A Bullet for Cinderella

by John D. MacDonald

  She answered the phone at once. “Hello?”

  “This is Tal.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m afraid you have the wrong number.”

  “I’ll be there at ten like you said.”

  “That’s perfectly all right.” She hung up. Her last comment had been the tip-off. Somebody was there with her. She had answered as though I had apologized. I wondered if it would be all set for ten. I wondered if I dared try again. I went to the drugstore counter and had coffee. The counter was emptying rapidly as people went to work. I bought a Redding paper. The discovery of the bodies had been given a big play. The article filled in a little more background than the radio item, but essentially it was the same.

  At nine-thirty I tried again. She answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

  “This is Tal again.”

  “Yes?”

  “Is this deal off or on. What goes on? Should I be there at ten?”

  “This coming Saturday? No, I’m very sorry. I have a date.”

  “I’m at a pay phone. The number is 4-6040. I’ll wait right here until you can call me back.”

  “No, I’m so sorry. Maybe some other time. Give me a ring.”

  “Phone as soon as you can.”

  “Thank you. Good-by.”

  I took a booth near the phone booths. I went and got my paper and ordered more coffee. I waited. Two people used the booth. At five minutes to ten the call came.

  “Hello?”

  “Is that you, Tal? I couldn’t talk before. I’m glad you phoned. Make it ten-fifteen. What does your watch say?”

  “Exactly four minutes of.”

  “Don’t park out back. Park a block away. Start up at exactly ten-fifteen and go slow. When you see me coming, unlatch the door. Don’t waste time getting away from there.”

  I began to be more nervous. I had no way of knowing what she was mixed up in. I knew her playmates would be hard people. I didn’t know how closely they would be watching her.

  The rain had begun to let up a little. I parked a block away from her apartment house. I could see it. I kept the motor running. I kept an eye on my watch. At exactly ten fifteen I started up. I drove slowly. I saw a man in a trench coat across the street from the apartment house, leaning against a phone pole.

  As I drew even with the apartment house, slowing down, she came running. I swung the door open. I didn’t stop. She piled into the car. She wore a dark coat, a black hat with a veil, and carried a brown case like a dispatch case.

  “Hurry!” she ordered. Her voice was shrill, frightened.

  I speeded up. She was looking back. I heard a hoarse shout.

  “Keep going!” she ordered. “He’s running for his car. It’s headed the wrong way. They posted a man out in back. I didn’t know it until yesterday afternoon.”

  A light ahead turned red. There was cross traffic. I ran the light. Tires yelped and horns blatted with indignation. I barely made the next light. She kept watching back over her shoulder. It took fifteen minutes to get to the south-bound highway, the road to Hillston.

  Once we were out on the highway and I was able to open it up a little, she turned around. I glanced at her. Her left eye was badly puffed and discolored. Her left cheek was bruised. I remembered the story of the small girl who had stayed home from school because her brother had blacked her eye.

  “What happened to your face?”

  “I got bounced around a little. People got annoyed at me.”

  “What the hell have you been mixed up in?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’d like to know how much chance I was taking.”

  “You weren’t taking it. I was taking it. They didn’t want me to leave. Anybody leaves they get the idea there’s a subpoena in the background. And a committee and an investigation. They were careless. I learned too much. So they had a problem. Do they kill me or watch me. They watched me. I’m stupid, I guess. I was having a big time. I thought I could pull out any time. I didn’t know they played so rough. If I’d guessed it could be that rough, I wouldn’t have gotten that far in.”

  “You can’t go back, then.”

  “I can’t ever go back. Don’t make jokes. Just drive as fast as you can.”

  She had changed in the short time since I’d seen her. There had been a lot of arrogance about her. Confidence and arrogance, and a flavor of enjoyment. That was gone. She was bitter and half-frightened and sullen.

  I drove. The rain finally stopped. The sky had a yellow look. Tires made a wet sound on the road. The ditches were full. We went through a village. Children romped in the schoolyard under the yellow sky.

  I did not like what I was going to have to do to her. She had given me a certain measure of trust. She had no way of knowing that the stakes had changed. She could not know I was willing to betray her—that I had to betray her. I knew I could not risk taking her to the motel. She would want her luggage first of all. She would want to check on the money. It was gone. She would want an explanation. And there was no explanation I could give her.

  I would betray her, but it was the money balanced against Ruth’s life. It seemed fantastic that I could have seriously considered going away with this woman who sat so silently beside me, fists clenched nervously against the dark fabric of her skirt. It seemed fantastic that I could have gotten wound up in the whole thing. Charlotte was several lifetimes in the past. When I had come home I had felt half alive. Now I was entirely alive. I knew what I wanted, and why, and knew that I would go to any lengths to get what I wanted.

  “Are you serious in thinking they would kill you?” I asked.

