Man on the run

by Charles Williams

  He leaned an arm on the window on her side and looked in. I fought an impulse to turn my face away. He was about thirty, lean, alert, with a wind-burned face and unemotional gray eyes. He scarcely glanced at me. “Lady, that’s a twenty-five-mile zone past the refinery.”

  “Oh,” she said contritely. “I—I’m sorry, Officer. I guess I was going a little faster than that, wasn’t I?”

  “Forty,” he said, somewhat less sternly. She was pretty and sorry, and far too smart to gush or turn on too much charm. “Can I see your driver’s license?”

  I breathed softly and went on fighting that impulse to turn and try to hide my face. Thank God she was so spectacular; he couldn’t see past her. She handed him the license. He checked it, tapped it thoughtfully against his thumbnail, and handed it back.

  “All right,” he said. “We’ll let it go this time. But watch it. Those signs mean what they say.”

  “Thank you, Officer. I’ll be careful.”

  For the first time, then, he looked past her at me. For an instant his eyes were squarely on my face. It was like a year. Then he turned away and walked back to his car. Once he paused, as if about to turn around. She pulled back on the pavement, and as we went past him he stared thoughtfully after us.

  We were drawing away now. I watched the mirror, holding my breath. Then I saw him slip behind the wheel and slam the door. The car clawed its way back onto the pavement and was after us like a big cat.

  “Here he comes!” I said. “He recognized me.”

  “Maybe I can outrun him. Until you can get out—”

  “No,” I said harshly. “Listen, when he waves you over, stop. After he grabs me, go to pieces. Say I was threatening you with a gun in my topcoat pocket. Take it from there.”

  He wasn’t using the siren now, but he was closing on us as if we were standing still. He came up abreast and motioned us over. She pulled off. He stopped behind us. There was no use trying to get out and run; he’d cut me down before I could get twenty feet.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Remember, I forced my way into the car.”

  He came up on her side and looked in. There was a sheepish grin on his face. “It didn’t sink in at first,” he said. “Those first names threw me. You’re Suzy Patton, aren’t you?”

  He wondered if she would autograph a book for his wife if she brought it over. His wife was crazy about Suzy Patton. She gave him the address. He thanked her and tipped his cap. We drove off. After about a mile I took out cigarettes and tried to light one with hands that were as limp and useless as jelly.

  Eight

  Neither of us said anything until we came down to the beach and she parked near the jetties at the entrance to the ship channel.

  “I can see why fugitives crack after awhile and get caught,” she said.

  I nodded. “Nobody could take more than a few of those.”

  It was warmer now. The water was sparkling and blue in the slight offshore breeze. A tanker came down the channel, headed seaward. I could see the men on the flying bridge, taking her out, and felt sick. I’d never be up there again. They’d catch me. Today, tomorrow, sometime. I’d spend the rest of my life in a cell.

  She had fallen silent. “What are you thinking about?” I asked

  “Shiloh,” she said.

  “The battle? Or that machine tool company?”

  “A little of each, I think. And fugitives. And what it’s really like to be a fugitive.” She fumbled absently in her purse for a cigarette. I lighted it for her. “Take a Union soldier,” she went on. “Maybe he was captured when Prentiss’s division was cut off and sent to the rear. And then escaped behind the Confederate lines after Bragg’s rearguard action and the withdrawal toward Corinth. He was wounded and in enemy territory—” Her voice trailed off and she stared out over the water.

  “But what does this have to do with the factory?”

  “Nothing.” Then she glanced at her watch. “But we’ve got to get back if we’re going to catch the coffee break.”

  “I’ll take it from here,” I said. “You drop me and go on back to the apartment.”

  * * *

  She let me out three blocks away and I walked slowly up Denton Street in the sunlight. It was ten-fifteen. Just as I reached George’s coffee shop two girls came out of the gate at the Comet Boat Company across the street. One was brown-haired, the other blonde. I opened the screen door and went inside.

