"I was." "Say who I was...."
Why did he have to say such a thing, put the idea into the mind of God, of Fate, of whoever was controlling tonight? One should never send out black thoughts. They live on, like sound-waves, and get into the stream of consciousness in which we all swim. If God, Fate, happened to be listening in, at that moment, on that particular wavelength, it might be made to happen. The hint of a death-thought might be misunderstood. It might be read as a request!
So I mustn't think these thoughts either, or I would be adding my weight to the dark waves of destiny! What nonsense! I had learned this sort of stuff from Kurt. He had always been full of "cosmic chain reactions," "cryptograms of the life-force," and other Germanic magical double-talk that I had avidly lapped up as if, as he had sometimes hinted, he himself had been the "Central Dynamic," or at least part of it, who controlled all these things.
Of course James Bond had said that flippantly, in a cross-my-fingers way, like the skiers I had known in Europe who said "Hals und Beinbruch!" to their friends before they took off on the slalom or the downhill race. To wish them "Break your neck and your leg" before the off was to avert accidents, to invoke the opposite of the evil eye. James Bond was just being "British"-using a throwaway phrase to buck me up. Well, I wished he hadn't. The crash of guns, gangsters, attempted murders, were part of his job, his life. They weren't part of mine, and I blamed him for not being more sensitive, more human.
Where was he now? Working his way through the shadows, using the light of the flames as cover, pricking up his senses for danger? And what were the enemy doing? Were they waiting for him in ambush? Would there suddenly be a roar of gunfire? Then screams?
I got to the carport of Number 3 cabin and, brushing along the rough-cast stone wall, felt my way through the darkness. I cautiously inched the last few feet and looked round the corner toward the dancing flames and shadows of the other cabins and of the lobby block.
There was no one to be seen, no movement except the flames at which the wind tugged intermittently to keep the blaze alive. Now some of the bordering trees behind the cabins were almost catching and sparks were blowing from their drying branches away into the darkness. If it hadn't been for the storm, surely a forest fire would have been started and then the coshed girl with her broken lamp would indeed have left her mark on the United States of America! How far would it have gone with the wind to help it? Ten miles? Twenty? How many trees and birds and animals would the little dead girl from Quebec have destroyed?
Another cabin roof fell in, and there was the same great shower of orange sparks. And now the gimcrack timbered roof of the lobby block was going. It caved slowly inward and then collapsed like a badly cooked soufflй, and more showers of sparks went up gaily and burned themselves out as they briefly drifted away on the wind. The extra burst of flame showed up the two cars beside the road, the gray Thunderbird and the shining black sedan. But there was still no sign of the gangsters and none of James Bond.
I suddenly realized that I had forgotten all about time. I looked at my watch. It was two o'clock. So it was only five hours since all this had begun! It could have been weeks. My former life seemed almost years away. Even last evening, when I had sat and thought about that life, was difficult to remember. Everything had suddenly been erased. Fear and pain and danger had taken over. It was like being in a shipwreck, an airplane or a train crash, an earthquake or a hurricane. When these things happen to you, it must be just the same. The black wings of emergency blot out the sky, and there is no past and no future. You live through each minute, survive each second, as though it is your last. There is no other time, no other place but now and here.
And then I saw the men! They were coming up toward me on the grass, and each was carrying a big box in his hands. They were television sets. They must have salvaged them to sell and make themselves a little extra cash. They walked side by side, the thin man and the squat, and the light from the flaming cabins shone on their sweating faces. When they came to the charred arches of the covered way to the lobby block, they trotted quickly through, after glancing up at the still-burning roof to make sure it wouldn't fall on them. Where was James Bond? This was the perfect time to get them, with their hands full!
Now they were only twenty yards away from me, veering right toward their car. I cringed back into the dark cave of the carport. But where was James? Should I run out after them and take them on alone? Don't be idiotic! If I missed, and I certainly would, that would be the end of me. Now, if they turned round, would they see me? Would my white overalls show up in the darkness? I got farther back. Now they were framed in the square opening of my carport as they walked across the grass a few yards from the still-standing north wall of the lobby building from which the wind had so far kept most of the flames. They would soon vanish round the corner, and a wonderful chance would have gone!
