A Touch of Death hcc-17

by Charles Williams

  Her eyes had that dead, expressionless look in them again. “So you’re going to take that too? And leave me without a cent?”

  “Relax,” I said. “I’m just handling it. For expenses. And to keep you from running out on me. You’ll get it back, or

  what’s left of it, when we get to the Coast.”

  “You’re too generous,” she said.

  “Well, that’s the kind of good-time Charlie I am. After

  all, it’s only money.”

  She shrugged and went back to her coffee.

  “I’ll be back in a minute with something to eat,” I said.

  I went downstairs and around the corner to a small grocery. I picked up some cinnamon rolls and a dozen eggs and some bacon, and remembered another pound of coffee. The afternoon papers weren’t on the street yet. There was nothing to do but go on waiting. The brassy glare of the sun hurt my eyes. I felt light-headed, and everything was slightly unreal. A police car pulled up at the boulevard stop beside me. I fought a blind impulse to turn my face away and hum around the corner.

  Forty-eight hours ago they wrote traffic tickets, and you said, “Heh, heh, I’m sorry, officer, I didn’t realize... No, it won’t happen again.” Now they followed you through the jungle with their radios whispering, stalking you, and waiting.

  When I got back to the apartment she had brought the radio into the living room and was sitting on the floor listening to a program of long-hair music. With a sudden sense of shock I realized this was exactly the same way I’d walked in on her the first time I had ever seen her, and that it had been only two nights ago.

  Not years ago, I thought; it had just been days. And we had a month to go.

  The recording stopped. She glanced briefly up at me and said, “The tone quality of your radio is atrocious.”

  “Well, turn it off,” I said. “You want something to eat?”

  “What do we have?”

  “Cinnamon rolls.”

  “All right,” she said indifferently.

  I warmed the rolls in the oven and poured some more coffee. We sat down at the table in the kitchen and ate, and then went back into the living room. The radio was still turned on. I went across the dial, looking for news. There was none. It was nearly eleven, however. The afternoon papers should be on the street now.

  Then I remembered that the news in them wouldn’t be as late as what she’d heard on the radio at ten.

  She sat down in the big chair and lit a cigarette. She leaned back and said, “Pacing the floor isn’t going to help

  — Incidentally, how soundproof are these walls and floors?”

  I tried to make myself sit still. “They’re all right,” I said. “I’ve never heard any of the other tenants. Just be sure you wear those slippers, and don’t play the radio too loud.”

  “Is there anyone who comes in and cleans up? Or has to read the meters, or anything?” “No,” I said. “I had a woman who cleaned up the place once a week, but she quit a month or so ago. And all the

  gas and electric meters are down in the basement. There’s no occasion for anyone to come in here unless we have something delivered, in which case I’ll be here to take it. Never answer the door, of course, or the telephone. Nobody’ll ever know you’re here.”

  She smiled faintly. “I really have to give you credit. I believe it will work. How long do you think it will be before I can go out?”

  “It depends on whether that guy dies or not,” I said. “Of course, they’re never going to quit looking for you, but normally some of the heat would die down after a while and every cop in the state wouldn’t have your picture in front of his eyes all the time. However, that deputy sheriff is going to make it rough. If he dies, they’re looking for two people who killed a cop.”

  “If he dies,” she said coolly, “you killed him. I didn’t.”

  “That hasn’t got anything to do with it. Nobody knew I was there. They have no description of me. Actually, they don’t even know I exist. So they have to get you, to get me. They have descriptions of you, and pictures. You’re real. You exist. They know who they’re looking for. Which brings us right up against the problem. We might as well

  get started on it. Stand up.”

  She looked at me questioningly.

  “Stand up,” I repeated irritably. “Turn around, very

  slowly. Lets get an idea of the job.”

  She shrugged, but did as I said.

  “All right.” I lit a cigarette. It wasn’t going to be easy. It was all right to talk about, but just where did you start? A man could grow a mustache, or shave it off, or break his nose....

