Catch-As-Catch-Can Read online

  Yep, saw her go, trailer and all and turn left on the street right there. Why not more than a few minutes ago. He’d just put them calendula’s in the ground.

  Nope, nobody with her that he saw.

  Dee wailed, “She’s not with Pearl! Where could she be? Where else could she go?”

  “Here,” Andy said quickly. “It may be only that she’s missed Pearl. We better go back and wait in that house—”

  “Wait?” Dee did not want to wait. Waiting was intolerable. She said so.

  Clive Breen sagged against a post. He felt numb. He stopped listening to Dee’s quick voice and Andy’s quiet one. His mind moved sluggishly to the next problem. Better they didn’t go back where Estelle was. That was sure. She’d call up the Breen house when the hour was past, faithfully. But face that when it came.

  He was seeing afar something moving into his future. When this was all over, there would be Estelle. She would know that he knew of the poison and had not seen fit to beg her to break her promise. Although he tried to push that distant menace out of his consciousness, his mind began to work on ways and means to counter it. He could say.… He’d think of something he could say.

  He knew already! He could say he hadn’t known about the poison up until the moment when that cabby told him. Right there. Cover the cabby, too. So, terribly upset at what he had so ignorantly done, he had turned around to find Laila. If he had been tempted to cover up his frightening error, why, that was human. What did that matter, if he saved Laila. He could say … he could say that was his idea. That was why he’d brought them out hereto put them on the right trail without confessing that he knew, already, how right it was. It might cover everything. And leave him a fool and a coward but not a.…

  That is, it covered everything but Laila herself. It covered everything, if Laila did die. So he must be careful.

  He could hear Dee pleading with Andy for something to do, and Andy arguing that it was sensible to wait here. Then Andy had her by the arm and Clive realized that he had to try to swing them, right now, away from Estelle, who lied so very badly. And then he saw it.

  Through the alley’s end he saw a cab, parked in sloppy haste with the door left open. He was absolutely sure what cab it was. His eye, moving over the façade of the shop before which the cab was standing, caught one sight only. A Bell Telephone sign. Now, calling the cops, as he had said he would, the cabdriver was in there. Clive straightened.

  Couldn’t hang around here with that driver to identify him and the cops coming to the Fleming house to split the whole thing wide open. It was as plain as two and two go together. Laila met Pearl, plus Pearl gone, equals cops after Pearl, equals Pearl caught and Laila found. And Clive in ruins. With that cabdriver to point his finger and say, “This is the very man.”

  There wasn’t anything to do, anything to do, but tell some more of the truth to bolster up the story he was going to have to tell. Clive said loudly, “Hey, wait.…”

  “What, Clive. What?” Dee flashed around.

  “Listen,” his teeth chattered. “It just occurred to me. Laila could have been in the trailer, couldn’t she?”

  “Oh!”

  “Then she wouldn’t have been seen.”

  “That’s true!”

  “True, enough,” said Andy slowly. “She could have been. That is, if Pearl didn’t want her to be seen.” He stood there, puzzling, frowning.

  “Let’s go!” cried Clive. He began to run. He raced at right angles, down the alley behind the shops, until he burst out into the street that ran before the Fleming house. He was sweating, pleading with Fate or whatever, to let them follow him once more. And they did follow. Dee was running, too.

  Andy ran fastest of all. He raced ahead of Clive and blocked his way into the blue convertible. “Got to call Stirling on this. Wait here. I’ll go back into Mrs. Fleming’s phone.”

  But Dee cried, “Oh Andy, no. Not now. She’s only minutes ahead of us. We can catch her.”

  “Of course we can,” jittered Clive. “What do you want to delay for?”

  “Where are you going?” said Andy coolly. “How will you turn? Which way to catch her without knowing her destination?”

  “But I do know,” said Dee.

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Get in. Get in,” yelped Clive. “Come on.” He had to get away.

  Andy got in as if he surrendered to a tide. Dee got into the middle and Clive on the outside. “Call the turns, Dee,” said Talbot, skeptically, “if you think you know.”

  “Straight ahead, then left, and around.…” She was panting. “They’ll go to the shore, of course.”

