Kiss and Kill (15 page)

“I'll keep the gun.” Was his voice stronger, or was that his imagination? He felt like a giant.

“You can't be trusted with it. Give it here, stupid.”

Garner pointed the barrel at Green's bulbous nose. “Don't call me stupid again. I'm tired of it.” He squeezed the trigger. The bullet snatched the hat off Green's head and went through the rear window. Green fell back in the seat, his eyes afraid. Garner moved the gun to cover Brown. “Who's boss now?”

Green looked at Brown, who nodded.

“All right,” spat Green. “You hold the hand. What do we do?”

“Brown, you drive out into the country. We'll dump this Mex and then search his home. If we find nothing, we'll go back to the States. I have an idea. I'm full of ideas.”

They had not found the money in the Mexican's belongings. They returned to the States. His companions' docility did not fool Garner; he knew they had meant to kill him when they found the money, and now they would try to kill him for sheer pleasure. With the .45 always in his hand, he was not afraid. The power was great. He had never felt such power. He could kill them. He could kill anybody.

At the tour agency they waited until the driver, Kiddoo, left in his limousine. Garner had Brown pull up alongside in a deserted stretch of road. They forced Kiddoo to stop and get out. The man-mountain was nothing, a mass of terrified jelly. What a difference a gun made! He nearly fell down when Garner pointed it at him. He got into their car and Brown drove to where Garner told him to stop. They all got out and Kiddoo and Green and Brown preceded him down an alley.

“You're kidnaping him?” Green asked Garner respectfully.

“He can help us.”

“This hippo? What can he do?”

“He can tell us who Johnny was sweet on during the Mexican tour. Can't you, fat boy?”

The driver told them, his jowls shaking.

That night they drove to St. Louis to Claire English's studio. She was not there. They debated leaving someone to wait for her, but none would allow himself to be separated from the others in case the money was found. So they took a few things to make it look like robbery—the photo file, said Green, would help identify the tour members. They drove back to San Antonio and burglarized the agency of its names and addresses. Garner knew he had to keep moving; each time they stopped, Green and Brown grew edgy, and he could feel his grip loosening. He questioned the driver further and learned that Johnny had not seen Claire on the day he was killed, nor had he been close to her the day before. But Johnny had seemed to cultivate the friendship of an old woman, Mrs. Barton. Garner could conceive only one reason for Johnny's shining up to a sixty-year-old woman: he wanted her to do something for him. Hide something, or smuggle it across the frontier? It seemed logical to Brown and Green, so they drove to Colorado. Garner posed as a relative of Johnny's and—with the driver—approached the house and asked to look at the souvenirs the Bartons had brought back from Mexico.

“You want to see the stuff we got in Mexico?” asked the old man. “Sure. Wait right there.”

A minute later he appeared in the door with a shotgun aimed at Garner's belly. “Now you boys hike on down that road. You're no relative of Johnny's; you don't look a shade like him. What you look like is something that crawled out from under a rock. And Kiddoo here looks like he's about to throw up. Get going, both of you.”

Turning away, Garner tasted the old despair. Defeated by an old man! The others would revolt against him. But then he hefted the gun.…

“Shut up,” he said when they began asking questions.

He sat in the car with the automatic in his lap and waited for darkness. When he heard the Bartons' car backing out of the drive, he had Brown drive to where the highway curved through a deep mountain pass. When the Bartons drove by, he told Brown what to do; he would have liked to do it himself, but he could not drive and hold the gun ready, too. “
Now
,” Garner said to Brown; and Brown twisted the wheel sharply as they drew alongside. Garner saw the old woman staring out the window. Her gray hair was gathered into a bun at the nape of her neck. She looked very frightened. Then the Barton car went over, and Kiddoo got sick all over the back seat.

“What the hell did that accomplish?” asked Green.

“Now they can't talk,” said Garner.

“Sure. To us, either.”

“We can search their house, can't we?”

But the search yielded nothing.

