Run, Killer, Run

by William Campbell Gault

  RUN, KILLER, RUN

  WILLIAM CAMPBELL GAULT

  a division of F+W Media, Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Million Dollar tramp

  Also Available

  Copyright

  For ELLA HOVDE GAULT

  My ma

  Chapter 1

  AT THE door of the cheap motel room, he paused for a moment, his hand on the knob. Then he pushed out into the biting sunlight of the uncovered porch. He walked along that to the office and went through the sagging screen door.

  Post cards and curios and the smell of coffee. A fat man sat in a big rattan rocker near the stove, reading a Phoenix paper. He looked up blandly.

  “Sleep all right?”

  “Fine,” he lied. “When is check-out time?”

  “Well — we ain’t too fussy. We usually figure around four o’clock. That good enough?”

  He nodded and turned toward the door.

  The fat man asked, “Heading west?”

  There was probably nothing in the voice but his imagination. But he felt the moment’s tension and turned slowly. He kept his voice casual. “Yes. Why?”

  The man yawned. “Just wondered. Everybody’s going west, it seems. No work out there, though. Everybody and his brother in California, now. Don’t ask me why.”

  “My mother lives there,” he lied. “Where’s the best place to eat in town?”

  “There isn’t any you’d call ‘best.’ I guess Sam’s Barbecue is the least worst. Don’t order no fried potatoes, though; they’ll kill you. Do me, at least.”

  “That’s right on the main street?”

  “Yup.”

  “Thanks,” he said and went out into the glare, again. This was the first time he’d risked an appearance in the bright light of day; he walked with a feigned limp, keeping his face turned toward the store fronts, as though looking for someone he knew.

  Why the limp? he suddenly asked himself. It was something that had occurred to him without reason, and he tried to analyze it. Was it a kind of self-pity, a physical request for pity from the society from which he was outlawed? He’d seen too much of that self-pity behind the walls; he stopped limping.

  Sam’s Barbecue boasted a huge neon sign, high on the flat-roofed building. And a sign in the window proclaimed “Air Conditioned.” Strangely enough, it was true.

  He sat at the counter, avoiding the direct gaze of any of the other patrons. The waitress was a short and shapely straw blonde. She set a glass of water within reach and waited, looking past him.

  “Ribs,” he said, “with a baked potato. Green salad.”

  “Want a cup of coffee while you’re waiting?”

  “If you please.”

  She glanced at him briefly and turned to get him the coffee. She set it in front of him and walked toward the kitchen.

  The sugar bowl was two stools farther up the counter. He stretched, reaching for it. In this position, his face came opposite the mirrored section of the back bar and he saw the girl in the booth.

  His hand paused, trembled. He knew he had seen her some place before. He was sure they’d been introduced. Her eyes met his briefly in the mirror and quickly looked away. His hand was still trembling as he brought the sugar dispenser toward him.

  Dark, short hair and intelligent, level blue eyes. A slim, tanned girl. Where, where, where …?

  His mouth was dry. He finished the water and put the ice from the tumbler into his steaming coffee. The juke box started up in a wailing hillbilly lament, drowning out the voice of the girl behind him. She was now ordering.

  The place was too cool, but sweat ran down the back of his hands and dribbled onto the Formica counter top. He closed his eyes for a second and saw the walls and the bars. It served him right, walking into a place as public as this, right on the main highway through town. And at noon. How damnably, damnably stupid. If she knew him, she knew his history. If she remembered him, she might have told the waitress something when he thought she was ordering….

  He watched the waitress as she came around the bend in the counter. The phone was there, next to the cash register.

  But she walked past it. Nor did she look his way.

  He stared at his coffee cup until she brought his order.

  “Something wrong, mister?”

  He looked up quickly and shook his head. “Why?”

  “You look sick.”

  He took a deep breath. “Too much sun, I guess. And I’m hungrier than I should be. Would you bring more coffee, please?”

  He forced himself to eat leisurely, never showing the girl in the booth his profile, keeping an eye on the waitress to see if she might be transferring a message.

  Where had he seen that girl? Who was she? There’d been no recognition in her brief glance, but he was sure he’d met her.

  A casual acquaintance who hadn’t read about him in the papers? Somebody’s wife? A secretary? Theatrical? No, no, no….

  Behind him, the door opened, closed with a hiss of the pneumatic silencer. Warm air washed past him and was absorbed by the cooling system.

  A pair of uniformed men took the two stools to his right. The waitress was moving toward them and there seemed to be some anticipation in her gaze.

  They were state troopers.

  He stilled the impulse to flee, staring at his coffee cup. And then his eyes lifted to the waitress searching her face as she approached the pair of officers. She was smiling.

  One of them said, “My girl, my little Velma. What’s good today, honey?”

  “Everything’s good at Sam’s,” she told him. “You mean ‘what’s cheap,’ don’t you, Ernie?”

  The officer’s partner laughed. “You got Ernie pegged, kid.” He looked down the counter. “How about those ribs?”

  “A dollar, ten. What else do you want to know?”

  They laughed.