  She laughed. A single short, flat sound. “I know where the body is buried. Ever hear that expression? It was a party I didn’t want to go on in the first place. I knew it would be a brawl. It was. A man got himself killed. He got too excited. Not a bad guy. Young guy. Rich family. Got a big whomp out of running around with the rougher element. You know. Liked to know people by their first name, the ones who had been in jail. Liked to be able to get his parking tickets fixed. He got suddenly taken dead. Sort of an accident. A very important fellow shot him in the head. I was the only outsider. I know where they put him. The family has spent a fortune in the last five years, looking for their kid. They’re still looking. It could be very bad. It was very bad at the time. I’d never seen anything like that before.”

  “They would kill you?”

  “If they think I’ll talk. If they were sure of it and had a chance. There wouldn’t be much heat over me. Not over this pair of round heels. The kid they killed is real heat. The man with the gun was drunk. I was with the man with the gun. The kid thought he was too drunk to know or care. He had his arms around me when he was shot in the head. When the bullet hit his head, he grabbed onto me so hard I couldn’t breathe for a week without it hurting. Then he let go and fell down and tried to get up and went down for good. It was at a farm. They put him in an old cistern and filled it with big rocks. They had his car repainted and sold through channels. If nothing happens in six months or so, they’ll stop worrying about me, and maybe they’ll stop looking. But I know what I’m going to do. Blond dye job. Maybe glasses. I’ll feel better if I don’t look like myself.”

  I was wondering how I could keep her away from the motel and still stall long enough to get to the Rasi place at one.

  She helped out by saying, suddenly, “What’s been going on down in Hillston, anyhow? Eloise and her boy friend under the cement. That Stamm girl missing. George knocking himself off. Sounds like it has been pretty wild down there.”

  “I want to talk to you about that.”

  I sensed a new wariness about her. “Just what do you mean?”

  “I’m new in town. There’s been a lot going on. I haven’t had anything to do with it. I mean I’ve been in on it as a bystander, but that’s all. But the police like to keep busy. I think it would be better if we didn’t go on back through town to the motel. I think it would be better if we went after the mone
y first.”

  “You could be picked up?”

  “I might be.”

  “But what for? I don’t like this. If they pick you up they pick me up. And word would get back to Redding too damn fast.”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “I can’t help that. I think we ought to go after the money. When we get it, we can circle around town and get to the motel from the south. Then we can pick up our luggage and be on our way.”

  “Then that means spending too much time in the area with the money on us. Why don’t we circle around and get the baggage first? Then when we get the money, we’re on our way.”

  “They know where I’m staying. Suppose they’re waiting there to pick us up.”

  “Damn it, how did you manage to mess this up, Tal Howard?”

  “I didn’t mess it up. It isn’t a big city. I’m a stranger. They’re after a man named Fitzmartin.”

  “I remember that name. You said he knows about the money, too.”

  “He doesn’t know where it is. You’re the only one who knows where it is.”

  “Why are they after him? On account of the girl? They think he took her?”

  “And they think he was blackmailing George because he found out about Eloise and her boy friend being dead. And they think he killed George, and maybe a private detective named Grassman.”

  “Busy little man, isn’t he?”

  “That puts me in the picture because the three of us, Fitz, Timmy, and I, were in the same prison camp.”

  “I knew this was going to be a mess. I knew it.”

  “Don’t be such a pessimist.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you bring all the stuff along right in the car? Why didn’t you check out?”

  “If I checked out, they’d be looking already.”

  “I suppose so. But you could have brought my stuff, anyway.”

  “I didn’t think of that.”

  “You don’t seem to think of much of anything, do you?”

  “Don’t get nasty. It isn’t going to help.”

  “Everything gets messed up. I was all right. Now I’m out on a limb. I should be laughing?”

  “I think we ought to get the money first.”

  “I can’t go like this. I don’t want to ruin these clothes.”

  “Ruin your clothes? Where are we going?”

  “Never mind that.”

  “You haven’t got anything but good clothes in—” I stopped too suddenly.

  “So you had to poke around,” she said, vibrating with anger. “Did you have a good time? Did you like what you saw?”

  “It’s nice stuff.”

  “I know it’s nice. Sometimes it wasn’t so nice earning it, but I know it’s nice. I have good taste. Did you count the money? Attractive color, don’t you think? Green.”

  “I counted it.”

  “It better all be there. And the jewelry better all be there. Every damn stone. The jewelry more than the money. A lot of people thought it was junk jewelry. It isn’t. It’s worth three or four times the money.”

  “It’s all there. It’s safe.”

  “It better be. I can’t go in these clothes. We’ll have to go somewhere where I can pick up some jeans. I thought I could buy them in Hillston. Now you can’t go into Hillston. So where do we go?”

  “You know the area better than I do.”

  “Let me think a minute.”

  She told me where to turn. We made a left, heading east, twenty miles north of Hillston. It was a narrow, busy road. Ten miles from the turn was the town of Westonville, a small, grubby town with a narrow main street. I circled a block until I found an empty meter. I watched her walk away from the car. Men turned to look at her. Men would always turn to look at that walk. I went into a drugstore and came back with cigarettes. She was back in about ten minutes with a brown parcel.

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s go. I’ve got what I need.”

  We headed back toward the Redding road. She said, “Find a place where you can get off the road. I want to change into this stuff. How about ahead there, on the left, that little road.”