  “It’s a big ocean,” Andy said grimly. But the car moved.

  “Yes, but Pearl’s got a pet place and it must be where she’ll take Laila. Jonas and Laila and I drove down there once. I know where it is.” Dee could see the place in her imagination. A tiny crescent of sand below some cliffs, and the highway descended there, and roared on up to the cliff tops, but you could turn into the cove. It was a place with a daemon for Pearl. Dee could feel the pull of it through Pearl’s fibres.

  If they went to the sea and they would go to the sea because of Laila and her affinity—then they would go to this place and no other. She heard Clive asking shakily, “When was that, Dee?”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t know. You never wanted to bum around with Uncle Jonas as I did. Pearl’s gone south. I’ll bet.”

  “You’re betting, all right,” said Andy.

  “Yes, and I think I know her route, too.”

  “You can’t possibly …” Clive began, and stopped and swallowed.

  “But I think I do. Pearl explained it to us. Andy, go on around this block and get on Rosecrans. Then east.”

  Andy said, amiably enough with just a trace of weary skepticism, “Call them in time, will you, Dee.”

  “I’m trying to remember the back way she likes to sneak down there. It’s just like Pearl. It’s fruits and nuts.”

  “What?” She got a hard and almost angry look from Andy.

  “Can I remember the order? First, I think it’s Chestnut. Then I know it’s a long back street called Lemon something. Lemon Grove. Runs out into the country. Then Walnut, and then, I think, Vineyard or Vineland. You come into the village of Orange. Then down through Tustin and Laguna Canyon.”

  “Fruits and nuts,” said Andy. “La Pearl.”

  They were moving. The car proceeded, but. Andy was not convinced. He was bound up in ideas of his own, other ideas. Dee herself felt so sure she was right that she pressed him.

  “Andy, you do think Laila is with her in that trailer?”

  “I think it’s possible,” he answered quietly. “Pearl may have lit out with her. She could be in the trailer. It’s not likely—there are too many other possibilities.”

  “But we ought to catch Pearl anyhow.”

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  “It’s so close,” she said.

  “If you’re right about the fruits and nuts. Otherwise, it’s a tangent.”

  “I know. I know. But if she’s in the trailer—then that Mrs. Fleming knew it and wouldn’t tell us!”

  “I think that’s quite possible,” said Andy. “I think there’s something she didn’t tell us. Don’t you, Clive?”

  Clive croaked, “Could be.”

  “Why would she do a thing like that?” Dee frowned.

  “Because she promised,” Clive said promptly and bit his tongue and tasted blood.

  “Oh, I suppose so,” said Dee sadly. “I suppose she would. That’s … that’s awful, really. I suppose Pearl doesn’t know there’s anything wrong with Laila.”

  But the notion shuddered into her head that Pearl Dean might know and arrogantly dismiss as modern nonsense the whole situation. Her heart curled in fright. Oh, it was true! Laila was wandering, not only in the maze that the city physically was, but the maze of the minds of the people … the crisscross of ignorance and knowledge, the conflicts of opinion and person
al objectives. People’s loyalties and their limitations, the fits and starts of their motivations. This was the kind of haystack the needle was lost in.

  Andy said, “Pearl can’t know and go off with her. That’s what makes me doubt Laila’s there. If she’s there, she’s hidden. Why, unless Pearl knows? But I can’t believe even that fool woman—”

  “Maybe Pearl doesn’t believe it. She’d rather not, that I know.” Dee began to try to say what she felt. “You have to figure from all kinds of points of view. Everybody Laila meets is being pushed by—whatever pushes the kind of person it is. It seems to me the lines cross and, and deflect—always do—and how we get through it at all—to wherever we’re going.…”

  She gave up. Andy wasn’t listening. At least he said nothing. She saw his mouth draw down at the corners. It was her cousin Clive who said hoarsely, surprisingly, “Yeah, it’s catch-as-catch-can, all right.”

  They rode east, Clive rigid on Dee’s right. On her left, Andy was far away. Ahead of them perhaps on this thread in the maze, there was Laila with the poison coursing secretly into her blood.

  It seemed to Dee that something was dragging. “Hurry,” she prodded.

