The Corpse That Walked

by Octavus Roy Cohen

  "You mean I got to play cute with him?"

  "Why not? What do you lose?"

  He said, carefully, "I figured maybe you were going soft on the proposition."

  "Me?" She assumed a hardness that she did not feel. "Since when did you start figuring me for mush? I know all about what's going to happen to our little playmate. It's as O.K. with me as it is with you. But just getting mad at a guy and blasting a hole in him because you're sore..."

  Chuck said, "You make me believe things I know ain't true. But if that's how you want it, that's how you'll have it."

  "You'll quit riding him?"

  "Yeah. I'll lay off. Unless..."

  "Unless what?"

  "Don't you step out of line, Sunny. I wouldn't like that." His icy eyes held hers tight. "Don't try any tricks. One bad move by you, and I ain't going to wait for word from Lew."

  Chapter Sixteen

  Something was happening to Sunny Ralston; something she neither understood nor liked. Sunny was falling in love.

  She left Chuck in the living room and walked upstairs. She was badly shaken, and thought it was because she was angry. In her bedroom, with the door locked against intrusion, she found her thoughts racing to this fantastic conclusion:

  Yes, she was afraid—but not for herself. She was afraid for Alan Douglas. And the reason she was afraid... "It's got me," she whispered fiercely into the darkness. "God, am I a sap!"

  Sunny Ralston, christened Fay by a mother she could not remember and a father she would have preferred to forget, had learned to look out for herself. She distrusted everybody. She taught herself to hate sentiment because she didn't believe it was healthy. Sentimental people were always being knifed in the back. That was what she had seen, and that was what she believed. Her deity was physical comfort, shelter from the bitterness and cruelty that had warped her childhood.

  In her struggle against adverse conditions, she had been generously favored by nature, which had supplied her with a glorious body and a clear brain. It hadn't taken her long to discover that a girl could travel pretty far with such assets. She gave value received for what she got—but she got it. Until this night she had never been bothered by morals or conscience or gentleness of any sort. If occasionally she had done nice things, it was only because it amused her to do them. There never had been a time when she considered the well-being of anyone other than herself.

  Until tonight.

  She walked to one of her bedroom windows and stood staring into the moon-drenched night. The window was open and the air felt pleasantly cool against her hot body, protected as it was only by a sheer chiffon gown and a white housecoat of softest velvet She tried telling herself over and over again that it wasn't true, that this had not happened to her; but her fiercest arguments got her nowhere. It was incredible. It was impossible. But it was true.

  Here then was a contingency that even so astute a person as Lew Hartley could not have foreseen. Lew knew Sunny; he knew that she was heartless, unscrupulous, and merciless. Those were qualities so akin to his own nature that they appealed to him strongly. In his own hard way, he was fond of her. She had entered without scruple into their bargain, and had fulfilled her part of the contract to the letter. She was an amenable and pleasant companion. She had a beautiful body, a quick wit, and a keen perception. She never nagged, never demanded, never argued. She could be trusted because it paid her to be trustworthy. She made no pretense of being in love with him, or even of possessing the capacity for love. And that was all right with Lew, because it gave him delightful feminine companionship, which he wanted, and did not burden it with sentimentality, which he hated.

  So Sunny stood there thinking, and the more she thought, the more bewildered she became. For the first time in her life she knew fear. Fear for what was inescapably in store for Alan Douglas.

  Even in the throes of this new and disturbing emotion Sunny was not concerned about morals or ethics. That she was cast in the role of accessory before the fact of a murder not yet committed was something she had taught herself to take in stride—provided she herself was not endangered. It wasn't the idea of murder that frightened her. She was worried because Alan was the prospective victim.

  And now she was face to face with an unanswerable question: What to do about it? In 'the half-world in which respectability is a detriment, the word "smart" means a great deal more than it means in gentler circles. And by the broadest meaning of the broadest mind, Sunny Ralston was smart. She was too smart to stick her own neck out, too smart to drop a monkey wrench into the elaborate machinery that Lew Hartley and Wayne Hamilton had set in motion, too smart to think that anything she might do or say would divert them from their course.

