“And you?”
“I’ll stay.” She paused. My hands wanted to touch her, and I hated them because they did. Then she said: “It shouldn’t matter' what you think of me, but it does. You ought to know why I went out with Moon tonight. We’re spies here, and the business of spits is to learn things.”
“Sex appeal helps,” I said dryly.
“Yes.” Her gaze did not waver. “We went to a juke joint. We danced and drank beer. We talked. That’s why I’d gone with him, of course — to talk.”
“Did it do any good?”
“No.”
Her mouth was only a little below mine the flame-red mouth I could still taste on my lips. I reached for her mouth with mine. I had sworn to myself that I wouldn’t again, but there it was.
At the last instant she jerked her head aside, and my mouth caught the side of her chin. Like any fumbling youngster trying to snatch a kiss in a doorway.
I sidled away from her. “I suppose kissing one man an hour is enough for you,” I said.
I felt her come after me, felt her hand on my arm. “You have a wife and a daughter,” she said huskily. “I’m not much on morals, but I’m not like that. You’re too swell a guy to hurt.”
“Thanks.” I wasn’t particularly bitter.
I was just overwhelmingly tired of it all and wanted to go home where I belonged. I moved away from her again, this time as far as the window, and looked out over the car lot. Nobody was down there. Not even a shadow.
“Adam, this evening you wanted to go home,” she said. “You can’t yet, it’s too dangerous, but get out of this place. I haven’t the story I want, but I’ll go with you if that will make you go.”
I said: “A little while ago I saw Crooked Nose in the car lot.”
“What was he doing?”
“Spying, like us. There’s something here and he knows it. Probably the bag.”
“You know that Moon hasn’t got it.” “But somebody else here might. If Vital and Larry doublecrossed Moon, why not some of the others? Crooked Nose knows it. That’s why he’s here.”
“So you’re staying?”
“I can't go home and there's no sense going anywhere else. I've got to finish it here.” I turned from the window. “Crooked Nose might still be down there. Let me have your gun.”
“And do what with it?”
“If I find Crooked Nose, I might have to protect myself. Or use it to make him tell me what he's after.”
She fumbled at the cord of her robe. “I need it more than you do.”
“I'll return it.”
“Please don't keep asking me.”
I laughed between my teeth. “Moon is sure Breen has the bag. He ought to know, so I have it. I came here to find out how important what's in the bag is to them so I can know how high a price I can get for it. That's the way your mind works, doesn't it?”
She didn't answer. I strode past her to the door.
“Adam,” she said.
I stopped. “Yes?”
“George Moon wanted to kiss me, but I didn't let him.”
“Didn't you?” I said without interest. I continued out of the room.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The moon slanted down over the car lot like a reading lamp. It revealed Milton seated against the back of the house on a wooden box. His pipe was in his mouth and his rifle across his knees. I eased back to the road, walked as far as the state line, stepped into brush. I had taken the flashlight from Molly’s coupe, but I didn’t snap it on. That was for extreme emergencies.
Brush provided cover as far as the lower left corner of the car lot. Cars were between Milton and me. If I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me.
Only one window on that side of the house showed light. The two windows of our room were dark. I wondered if Molly had undressed and got into bed so quickly, or had left the room, or was standing there in darkness watching the lot. I moved on.
It had occurred to me that Crooked Nose had seen me come that first time and had ducked into one of the cars. That was what I would have done. He might still be there, waiting until all the windows darkened. I walked up one row and before I came in sight of Milton cut between two cars to the next row. I was looking for the smallest of lights, listening for any sound which could be-made by a man. All I heard was a man cough in the house.
Twice I was fooled by something in the back seats of cars — once by a white rag which might have been a man crouching on the floorboard, once by a peculiarly shifting shadow caused by moonlight. But when I did find him there was no doubt that it was a man.
Blandly he was sitting upright on the back seat of a sedan. He was watching the house through the left window, and I had approached from his right. He didn’t know I was there until I had torn the door open and stabbed my flashlight beam at him.