  He slid a quarter under his plate and asked, “Could I have a check, please?”

  “Sure, mister. You all right, now?” She was leafing through her book.

  Both of the troopers looked at him; he could almost feel their scrutiny. He said quietly, “I’m all right.” He took the slip she extended to him.

  For a moment, it seemed, his legs weren’t going to work. He put a hand on the counter to steady himself. Now, all three of them were staring at him and nausea swirled in him.

  “Just a second, Mac,” one of the troopers said. “You look sick.”

  “No,” he said hoarsely. “I’m all right. I’m fine. The air is all I — ” Desperately, he moved away from the counter.

  And bumped into the girl who’d risen from the booth. Her meal was almost untouched.

  She looked up at him and he caught the quick warning in her eyes. She said humbly, “I’m sorry. It was all my fault. You were right. I’ll come home. We’ll go home together.”

  One of the troopers was grinning, now. The girl looked directly at him and smiled. “He’s been worrying about me. He isn’t going to have to worry any more.” She put a bill on the counter and then came back to his side.

  As they went out, he heard the waitress say, “Love, see Ernie? That’s love.”

  Laughter.

  Outside, he looked at the check, still in his hand. The girl took it from him and went back inside.

 
Now, he thought. Now would be the time to run. Whatever her pitch is, this would be the best time to get out of here. But if he ran, those troopers would see him. And where could a man run to, in this town? This was no huge city with a million doorways. There was simply no place to hide. He waited.

  She came out again, and said softly, “My car’s right up here near the corner.”

  He fell in step beside her. “You know me?”

  “Tom Spears,” she said. “Am I right?” He didn’t answer.

  “I’m a friend,” she went on. “You don’t remember me?” He didn’t look at her. “No.”

  She stopped to open the door of a black Plymouth convertible at the curb. It was the car that had left the motel court, just before noon. It was carrying California plates.

  He said, “You were trying to find me? Didn’t you inquire at that motel this morning?”

  “Yes. Though not under your true name. I was Joe Hubbard’s fiancée. Now, do you remember?”

  Joe Hubbard had been his attorney. Joe had fought a desperate, bitter, loosing fight to save his friend’s neck.

  He looked at the girl, and now he remembered. Joe’s office, a long time ago. He looked at the open car door and said, “Don’t tell me Joe sent you? Is he crazy?”

  “He’s dead,” she said. “He was murdered.” Her voice was rough. “Don’t you read the papers?” Her dark eyes were suddenly wet.

  He felt the nausea whirl in him again, and the sun seemed unbearable. “Murdered — ? Joe Hubbard murd — ?”

  She pushed him roughly. “Get in the car. Don’t stand there, yammering like an idiot for heaven’s sake.”

  He got in and sat stiffly in the seat. Joe Hubbard, the oversized Galahad. Genial Joe Hubbard, the man who’d come so gallantly to the defense of Tom Spears, the bookie with the millionaire wife.

  It didn’t add. It didn’t figure. He’d known Joe in L.A., played golf with him, gone sailing with him. But he’d never dared hope that Joe, with his ethics, would come all the way to St. Louis to handle the murder trial defense of Tom Spears.

  The girl was behind the wheel now and her perfume was faint on the hot, dry air. “We’ll go back and get what you have at that motel. We’ll drive straight through.”

  “Why were you looking for me? If you were? Did you come here, to this town, looking for me?”

  “That’s right. I went as far east as Prescott. I knew the desert would be your big obstacle. I’d better not drive into that court; the proprietor will remember I was asking for a Ned Allis, and if he sees us, together — ” She took a breath.

  “How did you know I was using the name Ned Allis?”

  “I learned it from a man in St. Louis, a man named Chuck. I phoned him.”

  He shook his head wearily, and leaned back a bit. “Do you realize what you’re doing? I’m a fugitive from justice.”

  “I don’t think you are. I think you’re a fugitive from the law, but not from justice.”

  “That’s quibbling. Does that matter?”

  “It does to me,” she said quietly. “Would you rather go it alone?”

  He closed his eyes, thinking back on the lonely, frightened trail up to this moment. He said, “I insist on it.”

  “Why?”

  “I won’t have anyone innocent involved.”

  “You’re innocent, aren’t you?”

  “Of murder, yes. But not of running away. That’s a crime, too, you know.”

  “And I’m already implicated in that,” she pointed out. “Those officers back at the restaurant will remember me. And, being implicated, I’ve a stake now in seeing that you don’t get caught here in Arizona.” She had stopped the car and pulled to the side of the road. “Go get your extra shirt or whatever you were carrying. I’ll wait here.”

  He looked at her and then over at the motel to his left. He got out of the car and walked along in the shade of the long building to his room.

  There was only his jacket and his razor and an extra shirt. He stood quietly a moment in the bleak, hot room. It was a bad decision to make. She seemed like a nice girl and if she was caught with him she would be implicated. But, as she had said, she was already implicated in Arizona.

  He turned and went out.

  As he got into the car, she said, “I wasn’t sure you’d be back. I thought you might have conditioned yourself to running away.”

