Slay Ride for a Lady

by Harry Whittington

  Spoor pounced on this.

  “Exactly,” he said. “And as Kapiolani, you got yourself mixed up in a very ugly and very sensational murder case.”

  “I was freed, on the testimony of two witnesses.”

  “Still, you are a witness, and according to this wire, suspected of murder. You have taken refuge on this ship in an effort to escape the processes of the law.”

  “I bought tickets for this ship before I left San Francisco. I am not running away from anything. I was hired to return this baby to Tampa. I am only doing what I was paid to do.” This was the rawest lie of all, but there was almost no place on that ship for such a simple thing as the truth.

  The Captain’s tight mouth was tighter.

  “I thought you said the baby was yours.”

  I shook my head.

  “She belongs to a man named Henry Nelson. I was hired to find Nelson’s wife Connice, who as you already know was killed in Honolulu, and her baby — this child — and return both of them to Nelson in Tampa. That’s the truth, and the whole truth.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but it is my duty to detain you when this ship docks in San Francisco for authorities of the Honolulu Police who will return you to Hawaii until the due processes of the law have been served.”

  In that moment, I knew a little of how Connice Nelson must have felt when I told her I was going to return her to Tampa after she’d run four thousand eternal miles. But there was a little spot of cold in the center of my back that kept me reminded that I wasn’t going back to Honolulu as long as there was a fighting chance to get to Henry Nelson.

  I looked at Spoor. “And in the meantime?” I said.

  His pale blue eyes were hard.

  “That’s why I asked you up here,” he said. “It would be awkward to imprison you, for we are not adequately staffed to care for a baby. Until there is any suggestion of trouble, or until we are three hours out of San Francisco, you are to be allowed the freedom of the ship to which your passage entitled you.”

  “May I send wireless messages?” I was thinking that unless I could get word to Big Mike Rafferty, I was going to be stopped at San Francisco.

  “Of course,” he said. “This message from Lieutenant Guerrero only requests that I hold you for the men he is sending by plane to San Francisco. If you are guiltless of crime and would like to arrange legal counsel, or attend to any matters, I certainly shall make no effort to impede you. In fact, I strongly suggest that you wire to the father of this child, asking that he meet you with trained nurses to take her off your hands at San Francisco.”

  As I hurried back along the open deck toward stateroom 18-B, I was at last certain of facts I’d never been able to prove. Fact one, Henry Nelson had been behind the hit-and-run frame up that put me in Raiford for two years. Fact two, I had been even nearer to the identity of the murderer I’d been seeking than I realized. Fact three, when Nelson sent me chasing Connice to Hawaii, he had meant to sew me up in the same murder that took Connice’s life. Nelson had meant for both of us to die. A wife he hated, and a man he feared. God, what a sucker he had played me for. What a ride he’d taken me on! How he must have laughed, he and Lungs Garcia and smart cookie Buster Eddington and Lawyer Phillips Clark. Henderson, the tough cop who won’t take no for an answer, he’ll trail Connice for us, and he’ll find her. And when he does, we’ll have them both where we want ‘em. Four thousand miles from Tampa. And dead as hell.

  I was sweating so that my shirt was wet with it, my hair was sopped, and trickles of cold sweat rolled down the backs of my legs.

  Some one spoke to me. “Hello, there. I’m sorry I acted like a school girl about the baby today — ”

  I stared at her. I had to blink my eyes, even to see her. She was standing there with the tall, washed out woman who’d cursed me so ably without swear words. I couldn’t even think about her. I was too full of this other thing, the knowledge that I’d almost solved that murder back in Tampa, the most important thing in my life. Wham! They hit me with that hit-and-run, reckless driving and manslaughter! But when Nelson had hired me to find Connice, I’d been blinded for a while — for all those weeks while I’d traced her, through bus agencies, ticket stubs, and bus drivers, hotel clerks and train conductors.

  I even forgot this blonde had spoken to me, I brushed past her. I heard her catch her breath, but I was too sick to be polite. I just kept going, with the baby tight against my side.