  There was a long counter at right angles to the doorway, and to the right were ten or twelve booths. I went on around to the far end of the counter and sat down facing the door. There were two men and a girl at the counter, and I was aware of some more people at two of the booths, though I hadn’t looked at them yet. I set the briefcase on the counter and unzipped it to take out one of the letters Suzy had typed.

  The waitress came over. “Yes, sir? May I help you?”

  I glanced up. “Oh. Coffee, please. And one of those rolls.”

  “Yes, sir.” She drew the coffee and placed it in front of me, and put the sweet roll on a plate. I took a sip of the coffee, pushed it to one side, and opened the letter, and as I did so I glanced casually around the place. The girl at the counter was a dishwater blonde. There were two girls in one of the booths, and a girl and a man in another, but nobody was anywhere near the description Red had given me. I unclipped the fountain pen and started making some notes on the bottom of the letter. The two girls I’d seen leaving the Comet office came in. Five or ten minutes went by, and the place was filling up. I ate some of the roll, sweated out the coffee as long as I could, and ordered some more.

  They came in by twos and threes, mostly girls talking and laughing. From where I was sitting I could watch the door without appearing to. I glanced at my watch. It was ten-thirty-five. The whole thing was a pipe dream, I thought. The screen door opened again. I glanced up, and I was looking right at her.

  There was no doubt of it at all. And no doubt that Red really had an eye. She was with two other girls that nobody would ever see unless they took their clothes off or dyed themselves purple. They sat down at a booth near the door and ordered coffee. I went on making notes on the back of the letter, carefully concealing my excitement.

  In a moment I shot another glance at her. She was sitting alone on one side of the booth with the other two facing her and was in left profile. There was no ring on her hand. She had on a brown tailored suit, white blouse, nylons, and high-heeled alligator shoes, and carried a very large alligator purse. The hair was midnight black, turned under on the ends and bouncing off her shoulders. She was about five-five or five-six, not over twenty-five years old, and built like a dream. The skin was slightly olive and the lips full and red with a stunning shade of lipstick. She turned then, glancing around the place, and her eyes swept over me.

  She’d caught me looking at her, but it didn’t matter. The only thing that would ever strike her as unusual would be discovering a man who wasn’t looking at her. The eyes were dark brown, and you could see the smoldering Latin fire in them. She paid no attention to me. I returned to my scribbling on the back of the letter and didn’t look at her again. In about ten minutes they paid their checks and went out.

  I put the papers back in the briefcase, lighted a cigarette, and sauntered out. They had turned to the left, and were about half a block away, going up the sidewalk on this side. They were already past the entrance to the plumbing supply company. They stopped at the corner, waited for the light to change, and crossed Denton. I walked slowly up to the corner. They crossed the intersecting street. In the middle of the next block they turned in. It was the entrance to the Shiloh Machine Tool Company.

  Lathes and Milling Machines, the sign said. The plant was enclosed by a steel mesh fence and took up most of the block. There was an office building in front, at the entrance, and in back of it a larger building of dark red brick. I went on up the street on this side. Two blocks away I found a beer joint that had a phone booth and called Suzy.
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  “I found her,” I said excitedly. “She works for that Shiloh outfit.”

  “Good,” she replied. “Can I come and pick you up?”

  “No. The next step is to find out where she lives. I’m going to try to follow her home tonight.”

  “It’s only eleven now. You’ll have six hours to kill.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I’ll be safe in a movie.”

  I caught a bus and rode to the downtown area. I didn’t feel so naked and exposed in the large crowds of shoppers. Half a dozen times I passed uniformed policemen, and after awhile I stopped cringing inside my clothes when I saw one. The motion picture theaters were open now. I picked one showing a double feature and went inside.

  At four-thirty I went out, bought an afternoon paper, and boarded a bus that would take me back to Denton Street. I unfolded the paper, SEAMAN SOUGHT IN POLICE MURDER STILL AT LARGE, a front-page headline said. A Lt. Brannan of Homicide was quoted as saying it was obvious by now that somebody was hiding me.

