Just the routine press release, he thought. And that trailer swam
away without any help. He looked at the portraits again, while the
waiter brought their menus. “Grandfather, father, and son. Is that it?”
“Yes. The father was killed on the Italian front during the First
World War. But not until after he had married. An expatriate
American girl studying voice in Milan. In the winter of 1918 she came
back here to have her baby. Robert Counsel was born in the same
upstairs room as his father and grandfather. I understand there is a
dice table there now. He didn’t have any father, of course, and his
mother’s devotion to him was, from what they say, very close to
neurotic.
“Daniel Counsel—the grandfather, and from all accounts a regular
old pirate—was still alive then. I think he died in 1925. The family still
had plenty of money, but it must have been a very lonesome life for a
small boy, and maybe even a little unhealthy. They spent part of the
time in Italy, and when they were here on the plantation he never
Go Home, Stranger — 69
went to school. Private tutors, mostly English, at least until he was of
high-school age—”
She broke off suddenly. Five musicians had come in through the
archway and were taking their places on the stand just beyond the
small dance floor. It wasn’t this, however, that had stopped her. He
followed her gaze and saw a tall, red-haired young man bearing down
on them.
The redhead stopped, glanced carelessly from Patricia Lasater to
Reno and back again, and grinned. “Howdy, Miss Patricia. How y’all?”
He winked at Reno, and said, “Yankee artist, looking for local color.
Expects everybody to have a cawn pone in his mouth.”
“Mr. Reno, Mr. Griffin,” she said. Then she added, “Mr. Griffin flies
a speedboat.”
Reno stood up and they shook hands. He was conscious of a lean
and reckless face, and cool green eyes with perhaps just a shade too
much self-assurance. The well-tailored white linen suit and blue tie
and handkerchief reminded him suddenly of his own indifferent
clothing. What the hell? He thought. Who cared for her opinion?
“You don’t mind if I sit down for a minute, do you?” Griffin asked.
“I’ll buy a drink. You can’t eat on an empty stomach. Before Reno
could nod assent he pulled out a chair and motioned impatiently for a
waiter.
“I was just telling Mr. Reno a little about the house,” Patricia said.
“Oh. Interesting place,” Griffin looked at Reno. “You don’t live
around here, then?”
“No,” he replied. “Just on vacation. Bass fishing.”
“Oh, bass!” Griffin dismissed them with good-humored disdain.
“Come down to my place and I’ll take you out in the Gulf for some real
fishing. Tarpon and kings.”
Patricia looked up at this. “Is your new boat ready to go?”
“Sure. Came down from the yard yesterday. Taking it outside for a
shakedown tomorrow or the next day. How about coming along?”
“I’d love it. You can go, can’t you, Mr. Reno?”
Reno looked uncertain. “You too. I meant both of you,” Griffin said,
nodding.
“Well, sure. Thanks. I’d like to,” he said. Why? He wondered.
Haven’t I got anything better to do than go yachting with these
characters? But you never knew where you’d find what you were
looking for. And she was going.
Go Home, Stranger — 70
Patricia Lasater asked, “Do you think they’ll ever find out what
happened to the other one? Have you heard anything yet?”
Griffin shrugged. “Not a word. It’s just one of those things they’ll
never solve.”
Reno tried to keep the sudden stirring of interest from showing in
his face. Another missing boat? “How’s that?” he asked casually.
“Somebody liberate one of your boats?”
Griffin stared at Patricia with burlesque amazement. “Pat, this
man’s from Mars. He hasn’t heard about our explosion.”
Patricia made no reply. Reno glanced across at her and saw her
face had gone strangely still.
“Explosion?” he asked.
The redhead nodded. “It’s a wonder you didn’t read about it. Big
mystery. Made all the papers, and even a blurb in Time.”
“I’ve been in South America,” Reno explained.
“Oh. That accounts for it.” Griffin grinned briefly, and then went on.
“A man—or maybe it was two men, they never could be sure—stole
one of my boats one night, and it blew up out there in the ship
channel.”
“Gasoline tank?”
“Gas tank, my foot! High explosive. You should have seen the few
pieces of it they found. . . . But maybe I’d better go back to the
beginning. You’re trapped anyway; you can’t run without leaving your
dinner, and Pat.
“You see, I run a small boat service down the channel below here; a
little towing, oil barges and that sort of stuff. I also have a speedboat I
rent to young bucks who want to give their girls a thrill, and I had a
charter boat for offshore fishing. I live there on the dock, and don’t
keep a night watchman because I’m usually around somewhere. Well,
one night in May—the tenth, I think—I had to go into Waynesport for
something and didn’t get back until after midnight. The charter boat—
a twenty-seven-foot cabin job—was gone. Just gone, like that. I’d
barely started inside to call the Coast Guard and the Sheriff when I
heard the roar, up the channel. At first I thought the Mid-Gulf refinery
had let go. It’s up above here about ten miles.