  “When you do find a man, Dottie,” the tall one said clearly after me, “you manage to pick the prize specimen from Borneo, don’t you?”

  I didn’t even look over my shoulder at them.

  This ship wasn’t going fast enough. I hurled a scowl over my shoulder before I started down the ladder, and I could still see the Islands, the green and the brown of them. And I knew we’d still see them until it was dark, at last they’d look like a relief map of the moon, but they’d still be there. And I was the only one on this ship that was in any hurry!

  As I went down the ladder, I looked at Patsy in my arms. I wished to God she wasn’t there. If it weren’t for her, I could jump ship, I could beat that rap in the harbor at San Francisco. But what was I going to do with her?

  My hands trembled as I fought the key into the Yale lock on my door. What was happening to me was causing reactions all the way through me. My body, and my glands were getting ready to fight, the blood was congealed at the pit of my belly, my fingers were cold, and the sweat on my body was like ice water now. I was ready to fight, at least my body was, tensed and keyed up by this anger in me, but I was on a slow boat, a three-hundred footer carrying pleasure cruisers. I was four thousand miles from the object of my hatred, and there was nothing to fight.

  I tried to tell myself that the only thing of any importance was to ring for a steward, and get the soiled pants off Patsy. Then, when I swung the door open I saw him.

  I was set up for anything, except for what happened. I was all tense, and trembly, as I’ve said. I was tired out, and hungry, I was all sweaty, and the sweat had turned cold. I knew that Henry Nelson had meant to kill me and that now he probably was more determined.

  I saw the big man sitting on a straight chair against the far bulkhead. If it had been one of Nelson’s gun goons, I’d have been ready for him, even with the baby in my arms.

  But the man sitting on that chair awaiting me looked like Big Mike Rafferty.

  I had to stand there staring to be sure that it wasn’t some trick, that I hadn’t gone off the deep end completely. I was breathing as though I’d run a mile. My eyes must have bugged out of my head.

  He spoke coldly. “Come on in,” he said.

  And that voice. I knew it was Big Mike then. No one else sounded like Big Mike Rafferty.

  I began to laugh. It must have been a wild, cackling noise, but I put out my hand and started across to him.

  It wasn’t until then that I saw the automatic steadied on his knee, and leveled straight at me.

  • • •

  SUPPOSE YOU stop. Right there. Right where you are.”

  For a half minute, holding the baby, I just stood there. I stared at him, and I suppose my mouth must have parted, because I was shocked, first at his being there at all, second at the automatic in his hand, and last at the look of cold hatred in his eyes. Why?

  “Mike. Rafferty. For God’s sake, Rafferty! What is this?”

  “This,” Big Mike Rafferty said, “is the end. The finish, you small time rat. Jesus Christ, why I bother even to speak to you at all.”

  “Rafferty. What are you doing here? What kind of a thing is this?”

  “This is a job I’m handling myself, you bastard. This is the difference between Henry Nelson and Mike Rafferty. One of the differences. Mike Rafferty takes care of his own jobs. When Rafferty wants something done, Rafferty does it.”

  I wasn’t sweating any more. I had stopped being cold, and now I was clammy warm, confused and squirreled up. I just looked at Mike Rafferty as he sat there. He was a big
man, he must have weighed two hundred and thirty pounds. His hand, resting on his thick leg, was long fingered, with fine red hairs across the wide back. His hair was a fire engine red, and his eyes were shanty Irish brown. He was a good looking man, and you were always hearing in Tampa about the women who were crazy about him. But just now, his eyes were sick with the hatred behind them, lined with veins, and swollen from lack of sleep. His mouth pulled down at the corners and stretched deep lines from his flared nostrils. His voice when he spoke was hoarse with the passion inside him. I don’t know what I looked like standing there facing him, with the baby screaming in my arms. But I do know that the hell I had been through had left me jittery, and hunger and shock were finishing the job of wrecking me. What was Mike Rafferty doing here four thousand miles from the town he owned? Why did he want to kill me? And what had made a sleepless maniac of this big man, so that the two of us, glaring at each other must have looked like escaped inmates of some poorly run snake pit.

