The Long Ride (16 page)

John said, “I don’t know how that could have happened.” He looked at Wells’s eyes, saw them switch to look at Garwith.

“Who knows?” the mechanic said. “Maybe it just looks that way. Anyway, it’s ready to go.”

When they were once more whipping down the highway, west, toward Reno, Mrs. Landry said gaily, “Now that wasn’t so bad, was it, everybody?”

There was a murmur of agreement by everyone but Miss Kennicot, who remained stonily silent, as she had been during the entire process of towing in the car and repairing it.

Miss Kennicot, in fact, did not speak until they rolled into Sparks, Nevada, just ahead of Reno. Then she said, “I don’t see why we don’t just keep going, right on through Reno. What’s so much about a dirty little town just full of gambling and heaven knows what other kind of filth! It’s a disgrace, and it ought to be outlawed!”

There was a moment of surprised silence in the car. Then Mrs. Landry said, “Are you feeling all right, Vera? I mean—”

“I’m feeling perfectly fine,” Miss Kennicot said. “I’m simply offering my opinion on this absolutely sinful state we’re traveling through. Six more hours and we could be in San Francisco. I’m just very awfully tired of this trip, if anybody cares to know. I don’t see why we can’t just keep on going.”

Allan Garwith spoke next. “Maybe we’re just going to stop in that sinful town, regardless.”

“Allan—” Cicely began.

“I mean,” Garwith said, his face flushed with anger, “since when is one person running this show, I wonder? When did that start anyway?”

“Now you just listen to me for a moment, young man!” Miss Kennicot said, switching around to glare at Allan Garwith. “I have every right to—”

“Vera,” Mrs. Landry said quickly, “maybe a good, hot cup of coffee would make you feel ever so much better. Mrs. Moore, isn’t there some coffee left in one of the Thermoses?”

“I think so,” Margaret Moore said. “Would you like me to pour you a cup of coffee, Miss Kennicot?”

Miss Kennicot’s face twitched visibly. “No, I would not like you to pour me a cup of coffee!” She twisted around, facing the front again, her face a deep pink. “I wouldn’t care, this minute, just what we ever did, whether or not we stopped in that miserable town, or whatever we did or didn’t do. I really wouldn’t care! I hope I make that completely clear. It just absolutely doesn’t make a particle of difference to me one way or another. And I’ve made my last statement on that!” Having finished, she clamped her mouth shut and sat rigidly, staring straight ahead, as Mrs. Landry, completely befuddled, drove into Reno.

Downtown, the sign stretching above Virginia Street announced, “The Biggest Little City In The World.” In the bright, warm sunlight, the casinos lining both sides of the street looked lifeless without the contrast of darkness to intensify the flash and glitter of their signs. But the sidewalks were busy with people hurrying from one casino to another.

“Well,” Mrs. Landry said worriedly, “I’m just willing to do what everybody else wants to do. If you want to stop, or just go right on, why—”

“We’re going to stop,” Allan Garwith announced decisively.

“Well, but Allan,” Cicely said. “If nobody else wants to stop, we—”

“Why,” John said carefully, “don’t we stop for a little while? We can look around—say, for an hour or so—and then we could keep on going and get to San Francisco this evening.”

“Well, that sounds just right!” Mrs. Landry said, relieved to hear a positive suggestion. “Is that all right with you folks?” she asked the Garwiths.

“Yeah,” Garwith said.

“Mrs. Moore?”

“I think an hour is all I’ll need here, Mrs. Landry. I’ve never had any luck gambling.”

Miss Kennicot whirled around again, glaring at Margaret Moore. “Do you mean to tell me that you’d shamelessly go in and support one of those havens of sin by actually gambling?”

“Well,” Mrs. Moore said. “Yes.”

“I don’t know what I could possibly say about that!” Miss Kennicot shouted, and turned to the front again.

Margaret Moore turned and looked at John curiously. He shook his head, spreading his hands. Harry Wells, he noticed, was silent, tense, simply watching Allan Garwith.

“Well, we’ll just stop then, for an hour,” Mrs. Landry said. “Only first I’ll have to find some place to park—it’s so crowded on this street.”

“I think I saw a sign pointing to a parking lot back a couple of blocks, Mrs. Landry,” Margaret Moore said. “On the other side of the tracks.”

