Always Leave ’Em Dying

by Richard S. Prather

  Then I started walking, trying to keep in my mind the thought that I had to get out, get away from Greenhaven, forget everything else except getting away. It had seemed cold at first, but my body felt warm now and I was dizzy, lightheaded. It was almost as if I were floating, and I thought with amusement that maybe I could float over the wall. I staggered and stumbled like a drunk, getting a kick out of it; I thought it was funny. It was like walking through a crazy dream.

  I found a table, placed it next to the wall, and put a chair on top of it. A siren wailed somewhere, got louder as I climbed onto the table and then the chair, rolled over the wall. I landed heavily but got to my feet and trotted, stumbling, toward my car. The siren was loud as I reached my Cad, turned the keys still in the ignition, and started the motor. When I was a block away, driving without lights, a police car screeched to a stop back at the Greenhaven gate.

  I awakened suddenly, head pounding, my thoughts swimming and jumbled. Pain seared my spine and my movements were restricted, my body cramped. Slowly memory came back to me. Moments before my eyes had closed and stayed closed, I'd pulled off the road into brush, and turned off the lights and motor before falling across the seat.

  I was on my back, lying on the floorboards of my car. I must have rolled in my sleep, fallen from the seat to the floorboards, and suddenly awakened. I pulled myself behind the steering wheel, looked at my watch. It was only 11 p.m. I'd slept little more than an hour. My muscles were stiff, cramped, and a throbbing ache pulsed inside my skull.

  The bloodstained shirt stuck to me as I peeled it off, traced the cut with my fingers. The cut was deep in only one spot; the rest of it was a shallow gash halfway across my back. It wasn't dangerous, only painful, and the bleeding had stopped. From the Cad's trunk, where I keep everything from electronics equipment to spare .38 cartridges, I got a crumpled cloth jacket and slipped it on.

  Miles away a siren shrilled. Undoubtedly that cop car that had pulled up at Greenhaven as I left had been called out because of me. Since then the police must have been looking for me—looking, I realized, for an escaped nut. That wouldn't make the next hour or so any easier, because I knew I had to go back to Greenhaven.

  A few minutes later I stopped at an all-night diner, bought a quart container of black coffee, and drank it in the Cad as I drove. By the time I reached the rear of Greenhaven I felt halfway alive, the short sleep and hot coffee having cleared some of the fog from my brain. I parked off the road in darkness beneath some trees, left the ignition key in place, and dropped the other keys from the ring into my pocket. From the Cad's trunk I got a twenty-foot length of rope. Trees grew outside Greenhaven's rear wall, and it was easy to tie the rope to a limb and throw the line inside; nobody was worried about people sneaking into Greenhaven. I had to jump from the tree limb to the wall's top, then hang onto the rope as I slid down inside the grounds. I left the line hanging and walked toward the building.

  A cold fog, heavier now, swept against my face and beaded on my skin as I walked over wet grass. There was no illumination on the grounds at this hour, and only a few lights showed through curtained windows a few yards ahead of me. At the building's rear I turned right. Cement steps led up to a closed door, and I skirted them, then went toward the first of two windows behind which light showed dimly. I thought the second window was the chief psychiatrist's office, where I'd been earlier. The shade inside was pulled, but a thin slice of light pressed past its lower edge and fell on grass ahead of me. I'd seen filing cabinets in there; Hunt's name, maybe Dixon's—and by now I was thinking perhaps even Felicity's—might be in them. One thing was sure: I couldn't ask people questions this trip.

  There was a faint noise behind me, a soft, sharp click. I turned, but there was nothing nearby. Then there was a soft noise again; something grunted. Movement stirred a few yards away in the darkness.

  The door at the top of stone steps I'd passed moments before swung outward with unnatural slowness. I heard the grunting sound again as I crouched on the grass, pressing against the wall. My leg muscles tightened and I could feel my heart beating heavily. There was a swirl of movement, soft scraping sounds—and then I could hear, and dimly see, the door swing closed.