  The baby went on crying. The clammy heat of my body was worse than the cold sweat. I pulled open my collar.

  “Put the baby down,” Mike said at last. “Put it down on the bed.”

  I only looked at him. “Her pants need changing,” I said.

  He got up, and went past me. He threw the bolt on the door and stood there leaning against it.

  “All right,” he said. “Change her. God knows you might as well end your life doing something worth while.”

  I put the baby on the bed and snarled at him over my shoulder. “I’ve done about as many worthwhile things in my time, Rafferty, as the big shot who sells marijuana and nasty booklets to school kids.”

  “Save your lip, buddy, and change the baby.”

  I loosed the pin holding Patsy’s diapers. When I was through with her, I got the baby oil from her Go-Away bag. Then I noticed there were no more diapers.

  “Diapers,” I said to Rafferty. “There are no more diapers.”

  “Stop stalling, punk.”

  I wheeled around to face him then. “Look, you red headed tough guy. You’re a hell of a long way from Tampa now, and your goons and your strong boys. You haven’t got a God damned thing between you and the beating of your life but a damned automatic you haven’t got guts enough to use. I don’t know what your bitch is. And suddenly, I don’t give a damn. But you got your tail up about something. All right. That’s the way it is. But don’t hand me malarkey about stalling, Rafferty, because when it’s time to take my medicine, I’m ready for it.”

  “I hope to God you are,” he said hoarsely, “because it’s here for you. Get through with that baby.”

  “I’ll have to get a towel from the bathroom.”

  “All right, go ahead.”

  I snarled at him, “Aren’t you afraid I’ll find a tooth brush in there, and beat your brains out with it.”

  “I’m not afraid of anything you can do, Henderson, and don’t forget it. You’ve done everything to me that you could do, you’ve done it doubled in spades, and that’s good because that’s the way you’re going to get it back.”

  I’d started toward the bathroom. At that I stopped and stared at him.

  “What in God’s name are you talking about now, Rafferty?”

  Rafferty’s eyes didn’t waver. He towered about four inches over my five-eleven, and he outweighed me fifty pounds. “Get the towel,” he said tiredly. “Get it, Henderson, and get it over with.”

  It was too much for me, and added to hunger and weariness, it gave me the jumps. When I turned my back on him and went through the bathroom door, my hands were trembling.

  I got a small face towel. When I turned to leave the bathroom, he was standing just beyond the doorway watching me.

  I picked Patsy up by the legs and powdered her before I pinned on the towel diapers. She made a little smile, and her heavy lidded eyes closed, and she was asleep, just like that.

  Seeing her go to sleep like that, so easy, trusting me to take care of her, believing in me, and in the goodness of this world she was born into, got inside me and I wanted to weep. Poor damned little kid. Sleeping like an angel. Eyelids heavy, and lips pulled up in a smile, and then you were asleep. Nothing more to it than that. I thought about the mess that was ahead of her, the fouled up things she would have to learn, the hurts that were coming, and the misery.

  I straightened up. It must have taken all the fight out of me. When I looked at Mike Rafferty, I saw the decent guy in the rotten racket that I’d always known.

  “Mike,” I said. “What happened? How’d you get here?”

  The sight of the sleeping baby hadn’t done anything to Mike. His voice was still hoarse with his hatred.

  “I followed your smell, sweetheart,” he said. “Half across the world.”

  “You’ve been following me, ever since I left Tampa?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “What difference does it make, now?” His face worked, as some misery pulled his wide mouth down.

  I got mad then, all over again.

  “Look, Rafferty. I don’t care how big you are in Tampa. Tampa’s a long way off — ”

  “What do I care about Tampa?”

  “You’ll need more pull than you’ve got even in Tampa to beat a fool rap like trying to walk into this cabin and shooting even an ex-con.”

  “I don’t know. You attacked me. I had to kill you.”

  “This is still my cabin.”