  What did you do to camouflage a dish like this?

  “A little over average height,” I said, more to myself than to her. “But that part’s all right. There are lots of

  tall women. But damn few of them as beautiful.”

  She smiled sardonically. “Thank you.”

  “I’m not complimenting you,” I said, “so don’t rupture

  yourself. This is no game. You’re not going to be easy to hide, and if we don’t do a good job, we’re dead.”

  “Well, you took the job.”

  “Keep your shirt on. Let’s break it down. There are things we can change, and things we can’t. We can change the color of your hair and the way you do it, but that alone isn’t enough. We can’t do anything about those eyes. Or the bone structure and general shape of your face.

  “You can wear glasses, but that’s pretty obvious. And you can splash on more make-up and widen your mouth with lipstick, but that still isn’t going to do the job.”

  I was silent for a moment, thinking about it. She started to say something, but I broke in on her.

  “Just a minute and then we’ll get your ideas. Here are mine. We can’t make you plain and drab enough to blend into the scenery because you’re too much whistle bait to start with and there are too many things we can’t change, so we have to make you a different kind of dish.

  “Here’s the angle. All the people who are looking for you are men. And since we can’t keep ‘em from noticing you, we’ll make ‘em notice the wrong things. We’ll start by bleaching your hair up three or four shades. I think we can make it as far as red, or reddish brown. We cut it. You put it up close to your head in tight curls. We may butch it up somewhat, but after we get the groundwork done it’ll be safe enough for you to go to a beauty shop and have it patched. You splash on the make-up. Pluck your eyebrows. Over-paint your mouth. So far, so good. Now. Do you wear a girdle?”

  She stared coldly. “Really.”

  “I asked you a question. Do you wear a girdle?”

  “When I’m going out, and dressed.”

  “All right. And how about falsies? How much of all that

  is yours?”

  “Of all the utterly revolting—”

  “Shut up,” I said. “Maybe there just isn’t any way I can get it through your thick head that this is serious. Can’t you see what I’m trying to do? You’re going to come out a dish, no matter how we slice you, so what we’ve got to do is make you an entirely different kind of dish. A cheap one. Flashy. If you’re not already wearing padding up there, you’re going to, and plenty of it. Change your way of walking. Get dresses tight across the hips, leave off the girdle, and let it roll. Cops are men. Who’s going to keep

  his mind on the job and look for the patrician Mrs. Butler with all that going on?”

  She shook her head. “You have the most amazing genius for vulgarity I have ever encountered.”

  “Oh, knock it off,” I said. “If you don’t like the idea, let’s see you come up with a better one.”

  “You misunderstand me. I wasn’t criticizing the idea. It’s very good. In fact, it’s remarkably ingenious. I was merely objecting to your crude way of expressing yourself, and marveling that someone without even the faintest glimmerings of taste or discrimination could have figured it out.”

  “Save it, save it.” I waved her off. “You
can make a speech some other time. Now, if we’ve agreed on the idea, let’s work out the details. We’ve got to do something about your complexion. Do you tan all right?”

  ‘Yes. Except that I avoid it.”

  “Not any more. Now, let’s see. I could get a sun lamp, except that anybody asking for one at a store here on the Gulf Coast in summer might be locked up for a maniac, so we’ll get along without it. This living-room window faces west, and in the afternoon the sun comes in if we raise the Venetian blind. There’s no building across the avenue high enough for anybody to see you if you’re lying on the floor. Item one, suntan oil.”

  I got up and found some paper and a pencil and wrote it down.

  “Now, what else?”

  “Do you have any scissors?”

  “No,” I said. I wrote that down, and went on: “Home

  permanent outfit. Sunglasses. Now, what do I get to bleach your hair with?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” she said.

  “You’re a big help,” I said. “But never mind. I’ll get it. Now, can you think of anything else?”