  “Any person knowing Foley’s whereabouts and withholding the information is a guilty of harboring a fugitive,” he went on. “This is a serious offense.”

  At the next stop a man sat down beside me. I kept my attention on the paper, conscious that he was looking at it too. “Some bunch of cops,” he said. “Whole police force can’t find one dumb sailor.”

  “Maybe he’s left town,” I said.

  “Naah. Probably walkin’ around on the street right now. Whatta you suppose they’d do if they ever run up against a real smart cookie like Willie Sutton or somebody?”

  “I don’t know,” I muttered. I wished he’d shut up. I turned to the comics and let him read them. Apparently he never had looked at me. I got off the bus at the Comet Boat Company and crossed to the other side of Denton. It was five minutes of five.

  There was a parking lot inside the fence at the Shiloh Tool Company, and I could see about thirty cars in it. Since we hadn’t seen her get off a bus this morning there was a possibility she drove to work. If she did, I’d be out of luck. But at least I could spot the car, and tomorrow Suzy might be able to follow it. At five a whistle blew, and men came pouring out of the Shiloh plant, but none of the office staff emerged.

  They came out at five-thirty. Some of them headed for their cars around at the side. In a moment I saw. her. She came on out to the sidewalk. She had on a lightweight cloth coat and was carrying the large alligator bag. When she reached the corner, she stopped, waited for the light, and came over on this side. She was going to catch the bus at the stop in front of the coffee shop.

  I walked down that way behind her. There were five or six other people waiting, and a bus was coming now. It was already well loaded, but it pulled to the curb and the doors opened. She got on. I was last in line, and for an instant I was afraid I wasn’t going to make it. Then the driver yelled for everybody to move back, and I got aboard.

  She was just beyond me, standing in the aisle and holding onto the bar. I could see more room at the rear, and squeezed past her, through the other standees. She didn’t even look around. I went all the way back. I could see the dark head without any difficulty.

  The bus went through the downtown section, and she almost caught me by surprise when she got off. I stepped down just as the doors were closing and picked her up again in the throngs hurrying along the sidewalk.

  She went in the Second Avenue entrance of Waldman’s, the city’s largest department store. It was nearly six p.m. now, and the street lights were on. I picked her up again inside and stayed close behind her in the crowd. It occurred to me a professional would probably wince at the crude tailing I was doing, but she never once looked around, so it was all right. She went up an escalator to the second floor and stopped at the hosiery counter. I moved over to another aisle, staying behind her, and pretended interest in perfume while she bought a pair of nylons. She gave the clerk a charge-a-plate. The clerk stamped it on the slip, returned it. and put the stockings in a small bag.

  She crossed to the other end of the floor and went into the women’s lounge. I moved back to where I could watch the doorway without being conspicuous, and found a chair and an ashtray. I lighted a cigarette. Some ten minutes went by. I began to worry. There might be another exit; maybe she’d spotted me, and had gone in there to give me the slip. Then, when I’d almost given up hope, she came out. She took the escalator back to the ground floor and went out the Butler Street entrance. It was six-thirty now, and darkness had fallen, but the streets were still crowded.

  In the next block she stopped at a newsstand and bought a magazine, then entered a restaurant. It was on a corner, with large plate glass windows on both sides. I could see her without going in myself. She ordered a sandwich and coffee and looked at the magazine while she was eating. The corner where I was standing was a bus stop. In about twenty minutes she paid her check and came out I moved back, and she came over and stood on the curb where I had been. I sighed. Maybe she was going home at last.

  She boarded a Montlake bus, the number seven line. Two more passengers got on after her, and then I climbed aboard. She had found a seat and opened the magazine and didn’t look up as I went past. I went on to the rear and sat down.

