Cornered! (11 page)

Jenkins nodded. “It is, Reverend.”

“That’s why I’m here, Harvey. Nothing official, you understand. But this is pretty close to my old home! I drove most of the night to get here the minute I heard the news. We just closed out the Babcock Ministers’ Conference, and I decided to get over here as rapidly as I could, God willing. God was. I’m here. Terrible tragedy. I don’t envy your position, Harvey.”

Harvey Jenkins wiped his hands along the sides of his trousers. “Well, these things happen, Reverend.”

“They do,” Maynard Styles said. “And may God have mercy on the killer and bless those poor souls who have been uprooted from this life ahead of their time by that devil’s gun.”

“Devil is right,” Deputy Miles said. “Shot Corly right through the temple for no good reason. Just mean. Just a killer.”

“I heard,” Maynard Styles said. “I’ve already talked to Corly’s mother. Talked to Joe Bingham’s wife. I gave a prayer for each of them. That’s why I’ve come, Harvey, to do whatever I can. To give a little solace where I can. If I could do more, I’d do it!”

“That’s much appreciated, I’m sure, Reverend,” Harvey Jenkins said. More talk, more reference to a situation he knew well enough. Why, he wondered, must there be endless talk about it? Stop talking about it, he thought. Maybe it will all be solved of its own accord. Then he felt a vague guilt, thinking that way in the presence of Maynard Styles. Harvey Jenkins straightened his shoulders. “It was good of you to come over, Reverend.”

“The least I could do,” Maynard Styles said. He paused. “Lots of newspapermen around, I noticed. All the way from Omaha, Kansas City—this is pretty big, Harvey. News despatches going out on all the wires.”

“That’s right, Reverend,” Harvey Jenkins said. It didn’t occur to him that Maynard Styles might be here for any but benevolent reasons. It didn’t occur to him even slightly that Maynard Styles had an instinct for searching out publicity outlets for himself that approached the ability of a good hound to search out the tracks of a rabbit. As a matter of fact, this fact did not even occur to Maynard Styles himself. Long ago, he’d cased himself so securely in the belief that he was doing the Lord’s work, nothing but the Lord’s work, that whatever other convenience he allowed himself was but a manifestation of a far greater motive. Maynard Styles did not really believe himself personally ambitious.

“Gentlemen,” Maynard Styles said, sweeping off his broad-brimmed hat, “let us pray.”

Harvey Jenkins blinked, somewhat startled by this sudden demonstration. Deputy Wade Miles also looked rather startled; but he came to an instant, if more military than spiritual, attention and put his hands together and bowed his head. Maynard Styles, Harvey Jenkins saw, had closed his eyes and turned his face to the ceiling, arms outstretched in quick abeyance. Harvey Jenkins shook himself into similar attentiveness, bowed his head, and shut his eyes tightly.

The sonorous cannonlike voice of Maynard Styles boomed forth, and Harvey Jenkins prayed silently right along with him. Harvey Jenkins prayed for all he was worth.

Within the locked doors of Bob Saywell’s store, Billy Quirter pointed his gun at Bob Saywell and grinned. “I knew you’d co-operate, Farouk. I knew it!” He made a quick thrusting motion with his gun, straight at the paunch of Bob Saywell; Bob Saywell bobbed backward, almost tumbling to the floor. Billy Quirter roared with laughter. “That’s the boy, jelly roll! I like to see some eagerness.” His laughter died suddenly, his face becoming a fraction more intent. “Okay—spit it out, Farouk.”

“Saywell,” Hugh Stewart said, “think about what you’re doing—”

“Shut up, Doc!” Billy snapped. “Farouk?”

“Her name’s Ann Burley,” Bob Saywell burst out. “Married a fellow name of Ted Burley. Lives in a farmhouse about one mile west of town. She’s the one you’re after, all right! I know that. She admitted she was in that trial in San Francisco, admitted it right to my face!”

Dr. Hugh Stewart turned his eyes away from Saywell, looking down at the counter, mouth white at the corners. Billy Quirter smiled at Saywell gently. “Now that’s fine, Farouk. You’ve been a good little soldier. I’m real proud of you.”

Reverend John Andrews had gotten up and come to the counter at the elbow of Bob Saywell. He stared down at the flushed pinkness of Bob Saywell’s fatty face. “Be careful, Bob,” he said. “Be careful of what you’re telling this man. I’ve no doubt that Dr. Stewart is quite right. This man is dangerous. Whoever he’s trying to find, he’s doing it for no good reason. Be careful, Bob.”

