Little Tramp (Prologue Crime)

by Gil Brewer

  “Do you want to go?” he said.

  Gary stopped.

  “Then don’t do anything,” Kryder said.

  The woman was out of her mind now, the wild throat-shrieks coming from behind Kryder’s arm.

  “Damn you,” he said. “If you would only shut up!”

  “Please—please, stop,” Doll said.

  Kryder leaned swiftly, holding the woman, grabbed the pillow. He knotted it against his chest, pushed the gun into it, and they immediately heard the report. It was like a muffled.22, no louder. Then again. Two shots.

  The woman arched her back and burst from his arms.

  She ran straight at the wall of the room, struck the boards, and fell back on the floor. Gary moved to her side and knelt down. There was a kind of singing in his head now.

  Mary Lowell was dead.

  Twin holes showed in the back of her dress just beside the left shoulder blade. She lay on her side, mouth open, eyes half lidded.

  “Now, don’t anybody try anything,” Kryder said.

  Gary looked up at the man. Kryder was insane. He held the gun stiffly out in front of him, suspicious, impatient, still holding the pillow. He hurled the pillow at the bed, stepped over to the fallen woman. He kicked her lightly with his foot.

  “I really didn’t want to do that,” he said.

  Doll began sobbing lightly in her throat, her eyes dry. Arlene didn’t make a sound, or change expression now. She lay quietly on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Then all of a sudden she began laughing. She sat up and doubled over her knees with her hair falling down, shaking with crazed laughter. Doll started to move toward her, then halted. Kryder went back to Arlene and stood over her.

  “Shut up, will you?” he said. “You want it, too? Now?” His voice was tight with pent-up emotion.

  She ceased as you’d shut off a water tap.

  “You’ve got yourself in it all the way, now,” Gary said, standing up.

  “And you shut up, too.” Kryder returned to the body. He looked down musingly. “Why did she have to come here?” he asked aloud, speaking to himself. “Why did she have to flip like that? Why couldn’t she just have gone away?” He shook his head slowly, still staring down at her. “I didn’t want to kill that poor woman. Honest, I didn’t!”

  “But you did,” somebody said.

  “Help me slide the cover off,” Kryder said.

  They all stood there in the darkness, the bright silver of a new moon straight up in the sky. Soft winds moaned coolly in the pines, drifting meaninglessly. They were gathered around the cement lid of the septic tank at the far side of the cabin.

  “Good God,” Doll said.

  Kryder’s voice was tight, flat. “One more word like that out of you and you go in, too,” he told her. He did not speak loudly and Gary touched Doll, warning her. He knew something had gone wrong inside Kryder. The man had changed. He moved differently now, and Gary realized that it was fright. All of their lives were in immediate danger.

  “Now,” Kryder said. “Help me with the lid, please.”

  Arlene and Doll watched as Kryder and Gary hefted the heavy cement cover over the septic tank. They slid it back out of the way, scraping across encroaching grass.

  “Good enough,” Kryder said, standing again. He breathed deeply, glanced toward the cabin. “Now, we’ll all go back again.”

  They would have to bring the woman’s body out here now.

  They filed slowly back to the cabin, up the steps, across the porch. Kryder walked silently behind them, gun drawn.

  Returning to the tank with Miss Lowell’s body, Gary was becoming afraid Doll might break. She’d never been exposed to anything like this. She had walked into a worse hell than she could possibly have imagined. She’d been utterly silent.

  “You don’t have to look,” Kryder said bitterly. He rolled the body to the black hole over the tank. There was a dull rustle, then a thick splash and splatter. Kryder stood up. “Help me with this lid,” he said to Gary, speaking with a strange quietness.

  They covered the tank and returned to the cabin.

  Approaching the porch, Kryder halted them in the cool moonlight. Down by the lake a fish splashed. The night was quiet save for that and the wind.

  “We’ve got to do something with her car,” Kryder said.

  Nobody replied.

