The Hellfire Club

'Don't get mad, I'm just asking. Does she have anything to gain from having you put away?'

'Can we turn on the radio?' Nora asked. 'Or the TV? Maybe there'll be something about Dart.'

Harwich jumped up and switched on a radio beside the silver toaster at the end of a counter. 'I guess I don't have the fugitive mind-set.' He moved the dial to an all-news station, where a man in a helicopter was describing a traffic slowdown on a highway.

'The fugitive mind-set,' Nora said.

'I'm only a jaded old neurosurgeon. I lost all my old wartime instincts a long time ago. But I'd better hide your car.'

'Why?'

'Because about a minute after they show up at the motel, they're going to be looking for an old green Ford with a certain license plate. And it's in my driveway.'

'Oh!'

The telephone rang. Harwich glanced at the wall phone in the kitchen and then back at Nora before pushing himself away from the table. 'I'll take this; in the other room.'

No longer certain of what she made of Dan Harwich or he of her, Nora turned back to the radio. An announcer was telling Hampshire and Hampden counties that the temperatures were going to stay in the high eighties for the next two or three days, after which severe thunder-showers were expected. In the next room Harwich raised his voice to say, 'Of course I know! Do you think I'd forget?'

She stood up and carried her cup to the coffeemaker. Dishes and glasses filled the sink, and stains of various kinds and colors lay on the counter. Then she heard the words 'Richard Dart' come from the radio.

'… this vicinity. Police in Springfield discovered a mutilated male corpse and signs of struggle in a room at the Hillside Motel on Tilton Street. Springfield police have indicated the possibility that the fugitive serial killer has been injured, and are conducting a thorough search of the Tilton Street area. Residents are warned that Dart is armed and extremely dangerous. He is thirty-eight years old, six feet, two inches tall, weighs two hundred pounds, has fair hair and brown eyes, and was last seen wearing a gray suit and a white shirt. The fate and whereabouts of his hostage, Mrs Nora Chancel, are likewise unknown.'

Smiling an utterly mirthless smile, Dan Harwich came back into the kitchen and stopped moving at the sound of Nora's name.

'Mrs Chancel is described as being forty-nine years of age, five-six in height, slender, weighing approximately one hundred and ten pounds, with short, dark brown hair and brown eyes, last seen wearing blue jeans and a long- sleeved dark blue shirt. Anyone seeing Mrs Chancel or any person who appears to be Mrs Chancel should immediately contact the police or the local office of the FBI.

'Police have not yet been able to identify Dart's latest victim.'

'In other local news, State Senator Mitchell Kramer resolutely denies recent charges of mishandling of…'

Harwich switched off the radio. 'Give me the keys,' Nora handed them over.

'Your life is a lot more adventurous than mine.' He smiled almost apologetically.

'I'm making you uncomfortable, so I'll go,' she said. 'You don't have to keep me around out of charity because we used to be friends.'

'We were a lot more than that. Maybe I ought to be uncomfortable now and then.' He grinned at her, and his eyes flickered, and for a second the old Dan Harwich shone through the surface of this warier, more cynical version. 'Back in a flash.'

'In the meantime, try to think about what I ought to do, will you? Can you?'

'I'm thinking about it already,' Harwich said.58

When Harwich came back, Nora said, 'I get the feeling your wife isn't expected anytime soon.'

'Don't worry about her.' Harwich arched his back. 'Lark's not in the picture anymore.'

'I'm sorry. When did that happen?'

'The disaster took place on the day we got married. I think I got involved with her to get away from Helen. You remember Helen, I suppose?'

'How could I forget Helen?'

'Probably the only time you were thrown out of somebody's house.' Harwich laughed. 'In the end, she didn't want to live here and I did, so I bought her out. Bought is the word, believe me. Two million in alimony, plus ten thousand a month in support payments. Thank God, last year she suckered some other poor bastard into marrying her. At least I covered my ass when I married Lark. She signed a prenuptial - two hundred fifty thousand, all her clothes and jewelry and her car, that's it. On the whole, I should have been smarter than to marry someone named Lark Pettigrew. I let her redo the whole place, and now I'm living in this doll-house.' He gave Nora a rueful, affectionate look. 'The woman I should have married was you, but I was too stupid to know it. There you were, right in front of me.'

'I would have married you,' Nora said.

'That last time? You turned up here like Vietnam all over again, I mean, you were wild. And I was already seeing Lark, anyhow. What I'm saying is, I should have married you instead of that miserable witch Helen'

'Why didn't you?'

'I don't know. Do you know? It's probably better we didn't. I don't seem to be very good at marriage.' He made a wide gesture with one arm and laughed. 'Lark took off about three weeks ago, and the week after that I fired the cleaning woman. I don't mind the mess. Damn woman used to rearrange all my books and papers. Excuse me, but I never understood why I should have to learn my cleaning woman's filing system.'

She smiled.

'Christ, what's the matter with me?' He clamped his eyes shut. 'All this stuff happening to you, and I'm talking about bullshit instead of helping you.'

'You're already helping me,' Nora said. 'You don't know how often I think about you.'

He leaned over the top of his chair and closed one hand around one of hers, squeezed, and released it. 'I think you should stay here at least a day or two, maybe more. I have that operation this afternoon, but I'll come back around four or five, get some food, we can see if they picked up Dart, talk things out. Let me pamper you.'

'That sounds wonderful,' Nora said. 'You'd really let me stay?'

Harwich leaned forward and took her hand again. 'If you even try to get away, I'll lock you in the attic.'

Her pulse seemed to stop.

'I can't believe I said that.' He gripped her hand, which wanted to shrink to a stone. 'Nora, you're like a godsend, you remind me of real life, can you understand that?'

'I remind you of real life.'

'Yeah, whatever that is. You do.' Harwich let go of her hand and wiped his eyes, which had suddenly filled with tears. 'Sorry, I'm supposed to be helping you, and instead I come unglued.' He tried to smile.

'It's okay,' Nora said. 'My life is a lot messier than yours.'

He rubbed his finger beneath his nose and withdrew into himself for a moment, gazing unseeing at the plates stacked at the edge of the table. 'Let's make up your bed.' He stood up, and she did too, returning his smile. 'Do you want to bring in your bags, or anything?'

'Right now, all I want to do is rest.'

'Sounds good to me,' Harwich said.59

After stopping at the linen closet for paisley sheets and matching pillowcases so new they were still in the package, they went into a front bedroom with flowered blue wallpaper and knotty pine furniture disposed around the edges of a pink-and-blue hooked rug. A rocker made of lacquered twigs sat in front of the window. Harwich ripped the sheets from their wrappers before slipping the dark blue duvet off the bed.

'The bed's comfortable, but stay out of that chair.' Harwich nodded at the rocker. 'One of Lark's inspirations - a two-thousand-dollar chair that tears holes in your sweaters.'

He snapped a fitted sheet across the bed. Nora slid the top corner over the mattress as Harwich did the same on his side. They moved down the bed to fit the sheet over the bottom corners. Together they straightened and smoothed the top sheet and tucked it under the foot of the bed.

'Hospital corners,' Harwich said. 'Be still, my heart. 'They began stuffing pillows into the cases.