by Gil Brewer
“Much farther, pal?”
“No, it’s not too far.”
I tried not to think about Ruby. It was the only way. But I couldn’t stop thinking about her. It was such a simple thing. I told myself I would promise anything to see her. I wouldn’t tell anybody about him. But I knew that was a promise I wouldn’t be able to keep. It wasn’t a question of just stopping this guy. He had to be stopped all the way.
“This is a nice town,” he said. “A good town, a clean town. I like clean towns, pal.”
Pretty soon we reached my street. We were still several blocks from the house. But far down there, out on the sidewalk, I saw a pair of blue shorts and a red sweater.
Betty Graham. Maybe there would be some way of telling her, tipping her off. She could get the cops. She would be right next door. If only I could reach her. She had seen me with Angers this morning, and something told me she hadn’t liked the guy.
“Ralph,” Lillian said, “don’t you think we should go someplace and eat? I haven’t eaten since yesterday. The phone didn’t work at the hotel.”
He grinned at her. “I disconnected it,” he said. “It would have been rather silly, leaving the phone connected, don’t you think?”
“There’s nothing to eat at my place,” I said. “Maybe we could go to a restaurant, Ralph. I’ve got some money.”
He just turned and looked at me.
Up ahead, Betty Graham was still standing on the sidewalk. She was watering her lawn with the hose again. We were a block and a half away, but she saw us coming. She waved and I watched her cross the lawn to shut off the hose.
“Isn’t she the woman who stopped you on the street?” Angers said. “In the car?”
“That’s right.”
“I see.”
Chapter Seven
BETTY GRAHAM came toward us across her lawn. She was frowning. She glanced at Lillian, then looked hard at Angers, and I saw she remembered him. Then she looked at me.
“Steve, you haven’t been to the hospital yet.”
We paused on the sidewalk and Angers watched her.
“No, I’ve been busy, Betty.”
“Oh.”
“Have you heard anything?”
She shook her head. “Just that they want you at the hospital, Steve. I think you should get right over there. I thought you were on your way hours ago.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s move along,” Angers said.
“I live right there,” I told Angers. “Right next door.”
“Steve,” Betty said, “who are these folks? Couldn’t you introduce me?”
“Friends, Betty.”
We all stood there, staring at each other. I knew Lillian would have liked to talk plenty and Betty was suspicious of something. She had every right to be. She knew it wasn’t like me not to be at the hospital.
“So that’s where you live,” Angers said to me. He was watching Betty Graham. He started up the walk toward Betty Graham’s front porch. “Come on, pal. You too, Lil. I’ve changed my mind. We’re going to stay here. There might be trouble next door. But if there is—” He shrugged. “We’ll watch it, eh?” He turned and waited for us. Lillian and I looked at each other and went on up to him.
“What is this?” Betty asked. “What is all this, Steve?”
“I can’t explain,” I said. “Not now. Just do as he says, that’s all.”
“But I don’t understand, Steve.”
“Listen,” Lillian said. She spoke to Betty and her expression was very intent. “The idea is that we’re going to come into your house.”
“Come on,” Angers said. “Let’s go inside. I want to get out of this coat. It’s hot.”
Betty didn’t know what to say. She wanted to understand, but it was a little beyond understanding. She sensed something, I could see it in her face. But she didn’t know what really was up.
“Why, sure, Steve. Go ahead. Go on in. Sam’ll be home pretty soon.”
“Sam?” Angers said. He paused on the porch steps.
“My husband,” Betty told him.
“Oh.” He went on across the porch. I had a single instant where a whisper might not carry.
“Do as he says,” I told Betty. “Don’t ask questions.”
“But Steve!”
Angers turned by the door. “Come on, pal.”
Lillian and I went up the steps and over to the door. Betty stayed down on the front walk, watching us.
“You, too,” Angers said. “Come on, get inside.”
“I’m watering the lawn,” Betty said. She knew something was up now, all right. “I’ll be along soon.”
“Sure,” Angers said. “Only come now. Never mind the lawn.”
“Please, honey,” Lillian said. “Please, just come on, like Ralph says.”
Betty came up the porch steps and we all went inside her house. She kept looking at me and I knew she was bursting with questions. I hoped she’d keep her mouth shut. I didn’t want trouble and there was no telling what Angers might do.
“This looks like a good place,” Angers said. “We’ll live here.”
We walked on through a short hallway into the living room. It was a typical one-storied Florida house. Betty and Sam had been adding to it whenever they had enough money saved up, and it was quite nice. They were proud of their place. Sam Graham was a clerk in the City Power Building.
“Some friends you got,” Betty said. “How about introducing me, Steve? This guy’s a card. Live here, he says.”
“Yes, Betty. This is Lillian and that’s Ralph Angers.”
They nodded.
Ralph dropped the valise on the living-room floor and flinched out of his coat. He tossed it over a chair and Betty stood there looking at the gun stuck into the belt of his pants.
Lillian sighed and sat in a chair by the front windows. There were some throw rugs, a large rattan couch, a large coffee table, chairs, lamps, and a television set over by the fireplace.