Garner had felt the urge to keep moving. The woman in Chicago, Kiddoo said, had also been friendly with Johnny. They drove there, parked down the street from the Tollman apartment, and waited until Liz Tollman went into the building.

“Go!” said Garner, jabbing his gun in the driver's back. “You know what to do.”

Garner stood behind a tree and watched Kiddoo approach the woman in the foyer. She looked surprised as the driver gesticulated. Frowning, she set down her bag and followed him outside.

“What is it, Elbert?” she asked. “What kind of trouble—?”

She saw Garner as he stepped from behind the tree. She opened her mouth, but he seized her as Green came up from the other side and grabbed the dog. Garner smelled her perfume and thought, This one I mustn't kill. But she was strong, and she was wrenching free when Brown cracked her behind the ear with a jack handle. She collapsed, and Brown stooped to pick her up.

“Get away from her,” growled Garner. “Don't put your filthy hands on her again.”

She had come to as they drove out of the city. Garner told her they had left a man to watch her apartment; he had only to make a phone call and her husband would die. She protested that she knew nothing of Johnny Talbot's private business; he faked a phone call, and she cried and pleaded with him to believe her. Garner decided that she was telling the truth, and for once Green and Brown agreed.

“Now what?” said Green. “She's no damn good to us.”

“A hostage,” said Garner.

“We've got Kiddoo.”

“A woman is better than a man.”

Green was pale. “You're out of your mind. Two kidnapings, two murders …” Suddenly his pallor turned yellow and he clutched at his stomach. “And now my ulcers! You're riding us to a real fall, goddamit.” His eyes were no longer like stones. They were suffering. Brown maintained his silence, but he was not his old self, either. Garner had never before felt so powerful and confident.

“We'll go back to St. Louis,” he said. “His girl friend should be back by now.”

On the way, huge Elbert Kiddoo was sick again. Liz Tollman washed his face with a damp handkerchief and tried to soothe his fears, but the driver only moaned. Garner suddenly decided to dump him. The pretty woman was giving him all her attention.

In St. Louis they left Liz in the car with Brown; she would behave as long as she thought they had her husband on ice. Claire English was still not there, but on the notepad of her office Green found several telephone numbers. One was the Bartons' in Colorado, another the Tollmans' in Chicago. There were also addresses in Indianapolis and Detroit.

“She's onto us,” grunted Green.

“So we go to Indianapolis. First, let's take another look around.”

Garner took the driver with him. The darkroom was exactly what he was looking for, soundproof and tight.

“You might as well help,” he told the big man. “Check that closet.”

“What am I looking for?”

The driver had become like a dog, moving automatically in response to Garner's will.

“You'll know when you find it. Look up,” Garner said.

The driver looked up, and Garner held the gun six inches from the bulge of fat above his collar and pulled the trigger. For an instant Garner thought he was going to faint. The room shrank until space was obliterated; the walls were like a film pasted to his eyeballs. Suddenly he was outside the room, outside his own body.

It's a dream, he thought. I'm lying on the bunk in my cell and I'm dreaming all this, the dead man, Green, Brown, the woman out there, I'm even dreaming myself.…

Green came into the room and glared down at the fallen hulk. He whispered, “You goddamn maniac!”

Garner turned the gun on Green and smiled. The man gulped.

“Take it easy, Garner. You know what you're doing.”

“Don't ever forget it.”

“It's just that you leave evidence all over the place. That's the reason I get mad. How do we get rid of Kiddoo's body? It would take a crane.”

“Leave it.”

“The woman will panic.”

“Leave her to me.”

When they got back to the car, Liz asked: “Where's Elbert?”

“I gave him money for a bus ticket. He's on his way home.”

“Won't he go to the police?”

“Not when he knows we have you.”

She chewed her lip. “No … I suppose you're right.”

“If people follow orders, they don't get hurt. Remember that.”

For a long time she seemed uncertain. Then Garner made a special stop in Terre Haute to buy her dog some dog biscuits. The woman seemed to relax, and Garner thought: What innocence. Trusting a man just because he thinks of feeding a lousy dog. How good it would be when he finally decided to make out with her.

