by Steve Fisher
“We’ll buy a file,” she said.
“No. We’ll get a room somewhere and you can pick the lock with a hairpin. I’ll show you how.”
“Aren’t you smart, though?”
“Sure. I’m smart. Raffles, that’s me!”
We got out of the taxi at Sixth and Vermont, and as soon as it drove off we got another one. In this cab we raced into downtown Los Angeles. Jill figured we should get out of town before the cops covered the bus terminals and railroad stations. We paid the cab driver off at Seventh and Spring. We walked one block over to Main Street, and then up in the direction of the Pacific Electric station. If either cab driver was later questioned, there was little information he could give.
Main Street was full of bums and no one paid attention to the way I carried my coat. But I had the feeling that a thousand pairs of eyes watched. I was full of fear, and I hated myself for it. I wanted to give up. I wanted to die right here. I was so scared I thought I’d vomit. The fear was in my stomach going every direction. My teeth ached. I was disgusted with myself. The handcuffs hurt my wrists. It must be perfectly obvious that I’m wearing handcuffs. It was only Jill here beside me that made me keep on. I must have been a spectacle. I hadn’t been nearly this scared when they arrested me.
In the station Jill went to the information booth and I sat down on a waiting room bench. I felt desolated. It was hot in the station, and there was sweat on my face, but I was shivering. I tried to watch advertising slides on a little screen in front of me. A kid at my side, holding a greasy bag of popcorn, was hopping up and down. There was the sound of endless shoes on the dirty tile floor. The hands on the big dock inside the station were semaphored at twenty minutes to eight. A train was being called. Now I saw Jill. I saw the neat green sandals with the red cork heels, and my eyes came up.
She had tickets in her hand. I rose and followed her. We were going toward a gate that was already open. It was marked: San Pedro. Uniformed sailors were streaming through to the train platform. There were a few civilians.
“It’s an interurban … leaving right away,” Jill said.
“Do you see any cops?”
“No.”
“We’ve got to be careful,” I said..
What’s the matter with me? I was going to pieces. If only she’d let them hang me!
I couldn’t use my hands and I was clumsy getting on the car. We moved down an aisle. We found a seat, and I took the side by the window. The coat looked all right now, sitting in my lap. I watched everybody that came in. Then the train began to move.
It crawled down the big wooden trestle and turned right, and then left. Out of the window I saw trucks and horsedrawn carts. The sailors were reading newspapers, eating peanuts, talking and laughing. The conductor came and I didn’t look up. Jill handed him the tickets. He punched them and gave them back.
The car got out of town. It left the suburbs behind and thundered down the tracks. I could see stars in the sky, and the moon was thin and white.
18
WE TOOK a room in a shabby hotel in San Pedro. The proprietress was an old woman and she showed no particular interest in the transaction. The room was musty and the wallpaper was stained where rain had dripped down from the roof, but it had the air of deanliness, with a big old-fashioned bed and a worn brown carpet. From the window it was possible to see the harbor and part of the Wilmington trestle, and an old marine yard where several ships were junked. Now and then a freighter went out through the channel and you heard its big bass horn. There were a great many seagulls that squawked and screamed, and the air was crisp and cold. It tasted of salt.
Jill had no trouble in picking the lock of the handcuffs and when they were off, I rubbed my wrists for a very long time, and stretched my arms out. I felt much better, and I could think better. There had been no time for Jill to get a coat and I put mine over her shoulders. She smiled up at me, and I kissed her, and walked over to the window. I stood there for a long time watching the harbor.
“You’ll catch cold, darling.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “Do you think we’re safe here?”
“Of course. And tomorrow we’ll get a room with a fire escape. Quick exit.”
“I can just see that. Me with my pants in one hand and my shoes in the other. You in your silk undies. Nymphs in the night.”
“And, darling, think how mortified I’d be if you were shot when you didn’t have your pants on!”
“It’s ghastly,” I said. “I can even see the headlines. Pantless killer and shameless woman lie side by side in the San Pedro morgue.”
“Darling, am I shameless?”
“Well, you ain’t honest, Miss Lynn. Think what the W.C.T.U. would say.”
“I don’t care! We’ll get married when it’s over, Peg, when they arrest the real killer.”
“Heh. Heh. Why? To give our grandchildren a name?”
“Don’t be so pessimistic. They’ll get the killer all right.”
“Oh, sure! They start a man hunt for us—and find him instead. Just like on Peter Gunn.”
“Well, anyhow, Peg, I’ll be your wife. Or at least your mistress. Every writer should have a mistress, you know.”
“That’s a thought. I’ll take it up with the Writers’ Guild. For every writer a mistress. It should boom things.”
“We’re going to have fine times, aren’t we, darling?”
“Oh, we’ll have lovely times, all right! Hiding like criminals! Probably starving! Running away from cops … Christ!”
My coat was over her shoulders, but she was shivering. The room was damp.
“We’ll just—forget the cops,” she said.
“You’re awfully good to me, Jill. Come on, let’s go to bed. We’ll forget the damn cops all right!”