  “Who said you’ll be found here? Take my word for it, Henderson. I don’t give a damn what happens to me after I kill you. And if I don’t care, it shouldn’t worry you — you’ll already be on your way where you’re going.”

  “What about the baby?” I said. “What happens to her?”

  “I’ll take care of her.”

  “You’re going to have your hands full, brother, the minute you pull that trigger.”

  He brought the gun up. “Turn around.”

  I shook my head. I looked down. My God damned hands were trembling. I clenched my fists until my fingernails cut into my palms.

  When the knock at the door came, I started violently, and my eyes bulging, I could see Mike Rafferty’s hand tighten on the automatic in his big hand.

  Rafferty backed over to the door. “If it’s a steward,” he said, “get rid of him. Whatever it is, you don’t want any.”

  I nodded. They knocked again at the door.

  Without taking his eyes from me, Rafferty kept the automatic leveled with his right hand, and with his left, he threw the bolt on the door and stepped over behind it.

  “Come in,” he said.

  When the door opened on the blonde, I just stood there staring at her. Just behind her was her tall friend. The blonde’s face was flushed and she bit her lip.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, obviously flustered. “I didn’t know you had company. I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “Come in. Both of you. Come in.”

  She shook her head, and backing up, bumped into her tall friend who said, “I didn’t want to come, dearie, but I did. Don’t trample me in your mad rush to get back where you belong.”

  “No, please,” I said. “Don’t go.”

  Rafferty shook his head at me, and let me see the gun in his hand. But I was calling his bluff. I went forward, right past him, with my hands out.

  “I’ve been very rude,” I said, “and I owe you an apology. Both of you.”

  “Score two points there,” said the tall girl. “You have and you do.”

  I forced myself to laugh heartily. “I’m glad you came to give me a chance to apologize.”

  I took the blonde’s arm, and though she held back, I half dragged her into the room. When I turned to look at Rafferty, he had thrust the automatic into his pocket, but I could see he still had his hand on it. His face was very white, and tightly set. They came into the room with me, and then for a moment, the four of us just stood there.

  “I’m Dan
Henderson,” I said to the blonde. I put out my hand to her.

  “I know,” she said. She took my hand. “We asked the purser.”

  “Yes,” said the other woman, “there was no sense in letting a nice, gentle specimen like you get away. It isn’t every day we girls meet a man who’ll slap you down for just speaking to him.”

  “It was my fault,” the blonde said. “I could see you were upset. I had no right to act like such a little fool.”

  “Now you’ve said it,” said her friend, “shall we go?”

  “Wait,” I said. “Why don’t you let me buy your supper. We can talk about it better over a steak.”

  “Thanks,” said the blonde. “I’m Dorothy Gould, Mr. Henderson, and this is my friend, Viola Keeley. And — ” she looked questioningly toward Mike Rafferty.

  “Miss Gould and Miss Keeley, this is Mr. Rafferty. Mr. Rafferty is a political leader down in Tampa, Florida. I was surprised to find him traveling on the same ship with me.”

  “If you’re old friends,” Dorothy said. “You must have a great deal to talk about. We wouldn’t think of interfering, would we, Viola?”

  “Don’t look at me,” Viola said. “This whole thing was your idea.”

  “As a matter of fact,” I said. “Mr. Rafferty and I aren’t friends. We were acquaintances, I suppose you’d call it. Mr. Rafferty must be worth several million dollars, and I’m an ex-cop from his town. He was just leaving, weren’t you, Mr. Rafferty?”

  Rafferty didn’t bother to smile. “I suppose,” he said, “What we have to say to each other can be finished at some other time.” He continued to stare at me. “But you won’t forget that I’m on this ship, will you, Henderson? And that I’ll see you again?”

  “No,” I said. “I won’t forget. And whenever you come again, Mr. Rafferty, I’ll be ready for you.”

  He shrugged his coat up on his shoulders and stepped through the door into the corridor.

  “He certainly isn’t very friendly,” Viola said. “Dorothy, this man doesn’t even have friendly friends.”

  Dorothy was looking at me. “There is something wrong,” she said. “Something between you two. It gave me the shivers.”