A Touch of Death (8 page)

I told her about it.

She listened boredly until I had finished; then all she did was reach for her purse and take out a mirror and some make-up stuff. She splashed crimson onto her mouth. In spite of myself, I watched her. She was arrogant and conceited as hell, but when you looked away from her for a moment and then looked back you went through it all over again. You didn’t believe anybody

could be that beautiful.

“I’m ready to go back to town,” she said, “if you are.”

“Don’t you want to hear me waste my breath any more?”

“Frankly, no. I should think we’d about run through your repertoire.”

“You don’t believe any of it at all?” She put the finishing touches on the lips, pressed them together, looked in the mirror once more, and then across at me. She smiled. “Don’t be ridiculous. By your own admission, you’re a housebreaker, liar, and impostor. And attempted extortionist. Quite an array of talent, I’ll admit; but to ask me to believe you is a little insulting, wouldn’t you say?”

I leaned across the table and caught her wrist. “And don’t forget abduction, while you’re adding it up. So why don’t you have me arrested, if you don’t believe any of

it?”

“And add to the burden of the taxpayers?”

“No,” I said. “I’ll tell you why. You can’t.”

“Don’t paw me,” she said.

I reached over and took the other wrist. I slid my hands

up inside the wide sleeves of the robe and held her arms above the elbows. “I want that money. And I’m going to get it. Why don’t you use your head? Alone, you haven’t got a chance, and the money’s no good to you if you’re dead. Maybe I can save you.”

“Save me from what?” she asked coldly.

I shook my head and took my hands off her arms to

light a cigarette. “Has your car got a radio in it?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I’ll tell you the easy way to find out if I’m telling the truth. Trying to go back to town is the hard way, and there’s only one to a customer. In about an hour there should be some more news. We’ll listen to it.”

“Maybe there’s some on now,” she said. She picked up her purse and started toward the door. She had a good start before I realized what she was up to.

I jumped after her. By the time I reached the door she had run down off the porch and was standing in the open, fumbling in the purse for her keys and looking around for the car.

“Wait!” I yelled. She paid no attention.

She swung her face around and saw the shed at the side of the house. The car had to be in there. She whirled, ran one step toward it, and then it happened.

The purse sailed out of her hands as if a hurricane had grabbed it. She stopped abruptly and stared as it flopped crazily and landed six feet away from her on the edge of the porch, and we both heard the deadly whuppp! as something slammed into the front wall of the house.

She was frozen there. I was down off the porch and running toward her before I heard the sound of the gun. Without even thinking about it, I knew it was a rifle and that he was shooting from somewhere beyond the meadow, over two hundred yards away She started to run now. I grabbed her. It was four long strides back to the front step. I dug in, feeling my whole back draw up into one icy knot. I was a hundred yards wide, and all target.

I leaped onto the porch. I stumbled, and slammed in through the open doorway, trying to keep from falling on her. And just as we hit the floor I saw a coffee cup on the table ahead of us explode into nothing, like a soap bubble. The pieces rained onto the floor.

I rolled her over me to get us out of the doorway, and reached back with one foot to kick the door shut. He put another one through it just as it closed. A golden splinter tore off the wood on the inside, and on the back wall a frying pan hanging on a nail bounced and clanged to the floor.

It was silent now except for the quick sob of her breath. We lay on the floor with our faces only inches apart. The fright was leaving her eyes now, and I could see comprehension in them, and a growing coldness.

“Maybe you’d like an affidavit with that,” I said.

I pushed myself up from the floor. She was trying to sit up. One side of her face was covered with dust, and a trickle of blood from a splinter scratch was almost black against the pale column of her throat.

“Stay where you are,” I said. I scooted over and stood up beside the front window. Peering out one corner of it, I could see the meadow. It was completely deserted and peaceful in the sunlight. Somewhere beyond, in the dark line of timber at the foot of the hill, he lay with his rifle and waited for something to move.

He probably wouldn’t try to come any closer. Not until tonight. But in the meantime nobody would go out that road.