Bob Saywell’s face jerked up. “It’s my duty, Reverend! I’ve got to tell him! An evil’s been brought to this community by that girl—let evil meet evil!”

“Bob,” Reverend Andrews said, “I’m the minister here in Arrow Junction. I think my concern is with souls more than yours. Why don’t you let me be the judge?”

Bob Saywell shook his head quickly. “No, sir! I know what’s what. This fellow wants that evil girl, he can have her! No concern of ours! Let him have her and leave us in peace. This is a God-abiding community, and—”

“It’s your own skin, isn’t it?” Reverend Andrews said tightly. “That’s all you’re worried about—your own skin!”

“Now you listen to me, Reverend,” Bob Saywell said, his voice trembling shrilly. “You’re only as good in the community as this community thinks you are! Now I’m telling you, Reverend, we haven’t been altogether impressed with you, did you ever think about that? You don’t go telling me who owns the rights on souls. No, sir! We pay you to come in here and repeat the Good Word, Reverend. But that’s all! Do you understand? That’s all! Now get out of my way!”

Bob Saywell rose, trembling, and pushed past Reverend Andrews, hampered only by his own haste rather than any hindrance from Reverend Andrews, who only stepped aside and looked with disbelieving eyes as Bob Saywell stumbled toward the telephone. “I’ll find her for you, sir!” he called back to Billy Quirter. “Yes, sir. I’ll find her for you!”

Billy Quirter nodded, smiling, and said, “And tell her to come over here, blubber boy. Get her in here just the way you did the doc.” Billy Quirter, eyes gleaming in satisfaction, switched his stare to Reverend Andrews. “You’d better go back and sit down, Reverend. It looks like you don’t carry any weight anyway, huh? I’m sorry, Reverend. But this is life. Well, don’t worry about it. Pretty soon everything’s going to be all right, and you can go back preaching like before—just like nothing happened. You should have seen some back alleys in the cities when you were a kid, Reverend, you know that? Then you’d know something about life. But then you wouldn’t be a preacher, would you? You wouldn’t have the guts to feed the pigeons all that fancy crap. Sit down, Reverend!”

Slowly, Reverend Andrews moved back to his chair at the table in the center of the room and sat down, staring steadily at Bob Saywell. Bob Saywell cranked the handle to ring Marie Pringer at the telephone office. His jowls were quivering in this eagerness to bring the quarry to the hunter, and so relieve himself of danger.

Marie Pringer, in the time intervening, had again attempted to get through to Graintown. But because she could not get directly through, she decided to try another method.

She rang through to the Bireley farm northeast of Arrow Junction. She asked Mrs. Emma Mae Bireley to make a test call to Graintown via the small town of Linden. Mrs. Emma Mae Bireley, a typical picture of the farm wife, did, and reported back to Marie Pringer. Marie instructed Emma Mae to stay by the telephone with paper and pencil. Then Marie rang Ann Burley.

While Marie Pringer had been doing that, Ann waited trembling as her husband kicked savagely at the office door. He swore. He called her name. Just as the telephone rang, he finally gave up, muttering drunkenly, and stumbled downstairs to the snow-covered street.

Marie Pringer said, “I’ve got Emma Mae Bireley on her phone. She can get through to Graintown from her place. You can tell Emma Mae what you want to say, and she’ll relay it in to the sheriff. How’s that, Mrs. Burley?”

Ann knew that the time had come to expose everything publicly. Talking to Emma Mae would be like facing the entire community assembled before her. It was giving in to something she had fought against for all this long time of living with Ted Burley. But there was no other way.

“Yes,” she said to Marie Pringer. “Let me talk to Mrs. Bireley.”

Inside Bob Saywell’s store, when the
front door had been rattled uselessly for perhaps the tenth time by a discouraged customer ambitious enough to brave the storm that morning, Bob Saywell spoke frantically into the telephone.

“Marie, you mean to say Mrs. Burley don’t answer? She don’t answer her phone? Nobody does? Not Ted either?”

“I’m sorry, Bob,” Marie Pringer said.

“Marie, this is important! This is about the most important thing in the world right now. I’ve simply got to find Mrs. Burley!”

“Just take it easy, Bob. I’ll check around for you.” Bob Saywell replaced the telephone with a shaking hand to look with frightened, imploring eyes at Billy Quirter.

“All right,” Billy said softly. “Just keep calling, fatty, until you find her. Then get her over here.”

