“Collier City?” He managed somehow to force a laugh. “Well, I had to tell him something, didn't I? I didn't want him to know she had gone to her brother's place.”
Her grey eyes stared at him uncomfortably “Why not?”
“What's the matter, Joan? What's this—a third degree?”
“Why didn't you want him to know she had gone to Mexico City?” she repeated, moving further away from him.
His mind was working now. He had got over his scare. His inventiveness didn't desert him. He sat on the bed and took out his pack of cigarettes.
“It's not my secret, but I know you'll keep it to yourself,” he said. “Sit down, and, for the love of mike, don't look as if I've done something terrible. I assure you I haven't. Relax, kid, and I'll tell you.”
She moved past him to the armchair and sat down. Her face was still tense and her eyes worried and alarmed.
“You remember I told you Glorie was in trouble?” he said. “I told you she was about to kill herself when I ran into her. What I didn't tell you was why she was in trouble. The police were after her. She never told me why they were after her, but only they were after her. I didn't trust that cop. Maybe the fifty-buck story was true. It probably was, but I wasn't going to risk telling him where Glorie had gone. For all I knew he had spotted her description from his sister. By telling him she had gone to Collier City—it was the first town that jumped into my mind— I've put him on the wrong track. For all I know he'll get the Tampa police to look for her. If they do that, they won't be looking for her in Mexico City, will they?”
Joan looked away from him. She fiddled nervously with the clasp of her handbag.
“I see,” she said quietly. “Yes, of course. I understand now. When I heard you tell him she had gone to Collier City it frightened me.”
“But why?” Harry asked, trying to sound casual. He could see he hadn't convinced her and it made him anxious and uneasy.
“Because I still can't believe she would leave you like this,” Joan said. “She loved you. I could see that in her eyes, by the way she looked at you and by the way she talked to me about you. A woman with her character doesn't give up a man she loves so easily. It still worries me.”
“But don't you see,” Harry said, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice, “it was because she loved me, she didn't want to stand in my way? I made it clear to her that you and I wanted to get married. As soon as she knew how it was she ducked out gracefully. Okay, it was good of her, but there's no need to make a fuss about it. After all, she knew I was through with her.”
“But you said she was being difficult. You said she wanted more money and you would probably have to give her all your capital to get rid of her.”
“I know. I said that,” Harry said, having difficulty in controlling his rising impatience. “She did feel that way about it at first, but she changed her mind. She realized she was in the way. She thought it over and when I said I'd give her what she wanted, she would only take the two thousand.”
Joan huddled down into her chair.
“Aren't you sorry for her, Harry?”
The question took him by surprise.
“Why sure, of course I am, but there's no point in two people spoiling their lives, is there? She'll get over it. I've given her some dough, and she's got her brother to look after her. Let's forget her, Joan.”
“Who is her brother?”
Harry's hands turned into fists. He managed to say quietly, “I have no idea. I didn't ask her. Does it matter?”
“No, I suppose not. Well . . .” She stood up. “I must go now.”
He got up and moved towards her, but she moved more quickly and reached the door. Her obvious reluctance to let him touch her made him anxious and nervy.
“For heaven's sake, Joan . . . haven't we got this thing straightened out?” he said, exasperated.
“Yes, of course. Let's meet tomorrow. There isn't time to talk now. I must get back.”
“All right. I’ll call you around ten o'clock. We've got that agent to see. And how about your father? Do you think I could meet him? I want to get ahead with this business now. There's no point in wasting time.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
He moved towards her, but she opened the cabin door and went quickly across to the Cadillac. By the time he reached the door, she was in the car. He paused in the doorway, watching her. She started the engine, lifted her hand in his direction, without looking at him, and drove away.
He remained in the doorway, his face set, his mind busy, then he went back into the cabin again and closed the door. He sat down in the armchair, poured another whisky into his glass and gulped it down.
What was the matter with her? he wondered. His story was convincing. It must have convinced her, and yet to have left like that . . . what was the matter with her?
Abruptly he got to his feet and crossed the room to the mirror on the wall. He stood before it and stared at himself. What he saw in the reflection shocked him and gave him his answer. The gaunt, white, glistening face with its eyes sunk into their sockets, the hard, thin mouth, the skin that seemed to be too tightly stretched over the facial bones wasn't the face he was used to seeing. It was the face of a frightened man with something bad on his conscience.
He cursed softly.
No wonder she had been scared, he thought. He'd have to pull himself together. He couldn't go on looking like this. He ran his tongue over his dry lips. Had he frightened her away for good?
He took out his handkerchief and wiped his face, suddenly aware that he was in a cold sweat. He went into the bathroom, stripped off his clothes and got under the cold shower. He remained under it until he was gasping, then he rubbed himself furiously with a hard towel and examined his face again in the bathroom mirror. He looked a little better, but there was still that tight, skull-like look of fear in his face.
What are you frightened of, you fool? he asked himself as he glared into the mirror. They won't find her. They can't do anything to you if they don't find her and how can they possibly find her? No one has been out to that place in months. If they had you would have seen their footprints. No one ever goes there!
