“Because I like your company. I adore you, and
wouldn’t have you leave me for anything.”
“They’re no good to you alone.”
“I know. But they are to you. And if we get clear of
here tonight you might suddenly decide you didn’t
need any more help—not at today’s prices. I can’t
watch you all the time. I have to sleep occasionally,
and I don’t intend to follow you to the John. So just
to remove the temptation, I’ll take charge of them.”
Her eyes met mine coolly, not quite defying me,
but just testing me and watching.
“There’s an easy way,” I said, “and a hard way.
How do you want it?”
She took the three keys out of her purse and put
them in my hand.
“That’s better,” I said. I put them in my wallet.
A Touch of Death — 108
I looked at my watch. It was nine-twenty. I could
feel that awful urge to run and run faster and keep
on running take hold of me again. I got behind the
wheel and we rolled back on the road. We shot
ahead in the darkness.
We crossed the river on a long wooden bridge. The
road began to rise again. We couldn’t make much
speed. There were too many chuckholes in the road.
I managed to keep it around forty.
“Just where, precisely, are we going?” she asked.
“Sanport. Thirty-eight-twenty-seven Davy Avenue.
Memorize it, in case we get separated. My
apartment’s on the third floor. Number Three-othree.”
“Number Three-o-three. Thirty-eight-twenty-seven
Davy,” she repeated. “That’s easy to remember.”
“And my name’s Scarborough. Lee Scarborough.”
“Is that authentic? Or another alias?”
“It’s my right name.”
“To what do I owe this unprecedented confidence?
You wouldn’t tell me before.”
“With those two people listening? You think I’m
crazy?”
“Oh,” she said. “And, in case we do get to Sanport
alive, what do we do with the car?”
“I’m going to take it to the airport and ditch it.
After I get you into the apartment. I’ll take a taxi or
limousine back to town.”
“That’s a little obvious,” she pointed out. “I mean,
if we were really taking a plane, we’d leave the car
anywhere but at the airport.”
“I know. But they’ll never be sure. As a matter of
fact, they may never get a lead on this car, anyway.
But even if they do, and find it out there, all they can
do is suspect you’re in Sanport. You’ll be on ice.
You’ll never go out on the street.”
“We can’t get the money out of the vaults unless I
go out.”
A Touch of Death — 109
“I know. But we can wait until some of the heat’s
off. How long is the rent paid on them?”
“For a year. A year from July, that is.”
“All right. It’s easy, if we just get there. You stay
right in the apartment for at least a month. Maybe
longer. We do what we can to change your
appearance. I’m working on that now. Maybe we’ll
make you a redhead. Change you from the skin out,
cheap, flashy clothes, that sort of thing. There’s only
one thing, though. How many times have you been in
that bank where you rented the boxes?”
“Banks,” she said. “They’re in three different ones.
I was in each of them only once.”
“Well, it’s all right, then. They won’t remember
what you looked like. If you’ve changed from a
brunette to a redhead, they’ll” never notice. I
understand it’s been done before, anyway.”
“So if I don’t go mad in a month of being shut up
in that apartment, and I manage to get the money
out without being recognized, what then? You
murder me, I suppose, and leave the country? Is that
it?”
“I’ve already told you,” I said. “I take you to the
Coast. San Francisco, for instance. In my car. I could
buy a trailer and let you ride in that, out of sight, but
I don’t think it’ll be necessary if your appearance
can be changed enough. You can take out a Social
Security card under the name of Susie Mumble or
something and go to work. They’ll never get you—if
you lay off the juice and keep your mouth shut.”
“Go to work as a waitress, I suppose?”
“Waitress. Carhop. B-girl. Who cares? As a matter
of fact, with your looks you’d never have to work
anywhere very long.”
“Well, thank you. Do you mean my looks as they
are now, or after I’ve suffered a month of your
remodeling?”
I shrugged. “Either way. You’d come out a
beautiful wench no matter what we did. There’d be
plenty of wolves drooling to support you.”
A Touch of Death — 110
“I like your objective appraisal. I take it you don’t
include yourself among them?”
“You’re a business proposition to me, a hundred
and twenty thousand dollars’ worth of meat to
deliver on the hoof. I like my women warm to the
touch. And not quite so deadly with a gun.”
“I am already aware of the vulgar depths of your
taste. Diana James, for instance.”
I saw Diana James turn a little, as if someone had
twitched at her clothing, and collapse, sprawling on
the concrete floor.
“Why did you call her Cynthia?” I asked,
remembering.
“Because that was her real name. Cynthia
Cannon.”
“Why did she change it?”
“Why does any criminal?”
“I thought she was a nurse.”
“I believe she was.”