  They moved at the man’s direction around to the other side of the cabin. Up there on the dirt road was the woman’s car, a rather beat-up convertible with no top. They all filed silently over beside it. Gary was standing by Kryder and he suddenly noticed that the man was trembling, his face very pale in the moonlight. Then Kryder calmed again, though his breath was ragged.

  He sighed. “Get into the car, everybody.”

  They all got in.

  “You drive, Dunn.”

  Gary slid under the wheel.

  “Don’t turn on the lights,” Kryder said. “Take the car through that palmetto field, down toward the other end of the lake. I’ll tell you where to go.”

  Gary drove as directed. He knew he had a maniac behind him with a gun; a man caught up in deadly plans he’d waited years to realize. Gary was no longer at all concerned with himself. Doll came first, then Arlene, and that was all. Somehow he had to save them. The thing now was to keep peace at all costs, until the time came when he could spring in and take over. Kryder would know he was thinking that, which didn’t help.

  They left the car in the swamp, well under thick growth of matted vines and scrub trees. The water was about two feet deep, and Gary had driven into it as far as the car would go. He knew nobody would find the car, save by accident. It could rest right where it was for months, even years. The foot of the lake drained into the swamp, and it was jungle country.

  They moved slowly back out of the swamp onto higher ground, then back to the point where the dirt road ended. They crossed the palmetto field and once again reached the cabin.

  “That’s better,” Kryder said, breathing deeply as they moved across the lawn, passed the Dodge and then the coupe beside the cabin.

  Gary thought of the automatic in that car, waiting.

  “Now, we’ll all go inside and talk this over,” Kryder said. The pale moonlight picked up clots of moss in the trees, turning it white, like dead hands. “You must all know by now that I’ll kill you if you try anything.”

  Nobody spoke. There was no need.

  TWELVE

  YOUR old man wants to buy you back, all right,” Kryder said to Arlene. “What you think of that?”

  Arlene, sitting in the rattan chair, smiled at him. Gary didn’t like the way she’d been acting. For two hours, since they’d put the body of Mary Lowell into the septic tank, Arlene had been making a subtle play for Kryder. So far, the man had done nothing to reciprocate. He had just finished talking to Harper. He’d had Gary call him an hour and a half ago, stating the amount of ransom, where to leave it—how it was to be done. Kryder had worked out a system of double payoff, which Franklin Harper told Gary he would agree to. One false payoff to fool police, an hour before the actual payoff at a different place. Harper was to leave the package containing the money at the appointed place, then return home alone, and wait alone.

  Kryder insisted Gary emphasize that Harper be alone. Gary did and he suffered, listening to the man’s pleas for his daughter. When he told him that if the payoff was tipped to the law, he’d never see his daughter alive again, Harper wept outright and without apology. The man’s sobs had emptied into the room from the phone receiver, and Gary watched Arlene for effect.

  There was none.

  He wanted to reassure Harper. He could not. Kryder watched him carefully, every moment.

  And now, waiting, he feared Kryder’s unpredictableness. They all did, save perhaps Arlene. There would be no sleep. Kryder showed signs of not being quite right in his mind. He was obviously under terrific strain, primed because of the murder of Mary Lowell, and he started at any small sound from outside, ready and quick to
take offense, belligerently defensive.

  Arlene’s voice broke the silence.

  “How much longer is this going to go on?”

  “Day after tomorrow,” Kryder said. He looked at them, his gray eyes darkening. “That’s when your old man will come through with the money.”

  “Where am I supposed to meet him?” Arlene asked.

  Kryder’s thick flat lips twisted. “That’s a good question.”

  “What good will it do to kill us?” Gary said. He walked over to where Kryder was seated on the studio couch. “Isn’t one murder enough to have on your conscience?”

  “Just shut up.”

  “I mean it. You think you can enjoy life after something like this?”

  “Yes, I think I can.” Kryder looked up at him. His eyes were level and steady. “I’ve waited a long time, and I’ve schooled myself, Dunn. I’m ready for things like this. Death don’t mean as much to me as it maybe does to you. Those twelves years I told you about—they weren’t spent just hanging around playing detective.” He cleared his throat, glanced across the room at Doll and winked, then looked at Gary again. “A lot of that time was spent getting into condition—mentally and physically. Perhaps you noticed?”

