Mourn the Hangman (13 page)

“All right,” Blake said. “So Bricker brings you here to Sam’s place and agrees to find me for ten grand. That’s where you made it worse, Dickerson. I might have helped you. I might have helped Terravasi. But I’m not going to do anything that’ll help Bricker collect ten grand.”

Bricker spoke then. “Blake talks tough, Dickerson,” he said. “But I hold the gun.”

“Do you want I should take it away from him, Mistuh Steve?” Sam said.

Bricker’s face went white. “Keep away from me, Sam. So help me God!”

Blake smiled. “No, Sam. I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to help these two guys get out of town. I’ve decided to do it. The only thing is, Bricker is going along. Just for the ride.”

“No!” The word broke across Bricker’s mouth.

He took a backward step toward the wall. The gun came up in his hand.

Terravasi spoke then. He got up from the table and stumbled over to the door. He leaned against it. “You’re going, Bricker,” he said. “You can’t get us all. So you better put that thing away. If it means me gettin’ away from Arrenhower, you’re going with us.”

LET’S GET GOING!” Dickerson said. “For God’s sake, let’s get going!”

“No,” Blake said. “Not so fast. There’s going to be a delay, Dickerson. You might as well make up your mind to that.”

“A delay?” Dickerson’s voice shook. “How long?”

Blake thought a moment. “We can’t leave here for two hours.”

“Two hours?” Dickerson’s voice rose into a wail. “Every minute counts. Do you think they’re not looking for us right now?”

“I can’t help it. You want me to get you out of Gulf City and on the way out of Florida. Bight? Then you’re going to have to do it my way. Relax, Dickerson. Sam won’t let Arrenhower get you, will you, Sam?”

Sam grinned widely. “Who this Arrenhower?” he said.

“Use your phone, Sam?” Blake said.

“Sure, Mistuh Steve. Help yourself.”

“It’s long distance,” Blake said, dialing the operator. “Better give Sam ten dollars, Dickerson.” When the gray-headed man hesitated, Blake’s voice went hard. “Your money is not going to do you any good if you’re caught, Dickerson. You’d better be nice to Sam.”

He smiled grimly as he watched Dickerson hand Sam a ten dollar bill. He told the operator the telephone number he wanted in Jacksonville. There was a two minute wait. Then, with the men in the room watching him, Blake said, “Hello, Dave? This is Steve Blake. Yeah. I’m ready for my car. What did you think when you didn’t hear from me? Thought I was on a binge, eh? No. I just didn’t work over there this week. Listen carefully, Dave. I want you to drive across State in my car to Route 19. Have one of your men drive a Caddy or a Buick anyway, to follow you and take you back. Yeah. You’re going to have company on the ride back. We’ll meet you at the Empty Plate on 19. Watch for it and wait for us there. Don’t come any nearer. How long you think it’ll take you? Route 19 is wide open. No towns. You ought to be able to hold at sixty-five — legal is fifty-five at night. So that’s what 1 figured. Three hours. We’ll be there, Dave.”

“There ain’t no way in God’s world you can force me to go along!” Bricker said. “That wasn’t our agreement, Dickerson. You were to pay me five grand when I brought Steve up here and he agreed to help you. You were to pay Steve the other half when he got you out of town.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” Blake said. “So that’s how we were to get the money. Five for you the easy way. And five for me — if we get past Arrenhower’s goons. Brother Bricker, this is one trip I wouldn’t make without you!”

“I’m not going!” Bricker cried.

“Why don’t you try to get out of here?” Terravasi said. “I’m telling you, you’re going.”

A car stopped out in the street. Dickerson fought back a sob. “It’s them!” he whimpered. “It’s Arrenhower’s police. They’ve found us!”

Sam shambled over to the window and looked down into the dark street. “Just a taxicab, Mr. Dickerson,” he said.

Dickerson sat at the table. “Why do we have to wait? Why can’t we start?”

“Take my word for it,” Blake said. “We can’t. We’ve got to make exact connections. We’ve got to pray we make ’em!” He looked at Sam. “How about it, Sam? Would you like a game of two-handed Canasta while we wait?”

They sat at the table. They played cards quietly, without interest and yet without any desire to stop playing. Time inched away. Each separate minute ran its full sixty seconds. Dickerson tried to write a letter. His hand shook so badly that he smeared the paper and balled it up in his fist. Terravasi remained standing at the door. Blake looked at him. Terravasi had been one of Arrenhower’s company police. Standing for hours was no chore for the big man.

At last, Blake stood up and stretched. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Bricker was sweated down. He leveled the gun at Terravasi. “For the last time,” he said. “Let me out of here. I’m not asking for my money. I’m just telling you. I’m not going. I’ll kill you, Terravasi.”

Terravasi took a step forward.

“Stay where you are!” Bricker shouted.

Terravasi didn’t hesitate. The gun went up. Sam stood hunched over the table, his mouth open, his eyes wide as he waited for the sound of gunfire.

Bricker took a backward step. Terravasi pounced. He wrenched the gun from Bricker’s hand with a snarling laugh. He looked at it with contempt rutting his face. He shoved the safety on and pushed the gun into his coat pocket.