  “All this running around is no good, Dee,” Andy said sternly. “All this guessing. Better to go back and pound what she knows out of that Fleming dame. It’s even better to use the telephone.”

  “Straight on. Keep going.” Dee’s foot pressed the floor.

  “That’s your way,” he said almost absent-mindedly. “Straight on, keep going. Take care of it personally. But I’m afraid.…”

  “What would you do?” Clive said belligerently.

  “Stop and think.”

  “I’m thinking,” Dee put her hands to her head. “I’m thinking all the time.”

  “Stop, eh?” said Clive. “Well, she’s not your cousin.”

  “No, she’s not my cousin,” Andy said. “I’ve thought of that.”

  Clive said, nervously, “Fruits and nuts. I don’t know, Dee. It sounds crazy.”

  “It’s not crazy,” Dee insisted. “It’s rather a good way to remember. Pearl’s way. She must be so close.…”

  Andy glanced at her face. The time was four P.M. He said, grimly, “All right. We’ll take a crack at chasing her. It’s possible we can catch Pearl, at least. Which way?”

  “Straight on. Why don’t you believe Laila’s with her?” asked Dee.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said, and said no more.

  CHAPTER 12

  Laila sat on the broad bed built into the rear of the trailer. Everything around her was clattering and rattling. She seemed to jump and rattle and chatter within herself. The little enclosure was far from the cozy comfort it had seemed to promise. The trailer was not designed for smooth riding but for standing still.

  At least she was hidden. No one could see her. No one could find her. No one would recognize her clothes or her hair. No one would seize her and carry her back to Dr. Stirling or Dee or Andrew.

  So she endured the vibration and the bouncing, but it was doing strange things to the hurt in her heart. She couldn’t lie down and weep into Pearl’s pillow. There was no stillness in which her grief could flow. The luxury of concentration upon her woe was impossible because of the clatter. She had bitten her tongue twice already. Laila pushed her long hair up from her ears.

  She had a memory of herself as a small girl, having a tantrum and being grasped and shaken out of her temper into a mood of common sense. It seemed to be happening again.

  She tried to wedge herself to a more stable position. She had begun to feel the least bit seasick … and much more sensible. She could not weep so Laila began to think.

  Why was she here, enduring so uncomfortable a journey? To be with Pearl? But she wasn’t with Pearl. She had hidden herself back here where she couldn’t talk to Pearl or receive the petting and the sympathy she craved. Why had she hidden herself?

  So that Dee and Andrew couldn’t find her?

  But Dee and Andrew only wanted to know where she was. Laila was to blame for that. It was not wrong of them to worry. And Dee would have let her go to the sea with Pearl, had Laila told her about it. Dee wouldn’t have tried to force her to come back. No, she was hiding from Dr. Stirling. It was the doctor who was trying to force her to come back.

  But oh, she was being shaken and jolted right out of a silly baby tantrum.

  Why should she be afraid to go back to the hospital? She didn’t want to go, she didn’t think she needed to go, but she was silly to feel afraid. Dr. Stirling had no reason to wish to hurt her. She was being shaken into facing the truth about Jonas, too.

  Dr. Stirling had not hurt Jonas, either. Or, at least, Laila did not really think so. If she had believed it, she would have told someone, long ago and let them lock her in, somewhere, if that was what followed. Because you did not allow people to kill people and say nothing. So it wasn’t a real belief, even, but a bogeyman by which she tantalized herself with fear. Something, sure enough, that she didn’t understand. But if you did not know, why then, you did not know. It wasn’t sensible to say it must be something horrible and terrible, because I do not know. Now, shrewdly, she remembered Clive, pronouncing quickly that long queer word. Hypo … something. To him there was something familiar about that word. She did not think it had frightened Clive, at first. But then later …? Her mind turned back.

  The truth was, she didn’t like Dr. Stirling because he always said “Nonsense.” Maybe it often was nonsense. It was silly to pretend she thought he was a wicked man.

