Never Say No To A Killer

by Clifton Adams

  “Absolutely not,” I said, beginning to get mad, beginning to be sorry that our trails had ever crossed. “I told you we were through. I meant it.”

  There was ringing silence on the line.

  “Dorris.”

  “... Yes.”

  “Dorris, did you hear me?”

  “... Yes, I heard you.”

  And then she hung up. I stood there with the receiver to my ear, wondering what could be going on in that twisted brain of hers, and finally I shrugged and put the receiver on the hook. She was nuts, just plain nuts, and if I never heard from her again that was going to be fine with me.

  The poison of my anger again spread through me like an overflow of adrenalin into my blood stream. I thought: you better enjoy what's left of this day, Mr. Cohort. You better grab all the throats you want to grab. You better throw all the weight you want to throw, because your time is running out faster than you think.

  But not before I got the twenty thousand.

  Pretty soon I'd have the world by the tail; I'd crack it like a muleskinner wielding a snakewhip. I'd wriggle my finger and Pat Kelso would jump through hoops.

  That last thought pleased me. She was quite a girl, Pat. She was just the girl for me and no other would do.

  She would be mine.

  I went back to the front room and sat. I held the .38 in my hand and waited. But pretty soon I'd had all the sitting and waiting I could take. There was nothing to do, nowhere to go. Pat was working, and the only other person I knew was Dorris, and I sure didn't want to see her.

  At last I did what most lonely and lost people in a strange city do, I went to a movie. It was a double feature and I sat there dumbly, feeling the comfort of the .38 in my waistband and thinking with pleasure how Calvart would look when I pulled it on him.

  Maybe this isn't going to be smart, I thought. Maybe I ought to forget my personal feelings and hold the hammer over Calvart for another twenty thousand or so. But the publisher was a tough nut—it would seem that most of Venci's enemies were tough nuts—and there is only one way to handle a tough nut—crack it.

  For a while I thought maybe I'd go out and pick Pat up at the factory, but finally I dropped the idea. Don't let it get to be routine, Surratt. Don't let her take you for granted. Let her wonder what's going on for a while, and then knock her eye out with another brand new bankroll. That will bring her around. Yes sir, if I know the first thing about women, that will bring her around, all right.

  I killed an hour after the film walking and thumbing through magazines at a news stand, and another hour over dinner, and by that time it was almost eight o'clock. I headed for the bus station.

  Calvart was late. I was at the lunch counter having a cup of coffee and the clock over the ticket windows said five after eight; and still Calvart hadn't showed. But I wasn't worried. He would show. As he had said, I had him by the tenders, and he would come around because there was nothing else for him to do.

  It was exactly seven minutes past eight when I saw him. He came in with a group of people unloading from a Chicago bus, looking bigger than life-size, and angry and mean. But he had the money—there was a scarred leather briefcase under his arm—and that was the important thing. I stood up and waved. I thought, start walking, you sonofabitch. This is the last leg of your last mile!

  He came over and sat on the stool next to me, putting the briefcase in front of him. “Well,” I smiled, “you're a bit late, Mr. Calvart, but I'll forgive you this time.”

  “It's the last time, O'Connor. You better remember that,” he growled.

  “Of course, of course.”

  “Well,” he said sharply, “there is an exchange, I believe. Let's get it over with.”

  “Nothing could be more to my liking, Mr. Calvart.” I handed him an envelope. “Here you are, sir, delivered as promised.”

  He ripped the envelope open and made sure that everything was there. He didn't get up to leave, as I had expected. He sat there glaring at me with those flat, unimaginative eyes. I reached for the briefcase. “It would look better,” I said, “if we walked out together.”

  “All right.”

  That surprised me too. For a man with his temper, he was taking this mighty coolly. He stood up when I stood up, and we walked away from the counter and through the big waiting room toward the wall of doors. We went through the wall of doors and I imagined that the night air held a smell of electricity, a feel of excitement, but I knew that it was only the excitement and electricity within myself.

