13
We drove to Shreveport. When we checked in at the hotel, she waited impatiently until the bellhop got his tip and left; then she came close to me, put her hands up behind my neck, smiled delightfully, and said, “Isn’t this nice?”
“Sure, sure,” I said. I’d intended to ask the desk to send up the Houston papers, but I’d forgotten.
She leaned against me a little, “Riding in a car always does something funny to me. Maybe it’s the vibration.”
“Could be,” I said.
“Being on a ship does the same thing.”
So does breathing, I thought.
She brushed her hand through my hair, whirled away I from me, and spun herself onto the bed. She doubled up her legs and lit a cigarette, smiling roguishly at me above the match. “Air-conditioning, no mosquitoes, tiled bath, clean sheets—this is much better, don’t you I think?”
“Who’s got a one-track mind?” I asked.
She made a face. “All right. But is that so bad?”
“It’s fine with me,” I said.
“Well! Couldn’t you be just a little more ardent?”
I lit a cigarette and sat down on the other bed, facing her. “I don’t always get your message,” I said. “Seems to me you should be sore as a boil.”
“So I should.”
“But you’re not?”
She shrugged. “What good would it do?”
“I see what you mean. If you can’t whip ‘em, join ‘em.’
“That’s part of it. But maybe I like you.”
“Sure, sure.”
She looked at me thoughtfully. “It’s odd, I know. But there’s something fascinating about you. You’re exciting.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know, really. It’s a lot of things, I guess. You’re big, and hard, and utterly ruthless. You’re so completely a male animal from every angle—”
“And you like ‘em male?”
She glanced up at me from under those long lashes. “Haven’t you formed any opinion about that yet?”
* * *
We didn’t leave the room for twenty-four hours. We had our meals sent up, and I got hold of all the Houston papers. There was nothing in them about Purvis, which could mean anything. The police would still be actively working on it, even if it didn’t rate any space. There was no love-nest angle and no way they could work in some pictures of a half-dressed babe; he was just another sleazy character with his roof shoved in. They’re a dime a dozen in any large city and have to have a real homey angle somewhere to stay in the papers more than a couple of days. That taxi driver could have come forward and given my description to the cops without anyone’s bothering to get out an extra about it. That was the scary part of it; I wouldn’t know, and I had to go back down there.
I thought about it. Why go down there at all? She could go draw out the money and meet me in San Antonio or Dallas or somewhere else. No. That wasn’t so hot. She’d be wandering around over the state alone with over ninety thousand in cash, and there was no telling what’d happen. The way she was bothered, she was just as likely to take off up an alley after a telephone lineman. I wasn’t so sure now but what she might be a little whacky, at least when she was troubled with ants in the pants, which seemed to be most of the time. There was no doubt she was one of the smoothest-looking dishes I’d ever seen, but she was beginning to strike me as a character. They both were, as a matter of fact, and they didn’t look half as dangerous as they had at first. It was just dumb luck they’d fooled the police the way they had, and Purvis had been merely stupid. Hell, I’d made them look silly, right from the start.
We went to a movie Sunday afternoon and out to dinner afterward. Men turned and looked at her everywhere she went. She was in a good mood when we came back, and didn’t seem to mind whether I listened to her yakking or not. When you’ve reached the saturation point in love-making, there’s nothing you can get as sick of as being shut up for any length of time in a hotel room with a woman, but I had to hand it to her. She was good-natured all the time, and if I just grunted occasionally when she was beating her gums fourteen to the dozen while brushing her hair or washing out her stockings with the bathroom door open it was all right with her. She just didn’t want me to be out of reach for a minute.
On Monday she wanted to go shopping, and nothing would do but that I go with her. She had three or four hundred dollars beside what she’d given me, and I wandered through shops and sat around bored stiff while she bought stockings and another nightgown and some perfume and looked at ten times as much more she didn’t buy.
“You don’t mind, do you, John?” she said, smiling happily at me. “After all, I’m doing it for you.”
“Sure, go ahead,” I said. What the hell, I had to keep her pacified and contented until Thursday morning, and wandering around in stores was as easy a way to do it as any. She was beginning to wear me out.
