The Hellfire Club

'And pretend they didn't.'

The Lincoln backed carefully into the second of three empty spaces. 'The man loves his vehicle,' said Dart. He fastened his hand around Nora's wrist. 'My side.' He pulled her toward him and slid the hand holding the revolver into his jacket pocket.

'You're hurting me.'

'Diddums widdums hurturn booboo?' He kept his hand around her wrist as Nora squirmed out of the car, and pulled her along behind him toward the Lincoln. 'I start to run, you start to run, got it?'

She nodded.

Dart dragged her another two yards, then stopped moving. 'What the hell?'

The bald man was gazing at the young woman with an expression of absolute innocence. The woman gestured; the man smiled. Pulling Nora behind him. Dart walked slowly toward the Lincoln. The woman smacked her palm against her forehead, opened her door, got out, and resolved into a fourteen-year-old girl in a tight white jersey, cutoff jeans, and platform espadrilles. Without bothering to close her door, she loped toward the entrance to the restaurant. In a seersucker suit, a starched white shirt, and a navy blue necktie, the old man sat peacefully behind the wheel of his car.

'Allah is good, praise be to Allah.' Dart jerked Nora across the asphalt to the open door. He bent down and said, 'Greetings'

The old man blinked his shining blue eyes at Dick Dart. 'Greetings to you, sir. Can you help me?'

'I intend to do just that,' Dart said. His hand hung suspended within his pocket, the revolver bulging the fabric.

'I do not remember who I am. Also, I have no idea where I am or how I got here. Do you know if this is my car?'

'No, old buddy, this one's mine,' Dart said. The hand came out of his jacket pocket, and the bottom half of his suit jacket swung forward. 'But I saw you come in, and I can tell you where yours is.'

'Goodness, I do apologize. I can't imagine how I came to… I hope you didn't imagine that I intended to steal your car.' The old man got out and stood blinking benignly in the sun. 'I have a granddaughter, I know that much, and I seem to have the impression that she was with me just now.'

'She went into the restaurant,' Nora said.

'Goodness. I had better go in and look for her. Where did you say my car was?'

'Other end of the lot.' Dart glared at Nora. 'Can't miss it. Bright red Cadillac.'

'Oh, my. A Cadillac. Imagine that.'

Dart took Nora's hand and pulled her toward the open door. 'Miles to go before we sleep. Better find your car before you look for your granddaughter.'

'Yes.' The old man marched a few paces across the lot, then turned around, smiling. 'Miles to go before I sleep. That's Robert Frost.'

Dart got into the Lincoln. For a moment, the old man looked disappointed, but the smile returned, and he waved at them before resuming his march toward a nonexistent red Cadillac.

Dart spun the car toward the expressway. 'God, it's even full of gas.' Then he snarled at Nora. 'Why did you tell the old zombie about his granddaughter?'

'I-'

'Don't bother, I already know. You felt sorry for him. We're the two most wanted people on earth, and you take time off to do social work.'

He moved smoothly out into the traffic. Cool air streamed from vents on the dashboard. 'That was so beautiful I can't stay mad. 'Can you help me?' I almost fainted. He asked me if this was his car!' Dart tilted back his head and released a series of laughs abrupt as gunfire. 'He gave it to me!' More laughter. 'See that big goofy face? Old fuck looked like a blank tape.'

'You're right,' Nora said.

'Check the glove compartment and find out his name from the no-fault slip.'

Nora opened the glove compartment and stared at what was within. A fat, shiny, black leather wallet sat beside a tall stack of bills held together by a rubber band. 'You're about to get a lot happier.'

'Why?' Nora removed the wallet and the money from the glove compartment. 'Oh. My. God. Look at that. How much is it?'

A wad of bills distended the wallet's money compartment. She riffled them, hundreds and fifties and twenties. Then she pulled the rubber band off the stack. 'An amazing amount.'

Dart yelled at her to count it. Nora began adding up denominations - twenty thousand in hundreds, a thousand in fifties, and five hundred in twenties.

'Twenty-one thousand, five hundred dollars? Who the hell was this guy?'

Nora raised a leather flap and looked at the driver's license. 'His name is Ernest, Forrest Ernest. He lives in Hamden.'

Dick Dart started laughing as soon as he heard the name. 'That was the great Ernest Forrest Ernest?' He gave a whoop of joyful disbelief. 'This day is right up there with the greatest, most supremo, days of my entire life. You don't know who he is?' Ticking and rumbling with suppressed laughter, he slanted his head to look at her. 'No, you're too out of it to know about him. Alden would know him, though. In the great man's presence, Alden Chancel would stain his Polo trousers.'

'Who is he?'

'Twenty years ago he was the lieutenant governor of Connecticut, and now he's like the grand old man of the Republican party in this state. The distinguished pile of shit I'm proud to call my father worships him. What can I say? The man is a god.'

At first faintly, then gaining in volume, the sound of a police siren came to them. Dart checked the rearview mirror, gave Nora a warning look, took the revolver out of his pocket, and held it in his right hand. 'They can't know about this car already.'

Nora clenched her fists and forced herself not to scream. Disgust, hatred, and fear washed through her body. She looked back, saw that the flashing light bar was still a quarter of a mile behind them, and turned to inspect Dick Dart, for the first time really to examine him with the intensity of her loathing. Two years younger than Davey, he appeared to be at least five years older. His skin had a gray pallor. Many shallow wrinkles creased his forehead. Two small, vertical lines, now barely visible beneath dark stubble, ran down his cheek. Above the stubble fine red veins rode on his cheekbones, and larger red and blue veins had surfaced at the base of his long, fleshy nose. Dick's liver had been putting in a good deal of overtime. His long, oval face would have had an unremarkable handsomeness except for the sneering self-regard which permeated its every inch. His eyebrows were permanently arched above his light, alert eyes, and his lashes were a row of pegs. An untrustworthiness, a sly disregard for rules and orders came like an odor from his face. If his hair had been recently washed, it would have been perfect prep hair, slightly too long, falling in soft, natural curves on the sides of his head, and flopping boyishly over his forehead. His wide, blunt hands had enjoyed a manicure a few days earlier. The tired-looking gray suit had clearly cost a lot of money, and he wore a gold Rolex watch. His old ladies had one and all found him delightful.

'What are you doing, taking a fucking inventory?'

'No,' Nora said hastily. 'I was thinking about something.'

'Give me that wallet and the rest of the money.'

The wallet lay forgotten in her lap, and she was still holding the bills. She stuffed as much as she could into the money compartment and handed it all to him, and he shoved it into various jacket pockets. Thinking about what, exactly?'

'I was wondering how you got suspended during your freshman year at Yale.'

'How did you - oh, the newspaper. Well, what I did, I beat up this pig of a townie. Lucky for me, she really was a pig, and all that ever came out of it was the suspension.' He glanced at the rearview mirror. 'Here he comes. He's gotta be looking for your crappy Volvo wagon.'

Nora braced herself.

The screech of the siren grew louder and louder. If Dart started shooting, she would crouch in the well before her seat. Could she grab the gun away from him? Nora remembered how he had jumped through the window and discarded the notion of trying to snatch the gun. For a person in lousy shape, Dick Dart was amazingly strong. She was in excellent shape, and she knew she could not have made that catlike leap.