; Mamie taking her turn to ride in front. Leona locked the doors on the inside, slammed them shut. Head down, clutching her collar tight, she ran to the other side of the car. Over the snow-swept roof of the Buick she noticed that the red car the children had pointed out at the garage was now parked near the motel office. The driver's door had been left standing open.…

She heard an odd sound on the wind. The falling snow obscured her vision, but she was certain she saw something move; yet when she blinked, it was gone. It's just the snow, she thought. She slipped behind the wheel. Placing her purse on her lap, she pulled the door shut. Crusty ice had darkened the windows in scallops and eddies, a packed, uneven dimness. Dear God, she thought, please start this car. She turned the ignition key and the motor revved beneath them. The wipers cleared most of the windshield, leaving frozen patches. But she couldn't take time to clean it. The car broke forward, cracking on ice.

At fifteen feet, he heard her start the car. Now at ten feet, through the ice-crusted side window, he could see the mottled shape of her head as the car pulled forward. Stop her, he thought, and he plunged through the deep snow. The Chinaman, breaking through drifts, raced beside him. Sherman pulled the blackjack from his pocket, ran out on the slippery ice, and flung himself at the moving car, his arm whipping around. The blackjack exploded on the side glass with a deafening crash.

At the moment of impact, Leona's head whirled away from the inward spew of glass and she pitched across the seat to hide herself and protect Mamie.
My God, what was that?
In that moment she was seized by fear so profound she felt that her heart had wrenched sideways. It took her completely by surprise; she thought someone had shot a bullet. Her bedraggled hair and her coat caught much of the flying glass, but grains and slivers of it were stuck to her cheek and in her left eyebrow. She was afraid to open her eyes.

When the Buick swerved from his blow, the rear fender caught Sherman broadside and knocked him off balance. He spun to his knees and came up, still clutching the blackjack. Again he went toward the car and the woman inside it, but then he saw a blinking red light stain the snow around him and glanced back. Everything in him froze. In front of the unlit motel office at the other end of the drive, a shiny black car slowed beside the red Ford.

Police.

Moving as little as possible, he drew to a standstill. The snow fell in a thick biting slant. It was his only cover. He could hear the Buick rolling slowly away. He wanted desperately to go after it, but he couldn't. He had to hide. Across the windy divide, a state trooper got out of the black cruiser and strode toward the little red car. As soon as the trooper turned his back, Sherman darted and swiveled down between two cars that had been parked in the drive overnight. He pulled the Chinaman to him and held the black mouth muffled with his good hand, ready to silence him if he started to bark.

She still felt as if an enormous muscle had been pulled to the point of breaking deep in her breast. Cowering in the front seat, Leona gasped for breath and touched the sharp bits of glass on her face. She wiped and picked enough of them away so that she could open her eyes. Miraculously the already cracked side window in the driver's door had held, but she wondered if it was safe to sit up. Yet she had no choice: she couldn't let the car idle along any farther.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed herself up from Mamie and sat behind the wheel. Her foot trembled on the brake. She looked back at Patsy and Walter. Their faces were terror-stricken, shocked beyond tears. “Are you hurt?” she asked them, her own voice hoarse with fright. “Is anybody hurt?” She reached inside her purse and fitted her hand on the Browning.

“I think I feel pale,” Patsy said, whitefaced, and Walter began to sob, his fingers digging into the top of the seat. But before she could turn to him or make any effort to comfort him, a ray of reddish light fluttered into the car's interior. It flashed through Leona like a current. Police, she thought. That woman did tell.

Did they fire at us?
She couldn't see through the shattered side window, and snow had covered the window in back. But through the patchy windshield she saw a black police car skid across the exit end of the drive and block it. Her heartbeat jumped in her throat. Horrified, she let go of the Browning. I can't do that, she thought. We've got to get out of here. We'll have to go out the other end.

To Sherman, watching, none of it seemed real. The red coupe was cut off by the police. Two black cruisers sat angled in front of it now, their pale insignias glinting through the snow. Four troopers had congregated at the rear of the car; they were prying the trunk open with crowbars. He could hear them. Then, in the arc of their headlights, he saw them lift out his bloodied clothes. I knew it all along, he thought; it's me they're after. Not her. But the confirmation of it ran in his veins like ice. He was trapped. He straightened up between the parked cars.

Tugging at the dog, he darted like a frightened animal, relying on gut instinct, terrified beyond thought. Crashing through the snow to Cottage 10, he caught the doorknob but the door wouldn't open. At the next cottage, he hit the door with his shoulder; the latch jangled but the door held tight.

He heard a crunching sound behind him like footsteps. His heart jammed as he lunged around. Nothing. Nobody with a gun. Yet something was wrong. The Chinaman was wandering away though the snow.

Keeping his voice low, hardly above a whisper, he tried to call the dog back, “C'mere.” He smooched the air with his lips two or three times. The dog stopped and raised his head. “Come on, Chinaman, c'mere.” Urging the dog back, Sherman patted his knee and inched from the shadowed doorway, but it was no use. The Chinaman was still slipping through the snow, his dark, ragged coat working on his long muscles. “Go ahead, then, you bastard,” he muttered. But he could see that the dog was moving at an odd gait, almost stalking, head pitched low. Then he saw why.