She kept me up most of the night, yakking and being very sweet and chummy and giving me the old buildup, so it was late when I awoke on Tuesday morning, some time after ten o’clock. She was still asleep beside me, wearing the new shortie nightgown she’d bought. I raised up on one elbow and looked at her, and all sorts of bells began to go off in my mind. She was beautiful as hell, and even asleep she didn’t look stupid. What kind of an act was she putting on, and why was she doing it?
So maybe she did need men the way an alcoholic needs booze—she still had too much in the way of equipment to have to knock herself out chasing them. They’d be falling all over her. Why break a leg trying to scramble into the sack with a guy who was putting the bite on her for a hundred grand? I wasn’t that good. I’d never had any illusions about anything since I was eleven, and that included myself. I was no particular great-lover type. In two hours on any public beach she could pick up a half dozen big hard-shouldered jokers who’d give her just as good a run for her money in the hay and even throw in the old moonlight-and-roses pitch at no extra charge. So what was the gag?
Was it a stall? But why? What did she hope to gain by it? It didn’t make any sense. I had the goods on them, and there was no way on earth they could squirm out of it. But this whole thing was too easy; it didn’t ring true. My first impression of the two of them was that they were sharp, brainy, and dangerous as hell. Then he’d acted like some punchy adolescent out there at the cabin. And now she was a happy-go-lucky round-heel with nothing on her mind but a place to fall. Was the whole thing an act for my benefit? Did they think they could con me, string me along with a measly eight thousand and a lot of empty promises? Well, we’d see about that. I reached over and shook her.
Her eyes opened. She looked at me rather coldly for an instant until she was fully awake, and then she smiled. “What is it, John?”
“I just wanted some information,” I said shortly. “What’s the name of that brokerage firm in Houston? The one that’s selling the stocks for you?”
With no hesitation at all, she replied, “Harley and Bryson. Why?”
“And who handles your account?”
“George Harley, Jr.” She looked puzzled. “But why, John?”
I ignored her. Picking up the phone from the table beside the bed, I told the operator, “I want to put in a long-distance call to Houston. Person-to-person to Mr. George Harley, Jr., at the brokerage firm of Harley and Bryson. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “Just a moment, please.”
I passed the phone over to her. She stared. “Ask Harley how he’s coming along unloading your stocks. Hold the receiver out a little from your ear, and pray you’ve been telling me the truth.”
She took it and held it as I told her. I slid over, holding her tightly with my cheek against her head and my own ear touching the outer rim of the receiver. I could hear the long-lines operators talking:
The receptionist answered. “Just a moment, please.”
After a short pause, a man came on. “Harley speaking.”
I squeezed her arm. If she’d been lying, she was in a bad spot.”
“Oh, Mr. Harley,” she said calmly. “Julia Cannon.
“Oh, good morning, Mrs. Cannon.”
“I just called to ask if you had executed the order I phoned in the other day—”
“Oh, yes. I was just about to send through a statement. Let’s see. . . . Have It right here somewhere, I think . . . Just a moment . . . Yes . . . Here it is. . . . Hmmmmmm. General Motors.. . . Boeing . . . Anaconda . . . Hmmmmmm . . . yesterday’s market . . . check . . . be deposited your account bank here as instructed . . . total proceeds, less commission, ninety-seven thousand, six hundred, forty-four dollars, eighty-one cents . . . apparently all in order . . . hmmm . . .”
I sat up on the bed and reached for a cigarette. She looked at me. I nodded and waved a hand. She said, “Thank you, Mr. Harley. Good-by.” She hung up.
I handed her a lighted cigarette.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“Just checking, honey. Just checking.”
“You thought I was lying?”
“It just occurred to me I didn’t have anybody’s word for it but yours.”
“You think I’d dare? Under the circumstances?”
“Relax,” I said. I felt like a million.
Of course she hadn’t been trying anything funny. How could she? They were absolutely helpless, and their staying alive depended on their doing exactly what I told them. Of course she was knocking herself out to be nice to me. If anybody had me where the wool was that short I’d be an eager beaver myself. I thought about it. The stocks were already sold; I’d heard the man say so myself. All I had to do now was go down there Thursday and pick up that big, fat bundle of folding money.
