Necessity

Stop that!

She snaps her face around toward the nurse, who hasn’t stirred. But you can tell by the shrewd narrowing of her eyes that she’s gauging her opportunities, waiting for her moment.

“I’m her mother.”

The big woman answers with a grunt of sound that conveys no meaning.

“I’m taking her with me. Do you think I won’t use this on you if you try to stop me?”

“They told me about you,” the nurse says with dogged bovine obscurity.

“It’s important. You’ve got to understand I’m serious about this. She’s my child.” She hisses it vehemently: “She’s my child.”

The nurse looks at the revolver, looks at her face, looks her up and down. There is absolutely no clue to what she’s thinking. “All right, miss. What do you want me to do?”

Carefully now. Aim the revolver at her. “Stand up.”

The woman gets out of her chair and looms. Got to be at least five-eleven. Maybe six feet.

“What’s your name?”

“Mrs. Strickland.”

“First name?”

“Melinda.”

“All right, Melinda. Go over there and face the wall. Put your hands on top of your head. I want your nose right against the wall.”

The nurse obeys. “Now what?”

“You don’t move until I tell you to move. You speak only if I tell you to speak. Not before. Understand? Say yes.”

“Yes.”

“Now don’t move.”

Testing it, she takes a pace back and a pace forward, making a few noises, cocking and uncocking the revolver, holding it ready, watching the nurse. The nurse doesn’t move.

An actress on the television screen is emoting: shouting, striding back and forth, declaiming her lines, chewing up all the scenery on the set. The volume is turned very low; the shouting is barely audible. “You lied to me! You told me Steven was my natural brother! For twenty years you’ve been living this beastly horrible lie and you’ve made me part of it!”

All right. Got to take the chance.

She reaches down into the crib with both arms and sets the revolver down amid the plastic toys. While she checks the baby’s diaper and wraps the thin sheet around Ellen (a blanket? no; the day is too hot for it) she keeps looking up at the nurse’s broad back; and she keeps talking in a quiet steady voice:

“Listen to me now, Melinda. If you shout—if you do anything at all to draw their attention—I’ll shoot you. Then I’ll take the baby and run for it. They’ll stop to examine your dead body and that’ll give me time to get away.”

Ellen hasn’t awakened yet. If we’re very lucky she won’t wake up until we’re out of the house. One hand under her spine now; the other under her head. Pick her up. Cradle her in the left arm, Ellen’s head in the crook of your elbow. Make sure you’ve got her in a firm grasp.

Now pick up the revolver again with your free hand.

And keep talking all the way:

“You understand? Even if you’re dead you’ll still slow them down. You’re just as useful to me dead as you are alive. If I have to kill you to save my baby then that’s what I’ll do. You think about that, Melinda. Think hard.”

Straighten up now. Adjust the baby in your arm. Don’t drop the Goddamn gun—be careful, idiot!

“You can turn around now. Go over to the door.”

The nurse lowers her hands and looks around. If she’s surprised by what she sees she gives no sign of it. There is menace in her uncomplaining cooperation. She walks on white rubber-soled shoes to the door and stands there, just waiting. Very calm. What does it take to upset the cow?

The television is peddling caffeine-free coffee. She comes past it and waggles the gun at the nurse. “Are you listening, Melinda?”

“Tell me what you want, miss.”

“I want you to get down on the floor. Then you pull the door open—all the way open, right back to the doorstop—and then you crawl out onto the landing. You stay close to the wall and you crawl on your belly all the way into the master bedroom, so they can’t see you from down below. I’m going to be right behind you with this gun. Do you know anything about guns?”

“Some.”

“This is a twenty-two magnum. That mean anything to you?”

“High velocity, I guess.”

“You’re a nurse. Ever worked in an operating room?”

“No. I’m not an RN. I’m a practical nurse.”

“But you’ve had some training in anatomy.”

The nurse nods, acknowledging it.

She curls her thumb over the hammer of the revolver and levels it toward the nurse’s wide face. “If I fire it right up your asshole—I’ll let you picture what it’ll do to your insides. It’ll rip all the way through and probably tear the top of your skull off on its way out.”

The nurse’s expression never changes but her throat thickens when she swallows. It’s reaction enough.

“All right, Melinda. Down on the floor and open the door. Let’s go.”

The baby yawns.

52 The baby’s eyes pop open and she recognizes the familiar green flash of them. She smiles down and croons very softly to Ellen; cradles and cuddles her; wraps the sheet a little tighter around her.

The baby stretches—arms and legs thrusting out in all directions, shoving her hand, painfully poking a breast—she has to hold the kid in both arms to keep her secure but she’s still got the gun in her hand and her eyes on the nurse; and the nurse clearly has made up her mind not to take stupid chances but to wait for a sensible opportunity.

Don’t give her one.

“Go to sleep, Ellen. Go to sleep, little baby. When you wake up everything’s going to be wonderful.”

The baby’s mouth works. But the eyes drift shut and after a few minutes she points toward the door with the revolver and the nurse gets down on hands and knees, pulls the door open wide, drops flat and worms her way out of the room.

Stay right behind her now. Don’t let her go around any corners out of sight. Keep her in view at all times.

Below, Jack Sertic says, “It’s not like there’s a deadline or anything. We can fill the gap. I’ll phone Montreal, the stuff can be airborne in two hours.”

“Never mind,” Bert says. “We’ve got enough to handle with the flight coming in tonight and the one coming in Saturday midnight. Talking about eight, ten million wholesale. What time’s it?”

“Twelve thirty. Few minutes past.”

The baseboard has dust webs and flecks of dried mud from hunting boots. Marjorie never was much good at keeping things clean.

“Got the firepots ready out on the field?”

Come on, Melinda, you can move faster than that.

“I hate these midnight pickups any more. Are these cards made? You get older, you start going to sleep earlier. I don’t keep the kind of hours I used to. You want to cut the cards? When I was a kid I was a real night owl, never saw the sun before two, three in the afternoon sometimes. But I don’t know. Now I’m lucky if I stay awake for the ten o’clock news on cha

If the baby wakes up now and starts to cry …

Watching the heavy haunches roll from side to side she’s thinking, Melinda—what an absurd name for this water buffalo. My God—from this angle this scene is pure farce.

“What’s the bet?”

“Al bet five bucks on the ace.”

“Without me.”

“Fold.”

“Hell with it. Take the antes.”

“Shit. I got wired aces—back to back—and what happens? They chicken out on me. What a bunch of pinheads. How’m I go

“Your deal, George.”

In the bedroom she pushes the door nearly shut and stands up; she crosses to the bathroom door and looks through to the hall and then quickly turns and points the revolver at the nurse; but Melinda is still lying on the floor waiting for instructions.