“Oh,” I said. “Something like that. It’s indefinite yet.”
“Well, you’re in, boy. With the send-off I gave you, you
can have Hoover’s job. You think that boy’s not honest, I
said, there’s been a paved street in front of his house for
two years now, and the last time I looked it was still
there. . . .”
“You’re a real pal,” I said. I put a dime on the counter
and went out, feeling uneasy for no reason I could pin
down. Ramsey didn’t have anything to work on. That’s the
reason he was poking around here asking silly questions.
He was outside in the cold; the moat was filled and the
drawbridge was up. But still I didn’t like it; he made me
nervous with that knack he had of seeming to be there at
my elbow every time I turned around, as if ubiquity were
an end in itself. What was the name of that Russian
Girl Out Back— 158
detective in Crime and Punishment? Rock. Something like
rock.
I shrugged it off; that was some private eye. Private eyes
always had virile names like Rock and Mike. That way you
could tell how tough they were.
I drove over to the store. It was twenty to three. When I
went in, Otis was out in the showroom where he could
keep an eye on the front door, rubbing down the wax on a
runabout hull. He saw me and went on back to the shop. I
looked around, wondering why I had come back; there
wasn’t anything I had to do here. Otis had a key; he’d open
it in the morning, and when I didn’t show up he’d call his
boy to come in. They’d keep it going until she came back
from wherever she was and whatever she was doing; in
fact, he could probably take over and run it for her. He
knew the business, and he was so honest Diogenes could
have put out his lantern and found him in the dark. Maybe
he didn’t know how to get out and keep a fire burning
under those prospects, or how to work the publicity angles
so they’d talk about you and know where you were, but
he’d do a good solid job of running a business for her. . . . I
stopped. What the hell did I care what she did with the
place? She could grind it up for cat food.
I heard tires on the gravel outside, and looked around.
Ramsey was getting out of his car with his briefcase in his
hand. Maybe there are really several of him, I thought;
there might be a Ramsey-duplicating machine somewhere
that somebody’d forgotten to turn off. Well, in about
another hour he could start looking around for somebody
else to haunt.
He came in. “Good afternoon, Mr. Godwin,” he said in
that courteous and unhurried way he had.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Ramsey.” We should have mint
juleps and goatees.
“I was hoping I’d catch you in.”
Now what had he meant by that! Was he implying I did
an inordinate amount of running around, or that he
thought I was trying to dodge him?
“I’d like to take a few more minutes of your time, if
you’re not too busy.”
Girl Out Back— 159
“Certainly,” I said. We went back to the office and I sat
down in the swivel chair behind the desk. He took the one
in front of it and opened the briefcase.
“I hate to keep interfering with your work all the rime,”
he said. “But I still have hope we may eventually stumble
on to a lead as to who spent that twenty-dollar bill here.
The mystifying thing is that just one should show up. There
should have been more, somewhere in this area.”
I frowned. “The only thing I can see is that he must have
been a transient.” I wondered what the devil had become
of those I’d put on the bus. There should have been some
action up there by this time, you’d think.
He nodded. “Yes, that’s a possibility, of course. Among
others.”
I read you, Mr. Ramsey. This is the needle. Otherwise
you wouldn’t have told me there were no others; the F.B.I,
doesn’t go around throwing out information like some
neighborhood gossip. You mean there should have been
others if the person passing it hadn’t been warned the
F.B.I, was after him.
“Well,” I said hopefully, “can you think of any new
approach? I’ve racked my brains. . . .”
No. Except that I wanted to pass along to you the request
we’re making of all the merchants in the area, and that is
to be on the lookout for any currency, new or old, that
appears to be stained in an unusual manner. . . .”
“Stained?”
He nodded. “A reddish-brown discoloration. Similar to
rust stains. If you come across any, I’d appreciate your
calling us immediately and making a note of who gave it to
you.”
“Sure. Of course,” I said. “Anything else?”
He smiled. “Just some more pictures, if you can spare the
time.”
He must have had fifty or more. They were just props, I
was pretty sure, but I went through them carefully in spite
of the fact I was impatient to get away. Haig was there
again.
“I have a vague impression I’ve seen that one
somewhere,” I said. “But I don’t know where, or when.”