Then suddenly his legs went weak and he had to sit abruptly on the edge of the bath. There had been someone there . . . someone who had watched them quarrel, who had sneaked out of the wood and killed her and had sneaked back again, covering his prints as he had gone. He had remained in the wood, watching while he had buried Glorie. This killer knew where Glorie was buried. What was there to stop him telephoning the police from a paybooth and telling them he had seen him burying Glorie?
For a long moment Harry sat rigid. He hadn't thought of this before. He remained motionless, listening to the thud of his heartbeats while he tried to think what he had best do. Then he realized there was only one thing he could do. He would have to go out there, dig up Glorie's body and hide it somewhere else.
Then if the killer did phone the police and they went out to check and didn't find her, they would think it was a hoax.
The thought of going out there and handling Glorie's body sent a cold chill through him, but he knew he would have to do it. There was no other way. His future depended on the police not finding her.
He pulled on his clothes. His hands were shaking so badly that he had trouble in doing up his shirt buttons. He would go out there as soon as it was dusk: in another hour. By the time he got there it would be dark. He would have the place to himself. He would put her body in the car and drive along the coast road until he found a safe place to bury her.
He opened the bathroom door and stepped into the bedroom. Then he came to an abrupt stop. His blood seemed to freeze in his veins, his heart stopped, then raced.
Sitting in the armchair facing him, his black dusty hat at the back of his head, a cigarette smouldering between his thick lips, his fat, dirty hands folded on his gross thighs, was Borg.
IV
For the past twenty-four hours, Bor
g had ceased to exist in Harry's mind. The sight of him sitting in the armchair came like a devastating punch to Harry's solar plexus. He stood rigid, his mouth a little open, his eyes fixed, his heart fluttering.
Borg watched him. It pleased him to see the naked fear on Harry's face.
For several seconds the two men stared at each other, then Harry began to recover from the initial shock. He had no illusions about Borg. This gross brute was as dangerous as a rattlesnake and much more ruthless. He realized his fear and his reaction at the sight of Borg was a complete giveaway. It would be useless to try to bluff, to try to pretend he wasn't Harry Green. Borg must know, even if he hadn't known when he had come into the cabin.
Harry thought of his gun in the glove compartment of the car parked outside and cursed himself for being so careless as to leave the gun out of reach. Not that the gun would help him now.
He was sure Borg could handle a gun far quicker than he could.
“Hello, Green,” Borg said in his hoarse, wheezy voice. “I bet you didn't think you'd see me again, did you? Sit on the bed. You and me've got things to talk about.”
Moving like a sick man, Harry crossed to the bed and sat down. He put his hands on his knees while he stared at Borg.
“Did you really kid yourself you'd lost me?” Borg went on, screwing up his eyes as the cigarette smoke drifted before his fat face.
Harry didn't say anything. Even if he had wanted to speak, his mouth was too dry for him to make a sound.
“I've been with you since you took off from Oklahoma City airport,” Borg went on. He crushed out his cigarette on the arm of the chair, burning a hole in the cover. “You've been having fun, haven't you? I like your girlfriend.”
“What do you want?” Harry managed to say.
Borg showed his discoloured teeth in a wolfish smile.
“I've got something to sell you, palsy. Something you want pretty badly.”
Harry stared at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I've got a car wrench with blood and hair on it as well as a nice set of your fingerprints. I thought maybe you'd like to buy it off me.”
Harry had thought he had got beyond shock by now, but this statement brought him upright, sweat running down his face.
So Borg had killed Glorie!
What a fool he had been not to have thought of Borg before!
But why hadn't Borg wiped him out at the same time? He could have shot him as he was burying Glorie. No one would have heard the shot; no one would have known.
“So it was you who killed her,” he said hoarsely.
Borg smiled.
“That's right,” he said. “She had it coming. Only you and me know I killed her. The cops will think you did it if they dig her up. They'll know you did it if I give them the wrench. Want to buy it, palsy?”
Harry's mind was beginning to work again. He must gain time, he told himself. If he could outwit this fat killer in some way . . . it was his only hope of survival.
“Yes,” he said. “I'll buy it.”
“I thought you might,” Borg said, and his thick lips curled into a sneering smile. “It'll cost you fifty thousand bucks, but it's cheap at the price.”
Harry realized then why Borg hadn't wiped him out on the beach. Borg wanted to give Delaney his money back first.
“I haven't got it,” he said. “I’ll pay forty thousand: that's all there's left.”
Borg shook his head.
“Delaney will want every nickel back. If you haven't got it you'll have to get it from your girlfriend. It should be a cinch. She's gone on you, palsy. I've been watching you. Besides, she's floating in dough.”
“She won't give it to me,” Harry said. “I can't ask her for it.”
Borg shrugged.
“Please yourself,” he said. “It's fifty grand or the wrench goes to the cops. I want the dough by tomorrow night.”
Tomorrow night! Harry thought. That would give him twenty-four hours to think of a plan to get out of this jam.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “Then what happens?”
Borg's eyes went sleepy.
“You get the wrench back. That's what happens.”
“How do I know you won't double cross me?” Harry said, watching Borg closely.
