The Gift Shop Read online

  So the little boy shifted silently away from the screen door, where he had been listening. He began to run. Jean saw him, and catching his urgency, she ran toward him.

  Harry’s head had just appeared at the top of the rock.

  The boy said, “That lad’s holding a gun on Pa.”

  “Oh!”

  “So I’m going to get the help.”

  “Oh, yes—”

  “Don’t worry.” The child grinned at her and began to scamper up along the road.

  But Jean thought, despairingly, that his little legs must run a mile and a half, and she didn’t have the car keys, and it was going to take too long to get the help, and what could she do, in the meantime, here at the ranch?

  She looked fearfully at the ranch house, which seemed to lie baking there, as it had been baking. She could hear the bull ranting and raving, in his fashion, at the far side of the corral. Now she looked his way, and saw the spread-eagled body on the rock face, and the animal ranging to and fro beneath, and she had to go and think of rattlesnakes and sunstrokes, besides, and she thought, this is not good. I don’t like this.

  She moved toward the shade. The eucalyptus leaves were crisp and they whispered harshly under her feet. So she moved close to the house wall and began to creep along beside it. Now she couldn’t see Harry. But why was Dorinda holding a gun? And where was Vance?

  Harry wished he’d had sense enough to take his jacket off. The rock was not quite as perpendicular as it had looked. He was finding hand and footholds. But he was streaming with sweat already and how the devil he was going to swing into the cave, he did not know. He hoped for the best. The going was not all that good. He had to be cautious; he had to be slow, and the animal, down there, wasn’t helping his morale, much.

  So here he was, in effect crossing a façade; in effect, acting like the muscled hero, the bold one, and maybe it was about time. Or maybe it was late in life, for Harry Fairchild.

  He wished he had taken off his shoes. No, no, any shoe was better than none, he guessed. He gouged a long wound into fine leather with a fierce thrust, and found another foothold. O.K. So he had to do this, had he? So he’d just do it. He would get the pig, get the message, read it, and (lest afterward he were to be set upon by them) he would eat the message. But for now, he’d think no more about it. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So where was he going to put his left foot?

  Jean had reached a window, and she was suddenly able to see all the way through the narrow house and out a window, at the other side. From here she could even see that dark eagle, plastered on the rock. It did not seem to move at all. Her heart thumped in her throat.

  Then she saw another figure. It had moved into the bright frame of the opposite window. It was outside, on the other side of the house. A silhouette. A man. With a hat. With a diagonal shadow, crossing his outline. A man with a gun!

  She scurried back the way she had come, to the corner of the building. What was he going to do?

  She saw him run to the white fence. She saw him rest the long gun. She saw that he was sighting. At what? At what?

  Harry felt a sting on his cheek, a fleck, glinting off the basic rock, sharp, cutting his flesh. He couldn’t let go, to feel of his face with his hand. He could turn his head.

  So he looked behind him. There was a man on the far side of the corral, a man with a gun. And the man was shooting bullets at Harry Fairchild, who was plastered helplessly against the face of the rock and could neither duck nor run or take any cover at all. Nor drop.

  Below the bull roared.

  Jean went running back along the house wall. She’d have to get somebody to help. The blue car stood empty. But she could hear something. The car seemed to buzz at her. Twice. Was it going to blow up? She didn’t care if it did. But then it came to her what the sound had been. How ridiculous! How supercivilized, in so primitive a situation! How mad! There was a telephone in that car.

  But she had now come to a screen door, the way into another room. She heard voices.

  Dorinda’s, saying, “Oh, shut up. You don’t know what this is about and you don’t need to know.”

  Jean heard a man say angrily, “What’s he doing?”

  “What I told him to do.”

  “Fun’s fun, but if he shoots Rocket, it’s not going to be a whole lot of fun for him. Or you, young lady.”

  “Oh, shut up, or I’ll see you do.”

  Jean had her eyes and nose against the edge of the screen now. She could see Dorinda, who had a gun in her hand, sure enough!

  The man said, “Go ahead. Try it. You better know exactly where to put a bullet. Because if not, you’re dead, lady.”