Girl Out Back— 160
He nodded. “I see. Lately, do you think?”
“No. I’m not even sure I have seen him, but if I did it
must have been a long time ago.”
He put them back in the briefcase and stood up, holding
out his hand. “I want to thank you again for your cooperation,
Mr. Godwin. We appreciate it.”
“Not at all,” I said. “I wish I could be of more help.” We
shook hands and I followed him out to the front door.
He stopped and turned just before he went out. “I’m still
hoping to get away for that fishing trip in October,” he
said. “What do you think of Javier Lake?”
I managed to keep my face expressionless. “Well, I
haven’t fished it a great deal myself,” I said. “But they say
it’s usually pretty good, especially after the water starts to
turn cool.”
He nodded. “Well, thanks a lot.”
He drove off. I remained rooted there by the showcase,
thinking swiftly. Maybe I was playing right into their
hands. Suppose they suspected me, for some reason, but
knew they were going to have a hard time digging up any
proof? Wouldn’t they try to scare me into making a break,
knowing I’d have the stuff with me and that they’d merely
have to search the car? I had to leave it here. Hide it
somewhere; even bury it again. I could come back for it six
months or a year from now, when the heat was gone. It
wouldn’t take that long, actually; as soon as they were
convinced she was the only thing I’d been after. . .
I stopped. If they searched the car, she’d be in it. You
mean you’re looking for Mr. Haig’s money? Why, I thought
you got that when you arrested Mr. Cliffords. Oh, sweet
Jesus.
All right, I had her. Now what was I going to do with her?
Put her on a bus, at least until Sanport? I looked at my
watch. There was one through in about twenty minutes.
But she might talk to somebody, some local. Which was the
less risky? Wait. . . . If she weren’t with me, what were
they supposed to think I was running for? No. She had to
go in the car with me. That was the only way. Actually, the
chances were that if they did stop me they wouldn’t even
say what they were after. They’d just look.
Girl Out Back— 161
But at any rate, I had to get that money disposed of
before we left. I could find something waterproof at the
house to put it in, and take it out in the country
somewhere. I’d tell her I had to do one more errand. She
could wait at the house. But I had to get started. Was I
going to stand here all day?
I called out to Otis. He stuck his head out the door at the
rear. “I’m going home,” I said. “Probably won’t be back.”
“Right,” he said.
I wished there was some way I could say good-bye to
him, but there didn’t appear to be any under the
circumstances. I went out. Just as I was getting in the car
around at the side of the building I thought I heard the
telephone ringing. I went on. He came running out the
front door waving his arm as I drove off, but I looked
straight ahead, pretending not to see. I didn’t have time to
answer the phone. When I came to the street and was
about to drive into it, I had to wait for a car coming from
my left. It was a police car, one of those belonging to the
Sheriff’s Department. It didn’t go past, however; it turned
in, and stopped right alongside me.
It was Grady Collins, the deputy who was stationed here
in Wardlow. He was a stocky and pleasant-faced younger
type of about twenty-five, a Marine Corps veteran of the
Korean war.
He pushed the white hat back on his head and grinned.
“Hi, Barney. I was just headed for your place.”
“What’s on your mind, Grady?” I asked. Why didn’t some
lab come up with a liquid cop-repellant you could rub on
yourself?
“You don’t know a guy named Nunn, do you? George
Nunn?”
What now? “Well, I’ve seen him once or twice. Why?”
Before he could answer, I heard somebody running
across the gravel behind me, and looked back. It was Otis.
“Long distance call for you,” he said. “From Felton.”
As far as I knew, I didn’t know anybody in Felton. Nor
want to.
“Tell the operator to transfer it home,” I said. “In five
minutes or so. Thanks, Otis.” He turned and went back.
Girl Out Back— 162
“What about this Nunn?” I asked Collins. If I ever got out
of this place maybe I ought to take a vacation.
“I don’t know. He sounds Asiatic. Called up a little while
ago with some goofy line of crap his wife’s with you and he
wants her picked up so he can talk to her. Get her to come
back.”
What was his angle in that? Oh. Trying to delay us until
he could get hold of another gun and start looking for us.
“With me?” I said. “Where’d he call from? Some opium
den?”