I shrugged. “All right. It’s nothing to me. I don’t
give a damn. I don’t care how you killed Butler, why
you killed him, or where, or who helped you. I don’t
care who those two blonds were, or how they got in
it, or why they wanted to kill you. I don’t care why
you shot Diana James, or whatever her name was, or
why she changed her name.”
“Well, that’s good,” she said.
“Shut up till I finish. There’s just one thing I care
about, and you’d better be telling the truth about
that. If there’s not any hundred and twenty thousand
in those three boxes, or you try to run out with it,
hell will never hold you.”
“Don’t worry. It’s there.”
“Baby,” I said, “it had better be.”
A Touch of Death — 111
Twelve
We tried the radio.
It crooned, and gave away thousands of dollars,
and told jokes cleaned up with kissing, and groaned
as private eyes were hit on the head, and poured
sirup on us, and after a long time there was some
news. Big Three, it said, and investigation, and tax
cut, and budget, and Senator Frammis in a
statement this morning, but nothing about Butler.
It was too soon.
We were pounding over a rough road in a vacuum
of dead silence and blackness while all around us the
sirens were screaming and teletypes were chattering
and police cars were taking stations on highways
intersecting a circle they had drawn on the map like
a proposition in plane geometry, but it was too soon
for anybody to know about it except the hunters and
the hunted.
I cursed and turned the radio off.
She lit a cigarette and leaned back in the seat.
“Don’t be so intense, Mr. Scarborough,” she said
with amusement. “We’ll get through. Cyclops is
feeling only the backs of the sheep.”
“What?”
A Touch of Death — 112
“Never mind. I guess they haven’t made a comic
book of it yet.”
“Go choke yourself,” I said.
“A month. One whole, enchanting month.”
“Don’t worry. If I can stand it for a hundred and
twenty grand, you should be able to put up with it to
stay out of the electric chair.”
“It would seem so, wouldn’t it?”
I shrugged her off and concentrated on driving.
We came out at last on the intersecting east-west
road and turned right, watching for the one that
crossed going south. I looked at the time. It was
nearly eleven. The few farmhouses we passed were
dark. I began to watch the gasoline gauge. It was
dropping faster than I had expected. It must be
nearly thirty miles to that small town on the map.
And if we got there too late, everything might be
closed.
It was a race between the gas gauge and the clock.
When we saw the lights of the little town ahead it
was ten minutes till midnight and the gauge had
been on empty for two miles.
“Get down out of sight while we go through,” I
said.
“Aren’t we going to get gasoline?” she asked.
“Not with you in the car.”
She got down, squatting on the floor with her head
and shoulders on the seat. I drove through without
stopping, looking for an open gas station and
knowing that if we didn’t find one we were sunk. It
was a one-street town two blocks long, with half a
dozen cars parked in the puddle of light in front of
the lone cafe. There was a garage at the end of the
street, on a corner.
It was open.
The attendant in white coveralls stood in the
empty drive between the pumps and watched us go
past. I’d been afraid of that. But it couldn’t be
helped. Anything moving at all in a town like this
would be seen.
A Touch of Death — 113
I drove on, past the scattered dark houses at the
edge of town, hoping there would be enough left in
the tank to get back. We went around a curve and
the lights were gone, swallowed up in the night
behind us. I slowed. We crossed a wooden bridge
where willows grew out over the roadside ditch. I
slid to a stop.
“Wait right here,” I said. “I’ll be back in a few
minutes. And don’t show yourself on the road until
you’re sure it’s me. I’ll flip the lights up and down
before I stop.”
“All right,” she said. She got out of the car.
There were no cars in sight. I made a fast U turn
and headed back.
I stopped in the pool of light in the driveway. The
attendant came over. He was a big black-headed kid
with a grin. “Fill ‘er up?” he asked, looking at me
with faint curiosity. He knew it was the same car
he’d just seen going past headed south.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s empty. Just lucky I noticed it
before I got clear out of town.”
He shoved the nozzle in the tank. It was the
automatic type that shuts itself off. He went around
in front and checked the oil and water and started
cleaning the windshield while the bell on the pump
tinkled away the gallons. I could hear a radio
yammering in the office. It sounded funny, like a cab
dispatcher’s radio, cutting off, coming on, going off
again. I couldn’t tell what it was saying.
The kid jerked his head toward the car’s license
tags and said, “Lot of excitement up your way
tonight.”
I could feel my mouth dry up. “How’s that?”
“Mrs. Butler again. You don’t happen to know her,
do you?”
“No,” I said. “Why?”
“Just thought maybe you did, seeing as you’re from
the same county. She’s got this whole end of the
state in an uproar. With all the cops looking for her,
she comes right back to her own house. Or at least
A Touch of Death — 114
they figure it must have been her. Some man with
her, too, from the looks of it. They slugged a deputy
sheriff and shackled him with his own handcuffs,
and the house got afire some way”
“All this on the radio?” I asked. “I didn’t hear
anything about it.”
