“Is it so absurd to be in love with someone?”
He sobered. “Why, not at all! I’ve been desperately in love. She ignored me. I brought her flowers. Still she flunked me in arithmetic. That was in the sixth grade.”
“You fool!” she said.
He saw her eyes change as she looked beyond him. He flicked his glance at the bar mirror. Out of old habit, he moved his weight inconspicuously onto the balls of his feet. Rolph was moving toward them. Ryan turned casually.
Rolph said, “Didn’t I tell you once?”
“Isn’t this script a little tired, mate?”
Ryan looked beyond Rolph and saw the worried expression on the bartender’s face. But the man made no move toward them.
Rolph hunched his shoulders and stabbed with a very competent left toward Ryan’s eyes, following it with a blasting right. Ryan caught the left hand in both of his, his thumbs pressing against the back of it, his fingers across the heel of the palm. He pivoted it quickly enough to twist the right hand blow wild. The back of the hand was toward him after the pivot, Rolph’s spread fingers pointing toward the ceiling. Ryan bent the hand back quickly. Rolph grunted with pain and dropped to his knees.
Ryan kicked him precisely in the solar plexus. Rolph’s face whitened and his eyes rolled up almost out of sight. Ryan said loudly, “You must have tripped, old man. Here, let me help you.” He lifted Rolph, turned him toward the bar, brushed him off in a friendly fashion. Rolph sagged against the bar, barely man-aging to hold himself upright.
Ryan clapped his shoulder, said jovially, “See you here and about, old man.”
He took Gria’s arm. “Let’s have a drink out at a table on the terrace.”
She didn’t say a word. He sat opposite her and was amazed at the pallor of her face, the frightened look in her eyes.
“You... you...”
“I guess I did. He’ll be all right when he gets his wind back. A little shaky, of course.”
“I wasn’t worried about Rolph. You’ll have to get out of here, Ryan.”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
“I’m not. Please, Ryan. There are other places along the coast. Why don’t you leave tonight and drive over into Florida?”
He ordered their drinks. “You baffle me, Gria.”
“I can’t explain. It just wasn’t a good thing to do. At least not to Rolph Essta. Not in this place, in this town.”
He studied her. “You are frightened, aren’t you?”
“Please, Ryan.”
“What on earth can be so ominous about anything or anybody in this little seacoast town? I’ve done a lot of running in my life. I’m not going to run from something that doesn’t make sense.”
She leaned across the table and spoke through almost bloodless lips. “They’ll take your fingerprints, you know, when they take you to jail.”
“What! Wait a minute! A light begins to dawn. Ryan Kestrick, famous criminal. Is that it?”
“They’ll hurt you,” she said sullenly.
“Darling,” he said, “I have been in a great many jails. I have been hurt quite badly a great many times. But I am not a criminal. At least not in the common definition of the word.”
“You’ll go away?”
“Don’t be silly!”
She stood up, leaving her drink untouched. She walked away rapidly. He smiled and added another facet to his analysis. A great yen for drama. Probably the product of boredom.
He was on his way toward the dining room a half hour later when they stopped him. Two of them. One was small and neat and gray, the spokesman. The other was hulking and dull-looking.
“Kestrick?”
“Come along.”
“Not quite so fast. What seems to be the trouble?”
“We’ll do our talking in the manager’s office, Kestrick.”
“Let’s make it Mr. Kestrick, shall we?”
The neat little gray man smiled without humor. “Mr. Kestrick. Please come and chat with us if you please.”
The hotel manager, a nervous and myopic type named Mr. Riverside, sat behind his pale gray desk. Rolph Essta sat beside the desk, scowling.
“Sit over there, Kestrick,” the gray man said.
Ryan shrugged, crossed to the chair and sat down, crossing his knees. The gray man took the only vacant chair. The hulking one leaned against the closed door. The office was small.
“You have some sort of authority, I assume?” Ryan asked politely.
“Lieutenant on the police force here. We’re asking the questions. You answer them.”
“I might and I might not. Just what is Essta’s capacity here? Patrolman?”
“Mr. Essta is representing the owner of this hotel,” Riverside said in a fussy tone. “I have heard that—”
“Shut up, Earl,” Rolph Essta said harshly. Riverside swallowed and closed his mouth. “Go ahead, Charlie,” Rolph said to the gray man.
“First, what is your business, Kestrick. How do you make a living?”
“Just say I’m retired.”
“That isn’t good enough, Kestrick.”
“It happens to be the truth. I don’t care how good you think it is, Charlie.”
“I love ’em wise,” the hulk by the door said. He picked his teeth with his thumbnail and grinned.
“What are you doing here?”
“Resting.”
“What’s your home address?”
“Go look at the register.”
“I did. It just says New York City.”
“Then that must be my home address.”
“Everything you own is brand new. Car, clothes, everything.”
“Are you asking me where I stole them?”
“You admit it, eh?” Charlie said triumphantly.
“You’re turning me sick to my stomach,” Ryan said. “What kind of a schoolgirl game is this? So Essta is a big shot. He thinks I’m bothering his girl. He gets rough and I quiet him in the bar without any fuss. Now I’m a criminal.”
Charlie sighed as though he were a man of great patience. “We don’t like your type around here, Kestrick. This town caters to a good tourist trade.” He glanced at his watch and said, “So we’re giving you one hour to pack, get in your car and get the hell out of here. Anything over a hundred miles is far enough.”
“And if I don’t?”
Rolph answered. “Mr. Riverside and I witnessed these two police officers when they took from your possession the bill clip containing forty dollars that you lifted out of the side pocket of my jacket after kicking me in the stomach in the bar. I don’t want trouble. I’d just as soon forget it all.” He shrugged. “But, on the other hand, if you want to make an issue of it...”
Ryan slouched in the chair. He frowned. “You’re a great little bunch. You ought to put this act on the road.”
“The bartender saw you take the money,” Rolph said. “He called my attention to it.”
Ryan rubbed his chin. “I wonder if you could make a thing like this stick.”
Rolph’s smile was wolfish. “Want to try us? We like people who go overboard for the principle of the thing.”
“That’s the only thing you shouldn’t have said,” Ryan said softly. “I was about to take a trip. All right, Charlie. Let’s go look at the inside of your jail.”
Charlie glanced at Rolph. Rolph nodded his permission.
“Don’t you think this guy is resisting arrest?” the hulk said.
“Not in here he isn’t,” Earl Riverside said firmly.
“Maybe he’ll resist arrest when you get him downtown,” Rolph said.
“He might, at that,” Charlie said.
Ryan grinned. “No dice, gentlemen. I’m still insisting that you take me downtown.”
They drove down in silence, with the hulking one at the wheel of the police sedan. They drove through a stone arch into the courtyard of a gray stone, U-shaped building.