I finished dressing in a hurry. I shoved the .38 in its holster, slipped on my jacket, and walked to the office, Franklin still wasn't in sight. The clerk looked at me inquiringly. I jerked a thumb toward Franklin's empty chair. "The birddog gone?"
The clerk didn't spit, quite. "Good riddance," he announced.
"Did he say where he could be reached?"
"He said nothing."
"Did he get a call from anyone?"
"No, but he made enough of 'em. The last one he swore and banged down the receiver and took off."
J went outside and sat in the Ford. What could have happened? Nothing on earth should have moved Franklin from that chair. Once he read the telegram, he must have seen that his one chance to keep the lid on was to intercept the telegram-sending Earl Drake and dispose of him quietly.
The telegram from Earl Drake announcing a meeting at the Lazy Susan should have made Franklin afraid to move. He should have sat there in the motel office, getting both madder and shakier by the minute as nothing happened. Nothing should have been able to move Blaze Franklin away from that motel office.
I went over it step by step. The only logical answer forced itself upon me, finally. I'd underestimated the bastard. Suppose he'd been smart enough to call the point of origin of the telegram to check on its sender? And had been told the circumstances which the trucker wouldn't have disguised? With the telegram exposed as a phony, how much brains did Franklin need to figure out who'd sent it from up the road so it could come back and bounce off Lucille at the post office?
So why hadn't he rushed down to my motel unit and shot me up, down, and sideways, and triumphantly hauled in the riddled corpse? It was what he should have done. If lie had the sense to escape the booby trap I'd set for him, how could he have missed the obvious follow-up?
There was something I still didn't understand. Something I didn't know. It was time I learned it.
I started up the Ford. Nothing was changed, really, except that now I had to keep an eye peeled for Franklin. I drove to the post office to collect Lucille.
She was standing on the sidewalk when I pulled up in front.
One look was enough.
Wherever Blaze Franklin was setting himself up to do business with me, Lucille Grimes knew about it.
X
I opened the passenger-side door and she got in. "Let's stop for a drink at the Dixie Pig first, shall we?" she said with no preliminary. Her tone was icicle-brittle.
My first impulse was to refuse. For one thing, I wasn't fussy about waving the blonde under Hazel's nose. But there were overriding factors. The Dixie Pig was now obviously just another gambit in the game.
Okay, we'd go to the Dixie Pig.
I drove there and drew up in front. I reached across her and opened her door again. "You go on in," I told her. "I just remembered I've got to pick up a few dollars a guy owes me. I'll be right back."
She didn't like it, but what could she say? She climbed out reluctantly and closed the door. "Hurry back," she said with an attempt at a smile. The shark teeth were polished to a high gloss.
I circled the Dixie Pig driveway when she went inside. My hunch had paid off. Snuggled in among the six or eight parked cars at the rear was Franklin's cruiser. Lucille had brought me here so that he could take up the trail without difficulty for their intended final act of the drama.
I pulled out on the highway and in half a mile found a shiftless-looking country store where I bought two pounds of brown sugar. I opened the sack and placed it carefully on the front seat beside me. Back at the Dixie Pig, I nosed into a parking space near the cruiser.
1 sat and watched the booths whose windows overlooked the back parking lot. I couldn't see anyone in either booth. I picked up the sack of sugar, got out of the Ford, walked to the rear of the cruiser and removed its gas cap, dumped in the brown sugar, replaced the cap, and crushed the bag and stuffed it in a pocket. It might have taken me ten seconds. The sugar I spilled was indistinguishable from the crushed stone.
I brushed off my hands and walked through the Dixie Pig's back door. If Lucille and Blaze had seen me drive in, I was right on schedule. Franklin was at the bar, his back elaborately to the door through which I'd entered. Lucille bounced up from a booth and met me in the center of the floor. "I've changed my mind about a drink right now, Chet. Why don't we wait until we eat?"
"Anything you say," I told her. Franklin was already gone from the bar when we moved toward the door. Behind the bar Hazel all but stood on her head trying to attract my attention. I avoided looking at her.
The cruiser was gone from the parking lot. Franklin would take up the pursuit on the highway. How would he know whether to turn north or south? I found out how he knew. "There's a nice place south on the highway, Chet," Lucille said. "I understand it's quite good."
"Anything you say," F repeated. Full twilight wasn't many minutes away when I turned left from the Dixie Pig driveway. "How far is it?"
"A dozen to fifteen miles. The decor is supposed to be attractive." Her voice was as cool as a mountain brook. Only the hands clenched in her lap betrayed her tension.
A dozen to fifteen miles was the superlative of fine. Franklin shouldn't be able to fetch half that before the sugar in his gas line froze his engine. It was a bonus that he'd ho decommissioned outside of town.
I switched on my lights south of the square. I kept an eye on the shoulder of the road. A mile south we passed a car pulled off on the right, almost indistinguishable in the gathering darkness. I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't been looking for it. I watched its parking lights come on in my
rear-view mirror as it rolled out onto the highway behind us. The wolf was in the sheepfold.
We played follow-the-leader down US 19. Franklin dogged me from so far back I caught only an occasional glimpse of the cruiser's parking lights. He didn't need to stay close because he knew where we were going. After a few miles there were no lights of any kind behind us. I didn't think even Franklin would be running that letter-S stretch without them. Right about now he should be cursing up a storm.
It was a silent ride. Lucille roused herself from a private reverie when we'd been on the road twenty minutes. "Three's a big white sign," she said, leaning forward in the seat. "And then it's off to the left about a mile."
Naturally they wanted a spot away from the main highway. We both saw the sign at the same time. A little beyond it Lucille pointed out a graveled road. I turned into it. No lights of any kind turned in behind us.
A wagon road branched off in the headlights, and I turned up it. "Not that way!" Lucille said sharply. I drove about fifty yards farther and cut the motor and lights, insurance against a raging Franklin commandeering another ear.
"Plenty of time for food," I said, slipping an arm around Lucille. My purpose was to keep her from fleeing if she suspected anything, but she didn't. She lowered her head on my shoulder. She was content to await the arrival of the rear guard in the darkness under the trees.
I wished I could see her face. Her expression should be interesting. As far as I was concerned, Lucille Grimes was already dead. It was just a question of when and how. In a way it was too bad. This was a really talented bitch.
Right then she gave me another demonstration of it. She grabbed the horn, and it blatted twice. She was reaching for the light switch when I caught her arm. She sat there tensely with her arm in my grasp, waiting for Blaze Franklin to come from the darkness and kill me.