Collins grinned and shook his head. “You got me, pal.
From that camp of his, I guess. Anyway, you haven’t seen
her, have you?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, that’s what I told the meat-head. Also that I
couldn’t pick her up, anyway, unless he came in and swore
out a complaint. If he calls back, I”ll tell him to go sleep it
off. Brother, this job.”
“Well, I’ll see you,” I said.
He lifted a hand and grinned. “See you, Barney.”
I hit the light green crossing Main and was home in two
minutes or less. I put the car in the garage, pulled down
the overhead door, and started in the front of the house.
Just as I was going up the steps I remembered I hadn’t
called the express company. Well, I’d do that now. God,
would I ever get away from here? And what was I going to
pack that money in? It had to be something waterproof.
And I’d have to come up with something to tell her, some
new errand.
I stepped into the living-room, and looked around in
surprise. She wasn’t there. “Jewel,” I called.
There was no answer. Maybe she’d gone upstairs to the
bathroom. I called again, a little louder, and received only
silence in reply. There were four cigarettes, smeared with
lipstick, in the ash-tray she had been using. I turned
toward the dining-room. There was her overnight bag,
lying on its side under the edge of the table. I stepped
quickly over and looked in.
She wasn’t there, but two of the chain were overturned.
And near them lay one of her shoes.
Girl Out Back— 163
I began to run then. I took the stairs three at a time and
made the turn into the bedroom so fast I almost lost my
balance and crashed into the wall. She was on the bed,
lying face up with most of her clothes torn off and the cord
of my electric razor around her throat. I took one look at
her and headed for the bathroom. I fell to my knees in front
of the John and tried not to be sick.
The telephone began ringing downstairs. It went on and
on.
My arms shook as if with a bad chill as I braced myself
against the wall. I had to get out of there, to some place
where I could think. Away from her. I kept seeing her, even
behind me and with my eyes closed.
The police, I thought. I had to call the police so they
could catch the unspeakable son of a bitch and hang him
before he could get out of the country. The phone went on
ringing. Well, maybe it would stop some day. I got up
unsteadily, went through the bedroom without looking at
her, and started down the stairs.
It struck me then. Wasn’t I overdoing the righteous
indignation just a little, and being a trifle dramatic? It
hadn’t been three hours since I’d been trying to think of
some way. . . . I closed my eyes and shuddered. Good God,
no. Not like that. Nor any way. I hadn’t, had I?
Hang him? Him? I stopped dead.
They’d hang me. She was strangled in my bedroom with
the cord of my electric razor while my wife was away. That
torn clothing— And I had just five minutes ago told the
police I hadn’t seen her. Right after drawing fifteen
hundred dollars from the bank so I could skip the country.
Oh, they’d hang Nunn, all right. I’d be lucky if they didn’t
hand him a gun and tell him to shoot me.
I was at the foot of the stairs. The telephone went on
ringing. Maybe if I answered it, it would stop, but I wasn’t
sure. I picked it up.
“Mr. Godwin?” a bright female voice asked. “We have a
long-distance call from Felton.”
“I don’t know anybody in Fel . . .”
“Barney, darling!” It was Jessica. “Oh, it’s good to hear
your voice again.
Girl Out Back— 164
I leaned against the wall. “Where . . .?” I began, and then
stopped as it occurred to me in a great burst of deductive
reasoning that if she were calling from Felton that must be
where she was.
“How are you?” I asked stupidly.
“Just fine, dear. And dying to see you. I’m on my way
home now, and I’ll be there in about two hours. I stopped
here for a cup of coffee, and I just thought I’d call and let
you know.”
“You’ll be here in about two hours?” I could absorb
practically anything if it were repeated two or three times.
“Good. That’s fine.”
“You lamb. You great, big, beautiful, woolly lamb you. I’ll
run now, honey, and be on my way. See you soon.”
“Good-bye,” I said.
I hung up. A very white gesture, I thought. After two
years of accusing me of chasing everything in this end of
the State that didn’t shave twice a day, she wanted to give
me enough advance notice to clear the place of women if I
had any here, so there wouldn’t be a fight when she got
home. That was really decent. Well, for once she was right.
There was one here.