“All righty,” Mrs. Landry said. A few minutes later, two blocks off the main section of downtown Reno, she rolled the station wagon into a self-park lot. John Benson, as they came in, offered to pay for an hour at the small entrance booth manned by a disinterested attendant. When the car stopped, Allan Garwith was the first one out. He waited impatiently while Cicely climbed out, then took her arm and hurried off, toward Virginia Street.

Harry Wells remained in the car for a few moments, opening and closing his suitcase swiftly. Then he got out and strode off in the same direction the Garwiths had gone. Margaret Moore came up to John, smiling. “Any particular plans, sir?”

“I’m afraid so, Margaret. I’d like to take you downtown, but I’ve got a small errand first. I’m sorry.”

She looked at him, eyes flickering. “All right. And no need to be sorry, John.”

He moved off quickly, listening to Mrs. Landry trying to urge Miss Kennicot from the car. “No, I will not!” Miss Kennicot was saying loudly. “I will simply not set foot in this dirty town!”

Allan Garwith moved quickly ahead with Cicely. Wells was pacing rapidly behind them. John felt his stomach tighten. He knew what Wells had taken from his suitcase—a gun. And he was very certain when they had the car repaired that he’d detected the shape of a small gun beneath Allan Garwith’s jacket. It was all going to explode, and very quickly…

CHAPTER

A short distance from Virginia Street, Allan Garwith saw a small sports shop. He stopped and dug a dollar bill from his pocket. He said to Cicely, “Go try your luck somewhere. Here’s a buck. All right?”

She looked at him in surprise. “By myself, Allan? I mean, aren’t you—”

“How about not arguing with me today? How would that be? Would that be too much to ask? I’ve got something to do. I’ll see you back at the car.”

“But, Allan. I—”

“Listen,” he said. “I want an hour, all by myself. Is that too much? What is the matter with that anyway?” His mouth was a tight, white line. The muscle beside it was shivering.

“Are you all right, Allan? You look so pale, and I—”

“Take the buck, right? Right in the little hand. Then go. Trippy, trippy, down the street! Move!”

She took the dollar, her eyes misting once again. She walked on quickly, stumbling once because she was obviously unable to see past the tears. She righted herself, while he stood looking after her with angry eyes. She turned the corner.

He’d known Wells was behind him when they’d left the parking lot. He could not see Wells now. Stupid bastard, he thought. Right to the post office. Only he won’t get it. But he’ll show again when he doesn’t. So all right. I’ll be ready for him.

All right, he thought, and stopped the first person he met. “Which way to the post office?”

“Straight down the street.”

He moved down Virginia Street, his pulse beating at an even one hundred and twenty-five pulsations per minute.

Harry Wells walked away from the general delivery window in the post office and stepped outside, the sunlight making the planes of his face harsh and masklike. He put his hand against the jacket of his suit, feeling the pistol strapped against his chest in its holster. He would like to use it. He would truly like to use it, just take it out and start pulling the trigger on everybody in sight…

He moved down the steps and walked around the building. He stopped and looked back. Garwith was not in sight. He stepped back, putting a tree between himself and where he expected Garwith to appear, if he were coming. Maybe, he thought, the bastard had sent the money to San Francisco. Maybe Los Angeles. Maybe anywhere in the world.
My
money! But he was not going to shake Harry Wells until he led Harry Wells to that dough. Then he was going to get a present for his trouble. A nice, fat, deadly present, to be enjoyed once, that’s all.

Harry Wells waited motionless, silent, habitually patient even against his frustration and anger.

Across the street, unseen by Harry Wells because he had used the entrance on the Truckee River side, John Benson walked into the lobby of the Riverside Hotel. He strode past the slot machines, a crap table, a roulette wheel, into the section that contained the registration desk and a small alcove that housed a magazine counter and a set of telephone booths. Glass doors looked out on the street, allowing a view of the post office across the street.

John walked to the doors, not looking at the chunky man in the light gray suit who stood to his left. A bellboy in a cowboy costume removed two bags from a white Jaguar and accompanied a small chic brunette to the desk. Behind, there was the faint sound of the croupier’s chant from the casino.

The man in the gray suit edged closer to John and said in a rasping voice as he looked across the street, “Benson?”

“That’s right.”

“Ryan.”

“In person?”

“I wouldn’t sit in the office at a time like this. Here.”

The gun was slipped to John swiftly. He tucked it under his belt, buttoning his jacket again. He felt two extra clips sliding into his left jacket pocket.