“The stupid idiot,” she said. I looked around. She was standing up, squarely in line between the front and rear windows. I didn’t say anything. I dived.

I hit her just at the waist and took her down with me, turning a little to land on my shoulder. Splinters raked through my shirt. Panes in the front and rear windows blew up at the same time and glass tinkled on the floor.

“What’s the matter with you?” she spat at me. “Are you crazy?”

She lay beside me, caught in my arms like a beautiful and enraged wildcat. I disengaged an arm, picked a sliver of windowpane off the front of her robe, held it up so she could see it, and tossed it toward the front window. Her eyes followed it.

“Oh,” she said.

“If you feel like silhouetting yourself again,” I said, “tell

me where that money is first. You won’t need it.”

“What can we do?” she asked.

“Several things, I suppose, if I didn’t have to spend all

my time knocking you down. Do you think you can stay here this time?”

“Yes.”

“All right.”

I crawled over her. When I was away from the windows I stood up and ran into the bedroom. Grabbing a couple of blankets off one of the bunks, I draped one across the bedroom window and brought the other out.

I stood beside the rear window. “Cover your face,” I said. “We’re going to have more glass.”

She put an arm over her face. I flipped the blanket. It caught over the old curtain rod. Glass smashed in the

front window again and the blanket jerked, but remained on the rod. It had a hole in it.

I looked swiftly around. The back door was locked, the window covered now. The storeroom had no outside door, no window. He could sneak around to the sides or back, but he couldn’t see in anywhere to shoot. And he knew I had his gun.

From that distance he probably couldn’t see in the front window now, with no light behind it. Maybe he couldn’t, I thought. I could put another blanket over it, but I wanted to be able to see out on one side, at least. The thought of being sealed up in there with no way to guess where he was didn’t appeal to me.

“Is it all right now?” she asked.

“No. Stay down.”

I looked at her again, and thought of something.

“Take off that robe,” I said.

She sat on the floor and stared coldly at me. “Don’t we

have anything better to do?”

“You have got something on under it, haven’t you?”

“Yes. Pajamas.”

“Well, shut up and toss it here.”

She shrugged and slid out of it, turning a little to get it out from under her. The pajamas were blue and wide-sleeved, the lounging type. She tossed the robe. I crawled over and stood up beside the front window and flipped it over the curtain rod. It slid off. I picked it up and tried again. This time I got more of it over the rod and it stuck. There was no shot.

I stepped back. It was fine. It was just sheer enough to be transparent with the light on the other side. I could see the meadow. Nothing stirred.

“All right,” I said. “He can’t see in.”

She stood up. “What do we do now?”

“I don’t know.”

I went over and got the gun out of my coat. I slid the

clip out and looked at it. There was one cartridge in it. Two, I thought, with the one in the chamber.

“We can’t just stay here,” she said.

“You got a better idea?” I checked the safety again and shoved the gun in my belt.

I fished in my pocket for a cigarette. The pack was empty. I went over to the coat and got another. I opened it, and gave her one. We sat down at the table. I could see out across the meadow without being directly behind the window.

“Couldn’t we sneak out the back door and get to the car?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said. “You might even get it out of the shed before he killed you. You’ve seen him shoot that rifle.”

She said nothing.

“And,” I went on, “suppose you did get out to the highway? What then? Every cop in the state has the description and license number of that Cadillac.”

She stared thoughtfully at me through the smoke. “Afoot? Out the back door?”

“It’s twenty miles to the nearest place you could catch a bus. You’re a dish everybody looks at. And you’re wearing pajamas and bedroom slippers. Any more ideas?”

“Charming thug, aren’t you? Shall I cheer you up for a while now?”

“Why? I’m all right. Nobody knows me; I can still run.”

“Well? Why don’t you?”

“You don’t scare much, do you?”

“Would being scared do any good?”

“You’re about the hardest citizen I’ve ever run into,” I said. “Did you kill Butler alone, or did that guy out there help you? Is that how he got in the act?”

“I don’t know anything about it.”

“Which one of you has the money?”