They went down the steps single file. Big Sam went first. He reached the alley and opened the doors of Bricker’s new car. “We can’t use that,” Bricker protested. “They may know that I used this car to pick up Dickerson at Gandy Bridge.”

Blake only prodded him in the back with his fist and told him to keep moving. Terravasi and Dickerson got in the back seat. Bricker got in front and Blake slid under the wheel. He backed the car out and moved slowly down the alley. “You and Terravasi will be safer if you sit on the floor,” Blake said.

“I got to see if they’re coming,” Dickerson protested. “I got to see where we’re going.”

“All right,” Blake said. “Arrenhower’s boys would like nothing better than to put a neat little bullet hole in your head. Sit up back there and you’re asking for it.”

The next time he looked in the rear vision mirror, he saw that the two men had moved off the seat. He smiled.

He swung out into Ninth Street and headed across the city. The car purred smoothly under its shiny new hood. He held it at thirty through the deserted streets. No one spoke. Bricker was watching every side street. Terravasi and Dickerson were silent on the floor in back. Blake shook his head. Why was he here? Why was he again letting some of Arrenhower’s unfinished business drag him away from what he knew he had to do? What if Bix Glintner decided to run? Blake’s mouth tightened. He hoped not. For Glintner’s sake, he hoped the pretty garage attendant would not try to run. I’ll be back, Glintner, he said. I’ll be back to see you.

He was headed northwest on Himes Road when he saw the lights behind him. Steady, unshakeable lights. He stepped down on the accelerator. The speedometer needle inched over and wavered nervously at seventy. The lights behind them didn’t waver, but grew larger.

Bricker half turned on the seat, staring through the rear window. “There they are. They’re back there. They’re following us.”

Steve took the curves in the narrow road with wide swings. He didn’t slow down. The lights behind him inched forward. “Souped up engine,” he remarked to Bricker.

He heard Bricker’s quickened breathing.

He looked at the speedometer needle. It was no good. The car behind them had too much power. They weren’t going to make it. He wondered if the men in the back seat could feel that yet.

There was nothing to do but keep it rolling. He snapped off the headlights. The whole world was plunged into darkness. It was as if they had run off the brink into eternity. Bricker yelled. Blake turned the wheels sharply, listening to the scream of the tires, the rush of the gravel.

He felt the breath tight in his chest. Then the car wheels struck the shallow ruts of the sand road and he exhaled slowly. Behind him the big car roared past into Gulf Park on Himes Road.

The road was rough. He could hear Terravasi swear as they struck the chug holes. Bricker was braced, his short legs thrust against the floorboards.

The miles crawled by them on the sand road. They crossed a railroad track. There was a narrow, asphalt road. Blake turned the car into it. As he reached over to snap on the lights, he saw headlights bounce into the sand road way back at the highway. He didn’t turn on the lights.

He stepped down on the gas again and they picked up speed.

As they wheeled back onto Himes Road, Blake snapped on the lights. The highway was almost deserted at this hour. The black ribbon of the roadway stretched taut and straight north now.

The speedometer needle wavered around seventy again.

They didn’t slow for the intersections. As they started up the slight incline to the Tampa-Clearwater crossing, a tan car whirled into the highway from the Tampa road.

“Radio!” Blake breathed. “They radioed ahead!”

He spun hard on the wheel, pulling into the right turn lane at the very last minute. The tan car just grazed the left front fender. He could hear the squealing of the brakes.

With the gas pedal on the floor, Blake headed the car across the highway and into a side road.

Dickerson was sitting on the edge of the back seat now.

The brakes squealed as Blake turned the car left and headed back to Route 19.

They slid out on the highway. There were no headlights showing in either direction. But they had been on the road only two minutes when Blake saw that the two cars were behind them. They’d been waiting in the darkness.

They could feel the first of the cars inching up on them. It gave you a helpless feeling, Blake thought, to feel that car dragging you back to them, no matter how hard you gave your car the gas.

The headlamps of the souped up car lighted the inside of Bricker’s new automobile. “Terravasi,” Blake ordered. “Get at the left window with Bricker’s gun ready. When they get close enough to try to sideswipe us, you got to get a front tire. God help us if you don’t.”

“I’ll get it,” Terravasi said. “Mr. Arrenhower’s money taught me how to shoot a gun so I never miss.”

A gun cracked behind them. It sounded thin and harmless in the rushing wind. But Blake knew. It wasn’t harmless. Terravasi wasn’t the only goon who’d been taught to use a gun by Arrenhower’s money.

The big car pulled alongside, swerved out and started to cut sharply back in. The idea was to drive Blake off the highway, make his wheels hit the soft shoulders. That was all. That would be it. Blake hung on to the wheel, waiting to hear the gun speak from Terravasi’s fist.

It came suddenly. The gun was loud in the car. But the explosion of the tire at the side sounded like the blast of doom. Blake kept moving. In the rear vision mirror, he saw the car swerve crazily, dancing back and forth on the highway before it went across the shoulders and into the darkness of a ditch.

He saw the tan car skid to a halt.

“They’re going to see if they can save anybody,” Terravasi said. “If they get a chance at us now, we ain’t going to get out of this.”

