Nightfall Read Online Free PDF Page A

later.” Then he looked past Vanning, looked at the girl and said, “You can go home now, honey.” He laughed with pure enjoyment. “We'll call you when we need you.”
      “All right,” she said. “Do that.”
      Then she came walking up the steps and, coming abreast of Vanning, she looked at him with nothing in her eyes, and it lasted for an exploding second, and then she turned and walked away.
      The three men closed in on Vanning. Two of them had their hands in the pockets of dark tropical worsted suits, but hands alone couldn't make the pockets bulge that much, and Vanning told himself to stop thinking in terms of a break.
      One of the men said, “Let's take a little walk across the street.”
      The four of them crossed the street, walked down the block to where a large, bright green sedan was the only interference with thick midnight blackness.
      The man who was doing most of the talking said, “Now we'll take a little ride.” He climbed into the front seat. In the back, Vanning sat with a man on either side of him. His brain was empty. His mouth was dry and a coldness was getting itself settled within him, and now the car was in gear, going down the street, making a turn and picking up speed. They made a turn. They were going downtown, then they were swinging away from a wide street and going toward Brooklyn Bridge.
      “If you tell us now,” said the man behind the wheel, “we'll let you out and you can go home.”
      “I can picture that,” Vanning said.
      “Why don't you tell us now?” the man said. “You're going to tell us sooner or later.”
      “No,” Vanning said. “I can't do that.”
      “You can't do that now, you mean. Because you're tough. But it won't last long. When we get to the point where you're not tough any more, you'll say what we want you to say.”
      “It isn't that,” Vanning said. “I don't feel like getting myself hurt. If I knew, I'd tell you.”
      “Come off that,” the man said. “That's in the heartache department. That's crying the blues. You know where you'll get with that? Nowhere.”
      “That's too bad,” Vanning said. “Because then we'll both be nowhere.”
      “He's too tough,” the driver said. “He's much too tough, I think. What do you say?”
      “I say he's too tough,” said the man who sat on Vanning's left. He was a big man and he wore glasses, and now he took them off very slowly, put them in a case and put the case in his pocket.
      “What do you say, Sam?”
      “Yes, he's too tough,” said the man on the right, a short, wiry man with very little hair on his head. His arms were folded but slowly unfolding.
      “I'm not tough at all,” Vanning said. “I'm scared stiff.”
      “Now he's being funny,” the driver said. They were on Brooklyn Bridge. The lights were whizzing in and passing the car, dropping other lights on sides of other cars, and all the light was bouncing around like captured lightning in a black vault.
      “How about it?” Sam said.
      “Hold it a second,” the driver said. “Wait till we get off the bridge.”
      “I think the bridge is the best place,” said the man who had been wearing glasses.
      “We'll hold it awhile,” the driver said. “Just for a little while, Pete, and then you can have your fun.”
      “Fun?” Vanning said.
      “Sure,” Pete said, and he laughed. “The bigger they are, the more fun they are.”
      “You mean with their hands and feet tied, don't you?”
      “I can see you're going to be a lot of fun,” Pete said.
      The green sedan tore away from Brooklyn Bridge and went slashing into Brooklyn. It went through the city and away from the city and into a section of vacant lots and shallow hills.
      “I think now ought to be all