The Red Scarf

by Gil Brewer

  “Oh, that. Well, the guy sort of resented my bursting in like that. You understand.”

  “I see.”

  All I had to do was keep that briefcase hidden the way it was and everything would be all right. Even if Gant was a snoop, and I was pretty sure he was. Then I remembered something.

  I looked at him and it came to me and I almost fell off the couch. I had never had any thought hit me this hard.

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Nichols?”

  “Nothing. Pain in my stomach.”

  “Oh?”

  “Cramp, like.”

  I put my hand on my stomach and made a face. “Listen, would you excuse me a minute?”

  He looked at me and frowned slightly.

  All I could think was, the car. The Ford. With Georgia plates taken out in my name. It was beautiful.

  “I won’t be long. Just wait right here, Lieutenant. I get these pains every once in a while. There’s some stuff over at the house.”

  “All right.”

  We got up and stood there.

  “I’m not through talking with you, though,” he said. “I’ll be out front in the car.”

  “Fine.”

  I went on out quick and cut toward our place. He walked across the grass to the police car at the curb. When his back was turned, I started down between the apartments, toward the garage. I ran.

  Sure as the devil, they’d trace those plates. If they found them in my name, how could I explain that? If I could just hang on long enough, I felt sure something would turn up. They’d find Teece; they’d find who she was and they’d get him for it. If I could just hang on and keep them off my neck, so I wouldn’t have to spill about that money.

  They’d never say anything about that money to the law. They wouldn’t dare, not a one of them.

  I reached the garage for number six. Her car was there, all right, with the door closed and nobody’d been around yet. Her car hadn’t been mentioned. Maybe they thought she’d come down by train, or plane. Maybe they wouldn’t ever ask about her car.

  Don’t be a complete idiot, I told myself. You know better than that. But they might play it out that way. Worse things have happened than the cops slipping up.

  I worked as fast as I could. I was so excited I really did begin to get cramps.

  I went along the front of the garages to our garage and got back in there by my work bench. Under the bench I knew I had a last-year New York plate. Some folks had left it here. There was a week before the time expired in Florida, so it would still be okay down here.

  I couldn’t find the plate. I got down under the bench and rummaged around in the junk box. It wasn’t there. Then I got up and saw it sitting on a side beam, like a decoration. I grabbed it and headed for number six garage.

  I had to come back for a pair of pliers and a screw driver. I was kind of sobbing to myself by then, soaked with sweat, running against time. He’d begin wondering where I was and I didn’t want him to wonder.

  The Georgia plate came off easy. They had it snapped on with a kind of coil spring deal, so I didn’t need the screw driver and pliers after all. I flung them across the alley into a field beside a house. I got the plates changed and stood there with the Georgia plate.

  I started back for number six and Bess came around the corner of the garage, emptying the garbage. She had the little tin bucket from the house and she was just taking the lid off the big garbage can by the garage, when she heard me.

  “Roy?”

  I had the plate jammed into my belt, in back, up under my shirt.

  “You through talking with the detective?”

  “No.”

  “What are you doing back here?”

  “I was just—oh, hell—I had a cramp.”

  “What?”

  “Stomachache. I don’t know.”

  I stared past her.

  “You want me to fix you something?”

  “I was just coming over to the house. I’ll have to get back there. I told him I’d be right back.”

  She looked back down the line of garages, then at me. She didn’t say anything. I kind of grinned at her and patted her shoulder. Then I left her standing there and went for the house. As soon as I was around the corner of the garage, I ran again.

  In the house, I had that damned plate. I didn’t know what to do with it. I had to hide it. There didn’t seem to be any place and Bess would be back in a minute. I heard her coming across the yard, then, the handle on the kitchen garbage bucket squeaking and her feet hushing on the grass.

  I went into the office, still with that plate cutting into my back. I looked outside. He was leaning against the car, talking with them, watching the office.

  The kitchen door opened.

  I went over to the studio couch, lifted a cushion and jammed the plate down in back. I pushed it as far as it’d go and something ripped. I jammed it down in there and put the cushion back and sat on the couch to see if it was all right. It was, and I was plenty tired all at once.

  “Your stomach any better, Roy?”

  “It’ll be all right. I was just going.”

  “Be glad to fix you something. Bicarb, maybe?”

  “No. Never mind.”

  She stood there watching me and I could see she wanted to help, only I couldn’t let her do anything. I didn’t half know what I was doing. I got up and went out and across to number six. Gant saw me and started back over the lawn, walking with a kind of head-down shuffle, holding his hat.

  I waited for him, trying to ease my breathing. “Feel better, Mr. Nichols?”

  “Lots better. Thanks.”

  Then I saw the front of my T-shirt, and my hands. There was dust on my shirt, and my hands were black with dirt and grease. He hadn’t noticed it yet, but he would.

  “Wait a second. I’m going to turn on the sprinklers.”