And then they stopped, stock still, and there was James facing them, his gun arming dead steady between the two bodies! His voice cracked like a whip across the lawn. "All right! This is it! Turn round! The first man drops his television gets shot."
They turned slowly round so that they faced toward my hideout. And now James called to me, "Come over, Viv! I need extra hands."
I took the heavy revolver out of the waistband of my overalls and ran quickly across the grass. When I was about ten yards away from the men, James said, "Just stop there, Viv, and I'll tell you what to do." I stopped. The two evil faces stared at me. The thin man's teeth were bared in a sort of fixed grin of surprise and tension. Sluggsy let off a string of curses. I pointed my gun at the television set that covered his stomach, "Shut your mouth or I'll shoot you dead."
Sluggsy sneered. "You and who else? You'd be too frightened of the bang."
James said, "Shut up, you, or you get a crack on that ugly head of yours. Now listen, Viv, we've got to get the guns off these men. Come round behind the one called Horror. Put your gun up against his spine and with your free hand feel under his armpits. Not a nice job, but it can't be helped. Tell me if you feel a gun there and I'll tell you what to do next. We'll go at this slowly. I'll cover the other, and if this Horror moves let him have it."
I did as I was told. I went round behind the thin man and pressed the gun into his back. Then I reached up with my left hand and felt under his right arm. A nasty, dead kind of smell came from him, and I was suddenly disgusted at being so close to him and touching him so intimately.
I know that my hand trembled, and it must have been that that made him take the chance, for, suddenly, in one quick flow of motion, he had dropped the television, whirled like a snake, slapping the gun out of my hand with his open palm, and clutched me to him.
James Bond's gun roared, and I felt the wind of a bullet, and then I began to fight like a demon, kicking and scratching and clawing. But I might have been fighting with a stone statue. He just squeezed me more agonizingly to him, and I heard his dry voice say, "Okay, limey. Now what? Want the dame to get herself killed?"
I could feel one of his hands loosening itself from me to get to his gun, and I began struggling again.
James Bond said sharply, "Viv. Get your legs apart!"
I automatically did as I was told, and again his gun roared. The thin man let out a curse and set me free, but at the same time there came a splintering crash from behind me and I whirled round. At the same time as he had fired, Sluggsy had hurled the television set over his head at James Bond, and it had crashed into his face, knocking him off balance.
As Sluggsy shouted, "Scram, Horror!" I dived for my gun and, prone in the grass, clumsily fired it at Sluggsy. I would probably have missed him anyway, but he was already on the move, weaving across the lawn toward the cabins like a football player, with the thin man scrambling desperately after him. I fired again, but the gun kicked high, and then they were out of range and Sluggsy disappeared into Number 1 cabin away on the right.
I got up and ran to James Bond. He was kneeling down in the grass with one hand to his head. As I came up he took the hand away, looked at it, and swore. There was a big gash just below the hairline. I didn't say anything but ran to the nearest window of the lobby building and smashed it in with the butt of my gun. A burst of heat came out at me, but no flames, and, just below, almost within reach, was the table the gangsters had used, and on it, among some smoldering remains of the roof, the first-aid kit. James Bond shouted something, but I was already over the sill. I held my breath against the fumes, grabbed the box, and scrambled out again, my eyes stinging with the smoke.
I wiped the wound as clean as I could and got out Merthiolate and a big Band-Aid. The cut wasn't deep, but there would soon be a bad bruise. He said, "Sorry, Viv. I made rather a hash of that round."
I thought he had too. I said, "Why didn't you just shoot them down? They were sitting ducks with those sets in their hands."
He said curtly, "Never been able to in cold blood. But at least I ought to have been able to blast that man's foot off. Must have just nicked it, and now he's still in the game."
I said severely, "It seems to me damned lucky you're in it too. Why didn't Sluggsy kill you?"
"Your guess is as good as mine. It looks as if they've got some kind of a headquarters over at Number 1. Perhaps he left his armament there while they did the job on the lobby. He may not have liked carrying live bullets around with him so near to the flames. Anyway, war's declared now, and we're going to have quite ............