  A shadow glided down the stone steps, and muscles tensed at the base of my skull; there was a slight movement of hairs upon my neck. The shadow moved away and I stood erect and followed it, trying to see who it was—or what it was. Because it was a strange shadow that couldn't be a man. It was an upright blob topped by another mass of darkness, like a misshapen letter T. And then the shadow passed before a beam of light slanting from one of the windows and I saw that it was a man.

  It was a man with his left arm stretched up, light sparkling from his hand, and I remembered a sparkling diamond on a hand that earlier had gripped a knife or scalpel. The man walked easily through the light, slightly bent forward, and I could see what had made the shadow seem so unreal. He carried something upon his shoulder, arm stretched up to clasp it tight, and the thing had looked in my one brief glimpse of it like something wrapped in cloth or in a blanket.

  It had looked, I thought, like a body.

  Chapter Seven

  The man disappeared beyond the glow of light. My mind wasn't functioning normally, I knew, because of the drug and my weariness combined, and for seconds I stood undecided what to do. The clang of metal on metal decided me. I ran forward and reached an unlocked gate as a car motor started outside. The car raced forward.

  A minute later I was in my Cad, following where the other car had gone, but I couldn't see a thing in the road ahead. In a few seconds lights suddenly flicked on, blocks beyond me. I drove without my own lights, not trying to lessen the distance between us. After half a mile he turned left.

  A minute later I swung into a narrow dirt road where he had turned shortly before. His car was empty, facing me, when I passed it; yards beyond it I turned in the road and parked. The fog had turned into a soft drizzle of rain and we were near no lights, no houses; this area was barren except for brush and trees.

  Damp earth slanted upward as I walked away from the road, moving rapidly for a few yards, then pausing to listen. But I heard nothing. In my hand I carried a flashlight that I meant to use only when I found the man, and blackness was almost complete. When I heard a sound other than those I made myself, it was higher up the slanting ground ahead of me. I ran toward it, barely avoiding trees that loomed before me. Then I stopped, and heard the sound again. It was the sound of digging, and I knew the man was digging a grave.

  I started walking again and there was the sound of a shovel's blade driven into soft earth, and then the hiss as earth slid from the blade and fell with a soft splattering thud. There was silence again. I stopped, stood motionless with my head turned to one side, listening, and heard a whisper of sound. I walked on slowly. A minute passed; a twig snapped somewhere nearby and I swung around, waited. When I stepped forward again, my right foot sank into softer ground, into earth that had been freshly turned.

  But the only sound was rustling branches over my head, the whispering of rain. When I heard a car motor start and roar, I didn't know what it meant at first. Then I realized he'd been here and gone—and that I hadn't seen his face.

  I ran. His headlights were cutting through the darkness, then reached the highway, turned back toward Greenhaven. I stumbled and fell, got up and ran again, puzzled, not understanding. There had been too little time for him to walk up that hill, dig a grave, and bury whatever he had carried, then fill the grave and leave again.

  There was a dull ache in my chest when I reached the Cad. His lights were out of sight. I drove back to Greenhaven with the accelerator down, but I didn't catch him. His car was already parked where it must have been before, and his figure was going through the same high gate he had used earlier. When I reached it, seconds after him, it was closed. None of the keys on my ring would unlock it, and I drove around the corner, parked where I'd been before, went over the wall again where the rope dangled inside
it. As I turned and started to run across the grounds, light flashed from inside one of Greenhaven's halls. Somebody went through the door and closed it quickly, smothering the light. I ran to the door, jerked it open. The corridor was empty.

  It stretched the length of the building before me, silent and bare, the polished floor gleaming dully from white lights overhead. I walked down half its length; on my right was the big entrance through which I'd first come last night, the doors closed. Just beyond the corner ahead was the wire-enclosed room in which I'd seen bins containing boxes and clothing.

  I walked to the room, peered through the heavy wire. Probably my coat and gun were in one of those compartments now, but I couldn't see them. A frail-looking metal door, crisscrossed with wire, was on my left. It was locked, and when my keys failed to work, I wound my fingers in the wires at its top, put one foot against the screen near it, and yanked with all my strength.

