FLESHMAN USED HIS FIST first, just his fist, enclosed in a tight black glove of hard shining leather, and he struck after his eyes whipped ahead, back, making certain the coast was clear.
Julie had hold of the handle of the door of the next coach when his fist came against the side of her head. He went up on the balls of his feet with the effort.
Behind the blow, in addition to astonishing strength for so chubby a man, was expert knowledge. He struck high, in her hair. She was made instantly unconscious. She gave out one small sound; it was like the noise of a cupful of water plunging down a sink drain.
Her purse fell to the steel floor plates, lay there in the thin powdering of snow.
Fleshman’s left arm went around her waist like a snake. He stepped swiftly, with her body, into the vestibule niche by the outward door. His right fist, which had struck her, was now entangled in her hair; hair strands, tossed flying by the blow impact, clung to his fingers; individual fine hairs lay wetly on the snow-moist glove. Calmly he freed the hand.
His pouch-cheeked face was gray from his feelings; his breathing, whenever it was not entirely suspended, came and went in sobbing rushes, and his pale skin exuded a mist of sweat. The train and passing time had been ripping at his nerves, and the noise and headlong velocity of the train now tore at his composure.
Probably the girl had not noticed him at all. She had come into the vestibule in a head-down, preoccupied way. Not that it mattered much to her—now.
Hooking a toe around her purse, he skidded it to him. He searched the purse swiftly and skillfully, even tore the lining out to see if anything was inside. He kept the money. All this time his left arm held the girl to him, and he noted irrelevantly that she had a thin, firm-fleshed body. Her head was drooping, brown hair spilling over her face.
The outer door was in two sections, upper and lower, which opened separately. He seized the handle of the top half, twisted, and the door sprang violently toward him. Howling wind and shotlike snow, driving against the half door from the blizzard-ridden outer night, actually caused the door to strike him such a hard blow that he gasped in pain. He flung the purse out. The darkness took it, the wind spun it, and it vanished.
The door banged shut. Suction as from the lung of a monster had seized it; the door closed with a ringing crash.
He laid hold of the door to open it again. He tugged and wrenched. His soft endomorphic face began to bulge with horror. The door wouldn’t open! It was stuck! Fast!
The door was stuck shut!
He fell to making, suddenly, low mewings of rage and desperation, choking animal-like sounds in his throat. The girl was as limp as a strip of unfried bacon in his arms. Couplings knocked together underfoot, the train seemed to run free and wild; and the door would not open. It would not budge. And then, abruptly, there was a change in the air; a softening of the uproar as part of the clamor escaped, through an opened door, into a coach. Someone was coming into the vestibule ...
“What’s the matter there?”
The conductor!
“What’s going on?” demanded the conductor. Surprise had straightened him; all his brass buttons were shining, his loose jowls trembled in sympathy with the tremors from the fast-moving coach.
Fleshman’s neck bowed tightly. Neck and backbone and legs all became one rigid bending arch, hard-sprung as if his entrails had become a drawn bowspring.
“What ails this girl?” The conductor was erect and alert except for his drooping bag of a stomach.
“She fainted.”
“What?”
“Passed out.”
“Fainted!” The conductor seemed indignant about this. “What the hell made her do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You her husband?”
“Oh no!” said Fleshman hastily. “I—I found her lying here.”
“Where?”
“On the floor ... I was going to open the door and give her air.”
“I’ll be damned—on the floor!” the conductor said. He was quite put out. An old man, long in service with the company, he resented jarring breaks in the regular routine of train business. He added explosively, “Air! There’s too much air in here now! ... You say you just found”—his eyes distended, his voice rang with alarm—“her on the floor! By God! She’s not—dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, we’d better find out!” the conductor bellowed. “Take her to the ladies’ room! Here—I’ll help you!” He was shocked and resentful and somewhat frightened.
“These women passengers pick the damnedest things to do!” he complained.