“This whole end of the country was in an uproar in a few minutes,
people calling the Coast Guard and the Highway Patrol, and each
other. There was a big crowd here at the Counselor that night, and
they could tell the blast was somewhere near on the channel because
it rattled the windows. People were out in cars, prowling around the
Go Home, Stranger — 71
country without even knowing what they were looking for, and the
Coast Guard had boats searching the channel. And just before
daybreak they found it—”
“Could you sort of play it down a little, Hutch? The next part, I
mean?” Patricia interrupted quietly, her face pale.
“Sure.” Griffin patted her hand soothingly, but when he looked
around at Reno his eyes were full of sardonic amusement. “Anyway,
you’ll see why they were never sure whether it was one man in the
boat, or two. It happened in the edge of the channel, near some
overhanging trees. It stripped them, and blew out a hole in the bank.
They found pieces of planking out in the fields. The only thing left of
the boat that was recognizable was the motor, and that was on the
bottom in the mud.”
“But what did it?” Reno asked.
Griffin leaned back in his chair and shook his head, smiling. “You
tell me. They don’t have any more idea right now than they did the
morning they found it.”
“But,” Reno insisted, “the men?” Didn’t anybody ever figure out
what they were trying to do?”
“No. And not only that. To this day, they don’t even know who they
were. They’re pretty sure there were two, but nobody’s ever turned
up missing.”
For a wild instant Reno thought of Robert Counsel; then the idea
died. This was in May, Griffin said, and Counsel hadn’t come down
here until the twentieth of July.
“But they must have some theory,” he said. “Didn’t anybody ever
come up with an idea?”
“Oh, sure,” Griffin replied easily. “Theories were a dime a dozen.
There was the floating mine brain storm, first. You remember there
were Nazi subs in the Gulf early in the war, potting the tankers, and a
lot of people figure now they might have laid a few mines and that one
of ‘em drifted fifteen miles up the ship channel. As a theory, it’s pretty
sad.
“The unexploded torpedo idea was about the, same. They sink,
anyway, I understand. And besides, when the explosives experts came
down to look at the pieces, they blew all these theories sky-high; They
proved the explosion came from inside the boat. Something about
pressures, and the direction some of the bottom planking had
ruptured—what little they found.”
Go Home, Stranger — 72
Griffin took another sip of his drink and grinned at them. “And then
there was the theory I blew it up myself to collect the insurance. Of
course, it would seem a little wasteful to blow up the men too, free,
gratis, for nothing, because I didn’t have any insurance off them, but
it’s easy to get around a little thing like that when you’re theoryhunting.
“Then there was the Max Easter school of thought. He used to be a
powder monkey and is known to be a kind of virtuoso with high
explosive. This brain storm did have a little more sense to it than most
of the others, however, for they were having labor trouble up at Mid-
Gulf and Easter’d been fired by them some years back. He’s kind of a
professional sorehead. Anyway, somebody worked out this idea Easter
might be mixed up in that wildcat strike, and that he and some more
hotheads might have been trying to lay a mine in the channel for a
Mid-Gulf tanker that came down that night. The only catch to this
theory, of course, is the fact that Easter wasn’t in the boat. And if he’d
hatched a deal like that he’d have been the one to do it.
“So you can see we’re not completely backward here. We can hatch
as many theories as anybody. The only trouble is nobody’s ever found
out yet just why the boat did blow up.”
Griffin stopped talking, and for a moment they were all silent.
Another crazy thing that doesn’t make sense, Reno thought. Is that all
they grow in this country? He looked across at Patricia Lasater. She
was still strangely quiet and intent on her own thoughts, drawing
aimless designs on the tablecloth with a spoon.
“Those men,” she said at last. “What I can’t get out of my mind is
the fact that nobody ever missed them. Wasn’t there a car, or
anything?”
“No,” Griffin said. “Nothing. The boat was gone, and that was all—”
He broke off suddenly, looking at his watch. He whistled. “Girls, I’ve
got to run. It’s H-hour, minus twenty minutes, and tonight’s
dreamboat has been known to be ready on time.”
After he was gone the conversation lagged. There were long
stretches of silence between them during dinner, and Reno sensed
that she was deep in some not-too-happy preoccupation she could not
throw off. He himself was conscious of an inability to get Griffin’s
story out of his mind. There was something about it that kept
bothering him. But how could there be any connection between it and
the baffling set of puzzles he was already involved in? Counsel hadn’t
come back until after the middle of July.