In the morning the winter sun was feeble on the windows; the harbor was the color of slate, and very choppy, flecked with white froth. The room reeked with an old wooden smell. There was no activity in the rusty marine yard and very few people on the street in this end of town. Jill had dressed and gone out. She came in with a tray covered by a napkin and I sat up in bed. I needed a shave. But the winter morning felt good and the surroundings were strange and pleasant. It was exactly like your first morning in a foreign country. Everything was new and you did not mind the hardship. It occurred to me that I was perhaps almost happy. Jill sat down on the bed opposite me, breaking her eggs in a cup.
“This is a quite wonderful breakfast7 I said. “Where did you get it?”
“There’s a Greasy Spoon about a block from here.”
I smiled at her with a mouthful of toast. “It was thoughtful of you to mention the name of the place. It sharpens my appetite.” I swallowed. “How much did it come to?”
“Sixty-five cents. It leaves us a total balance of $47.52.”
“Spoken like an adding machine!”
She grinned, sipping her coffee. But she looked worried.
“What’s the matter, Jill?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I guess I’m a little upset. I think we’d better move to that other room. The one with the fire escape.”
“I remember—the one with the pants. But why?”
She handed me the morning paper. I glanced at the headlines.
“Hey—this is swell!”
“What’s swell?”
“My name in big type like this,” I said. “For a writer used to by-lines it’s a very interesting study. It was never like this in Cosmopolitan!”
“Darling, would you mind very much sobering up?”
“What do you know about it! Have you ever gone to sleep dreaming of your name in big letters? No! Have you ever rushed to a newsstand when you had a serial beginning only to discover the whole cover had been given to a short story by Sloan Wilson? No! This—this is memorial!”
“It may be immemorial. Do you realize half the state is looking for us?”
I glared down at the paper again.
“That’s a very bad picture. I lik
e the one of you much better.”
“Peg!”
“Yes?”
“What are we going to do?”
“I asked you that last night. You said we’d just be careful of the police.”
“I know. I was very wise last night and very clever. Today it’s different. I’m scared, Peg!”
“I’m glad we have that emotion at separate times.”
“You aren’t scared today?”
“Well, I wasn’t. I was just thinking how nice the harbor looked. I forgot I was me. I was having a fine time being somebody else.”
I finished the breakfast and sipped my coffee and read the paper. Ed Cornell had recovered all right. He’d have me in custody before nightfall. It was a dirty trick I had played on him, and he didn’t mean to let it go. Much was made of the fact that I was on contract to a studio. Moom pitchers had landed smack on the front page with the publicity they had so much wanted to avoid.
“I remember when they were looking for that hitchhiker killer,” Jill said. “They had everybody out. Even boy scouts going through the woods beating drums. Every man on the street his size or description was stopped. If he didn’t stop he was shot.”
“Did they finally get him?”
“Yes. In Washington. A State Trooper made the arrest. Everybody was incensed and that hitchhiker killer was executed right away.”
“But I’m not—”
“To people who read the papers it’s almost the same, don’t you see?”
“Yes.”
“The fact that you’ve run away is proof enough to the public of your guilt.”
“I suppose so. But I wouldn’t have had a chance in court and—”
“Of course not! But a man hunt makes very good reading. The police will be on their toes.”
I pushed the paper away.
“What are you going to do?”
“Get dressed.”
“We’d better not leave here until dark,” she said.
“Do you think it’s that bad?”
“I know it is. The papers said fugitives come to the harbor—hoping to get a ship going out.”
“That’s a thought.”
“No, it isn’t. All the ships will be watched.”
“Are you sorry you came with me?”
She looked up. “No, darling. You know I’m not! I’m just worried, that’s all!”
A white gull drifted down over the gray harbor. A freighter was coming in.
The darkness came at five, and at six we left the hotel. The day had been very long, and we had not eaten since breakfast. They say your stomach is a nerve center. I had a small burning pain in my stomach but I did not know then that it was serious. We had decided my tan coat would have been too conspicuous and we left it behind in the room. The street was dark with lampposts only at the corners. There was a stiff, cold wind from the harbor. Now that we were outside the old fear came back.
We walked into town. The lights of the stores were frightening at first and we kept our eyes down and did not look at the people we passed. But they were mostly sailors, some in uniform, others in woolen sweaters and dungarees, off freighters and tankers. There were a number of women. The women did not wear slacks like they do in Hollywood. They wore gingham dresses and cheap silk and rayon. Most of the young ones were with navy men, and I did not see any that were good looking. But I imagine that beauty in a woman is only a way you get of thinking. Jill was shapely and handsome and a few sailors turned around, the way you’d turn around if you saw a million dollars.
There were no policemen, except those directing traffic, and after a while I became very brave and went into a cheap drygoods store and bought a sweat shirt. Jill waited outside and I bought a sweater for her. I put the sweat shirt on there in the store, and brought the sweater out to her. These garments did not very much change the descriptions of our clothes that had been broadcast, but they put us in a garb that fit the background. There was a stubble of beard on my face, and that also helped, or I hoped that it would.