  I opened the paper and pretended to read, keeping my face down. The bus turned north along a heavily traveled arterial. We passed a district of apartment houses. Several passengers got off. She went on reading. After awhile the bus swung off onto quieter streets and we went past a large housing development. At every stop one or two passengers debarked. Soon there were only five of us left. I wondered why she lived so far out; we must be miles from downtown. Then she put the magazine away and started watching the stops.

  “Stevens,” the driver called out. She gathered up her things and came back to the rear door. The bus stopped and she got down. The door closed, but just before we got under way again I glanced up suddenly from my paper and asked, “This Stevens?”

  “That’s right,” the driver said. I grabbed the briefcase and got off. The bus went on. I took out a cigarette and stood momentarily on the corner as I lighted it. It was a run-down district of older frame houses. Diagonally across the intersection a service station was a glaring oasis of light, but there were few cars on the street. She crossed the intersection and turned right opposite the service station, going up the sidewalk under the trees on the far side. As well as I could tell, she never had looked back, but I hoped we didn’t have far to go. In this lonely and outlying district she’d be almost certain to spot me before long. When she was about halfway up the block, I crossed the street and fell in behind her.

  It was shadowy under the trees, and there were street lights only at the intersections. She crossed the next street, still going straight ahead. It was very quiet, even this early in the evening, and I could hear her heels tapping on the walk. There were fewer houses in this block. One car went past, splashing us with its headlights, but she didn’t look around.

  There were no houses at all in the third block. It was a playground or park, enclosed in a high wire fence. The sidewalk was in heavy shadow from the eucalyptus trees along the curb. Across the street was a dark building that appeared to be a school. She went on at the same unhurried pace, about fifty yards ahead of me. Somewhere near the middle of the block I made out the dark bulk of a car parked at the curb. She passed it. I tensed up, suddenly wary, but I was too late. A massive shadow detached itself from the bole of one of the trees and stepped right in front of me. I tried to duck to one side, but the gun crashed at point-blank range, the little tongue of flame licking at the sleeve of my topcoat.

  Something slammed into me just below my ribs. It was like being hit in the belly with a baseball bat. I rocked backward and spun halfway around and my knees caved under me and I fell. I tried to cry out, but I couldn’t even breathe. Cold pavement was against my face, and I could feel it grinding under my cheek and the side of my jaw as I kept opening and closing my mouth in a silent and futile spasm as if I
were trying to bite loose some air and swallow it. I could hear. Her heels were clicking on the walk as she ran, coming nearer, and his shoes scraped as he took two steps and squatted beside me. A hand touched my arm, and groped its way across my chest.

  She ran up. “Hurry!” she gasped. “What are you doing? Let’s get out of here.”

  “He’s just gut-shot. You want him talking when they find him?”

  The hand moved again and was on the side of my throat. He grunted. He was coolly locating my head, so he could put the gun muzzle against it. My whole torso was still numb, as if I’d been cut in two, but suddenly I was breathing again. I grabbed the hand and pulled. He came down on top of me like a falling horse. The gun went off. I heard it clatter on the pavement, and then slide as somebody hit it with a thrashing arm or leg. He swung at me and I heard his fist smash against concrete, He sucked his breath in sharply and cursed.

  “Find the damned gun!” he snapped.

  He was as strong as a bull and could have broken me in two if he’d ever been able to get hold of me squarely, but I was thrashing like a wild man. We tumbled over and rolled again.

  “I can’t find it,” she cried out. “I don’t even know where it went.”

  “Well, get the knife out of my pocket! I can’t hold him and reach for it.”

  “We haven’t got time. There’s somebody coming, at the next corner.”

  I broke free of him momentarily and tried to scramble to my feet. A big hand caught me in the chest and slammed me over backward. My head hit the pavement and lights exploded in it. I wasn’t completely out, but I was helpless. I felt myself being lifted and dragged, with my legs trailing limply along the walk. A voice said, “Open the door.” I fell on my back. Somebody doubled my legs up and the car door slammed. I must have gone out then for a moment, for the next thing I was conscious of was the high-pitched scream of rubber as we took a corner.