He grinned. “You might say on the radio.” He
jerked his head toward the office. “Police bands. Not
supposed to have it, but back here off the highway
they don’t say anything. Boy, the air’s really burnin’
tonight.”
“You say there’s a man with her?” I asked.
“Almost has to be, the way they figure it.
Somebody slugged that deputy so hard he may not
live. Broken skull. He’s still unconscious.”
I turned my face away in the pool of light and
cupped my hands as I lit a cigarette. “That’s too
bad,” I said.
“Yeah. They’re just hoping he comes out of it.
Maybe he’ll be able to tell ‘em what happened.
Somebody said they heard shots, too.”
“Sounds like a wild night,” I said.
“They’ll catch ‘em. They’re stopping everything on
the highways. Roadblocks. Course, they don’t know
what the man looks like, but they got a good
description of her. They say she’s a dish. A real pinup.
You ever see her?”
“Not that I know of,” I said.
“I thought maybe, being from the same county—”
If he said that once more, my head would blow up
like a hand grenade. “I don’t belong to the country
club set,” I said. “I run a one-lung sawmill, and the
only time I ever see any bankers is when they tell me
my notes are overdue. How much I owe you?”
“Four-sixty,” he said.
I took a five out of my wallet, feeling the
wonderful, hard outlines of the three keys through
the leather. They were something you could touch.
A Touch of Death — 115
They were no dream you were chasing; you had
them in your hand and could feel them.
A man lying unconscious somewhere with a broken
skull—a man you didn’t know and had never seen
except as a block of shadow a little darker than the
night—didn’t really exist as long as you didn’t think
about him. I felt the keys through the limp leather.
I thought of the cafe up the street. I hadn’t eaten
anything for thirty-six hours; I was dead on my feet
and needed coffee to keep going. I heard the cash
register ring in the office, and then the radio cut in
again with some coded signal that was like a finger
pointing. There he is, it seemed to say.
He’s standing there in the night. We’re in the
dark, watching him.
Eat?
Run. Keep going.
Nobody could eat with them looking at his back.
When we were safe in the apartment, that feeling of
always being watched from behind would go away.
Wouldn’t it?
Sure it would.
A car rolled in off the street and stopped on the
other side of the pumps, and when I turned and
looked at it I saw the state seal on the front door of a
black Ford sedan and a man getting out dressed in
gray whipcord with a Sam Browne belt and a gun
holster with a flap on it. I looked at him and then
slowly turned my head and stared out into the street,
feeling exposed and skinless in the hot pool of light.
“Hey, Sammy,” he said, “how about a little
service?”
Sammy came out of the office with my change. He
grinned at the cop and said, “Boom-de-boom-boom.
Keep your shirt on, Sergeant Friday.”
He handed me the change, and I had to turn to
take it. I saw the cop come between the pumps and
stand in front of the car, the impersonal face and the
gray impersonal eyes turned toward me and toward
it, gathering us up in that efficient, remorseless, and
A Touch of Death — 116
completely automatic glance that knew instantly and
without conscious thought all there was to know
about the outside of both of us, sifting the
information, cataloguing it, and storing it away in
the precise pigeonholes of his mind, all of this in one
instant and without ever breaking off his goodnatured
kidding of Sammy.
He knew the car was from Madelon Butler’s
county. The license plates would tell him that
automatically. I saw him walk down the side of the
car, still talking to Sammy, and glance carelessly in
the windows, front and back. It was all right. He
wouldn’t see anything. There wasn’t anything in the
car except that small bag, which could be mine.
I remembered then, but there was nothing I could
do except stand there and wait in an agony of
suspense.
She had changed clothes in the car. What had she
done with the pajamas and the robe? They were
either in the bag or on the back seat in plain sight. I
didn’t know. And I couldn’t see in from here.
He came on past the car, glanced idly at me once
more, and went over to the Coke machine by the
door.
I walked on rubbery legs around to the other side
of the car, and as I got in I managed to shoot a
glance into the back. There was nothing in sight.
She had put them in the bag. I was weak with relief.
“Come back again,” Sammy said.
“You bet.”
I drove off, feeling him there behind me. It was as
if I had eyes in the middle of my back.
I held the speed down while the lights faded
behind me. They disappeared as I swung around the
curve. I could see the bridge coming up. There were
no other cars in sight, ahead or behind. I flipped the
lights up on high beam and then down, and hit the
brakes.
She came up quickly out of the shadows and
climbed in. I shot the car ahead while she was
A Touch of Death — 117
closing the door. The speedometer climbed. We were
away. Maybe we would make it. We were only a little
over a hundred miles from Sanport now and steadily
slipping farther through their fingers.