THE TAN CAR was moving again. It had eyes like a deadly beetle in the darkness behind them.

Again Blake cut the lights of his car. It was a dangerous thing to do along this unlighted roadway. If a state patrolman came along, he was going to stop them. Blake smiled grimly. What was wrong with having an armed patrolman with you when the tan car overtook you?

The red and green neon lights of the Empty Plate shone in the darkness at the left side of the road a couple of miles ahead.

Blake said, “All right, Dickerson, pay off. Five grand to Bricker over there. He can stuff it in his mouth. It’ll keep his teeth from chattering. I’ll take the five grand, too. I don’t care about the money. But why should I let you keep it?”

He heard Dickerson stirring on the back seat. Bricker took the money that Dickerson handed him, nervously counted it, stuffed it in his wallet.

Dickerson’s hand touched Blake’s shoulder. Blake reached back, took the flat fold of bills, pushed them in his trouser pocket.

“Here’s the Empty Plate,” Blake said. “Here’s what you do. I’m going to pull around the side. My car is a 1946 Plymouth coupe. Keep away from it. The other car will be Dave’s. Dave will be sitting in it. I’ll tell you which one. You get in Dave’s car and tell him I said to get back to Jacksonville. They’re not going to be looking for you in Dave’s car. If you move fast enough, you’ll make it. They’ll still be looking for this car.”

Terravasi laughed with satisfaction. “Thank God I ain’t going to be in this car when them Arrenhower boys catch up with it. If any of those boys in that other car were killed — ” He let that go unfinished, sat there shaking his head.

Blake braked the car suddenly. It spun off the road and across the gravel approach to the highway drive-in, The Empty Plate. At the side of the building he could see his Plymouth. He had driven it to Jacksonville Friday and had taken the Silver Meteor back to Gulf City. Trying to fool a man who couldn’t be fooled. Trying to play it smart. Delaying, while someone killed the woman he loved. He could feel the anguish burn in his dry throat. It won’t be long, Stella. It won’t be long.

He slid into the parking place beside the blue Buick. Dave and his driver waved at him. “Get that engine started,” Blake said. “Get ready to get out of here. You got two hot passengers for Jacksonville.”

Dickerson and Terravasi Were already scrambling out of Bricker’s car. Dave had the engine started. He was reversing out of the parking place as the two men leaped into the rear seat. He made a sharp turn and headed north on Route 19.

Blake started to slide out from under the wheel.

Bricker’s voice was a scream. “Where you going?”

“This is a hot car,” Blake replied. “I’m getting out of here. I’m heading back to Gulf City in my Plymouth. I don’t think they’ll be looking for it either. You see they’re pretty upset about the car that was wrecked back there. Whatever goons are in that tan car are going to have just one thing in mind — finding this car of yours, Bricker, and getting revenge on the people in it.”

Bricker yelled. “Yeah. But what about me? What am I going to do?”

Blake stood there. He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he answered. “But I think you’d better run. Get that new car of yours moving, Bricker. You might outrun ’em. You might. Anyway, looks to me like that’s the only chance you got left. Run, Bricker! Run for your life!”

• • •

It seemed a long way back to Gulf City. The road was dark. There were desolate stretches where there was no sign of life. Slash pines stood tall and thin against the starless sky. The country was flat, unchanging, saw grass and palmettos and then a thicket of jack oaks.

More than anything else, Blake despised the loneliness inside the small car. He thought about Sammy. He wished for her. At least, if she were along, she could talk and he wouldn’t be prey to the thoughts that hounded him in the thick dark.

Bix Glintner, the face of him, the curly, carefully brushed hair. The way he walked. Bix Glintner moved out there in front of him. He didn’t want to think about Bix Glintner. It would be better to be completely dead, Blake told himself, then you wouldn’t think at all. You wouldn’t think about a snotty, muscled kid chasing after your wife every time she left her apartment. “She didn’t want him,” he could hear Sammy Anderson’s voice saying, “Stella didn’t want Bix. There was something wrong about it. Something unwholesome.”

Blake found that he had shoved the gas pedal to the floor.

And there in the darkness before him moved the lovely blonde face of Stella. Never had there been a woman so beautiful before. There was the goodness in her that kept her clean and shining looking. And then there was the sadness, the unhappiness, that had done something to her gray eyes. It had made them gentle and kindly and deep in a way that disturbed you. A way that you never forgot. “I’ll never forget you, Stella,” Blake said aloud in the car. “I’ll never get you out of my mind.”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel. The loneliness made him sick at his stomach. The need for her. The terrible knowledge that she was dead and gone from him. He could go on breathing and living. But he could never see her eyes again.

At the city limits, he slowed the car and drove at twenty-five miles an hour across town. He knew that he couldn’t drive all the way to the apartment house. He drove along Third Street and parked the car in an alley. He had to move quietly. He had to move in on Bix Glintner in silence. Now, at last, he had him where he wanted him. He wasn’t going to let anything frighten him away.

Be patient, Bix, he thought bitterly. Be patient. I’m on my way. The noose is ready, Bix. It won’t be very much longer now.