  This, I thought, is where the fun begins. This is where I show him the gun, this is where I march him across the street to where the Lincoln is parked. Yes sir, I thought, smiling right in his face, this is the beginning of the end, Mr. Calvart!

  That was when the man in the bright plaid sports coat stepped up beside me. He was a tall shambling man with a long bony face and a hooked nose. I had never seen him before in my life, but he said, “All right, O'Connor, just take it easy. We're going to walk across the loading ramps, over to that parking lot in the middle of the block, and we're going to do it nice and easy and without any noise, understand?”

  His right hand was in his coat pocket. He moved it just enough to let me feel the muzzle of an automatic.

  I looked at Calvart and he was smiling.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THERE WERE PEOPLE all around us, redcaps, travelers, soldiers, sailors, all of them harried and peevish as they looked for their luggage or the next bus for Dallas, and not one of them as much as glanced at us. I felt a bloody knife of fear twisting in my groin. In a mob like this a man could be shot dead and these stupid cattle would never realize what happened. The man in the sports coat knew it and smiled thinly.

  “March, O'Connor!”

  I marched. Calvart, who had moved to the other end of the ramp just in case I forced a shooting play on the spot, now ambled toward us at the end of the ramp.

  “Everything all right, Max?”

  “Everything's fine, Mr. Calvart. He come along nice and peaceful, like a baby. See, he ain't givin' us no trouble at all.”

  “That's nice,” Calvart smiled. “All right, hold him up just a minute and I'll get the Buick.”

  “What the hell is this?” I said tightly.

  “Quiet,” Max crooned softly. “Nice and quiet, O'Connor,” nudging me in the ribs with the automatic.

  “You sonofabitch,” I said, “You'll be eating that .45 before this night is over!”

  But he only smiled. I was scared and he knew it.

  Max and I stayed right where we were and Calvart went on ahead to the parking lot. After a few seconds he came out in a black Buick sedan and pulled up at the curb. I didn't have to have the situation drawn out for me, I knew that I was as good as dead if I ever got into that car. Calvart was a tough boy and sometime during the day he had decided that he wasn't going to pay blackmail, and the only way to stop it was with a bullet.

  Good as dead. That dagger of fear kept stabbing in my groin. I had to get to my .38. I somehow had to knock Max's automatic away for a moment, just a moment, and then I would kill the sonofabitch and take care of Calvart later.

  But how? The muzzle of that .45 was in my ribs, hard and cold, and it didn't waver. I couldn't very well holler cop, even if there had been a cop handy, and Calvart must have guessed that much.

  “Start walking,” Max said.

  This, I thought, is the only chance I'll ever get. I've got to take the chance that Max won't shoot in a situation like this.

  But Max was there ahead of me. “Just a minute,” he said. Then, with an expert hand, he snapped my .38 from my waistband and slipped it into his left-hand coat pocket, that .45 of his never moving from its position just below my heart. “Now walk,” he said.

  I walked, feeling the sweat popping out of my face, feeling my knees go to mush, feeling the blossom of fear grow as cold as ice in my stomach. Calvart had the back door open when we got to the Buick. Max shoved me inside.

  And n
o one noticed a thing. Out of all those dozens of people milling around the bus station, not a single one of them noticed that a man was being set up for murder right under their noses! Calvart turned around and smiled as Max shoved me over to the far side of the car and then got in beside me. His .45 was out now, in his hand, and it looked ugly and black and as big as a cannon.

  “All set, Mr. Calvart. Turn left on Mallart Avenue. Follow it all the way out of town, out by the brick yards. Anywhere out there will do.”

  “Whatever you say, Max,” Calvart said, smiling at me. Then he eased the car into gear, slipping into the stream of southbound traffic.

  Jump him, I thought, it's the only chance you have. Somehow you've got to get that .45 away from him while Calvart is busy at the wheel!

  I couldn't do it. My guts had gone to buttermilk. I tensed my shoulders, readied for the lunge, but when the time came I simply couldn't force myself to act. I couldn't throw myself into the muzzle of that automatic.

