«What time is it?»
She looked sideways down at her wrist, beyond the spiral of her cigarette smoke.
«Ten-seventeen. Got a date?»
«Is this the house next the garage? Where are the boys — digging a grave?»
«You wouldn’t care, Carmady. They’ll be back.»
«Unless you have the key to these bracelets you might spare me a little of that drink.»
She rose all in one piece and came over to me, with the tall amber glass in her hand. She bent over me. Her breath was delicate. I gulped from the glass craning my neck up.
«I hope they don’t hurt you,» she said distantly, stepping back. «I hate killing.»
«And you Joe Mesarvey’s wife. Shame on you. Gimme some more of the hooch.»
She gave me some more. Blood began to move in my stiffened body.
«I kind of like you,» she said. «Even if your face does look like a collision mat.»
«Make the most of it,» I said. «It won’t last long even this good.»
She looked around swiftly and seemed to listen. One of the two doors was ajar. She looked towards that. Her face seemed pale. But the sounds were only the rain.
She sat down by the lamp again.
«Why did you come here and stick your neck out?» she asked slowly, looking at the floor.
The carpet was made of red and tan squares. There were bright green pine trees on the wallpaper and the curtains were blue. The furniture, what I could see of it, looked as if it came from one of those places that advertise on bus benches.
«I had a rose for you,» I said. «From Larry Batzel.»
She lifted something off the table and twirled it slowly, the dwarf rose he had left for her.
«I got it,» she said quietly. «There was a note, but they didn’t show me that. Was it for me?»
«No, for me. He left it on my-table before he went out and got shot.»
Her face fell apart like something you see in a nightmare. Her mouth and eyes were black hollows. She didn’t make a sound. And after a moment her face settled back into the same calmly beautiful lines.
«They didn’t tell me that either,» she said softly.
«He got shot,» I said carefully, «because he found out what Joe and Lash Yeager did to Dud O’Mara. Bumped him off.»
That one didn’t faze her at all. «Joe didn’t do anything to Dud O’Mara,» she said quietly. «I haven’t seen Dud in two years. That was just newspaper hooey, about me seeing him.»
«It wasn’t in the papers,» I said.
«Well, it was hooey wherever it was. Joe is in Chicago. He went yesterday by plane to sell out. If the deal goes through, Lash and I are to follow him. Joe is no killer.»
I stared at her.
Her eyes got haunted again. «Is Larry — is he — ?»
«He’s dead,» I said. «It was a professional job, with a tommy gun. I didn’t mean they did it personally.»
She took hold of her lip and held it for a moment tight between her teeth. I could hear her slow, hard breathing. She jammed her cigarette in an ashtray and stood up.
«Joe didn’t do it!» she stormed. «I know damn well he didn’t. He —» She stopped cold, glared at me, touched her hair, then suddenly yanked it off. It was a wig. Underneath her own hair was short like a boy’s, and streaked yellow and whitish brown, with darker tints at the roots. It couldn’t make her ugly.
I managed a sort of laugh. «You just came out here to molt, didn’t you, Silver-Wig? And I thought they were hiding you out — so it would look as if you had skipped with Dud O’Mara.»
She kept on staring at me. As if she hadn’t heard a word I said. Then she strode over to a wall mirror and put the wig back on, straightened it, turned and faced me.
«Joe didn’t kill anybody,» she said again, in a low, tight voice. «He’s a heel — but not that kind of heel. He doesn’t know anything more about where Dud O’Mara went than I do. And I don’t know anything.»
«He just got tired of the rich lady and scrammed,» I said dully.
She stood near me now, her white fingers down at her sides, shining in the lamplight. Her head above me was almost in shadow. The rain drummed and my jaw felt large and hot and the nerve along the jawbone ached, ached.
«Lash has the only car that was here,» she said softly. «Can you walk to Realito, if I cut the ropes?»
«Sure. Then what?»
«I’ve never been mixed up in a murder. I won’t now. I won’t ever.»
She went out of the room very quickly, and came back with a long kitchen knife and sawed the cord that tied my ankles, pulled it off, cut the place where it was tied to the handcuffs. She stopped once to listen, but it was just the rain again.
I rolled up to a sitting position and stood up. My feet were numb, but that would pass. I could walk. I could run, if I had to.
«Lash has the key of the cuffs,» she said dully.
«Let’s go,» I said. «Got a gun?»
«No. I’m not going. You beat it. He may be back any minute. They were just moving stuff out of the garage.»
I went over close to her. «You’re going to stay here after turning me loose? Wait for that killer? You’re nuts. Come on, Silver-Wig, you’re going with me.»
«No.»
«Suppose,» I said, «he did kill O’Mara? Then he also killed Larry. It’s got to be that way.»
«Joe never killed anybody,» she almost snarled at me.
«Well, suppose Yeager did.»
«You’re lying, Carmady. Just to scare me. Get out. I’m not afraid of Lash Yeager. I’m his boss’s wife.»
«Joe Mesarvey is a handful of mush,» I snarled back. «The only time a girl like you goes for a wrong gee is when he’s a handful of mush. Let’s drift.»
«Get out!» she said hoarsely.
«Okay.» I turned away from her and went through the door.
She almost ran past me into the hallway and opened the front door, looked out into the black wetness. She motioned me forward.
«Goodbye,» she whispered. «I hope you find Dud. I hope you find who killed Larry. But it wasn’t Joe.»
I stepped close to her, almost pushed her against the wall with my body.
«You’re still crazy, Silver-Wig. Goodbye.»
She raised her hands quickly and put them on my face. Cold hands, icy cold. She kissed me swiftly on the mouth with cold lips.
«Beat it, strong guy. I’ll be seeing you some more. Maybe in heaven.»
I went through the door and down the dark slithery wooden steps of the porch, across gravel to the round grass plot and the clump of thin trees. I came past them to the roadway, went back along it towards Foothill Boulevard. The rain touched my face with fingers of ice that were no colder than her fingers.
The curtained roadster stood just where I had left it, leaned over, the left front axle on the tarred shoulder of the highway. My spare and one stripped rim were thrown in the ditch.
They had probably searched it, but I still hoped. I crawled in backwards and banged my head on the steering post and rolled over to get the manacled hands into my little secret gun pocket. They touched the barrel. It was still there.
I got it out, got myself out of the car, got hold of the gun by the right end and looked it over.
I held it light against my back to protect it a little from the rain and started back towards the house.
EIGHT
I was halfway there when he came back. His lights turning quickly off the highway almost caught me. I flopped into the ditch and put my nose in the mud and prayed.
The car hummed past. I heard the wet rasp of its tires shouldering the gravel in front of the house. The motor died and lights went off. The door slammed. I didn’t hear the house door shut, but I caught a feeble fringe of light through the trees as it opened.