  I turned up the little road she pointed out. We passed two dreary farmhouses. The road entered a patch of woods. I turned onto an old lumber road. The clay was greasy under the wheels. After we went around a bend, I stopped.

  She opened the door on her side and got out. She bent over the seat and undid the parcel. She took out a pair of burnt-orange slacks, some cheap sneakers, and a wooly yellow sweat shirt. She took the black suit jacket off and folded it and put it on the back seat. The odd light of the yellow sky came down through the trees. The leaves dripped. She undid her skirt at the side and stepped out of it carefully. There was no coyness about her, not the slightest flavor of modesty. She did not care whether I stared at her or averted my eyes. She folded the skirt and put it with the jacket. She took her blouse off and put it carefully on the back seat. She stood there in the woodland in black hat with veil, black shoes, skimpy oyster-white bra and panties, looking both provocative and ridiculous. The hat was last.

  She gave me a wry look and said, “Strip tease alfresco. Aren’t you supposed to stamp your feet or something?”

  “Aren’t you cold?”

  “I’m a warm-blooded thing.” She put the wooly, baggy sweat shirt on, then stepped into the slacks and pulled them up around her full hips and fastened them with zipper and buttons. She sat on the car seat and took off her black shoes and put them in back and put on the sneakers and laced them up.

  “Good God, I haven’t had clothes like this in years. How do I look, Tal?”

  I couldn’t tell her how she looked. It wasn’t a return to the girl who had gone on the bike trips with Timmy. I would have guessed it would have made her look younger and fresher. But it didn’t. Her body was too ripe, her eyes and mouth too knowing. The years had taken her beyond the point where she could wear such clothes and look young.

  She read the look in my eyes. “Not so good, I guess. Not good at all. You don’t have to say it.”

  “You look fine.”

  “Don’t be a damned fool. Wait a minute while I use the facilities, and then we’ll get out of here.” She went off into the woods out of sight of the car. She was back in a few minutes. I backed out. I looked at my watch. The time problem had been nearly solved. It was a little past twelve-fifteen.

  I pulled into the yard of the Doyle place, the Rasi place where she had been born. I saw that the boy had finished painting the boat.

  “It looks even worse than I remember,” she said. She got out of the car and went toward the porch. The chickens were under the porch. The dog lay on the porch. He thumped his tail. Antoinette leaned over and scratched him behind the ear. He thudded the tail with more energy.

  Her sister came to the doorway, dirty towel in her hand.

  “Hello, Anita,” Antoinette said calmly.

  “What are you doing here? Doyle don’t want you coming around here. You know that.”

  “——Doyle,” Antoinette said.

  “Don’t use that kind of language with kids in the house. I’m warning you.” The girl who had cried came up behind her mother and stared at us.

  “You’re so damn cautious about the kids,” Antoinette said with contempt. “Hi there, Sandy.”

  “Hi,” the girl said in a muted voice.

  “You give the kids such a nice home and all, Anita.”

  “I do what I can do. I do the best I can.”

  “Look at the way she’s dressed. I sent money. Why don’t you spend some of it on clothes. Or does Doyle drink it?”

  “There’s no reason for her to wear her good stuff around the house. What do you want here, anyway? What did you come around here for?” She gestured toward me with her head. “He was here asking about you. I told him where to look. I guess he found you there, all right.”

  “In the big sinful city. Good God, Anita. Come off it. It ea
ts on you that you never figured it out right. You never worked it so you got up there. Now you’ve got Doyle and look at you. You’re fat and you’re ugly and you’re dirty.”

  The child began to cry again. Anita turned and slapped her across the face and sent her back into the house. She turned back to Antoinette, her face pale. “You can’t come in my house.”

  “I wouldn’t put my foot in that shack, Anita. Are the oars in the shed?”

  “What do you want with oars?”

  “I’m taking that boat. There’s something I want to show my friend.”

  “What do you mean? You can’t use any of the boats.”

  “Maybe you want to try and stop me? I’m using a boat. I’m taking a boat.”

  “You go out on the river today you’ll drownd yourself. Look at it. Take a good look at it.”

  We turned and looked at the river. The gray water raced by. It had a soapy look. The boil of the current looked vicious.

  “I’ve been out in worse than that and you know it. Is the shed locked?”

  “No,” Anita said sullenly.

  “Come on, Tal,” Antoinette said. I followed her to the shed. She selected a pair of oars, measured them to make certain she had mates. We went to the overturned boat. We righted it. It was heavy. She tried the oars in the locks to be certain they would fit.

  She got on one side and I got on the other and we slid the boat stern first down the muddy bank to the water. We put it half in the water. The current caught at it, boiling around the stern.

  Antoinette straightened up and looked at the river. Anita was watching us from the porch. The pale face of the little girl watched us from a cracked window.

  “It’s pretty damn rough,” Antoinette said. “We won’t have much trouble getting down to the island.”

  “Island?”

  “Right down there. See it? That’s where we’re going.”

  The island was about three hundred yards downstream. It was perhaps three hundred feet long and half as wide. It was rocky and wooded. It split the river into two narrow areas of roaring turbulence.