  “Only cigarettes. And a bottle of bourbon.”

  “You won’t get tanked up?”

  “I never get tanked up, as you put it.”

  “All right.” I stood up. As I started toward the door I stopped and turned. “What banks are those safe-deposit boxes in?”

  She answered without hesitation. “The Merchants Trust Company, the Third National, and the Seaboard Bank and Trust Company.”

  “What name did you use?”

  “Names,” she said easily. “Each box is under a different

  one.”

  “What are they?”

  She leaned back in the chair and smiled. “A little late to be checking up now, aren’t you? I doubt if they’d answer your questions, anyway.”

  “No,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking of calling them. I’m still going under the assumption you had better sense than to try to lie about it, under the circumstances.”

  “I wasn’t lying. The money’s in those three banks.”

  “And the names?”

  “Mrs. James R. Hatch, Mrs. Lucille Manning, and Mrs. Henry L. Carstairs.” She named the names off easily, but stopped abruptly at the end and sat there staring at her cigarette, frowning a little. “What is it?” I asked.

  She glanced up at me. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I thought you started to say something else.”

  “No,” she said, still frowning as if she were trying to think of something. “That was all. Those are the names.”

  “O.K.,” I said. “I’ll be back in a little while.” As I went down in the elevator I tried to figure out what was bothering me. The whole thing was easy now, wasn’t it? Even if that deputy sheriff died, they couldn’t catch us. She was the only lead they had, and she was too well hidden. The money was there, waiting for me. Then what was it?

  It wasn’t anything you could put a finger on. It was just a feeling she was a little unconcerned about giving up all that money. She didn’t seem to mind.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I took a bus across town and got my car out of the storage garage. Both the afternoon papers were out now, but there was nothing new. The deputy sheriff was still unconscious, his condition unchanged. They were tearing the state apart for Madelon Butler.

  I found a place to park near a drugstore. Buying a couple of women’s magazines, I took them back to the car and began flipping hurriedly through the ads. I didn’t find what I wanted. These were the wrong ones, full of cooking recipes and articles on how to refurnish your living room for $64.50. I went back and picked up some more, the glamour type.

  There were dozens of ads for different lands of hair concoctions, but most of them were pretty coy. “You can regain your golden loveliness,” they promised, but they didn’t say how the hell you got there in the first place.

  I threw the magazines in the back seat and found another drugstore. It would be dangerous to keep haunting the same one all the time. I went to the cosmetic counter.

  “Could I help you?” the girl asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “I want one of those home-permanent outfits. And there was something else my wife told me to get but I can’t remember the name of it, some kind of goo

  she uses to lighten the color of her hair.”

  “A rinse?”

  “I don’t know what you call it. Anyway, her hair’, dark brown to begin with, and with this stuff she gets a little past midfield into blonde territory a sort of coppery color.”

  She named three or four.

  “That’s it,” I said on the third one. “I remember now it was Something-Tint. Give me a slip on it, though, just in case I’m wrong and have to bring it back.”

  I took it back to the car, along with the permanent-wave outfit, and read the instructions. We had to have some cotton pads to put it on with and shampoo to get rid of it after it had been on long enough. I hunted up still another drugstore for these, and while I was there I bought the sunglasses, suntan lotion, and scissors.

  That was everything except the whisky and cigarettes. When I stopped for these I saw a delicatessen next to the liquor store and picked up a roast chicken and a bottle of milk, and bought a shopping bag that would hold all of it.

  It was one-thirty when I got back to the apartment. The Venetian blind was raised and she was lying on the rug with her face and arms in the sun. She had taken off the robe and rolled the sleeves of Her pajamas up to her shoulders. Maybe she had decided to take some interest in the proceedings at last.

  “Here.” I dug around in the shopping bag and found the suntan lotion. “Smear some of this on.”

  She sat up and made a face. “I hate being tanned.”

  “Cheer up,” I said. “It’s better than prison pallor.”