“I have nothing to say.”

“Who was that girl in the car? Angel-faced ash blonde,

with a hush-puppy accent.”

“Why didn’t you ask her?”

“I don’t think she liked me.”

“I can understand that,” she said.

“Well, you’re popular,” I said. “You’re in great

demand.”

She put the cigarette in the ashtray and leaned back in the chair with her hands clasped behind her head. The pajama sleeves slid down her arms. They were lovely arms.

I watched her, thinking swiftly. We were both in one hell of a jam, but I was beginning to get the glimmerings of an idea. It all depended on whether she had the money or not, and I still believed she had it.

There was no use even trying to guess whether she had killed Butler, or whether that man out there had, or both of them; but I was beginning to respect the cool and deadly intelligence behind that lovely face, and I was growing more convinced of one thing all the time: that no matter who had killed him, unless that guy out there was a lot smarter than I thought he was, she was the one that had the money. It figured that way.

“You’re the Homecoming Queen,” I said. “Everybody wants you.”

“I really don’t see what you’re waiting around for,” she said. “You have pointed out that there is no possibility of escape. I agree with you. Any further discussion of it is superfluous; and you should realize, if it’s entertainment you’re after, that taunting me with it is futile.”

I leaned back in the chair and blew a smoke ring. “I was going to make you an offer.”

“What kind of offer?”

“It doesn’t matter. If you haven’t got that money, I’d just be wasting my breath.”

She smiled. “You know,” she said, “there is a touching sort of simplicity about you I almost admire. Anyone with a less comprehensive stupidity might get sidetracked once in a while and wander off the main objective, but you never do. You started out to get that money, and by God, you’re going to get it. I almost regret that you won’t.”

“Well, if you haven’t got it, what’s the use talking about it?”

She shook her head. “It isn’t a question of whether I have it or not. The real point—as anyone but a thick
headed mastodon would have figured out hours ago— is that if I did have it I’d willingly go to hell before I’d see Diana James get a nickel of it.”

I put down the cigarette and stared at her. So that was what had been holding up the negotiations. You never knew. They didn’t make sense; they never did, not even the smart ones. Not even to save her own skin...

“Look,” I said. “The hell with Diana James. Haven’t you heard? She’s been scratched.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. She double-crossed me before we even started. She told me you were in Sanport, to get me to come up here and shake down the house. What did she care if I got caught?”

“And that isn’t quite all,” she said. “Think again.”

“How’s that?”

“You still haven’t seen the full beauty of it. Suppose I had surprised you and you’d got rattled and killed me? Wouldn’t that have been tragic?”

I thought about it. The fact that I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to do a crazy thing like that was beside the point. Diana James could easily have been counting on the possibility.

“Well,” I said. “That’s how it is with you friend Miss James. She’s been dropped from the rolls.”

“I see,” she said coolly. “And now you’re ready to transfer your great-hearted devotion?”

I walked over and took a good look out the window. The meadow was empty of life. I came back and sat down.

“Yes,” I said.

“I’m flattered.”

“Never mind you’re flattered. Have you got the money?”

“I might have,” she said.

“Where is it?”

“I said I might have.”

“It’ll take more than that, honey,” I said. “Let’s get it on the line.”

“Why?”

“You haven’t got a chance. You’re cold meat. As soon as it’s dark and I can get out of here, I’m going to shove. I can get away. And you’ll be a dead woman with a

hundred and twenty thousand dollars as soon as your friend out there moves in on you.”

She stared thoughtfully. “And what is this proposition of yours?”

“The geetus, baby.”

“I have it.”

“You know about not trying to kid me, don’t you?”

Her eyes were cold. “I said I had it.”

I took another drag on the cigarette and looked at her a long time. There was no hurry. Keep the pressure on her. “Let’s put it this way,” I said at last. “You’re dead. We both know that. You’re dead twice. If that character out there doesn’t clobber you with his rifle, you’ll be caught by the police and go on trial for murder. With your looks and a good sob story you might beat the chair and get off with life, but it’s a sad outlook either way.