Go Home, Stranger — 73
But that wasn’t quite right. Hadn’t he been through here sometime
in May, when he arrived on the ship? Mrs. Conway had said it was in
May they were married.
Explosives, Reno thought. That was what stuck in his mind. Counsel
had been fascinated by explosives.
They walked back to the camp together in the warm velvet night.
Outside her cabin they paused for a moment, and he was irritably
conscious of some faint reluctance to leave her. Hell, he thought, let
her go.
She said, “Goodnight. And thank you, Mr. Reno,” rather quietly, and
turned to go inside.
A deep restlessness had hold of him and he knew he would not sleep
if he went to bed. All the old unanswered questions would come back
to tear at the edges of his mind the moment he lay down. He would go
down to the float and smoke a cigarette. He had started in that
direction when he remembered he should open the door and the
windows in the cabin to freshen it.
He stepped up on the porch and was feeling for the lock with the
key when he thought he heard a sound inside. It was not repeated,
and he shrugged off the idea as he opened the door and stepped
inside. He clicked on the light, and stood looking, around in
amazement and growing anger.
The cabin had been ransacked—and either by a novice or by
someone in too big a hurry to take any pains to cover it up. The big
cowhide bag had been slit open and clothes were scattered over the
floor. In the same sweeping glance, he saw that the door going out
into the kitchen was partly open. Snatching the flashlight off the
dresser, he crossed the room and pushed the door inward, ready to
swing. The kitchen was empty.
He swung about. The bathroom, he thought swiftly. But before he
could take a step he heard a faint thud outside, behind the cabin.
Running across the room, he hit the light switch and plunged the
place into darkness as he shot through the doorway and onto the
porch. He switched on the flashlight and as he cut around the corner
he probed the darkness along the bank, knowing he was courting a
shot if the intruder had a gun. The light encountered nothing but
trees and the backs of the other cabins.
Turning, he threw the light out across the bayou in a sweeping arc.
There was no sign of a boat. I must have imagined it, he decided. This
place is giving me the jumps. The guy who was in there may have
been gone for an hour.
Go Home, Stranger — 74
Disgustedly, he walked back to the porch and went in side. He
reached out for the light switch again with his left hand, seeing
nothing but the beam of the flashlight ahead of him, and felt his hand
stop abruptly against the sweaty shirt and the chest of a man standing
beside him in the darkness.
There was nothing he could do about it then. The night tilted up at
him like an opening cellar door.
Go Home, Stranger — 75
Ten
Why didn’t they take off his headgear and relieve the pressure? His
whole head was an immense, throbbing receptacle of pain, which was
going to burst like a soap bubble with the next breath he took. He
tried to open his eyes and look up at the circle of anxious faces that
would be leaning over him, the officials and his teammates, Then he
remembered. . . .
He tried to sit up and it hit him again, the stab of pain at the back of
his head. It was a long time before he could get to his feet, clinging
weakly to the doorframe, and then the vertigo and nausea swept over
him again. When he got the light on he staggered into the bathroom
and turned on the shower, collapsing onto his knees with his head
under it. This is a stupid thing to do, he thought. If I pass out again,
I’ll drown. He let the water run, washing over him like a soothing
spring rain.
When he got to his feet and turned off the water, the cut on his
head was still bleeding a little, but he was able to feel it with his
fingers and determine that it was not a bad one. Wrapping a towel
about his head, he went into the other room.
Just how had it happened? The man had forced the bathroom
window to get in—that much he knew, for the window was still open.
And he had apparently ducked back into the bathroom when he heard
the key in the lock. But what about the sound outside? Had he only
imagined it, or had there been two of them?
He picked up the, flashlight and went back outside, walking
unsteadily and feeling the pain like a pressure inside his skull.
Go Home, Stranger — 76
Because he had an idea what he was looking for now, he threw the
light on the ground and found it almost immediately. It was the soap
dish from the bathroom, lying near the bayou’s edge.
Suckered, he thought bitterly. By an old Indian trick like that. The
man had been there in the bathroom all the time and, knowing he
didn’t have a chance of getting back out the window in time, had
sailed the dish out to create a diversion. A thing like that took cool
nerves and a devilish intelligence.
Back inside the cabin, he looked grimly at his scattered belongings.
The letter from the man in the FBI was still inside the pocket in the
ripped suitcase. Had the prowler read it and put it back? As far as he
could see, nothing had been stolen. Somebody was looking for
information, he thought; and the sad part of it is I don’t know how
much he got.