“I’ve got you covered!” I whispered harshly.
What covered him was my fountain pen held behind the light. Possibly it would look like the barrel of a small gun to him, but what gave me confidence was the fact that his hands were empty. He hadn’t expected anybody to come along peering into each car.
For a long moment he did not stir. His shoulders were broad enough to belong to Crooked Nose, but the back of his head was wrong. For one thing, he needed a haircut badly. I didn’t have time to think about it. His right hand crawled from the seat to his knee.
“Don’t try it,” I whispered.
The hand flattened on the seat. His face turned to me. The nose was broad and mashed instead of twisted. I was staring into the ugly face of Larry Goodby.
He left the car quickly, crouching to get through the door, and at the same time his head was high. Probably he couldn’t see my face behind the light, but he wasn’t looking at my face. His eyes were on the fountain pen. Stepping out of the car, he grinned hideously. As he straightened up, his right hand crossed to his left shoulder.
I dropped my fountain pen and drove my fist into his jaw. He tottered against the fender and something loose on the car rattled. He groaned. There was too much sound.
“Listen, Breen!” he said, pushing himself away from the car.
I sank my left into his midriff and raised the right to his jaw. He hit the ground.
This was the second time since Monday that I had knocked him out cold without great effort. The truth was that the tough guy had a glass jaw. I had to do it this time because he had a gun, but it was a terrible mistake. I wanted him revived and away from here in a hurry.
My attempt to rouse him produced only a groan. I had done too effective a job. And Milton was coming. In the silent night he had heard the small sounds of the fight. I bent lower over Larry and pulled out of his shoulder-holster a smaller automatic than the one I had taken from him Monday night. As I straightened up, light sprayed me. Milton held his rifle under his left armpit and his finger was ready for business on the trigger.
“Bert!” he panted. “Why the hell.—” His light knifed past my shoulder and impaled the brutal face. “Holy cats, Larry Goodby! What happened to him?”
“I found him hiding in this car and knocked him out.”
Milton snickered. ‘‘Boy, will the boss like this!”
I stood up. “You’d better tell him. I’ll watch this mug while you go to the house.”
“Socked him with the gat, eh?”
“With my fist. This is his gun.”
“Took his gat away from him,” he said in awe. “I seen them sweet socks you gave Rufus, I heard tell Lou Darby’s boys was tough babies.” His tongue clucked. ‘'What d’you know, Larry Goodby! Boy, the boss’ll like this.”
Larry moaned. An arm lifted feebly and sank back to the ground. Any moment now he would open his eyes, and I couldn’t have Milton or anybody else here when it happened. I said testily: “If Moon will like it so much, why don’t you go for him?”
“Sure, Bert, but I don’t have to go.” He stuck two fingers into his lipless mouth and emitted a high-pitched whistle. He repeated it twice. An an
swering whistle came from the house. “That’ll bring ’em.”
We waited. Lights went on all over the house. My thumb pushed the safety catch on Larry’s automatic. Milton’s eyes were off me; I could get the drop on him and take his rifle and flee. But where would that leave Molly? Milton’s shouts would warn them of my coming before I could get to the house for her.
There was an alternative. I could shoot Milton with Larry’s automatic and Larry with Milton’s rifle, and it would appear that they had killed each other in a gun fight. That was a solution for a man who could kill in cold blood. It was none for me. I did nothing.
Rufus Lamb and Beezie came down between the cars. Rufus wore pants and a windbreaker and sneakers and apparently nothing else. Beezie had thrown a topcoat over maroon pajamas. Each carried a gun and a flashlight.
They looked admiringly at me when Milton told them what had happened. I was worthy of my master, Lou Darby.
I had proved myself. But it wouldn’t last long. One of Larry’s hands fluttered. He would come out of it very soon.
“Should we carry him to the house or wait till he can walk?” Beezie asked.