  Dorinda was going to shoot the man. Jean didn’t have time to worry about this, because Vance was out there shooting at Harry! So Jean grabbed the doorhandle and yanked it and sang out (of all absurd things in the world) the first sentence that came into her head.

  “Telephone for you, Dorinda.”

  “What!” Dorinda jumped and turned.

  And Mike Mizer leapt.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Very quickly, and without any particular mercy, he twisted the gun out of Dorinda’s hand, bending her arm as cruelly as was necessary. Then he had her threshing, but imprisoned, and he had her moving, and he had her out of Edna’s parlor and out of his house.

  “Now git!” he said, “you fool woman!” and sent her sprawling into the dust.

  “Who are you?” he said to Jean. “Say, I’ve seen you someplace …”

  “But he’s shooting!” cried Jean. “The man is! He’s shooting at Harry!”

  “Where?”

  “On the rock. The cave. The boy went for help but it’s so far—”

  “No, no,” said Mike. “Tony’s only up on the hill, where he can signal. Come on. I’ll get me a better gun than this piece of junk.”

  Mike Mizer went racing into his house and Jean after him.

  Harry heard another bullet strike the rock. He, however, had found another toehold. He descended. It was very simple, really. There was, at the moment, nothing else for him to do, but continue intrepidly.

  Dorinda picked herself up and went to the car. She got in, stared at the light that was still lit, and then she took up the telephone.

  * * *

  The little boy came sifting, like a ray of darkness, down into the row of eucalyptus. He could see the man at the fence and that wasn’t so good. But he could see the woman in the car, and that might be good. And help was coming. He’d signaled from the hill and seen them start.

  Inside the house, Jean’s teeth chattered. Mike was loading.

  On the rock face, Harry’s left foot dangled before the mouth of the cave, in thin air.

  Dorinda said, “I need …”

  But the voice said, “Hey, Dorinda! News! The Hanks woman is found!”

  “Good”

  “She’s in St. Bart’s. The Fairchilds got guards on her.”

  “They’ve got the child?”

  “Not yet. They’re not moving. Listen, we bought a look at the admitting records. Find out where Hanks was staying. Kid’s got to be there.”

  “Right,” said Dorinda. “Good. Get her. And I’m coming.”

  Mike Mizer was out on the veranda, with a long gun trained on Vance, and he was shouting.

  Jean, behind him, shaded her eyes and strained to see. She saw Harry Fairchild, hanging by both hands somehow, with the rest of him swinging, swinging—and while she watched he got his momentum and at the top of the outward swing, just as he heaved to throw inward, he let go.

  The bull raced in a wild circle.

  At the fence, Vance lowered the gun.

  Harry Fairchild had vanished.

  The blue car came softly around the house corner. Dorinda shouted. Vance dropped the gun, lowered his head, and ran. Mike Mizer, with his sights on the running, living, human being, could not pull the trigger. He was too civilized.

  Jean sat down.

 
; The Continental whipped up the road. It took a swift swerve, to avoid the old car that was coming down.

  At the gate, the planks were still in place. The blue car hit them accurately, and raced away.

  Back at the ranch, his father yelled with his heart in his mouth, “Tony! Where’s Tony?”

  The little boy came scampering around the house corner. The car full of men came down the road. Everybody shouted.

  In the cave, it was very dim, and much cooler. There was a pallet; there were wooden boxes; here were the boy’s treasures; this was his lair.

  And there stood a little yellow piggy bank.

  Harry sighed. He wiped blood from his cheek with his handkerchief and took up the pig in his other hand. He tapped the pig on the rocky floor until it broke open. Among the coins, there was a tightly folded piece of paper.

  So he wiped the blood from his lacerated hands, and then he very slowly unfolded the paper, and leaned toward the cave’s mouth, for the light.

  Mizer was shouting. His men were running. A gate was opening. The bull was being dared and bullied. The sport was dangerous. But Jean Cunliffe sat in a leather-thonged rocking chair, on the ranch veranda, and rocked slowly … rocked gently and slowly, in the lovely shade.