“You must think I’m insane,” she said petulantly.
“Honey, I think you’re terrific.”
“Do you like me? Just a little?”
“Sure, sure,” I said. Like her? She was Fort Knox, with legs. I was just reaching for a cigarette when the bells began to ring again.
My hand hung there halfway to the cigarette pack while the whole thing raced through my mind at once. Was that it? Was that the angle? Sure. It figured from every direction. Look at it, you fool. You underestimated them and got yourself sucked out of position, but good. They almost had you.
I grinned coldly. Almost. But not quite. There was still time.
It had been close, though, if I were right. This was Tuesday. I had been with her since Thursday afternoon, been with her every minute. She’d seen to that. She knew every move I’d made and she knew definitely I hadn’t been in contact with anybody. So suppose they were feeling me out, stretching out the time I was incommunicado, testing me a little at a time? That would account for the fact the car wouldn’t start—he’d butched it some way that first night to make sure that if I went anywhere it would only be with her—and it would explain this whole lovey-dovey routine on her part. They simply didn’t believe there was anybody else in this thing with me, and when they had finally proved it to their own satisfaction they’d knock me off. Like that.
I hadn’t quite sold them with that piece of razzle-dazzle that morning. They weren’t sure I had mailed the tape, or if I had, that I had mailed it to an accomplice. And every hour that went by without my getting in contact with somebody to assure him I was still alive was making my position more dangerous. The deadly efficiency of it made me shiver.
Well, we’ll see about it, I thought. Thank God I’d caught it in time.
She gave me a provocative, sidelong glance and then made a face at me. “Well, if that’s all you woke me up for—” She sat up in bed, stripped off the nightgown with casual unconcern and strode naked into the bathroom. She left the door just partly open, as she always did, and started yakking as she turned on the shower.
I lit the cigarette.
“—don’t you think so, John?”
Smart baby, I thought. I didn’t say anything.
“John?”
“Yes,” I said. “What is it?”
“You brute,” she protested above the noise of the shower, “you’re not even listening to me. I said, aren’t we having a good time?”
“Sure, sure,” I said. “A wonderful time.”
She went on chattering. I reached out for the telephone, lifting it carefully off the cradle. When the operator answered, I said quietly, “I want to make another long-distance call.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “Just one moment.”
The yakking went on from the shower. It paused momentarily on a questioning note.
“Sure, sure,” I answered, holding my hand over the mouthpiece.
“Well, that’s better. I think you’re sweet, too.”
“Aren’t we both,” I said. That’ll hold you for a minute, you sweet, deadly bitch. It did. She started humming in the shower.
“All right, sir,” the operator said.
I took my hand off the transmitter and spoke directly into it, very quietly. “Fort Worth. Person-to-person to George Gray at the Gray Midcontinent Equipment Company.”
“Yes, sir. Will you hold on, please?”
The humming continued from the bathroom. I breathed softly; she couldn’t possibly have heard me. All right baby, I thought; I’ve got you.
I could hear Information in Fort Worth giving the number, and then the telephone ringing.
The humming stopped. “Oh, John?”
I grinned coldly. Putting my hand back over the transmitter, I said, “Stop the yakking for a minute, will you. I’m trying to make a telephone call. And turn off that shower.”
The shower stopped abruptly. The door opened and she came out, naked, beautiful, and dripping, with a big towel in her hand. “A telephone call?” she asked with big-eyed innocence. “To whom, John?”
I smiled. “Long distance. To a friend of mine. You may have heard me speak of him.”
“Oh,” she said, with no surprise in her voice and no change of expression. The world lost a great actress, I thought. After six days she must have figured they about had it made, but no disappointment showed on her face at all.
Just then George’s voice sounded in the receiver. “Hello? Gray speaking.”
“John,” I said. “How are you, boy?”
I held the receiver tightly against my ear. She’d be able to hear there was a voice on the other end and to recognize it as a man’s, probably, but unable to catch a word of what it said.
“Well, you old son-of-a-gun,” George said. “It’s good to hear from you. How’s fishing?”