“Not the house.” Rufus frowned at a truck rumbling by on the highway. “We don’t want him where maybe somebody’ll hear something. Beezie, you get the boss. Bert, you grab his legs”
Milton cut a path for us with his flashlight. As we carried Larry, I watched the lolling head; the closed eyes. Once the eyelids twitched, but did not open. When they did, he would look at me and say my name.
We carried Larry halfway up the hill behind the barn. Rufus and I had put up our guns, and now, he took out his and I took out mine. I didn’t know what use my gun would be with two of them against me. I wasn’t good enough for that. I wasn’t even pretty good.
Beezie returned with Tilly, moving slowly to keep his pace down to her labored, waddling ascent. She wore a cloth coat over a white nightgown which came to her ankles. When she reached us, she wheezed like a broken engine and gave me an approving nod. I had at last sold myself to her. That was just dandy.
George Moon and Molly rounded the barn. I felt myself break up inside. If she had remained in the house, I would have found an excuse to go there and flee with her. Her coming wrecked even that chance. I had done a perfect job. I had handed over to them the one man who could expose me, and through me Molly.
Moon was fully dressed. Molly had got into her blue pajamas with white polka-dots after I had left the room, and now she wore that matching robe over them, and slippers. Clinging to Moon’s arm she stepped carefully over the rougher spots on the hillside. Her face was just a white patch behind a light, even after she and Moon had joined the circle of flashlights converging down on Larry. She dropped Moon’s arm.
“Nice work, Bert,” Moon drawled. “How’d you happen to be out here?”
“I saw a prowler from my window.”
“And you came down? And you didn’t tell Milton?”
Larry groaned loudly. The others swung .their eyes to him, but not Moon. He was looking at me, grinning.
“The fact is I was taking a walk,” I said.
“You said you saw him from the window.”
“That was earlier. I lost him. Milton will tell you.” I glanced at Molly. Her profile could have been cut but of white paper. “I was sore because Clara had gone out with you tonight. I took it out in walking.”
Moon’s grin tightened. “Nice work, pal,” he said, his voice so slow that I couldn’t read anything into it. “I wanted that rat.” He prodded Larry’s ribs with his toes.
I stepped beside Molly and touched her arm. Her head turned. In moonlight she was very beautiful. Her lips parted, trembled, and closed without sound. She shivered. She must have been chilly in just those sheer silk things, but that wasn’t why she shivered.
“Get up, rat!” Rufus said.
Larry’s eyes were open. He lay flat on his back, his eyeballs crawling in their sockets. I stepped away from Molly, away from the others, but there were no shadows to hide me. And he knew that I was there. He had said, “Listen, Breen,” before I had knocked him out.
“Damn you, get up!” Rufus grabbed his shoulder and yanked at him. Larry rose limply, without resistence, and teetered.
“Where’s Breen?” Moon said.
There were three guns against me. Milton’s rifle was fixed on Larry’s chest; it would be cumbersome at close range.
Beezie was so fascinated by the proceedings that he seemed to have forgotten the revolver in his hand. I would throw the first shot at Rufus who was the most competent and dangerous. But I wouldn’t survive. The best I could hope for was that Molly would escape in the confusion.
“You tell me where he is,” Larry said.
He meant Adam Breen — me! He knew that I was there, but he wasn’t saying. Not yet, anyway. Maybe he was saving it to bargain with.
Without hurry, without heat, Moon slapped him. Larry staggered. He would have fallen if Rufus hadn't grabbed his arm and held him upright.
“Where’s Breen?” Moon said again.
Larry wet his lips. “I didn’t snatch him like the coppers say.”
“Who is the woman who drove him off last night?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Why did you come here?”
Larry’s tongue flicked out and in. He didn’t reply. Moon slapped him again.
Tilly said: “George, why would Larry come here if he’d snatched Breen?”
She had stepped to Moon’s side. The shifting fringes of the flashlights sent flickering patches of lights and shadows, over the too-tall man and the too-short woman. It made them unreal and ridiculous. He had to bend his neck to look at her. “Then where’s Breen?” he said. “Where’s the bag?”