But behind us Diana James was dead. And if that
deputy sheriff died of his fractured skull, I was a cop
killer. Maybe you never could get far enough away
from that. There might not be that much distance in
the world.
We were almost there. Traffic lights were flashing
amber along the boulevard. I looked at my watch. It
was a quarter of three. I turned right on a crosstown
artery before we got into the business district and
went out toward the beach. It was hot and still, and I
could feel the stickiness of high humidity. There
were few cars on the streets. Newspaper trucks
rumbled past, dropping piles of papers on corners.
There wasn’t time to pick one up now. The thing I
had to do first was get her out of sight once and for
all and ditch this car. Then I could relax.
“It’s only a few blocks more,” I said.
“That’s good,” she replied. “I’m tired. And I need a
drink. You do have something there, I hope?”
“Yes. But remember what I told you about the
juice.”
“Oh,” she said impatiently, “don’t be an idiot.”
I turned left into a wide, palm-lined avenue. The
apartment building was two blocks up. I slowed as
we neared it, looking in through the wide glass
doors. The foyer was deserted. There was slight
chance we would meet anyone at this time in the
morning.
I had to go on nearly another block to find a place
to park. We got out. The street was quiet. I took the
bag.
“If we meet anybody,” I said, “just don’t let him
get a good look at your face. Be looking in your
purse or something. There are a hundred
apartments in the building. Nobody knows more
A Touch of Death — 118
than half a dozen of the other people. Just act
natural.”
“Of course,” she said. She was completely
unconcerned.
We walked down to the doors, our heels clicking
on the pavement. The foyer was empty, the doors of
the self-service elevator open. We stepped in and I
punched the button. When we got out on the third
floor the corridor was deserted and silent. Our feet
made no sound on the carpet. Number 303 was the
second door. I took the key out of my pocket. The
door opened silently and we went in.
I closed it very gently, and when it latched I could
feel the tension draining out of me. We were safe
now. We were invisible. That snarling and deadly
hornet swarm of police was locked away on the
other side of the door.
I flicked the wall switch. A shaded table lamp
came on. The Venetian blinds were tightly closed.
She looked around the living room as casually as
visiting royalty inspecting the accommodations and
then turned to me and smiled.
“Sanctuary,” she said, “in Grand Rapids modern.
And now could I have a drink?”
“Is that all you’ve got to say?”
She shrugged. “If you insist. I’m very glad we got
here. You were quite effective, Mr. Scarborough.
Expensive, but effective.”
“Thank you, Your Highness. Don’t you ever worry
about your neck at all?”
She stopped her inspection of the room to look at
me, the large eyes devoid of any expression
whatever. “Not publicly,” she said. Then she added,
“I’ll take bourbon and plain water.”
If she wanted ice water, I thought, all she had to
do was open a vein.
I nodded my head toward the doorway at the left
of the living room. “Bath is in that hallway,” I said.
“The bedroom is just beyond. Dining room and
kitchen to the right.”
A Touch of Death — 119
She raised her eyebrows. “The bedroom? Where
are you going to sleep?”
She was running true to form, all right. I’d
intended to turn the bedroom over to her, but she
had already taken it for granted. The help could
rustle up its own quarters.
“Oh,” I said, “I’ll just bed down on an old sweater
outside your door and bark if I hear burglars.”
“You are clever,” she murmured. “You don’t mind,
do you? I just wanted the situation clarified.”
“It is clarified. I won’t bother you. This is strictly
business with me. You’re probably frigid, anyway.
Aren’t you?”
The eyes were completely blank. “No ice,” she
said.
“What?”
“The drink, dear. Remember?”
I went into the kitchen and got the bottle out of
the cupboard. I mixed two drinks, making mine very
short and weak. While I was out there I looked in the
refrigerator to see if there was anything to eat.
There was only an old piece of cheese. I could get
something at the airport. But what about her?
The hell with her.
I took the drinks in. She was sitting on the sofa
with her legs crossed and the dark skirt pulled down
over her knees. She had long, lovely legs.
I took a sip of my drink and looked at my watch.
I’d have to hurry and ditch that car so I could get
back here before people were astir.
Something had been puzzling me, however, and I
thought about it now. “Why do you suppose Diana
James went up there?” I asked.
“It’s fairly obvious,” she said. “She had all your
rapacious greediness for money. She read—or heard
over the radio—that I had fled the country, and she
was just hoping I hadn’t had time to pick it up when
I ran. A sort of desperation try, you might call it.”
A Touch of Death — 120
“I suppose so,” I said. “But why did you shoot her?
Or do you ever need any particular reason?”
“I shot her because she set foot in my house,” she
said simply. “She knew I would, of course, but she
thought I was gone.”