Bob Saywell took a shuddering breath, picked up the telephone again; but his ring didn’t get Marie for a few minutes because Marie had cut into the conversation Ann was having with Emma Mae Bireley.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Mrs. Burley. But Bob Saywell is trying hard to find you. He’s at his store. He sounds peculiar. And Hobe Adams was in a few minutes ago. He said Bob’s got the store closed up, even though this isn’t his closed day. Do you want me to let him know where you are?”

“Thank you, Marie,” Ann said, closing her eyes, opening them. “No, don’t tell him where I am. Just listen to what I’m telling Mrs. Bireley. Mrs. Bireley, can you hear me all right?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Bireley said in her birdlike voice.

“Please tell the sheriff that I’m pretty certain the man who is trying to kill me has contacted Bob Saywell. Tell him that perhaps the man is with Mr. Saywell in Mr. Saywell’s store right now…”

As Ann talked, Marie, blinking with attentive purpose, plugged in Bob Saywell’s line and began, in response to Bob Saywell’s desperate instructions, ringing the numbers he gave her.

It was at the very time, in California, that Tony Fearon looked up from his cell bunk and wondered if he were going to get this last satisfaction in life. It was a single mania with him now, an escape mechanism, in reality, to push all other defeats, miseries and fears aside, to dull the edge of knowing he was going to die very shortly, a total concentration on one thing: to know Billy had done it and the girl was dead, dead, dead.

Sam Dickens sat on the stool in front of the counter in Bob Saywell’s store and stared at Billy Quirter. He did so with an odd detachment, finding that he did not hate Billy at that moment so much as he hated himself. Somehow he did not think of Billy Quirter as a single identity, but rather he was a number of people combined: that Carwell punk, Johnny Masters—in fact he had somehow become the symbol for the disease that ate away his first wife. Because, in some fashion, he was a disease himself; and he was slowly but surely eating away this that Sam had with Gloria, a really decent honest-to-God feeling of love that Billy was absolutely ruining. Sam did not want to lose Gloria. But he did not hate Billy. He hated only himself.

Billy turned from watching Bob Saywell’s frantic telephoning and looked directly into Sam’s eyes. “All right, Dickens. You’re staring.”

Sam closed his hands into fists on the counter and opened them again with effort. “That’s right. I’m staring.”

“Well, maybe I don’t like it, Dickens.”

“That’s too bad,” Sam Dickens said, his heart going into a crazy banging of fear and self-conviction.

“It will be,” Billy said, “if you don’t knock it off. You’ve got something on your mind. I can tell it from your shining eyes. I’d get rid of it. I really mean that.”

Gloria, pretty face tired, eyes defeated, looked up. “Why don’t you lay off him, Quirter. He isn’t going to hurt you, and you know it. What fun do you get out of it?”

Billy smiled meanly. “It comes natural to me. I don’t know why. Maybe I should take the problem to a head shrinker.”

“Maybe you should,” Gloria said.

Sam Dickens, in that moment, saw that Billy was once again diverted by Gloria, saw his eyes switch to her and take in her good looks with a hungry animal look. Sam made up his mind. He didn’t hope to succeed. He didn’t care if he succeeded or not. But he knew he had to do it.

Quietly, barely audibly, in fact, Sam Dickens said, “Police, Quirter.”

Billy, Sam Dickens knew, was open to the simplest ruse, because he thought Sam Dickens would never try anything. Billy’s head swung around, eyes going apprehensive.

“The back way,” Sam Dickens said.

It was the only chance he would have, Sam Dickens knew; and not much of that. But the chance was not what he was going for. He was going for wiping away the hate for himself in his own mind. He moved. Jamming heels against the rung of the stool, he shoved up and grabbed for Billy over the counter as Billy turned his head toward the kitchen.

In total, it was a clumsy effort, with no chance for success. But it almost worked, because Billy was absolutely unprepared for it. The gun was almost knocked out of Billy’s hand, and that would have ended it because Hugh Stewart, with his quick reflexes, would have gotten that gun then.

But Sam Dickens did not quite make it. Instead, Billy was only bumped off balance for a fraction of a second, as Sam Dickens struggled to get the gun from Billy’s hand, half draped over the counter, muscles soft from disuse being tried to their utmost.

Then Billy’s gun hand came back, and the barrel of the gun whipped down in a swift, snapping motion.

Sam Dickens, lying across the counter, gave a teeth-clenched sound. Gloria muffled a scream with her hand. Blood spurted from Sam Dickens’s eyebrow.

He closed his eyes to the whip of the gun, again and again, with Gloria swearing at Quirter, a total sound of gasped shock sounding in the room, Bob Saywell whimpering as though he were being struck instead of Sam Dickens.