  She could save Allen, all right. That was a cinch. A word to him. A word to the police. It'd be easy enough to prove that Alan wasn't Lew Hartley, once someone had been given the lead. But even in this amazing new knowledge that she was in love, Sunny's mind didn't work that way. The hard philosophy of a hard lifetime could not be cast off as one would cast off a garment that no longer fitted.

  The trouble was that it did fit. It fitted Sunny in every particular save one. And even yet the instinct of self-preservation was stronger than any other idea she could imagine. Let her breathe a word of what she knew and she wouldn't have a chance. It required a great deal more love than Sunny was capable of at the moment to invite the fury of a man like Lew Hartley.

  After all I've been through, she thought, I've got to fall for Mr. Leonard P. Dope. And just when it's in the books to hurt worst.

  Sunny had a logical mind, untrammeled by conventions. She had fallen for Alan. Alan was in the next room. It was simple as the first three letters of the alphabet.

  Alan had been lying there wide awake. He saw the door swing open and he reached for the bed light. Sunny's voice came to him. "Don't turn it on, Alan."

  She came to him across the room. The moonlight streaming in through the window gave her beauty an ethereal quality. She moved slowly, with easy grace.

  She sat down on the edge of the bed. Odd what tricks could be played by this unusual light. Sunny seemed to have the softness of a child, the gentleness of an inexperienced girl. Even the situation, even her revealing costume could not dispel the utter simplicity of this moment.

  Alan offered her a cigarette and she shook her head. He lighted one for himself. He waited.

  She seemed to have difficulty finding the right words. Finally she said, in a voice so guarded that it was scarcely more than a whisper, "You mustn't make Chuck sore."

  Alan said, "I didn't mean to. As a matter of fact, the whole thing started when I tried to straighten him out. You know—'Why don't you like me, Chuck?' That sort of thing. He's a difficult lad."

  "He's dangerous."

  "Yes, I suppose he is."

  "You don't have to suppose it, Alan. I'm telling you." She took his hand. Hers was hot and the fingers closed tensely over his. "If I hadn't showed up when I did, Chuck would have killed you."

  "Now, wait a minute, Sunny! Aren't you letting your imagination run away with you?"

  Sunny said, "How can anybody be as dumb as you, Alan? You think Chuck's playing tough. I'm telling you he's not. When a man like Lew Hartley hires a bodyguard, he gets what he's paying for."

  "But look..." Alan was trying to understand. "Two men can get sore at each other. So they scrap. Then it's finished and done with."

  "Not with Chuck. That ain't his routine."

  "It doesn't make sense, Sunny. I've tried being nice to Chuck. I've taken his riding without a squawk. Even tonight, I tried to be decent about it. But he wasn't having any. What I don't understand is why Chuck dislikes me."

  Sunny's voice wasn't quite steady. "The reason he hates you," she said, "is because he's in love with me."

  "Then," responded Alan logically, "he doesn't hate me. He hates the man I look like. He hates Lew Hartley."

  "No. You wouldn't understand that, either. He doesn't hate Lew. Doesn't even resent him."<
br />
  "Then why should he have a mad on against me?"

  "Because..." Sunny's grasp was tighter, her fragrant body was closer. "Because he knows that I'm in love with you."

  It came suddenly. Like that. Alan sat rigidly for a moment, and then—because he had to do something—he reached out to the ash tray beside his bed and ground out the light on his cigarette.

  The atmosphere of the room was electric. Sunny hadn't moved. But it was she who broke the silence.

  "That's how it is, Alan."

  He spoke carefully, gently. "I'm afraid you've got me against the ropes, Sunny. Whatever I say is liable to be wrong."

  "Try it."

  "All right." He lighted a fresh cigarette. "The words don't seem to fit. But suppose I put it this way: Lew Hartley wouldn't like it."

  "Would you?"

  "I'm human. And you're lovely." His voice was steady. "But I don't trespass."

  "How much do you like me?"

  "Plenty. I think you're aces. But we simply don't play in the same league."