I remembered the awful horror in her eyes when
that light burst on her and she heard Madelon Butler
call her Cynthia. She had known she was dead when
she heard it.
“Why did you start that fire?”
“The house was mine,” she said coldly. “It
belonged to my grandfather and my father, and I’m
the only one of the family left alive. I’m sure no one
can question my right to burn it.”
“Except the insurance company.”
“Why?” she asked calmly. “They’ll never have to
pay. There is no one to pay it to.”
I thought of that. She was right. She no longer
existed as Madelon Butler.
I was right, too; but I didn’t know the half of it.
A Touch of Death — 121
Thirteen
It was fifteen miles out to the airport. The drink
propped me up for a few minutes, but when it wore
off I was more dead on my feet than ever. I
wondered if I had ever slept. There was no traffic,
however, and it didn’t take long.
I drove into the parking area. It was dark and no
one was around. Before I got out I rubbed my
handkerchief over the steering wheel and dash and
the cigarette lighter. I left the keys in the ignition,
and as I got out I smeared the door handle with the
palm of my hand.
It would do. There was very little chance they’d
ever connect us with this car. That blonde and her
brother were in no position to report it. They’d keep
their mouths shut. The car might eventually be
stolen, with the keys left in it, and God knew where
it would wind up. And even if the police did get on
the trail of it and find it out here, they’d never know
for sure whether we’d left it here as a blind or
whether we’d actually taken a plane.
I walked back down the rows of cars and went into
the main building. A few people waited for planes.
The loud-speaker system was calling somebody’s
name: Please come to the American Airlines desk. I
A Touch of Death — 122
looked at the clock. It was five minutes of four. I had
plenty of time.
The morning papers were on the stand. I reached
for one, and she jumped right in my face. There was
her picture spread over two columns of the front
page, looking as beautiful and arrogant as life.
“SOUGHT!” the caption said.
I dropped a nickel in the cup and folded the paper
over as if I had to hide her while I hurried into the
coffee shop. I sat down alone at the end of the
counter and said, “Hotcakes and coffee,” to the
waitress without even seeing her.
So she was sought. I knew that. What about that
deputy sheriff?
I unfolded the paper and put it on the counter
beside me, in such a hurry to read it all that even the
headlines blurred. Somebody was saying something.
I looked up. The waitress was still there.
“What?”
“I said did you want your coffee now?”
“Yes.”
She was gone. I looked back at the paper, furiously
scanning the headlines. It was under her picture.
“OFFICER’S CONDITION CRITICAL,” it said.
He wasn’t dead.
But that was hours ago.
Carl L. Madden, 29, deputy sheriff of Vale
County, is in serious condition in a Mount
Temple hospital following an attack by an
unknown assailant last night.
Madden, who has not regained
consciousness following the brutal
slugging, was on duty at the time as one
of the officers maintaining a round-theclock
watch on the home of the late J. N.
Butler at the edge of town.
As a result of the sudden eruption of
violence and confusion that followed,
A Touch of Death — 123
during which the old Butler mansion
burned to the ground, Madden was not
discovered until nearly an hour after the
attack. Police were first alerted by
telephone calls from residents in the
vicinity of the Butler place, who reported
having heard gunshots. A patrol car was
dispatched to the scene.
Upon entering the grounds, the officers
discovered the whole basement area of
the house in flames. A hurried call
brought firemen to the scene, but the fire
had gained too much headway and could
not be brought under control.
The absence of Madden was noted shortly
by other officers who were aware he had
been assigned to keep the home under
surveillance against the possible return of
Mrs. Butler. This, coupled with the
reports of gunshots, led to a horrified
belief he might be inside the building,
perhaps badly injured. An attempt was
made to gain entry and institute a search,
but was repulsed almost immediately as
mounting walls of flame engulfed the old,
tinder-dry house.
As the flames lit up the surrounding area,
however, he was discovered unconscious
and shackled with his own handcuffs to
the base of some oleanders at the rear of
the grounds. Taken immediately to a
hospital, he was described by physicians
as suffering from severe concussion and
possible fracture of the skull.
He had apparently been hit from behind
with great force with some hard object,
such as a piece of pipe or a gun. No
weapon was found.
Local officers are inclined to rule out the
possibility that Madden could have been
slugged by Mrs. Butler herself. They state
A Touch of Death — 124
that from the force of the blow it was
almost certainly delivered by a man, and a
big and perhaps powerful one, at that.
They do believe, however, that Mrs.
Butler was involved, and the state-wide
search for her has been intensified. She is
already wanted in connection with the
murder of her husband.
An instant alarm was sounded, and all
highways leading out of Mount Temple
have been under constant patrol since
minutes after the fire was discovered. It is
considered extremely improbable that she
could have slipped through the police
cordon. . .
I looked up. “What?”