Girl Out Back— 165
Sixteen
It was all piling up too fast for me. I stood still for a minute
with my face in my hands and tried to think. Did I have any
chance at all of convincing them? I didn’t have a scratch on
me. But, then, neither would Nunn. He’d hit her first and
knocked her out, down here in the dining-room, and then
after he’d strangled her he faked the assault. It would just
be my word against his. I could show them the guns in the
lake, and that lump on his head. But what would that really
prove? Nothing, except that we’d had a fight. It wouldn’t
count for much against the fact he had called the police
and tried to get them to pick her up so he could talk to her
and try to get her to come home. And that I had told the
police, after she was already dead in my bedroom, that I
hadn’t seen her.
I considered that. It was neat, when you thought of it. I’d
under-estimated him all along, dismissing him as a musclebrained
tough boy, and he’d got me. He knew I’d deny
knowing where she was, so I could hang myself. He’d
probably called them from right here.
Well, he hadn’t quite got me yet. I could get her out of
here; it could be done but it wasn’t going to be easy, not
being able to wait until dark. I had less than two hours. I
snapped out of it and ran toward the stairs. It took an
effort to go back in that room. The nausea was working on
me again, but I had to get the razor cord off her throat. It
Girl Out Back— 166
had been wrapped around twice and then tied in back. I
had to look at her face once. Well, she was unconscious, I
thought. Maybe that helped; I didn’t know.
I worked the cord free and put it back in the bathroom.
Going out in the hall, I took a blanket from the linen closet.
I spread it on the floor beside the bed and lifted her down
on to it. There was no rigidity at all yet, and she was hard
to handle. I pulled the torn dress down to cover her with
the little dignity there was left to her, and cast about for
her underclothes. She still had on the bra, and I found the
panties shoved into the rumpled folds of the bedspread. I
remembered she hadn’t worn stockings, so there would be
no suspender belt. There should be one shoe up here,
however. I found it under the bed.
Going downstairs, I picked up the shoe that was in the
dining-room and got a roll of heavy cord from a drawer in
the kitchen. I was recovering now, and thinking quite
clearly. On the way back I stopped in the living-room and
picked up the four cigarette butts from the ash-tray, the
ones that were smeared with lipstick. I flushed them down
the toilet. Putting both shoes and her panties down beside
her on the blanket, I folded it over her both ways and then
folded the ends in. I knew that I was probably as guilty of
the actual fact of her being dead as Nunn was, and while
the sadism and brutality were all his, I still felt better after
I didn’t have to look at her any more. I made several ties
around her body with the cord, to hold the blanket in place.
Then I turned my attention to the bed. There’d been
surprisingly little blood for a bad beating, but then he’d
merely been trying to bruise and puff the face rather than
cut it. There was one sizeable spot and two smaller ones on
the bedspread, and in one place it had gone through both
sheets. I took them all off, washed out the spots in the
bathroom, and put them in Reba’s laundry bag. Getting
new sheets and another spread from the linen closet. I
remade the bed, trying to copy the way it had been tucked
before.
I took out the two bags I’d packed and put them in the
hall closet. The one down in my den didn’t matter. Jessica
would be here long before I got back, but she wouldn’t go
down there. I took a last look around. Everything was in
order up here. Picking her up with considerable difficulty, I
Girl Out Back— 167
carried her down the stairs and out to the kitchen. I placed
her near the door, went out, and closed it behind me.
I studied the distance. It was two steps across the
kitchen porch, down two steps to the ground, and then
three long strides into the side door of the garage. Situated
as it was, with only trees to the rear and the house and
garage covering the respective sides, it was exposed to
view only from the street and Mrs. Macklin’s house directly
across it. As I came back from the garage to the kitchen
porch I shot a casual glance across at her windows. The
drapes were open in the living-room windows and in two of
upstairs bedrooms. She was probably home. The garage
door was closed. There were no other cars parked in front,
so there probably wasn’t any bridge game or catfight in
progress. It was hard to tell just what Mrs. 20/20 Snellen
would be doing this time of day.
Well, I could give her something to do. As I recalled the
layout of her web, her telephone had two extensions, one
in the central hallway and the other in the kitchen. Either
would do. I went back inside the kitchen, but left the door
unlatched.