  He looked at me and frowned with that nice way he had. I paid no attention, went down by the main faucet and turned the sprinklers on. Then I turned on the spare faucet that I used for the hose, and washed my hands the best I could and splashed some up on my shirt. I saw old Hughes walking around the corner of the apartments, toward the shuffleboard court.

  “Can you talk now?” Gant said.

  “Sure. Fire away.”

  “Let’s start from where we were.”

  “Shall we go back inside?”

  “Let’s just stand out here.”

  I didn’t like the tone of his voice now. It had changed; there was something new in it. It was no longer so soft. “This man who was in the apartment with Miss Latimer. You didn’t happen to hear his name?”

  “Not that I know of.” It came out like that and I wished I hadn’t lied about that. But I couldn’t correct myself, not without making it worse, so I’d have to let it ride.

  “What did he do? I mean, when you came in. Did he want to fight you?”

  I laughed. “He couldn’t fight so well. He had one arm in a sling. His face was all bandaged up.”

  It made me feel good to tell the truth for a change.

  Gant went over and leaned against the wrought iron railing on the small porch of number six. He looked like a man who had maybe worked hard at his studies, always treating everything very seriously, and now he was exactly where he wanted to be. He seemed certain of where he was going now, and what he was going to do. He was a thinker, keeping everything peacefully and quite seriously to himself.

  “Did he want to fight?” Gant said.

  “Well, yeah. I guess he did. I took a little jab at him, just to warn him.”

  “Your wife said you almost warned him right through the door.”

  “Well, it might have been harder than a jab. I mean, he was off-balance.”

  “Mr. Nichols.” He looked at me and took his hat off again, then put it on again, fooling with the crown until he was satisfied. “This is no way to go about things. Honest.” He shook his head. “I know you don’t feel well, but you’ve got to get your thinking arranged bette
r than this. You keep making me think things.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “The way you act, anybody would think you killed that Latimer girl.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “All right, then. Why don’t you make an attempt to help me? This is my job, and I like it. But you’re making things tough for me.”

  “I’m just answering your questions.”

  “No. You’re not. You’re thinking just as fast as you can, and you’re saying the first thing that comes into your head. Are you trying to cover up something? Because, if you are, it won’t do any good. We always find out, Mr. Nichols. It’ll just save lots of time if you play it straight with us.”

  “I’m not covering up anything. What right have you to say that?”

  “There you go again.” He sighed and stared down at his shoes. “We deal with things like this all the time. I’m with Homicide, and sometimes we have to talk and talk. But I can’t recall ever having talked with a guy just like you, Mr. Nichols. You say one thing and you must know your wife has told me different. Why do you do that?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I didn’t realize it.”

  “Are you trying to shield your wife from something?”

  “No. Listen, I’ve got a motel to run. There’s a million things—”

  He held up his hand and stepped closer. “I don’t want to have to run you down to headquarters, Mr. Nichols. But if this keeps up, we’ll have to. We question a little bit different down there. And you wouldn’t be able to take care of the motel by remote control.” He looked around. “Anyway, there’s not really much to take care of. Your wife says business isn’t good at all. I don’t see many people around.”

  He began to scare me now.

  “Now, try not to get excited,” he said. “I never saw anybody get so excited and pretend they aren’t.”

  I didn’t dare say anything. I wanted to either poke him or walk away. I didn’t do either, because I was beginning to see how I looked to him. From his side, I’d either done this thing, or I’d done nothing. I was just a motel owner, a guy who was a near-witness to a murder, and he was trying to learn what he could from me. But with the amount of lying stuff I had inside me, it was difficult to act right. I was trying to think every minute—I was saying the first thing that popped into my head. And now I knew it couldn’t be any other way.

  “Your wife says Miss Latimer drove down here in what looked like a Ford sedan. That right?”

  I nodded, and the world seemed to tilt a little. “That’s better. What say we have a look at the car?”

  I motioned with my hand and we started walking toward the garage. Boy, it was that close. If only I wouldn’t make any slips now. He wasn’t fooling me now. He scared me some, but I was still ahead of him. And I had to keep it that way. That briefcase was Bess’s and mine, from now on straight down the line. It had to be.

  Now, just take it easy… easy is the way.

  Because the thought I kept on hanging to was that I hadn’t done anything. Not anything real bad. Of course not…

  “You’re sure lucky, Mr. Nichols. Having a place like this. I’d give my teeth for something like this.”

  “Thought you liked your job.”

  “Well, sometimes it catches up with me.” He didn’t look at me when he said that. We came around by the garages and walked up to number six.

  “You always leave the garage doors open?”

  “I guess she must have left it open. I didn’t check.”

  He nodded and we stood there and looked at the Ford.

  The New York plate on the back bumper would knock your eyes right out, it was that bright. He looked at that for a while and went up and flicked it with his fingers. It clanged. Then he stretched his neck to look into the back seat through the rear window.

  “Don’t touch the car. We’ll have to dust it for prints. No use messing it up any more than it probably is.”

  “Oh.”

  “Probably won’t find anything. Hardly ever do. We’ll have to check it, though, just the same.”