In Indianapolis they found Ingrid Johns packed to travel and scared. But Liz's presence confused her. She let them in.

“We just want to talk,” said Garner. “You don't have to be afraid.”

“But Claire English said our lives were in danger.”

Garner smiled. “She's trying to throw dust in everybody's eyes. We're only after what's ours, and we think she's got it. If she keeps this up, she'll get somebody hurt. You don't want that. Tell us where she went.”

Ingrid was still suspicious, although she turned away a neighbor who came to the door and later reassured the police. Garner persisted smoothly, and finally she admitted that Claire had mentioned warning Ronald Aiken in Detroit. Garner told the others to go out to the car.

In the hall Green said: “She's too scared to talk. Not another one.”

Garner smiled. “Tomorrow she won't be.”

“But we'll be gone.”

“And she knows where we're going. Go out to the car and wait for me.”

He saw the fear in Green's eyes again and felt amused contempt. How had he ever taken orders from this lightweight? Life was so good these days.

Back with the woman he felt a surge of affection. Gray hair, soft eyes. “You look like my mother.”

“What are you going to do?”

He was taking a hypodermic needle from his breast pocket. It contained a sedative he had bought in Terre Haute. “This will make you sleep until we get away.”

Her face wrinkled up as though she were going to cry. “I won't talk!”

“I know. But my partners are worried.”

“It won't … hurt me?”

“You'll wake up in a few hours feeling fine.” He held out his hand. Slowly she gave him her arm; he felt the dry warmth of her flesh, saw the blue vein pulsing under the thin skin. He made the injection and looked into her eyes. He saw resignation there, and it made him feel warm toward her. Poor thing.

But tomorrow she would forget and hate him.

They sat and talked of books and drugs; she knew as much about drugs as he did. She had been an only child; now that her parents were dead, she had nobody. Garner nodded sympathetically as she dropped off to sleep.

He carried her chair to the stove, set her in it, opened the oven door, turned on the gas, and then went out into the hall and waited. A half hour later he put a handkerchief to his nose, looked in, and saw that her face was cherry red. He locked the door and went down the back stairs. Poor lonely thing. Her troubles were over.

In Detroit he saw the nitroglycerin tablets and knew that Aiken had a bad heart. But Aiken talked without prompting: Johnny had been in Liz's room the night before his fatal accident—Aiken had been unable to sleep and he had heard them talking. This was new. Green wanted to go out to the car and question Liz, but Garner was not ready.

“He knows more than he's telling.”

“I don't think so.”

“What you think, Green, doesn't matter.”

“Okay, okay,” said Green hurriedly. He helped Garner get Aiken into the cellar. Garner turned on the lathe to cover the noise, then stripped the wiring. Aiken started to babble.

“Oh, God, I'll die! I've told you all I know!”

Green looked at Garner.

“He's lying,” said Garner.

For a time Garner thought he had been. Aiken seemed to endure a great deal of juice, though he screamed and writhed and twisted on the floor. Applying the wires, trying to read Aiken's distended eyes, Garner became so engrossed that he did not realize the body was no longer writhing until Green said in a faint voice, “He's dead.”

Garner rose, feeling tired. It was a great responsibility being the big man.

“He was telling the truth,” said Garner. “But you can't trust anybody.” He giggled suddenly, surprising himself. Green turned away and clutched his ulcer.

It was Green's idea, after Liz admitted talking to Johnny in her hotel room, to return to Chicago and grab off Liz's husband. They did not believe her when she insisted she and Talbot had talked of nothing more than Claire English. When Ed Tollman was not found in Chicago, the decision had been made to retrace the Mexican tour. Perhaps something would jog Liz's memory.

Garner leaned back in the seat. “She thinks that when we find it we'll let her go. She's been behaving herself, thinking we had her husband. And isn't it funny? Now I do have you.”

Ed said carefully, “If you kill me, you can't use me.”

Garner smiled. “I thought of that. But then what difference does it make? Your wife doesn't know a thing. I've got the girl who does.” He caressed Claire.