I was going to have to take a chance on the street, but
very few cars went by as a rule. It ended in a cul-de-sac at
the end of the next block. I went into the living-room,
looked up her number, and dialed it. It rang four or five
times. The receiver clicked on the other end and when I
heard her say, “Hello,” I put this one down and ran.
Hoisting up Jewel Nunn’s body, I kicked open the door and
went out and into the garage. No car went by. I was in the
clear.
The end of the station wagon was already open. I put her
in, doubled into as small a space as possible, and pulled
the blankets and life-belts over her. I went back in the
house, replaced the telephone handset, and brought out
her overnight case. There was a short-handled gardening
spade in the garage. I put it and her purse in under the
blankets. Everything was set, except that I’d better leave a
note. After she’d called me, it would look a little odd if I
didn’t. I went back inside once more, scribbled out a few
lines to the effect that a man who owed me eighty dollars
on an old deal had called from Exeter that I could collect if
I’d come after it, and left it on the coffee table. Of course,
Girl Out Back— 168
there would be a fight, anyway. That was news? But she
wouldn’t have cause to suspect anything. Except that I was
still the same miserable bastard she’d been married to for
two years.
I locked the front and back doors, and swung up the door
of the garage. Taking one last look into the back of the
station wagon, I was satisfied with it. It was always full of
some kind of camping gear and those old rumpled blankets
and life-belts. I glanced at my watch. It was four twentyfive.
I got in and backed out of the garage. Somewhere off
that road going into the northern end of Javier Lake, I
thought. It would do as well as any. I tried not to think
about her. Twenty-four was a lousy time to die. Oh, drop it.
It never did any good. This world was a rough place to live
in, unless you lived in it one day at a time and never
thought of what was gone or what could have happened.
You used up Today, threw it back over your shoulder, put
your hand around a blind corner, and a little man put
another one in it. Some fine morning you’d shove your
hand around the corner and there’d be no little man. Just a
seagull with a sense of humor. You couldn’t buck a system
like that; you joined it.
I might make this stick, and I might not. The best thing
would be to continue denying she was ever with me.
Nobody could prove it, and Nunn’s word didn’t carry much
weight. If I carried it off successfully I’d hang around
another six months or a year before I tried to get away.
She’d never tell anybody about Cliffords now.
I swung into Minden. It was only three blocks to the
traffic light at Main. I saw I was going to hit it on the
green, and speeded up a little, and then the career of
Barney Godwin began to come apart like a cheap toy left
out in the rain. I smelled the motor just a second before all
the bearings began to go, but by that time I was already
into the intersection and starting to turn. The clatter of
connecting rods and burned-out mains rose to a crescendo,
and then the end of a rod came out through the crankcase
wall and I was through. The motor locked. tires skidded
and made a short screeching sound as I came to a
standstill in the middle of the intersection of Main and
Girl Out Back— 169
Minden with traffic piling up around me and horns
beginning to blow.
There was a sort of horrible fascination about it, like
watching a levee crumble and go out, or seeing an
explosion in slow motion in a newsreel. You knew what the
end result was going to be, and yet you sat and appraised
the individual stages in the sequence of destruction.
Pedestrians turned and stared, most of them people I
knew. The light changed. More horns took up the outcry. I
saw Grady Collins step off the curb and come toward me.
He was grinning wryly and shaking his head.
“Barney, he said, “did you ever try putting oil in this
heap?”
Then, before I could reply, he called to someone on the
sidewalk before the café. “Hey, Gus. Run inside Joey’s
there and call Manners. Tell him to bring his wrecker and
get this clunk of Barney’s off the street.”
I got out. If there was anything unusual about my
manner or expression he apparently didn’t notice it, so
perhaps nothing showed. There was nowhere to go and
nothing to do, so I merely stood there. He grinned at me
again, shook his head ruefully at the car, and began
directing traffic around it.
The wrecker came and maneuvered into position. While
his helper was hooking on and hoisting the front of the
station wagon, Manners glanced briefly under the hood,
whistled, and shook his head. Then he got down on hands
and knees and peered at the bottom of the motor.
“Crankcase drain-plug is gone, Barney,” he said.
“Somebody didn’t tighten it.”
