Up to now he’d had a few breaks. Evidently he’d convinced that house dick he was Freddy Ommlee, on the lam. But that would have been because the wire he’d arranged to have sent to the Pittsburg police would have been relayed to the Koppner House officer as a matter of routine, and the dead-pan dick had been primed to expect him.
Whether he’d fooled this girl beside him was another question. But it didn’t make too much difference, except for the next minute or so. Certainly the fat woman would be on the alert for the maroon convertible, probably had already spotted Tony as the Chrysler slurred into the motel driveway.
He slowed, but didn’t stop by the door marked “Office,” on the east wing of the main Lodge.
Lulie seized his arm. “Aren’t you going to — to register, or whatever it is you do at these places?”
“Take it easy, babe.” It might help to stay in character as long as he could get away with it. “I’m just going to get you where you’ll be comfortable, first. No hurry about signing in — joint like this. They always keep the cottages open in the afternoons until they’re rented.”
There, two-thirds the way around the oval was a Drive-Yourself car, in front of Cottage 9.
“Well, gee!” She dropped her pretense of being faint, sat up straight and tense. “I thought you had to pay before—”
“Don’t worry. I’ll see they get paid, all right.” He pulled up in front of Cottage 10. There was no sign of Silk, next door. He slipped the car keys in his pocket when he cut the ignition.
“Wait a sec.” He slid out, closed the car door, went around to her side. “Wait’ll I get my suitcase, to make everything look on the up and up.”
Lulie was wary now. “Gee, I didn’t say I’d stay overnight! Maybe we better not—”
“Ah, what you scared of, babe? C’mon.” He took her arm, urged her onto the porch. If by any chance they were holding Carol prisoner in this cottage, and if this girl knew it, now was the moment for trouble.
But the door was open. Clearly it wouldn’t have been if there’d been anyone held captive inside.
He half-pushed Lulie in, dropped his suitcase on the floor, toed the door closed.
“Gee!” she murmured. “I never did anything like this—”
“You’ve done it on at least three occasions I know about.” He brought the .45 out of its shoulder holster. “But it isn’t going to work out the same way as before, this time. Get on back there into that bathroom.”
She tried to bluff it out. “You must be crazy! Don’t point that pistol at me!”
He shoved her into the bathroom, which had the only window opening onto the rear of the cottage.
“If you touch me,” she cried, “I’ll scream my head off.”
“No, you won’t. That might make somebody holler for the state troopers, and Maggie might not have the right kind of pull with the state cops.”
“Who’re you?”
“Friend of that blonde your crew put the snatch on last night. And I haven’t time to horse around with you, sister. Tell me where she is or — voom!” He waggled the heavy gun.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Quick!” He grabbed her arm. “I’m not going to stand here gabbing until your gang goes to work on me. Deliver! Where is she?”
“I don’t know!”
Quinn spun her around, tapped her behind the ear with the flat of the barrel. She sagged, would have pitched on her face in the shower compartment if he hadn’t caught her. But he took the precaution of rapping her once more behind the ear.
“That’s one for you, Carol.” he muttered as he slid up the window, removed the screen. “I never knocked a girl out before. But if it were a question of her life or yours, I’d have her put away for keeps!”
He hoisted Lulie’s limp body up onto the sill, held her by the armpits, let her drop to the patch of weeds and grass behind the cottage.
Then he dropped the screen, closed the window, bolstered the gun, and hurried to the front door.
A swift reconnaissance showed no one approaching the cottage. Undoubtedly they’d seen him, were trying to figure out what he was up to. Possibly they thought Lulie would be able to handle him by herself. But he was working on borrowed minutes and he knew it.
He trotted briskly out to his car, unlocked the trunk compartment.
A slat in the Venetian blind of the front, westerly window of Cottage 9 moved almost imperceptibly.
To the tune of I’ve Been Working on the Railroad he sang softly, “Can you understand me, Si-illk? Da dadum dee dee—”
“Coming over good and clear.” The whisper from the open window couldn’t have been heard by any but the keenest pair of ears in Vulcan City. “Haven’t seen hide nor hair of Little Goldilocks.”
“There’s a dame behind the cot-tage,” Tony sang, gathering up a trio of brandy bottles. “She is out, stone cold.”
“Still with you.”
“While I’m ba-a-ack-ing the car out, you collect the dame. If you keep down low, I’ll screen you. Exit by your bathroom window, heave her in by same.”
Silk whispered. “Then what?”
“Hold her incommunicado, da dadee dumdum.” He shut the trunk lid, got in the car, put the brandy bottles on the seat beside him, and started the motor. He backed the Chrysler until it stood between the Lodge and the space between Cottages 9 and 10.
Chapter X
Leaving the motor running. Tony Quinn got out to carry his attaché case and the three fifths of cognac up on the porch and inside the cottage. If somebody, as he expected, was watching every movement from the Lodge, it ought to seem as if Lulie was still inside Number 10 and not anxious to be disturbed for the time being.
He left the cottage door open slightly to further that impression, and hurried back to the car. In the rear-view mirror, as he backed around to point the front bumper at the Lodge, he caught a stealthy stirring of the tall weeds at the rear of the cottages.
He let the motor speed up while he went to the hood, lifted it, made an unnecessary adjustment of the carburetor. Then he closed the hood, cut the motor, and went inside Cottage 10.
Lulie no longer lay on the ground beneath the bathroom window. But when he came back to the bedroom, he saw a tall, rangy youth with a jutting jaw and a thin slit of a mouth come loping across from the Lodge office. He ran with his legs apart, as if he were chafed, or had saddle sores.
Tony told himself this might be the lad who’d had his butt blistered by that acetylene torch when Butch shoved him into the flame.
He went to meet the youth.
“Hey, you!” the rangy lad growled irritably, and halted. “What right you got to occupy a cabin you ain’t even paid for!”
Tony said crossly, “I know. I know. But this was an emergency. I got a sick gal on my hands.” He produced a ten. “Here’s your dough. I’ll be over in a few minutes to register.”
“What’s the matter with your wife? If she is your wife!”
“She passed right out in the car. I was afraid she was going to croak or something. You know a doctor I can phone?”
The rangy man stalked up on the porch. “Nah. And we can’t have no sick people staying here. This ain’t no sanitarium.” He went into the bedroom.
Quinn held out the money. “What the hell can I do!”
He seized the man’s wrist as the fellow reached for the tenspot. He jerked the youth toward him, dragging the weight of the rangy figure over his shoulder.