He took the letter into the kitchen and burned it in the stove,
swearing silently at himself because he hadn’t done it before. This
was poor country in which to get careless.
* * *
It was after sunrise of a hot, brilliant morning when he awoke. His
head was better, but sunlight stabbed at his eyes and started it aching
again. He put on a straw hat and went fishing anyway. Maybe he
wasn’t fooling anybody now, but he couldn’t give up.
It could have been anybody, he thought. I had my hands on him, and
all I know is that his shirt was wet with sweat. That and the fact that
he was smart and had nerves like ice to wait me out. That would fit
Counsel. . . . He shrugged irritably. Robert Counsel couldn’t have
been here all this time unless he was dead. He would have been seen
and recognized.
What about the Lasater girl; where did she fit in? There was no
doubt, of course, that she could have followed him over to the
Counselor to act as a decoy to keep him there while the man shook
down his cabin. But had she? He was only guessing. He recalled the
strange silence that had fallen over her while Griffin talked about the
explosion. It obviously wasn’t the first time she’d heard the story, but
still it fascinated her.
Thinking about it now, he remembered his own odd feeling about it,
the illogical hunch that it could be somehow connected with the
mystery in which he was already entangled. There was no basis for it
except that it had been an explosion and Gage had said Counsel was
Go Home, Stranger — 77
an explosives expert. But still, Counsel could have been here then.
He’d returned from Italy about that time.
He abruptly reeled in his lure and rowed back to camp. Mildred
Talley was lying on the float in her bathing suit. She propped herself
on one elbow and waved with a cigarette.
“Hello,” she said. “How are the bass and all the little bass?”
“Feeling no pain. At least, not from hunger,” he replied, tying up the
skiff.
She smiled. “If you really want to catch the silly things, you ought,
to go along with Max Easter. He never has any trouble.”
He looked at her curiously. “He doesn’t?”
“Not from what I hear—” She stopped abruptly and sat up. Reno
looked up the path. Delia Malone had come out of the kitchen and was
staring coldly at the girl.
“Oh, oh, I’d better get to work,” Mildred said, climbing to her feet.
“Dell’s on the warpath this morning.”
Delia’s jumped her about talking too much, Reno decided as he
changed clothes. He remembered Skeeter’s purring drawl: “If you
can’t shut her big mouth, I can.” But talking about what? Most of her
conversation appeared to be harmless.
Easter was a good fisherman; so what of it? She was a bird brain.
But maybe that was the trouble—they didn’t know what she would
talk about.
Delia was alone at the counter. She took his order with cold
efficiency and as she departed for the kitchen Reno pulled the
morning paper toward him. He unfolded it, and Vickie’s picture
leaped up at him from the front page. “Actress Near Collapse,” the
headlines read. “Maintains Innocence.” His eyes were bleak as he
skimmed through the lead. They couldn’t leave her alone; they had to
have more pictures and more rehash of the same old story. “In a
highly charged and dramatic interview in the city jail today, Vickie
Shane McHugh, radio and motion-picture actress held in connection
with the August tenth slaying of her husband, tearfully reiterated her
innocence.”
The screen door opened and closed. Reno looked around. It was
Patricia Lasater, disturbingly good-looking in a summery cotton and
spectator pumps. She smiled when she saw him, and sat down one
stool away at the counter. He was grudgingly conscious of the fact
that her smile was a distillation of pure charm, the velvety brown eyes
Go Home, Stranger — 78
just faintly bantering and amused and yet full of warmth and fringed
with the longest and darkest lashes he had ever seen.
So she’s pretty, he thought, instantly savage. Isn’t that nice? Why
don’t I tell her she’s a cute little thing and we can organize a club and
just forget about everything else?
His face expressionless, he slid the paper along the counter toward
her.
“Here,” he said. “I was just looking at the headlines.”
“Thank you,” she murmured politely.
“They really got that actress dead to rights,” he went on. “She
hasn’t got a prayer.”
She glanced down at the picture, and when she looked up he saw
her face had gone suddenly still. “Do you think they’ll convict her?”
she asked anxiously.
“Sure.” He gestured’ with offhand confidence. “It’s open and shut.
She drops in on her husband, finds him wandering into the hotel with
some stray dish, and blasts him. She might get off with life, but I
doubt it.”
“But I think she’s innocent—”
“Innocent?” he scoffed. “Fat chance. With the motive she had? She
caught her husband playing around, didn’t she?”
There was something trapped and desperate in the brown eyes now,
and she looked away from him. “But maybe it wasn’t the way it
looked, at all,” she protested.
He turned the knife, suddenly and inexplicably detesting himself for
doing it. “Well, all I can say is that she’s going to have a sweet time
proving it. It’s obvious what it was, the way this good-time babe
ducked out and left the country.”