  He said nothing.

  She put the car into gear, her eyes on the road ahead. She went through the gears to high and settled for an even fifty miles an hour. This was foothill country; they’d climb into the mountains and through them before the real desert started.

  She said, “I think Route 89 to Wickenburg would be best and then 60 to Blythe. That’s the shorter way, I believe.”

  He watched the road unwind. “I guess.” Then: “Why are you helping me?”

  A pause before she answered. “I don’t honestly know. Except that nobody else seemed to be volunteering. And I thought that maybe — well, what happened to you might be tied up with Joe.”

  The car was climbing and he felt the pressure building up inside his ears. He closed his eyes and leaned back deeper into the cushions. For the first time in four days, lassitude came to his taut body. The hum of the motor was remote in his consciousness, growing dimmer, fading into nothing. He slept.

  He wakened to a world of sand and sage. Directly ahead, the rim of the sun was visible above the horizon. She had pulled the visor down and was squinting at the shimmering black road, her lovely face slack in fatigue.

  He said, “I’d better drive for a while. You look tired. How long did I sleep?”

  “I don’t know.” She was slowing the car. “We stopped for gas and you slept right through it. Are you hungry?”

  “Starved. God knows what kind of eating places we’ll find out here, though.”

  The car had stopped now, at the side of the road. “There’s a place that’s been advertised a lot — The Last Resort. It would have to be better than it sounds.” She got out and stood at the side of the car, stretching, arching her back, moving her head from side to side.

  Tom slid over. When she got in, again, he said, “I shouldn’t have slept. It must have been a grind.”

  “That’s all right, though I could have used some talk. It’s not good to be quiet too long, is it?”

  He went through the gears before answering. “Quiet too long — ? I don’t understand.”

  “A person broods. You must have, in that place. Would it do any good to talk — to talk about St. Louis?”

  He kept his eyes on the road. “There’s nothing to talk about. That was her home, originally; she maintained a house there. She went for a quick trip, one of her whims, after a quarrel we’d had.” He paused, to adjust the visor to the lower sun.

  “And you followed her?”

  Tom nodded. “On the next plane. When I walked into the house, she was dead.” He paused again. “But nobody ever believed that, including the jury.”

  The girl was silent a moment. Then, “You said she maintained a house in St. Louis. That would mean servants if she kept it ready for occupancy.”

  “There was only a housekeeper at this place while she was away. The housekeeper wasn’t there when I walked in. She later claimed she’d been given the day off.”

  “Why?”

  Tom glanced at the girl and back at the road. “Why — ? How would I know why?”

  Her voice was almost a whisper. “You poor damned fool, can’t you guess? You know your wife was a tramp, don’t you. Everybody else knew, but I suppose — ”

  His brain seemed to erupt and the road ahead wavered. He said harshly, “You’re insane. What kind of — ” The car slowed as he stared at her.

  “Look out!” she said, and he turned to pull the car back onto the road in time.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” she said quietly. “I was rude and stupid. We’ll talk about it later.”

  Ahead, and all around them the limitless desert stretc
hed, dotted with sage and cacti. He wanted to stop, to leave the car, to send her on her way. Why didn’t he? Did he half believe her? He drove on steadily.

  It was dusk, now. To his right, a sign read: The Last Resort — One Mile. Best Steaks West of Chicago. If You Can’t Stop, Wave When You Go By.

  It was almost dark and the next minute it was. He fumbled for the light switch, found it, switched on the high beam with his foot.

  “I’m truly sorry,” she said. “It was rotten, throwing those remarks at you.”

  He kept his voice even. “It’s something I had to take. I’m a long way from home. And without friends.”

  The Last Resort was a typical tourist trap of logs, with wagon wheels flanking the entrance.

  The girl said, “If you want, I can get some sandwiches and coffee. If you’d rather stay out here.”

  He glanced at the parking lot. “There aren’t any cars around. It will probably be all right to go in.” He studied her in the glow from the instrument panel. “I don’t even know your name.”

  “It’s Jean. Jean Revolt. I thought you might have remembered.”

  He nodded. “I remember now.” He took a deep breath. “You might think me ungrateful. Lord knows you had enough trouble of your own, and then coming to find me — ” He shook his head. “I’ve been running so long, I’m not exactly human, any more.”

  She asked, “Is that all you’re going to do — run?”

  He smiled bitterly. “That’s what I should have done, right from the start, right from the second I found her dead in St. Louis. Yes, that’s all I’m going to do — run.”

  Her voice was anxious. “Then why to Los Angeles? I thought you were coming back to fight.”

  “What’s there to fight? The law? I’m going to get some money in Los Angeles and then head for Mexico. Who would I fight?”

  “Whoever framed you. Whoever sent Joe to St. Louis to put on the weakest, most professionally shameful defense of his career.”

  He stared at her. “Joe? Joe fought like a badger. He wore himself out.”

  She shook her head slowly. “Don’t tell me that. I studied law. He picked the worst jury he could collect and hammered away at the weakest arguments to offer them. Any criminal lawyer will tell you what a butchery he made of the case.”