We crossed the street, past the interurban station, and walked over the railroad tracks down to the old Fifth Street Landing. The major units of the fleet were in Hawaii and a few idle shore boats were tied up. There was a big sign that read Water Taxis to the Warships—25cents. Nearby there was a hamburger stand. It was doing no business at all and the man behind the counter sat in the dim light reading the sports page of a newspaper. There were all kinds of bugs around the light and some of them stuck on the globe. But the black skillet looked dean and hot and Jill and I sat down on stools. My stomach still bothered me, and I imagined it was only because I was hungry.
We ordered bowls of chile con carne and hamburger steak on a plate with two fried eggs each. We ate ravenously and drank lukewarm coffee to wash it down. But I sat with my stool turned a little to one side so I could see if anybody came. Two railroad trackmen went by and each time I got rigid.
After we had started to eat the counterman turned on a dinky radio. He leaned on the counter and began talking about football. He was very much concerned about the Rose Bowl game. I kept saying “Yeah,” and “You’re certainly right about that,” and once Jill said: “We saw USC play Washington.” This was very bad because he immediately wanted to know all about USC. He began naming players. The first thing I knew we were going over the fine points of the Notre Dame game, and then he began talking about Red Sanders. “There was a coach,” he said.
He would not stop talking and I was suddenly trying to listen through his voice to the seven o’clock news. I could get whole chunks about the international situation. But when it became local the counterman was shaking a pancake turner in my face. He remembered Bob Waterfield when he played for UCLA. The home games had always been in the Coliseum, and in Waterfield’s senior year, he hadn’t missed a single one of them. “And now he’s the coach of the Rams.”
Just as he said that I heard my name on the radio. I lost all of what followed until the announcer said: “Jill Lynn, who is with the fugitive, will be charged with—” then UCLA, and after that: “—posted a five thousand dollar reward for the pair. Mr. Cornell, active as a homicide detective for a number of years—”
“I tell you they don’t have games like that any more.”
“No, I guess not.”
The news went off. There was a station announcement, then the theme of a dance band came on.
When we walked off the band was playing the theme from Mr. Lucky. There was the sound of a boat motor starting up.
“Let’s go for a ride7
“Where to?”
“I don’t know.”
“We can’t afford it.” she said.
“We’ve got forty-four dollars left.”
“Then we can’t afford anything, darling, let alone a boat ride.”
“How was the hamburger steak?”
“It was fine,” she said, “it really was.”
“Did you hear the news?”
“I got a little of it.”
“There’s a reward.”
“Yes, I heard that part.”
“Somehow I don’t care.”
“You don’t?”
“No. If we last as long as Jean Valjean did in Les Misërables, we’ll have lovely times—and ten children. It’s different living together, isn’t it? It’s different and better.”
“It’s swell, Peg. I think Vicky’d be glad if she knew.”
We were walking across the tracks. There was a three-car interurban waiting at the station. The windows in the big red cars were lighted up but there were no passengers inside. I began thinking of Vicky—and the murder. Lanny could have done it, of course. With all his weeping and hysteria he was capable of rage. And Hurd Evans with his slave bracelet. They had never discovered the instrument of crime! My thoughts were vague and jumbled. There was Robin Ray—something about a crack-up in his car, a minor accident… . Harry Williams was dead, of course. He’d gotten in the killer’s way. There’d been two murders—only on
e on the books. This was the way my thoughts ran, getting nowhere.
Jill and I crossed the street and walked up a block. There was a bus going by, and a lot of traffic. I saw the marquee of a movie theater, and the big brick police station which is on the hill overlooking the harbor. We went the other way, searching for a hotel that looked old enough to be safe. We passed the Seaman’s Institute and several pool rooms. There were quite a few Filipinos on the street. Once I saw three of them drive by in a car with a pimply prostitute blonde. I already had indigestion and suddenly I felt terrible. I was not used to walking so much and my legs ached. I felt weak all over.
“I’ve got a stomach-ache.”
“No!”
“It feels a little like appendidtis.”
“Where is the pain?”
“Just in my stomach. It burns.”
“We’d better get a room.”
“Yes, I think we should.”
“We’ll find one right away,” Jill said.
We walked up a very dark street. There were old buildings on it and a big, gaudy clothing and jewelry store that displayed a sign Credit to Navy Men. It was closed down and was dark.
I didn’t see the man who stood in the doorway until he stepped out. He was big and heavy set. “Got a match, buddy?” he said. Then I saw the way he was looking at us, trying to make sure.
He was a cop!
19
IT WAS quite dark here, but he must have decided that we were the McCoy because I saw him go for his gun. I didn’t wait. I hit him. I don’t know where I got the strength. I think it was the sudden awful panic. The guy’s head jolted back and hit the window. I thought I heard the glass crack. Jill and I were running. I don’t know how we could run. I heard the detective shout, then we were around the corner. We kept running. We brushed past people. Everything went black in my head but my legs were still running.
By this time the cop was around the corner. I thought probably he’d start shooting. There was an apartment house opposite us—Jill and I dashed in through the front hall. The cop had seen us! We raced for the back exit. But I saw an apartment door ajar—as though someone had gone out without closing it securely. For a second Jill and I stood there in the dimly lit corridor. She looked at me, and I nodded. I opened the door, and we slipped into the apartment.