I looked at her. “Fine,” I said. “It’s been very good. I just thought I’d let you know everything’s under control here, and that the trip has been very successful. We’ve made ourselves a deal, boy.”
“Then you will go to work for us—?”
“Sure,” I said. “Right away. Next Thursday, in fact. Oh, say, you got the package all right, I guess?”
“Sure. Thanks a lot, John. You say—”
“I knew you’d appreciate it.” I chuckled. “Thought they were tied up pretty neatly, myself. And hooked, what I mean. Well, I just didn’t want to let too much time go by without letting you know I was okay and that the deal was set. Here’s the scoop. I’m going down to Houston Thursday morning and I’ll be at the Rice Hotel by about eleven. I’ll get in touch with you from there about the details of the deal. I won’t take up any more of your time right now. See you, George.”
“Fine,” he replied. “Good-by.”
I hung up and looked at her again. She merely glanced at me questioningly and went on drying herself. Her breasts swung gently under the towel. “Then he’ll have the tape there by Thursday morning?” she asked in a matter-of-fact tone. “That was your fellow thug, wasn’t it?”
I stared at her, partly in admiration and partly in amazement at her coolness, and then I caught on and just managed to restrain the impulse to laugh. She wasn’t acting at all. I’d just put on all that show for nothing; it had never occurred to her to doubt I was telling the truth about an accomplice.
I grinned at her. “Honey,” I said. “You’re cute. And you’re stacked.”
She smiled, and dropped the towel across the back of a chair as she looked down at herself. “How did you ever guess?” she asked.
* * *
We checked out of the hotel late Wednesday afternoon and started back. I drove. She sat rather quietly beside me for a long time. “I’ve had a wonderful time, John,” she said after a while.
“Good,” I said. “So have I.” I felt wonderful. We were on the last lap. The whole thing had been so easy it was ridiculous and now all that remained was picking up the money.
“After we’ve finished the business in Houston, wouldn’t you like to go down to Galveston?” she asked. “For just a few days?”
Women never seemed to realize they defeat their own purpose. There’s nothing on earth you can need worse when you do and need less when you don’t. I was caught up. I started to open my mouth to tell her to get herself a new boy when it occurred to me there was no sense antagonizing her at this stage of the game.
“Sure,” I said. “That would be wonderful. We’ll spend the weekend down there.” After all, as soon as I got my hands on that money I could fade and there was nothing she could do about it. I’d drive the car as far as Dallas, sell it, and take a plane to the Coast. I was already making plans.
Mazatlan, on the west coast of Mexico, had been buzzing around in my head for a long time. A couple of years ago I’d made a trip down there with another guy on the squad after the season was over. We’d had a fine time, catching sails, and I could see the place was going to grow. They were putting a highway through all the way from the border and the tourists and fishermen were going to flock in. It might never be another Acapulco, but if an operator with a bankroll and a good eye for a buck moved in now he could get in on the ground floor. The thing to do was drift down there, shack up with some babe to learn the language, and keep an eye open all the time for the good thing.
She was saying something again. “What?” I asked. I pulled out to pass a truck, and came back in the lane again.
“I said I’ll have to stop at the house when we go through town and pack another bag. I’ll need beach things.”
“Oh.” I thought about it. Well, why not? It’d be dark; nobody would see me with her if she pulled right into the garage. And while we were at the house she could use the phone to get a line on Tallant’s whereabouts before we went out to the camp to get my car started with the new battery I’d picked up. I didn’t like the idea of going out there at night without knowing where he was. He’d realize I was coming back sooner or later to get the car, and if he’d gone completely off his rocker by this time he might be waiting for me with a gun.
“Sure,” I said.
We stopped to have dinner on the way, and it was a little after nine p.m. When we came into Wayles. She was driving then. She skirted the Square, keeping to the darker streets. When we came up past the side of the Cannon house it was dark and the whole area was quiet except for the sound of a radio or television set coming from a house farther up the street. She stopped in front of the garage door, and got out to open it herself just in case one of the neighbors might be watching. She got back in and drove inside. I waited until she’d shut the door before I got out. We stood in the hot, airless garage with the headlights glaring against a white concrete wall. When she unlocked the door going into the kitchen, I cut the car lights and felt my way along after her.