It was the waitress again. “Here’s your coffee.”
“Oh,” I said. “Thanks.”
“They publish those papers ever’ day,” she said,
“That the first one you ever saw?”
“I just got back from South America.”
“Oh.” She glanced at the paper. “Pretty, isn’t
she?”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Butler. That’s her picture. She killed her
husband and threw him in an old well. What do you
suppose made her do it?”
I wished she would go away. “Maybe he snored,” I
said.
It was nice. I’d been tied to Mrs. Butler like a
Siamese twin for over twenty-four hours, but a
waitress in an airport greasy-spoon had to tell me
where they’d found her husbands body.
“No,” the waitress went on, answering her own
question, “I’ll tell you. He was triflin’ on her. That’s
the way it always is. A woman kills her husband, its
because he was tomcattin’ around. You men are all
triflers.”
A Touch of Death — 125
“All right,” I said. “I’ll shoot myself. But could I
have the hotcakes first?”
She went away. Maybe she would break a leg, or
forget to come back. I jerked my eyes back to the
paper, feverishly looking for the place where I’d
been interrupted. I found it. It was at the bottom of
the page. “See Butler, page four,” it said.
I flipped the pages, goaded with impatience. I
overshot page four and had to back up. Here it was.
No theory has been advanced as to why
the house was set afire. A landmark in the
county since the early 1890’s, it was
totally destroyed. Only a chimney and a
portion of one wall remained at an early
hour this morning.
Police are also at a loss to explain the
shots heard by neighbors. Maddens gun,
found nearby, had not been fired. A
constant vigil is being maintained at his
bedside in the hope that a return to
consciousness may clear up some of the
deep pall of mystery that hangs over the
whole affair. It is hoped he may have seen
his assailant before he was slugged.
Mrs. Butler has been sought by police
since the discovery of the body of her
husband, vice-president of the First
National Bank of Mount Temple, in an
abandoned well near their summer camp
on Crystal Springs Lake, 15 miles east of
Mount Temple. Police, acting on a tip by
two small boys, discovered the body of the
missing banker a little over twenty-four
hours ago, ending a nationwide search
that began June 8, when he disappeared,
allegedly absconding with $120,000 of the
bank’s funds.
No trace of the money was found with the
body.
A Touch of Death — 126
I closed the paper. The waitress brought the hotcakes
and said something I didn’t catch. She went
away. I forgot the hotcakes.
He was still alive four hours ago. No, it was less
than that. The story had said “at an early hour this
morning.” He would live. He had to. He was young,
wasn’t he? Twenty-nine was young enough to take a
thing like a broken skull.
It hadn’t been real before, when I’d heard about it
from the filling-station boy. It was only a rumor. But
there was something about seeing it in print that
made it true.
I tried to sort out how I felt. There wasn’t any
feeling about the man himself. I didn’t know him. I’d
never seen him. If he walked up and sat down beside
me at the counter here right now I wouldn’t know
him. He was completely faceless, like a thousand
other people that died every day. You read about
them. They were killed in automobile wrecks and
they fell in bathtubs and broke their necks and they
died of cancer and they fell off buildings and you
read about them and then you turned the page and
read the funnies.
That wasn’t it.
It was that if he died, this wasn’t a game I could
quit when I got the money. I’d never be able to quit.
This thing was like a swamp. Every time you
moved, you sank into it a little deeper. I
remembered how simple it had been at first. All I
had to do was search an empty house. If I found the
money, I was rich. If I didn’t, I was out two days’
work. That was all. It didn’t cost anything.
“There’ll be no wild-haired babes blowing their
tops and killing each other in anything I’m mixed up
in,” I had told Diana James. It was a business
proposition.
And now Diana James was dead. And a cop was in
the hospital with a broken skull. If he died, I had
killed him.
A Touch of Death — 127
I didn’t want the hotcakes now, but I had to eat
them. If I walked out and left them, the waitress
would notice me some more. She would remember
me. “Sure, officer. That’s right. A big guy, blond,
kind of a scrambled face. Something was bothering
him, he acted funny.” I ate the hotcakes.
A plane had come in and the limousine was leaving
for downtown. I went out and got in it. It made a
stop at one of the beach hotels, about five blocks
from the apartment building. I left it there and went
into the lobby. A later edition of the morning paper
was on the stand. I bought one, but the Butler story
was unchanged.
I walked the five blocks. The air was fresh with
early morning now and there was a faint tinge of
pink in the east as I turned the corner at the
building. No one saw me. I walked up instead of
taking the elevator.
The lamp was still on in the living room, but she
wasn’t there.
The bottle was on the coffee table, empty. Well,
there’d been only about three drinks in it. As
exhausted as she was, they’d probably knocked her
out. The door to the hallway on the left was closed.