“Wells went into the post office about two minutes ago,” Ryan said. “He came out and walked around the building. He’s standing behind a tree down the block. I’ve got a man in the telephone booth to your left. We’re hooked to the post office. Wells asked for the package. He was told it wasn’t there. If Garwith asks, he’ll get it and we’ll know it.”

John looked past Ryan. A man in a blue suit and matching hat sat in one of the telephone booths. John looked back across the street at the post office. “No sign of Garwith yet?”

“No. You decided not to cover him over here?”

“I don’t want to take a chance on spooking him now. The money’s where he’s going. If he gets cold feet now and tries to disappear without picking up the money, that’ll surprise the hell out of me. He’ll—” He stopped, looking to the left, as a figure appeared on the bridge running over the Truckee River. “Here he comes now.”

Garwith walked slowly, his one arm straight at his side, as he crossed the bridge. His eyes looked straight ahead, almost as though he were in a daze. A large woman in a wide-brimmed straw hat came toward him from the opposite direction, a small child tugging against her hand. She held on to the child stubbornly. But the child got away at the bridge and headed off in a zigzagging run, bumping squarely into Allan Garwith.

Allan Garwith crouched, his hand flying to his middle. His eyes opened widely, as the child ran on ahead, his mother calling after him loudly. Quickly Garwith straightened and dropped his hand away from his middle.

Ryan let out a soft whistle. “Something goes wrong, he’ll blow sky high.”

“And he’s armed,” John said flatly. “Carrying a gun just about where I’m carrying this one. That’s too bad.”

“You’re sure this is the way you want to do it? We can grab Garwith the instant he puts his hands on that package. No sweat.”

“Then we lose Harry Wells. No thanks.”

They watched silently as Garwith walked up to the doors of the post office. He disappeared inside. A minute went by. Two. They were both looking at the man in the booth to their left. The man pressed the receiver of the telephone closer to his ear. Then he looked at them and nodded.

“Okay,” Ryan said. “He’s got the package.”

Swiftly John moved outside into the bright sunshine, followed by Ryan. He stepped close to a cab parked at the curb and said to the cabbie, handing him a bill. “Just stay parked here.” The cab was a cover between himself and Garwith as well as Wells. Ryan flashed his identification at the cabbie, then stood beside John and said, “What do you figure he’ll try to do?”

“Try to shake Wells. That’s all right now.”

Allan Garwith walked out of the post office. He walked in that same dazed manner, and now he was carrying the package.

John felt a flicker of nervous tension running through his entire body. There was a wild, peculiar look on Garwith’s face.

He reached the sidewalk and walked back in the direction from which he’d come. He moved at a careful, even pace, toward the bridge that led to the main part of the casino-clustered street.

“Here comes Wells,” Ryan said.

Harry Wells appeared from behind the tree down the block and walked in their direction with a brisk, military stride. Garwith had crossed the bridge and was even with the lobby entrance of the Mapes Hotel.

“All right,” John said to Ryan. “Stay behind me.”

He rounded the cab, following Wells toward the bridge. At that moment Garwith suddenly spun, looking back at Harry Wells, then ducked into the Mapes lobby…

Allan Garwith had been certain that Harry Wells, though he hadn’t yet seen him, would be behind him when he came out of the post office with that package in his hand. He had felt it, as he’d walked over the bridge that crossed the Truckee River. Then he had made up his mind. In crowds he would be safe. In crowds he could lose Harry Wells. And then, he thought, his brain turning better than it had ever turned because he was pitched to a point of near-explosion, he would do the last thing Harry Wells would expect him to do—return to that station wagon in the parking lot on the other side of the business district. He would simply tell them that he had run into Wells downtown and Wells had sent the message he was staying in Reno. He even thought that he could tell them Wells had instructed him to check his bag into the bus station in San Francisco to be picked up later. It was clear, fast thinking, better, Allan Garwith thought, then any he’d done in his life.

Then he turned around swiftly, and actually saw what he knew would be the fact: Harry Wells behind him. That was when his thinking collapsed and he’d turned and darted into the Mapes lobby, not thinking at all suddenly, simply going on instinct, because the panic had risen up in him and was nearly choking him. He had seen that look in Wells’s eyes, as Wells came after him across that bridge. That had turned him to jelly. And he was simply moving now, like a hunted animal.