  She said, "I know you're in love with someone else. I know you'll stay that way. What I'm talking about has nothing to do with that. Or don't I make myself clear?"

  "Perfectly." He nodded. "I'm embarrassed, Sunny, believe it or not. I'd like to laugh it off, but that doesn't seem the correct thing, either. I'd like to try to convince you that you're kidding yourself, but I have a feeling you wouldn't like that. You'd know it wasn't what I was thinking at all. There happens to be something about you that makes me talk straight."

  "Thanks. You've got me figured right, anyway."

  "So I'll keep on. I said I was human—and we'll let that ride. I'm not noble. I'm not a stuffed shirt—I hope. But when I was hired to do this little job of play-acting, Wayne Hamilton impressed on me that my chief asset was my honesty. I could be trusted. Well, he had that figured right, Sunny."

  She said, "You're an awful sap."

  "I certainly am."

  "No man ever turned me down before."

  "That's not nice, Sunny."

  "It's true. I didn't bring any scruples into this room with me, so there's no use pretending I did." She gave a hard little laugh. "I'm being as honest as you are. I know when I've been told off."

  "Aren't you being pretty brutal to yourself?" "Sure. Why not?" She withdrew her hand from his. "It's the first time I've ever been in love," she said in a voice that he didn't recognize. "It's a queer feeling. I don't think I like it much." Her laugh was brittle. "Any time you change your mind, just knock three times and ask for Joe."

  Suddenly she bent down and her arms were about him. She pressed her full, generous lips against his. She said, "Think that over."

  Then she swept across the room and into her own. The door closed behind her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next day it rained, and the next and the next. Storm clouds descended on Miami, painting everything dark gray. The surf boomed angrily, the majestic royal palms leaned away from the wind, the entire resort colony discarded its holiday raiment and became gloomy. The beaches were empty and forbidding.

  Alan saw little of Sunny during those three days, which he figured was just as well. She flung herself into an orgy of shopping, at which she was expert. She vanished each morning and reappeared in the evening in time to dress. They went places at night, of course, that being an important part of the schedule. Sunny was gay—and deliberately impersonal. She carried it off well, although Alan noticed that she seldom met his eyes squarely.

  During the three days of sodden bleakness, Alan read. Chuck Williams appeared to do nothing. He sat around the house, his pasty face inscrutable. Time apparently meant nothing to him.

  His attitude toward Alan was less forbidding. He spoke only when he had to, and then used a minimum of words, but—however briefly—the open hostility seemed to have vanished. Even when he and Alan and Sunny went out together at night, Chuck remained within himself. He gave no sign of remembering what had occurred that hectic night. His expression was blank and impassive, his eyes told nothing.

  Then, on the fourth morning, the sun shone. Alan, looking out at it through his bedroom window, thought he had never seen anything so brilliant or so blue as the Miami sky after three days of downpour. The air was crystal-clear and cool enough to be invigorating. Once again the streets were populated by eager vacationists. The horse and dog tracks were jammed, the beaches crowded.

  The return of clear weather seemed to make little difference to Sunny Ralston. She continued to leave the house every morning and to return late in the evening. Alan did a bit of swimming and a great deal of lazing.

  He became rather friendly with Captain Swanson, who commanded Lew Hartley's trim seventy-five-footer, which was moored in Indian Creek just across Collins Avenue from the house. Alan suggested to Chuck that he'd like to go fishing, and to his surprise, Chuck agreed.

  The Blue Gull was luxurious. Captain Swanson, navigated it. There was a combination engineer and general handy man. There was a steward, who performed magic in the tiny galley.

  Chuck didn't fish. He didn't read. He didn't play solitaire. At the house or on the Blue Gull, Chuck sat impassively.

  On the second day of fishing, Alan landed a sizable tarpon. He ordered the boat returned to Miami, elated beyond all reason.

  Back on the Hartley estate again, Alan dropped into a steamer chair and relaxed. He didn't hear the approach of Sunny. Her voice sounded from above and he looked up into amused blue eyes.