“I told you at dinner,” Tilly’s voice lashed up at him. “But no, you knew everything. The great George Moon! Never even carries a gun. He says he can hire a gun as long as he supplies the brains. But where are the brains? That’s what I ask, where are they?”
“Maybe you could supply them,” Moon suggested lazily, rubbing his chin with a long, slim hand.
“No, I’m not smart enough. I wouldn’t be so smart that I’d frighten Breen into hiding with the bag. And I’d get foolish ideas:—like if Larry had got hold of the bag or knew where it was, this would be the last place he’d come to.”
While they bickered, Larry’s face came together, to its normal ugliness. Now' he said with wheedling eagerness: “Tilly’s right, boss. The, reason I came here, I want to ask you to take me back. Sure, I made a mistake, but Jasp talked me into it. Give me a break, boss. I know the Florida angle better than anybody. If you’ll ...”
Moon lifted a hand. Larry flinched. But this time there was no slap. Moon arrested his hand in mid-air and brought it behind himself to his hip pocket for his handkerchief: Delicately he dabbed his lips. “All right, rat, so you haven’t got the bag. But you know what happens to rats.”
My hand strained on the gun. My cracked knuckles ached. I glanced sideways at Molly and saw her step around -the periphery of the flashlight beams. She wasn’t leaving. She was angling uphill toward Milton.
“For God’s sake, give me a break!” Larry whined brokenly. His eyes darted wildly as if looking for something. “Boss, I swear if you’ll ...”
Molly uttered a startled cry. She stumbled against Milton’s rifle. Somebody rushed at me, brushed my arm, went by. I turned my head after him and saw Larry’s broad shape running toward the barn.
There was no immediate shot. I looked back at the faces flickering in the sprays of swinging flashlights. Moon had caught Molly after she had stumbled and held an arm about her waist. Rufus did a weird dance to get around Tilly who was planted between himself and the target. Beezie aimed his revolver. He shot and then Rufus got in a shot, but Larry continued to run downhill. There was a good chance that he would get away, and I was glad.
“I'll get him,” Milton said.
He had run forward a few feet
and was down on one knee with his rifle at his shoulder. He took his time. Larry was crossing the flat area in front of the barn when the rifle cracked.
Larry stopped running. He put a hand out as if to steady himself and then started to sink. It took him a long time to reach the ground. Then he lay motionless in the moonlight.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Tilly wheezed, and somewhere underfoot an insect set up a shrill clamor. Those were the only sounds in the night. Milton was on the way down the slope to the still shape beside the barn. The rest of us remained on the hillside as if waiting for a curtain to raise on another act.
George Moon’s arm remained about Molly’s waist. She stood frozen in that position, one shoulder and hip touching him, yet all of her aloof and unyielding. Rufus Lamb was on my left, his gun' held negligently, and it might have been only accident that the muzzle was not far from my heart. Beezie and his gun were behind me. I was boxed in. Maybe it wasn’t deliberate, but they were fools if it wasn’t.
Milton reached Larry. He squatted and rose and waved his rifle. “Got him clean,” he called up to us.
George Moon spoke then. “Give Rufus your gun, Bert.” He didn’t tell Rufus to relieve me of it. Very politely he was requesting a favor of me.
“I took it from Larry,” I said. “That makes it mine.”
“I collect trophies, Bert, and that gun would be a nice addition to my collection: I have a number of guns which belonged to guys who tried to buck me and are now dead.” There was no menace, not even mockery, in his slow voice.
I could shoot him where he stood, if I didn’t hit Molly instead. A moment later Rufus would kill me. Maybe it would be worth it, the fairest deal I could make. But how could I bring myself to act against unreality? There were no violent words, no hostile faces. Not even the two guns in sight seemed to have sinister significance.
I reversed the automatic and handed it to Rufus.
The mood did not change when I was disarmed. Moon drawled: “Bert, didn’t you have a chance to plug Larry when he ran past you?” It wasn’t an accusation. He was just asking me.
Bruno Fischer Page 14