  * * *

  After a while, Harry was there, in the house, washing out the cut on his cheek, drinking coffee, gulping a sandwich, and at the same time telling Mike Mizer enough about it so that the man could protect himself and his son. “Call the police,” Harry advised. “Tell them it’s the Fairchild business. The Beckenhauer case. She might be back. I’m not letting you read the note. Then you can’t talk. Not that the note”—his voice was tense—“means such an awful lot, that I can see.”

  Jean had it in her hands. She could hardly read it. It was written in pencil, legibly enough, but her eyes weren’t focusing yet.

  “Dorinda went away pigless,” said Harry, “and, believe me, that isn’t like her. She’ll be back with troops, I’m betting. Or they’ll waylay us. We better—”

  Mizer said, “We’ll get set for her.” He began to chuckle. “Hey, you know what this young lady did, don’t you? Strikes me pretty funny, now. Here’s your friend—Dorinda, eh?—in a fit state to shoot anybody or anything. So comes this one and says—” Mike mimicked, “‘Telephone for you,’ she says.”

  Harry grinned and flew his eyebrow.

  Jean said, “It just came to me because there was a telephone in that car.”

  “Worked fine,” said Mizer. “Fine.”

  “She was talking on the telephone in her car,” said little Tony.

  “Oh?”

  “Sure. I heard her.”

  “Did you happen to hear what she said, podner?” asked Harry.

  “Well, let’s see. She said ‘Good.’ And she said ‘Good’ two times. And she said—I think she said—‘Get her’ … And she said, ‘I’m coming.’”

  Jean said to Harry’s stricken face. “But we’ve got the pig. The message.”

  “Doesn’t make a lot of sense,” said Harry, “does it? Listen, I think we”—Oh, this was a reversal!—“we’d better follow them.”

  “Go ahead,” said the rancher. “Get on it. Here. Stick up that cheek. Go ahead, and good luck. Damn fool woman! Going to kill a fine animal.”

  “I didn’t like her,” said Tony. “You guys hurry up!”

  So suddenly they were in the car and racing for the city. It was going to be quick. They knew the way back.

  “Nobody following us, eh?” Harry said, a little bitterly. “They don’t need the pig, anymore. Or so I’m gathering. Aren’t you? We should have called Bonzer.”

  But it was no good calling Bonzer. They had nothing to tell him. If the villains got the little girl, the troops would know that, before Harry-the-white-hope could hear about it, where he was.

  “Oh, we can worry just fine, on our own,” said Jean. “I’m pondering this message.”

  “Some message,” said Harry, gloomily. “For this we flew, spent money, played ghost, annoyed wild beasts …”

  “Tell you what,” said Jean. “You just drive like the wind. I’m in a worrying mood, and I’m going to worry at this.”

  She had the little piece of paper and she read what was written there, slowly, aloud.

  “One of them’s on this plane. Don’t talk to me. Take him to your sister’s. Lie low. I’ll send, soonest. B.B.”

  (Bernie from his grave.)

  “All right.” Jean scrunched down on the lovely black leather, well out of the breeze. “We shall attack, systematically.”

  Harry, driving like the wind and not forgetting he was in the mountains, let the corner of his mouth begin to think about smiling.

  “‘One of them’s on this plane.’ O.K. That was Varney.”

  “Right.”

  “‘Don’t talk to me.’ Now, who was Bernie warning off? Miss Hanks, don’t you think?”

  “Could be.”

  “Hah, but he says ‘this plane.’ So. Miss Hanks was on the same plane as he was.”

  “Yep,” said Harry. His heart leapt up.

  “This message,” Jean said, “wasn’t written to you, at all. It must have been written to her. But he didn’t get it to her. He still had it on him, when he got off the plane. He just happened to see those pigs.”

  “So?”

  “Naturally, he thought of you. He trusted you to figure it out.”

  “I am not worthy,” said Harry solemnly. “Go on.”

  “So, the child was taken to this Hanks woman’s sister’s.”

  “And who is her sister?”