  Now or later! I told myself savagely. What's the difference? Calvart's got it planned, he's going to kill you. The least you can do is make a fight of it while you can!

  But panic had me in a grip of iron, held me immobilized, helpless, and all I could do was sit there and sweat.

  About three blocks from the bus station Calvart turned left on what I guessed was Mallart Avenue. It's a one-way road for me, I thought emptily. I underestimated Calvart... I made the fatal mistake of underestimating an enemy and for that bit of stupidity I'm going to die. They'll find me tomorrow, or the next day, in some gutter, and the cops will fingerprint the body and identify it as Roy Surratt, and the investigation would stop right there.

  That dagger of fear that stabbed in my stomach there began to stir an anger. A great, unreasoning, savage anger, not at Calvart, and certainly not at Max who was just a hired hand brought in for an hour or so to do a job of work. The anger was at myself. You deserve everything you're going to get! I thought savagely. Roy Surratt, criminal philosopher, realistic genius, perfectionist. Well, you slipped, Surratt, and perfectionists don't slip, and because of that little piece of idiocy you're going to get exactly what you deserve; you're going to get a well placed .45 slug in the back of the head; you're going to get your brains spattered all over some lousy brick yard just because you failed, this one time, to scrupulously practice what you preach!

  The anger helped some, but not much. I was sick with fear, paralyzed with it, and I began to wish that the mild, cool-eyed killer sitting across from me would go ahead with it and pull the trigger. The waiting was the thing that got me. I was afraid I'd go all to pieces if it lasted much longer. Already my hands were shaking. A small muscle in my threat started to quiver, a nervous ripple flowed over my shoulders and down my back, and a great, yawning emptiness opened in my belly. Great God, I thought helplessly, I don't want to die! I don't want to die!

  And Max, the hired hand, smiled blandly and held his automatic close to my heart. Calvart slipped the big, quiet car through the streets and the brightness and garishness of the city passed behind us.

  At last the pavement ended and the city was just a glare against the lowhanging clouds. There were no buildings at all out here, and very few houses, and the land was also empty, nothing but ragged and torn hills of red clay, brick clay, standing gaunt and almost black in the moonlight. When we came onto the end of the road Calvart braked the Buick and eased onto a deep-rutted, sparsely graveled road, and Max said:

  “Anywhere along here will do.”

  “We'll go on over the next rise,” Calvart said.

  Max shrugged slightly. A job was a job and he didn't bother himself with the details.

  I tried desperately to stop the sickish quivering in my stomach. I tried to pull myself together enough to jump into the muzzle of that .45... but I couldn't do it. I simply couldn't force myself to move.

  The road was rough and Calvart was taking it easy, crawling along in second gear. Finally we topped a small rise and I could see the squat black forms of the brickyards in the distance.

  “Right here,” Max said.

  “Just a little farther,” Calvart said. “There's no use taking chances.”

  Just a little farther! I knew just how it would happen... Calvart wouldn't want his car bloodied up if he could help it; they would stop and shove me out, and they would let me run a step or two and Max would apply the careful, gentle trigger squeeze and the door would slam. That would be the end.

  The end. I had the horrible feeling that I was going to cry.

  That was when Calvart hit the rock.

  It was just over the rise and the headlight beams must have shot over it, and I guess that's the reason Calvart didn't see it until it was too late. It was a good sized rock, maybe a foot thick, and maybe it had fallen off a truck or maybe it had just washed loose from the clay embankment and had rolled down onto the road; but where it came from isn't important. It was there and that is the important thing.

  Calvart hit it with his right front wheel and the Buick lurched suddenly. Max had to make a grab for the back of the front seat to keep from falling to the floorboards, and Calvart himself was cursing and trying to get the car straightened out on the road. Just what I did at that instant is not clear in my mind, but I acted on instinct, I'm sure of that, pure animal instinct, there was nothing planned about it.

  The instant the Buick lurched to the left, the instant Max made his grab for the front seat I forgot about my sickness and my fear. I was on Max like a tiger. Grabbing at his gunhand, I drove my knee in his crotch and heard the wind go out of him. I slashed the edge of my hand across Max's wrist and the bone snapped, but a small thing like a broken wrist meant nothing to Max at that moment because he didn't live long enough to suffer from the pain.