When we were inside the kitchen, I closed the door and latched it. She clicked on a light and smiled at me. “You know, we could stay here and go on down to Houston early in the morning. Nobody knows you’re in here.”
I shook my head. “Let’s get going.”
“All right,” she said.
“Wait,” I told her, “Don’t turn on a light in the living-room. You can see through that drape if there’s enough light behind it.”
“There’s nothing back of the house but a vacant lot,” she protested. Then she shrugged. “But you already know that, don’t you?”
“That’s right. So just turn on one in the dining-room. That’ll give you enough to use the phone. I want you to call Tallant’s number.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“I want to know for sure where he is before we go out there to pick up my car.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, John. Are you still making a fuss about him?”
“Never mind,” I said. I took her arm and shoved her through the door ahead of me. “Call him.”
There was enough illumination in this end of the room for her to dial. I sat on the arm of the big chair on the other side of the doorway. The air-conditioning was turned off and it was hot in the room and intensely silent. When she finished dialing I could hear the telephone ringing at the other end. No, it’s not really the phone ringing, I thought. It’s just an illusion the telephone company throws in to keep the subscribers pacified. It went on. There was no answer. She dropped the instrument back in its cradle and looked around at me.
I didn’t like it at all. “Try his shop.”
“He closes at six.”
I took a cigarette from my pocket. “Never mind. Try it.”
She shrugged. “All right, but he wouldn’t be there this time of night.”
“Don’t give me so much static. What the hell, he does gunsmithing, doesn’t he? And keeps his books.”
She dialed the number. “Is there any particular message you’d like me to give him?”
“No. As soon as you hear his voice, hang up.”
There was no answer.
I lit the cigarette while she hung up and stood looking at me. “You know his habits. You got any idea where he could be?”
“No.”
“How about lodges? Pool halls? Where does he hang out when he’s not pawing up the shrubbery after somebody’s wife?”
She shrugged. “He’s an amateur astronomer, he plays chess with a number of other men around town, and he goes away on two and three day fishing trips. He could be anywhere. What does it matter?”
I waved a hand at her to cut out the yakking. I still didn’t like the idea of going out there at night not knowing where he was. Still, there were a lot of other places he could be. Maybe his nerve had broken and he’d left the country. Hell, I thought, it had been four days. He couldn’t have been out there waiting for us all that time. We’d take a chance on it.
“Pack your bag,” I said. “Let’s get rolling.”
“Are we going by to pick up your car?”
“Sure. Shake it up, will you?”
“I’d like to change before we go.”
“All right, all right. Just don’t take all night.”
“You sound nervous—”
“Get the lead out, will you?”
She started across the living-room toward the hallway leading to the other wing of the house. Then she stopped and turned. “You’ll have to reach down the bag for me,” she said. “It’s on a shelf in one of the bedroom closets.”
“Okay,” I said. I followed her.
The hallway turned at right angles. Beyond that it was very dark. I stayed close behind her, holding her arm so I wouldn’t bump into the walls. “Where’s the light?” I asked impatiently.
We went through a doorway. I felt it brush my arm. “Here by the bed,” she said. “Just a minute.”
She was standing close in front of me and I could tell she was groping around for the lamp. Suddenly she turned and put her hand on my arm. It slid upward, along my shoulder.
“John,” she said softly, “let’s stay here tonight. We could go out there early in the morning and still be in Houston by noon.”
“No.”
“Please!” Her arms came up around my neck. She pulled my head down and her lips were against mine.
I suppose it’s pure reflex. You’re whipped, but never completely defeated; if you were dying on your feet your reaction to that piece of business would always be the same. My arms tightened around her.
“Don’t let me fall,” she whispered. All her weight seemed to be hanging around my neck.
A light switch clicked and the room was full of sudden light. I whirled, taking her with me part of the way until she pushed hard against my chest, spun outward, and fell. Tallant was sitting crosswise in an overstuffed chair near the door we’d come in. His legs were hanging over the arm, and a pump shotgun was balanced across his knees.
His eyes didn’t look crazy at all; they were just cold and very hard. He gestured slightly with one hand. “Nice work, Julia. Move to your left and stay down.”