  “Well, we don’t know, but maybe we can find out.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Wait a minute.” Jean sat up. ‘“Him.’ Look, it doesn’t say ‘take her.’ It says ‘take him.’”

  “Odd.”

  “No, it isn’t. No, it isn’t. No, it isn’t,” she cried. “Harry, I saw your little sister. She was dressed like a boy, hair cut like a boy. ‘With flaxen hair.’ Your daddy said so. Why, I saw Miss Hanks, myself. Of course, I did. And I remember, at the time, I noticed that she told a lie.”

  “A lie?”

  “Oh, sure. Sure. And she told it to Varney. Oh, listen, Harry. He came into the shop, you see …”

  “Bernie did?”

  “Yes, and he must have put this into the pig,” (Jean was living it all over again) “and he asked me that silly question and then she came in. But later on, Varney asked her whether Bernie had spoken to her. And she lied! She said he hadn’t. But he had. I heard him. Bernie said to the woman with the little boy … he said, ‘Get out of the way, sister, will you please?’”

  “Sister!”

  “Uh-huh. Telling her to go to her sister’s.”

  “So, the child is at her sister’s.”

  “Of course.”

  “Well,” Harry hated to dash her down, “we’d kinda guessed that already. We have to find the sister eh?”

  They raced on for a mile or two.

  “We can’t find Miss Hanks, you know,” said Harry. “Should a sister, whose name we don’t even know, be easier to find?”

  But Jean said slowly, “I saw her sister.”

  “Hanks’ sister?”

  “I also saw her sister’s husband.”

  “Huh?”

  “Oh, I sure did,” said Jean, “and all those children. They called him ‘Papa.’ Oh, and they called the child, the one who was with Hanks, they called him-her ‘Bobby.’ I remember that.”

  “Bobby, for Barbara?”

  “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And they said ‘Aunt Emaline’ was here. So Miss Hanks was their aunt. So the other woman was her sister.”

  “Surely was, you think?”

  “Must have been. Must have been.”

  “So. All we have to do is find the sister.” Harry said this, as if it were new.

  “Well,” said Jean, “I betcha I know how we can find her sister’s husband. And if we find the husband, can the wife be far behind? They
might live in the same house, for instance.”

  “How?” he snapped.

  “He’s a musician. Oh, Harry, listen. He had a bald head, and a beard, and a fat stomach, and black pants, and an orange shirt, and a guitar, and half a dozen kids of all colors—and you can’t tell me that that’s a run-of-the-mill description!”

  “Maybe not,” said Harry. “Maybe so.” (He was thinking, Oh, my prophetic soul! I was right, in Ireland. She didn’t know what to remember, until she saw the message.) He was agog.

  “Oh, maybe …” Jean was bouncing.

  “So whatever they’ve got,” said Harry, “maybe we can leap-frog?”

  “Oh, Harry.”

  “Honey,” he said, “feel free to enjoy yourself, a little bit, would you, please?”

  “You know,” said Jean, “I do feel better.”

  And Harry Fairchild with a pang, a boom in his breast, thought to himself, my God, I adore this girl! I love her! I love her!

  Vance was driving now. Dorinda was on the telephone. “That’s ridiculous!” she fumed.

  Varney said, “Only address given was in Honolulu. She didn’t put anything local down.”

  “But somebody’s got to know what she did with the child.”

  “She’s got a sister, is all we could gather.”

  “Then the sister’s got the child.”

  “But I can’t get the name.”

  “Get it.”

  “They don’t know it, at the hospital.”

  “Get it out of Hanks, then. She knows it, doesn’t she?”

  “Can’t get at her, Dor, I’m telling you.”

  “You’d better, Vic. We’ve got to get her, anyhow. Somebody to prove it, when we’ve got the child.”

  “Well—there’s this chance. I’m going back, myself. Could be, the sister will show, when it’s visiting hours. She’d do, to prove it.”

  “Right. Stick on it, then,” said Dorinda. “I’ll get to that Hanks woman, myself. We’re coming in. Fast as we can.”

  She hung up the instrument and said to Vance, “Go faster.”