  The shaking continued. Dr. Stirling was not wicked and he was not trying to scare her, cruelly. Why then had that voice come out of the radio and asked people to watch for her and send her to the hospital? Because she was ill, as it had said? She was not. Perhaps Dr. Stirling thought she was ill, for some mistaken reason. Well, then, all she had to do was announce her blooming health to him. She wasn’t a bit ill, really.

  Suppose she were? Pearl did not know what they were saying about her; Pearl hadn’t the least idea of illness in her mind. Pearl was being so good and kind. Laila concluded it wasn’t very fair. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t good. If you trust a person, you don’t fool her, do you?

  Unsure, uneasy, Laila got herself off the bed and stumbled through the narrow place between cupboards into the forward section of the trailer. Clive had been kind but not so very wise. She’d better signal to Pearl, some way. She would tell her about the voice on the radio, because Pearl was truly trying to help her, and it was not fair. Laila was sure, now, that she and Clive together had made a silly mistake. It was even worse than a mistake. It was a kind of lying. There were twisty things about Clive that she sensed, now. Dishonest, not brave. Perhaps he had meant to be kind, but they should have been honest with Pearl.

  She lifted the blind across the front and she waved and tapped the glass but Pearl didn’t or couldn’t see. Laila could see Pearl’s big head, unturning, and the solid set of Pearl’s shoulders. They trundled on.

  Laila touched the door handle. When Pearl stopped the car, as she must from time to time, why then Laila would get out and run forward. But the door seemed to be locked. At least, she couldn’t get it to open.

  Jiggle, jiggle, joggle. All the flesh on her bones was bouncing. She stumbled to look into the tiny mirror over the little sink. Her blurring image shook before her shaken eyes. Maybe she wasn’t so very well. Laila rode there in all the rattle and bounce and her mind was thrown into rackety confusion. She staggered to the broad upholstered seat built into the trailer’s nose and fell upon it.

  She did not believe that Mamma’s love was alive again in Pearl Dean. It was not the same. Mamma had been one to sing and play and dream, but she had been clever, too. Who was it who had shaken Laila when she was little and spoken tartly when it was necessary? “Come, come, where are your bones?” Pearl was soft, soft all through. But Mamma, like grandmother, had bones, and was kind and yet true. As Andrew had been true, even if what he had
said had hurt her feelings. Clive was a boneless one! Clive helped her to deceive. But she thought Dee was true. And Dr. Stirling was boney and thorny and she was a little bit afraid of him, but he could be one who was true, after all.

  The blue convertible hurtled on. They were running east and south, through an industrial section, fleshless places. Then they were once more in a realm of multitudes of houses, the old jumbled, the new serried in accurate ranks, all lying in the open sunshine of the flat land, all able to see on this smogless afternoon, the blue hills north, the black lattice of oil wells between them and the seaward horizon.

  Dee was not certain of this part of Pearl’s route. They had found no Chestnut. She was afraid it might have been Cherry. But she was sure that they must work past the beach cities on an inland street called Lemon Grove.

  Andy was following her directions in silence, now, while Clive bothered her ears with doubts and alternatives. Andy was calm and obedient and yet disapproving. Clive was nervous and unnerving and argumentative. Dee’s hopes were tinged with doubt and foreboding as they went spinning block after block and never, on the way ahead, caught sight of Pearl’s aluminum. When Andy said, again, “Dee, we ought to stop this chasing and call back,” she was almost ready to agree.

  But Clive yelped, “And lose time? No, no, that’ll take too much time. We’ll lose our chance—”

  “We’re lost, as it is.”

  “Not yet,” said Dee, strengthened in her conviction. “No, not yet. Pearl will be on Lemon Grove.”

  “Why can’t I make you see it would be much more sensible to call Stirling … let him get Pearl picked up. And be quicker that way.”

  “What’s quicker about it?” Clive said argumentatively. “We can’t be far behind her.”

  “Can’t we?” said Andy. “Pearl may be halfway to Santa Barbara. Or in Big Bear by now, for all we know.”

  “Scare the poor kid to pieces,” said Clive bitterly. “Sirens and stuff. Cops. You’re wanted. And all that. Gosh, I don’t like to think of what it’ll do to Laila.” His eyes swiveled to his cousin Dee. In his double act, he had to keep pushing. He hoped they’d quarrel.