She made an effort to regain control of herself now, and she said
coldly, “You are quite definite in your opinions, aren’t you, Mr. Reno?
Are you always as sure of everything?”
He shrugged. I had her going there for a minute, he thought grimly.
Then he felt very little pride in it. Something was bothering her, and
he had the feeling there was a lot here he hadn’t seen yet.
“No,” he answered: “There are a few things I’m not sure of. Are you
going to town this morning?”
“Why, yes.”
“I’m going in for a couple of hours, if you’d like a ride. No use
taking both cars.”
Go Home, Stranger — 79
She considered it briefly, and her tone thawed to its accustomed
friendliness as she accepted. Maybe I’m being stupid, he thought, as
they went out onto the highway. Maybe I’m doing it all wrong. What I
ought to do is pull right in front of the police station and take her in.
She could skip.
No, he decided impatiently. He was up against the same old
argument. If he turned her over to the police and she refused to verify
Vickie’s story his sister would be in a worse position than ever, and he
would be exposed. They’d know who he was, and he didn’t need a
blueprint to see what that could mean.
Once, during a long period of silence, he turned his head and looked
at her. The lovely face was troubled, as she stared moodily ahead at
the road. Is that the only reason I don’t take her in, he wondered, or
am I getting soft in the head?
She turned, and caught him looking at her. The brown eyes were a
little flustered as she tried to smile.
“I—I’m sorry,” she said. “Did you say something? I was thinking.”
“Yeah.” He faced the road again. “Yeah. So was I.” Counsel and
Easter weren’t the only explosives experts in this part of the country.
There was just a touch of dynamite about this dark-haired girl.
It was a little after ten when he parked near the post office. “Meet
you here at twelve-thirty,” he said shortly. “All right?”
“Yes. That will do nicely,” she said..
He started into the post office, but halted before he was up the
steps. There wouldn’t have been time to receive a letter from Mrs.
Conway. Maybe she hadn’t even reached San Francisco yet; at any
rate it might be another two or three days before he heard. He turned
away with disappointment and started toward Gage’s office.
Nuts, he thought, I might as well try, now that I’m here. Ducking
into a drugstore telephone booth, he put through the call to San
Francisco, listening anxiously while the long-distance operator asked
Information for the number. Then he heard the telephone ringing.
There was just a chance, a slight chance, she had arrived and hadn’t
left yet.
Then his heart leaped eagerly as he heard her answer with a sleepy
voice. It wasn’t until then that he realized it was only a little after
eight on the Coast and that he’d got her out of bed.
“Oh,” she said quickly, when she learned who it was. “Have, you—I
mean, is there anything new?”
Go Home, Stranger — 80
“No. Not yet.” He was sorry for her. She knew her husband had
married her under an alias, and that he was either dead or he had
tried to kill her, but still she couldn’t quit hoping. “I wanted to ask
something,” he went on. “Do you remember the date Mr. Conway
arrived in Waynesport when he came back from Italy?”
“Why, yes,” she said slowly. “It was around the first week in May, I
think.”
“But you don’t know the exact day?”
“No, I’m sorry. I don’t think he ever said—”
“How about the name of the ship?”
“Yes, I know that, if I can just think of it. Wait . . .” He could tell she
was trying to concentrate. She was still dull from sleep. “It was the
Silver something. Silver, ah Silver Cape. That’s it. Why, Mr. Reno?”
“Just a wild idea,” he said. “I’m still grabbing at straws.”
“You’ll let me know, won’t you? I’ll be at Carmel.” She gave him the
address.
“Yes,” he said. “The first thing.”
The public library was a small ivy-covered building on a quiet street
asleep under its trees. He asked for and received the bound copies of
the Waynesport Express for May, and sat down alone at a table.
Beginning at the first, he began skipping through the pages, skipping
over to the back of each paper where the shipping news was carried.
By the time he had progressed as far as May seventh without success
he was growing tense.
The ship did not arrive on the eighth, or ninth, and as he opened the
paper for May tenth, hope was dying. He hurriedly scanned the ship
arrivals, and sat back in defeat. There was no mention of the Silver
Cape.
Another hare-brained idea shot to hell, he thought. There wasn’t
any connection. Robert Counsel was still at sea when the explosion
took place. Automatically, and without interest, he went on to the
following paper. And there it was.
The SS Silver Cape, inbound from Genoa, Marseilles, and
Barcelona, had berthed at Weaver Terminal at 1:30 A.M. So what? He
wearily asked himself. That was May eleventh, the day after the
explosion. No. He sat up, suddenly alert. Griffin had said the tenth,
but it was after midnight. He flipped eagerly back to the front page.
