He grinned abruptly, showing big, white, even teeth. "Hell, man, I like guns. I wouldn't want to give them a bad name by shooting some slimy cops with them, when there are so many other interesting weapons around." His grin faded as abruptly as it had come. "Those big-bellied bastards! They dish out gallons of self-serving propaganda about how the world is going to hell because more and more people are killing more and more crummy policemen. Doesn't it ever occur to them that it just might be because more and more crummy policemen are killing more and more people? Ah, hell! You shouldn't have got me started on that. Do you want to know something funny, Eric? I used to think the police were on our side. That's what I tried to teach my kid, anyway, after her mother died and I had to make like both parents. So the cops she'd been taught to trust went and shot her in the back while she was trying to get to safety inside the girls' dormitory!"
"It was an accident, Carl!" I said. It sounded just as ineffectual as when Rullington had said it to me.
"Accident, hell!" he snorted. "Cops aren't supposed to have accidents like that! If there's a choice between risking the life of an innocent citizen and getting killed, a cop is supposed to stand right there and die, goddamn it! Hell, you and I, Eric, we've both had the cyanide capsule between our back teeth, ready to take a bite of death just to save our native land a little embarrassment. Show me the place in the Constitution that says we're supposed to give up our lives for our jobs and our country but a lousy policeman is supposed to live forever!"
As he said, I shouldn't have started him on that. I was getting pretty tired of temperamental agents: Lorna with her morbid philosophy, and Carl with his vengeful prejudice. I studied the big blond man grimly, hoping that no unfortunate highway patrolman had occasion to stop him for speeding during the next day or two. He was a bomb set to go off at the sight of a badge.
"Eric," he said.
"Yes?"
The brilliant blue eyes stared at me hard out of the unshaved face. "You were pretty rough back there. You know that."
"Hell, I was sticking my neck way out, amigo. I had to jolt you before you lopped it off."
"You jolted me," he said coldly. "Maybe I'll forget it, and then again, maybe I won't."
The whole damned outfit was crawling with prima donnas, male and female, each one considering himself or herself the toughest, smartest thing to inhabit the continent since the sabertooth tiger became extinct. There was only one way to handle that.
"Sure," I said. "Any time we've got nothing better to do, I'll be happy to discuss it with you again."
His grin flashed on once more, like a nervous neon sign. "That's safe enough to say. When does he give us that much time? Tell me something: why do we do it for him? 1 quit, even if I quit to the wrong man. Why don't I just tell you to tell him to go to hell?" He didn't wait for a reply, which was just as well since I didn't have any. He glanced towards the motel room. "Tell the Borden kid goodbye for me. I won't wake her. Ask her to give my regards to her parent, when she rejoins him wherever it is you're taking her." It was the one thing I'd held out on him, as on Lorna; it was a responsibility they didn't need. Carl grimaced. "That cold-blooded human spider spinning his lousy webs of intrigue!" he said. "And you're pretty damned spidery yourself, come to think of it. Auf wiedersehen, Eric. Maybe."
I didn't like that. I didn't like anything about him, the way he was. II was like dealing with nitroglycerine, ready to explode at a touch. But I particularly didn't like that qualified auf wiedersehen-which means, in case you're not up on your German, 'until we see each other again.' If he wasn't really expecting to see me again, 1 hoped he'd get his job done before he went and got himself killed in some berserk damn fool way.
I watched him drive off. Then I turned, and went back into the room, woke up Martha, and told her she could finish sleeping in the station wagon. By nightfall, we were well into Louisiana, on our way to Florida, and the car radio had informed us that the vicious strangler of Fort Adams, Oklahoma, an elderly gent named Harvey Hollingshead, captured by diligent police work on the part of the local sheriff's office, had wound up the case very neatly by dying of a heart attack in his cell after confessing to his crimes.
xx.
They have a funny law in Texas. Apparently they don't like to see all vehicles on the highway rolling along safely at the same speed. I guess it's dull around those parts with the Kiowas and Comanches no longer on the warpath, so they try to make life a bit more interesting by slowing down the cars with trailers so the cars without can get a good crack at them. At least that was my theory until I got into Louisiana and found the same crazy speed restrictions in force, only worse.
What with the ridiculous, discriminatory speed limits and the atrocious, crowded roads-I guess we Southwestern desert dwellers get kind of spoiled by our lonely, high-speed highways-I found myself straining hard to make time, which is no way to drive. There wasn't all that need for haste, anyway. It was only the eleventh of the month. I wasn't due in Florida for several days yet.
I pulled into the motel in Shreveport, therefore, a little after dark. Martha remained in the car while I checked us in as Mr. and Mrs. once more. Again, I found a spot at the rear of the parking area where I could leave the long rig without unhitching. I grabbed the luggage and headed for the room assigned to us-on the ground floor, this time- aware of her following along in silence. I didn't waste any effort on conversation, or attempts at conversation. I mean, I was truly and legally married once, and I know when I'm in the doghouse. I'd been there ever since we'd heard the radio report informing us of old Mr. Hollingshead's fate.
Inside the room, which looked like any two-bed motel unit, I placed one suitcase on the luggage rack at the foot of each bed, opened mine, got out the whiskey, poured myself a drink, and went into the bathroom to dilute it. Martha was still standing just inside the door when I came out. She regarded me coldly.
"Yes," she said, "I should think you would need some alcohol about now! Quite a bit, in fact. How much does it take, Mr. Helm?"
I grinned at her. "To drown my conscience, you mean? Sweetheart, you flatter me. The feeble little thing expired years ago."
"You left him there unconscious for the police to find! That poor old man!"
I sighed. "Won't you even try to be consistent, Borden? Just make a slight effort, please, for my sake. That poor old man was stalking a human being with a rifle, remember? As far as I'm concerned, it's nothing against him, but you're supposed to disapprove of that kind of behavior. Well, if that's your attitude, for Christ's sake stick to it! Don't act as if his dying has suddenly made him a martyred saint." She didn't speak. I hesitated, but there wasn't any sense in pussyfooting around. There were enough secrets between us already without my leaving more lying around for us to trip over. I said, "Anyway, you're overestimating Rullington and his deputies. Find, hell! They're not that smart or that thorough. I told them where to look."
Her eyes widened. "You told them? But that… that's sick!"
"Is it? Was I supposed to let him loose to murder that nice sheriff whose life I'd promised you I'd save? I'm a man of my word, Borden. Why are you raising hell with me for doing what you asked me to? Rullington's alive and safe, isn't he? I never promised you a damn thing about Hollingshead."
She gasped, "If you think you can blame me for your-"
"All right, all right, simmer down," I said. "I was kidding a little, maybe. The fact is, I'd like things to settle down around Fort Adams, and people to stop asking questions and making investigations. I don't want Rullington on Carl's trail, maybe lousing up Carl's job. The sheriff's got his life, his money, and his son back, but he's a cop, and he'd never have been satisfied as long as he was stuck with two unsolved cop-killings on his books. I knew that, so I made a deal with him. He gave me Carl, whom I needed, and I gave him an answer he needed. It wasn't quite the right answer, but very few people know that, and he was willing to settle for it, under the circumstances. It got him off the hook, and it got him out of my hair."