  The sound rattled down the hall. The ripped flesh on my back burned suddenly and blood seeped from the cut again. But the door was sprung. I yanked again and the lock scraped and grated, then the door came open. My coat was in an upper bin, the gun and my wallet inside it. I checked the .38, made sure it was still loaded, then took off my cloth jacket, strapped on the gun and holster, shrugged into my coat.

  No one was in the hall as I walked down it to the door marked, "Dr. Nichols, Chief Psychiatrist." There wasn't any light behind it and one of my skeleton keys worked. Inside I flipped on the lights; the room was empty. I walked to the filing cabinets.

  There were hundreds of cards, alphabetically arranged. None had the name Gifford or Dixon on it, but I found one card bearing the name Hunt, Randolph. Under "Room" was the notation "114EW." I was in the east wing of Greenhaven now.

  Room 114 was nearby, across the hall and halfway to the main entrance. The door wasn't locked and the room was in darkness. I felt along the wall and found the light switch, flipped it on, glanced around. Against the left wall was a bed. A guy lay in it, covers halfway down his chest. He was snoring.

  I shoved the door closed behind me and the guy snorted a couple of times, smacked his chops, and raised up on one elbow. He said, still half asleep, "That you, Dixie? Hey?" He blinked and squinted in the bright light, then his eyes focused on me and he said, "Who in thunderation are you?"

  He was firm-fleshed, husky, sharp-featured, and absolutely bald. I walked to the side of the bed and said, "Are you Randolph Hunt?"

  "That's me." He squinted. "You a doctor, young fellow? Well, don't get no notions. Don't go givin' me no enemas or nothin'. I ain't here for treatment. You look on my card and—"

  "Whoa, Mr. Hunt. I'm not a doctor."

  "Then who the hell are you, son? You took a year off my life wakin' me up so sudden. Cain't afford no more years off my life, that's for—"

  I interrupted. "Hold it, Hunt. Listen to me a minute."

  "Don't you tell me what to do, boy." I tried to get a word in edgewise, but he cut me off. "Maybe you don't mean no harm. Just that I got tired of people tellin' me what to do. That's why I like it here; do any fool thing you feel like so long as you don't hurt nobody else."

  "Where's Felicity Gifford?"

  That stopped him in midsentence with his mouth open. Slowly he closed it, then said, "Felicity? What made you ask me that, son?"

  "I'm Shell Scott."

  He rubbed his bald head, nodded slowly. "You was in the paper. Detective feller."

  "That's right. I talked to your niece, Jo Perrine, earlier. She said you read that article about me and Felicity—and your gal friend Dixon—and took off. So now you can tell me why."

  He frowned. "Don't really have no connection, son. I cain't help you no way."

  For a couple of minutes he was evasive, but I was going to get his story if I had to sit on him. I said, "How about this Dixon gal? She thin, fortyish, black mole on her cheek?"

  "That's Dixie, nurse here. Gladys Dixon. Come out to see her but she wasn't here, don't get on till twelve, so I got me a room. Figured on seein' her later." He squinted at me. "Hey, how'd you know where to find me?"

  "Talked to a . . . girlfriend of yours and she thought you might be here. Gal named Olive Fairweather."

  "Oh, Lordy," he said. "Plumb forgot that little dear."

  "Yeah, she was expecting you. Wants to see you."

  "Oh, Lordy," he said. "Should have gone there instead."

  "OK, Hunt. Why did you come out here?" He hesitated again and I said, "Maybe I'd better wise you up." I told him what had happened since I first hit Greenhaven. "There's a reason somewhere. And I threw Felicity's name—and yours—around a little when I arrived. Maybe it doesn't mean anything, but Dixon works here; Felicity wrote the name Dixon down after a phone call Friday night. Add it up yourself." I paused and added, "I don't know what this means, either, but half an hour or so ago some guy hauled a body away from here and buried it."

  For maybe half a minute he was silent. Then he said, "All right, son. Still don't know it's worth mentionin', but you listen a spell." He told me about meeting Olive Fairweather at a Trammelite meeting; she was a fervent follower. They'd then started going together. "Well," he said, "we got along pretty good, and . . ." He swallowed, then said suddenly, "Hell, I brought Olive here to Greenhaven because she was about to have herself a baby."