There was no need to look for it; the headline shouted! “Mysterious
Blast Demolishes Boat.”
Go Home, Stranger — 81
He hurriedly skimmed through the story and the follow-up news in
subsequent papers. It was essentially as Griffin had told it. Experts
said the explosion had come from inside the boat. There was no clue
as to the cause. Two men were believed to have been aboard, but
their identities were a complete mystery. Griffin was quoted as having
no idea who had stolen the craft.
He quietly closed the binder and sat there for a moment in the hush
of the reading room, his face showing none of his furious intensity of
thought. The whole thing could be a coincidence. It almost had to be.
How could Counsel have caused the blast? He was on the ship, and he
couldn’t have got off until after he had been through customs later in
the morning, long after the explosion. But still the ship had gone up
the channel just before the boat blew up.
It’s there somewhere, he thought, feeling the goadings of helpless
anger. This whole rotten mess fits together like a prefabricated
birdhouse, if I just had the key. Mac had it, and they killed him. For
just a few minutes, or maybe less, he had the answer to all of it, and
then they got him because he’d found out too much. Why can’t I see it
if he did?
And, he wondered coldly, would he have any more warning than
Mac had, if he did find it? He started over to Gage’s office.
He was approaching the entrance to one of the banks when he
slowed abruptly. Patricia Lasater had just emerged from the doorway.
She did not see him, and now she stood in the center of the sidewalk
looking uncertainly about her. Then she turned as if she had found
what she sought, and started walking away from him. She stopped at
a pickup truck that had pulled to the curb. The door opened, and a big
man climbed out. It was Max Easter, dressed in khaki trousers and a
cotton undershirt.
They were no more than fifteen yards away. Reno leaned against
the wall and lit a cigarette, watching them speculatively. She took
something from her handbag and handed it to Easter. Reno could see
it quite plainly—it was money. For moving a trailer, he wondered
coldly, or for shaking down my cabin and slugging me with a sap? Or
is he putting the squeeze on her?
Easter took the bills, shoved them carelessly into his pocket, and
made a gesture with his other hand that was part acknowledgement
and partly a farewell chopped off with curt insolence as he turned
abruptly away from her and started up the sidewalk toward Reno.
When Easter came abreast, Reno turned and looked squarely at him.
It was the first time he had seen him at close range, and he marked
Go Home, Stranger — 82
the well-shaped head, the short, iron-gray hair, and the cold, deep-set
pale eyes.
As he went past, Easter turned his head and their eyes met. There
was no recognition in them, but Reno could feel the hair tingle at the
back of his neck. This could be the man. He could be the one who had
killed Mac, who had shot at him and Mrs. Conway with the rifle . . .
Then he was gone.
Howell Gage looked up from the brief he was reading and waved
toward a chair. “Anything new?” he asked.
“Nothing any good. I walked in on somebody going through my
gear, and got sapped.” He related the story briefly.
Gage’s eyes were thoughtful. “He may know who you are. If he
does, you’re a bum risk.”
Reno shrugged. “I don’t think he’s sure yet. There wasn’t anything
to prevent him from finishing the job then.”
“He might be waiting.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. But you’re taking chances.”
“Never mind that.” Reno jerked an impatient hand. “Tell me what
you know about Max Easter.”
“Uh-uh.” Gage shook his head slowly. “I think you’re on the wrong
track. Easter’s as big as a horse, and he dresses like a tramp. He
couldn’t have got in and out of the Boardman without being noticed
by somebody.”
“I know,” Reno agreed reluctantly. “But then it wouldn’t have been
easy for anybody, and we know somebody did. What do you know
about him?”
“Not too much. Except that he’s a bad one to fool with. Has a
reputation for being radical and a troublemaker, but keeps pretty
much to himself. Don’t think he works any more. Lives out there on
the bayou in a houseboat. Guides duck hunters in winter, and
probably does a little commercial fishing.”
“What about this scuttlebutt that Counsel ran off with his wife?”
Gage lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair, staring
thoughtfully at the lighter. “I see what you’re driving at. But it may be
only a rumor; nobody ever knew for sure. Easter’s not the confidential
type.”
“When was it?”
Go Home, Stranger — 83
“Just before Counsel was drafted, in forty-two. He’d have been oh,
twenty-three, I think. Easter was working at the Mid-Gulf refinery
then, as I remember, and hadn’t been married more than a year or so.