“Anybody been over by my place, Betty?” I asked.
She shook her head.
Angers looked at Betty. “What’s your name?”
“Betty. Betty Graham.”
“Well, Mrs. Graham, I don’t know how long we’ll be here, but it may be quite a while. Suppose you fix us something to eat. All right?”
All the smiling was gone out of her now. She looked at Lillian and Lillian looked at me.
“I hate to put you to all this trouble, Mrs. Graham,” Angers said. “But you’ll see it’s for a good cause. Let’s have a look at the kitchen, all right?”
Betty dismissed the whole thing. It was too fantastic. She just grabbed hold of that thing that women have in their minds and closed the whole matter out. She crossed it off the books.
“Steve,” she said, “are you going right over to the hospital? I could run you over in the car.”
“Sit down, Betty,” I said.
“But I don’t want to sit down.”
The room was very quiet. Angers walked around, pulled the Luger from his belt, laid it on the television set. Betty watched him.
“Please sit down, Betty,” I said. I took her arm and led her over to the couch. We sat down. Angers paced the room. Finally he went over to the valise, picked it up, and flopped it on a chair. He opened it, took out the roll of paper and the bottle of whisky, and placed them on the floor. Then he shut the valise and took it out into the hall.
“Do as he says,” I told Betty quickly. I couldn’t tell her any more because he returned to the room.
The house was very still. Lillian sat over there with her legs crossed and stared at the purse she held in her lap. Angers picked up the roll of blueprints and placed them on the mantel over the fireplace, then he went back and sat down in the chair. He reached for the bottle of whisky, uncapped it, and drank. Then he capped it and set it on the floor again.
Betty and I sat there on the couch.
She said, “But Steve!”
“Yes.”
; “All right. I’ll go get something to eat.”
“Not yet,” Angers said. “Sit still a minute. I want to tell you something, Mrs. Graham. I forgot.”
His face was as expressionless as ever. His white shirt was soaked with sweat. The Luger was within reach of his arm on top of the television set.
“When will your husband be home, Mrs. Graham?”
“Oh, God, I don’t know! In an hour or so.”
“I see. Well, Mrs. Graham, I don’t think you’d better fix us anything to eat.”
“But I thought you said—”
“We’ll wait for your husband.”
“Steve!” She turned to me. “What is this?”
“I don’t want to have to kill you, Mrs. Graham,” Angers said. “But please, keep an even temper, will you?”
“Steve!” Betty said. She was getting a little harried now, wild. “If this is a joke, you’ve worn it thin. I can laugh at anything, but this is getting to be too much, Steve. What is this?”
“Try to listen,” I told her. “And believe. Mr. Angers has already killed two people today, Betty. Please relax and do as he says.” I didn’t look at Angers. I didn’t know how he’d take it. Lillian kept right on staring at her purse.
“Killed? Killed?” Betty said. Her eyes were big and round, and the fright that was in Lillian was beginning to show in Betty now. It was a peculiar thing, how you could tell when they began to see the truth. The fear wormed its way slowly into their eyes, and you knew they began to get it. Betty wasn’t the type of person to sit down and take things as they came. She had to have her finger in the pie. And if the pie wasn’t just right, she’d want to bake another one. So she’d want to change this. But the fear was there and she kept trying to push it back, not to believe in what she couldn’t help believing. These things didn’t happen to you! You read about them in the newspapers, or you maybe heard it over the radio. But they never happened to you. They weren’t real. They never happened.
“You mean this man hasn’t let you go see Ruby at the hospital?” Betty asked.
“He doesn’t think it’s necessary,” I told her. “It’s not the important thing, right now.”
Betty ran a hand across her forehead. Her tone was beginning to change now. I had been quite serious in everything I said and she was slowly, very slowly, beginning to get it.
Her hand dropped and she stared across the room at nothing.
“Steve,” Angers said, “we’ll wait for Mrs. Graham’s husband before I show you the blueprints. I don’t like interruptions.”
“Sure.”
Betty rose slowly. She looked at me, then started walking across the room.
“Where are you going, Mrs. Graham?” Angers said.
“Just out here,” she said. “It’s my house. If I want to walk around in my own house, I guess I will.”
“Go sit down,” Angers said. “Steve,” he said, “I hadn’t counted on all this.” I was beginning to recognize that something in his voice now; it was the small something that told me he was bothered. It was time to watch out.
Lillian caught it too. She was out of her chair and across the room to Betty’s side before Betty reached the door. Anything could have happened if she’d gone through that door. Having somebody else to help, having a companion to fear, was helping Lillian.
“Come on, honey,” Lillian said. “Come back and sit down. Please, honey.” She tried very hard to warn Betty with her eyes. But how could you warn somebody about a thing like this?
“But I don’t understand,” Betty said. Her face was pale now, her eyes a bit haunted.
Angers laid his head back on the chair top. He was staring at the ceiling.
“I don’t get it,” Betty said. “I just don’t get it.” She avoided looking at Angers, her eyes simply wouldn’t go in that direction. Her eyes flashed toward him, but always missed seeing him because she didn’t want that. It was getting to her.