Perhaps, I thought, it was news to him. He hadn’t had
the benefit of my experience. I turned and studied the
faces along the sidewalk, searching for Nunn. He probably
wasn’t expecting it this soon, I thought; there was no way
he could have known Jessica was coming home and that I d
have to do it in daylight. No. Wait. There he was, near the
middle of the block, peering owlishly at the spectacle while
he weaved with a slightly exaggerated drunkenness. No
doubt, I thought, it exceeded his fondest hopes.
“If it was me, Barney,” Manners said, “I’d just put in a
rebuilt motor. What you think?”
Girl Out Back— 170
“That sounds all right,” I said.
“I got a lot of work piled up, so it’ll be five or six days.”
“There’s no hurry,” I said. “No hurry at all.”
“Phone you an estimate tomorrow. See you, Barney.” He
got in beside his helper and the twin units of Jewel Nunn’s
catafalque began to move slowly down the street in the
immemorial stance of mating quadrupeds. If only one
person could cry, I thought, it wouldn’t be so terrible. But
at least nobody laughed at her, and maybe that’s as close
as you ever come to winning.
I went over on the sidewalk. Traffic was beginning to
move normally now. Grady Collins waved at me and called
out, “Come on, Barney. I’ll run you home.”
“Thanks,” I said. I crossed the street with the light, and
just as I was climbing in the patrol car I saw Ramsey. He
was standing on the corner in front of the bank staring
thoughtfully at nothing.
Granite? I thought. Basalt? Shale? Gneiss? What the devil
was it?
We went up Minden. The long gout of the spilled oil was
there on the road, running from Main all the way back to
Underhill.
“There’s where the drain-plug dropped out,” Grady said.
“Right there. Funny thing to happen, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Just wasn’t tightened, and the motor vibration finally
screwed it out.”
I nodded. He’d probably left it screwed in about a
sixteenth of a turn. He couldn’t find anything to drain it
into, and he knew if he let it pour out on the floor of the
garage I’d see it when I backed off it.
Grady pulled into the drive so he could turn around. I got
out. “Thanks a lot,” I said. He lifted a hand and backed out
into the street. I let myself in. The note I’d left for Jessica
was on the coffee table. I screwed it up and took it out into
the kitchen to drop in the refuse can. Glancing at my
watch, I saw it was a little after five. She should be home
in half an hour or less.
Girl Out Back— 171
I wondered when they’d be here. It could be before she
was, or it might be an hour, or two, or even tomorrow. As
far as I could see, it didn’t make much difference. Even
thinking of flight was ridiculous.
Well, I could at least take one final look at it. Turning, I
went down the stairs to the den. Then I stopped in the
doorway and stared. The lid of the trunk was thrown back
and all the old clothing was piled on the floor in front of it.
But I’d locked it! I must have. No. I’d looked at my watch,
saw I had only ten minutes to get to the bank, and had
slammed it shut but I’d forgotten to take out the key.
It was stupid and careless, but that wasn’t it. The trunk’s
being locked or unlocked didn’t make a bit of difference.
He had to know it was there, and he simply couldn’t have
known. He didn’t even know it existed. He hadn’t had a
single contact with the thing from beginning to end.
I stepped over by the trunk then, and happened to glance
down on the floor beyond the end of it. The answer was
there, in the little heap of sleazy pink underthings and
stockings and the wrinkled print dress. I restrained a crazy
impulse to laugh. It was in her overnight bag, in the back
of the station wagon where I’d put it.
I put everything in the trunk, closed it, and sat down on
top of it to light a cigarette. I was Godwin, the operator.
Twice in the same day I had been out-maneuvered and
completely made a fool of, separately, by two primitives
operating a backwoods fishing camp.
I wondered when she had begun to catch on. It was
probably when I switched that twenty-dollar bill in her bag.
She must have discovered it wasn’t the same one she’d had
and started then to put it all together, and of course it was
no mystery at all to her where the twenty had originally
come from. Cliffords had spent it at the camp.
So when she was up there that afternoon, she’d probably
got Cliffords to describe the F.B.I, man who’d arrested
him, and knew I’d found what I was after at last. Her
maneuvering afterward was clever, too; you had to admit
that.
She probably hadn’t intended to try to grab it here at all.