I never met his wife, but saw her once or twice. Nice-looking kid with
big, serious eyes, but a lot younger than Easter. He must have been
around forty, even then. Anyway, Mrs.Easter disappeared, along in
June, I think it was. And Counsel was gone, too. There was talk they’d
been seen together here and there, and then of course there was the
inevitable story that somebody ran across them in New Orleans or
Miami at some hotel. You’ve probably heard of Counsel’s reputation
with the women. He was smooth, and he had a way with them.
“And about that time Easter got in trouble at Mid-Gulf. I don’t know
whether he was drinking or not, but it was pretty messy, from what
they say. Got in a fight with his foreman and damn near killed him. He
was fired, of course, and as far as I know he’s never worked at
anything since. People leave him pretty much alone except duck
hunters and fishermen who persuade him to guide them now and
then. Have to catch him in the right mood, or he might not even
answer you.”
“His wife never came back?” Reno asked.
“No. At least, nobody’s ever seen her.”
“But Counsel did show up again?”
“In a way. He was here for maybe a day and a half. He’d received
his induction notice, and had to show up. Then he was shipped out.”
Reno stared thoughtfully out into the sun-blasted street. It tied in,
that way. Maybe Easter didn’t know Counsel’d returned in forty-two
until he was gone again. Then he had to wait nine years for another
chance. And it was easy to see why Counsel had tried to slip in
without being seen. But why had he come back at all? He had nothing
to gain, and he knew he might be killed if Easter saw him. The puzzle
wasn’t all there yet.
“Where is this houseboat of his?” he asked.
“I’m not sure I can tell you how to find it. I’ve been up there two or
three times duck-hunting, but it’s tricky. Starting out from Malone’s
deadfall, you turn off to the right at that first arm of the bayou going
north. It’s about three miles, and the bayou forks several times. If I
remember correctly, you take the left-hand fork the first time, and
then the next two you go to the right.”
“Thanks,” Reno. Said. He stood up.
“But listen, Pete. Your sister’s already lost a husband.”
Go Home, Stranger — 84
“Yes?”
“Yes. She couldn’t take another shock like that. Don’t monkey with
Easter unless you know what you’re doing, and have the police with
you.”
“It’s all right.” Reno paused with his hand on the door, and looked
back at the young lawyer without expression. “I’m just going to hire a
guide.”
“Remember, he may know who you are.”
“Yes,” Reno said softly. “And maybe I know who he is.”
Go Home, Stranger — 85
Eleven
She was not at the car when he arrived. He looked at his watch and
grunted. It was 12:30. Ten minutes went by while he fretted
impatiently. When she did arrive she was hurrying and out of breath.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I had some business that took a little
longer than I’d expected.”
“It’s all right,” he said shortly, as they got in the car.
They were both deep in thought and spoke little during the drive
back. She thanked him quietly and went into her cabin.
Reno changed into fishing clothes and went down to the float with
rod and tackle box to pick out a skiff. There was no whisper of breeze
and the bayou lay flat and glaring like polished steel between the
walls of trees. The sun beat relentlessly on his back and shoulders,
and before he had rounded the first turn his clothes were dripping
with perspiration. There was no other boat in sight. When he came
abreast the arm of the bayou that ran off toward the north, he turned
in. The channel was narrower here.
He looked back over his shoulder from time to time to check his
course, keeping as close as possible to the bank and the overhanging
trees to take advantage of the shade. He could be a thousand miles
from civilization here, he thought.
He had no definite plan, nor any idea of what he might find. He was
drawn merely by the fact that all the information he uncovered led
him more surely in the direction of Max Easter. Suppose Counsel’s
dead, he thought. It almost had to be Easter who killed him. He had
Go Home, Stranger — 86
the motive. He was here on the bayou, and he’d been waiting a long
time.
He stopped pulling the oars for a minute and looked out through the
trees as he lit a cigarette, conscious of a nagging dissatisfaction that
he could not escape. There were two weak places in this line of
reasoning. In the first place, he didn’t know Counsel was dead. It was
just a guess, even if a good, logical one. And secondly, he was no
nearer to answering the most baffling question of all and the one that
had to be the key to the whole thing: what had Counsel come back
for? Not just to see if Easter would kill him—that was a cinch.
He shook his head and took up the oars again. At least he could get
a good look at the big man at close range. And if it developed he
hadn’t come back from town yet . . . His eyes were tough as he
thought of the houseboat. Easter, or somebody, hadn’t been
squeamish about shaking down his cabin. It could work both ways.
He pulled steadily, and in about twenty minutes he came to the first
fork in the waterway. He took the left-hand channel, as Gage had
directed, and mentally noted an old snag as a landmark for the return
trip. It would be easy to get lost up here. He wondered how Easter
came and went; then he remembered the pickup truck. There must be
a road that came nearer to the houseboat somewhere above.