“Know something?” Angers said. “I haven’t slept in days. Yet I’m not tired, not a bit. Wonderful, eh? It’s having something that interests you that does it. Everybody should have some vital hobby. Don’t you think that’s right, pal?”
“Could be that’s it,” I said.
“Of course, it’s not a hobby with me. It’s much more than a hobby.”
“Sure.”
Betty Graham came back and sat down beside me on the rattan couch. Lillian looked at me and shook her head. Then Betty began to cry. She sat perfectly rigid, staring across the room at nothing, and the tears streamed down her face. I had never seen Betty like this, but now I knew what honest fear could do. She didn’t know what it was all about, but she had suddenly begun to believe the worst and she feared it. Right now she was an automaton, like the rest of us, controlled by that maniac over there in the chair.
Chapter Eight
HE HAD NO PERSONALITY, actually. I had watched him change, realized the contradictions and confusions in his mind. I wondered about him, even in the midst of all the terror he inspired. Who was he? I didn’t like thinking about the possibility of his being an eye surgeon. Perhaps it was some mad figment of his mad mind. Either way, I didn’t want him coming near me. What sight I had I wanted to keep.
The hospital he spoke of. What a laugh! To save people. And with his next movement he might draw that damned Luger and commit murder.
Sam Graham had no idea what he was coming home to.
I looked over at Angers. He was still staring at the ceiling, with his head resting on the back of the chair. I judged the distance he’d have to reach for that gun. And somehow, I knew if I jumped him, he’d get the gun first. He would kill me. That simple.
If he didn’t get the gun … what then?
He wasn’t soft. Why was he so pale? Prison? He’d been someplace where there was little sun, and I couldn’t believe it was prison.
“It’s peaceful here, isn’t it?” Angers said.
“Yes.”
Betty wasn’t making a sound, but the tears streamed down her face. We all sat there, Lillian back in her chair, waiting.
I knew that Lillian and I were thinking of ways and means. Betty would be thinking about Sam.
I tried to make it friendly, for his ears. You couldn’t tell how he’d react.
“How long you and Ralph known each other, Lil?”
Her head jerked around at me, that wealth of mahogany hair rustling across her shoulders. She tipped her lips with her tongue, glanced at Angers.
“Oh, quite a while. I knew Ralph in Seattle.”
“Old friends,” I said.
“Not too old.”
The room went silent again. Betty ceased crying. She got a handkerchief out of the pocket of her shorts and daubed at her cheeks and eyes, still looking across the room. Her plump thighs were spattered with tears. She wiped them dry and spread the handkerchief across her knee. She gave a great sigh and, turning, looked at me. Her head bobbed up and down just a little, then she got hold of herself again.
“What—are you going to do about Ruby?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve got to see her. The hospital called twice, Steve. Some—something’s up, and they need you.”
“I know.”
Angers stood up. “Just thought of something,” he said. “Come on, all of you.”
We looked at him.
“Come on. We’ll begin in here. It’s a shame to have to do this, but you can’t trust anybody. I know I can trust you, pal.” He looked at me with that pallid face. “But just the same. Come on, now.”
We all stood up.
He started walking around the room. He closed every window that was open, and locked it. “Now the front door,” he said. “Just come with me.”
We all went out into the hall and he locked the front door. Then, guided by him, we made a complete tour of the house, locking all doors and windows.
The telephone was on a small shelf in the bar between the kitchen and the dining nook. Betty caught
my eye as I looked at it. It would have to wait.
“Let’s go back in the other room,” Angers said. “We’ll wait for your husband. Then we can take it easy and I’ll go over the plans with Steve, here.”
We went back into the living room and all this time the gun had been on the television set. But Angers was smart. He wasn’t a blank about things that went on around him. He watched everybody—a little too closely.
He had been watching Betty a lot.
He dropped into his chair, and as Betty passed in front of him, he reached out and caught her hand. She froze.
Sitting there, he looked her over. She had a roundly built body, the skin of her legs below the shorts smooth and full. She was large-breasted and round-hipped.
“You’re nice, Mrs. Graham,” Angers said.
She stood rigid. He leaned forward, still holding her, and with his other hand reached out and palmed her thigh. He ran his hand all the way down the back of her leg. She didn’t move. He ran his hand back up and patted her behind. He looked up at her.
“You’ve got a lot of what I like, Mrs. Graham. Lillian here is a regular snake. Aren’t you, Lil?”
“Get off it, Ralph.”
Angers was not smiling. There was nothing in his eyes.
“I’ll bet you make your husband very happy. Is that right, Mrs. Graham?”
She didn’t say anything, just stood there. She was looking at a point over my head on the wall. I didn’t know what to do about this, either. There wasn’t anything you could do.
“I’m not sure about Lillian, over there,” Angers said.
Lillian rose from her chair and came across the room. Her teeth were sunk in her lower lip. Betty still didn’t move and Angers held to her hand.
“I like your body,” Angers said. “It’s an exciting body, Mrs. Graham.” His voice was as flat, as inflectionless as ever.
Lillian was moving toward the side of Angers’ chair by the television set. I tightened all over.