  "Ol’ rockin' chair got you?" she said.

  "It begins to look that way."

  She pulled up a lawn chair and seated herself, but he had the impression that she wasn't staying, that there were other things on her mind. She accepted a cigarette, lighted it, and said, "I hear you caught yourself a sardine."

  He spread his arms as far as they'd go. "Ten times that big," he lied. He eyed her with approval. "You look niftier than usual. What gives?"

  "Shopping. Then tea with that Foster girl."

  Alan veiled his eyes quickly, and tried to make his question sound casual and impersonal. "With whom?"

  "Gail Foster. You met her that night at the Cristobal Club. She's a reporter on a magazine."

  "Oh... that one. Neat little trick."

  "She's pretty as the devil." Sunny was invariably generous in her appraisal of other women. "I'd swap what I've got for what she has any day in the week."

  He said deliberately, "You'd lose on it, wouldn't you?"

  "Nope. She's pretty, but really. Class. What I mean, she'll still have it when I've lost mine. And she's smarter than 'Information, Please.' "

  He arched his eyebrows. "You talk as though you'd been seeing a great deal of her."

  "I have. And darned if I can figure what she sees in me."

  "Looking for a compliment?"

  "You know better. I know I'm not a dope. I'm smart enough to know where I fit. This Foster—she's out of my depth. It isn't just her job, either. She invites me to lunch... places... you know."

  "Has it ever occurred to you that she simply happens to like you?"

  "I got to figure it that way. But it still doesn't make sense."

  Alan asked, as casually as he could, "What's she doing down here besides writing magazine pieces?"

  "I don't know. Just that, I guess. Come to think of it, we never talk about her much. We talk about me."

  "And," suggested Alan tensely, "about me, perhaps?"

  "Yeah." Sunny looked at him. "Funny you should ask that."

  "What's funny about it?"

  "Gail mentions you all the time. You know, like a lady would—not coming right out with straight questions, but sort of hinting around."

  "I'm flattered."

  "Tell you the truth," confided Sunny, "it ain't that I think she's dumb or anything, but I don't believe she ever before came in contact with a couple..." She laughed. "Every time I meet that girl, I feel naked without a wedding ring."

  She glanced at a tiny jewe
led wrist watch and jumped to her feet. "I'm late again. Be seein' you." She waved as she started off. "Be sweet to Chuck."

  Alan watched her until she reached the car, which Philip had brought around from the garage. They drove through the gate, and Alan settled back in his chair. But the mood of luxurious relaxation had gone.

  So Gail wasn't convinced, after all. That much was clear. It was she who was pursuing Sunny, and there could be only one possible reason. She was seeking confirmation of her suspicions.

  It added up to only one thing, and Alan wasn't very pleased. With the two girls becoming more friendly, it would be increasingly difficult for him to avoid Gail; and that meant that he'd have to be twice as gruff as he'd ever been before in order to disillusion her. Any other course was unfair to Lew Hartley. He hated this part of his role. There was one faint satisfaction: Gail would never learn anything from Sunny. Except... His face flushed. Sunny had no embarrassment over her relationship to the real Lew Hartley. She'd certainly do nothing to make Gail think that he wasn't Lew.

  Alan did not see the dilapidated old car that stopped just outside the gate. He did not notice the stranger who got out, glanced about uncertainly, and then saw Alan sitting alone in the sunshine.

  The man's uncertainty vanished. He walked across the lawn with swift, easy strides. While still a score of feet away he called cheerfully, "Hello, Mr. Hartley."

  Alan's senses responded to the alert signal. He stared at a man whom he had never seen before. The stranger had a strong, firm face that was definitely not good-looking. He was perhaps forty years of age. He had the hard, compact build of the trained athlete. His simple summer-weight woolen suit indicated a man in average financial circumstances. He wore no hat, and Alan saw that his sandy hair was getting thin in spots. He came forward more quickly. His big, calloused hand was extended. He said again, in his big, booming voice, "Hello, Mr. Hartley." Then he grinned and said, "Jeez, Lew, it's good to see you again."