Borg smiled.
“You don't. You've got to trust me the way Delaney had to trust you.”
That was another way of saying that when he had got the money, Borg would kill him, Harry thought. Well, maybe two could play that game.
“I don't part with the money until I get the wrench,” he said.
“That's okay—I don't part with the wrench until you hand over the dough—so that makes two of us,” Borg returned. “We'll meet tomorrow night at ten o'clock. You bring the dough and I'll bring the wrench.”
“We meet here?”
Borg shook his head.
“No, we don't meet here. We'll meet on the beach where you planted the girl.” His little pig's eyes searched Harry's white face. “Then if you want to double cross me or I want to double cross you, there'll be no one to see what happens.”
Harry stiffened. Out on that lonely beach, miles from anywhere, he would have only his wits to save him. He was now certain Borg intended to murder him.
“And if I were you,” Borg went on, “I wouldn't try a double cross. Let me show you something, palsy.” He lifted his right hand. “Watch.”
Harry was aware of a movement, but it was too quick to follow.
A .38 automatic appeared in Borg's hand as if he had plucked it out of the air.
“See what I mean?” Borg said and grinned. “I'm full of tricks like that. There've been guys who have thought they would be smart. They got up to all kinds of ideas, but something always went wrong at the last moment. So watch your step, palsy. Don't try to be smart with me.” He slid the gun into its holster and stood up. “Tomorrow night at ten. If you don't show up, I'll send the wrench to the cops. And it's got to be fifty grand or nothing. Get all that?”
Harry nodded.
“Yes.”
“Don't try to fade away,” Borg said as he opened the cabin door. “The cops will find you even if I don't. Remember what she said, palsy? You're on a hook, and you can't wriggle off it. This time it isn't her hook; it's mine.” He stepped out into the gathering dusk and walked across the grass to his cabin.
Harry went to the window. He watched Borg disappear into his cabin, then he pulled down the blind, turned on the light and went over to the table on which stood the bottle of whisky. He poured himself out a stiff shot, drank it, recharged his glass and then sat down in the armchair.
This was the showdown, he told himself. If he could beat Borg, he was in the clear. He had no doubts of Borg's intentions. As soon as he handed over the fifty thousand dollars, Borg would kill him. Harry was sure now that Borg wanted to return to Delaney with the fifty thousand and the news that he had got rid of Glorie and himself. That meant Harry should be safe until after he had parted with the money. Borg wasn't likely to ambush him, to shoot him on sight, unless he was sure he had the money with him. As soon as the money had exchanged hands and Borg had checked it, then Harry was as good as dead.
If he was to defeat Borg, he would have to do it either before the money was handed over or while it was in the act of being handed over. After it had been handed over, he was sure he wouldn't be able to cope with Borg's efficiency as a killer. It was only while Borg was uncertain that he was going to get the money that he would be off his guard, and that was the only possible moment to beat him.
For a long time, Harry sat staring at the opposite wall while he thought of a way to outfox Borg. Finally he came to a decision. It would be a gamble that might or might not come off, but it was a reasonable risk, and Harry could think of no other alternative plan. He knew he couldn't hope to match Borg's speed with a gun. His one chance was to take Borg by surprise. It was only by surprise that he could hope to save his life.
By
the time he had reached his decision, it was just after nine o'clock. Darkness had fallen. He turned off the light and crossed the room to look out of the window. There was no light showing in Borg's cabin, but Harry was sure the fat killer, although out of sight, was at the window, alert and waiting.
At least, he thought, he didn't have to go out to the beach and dig up Glorie's body. He was sure that Borg would follow him now wherever he went and there was no point in attempting to change her burial place.
He went outside, got into his car and drove it into the garage a few yards from his cabin. He turned off the car lights, then opened the glove compartment and took out the .45. The cool feel of the gun butt gave him a little confidence. He slid the gun into his hip pocket, knowing that Borg couldn't possibly see what he was doing. He got out of the car, closed the garage doors and walked across to the brightly lighted restaurant.
As he pushed open the swing doors, he knew Borg could see him outlined against the bright light from the overhead sign.
He didn't mind that. Up to a point he wanted Borg to know what he was doing.
The restaurant was nearly empty. Only four couples still lingered over their meal. No one paid any attention to him as he walked to the far end of the room, out of sight of the uncurtained windows, and sat down at a corner table.
A waiter, a sullen, bored expression on his face, came over and gave Harry the menu card. Harry ordered a fillet of steak, french fried potatoes and a salad. As the waiter moved away, Harry stopped him.
“While the steak's being fixed, I'd like you to do me a favour,” he said, taking out two five-dollar bills. He slid them across the table towards the waiter. “That's for the trouble I may cause you.”
“Yes, sir.” The waiter snapped up the bills and stowed them away. He was suddenly anxious to please. He bent over Harry with a deferential air. “What can I do for you?”
“I want five pieces of wood: three measuring twelve by six and two measuring three by six. Think you can get them for me?”
The waiter looked startled,
“Well, I don't know. Maybe our carpenter can fix it if he hasn't gone home. I'll ask him.”
You've Got It Coming Page 21