  “I noticed you’re ready to crack.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  Danger lurked in the man’s face and the shoulder muscles beneath the taut, sweat-stained, dirty white shirt bunched. A peculiar light rose and waned behind his eyes. The whites of his eyes were muddy now.

  “You can’t take anywhere near what you think you can,” Gary said. “You’ve got a damned high opinion of yourself—but it’s your own opinion.”

  “Don’t talk to him, Gary,” Doll said. “Don’t waste your breath.”

  “I’d advise all of you to shut up.”

  Gary did not move. He knew one of the things that was troubling the man now. Kryder was an example of the fact that killing one person doesn’t make it easier to go right on killing. This was an old wives’ tale. Kryder had come to know them, even in this short space of time—and knowing, liking or not, could hamper ultimate violence. Kryder was doing a lot of thinking. He was obviously not relishing the thought of murdering three more persons.

  Arlene was suddenly at Gary’s elbow. Thinking, he hadn’t heard her come up. She addressed herself to Kryder.

  “Why don’t you do it now?” she said softly. “These two, anyway? You and me, we could have fun. We’re two people who could get along together. You know that’s so. I’ve been watching you—I like you.”

  Kryder’s grin returned. “Go and sit down and cool off, honey—you’re wasting your time and mine.”

  “You just don’t know me well enough.”

  “I know you.”

  “You just think you do.”

  Kryder looked across the room. “Now, if you were her, saying those things—” He winked at Doll again. “Then maybe we could come to terms.”

  Gary felt Kryder was using such talk to close out and soothe what really was going on in his mind, things that frightened him.

  Doll ignored the remark, checked her watch, went over and turned on the radio. She moved with a kind of numbness that seemed to have come over all of them. “Time for the late news,” she said.

  A moment later, Gary sat stunned, listening to the announcer’s voice as he monotonously intoned words that sent fear racing through him:

  “… and Dunn is wanted for questioning by the police. It seems Dunn, an employee of the Lonnigan Lumber Company, was fired for theft of supplies, and also for allegedly making improper advances toward Miss Harper. It’s reported he left the lumber yard and visited various bars here in the city, where he voiced strong opinions regarding Franklin Harper, the missing girl’s father. Harper learned of the thefts from Arthur Lonnigan, manager of the lumber company, but he had planned to fire Dunn anyway because of the stories the girl had told him about Dunn. One bartender claims Dunn came into his tavern, very much under the influence, and this bartender said, quote: the guy had that look. He looked like he could kill. Unquote.

  “And now, a late report, ladies and gentlmen. Dolores Carstairs, Dunn’s alleged sweetheart, is reportedly missing. Her grandmother, Mrs. Emma-Lou Winters, says Miss Carstairs left their apartment this afternoon ostensibly for work at a beach nightclub, the Jungle Club, where she is a striptease queen….”

  “Turn it off!” Kryder said. “For cripes’ sake. You do a strip act?”

  “… did not appear at work,” the announcer went on. “She hasn’t been seen since. It is believed that she has made contact with Dunn. Mrs. Winters claims her granddaughter and Dunn quarreled recently, their only

  “I said turn it off!”

  Kryder went over to the radio and snapped the dial.

  “Bunch of masochists, that’s what,” he said.

  Gary stared at the floor. He recalled visiting several bars that night after he’d left Arlene. He recalled discussing Franklin Harper with different people, and he realized now what this would seem like to others, especially the police. Now, no matter what happened, he’d have to face the law. His name was linked solidly with the kidnaping.

  He looked over at Arlene and found her watching him. Her lips were curiously twisted and he didn’t like the look in her eyes. Something strange was happening to Arlene. She’d been very quiet and he sensed her confusion. As he looked at her, she put her hand to her mouth and muffled short gasps of laughter. It sickened him. The whole thing sickened him, and he saw no way out. To top it all off, Arlene must have gone to her father with wild stories about him—possibly when he nearly caught them together that afternoon at the house.