That would have been too improbable and too much to
hope for. She’d merely planned to go along with me until
Girl Out Back— 172
she had a good chance somewhere farther along the line,
and then grab it and clear out. My carrying the bag down
here in the den and leaving it beside the trunk was
practically the equivalent of putting up a sign telling her
where it was, and my stupidity in forgetting to take the key
out again was another telling her to help herself. That was
the reason the bag had been out in the living-room. She
was on her way from the den to the front door and the
Sanport bus when he came in through the rear and caught
her.
I shrugged it off. The whole thing was over now. No, I
thought; not quite. There’s one more slight matter, and
that’s to re-sell Mr. Nunn his little bill of goods. I thought
about him very coldly. I’d pick up my own, but I was
damned if I was going to buy his. His mistake was that he
didn’t know anything about this other business. I could tell
the whole truth from beginning to end, including Cliffords,
and the chances were they’d believe me. There was just a
chance, too, that I might be able to help him trip himself
up. Grady Collins was a bright young man who could use
his head.
I went upstairs and called his office, and was lucky
enough to catch him in.
“Barney Godwin,” I said. “Has my friend Nunn been
bothering you again?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, he has,” Grady said. “He called
up again about ten minutes ago. Still insists you’ve got his
wife. You holding her for ransom, or what?”
”But he hasn’t come in the office?”
“No.”
“Well, I think he will. And probably before too long.”
“What makes you think so, Barney?”
“I’ve always been interested in psychic phenomena. And
unless I’m badly mistaken, Nunn is clairvoyant.”
“Come again?”
“Don’t ask questions. Just listen. Make sure you’ve got a
witness there all the time, and when Nunn comes in make
sure he does all his talking before the witness. How’re you
reading me?”
“Fine. Keep on.”
Girl Out Back— 173
“Play it dumb. Keep brushing him off. If you do it long
enough, and keep listening closely enough, he’ll tell you
where his wife is.”
“All right,” he said. “Do you know where she is?”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “I don’t even know where my own
wife is.”
I was down in the den lying on the couch with a cigarette
thirty minutes later when I heard her car pull into the
garage. In a moment there was the clicking of high heels
on the basement stairs. She appeared in the doorway. She
had a new hair-do, new shoes, and a new dress that was
loaded with the same old magic in the same old places.
I grinned at her. “You look wonderful.”
“You look pretty wonderful yourself,” she said.
She walked over by the sofa and stood looking down at
me with eyes that were faintly misted. I made no move to
get up.
“How was Sanport?” I asked.
“It was fine, I guess.”
Nobody said anything for a minute.
“Did you miss me?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said.
She slid to her knees beside the sofa, and then sat down
on the floor. Her face was on her arms very near to mine
and her eyes were brimming with tears.
”Barney,” she said, “you’re not helping me very much.”
“What are you trying to do, baby? I’ll help you if I can.”
“I’m trying to tell you that I love you more than anything
in the world. It’s all I thought about all the time I was in
Sanport and all the way home. . . .”
She went on talking, and I listened to her, reflecting that
I was probably in love with her, which was an asinine
situation when you thought of it. You couldn’t operate that
way; you began to flub your lines and get awkward and
emotional, like a teen-ager. It had ruined everything. Well,
it was ruined anyway, so what difference did it make?
Above the sound of her voice I heard the car stop
outside. They were about on schedule, I thought. Nunn had
Girl Out Back— 174
no doubt finally become too impatient and suggested they
search the station wagon. I saw a pair of feet go by the
basement window toward the kitchen porch. The doorbell
began to chime in front.
“There’s somebody at the door,” I said. “I’ll go.”
“It’s probably just some pedlar,” she protested. “He’ll go
away.”
The doorbell chimed again.
“I’ll tell him to go away,” I said. I got up.
She caught my hand. “Don’t be gone long, Barney.”
“Not any longer than necessary,” I said.
I went up the stairs and through the kitchen. Ramsey
would have looked in the station wagon, I thought, even if
Nunn hadn’t suggested it.
Porphyry, I thought. That was it. That detective’s name
was Porfiry Petrovitch.
I opened the front door. It was Ramsey and Grady
Collins. Ramsey was just about to ring the bell again.
Girl Out Back— 175
No comments:
Post a Comment