  "You mean she had—"

  "I mean we come here for an abortion. Here's where I met Dixie. She's the one fixed it up." He frowned again. "Olive's name's Miss Fairweather, not Mrs., and not Mrs. Hunt, neither. Not that it mightn't of been, under the circumstances, but the circumstances was what made it impossible, Olive declared. Right fine woman, Olive is—but hell, that's neither here nor there, son."

  I'd been quiet while he talked, letting his words sink in. Now I said, "Damn it to hell. Anybody in on the deal with Dixon? Working with her?"

  "Don't know. Olive would."

  I got a little more from him. Hunt had met Felicity at Trammelite meetings, talked to her several times, and liked her a lot. When he'd read the story in today's Ledger, added to his natural concern was his knowledge of Gladys Dixon's racket, and he'd come here mainly to ask her if there was any connection, if the name in the paper referred to her.

  "Don't really suppose it did," he said, "but just in case, I wanted to know. Maybe I could help with money or somethin'. Got more money than I know what to do with. Jillion oil wells."

  "How'd you find out about Dixon in the first place?"

  He rubbed his head. "Well, you know, it ain't nothin' out of the ordinary happened to Olive and me. Happens hundreds of times every day. But we're still livin' in the dark ages, I guess. Cain't just go to a doctor and say you want an abortion. Be ten thousand people that's got nothin' better to do than trying to run everybody else's lives, and they'd put you in jail, or shoot you or somethin'." He sighed. "Well, I asked around kind of sneaky, feelin' like I'd stole the crown jewels, spent a bit of money and, finally, heard about Dixie and this place. Come out and talked to her and fixed it up. Then brought Olive here. Since then I come out a few times just to jolly Dixie."

  He didn't know anybody else here who might have been involved, and couldn't tell me who Dixon worked for or where I could find her. He said, "It ain't much, son, but that's the whole story. Oh, there was that name in the papers, but I come here tonight mainly just to see Dixie, I guess. We get along pretty good. Well, it do you any good to know?"

  "Maybe, Mr. Hunt. I'd like to hear what Olive could tell us, and I wish I had more time to talk to you, but I've got some things to do. Anyway, thanks, Mr. Hunt."

  "Shucks, don't go formal on me, boy. Call me Randy. That's what the gals call me." He grinned again. "That's because I'm a randy character."

  He looked pretty randy at that, bald head and all. Dressed up, he must have been a sight to see. I'd thought my clothes were colorful, but scattered about the room were a gruesome yellow sports shirt covered with brilliant fighting roosters leaping about, green suspenders attached to blue slacks, an
d a pure white sports jacket with huge saddle-stitched pockets. On the floor were tan and white oxfords and on a table by the bed was a black Homburg.

  I went to the door. "OK, Randy."

  He cleared his throat. "Say, Olive was . . . expectin' me, you said?" I nodded and he squinted at me. "Remember what she was wearin', son?"

  I grinned at him. "Yeah. A serape."

  He rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling and clapped a hand to his head. "Oh, Lordy," he said.

  I looked out into the empty corridor, then started walking toward the main entrance. I was almost there when at the west end of the building a door leading into that wing opened and a guy came out. I didn't have a chance to duck around the corner out of sight because he was in a hurry, actually trotting down the hall. There wasn't anything to do but keep walking casually ahead and hope whoever it was didn't know me.

  When he got close I saw his face, the big bulbous nose and rimless eyeglasses—just as he looked squarely at me and his mouth dropped open. It was Dr. Wolfe—who thought I was an escaped maniac.

  Chapter Eight

  Wolfe went from a trot to a run when he passed me, and veered toward a door standing slightly ajar as I sprinted after him. He leaped into the room and the door started to close. A moment before it clicked shut I slammed my shoulder against the door and threw it open. I stumbled inside, and yelled, "Hold it, Wolfe."

  He was jumping toward a phone on his desk, but he froze, looked over his shoulder, and spotted the gun in my hand. He stood motionless, staring at the revolver, his mouth still open and his eyes wide and frightened.