  He wandered into the kitchen, got himself a drink of water from the sink. Standing there, he heard Kryder speak again, his voice subtly sneering.

  “So, honey—you do a strip. You’re a peeler.”

  He heard Arlene’s snicker.

  “So what?” Doll said.

  Gary waited, listening. He looked across the kitchen at the window, black against the night outside. He knew there was no use attempting anything right now. Kryder was gun-happy, nervous, likely to shoot without thinking.

  “How’s about doing a little strip for me?” Kryder said. “How’s about that? We could maybe find a little music on the radio.”

  “Some other time, huh?”

  Gary stiffened slightly at the ground of Doll’s voice. It was different. It seemed almost as if she were playing up to the man.

  “You’re kind of nice,” Kryder said.

  Arlene laughed shortly.

  “Shut up,” Kryder said.

  Gary tried to shut his ears to their voices. He went over Kryder’s phone conversation with Harper, trying to find some spot where the man had perhaps made a leading mistake. There was none. He had talked with Harper, promising to do everything in his power to locate his daughter. He’d told the man he might have more luck if he continued to work alone, and with no connection with the police. He’d said he was calling from Tampa, and had expressed deep sympathy for Harper’s anxiety.

  It was so very neat. Kryder could murder them, then go to Harper and probably be well paid for that part of it as well as having the ransom money. It was gorgeous. Then it occurred to Garry—what about Doll?

  He’d been thinking about her, but it hadn’t really struck home that she, too, must die.

  He listened again to their voices, coming from the other room. He knew very well that Kryder was conscious of where he stood in the kitchen.

  “Don’t you think you could go for somebody like me?” Kryder said, still talking with Doll. “I’ll have all the money anybody’d ever want. Like I say, I kind of go for you.”

  “Kind of isn’t enough,” Doll said.

  “Well, take it any way you want.”

  “Suppose I don’t want to take it?”

  Silence. Gary heard a rustling, and Doll’s short gasp. He heard Arlene laugh quietly. He started toward the kitchen doorway, then stepped into the
living room.

  Kryder had Doll in his arms. They stood in the center of the room embracing. He saw Doll’s fingers clenched into the man’s shoulders, and their mouths were plastered together tightly. Then Doll’s head moved away and she stared at Kryder, her eyes hazy.

  “Say,” she said softly. “Say, there.”

  Kryder looked around and saw Gary and his eyes darkened, his thick lips tightened across his teeth. He jerked his head toward Gary and looked at Doll.

  “Your boy friend’s watching.”

  Doll did not turn her eyes from Kryder’s face.

  “Don’t it bother you?” Kryder asked.

  “Why should it?”

  Gary saw Kryder release her suddenly, turn his back, walk over and look at Arlene where she was slumped in the rattan chair, her gleaming hair snarled and streaming down one side of her face. Her face was bruised badly and she looked very tired. Yet the strange unseeing look in her eyes seemed even more obvious than before. She didn’t look at Kryder, just sat staring straight across the room. She looked somehow younger and perhaps very afraid.

  “What’s the matter, kid?” Kryder said.

  She did not move, said nothing.

  Kryder stood there, looking down at her.

  Gary went over to Doll. She stared at him with veiled eyes, coldly, and he wanted to say something. He couldn’t. There was something in the way she looked at him that prevented his speaking.

  He began to wonder if it were possible that Doll was swinging over to Kryder’s side? That was too much.

  Kryder moved back to Doll, looked at Gary and grinned. Then he turned to Doll.

  “Honey,” he said. “I’ve got something I’d like you to think about.”

  She shrugged and waited, watching the man. Gary went over to the studio couch and sat down. He didn’t want to look at them. The thought of what Doll was doing was bad. He could find no way to combat how he felt and as he heard Kryder continue talking, he knew he had to act. Yet something held him back. Something more than the thought that Kryder had a gun and would use it, would almost be proud of using it now.