A sudden scream told him he wasn’t too late not yet, anyway. The moisture-laden air muffled the sound, made its location difficult to determine. Macauley veered in what he hoped was the right direction.
He found himself going up a slight rise. When he topped it, he found himself looking down into a small bowl in the earth. At the bottom, he could make out a dark, writhing shape against the lightness of the snow. He fired a shot into the air.
Part of the shape detached itself with a strangled cry and broke away at a run, vanishing into the snow and darkness. Macauley pounded down the hill and knelt by the girl who lay sprawled on the cold ground.
She was breathing raggedly but deeply, and Macauley thought she would probably be all right. He took his overcoat off and wrapped it around her, knowing that she could be in shock and that she had to be kept warm.
He had just gotten to his feet, holding the girl up in his strong arms, when a great weight slammed into his back. He fell, dropping the girl, and a foot crashed against his ribs.
A twisted voice screamed, “She’s mine! If I can’t have her, no one can!”
Macauley rolled over onto his back and grabbed the foot as it came at him again. He twisted and heaved, and his attacker went over backwards. Macauley rolled away and struggled to his feet. He was surprised to find his gun still in his hand.
The man came to his feet and crouched, ready to spring again. As he began his lunge, Macauley brought his arm up deliberately and squeezed the trigger gently, just as he did on the police firing range once a month.
The force of the bullet brought the attacker up short, and he staggered backwards with a howl. He flopped down on the snow, rolling and whimpering in pain. Macauley kept the gun lined up on him. His heart was pounding faster than it had in years.
Sirens were screaming somewhere in the snowy night.
Much later, in the early hours of the next morning, Macauley and Joanne Everett and several other people listened as the night doorman said, “Miss Warren liked me, I know she did. I saw her going with men all the time, and sometimes they came in with her.
“She was nice to me, but she didn’t want to go with me the way she did with them. I have a great deal of time to think at night, and when I thought too much about her, I got angry, very angry.
“One night when she came in, I tried to get her to let me go up with her. She wouldn’t let me, and she got angry when I insisted. I got angry, too, and she ran away from me. I caught her in the park.
“It’s boring at night. I look outside a lot, and I see other girls like Miss Warren. Sometimes I get angry when I see them going with men like they do, and I know they won’t go with me. I go outside to stop them from acting like that.
“When it’s real late, no one is coming or going, and I don’t feel so bad about leaving the building. That building is my responsibility at night, you know.”
He looked smaller, huddled in a hospital bed without his cap and greatcoat. His right leg was in a cast, the bone shattered just above the knee by Macauley’s bullet.
Macauley, Joanne and Ed Carlisle went out into the hall, leaving the District Attorney’s men to continue the questioning. Carlisle said, “The doctors told me that girl will be all right. She’s pretty shook up, but the bruises will go away. I’ll bet she gives up hustling.”
Quietly, Joanne said, “I wish there was an easier way.”
Macauley gently put an arm around her. “Come on. I’ll take you home now. You need some rest.”
“So do you.”
“Don’t we all.” He waved at Carlisle as they went down the hall.
The snow had stopped falling. They crunched through it as they walked across the hospital parking lot to his car. It felt right to have his arm around her.
As he paused to brush snow off the windshield, she said, “Why did you take me to the park?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. Then, “I thought something. I was wrong, and I’m very damned glad that I was.”
He looked at her, put his hands on her shoulders, drew her closer to him. He said, “You told me two days ago that everyone needs to escape sometimes. I’ve been doing it for years in my work. I don’t think it’s enough any more. I think I need your help now.”
“I think I need your help, too. Please hold me, Will.”
He held her very tightly as they stood in the snow. They were warm despite the cold, and for a time, the entire city was their haven.
Partners
by Hal Ellson
Every man has his price, and so does every woman. It comes out as forty thousand dollars.
She waited close to the phone and wondered if Max would call. Timid Max might come apart at the last moment and not go through with it. As for herself, Jill was ready for the biggest event of her life and had no qualms over what was about to unfold.
Unless Max falters in the stretch, she thought. But he wouldn’t, he couldn’t. He had sworn that he loved her and would never let her go.
Dear little Max, she hummed, and the phone rang. It was Max and his voice trembled.
“Are you ready and packed?” he asked.
“Everything is set with me,” Jill answered. “And you? You know, we can’t afford a mistake.”
He assured her that he had the plane tickets, had confirmed their flight and, once in Mexico, they’d be completely free. As for the money, he had drawn all of it from the bank.
“Forty thousand dollars?” she said.
“With interest, which should keep us going for a long spell and in proper style.” He chuckled, then grew alarmed when Jill didn’t reply. “Something wrong?” he asked.
“Well,” she said.
“Well, what? You’re not going to back out now, are you?”
“No, but I was thinking of what I am about to do. In a way, it’s a terrible thing, you know, just going off like this and leaving Bill without letting him know.”
“He doesn’t deserve to know. Let him suffer the way he’s made you suffer,” Max said.
“But I’m not like him. I don’t want him to suffer and I don’t want revenge. Besides, if I don’t let him know I’m leaving him, he’ll probably think I’ve been kidnapped or something like that and have the police searching for me.”
“Let him think and let the police search,” Max argued. “It’ll do Bill good to wonder what hit him and the police will never find you.”
“But what if they do?”
“If the impossible happens, there’s really nothing they can do — and Bill can do less,” Max insisted. “But Jill was still hesitant, thinking it wiser and safer to let Bill know the truth.
“All right, leave a brief note for him. ‘Goodbye, Animal’ should be appropriate,” Max said, laughing. “And now hurry, hurry, lover, the plane takes off in an hour and we don’t want to miss it.”
“I’ll be at your place in ten minutes,” Jill answered. She placed the phone down then and turned to the vanity mirror and surveyed herself. Blonde and shapely, she looked as young and innocent as a high school girl. None the less, she was a married woman, married to Bill who, as Max had put it, was certainly an animal. But, then, all men were animals, she believed, even poor little Max, except that he wasn’t vicious. He was as tame as a teddy bear, and worth forty thousand dollars.
At thought of the money, she smiled at herself in the mirror, turned away, then remembered the note she was to leave for Bill. It wasn’t necessary, of course, but on second thought she decided it was certainly appropriate, as Max had suggested, so she scribbled it quickly on the vanity mirror with the reddest of lipstick. She picked up her bag then and left the apartment. Ten minutes later, a taxi dropped her off in front of the brownstone where Max lived. She left her bag in the cab, told the driver to wait and went up the high stoop of the brownstone to ring the bell.