  I caught the automatic before it hit the floorboards. I jammed the muzzle into Max's throat, into the soft part between the breast bone and the adams apple and pulled the trigger.

  He never knew what hit him. The slug tore right through his spinal column, almost taking his head off his shoulders.

  In the meantime Calvart had to let go of the wheel and had let the Buick go into a ditch and we were stalled, Calvart himself was trying to get over the back of the driver's seat, trying to grab the gun away from me. He never had a chance. I shoved him back against the steering wheel, then got on my knees and shot him three times right in the middle of his fat stomach. He jerked and quivered like some enormous jellyfish, and his mouth flew open, working soundlessly. That was the way he died.

  I heard a voice saying, “You sonofabitch! You lousy sonofabitch!” I knew it was my voice, but it didn't seem to be coming from my throat, it seemed to be coming from everywhere, and it was high-pitched and taut and almost screaming. At last I jerked the front door open and gave Calvart a shove, and he hit the ground with the mushy sound of an overripe melon.

  I was breathing very hard and couldn't seem to get enough air into my lungs. I concentrated for several minutes on pulling myself together and watching the blood soak into the thick floor mat around Max's severed head. Then I got out of the car and began to feel better. Calvart was dead. Max was dead. But I was alive!

  I said it aloud. “Alive!” I said it several times, and then I walked around the Buick and looked at Calvart. Only then did I fully realize what had happened, and I felt fine! I felt exactly the way I had the day I killed Gorgan, only better. Much better!

  Then I remembered the papers that I'd sold him. I got down in the ditch with him and took them out of his pocket. Then I looked through the briefcase in the front seat and there was nothing in it but bundles of newspaper cut to the size of banknotes, but not even that could smother my elation. Money was the easiest thing in the world to come by, but a man had to stay alive to enjoy it.

  That's something you should have thought of, Calvart, before you arranged this little party tonight!

  The back seat of the Buick was a mess, and I didn't make it any better by dragging Max out of it. But I had to
use the Buick to get back to Lake City and it wouldn't be especially smart to have it loaded down with corpses.

  I dumped Max in the ditch on top of Calvart. Tomorrow they would find them, maybe, and there would be a hell of a noise, but there was very little they could do about it. Who would ever tie a thing like this to Roy Surratt?

  It occurred to me that I might as well give the police a motive for the murders, any kind of motive except blackmail, so I went back to the ditch and began looking for wallets. This last was a profitable decision, as it turned out. Calvart, was carrying almost six hundred, and Max a little over four hundred, probably an advance on the job he was supposed to do. I laughed aloud as I counted it, almost a thousand dollars. Not bad, not bad at all fox a night's work, even though it was a little out of my line.

  I pocketed the money, took Max's watch and Calvart's watch and diamond ring. No sir, not a bad night's work at all, everything considered!

  I switched on the Buick, got it turned around, and headed back toward Lake City.

  I parked the Buick on the outskirts of the city and caught a bus downtown. From there I drove the Lincoln to the apartment.

  I was over the shakes now. I couldn't imagine how I could have been scared at all. One thing I was sure of—I'd never be scared again. Audacity, Surratt, that's the tiling to remember. Audacity and brains—they make a combination that can't be beat!

  I felt fight headed, almost drunk. I was a giant among men and the twenty thousand dollars I'd lost didn't bother me at all. Money, I reminded myself again, is nothing.

  While downtown I had picked up a morning paper, but I hadn't looked at it yet. The Burton killing had slipped out of the headlines, and it was too early for the Calvart murder, so I dropped the folded paper on a table, went to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of milk.

  It was still early, no more than ten o'clock. I'd get myself cleaned up. This had been quite a night... it called for a celebration. So I'd just go over to Pat's apartment....

  That was when I saw it. I walked back in the front room and glanced at the paper and there it was—in black headlines just below the fold.