She had gone to bed.
I stood looking around the living room. Had she
gone to bed? You never knew what she’d do. Diana
James was dead now because I hadn’t known. Maybe
she had left. She had a thousand dollars in her purse
and she was tough enough, and disliked me enough,
to take a chance on it alone just to keep me from
getting my hands on the money in those safe-deposit
boxes. She’d do it for spite.
I walked softly across the deep-piled rug and
eased the door open. Inside it, on the left, the door
to the bathroom was ajar, but the bedroom door at
the other end of the short hallway was closed. I put
my hand on the knob. It was locked on the inside.
She was there.
I went back and sat down on the sofa. I took the
wallet out of my pocket and removed the three keys.
A Touch of Death — 128
I placed them in a row on the glass top of the coffee
table and just looked at them.
I forgot everything else. They were a wonderful
sight.
Here it was. I had it made. Nothing remained
except a little waiting. The money was where it was
perfectly safe, where no one in the world could get it
except her. And I had her. When she woke up I’d
take that thousand dollars out of her purse so
there’d be no chance of her skipping out on me. I
should have thought of that before. She couldn’t go
anywhere without money.
Nobody would ever know I had it. Nobody, that is,
except her, and she couldn’t talk. There was nothing
to connect me with it. And I had better sense than to
start throwing it around and attracting attention.
They’d never trip me that way. I’d be a long way
from here before any of it got back into circulation.
But there were still a few angles to be figured out.
I thought of them. What was I going to do with it
while I was taking her to California? I had to take
her—not because I’d promised, but simply because I
had to do it to be safe myself. If I left her to shift for
herself once I got the money, she’d be picked up by
the police sooner or later, because she was too hot
in this area. And if they got her, she’d talk.
But what did I do with the money while we were
driving out there? If I tried to take it in the car,
there’d always be the chance she would get her
hands on it and run. It would take at least five days.
Any hour, day or night, she might outguess me and
take the pot. She was smart. And she was tough, and
she might not be too fussy how she got it back. She
could pick up a gun in some hock shop and let me
have it in the back of the head out on the desert in
New Mexico or Arizona.
No, I had to leave it here. The thing to do was get
a couple of safe-deposit boxes of my own, transfer
the stuff right into them, and leave it until I came
back from the Coast. I could sell the car out there
A Touch of Death — 129
and fly back. It would take only a day to pick it up
and be on my way.
I was tired. I put the keys back in the wallet and
shoved it in my pocket. Switching off the light, I lay
back on the sofa. Faint bars of light were beginning
to show through the Venetian blinds. It was nearly
dawn.
I dropped off to sleep. . .
I was running down a street that had no end. It
was night, but there was a light on every other
corner. Far behind me somebody else was running. I
could hear his footsteps pounding after me, but I
could never see him. The single, empty street
stretched away to infinity behind me, and ahead. I
ran. And when I slowed I could hear him behind me,
running. There was nobody, but I could hear him.
I was covered with sweat, and shaking. It was light
in the room and little bars of sunlight slanted in
through the partly opened Venetian blinds. She was
sitting across from me on an overstuffed chair,
dressed in her pajamas and the blue robe.
She was smiling. “You moan a lot in your sleep,”
she said.
A Touch of Death — 130
Fourteen
I rubbed my hands across my face. I sat up. The
shaking stopped. It was only a dream. But that
endless, empty street was still burned into my mind
as if it had been put there with a branding iron.
“What time is it?” I asked.
She looked at her watch. “A little after ten.”
“How long have you been up?”
“About an hour,” she said. “Were you having a
nightmare?”
“No,” I said. I got off the sofa and went into the
kitchen. There was a little coffee in a can in one of
the cupboards. I filled the percolator with water, put
the coffee in, and set it on a burner on the stove. If
she’d been awake an hour it was a wonder she
hadn’t done something about it herself. But maybe
being waited on by servants all your life got to be a
habit.
I went back to the living room. “How about taking
the coffee off when it’s done?” I said. “If it’s not too
much trouble.”
“Are you going somewhere?” she asked, with faint
interest.
“I’m going to take a shower. And shave.”
A Touch of Death — 131
She looked at me with distaste. “Perhaps it would
help.”
I had started for the bathroom, but I stopped now
and turned around. She got a little hard to take, and
if we were going to be here for a month or longer we
really should work out some sort of plan for getting
along together.
“We can’t all be beautiful, Your Highness,” I said.
“So before we go any further, let’s get a few things
straightened out. You’re here because you’re hiding
from the cops. If they catch you they’re going to put
you away where you can spend the next forty years
scrubbing floors and trying to fight off the Lesbians.
This is my apartment. I’m not your servant. I
outweigh you by about a hundred pounds. I don’t
like you. I’d just as soon slap your supercilious face
loose as look at you. You can’t yell for help because
you’re not supposed to be in here.