  “Yes. Isn’t it.” She opened the bottle and rubbed some on her face and arms. “Did you get the whisky?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Go ahead with your tan. I’ll bring a drink.”

  “Thank you.” She lay down again and closed her eyes. The rug was gray, and the long hair was very dark against it.

  I unpacked the shopping bag and opened one of the bottles, hiding the other in the back of the broom closet. Since she seemed to be able to handle it without getting noisy, I poured her a heavy one, half a water tumbler with only a little water in it. After all, she was buying it.

  I went back into the living room. “How long have you been in the sun now?”

  “About fifteen minutes.”

  “You’d better knock off, then. If you blister and peel, you’ll just have to start over.”

  “Yes.” She sat up. I handed her the glass and lowered the Venetian blind.

  She took a sip of the drink, still sitting on the floor, and looked at me and smiled. “Hmmm,” she said. “You’re an excellent bartender. Where’s yours?”

  “I didn’t want any,” I said.

  “Don’t you drink at all?”

  “Very little.”

  She held up the glass. “Well, here’s to the admirable

  Mr. Scarborough. His strength is as the strength of ten, because his heart is pure.”

  “You seem to feel better.”

  “I do,” she said. “Lots better.” She slid over a little so she could lean back against the chair. “I’ve been thinking about your brilliant idea ever since you left and the more I think about it, the better I like it. It can’t fail. How can they catch Madelon Butler if she has changed completely into someone else?”

  “Remember, it’s not easy.”

  “I know. But we can do it. When do we begin?”

  “Right now,” I said. “Unless you want to finish your

  drink first.” “I can work on it while you’re hacking up my hair.” She

  laughed. “It’ll give me courage.”

  “You’ll probably need it,” I said.

  I spread a bunch of newspapers on the floor and set one of the dining
-room chairs in the middle of them. “Sit here,” I said. She sat down, looking quite pleased and happy.

  The radio was turned on, playing music. “Was there any news while I was gone?” I asked.

  She glanced up at me. “Oh, yes. Wasn’t it in the papers?”

  “What?” I demanded. “For God’s sake, what?”

  “That deputy sheriff’s condition is improving, and they say he’ll probably recover.”

  I sat down weakly and lit a cigarette, the haircutting forgotten. I hadn’t realized how bad the pressure had really been until now that it was gone. I hadn’t killed any cop. The heat was off me. Even if they caught us, they could only get me for rapping him on the head. Of course, there was still the matter of Diana James, but that was different, somehow. I hadn’t actually done that. She had. And Diana James wasn’t a cop.

  “Has he recovered consciousness yet?” I asked.

  “No, but they expect him to any time.”

  “There’s one thing, though,” I said. “He recognized

  you, remember?”

  “Yes,” she said carelessly. “I know.”

  “That part won’t help,” I said, wondering why she was

  so unconcerned about it.

  “Oh, well, they seem to be certain enough that I was there anyway,” she said. “His identification won’t change anything.”

  I should have begun to catch on then, but I fumbled it. The roof had to fall in on me before I realized why the news about that deputy sheriff made her so happy.

  “Well, Pygmalion,” she said, “shall we commence? I’m quite eager to begin life as Susie Mumble.”

  I was digging through the pile of women’s magazines. “There’s more to it than a haircut,” I said. “You have to

  learn to talk like Susie.”

  “I know. Just don’t rush me, honey.”

  I jerked my face around and stared at her. She was

  smiling.

  “You catch on fast,” I said.

  “Thanks, honey. I’m tryin’ all the time.” She had even dropped her voice down a little, into a kind of throaty contralto purr. I was conscious of thinking that her husband and Diana James and even the police force had been outnumbered from the first in trying to outguess her.

  I found the magazine I was looking for, the one that had several pages of pictures of hair styles. Some of them were short-cropped and careless, and they looked easy. I had a hunch, though, that they weren’t that easy.