  “I understand.” Sure, with my prints all over it. “I drove it around here and parked it in the garage for her.”

  “Oh, well, that won’t matter. Person would have to be in the car for a time, to really lay any prints worth while. Anyway…”

  He didn’t finish that.

  He looked the car over, looking in every window, hanging his head in the open windows. He kept looking at me, now and then. I just stood there and waited, thinking about things.

  His attitude was lousy. He had no right acting the way he did, saying those things he’d said. He was getting me on the defensive and keeping me there. He didn’t have anything on me. There was something speculative in the way he’d look at me, kind of like he was trying me out on things.

  I turned away and walked along the garages. He could come and get me when he wanted me. The hell with him, and the hell with everybody.

  “Nichols?” He called from back there. I waited for him and he came up. “Didn’t you hear a thing last night?”

  “No.”

  “Well, this is a hell of a one, all right. It must have been that guy who was here last night. But why?”

  “She said she’d been waiting for him to show up. She didn’t say he was her husband, anything like that. Just waiting.”

  “And your wife claims she saw a man’s suitcase in the apartment before he came?”

  I waited while he thought that over. He shoved his hat back and scratched his head, looking at me through those slits of eyes.

  “Look,” he said. “There’s something I’ve got to check on. Then I’ll want to see you again. So don’t go away.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Just questions, honey. He thinks he’s a hot-shot.”

  “I didn’t get that impression.”

  I went into the bedroom and sat down on the bed. Then I flopped back and lay there looking up at the ceiling. She came in and sat down on the bed. I wished she would go away. Then I cursed myself for even thinking such a thing.

  “Roy,” she said. “You got to tell me if there’s something troubling you.”

  I didn’t say anything. I reached out and patted her arm and let it go at that.

  Gant had left things hanging, because he was planning something. I knew damned well that’s what it was. There’d been a crafty look in his eye and he’d practically run back out to the curb to get in the car. What could it be? I had to stay a jump ahead of them.

  “If there’s anything you think you should tell this man, Gant, Roy—I wish you would.”

  I cocked my head up and looked at her. She had on her red shorts now, and a yellow blouse. She looked real good and she was smiling at me. Her eyes were very bright.

  “What d’you mean?”

  She shrugged. I sat up and grabbed her arm. “You mean something. You’re trying to say something.”

  “No, I’m not, honey. You’re reading something into what I say.”

  We watched each other. She kept on smiling and I began to feel better. I’d thought for a minute there—but I’d been wrong.

  “Roy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why do you think somebody killed her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t even like to talk about it. Do you?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Roy, I hear somebody.”

  She started up. I heard somebody step on the office porch and then the rattle of knuckles against the door.

  “You answer it, Roy. It’s probably Gant again.”

  Somehow I didn’t want to answer that door. I did, though.

  It was Wirt Radan.

  Chapter 15

  Radan stood there in the doorway and looked at me. He didn’t smile; he didn’t do anything. His face was without expression and he was wearing a gray suit and a blue hat this time. He had switched colors, but he looked as natty as ever—and the threat in him was as quiet and co
ntained as before.

  “Hello, Mr. Nichols.” I waited. “Would you mind opening the door?”

  I opened the door and went on inside. I heard Bess come into the office and glanced back.

  “Hello there, Mrs. Nichols,” Radan said. He touched one finger to his hat brim and the corners of his mouth pinched up a little.

  “Oh,” Bess said. “It’s you.” She smiled at him. “Won’t you come in?”

  “He wants to see something outside,” I said.

  We went out onto the lawn. Bess stood by the screen door, then I heard her walking toward the rear of the apartment.

  “Well, well,” Radan said. “Here we are again.”

  “What is it this time?”

  “It’s like this,” he said. “I saw them take her out. Feet first. She was here and Teece was here. What do you figure you’ll do about this?”

  “Take who out?”

  “Let’s get away from here,” he said. “Come on.” He started down toward the rear of the apartments. “Come along, Mr. Nichols.”

  I followed him and he had that same jaunty walk as before. His shoulders leaned forward just a shade with each step, and he didn’t look around to see if I was coming.

  He paused by some bushes. “Where’s the money?” he said.

  “You killed her, didn’t you?”

  “Be careful how you talk to me, Nichols,” he said, and something peculiar came into his eyes. It was only there for an instant, then it was gone. Something had come over his face, as if the skin had shrunk in that brief moment. Then it relaxed. But I’d seen all I needed to see. I knew that if you touched him, he’d be like a piece of steel ready to spring. There was that warning emanating from him, from the way he looked at you and the way he stood. It hadn’t shown so much before, but now it did show. Just enough to let you know. He didn’t seem to have any satisfaction about it, either. It was, as was everything else about him, quite matter-of-fact, edgily contained.

  “You’re learning,” he said. “Aren’t you?”

  I wanted to get away from him. I’d read about them, the way he was, but I’d never really met up with one. He was a killer and in no joking sense. It was written in every line of the man. He was woodenly conscienceless.