“I may be a little dense, but I just somehow don’t
see where you’re in any position to be pulling that
Catherine the Great around here. However, if you
do, don’t let me stop you. Just keep right on with
your snotty arrogance and see what it gets you.
Maybe a fat lip would be good for you. How about
it?”
She looked up at me with perfect composure. “Are
you trying to frighten me?”
“No. I’m just telling you. Get wise to yourself.”
She smiled. “But, I mean—you wouldn’t try to
frighten me, would you?”
I reached down for her. I caught the front of the
robe and hauled her erect. We stood touching each
other, her face just under mine.
“Maybe you’d like to stand under the shower
yourself,” I said. “For a half hour or so, in your cute
pajamas.”
The big eyes were only amused and slightly
mocking.
“All right,” she said. “But before we do, wouldn’t
you like to hear the news I heard on the radio?”
A Touch of Death — 132
“The radio?” I jerked my head around. She
couldn’t have been listening to it while I was asleep.
It was on a table at the end of the sofa I was
sleeping on. But it wasn’t. It was gone.
“I took it into the bedroom so I wouldn’t wake
you,” she said.
“What news?”
“You’re sure you would like to hear it?”
I shook her roughly. “What news?”
“That deputy sheriff you hit with the gun isn’t
expected to live. Who did you say was hiding whom
from the police?”
Because I was at least partly prepared for it, it
didn’t hit me as hard as it would have cold. I
managed to keep my face expressionless, and I
didn’t relax the grip on her robe.
“So what about it?” I said. “In the first place, he’s
not dead. And it doesn’t change anything, anyway.
You’re still the one they’re looking for.”
“No, dear,” she said. “They’re looking for two of
us. Your position isn’t quite as strong as it was, so
don’t you think it might be wise to stop trying to
threaten me?”
I pushed her back in the chair. “All right. But
listen. You’re right about one thing: We’re in this
together. They get one of us, they’ll get us both. So
you do what I tell you, and don’t give me any static.
Do we understand each other?”
“We understand each other perfectly,” she said.
I took a shower and shaved. I went into the
bedroom in my shorts and found a pair of flannel
slacks and a sports shirt in the closet. I transferred
the wallet into the slacks.
She hadn’t made up the bed. Well, that was all
right. She was the one who was sleeping in it, and if
she liked it that way. . . Her purse was on the
dresser. I opened it and took out the billfold. They
were all fifties, and there were twenty-one of them. I
took the whole thing out into the living room. She
was drinking a cup of coffee.
A Touch of Death — 133
“Just so you don’t decide to run away and join the
Brownies,” I said, “I’m taking charge of the roll.”
Her eyes had that dead, expressionless look in
them again. “So you’re going to take that too? And
leave me without a cent?”
“Relax,” I said. “I’m just handling it. For expenses.
And to keep you from running out on me. You’ll get
it back, or what’s left of it, when we get to the
Coast.”
“You’re too generous,” she said.
“Well, that’s the kind of good-time Charlie I am.
After all, it’s only money.”
She shrugged and went back to her coffee.
“I’ll be back in a minute with something to eat,” I
said.
I went downstairs and around the corner to a
small grocery. I picked up some cinnamon rolls and
a dozen eggs and some bacon, and remembered
another pound of coffee. The afternoon papers
weren’t on the street yet. There was nothing to do
but go on waiting. The brassy glare of the sun hurt
my eyes. I felt light-headed, and everything was
slightly unreal. A police car pulled up at the
boulevard stop beside me. I fought a blind impulse
to turn my face away and hum around the corner.
Forty-eight hours ago they wrote traffic tickets,
and you said, “Heh, heh, I’m sorry, officer, I didn’t
realize. . . No, it won’t happen again.” Now they
followed you through the jungle with their radios
whispering, stalking you, and waiting.
When I got back to the apartment she had brought
the radio into the living room and was sitting on the
floor listening to a program of long-hair music. With
a sudden sense of shock I realized this was exactly
the same way I’d walked in on her the first time I
had ever seen her, and that it had been only two
nights ago.
Not years ago, I thought; it had just been days.
And we had a month to go.
A Touch of Death — 134
The recording stopped. She glanced briefly up at
me and said, “The tone quality of your radio is
atrocious.”
“Well, turn it off,” I said. “You want something to
eat?”
“What do we have?”
“Cinnamon rolls.”
“All right,” she said indifferently.
I warmed the rolls in the oven and poured some
more coffee. We sat down at the table in the kitchen
and ate, and then went back into the living room.
The radio was still turned on. I went across the dial,
looking for news. There was none. It was nearly
eleven, however. The afternoon papers should be on
the street now.
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