There was none here, however, nor even any trails along the banks.
He must have come two miles or a little more by this time, moving in
a generally northwesterly direction.
He came to the second fork and stopped rowing to look about him.
Go to the right here, he thought. The right-hand channel was narrow,
not more than twenty yards across and almost a tunnel under the
overhanging trees, while the other was wider and ran straight ahead
for another two hundred yards before it swung left around a bend.
Reno wondered for a moment if Gage had meant what he had
assumed: right hand facing forward. A man rowing a boat is traveling
backward, but that would normally be disregarded in giving
directions . . . He shrugged. Gage was no fool, and he had been in
boats before.
He was about to take up the oars again when he suddenly jerked his
head erect and looked around, trying to identify and locate the sound
he had heard. It was not a gun. The muffled roar of it was too deep for
that. And where had it come from?
He swung around in the skiff, facing forward, and saw nothing but
the empty reach of the bayou shimmering in the sun. The dead, lostworld
silence of the swamp closed in again, and he could hear his own
Go Home, Stranger — 87
breathing as he listened. It was an explosion of some kind, he
thought, completely mystified, But it wasn’t a big blast, and it had
come from not very far away.”
Then the sound came again. This time there was a string of three,
evenly spaced, about five seconds apart. They came from somewhere
up the larger, left-hand channel. There was no mistaking the direction
now. He dug in the oars and began pulling swiftly toward-the bend up
ahead.
Somebody blowing stumps out of a field, or clearing right of way for
a road? Road? He thought. Field? There was neither within miles.
They used bulldozers now, anyway.
He came around the bend, swung his head expectantly, and saw
nothing. This stretch of waterway was as devoid of life and movement
as all the others. Less than a hundred yards ahead there was another
turn, to the right this time. He rowed on.
He was rounding the turn now, and started to swing his head
around to look. He heard the vicious splatt! As the bullet slammed
against the water and went whining off into the distance, and he was
already off the seat and diving over the side before he heard the
sound of the gun itself.
He came to the surface, gulped a breath, and before he could get
the water out of his eyes and look around the second bullet threw up
a geyser of swamp water two feet off to his left. He went under,
pulling downward and to the right. His movements were hampered by
clothing and shoes, and he wondered if he could make it to the screen
of overhanging limbs along the bank before he had to surface. It
shouldn’t be more than thirty feet.
He felt leaves brush his hands, and surfaced. He was in deep
shadow, and there was no shot. The man, wherever he was up the
bayou, couldn’t see him here. Softly turning his head, he looked out
through the leaves. Except for his skiff the bayou lay deserted under
the glare of the sun. The shots had come as mysteriously out of
nowhere as the explosions he had heard. He looked back at the boat.
It was rocking gently and drifting a little.
He was shooting from somewhere pretty far up this reach of bayou,
Reno thought bitterly. And it wasn’t any twenty-two rifle. That was
high-velocity stuff, the way it churned up the water before I heard the
shot. I’ve got to get out of here before he gets any nearer with that
gun.
He caught a projected root and pulled himself up the bank. His body
brushed against the stem of a bush, shaking it a little, and almost
Go Home, Stranger — 88
immediately there was the ominous scream of another flattened bullet
tearing off into the timber. A severed twig floated down onto his head.
Too damn close, he thought, as he made it onto the bank and
.dropped behind a log.
He swung his head and looked back toward the channel. His view
down the long reach was cut off by the trees, but he could see
straight out toward the other side and he could see the skiff. There
was something strange about it, something he had half noticed before
and had had no time to consider then.
Never mind that, he thought. If that guy’s coming down this side
with his rifle I’m a dead pigeon if I don’t fade, but fast. The best thing
to do is head back along the bank. He raised up a little to study the
cover he would have. Except for the area right near the bank, it was
open timber, big trees and lots of them, but little underbrush. Getting
to his feet with a quick lunge, he started to run to his right,
paralleling the bank. Water sloshed noisily in his shoes. He had
hurtled forward less that a dozen strides when he heard the gun crash
again. He threw himself down and rolled behind the uprooted earth of
a fallen tree.
Closer, he thought, gasping for breath. A lot closer, and it was a
different gun. There were two of them. One was covering the open
reach of the bayou, and the other was running down this side looking
for him. And they knew he didn’t have a gun. All they had to do was
move in and pick him off. He couldn’t even hide, because they could
track him by the trail of water his soaked clothes were leaving. He felt
goose flesh rise and prickle between his shoulder blades as his mind
flashed crazily back to the thing that Gage had said: “Your sister’s
already lost a husband.”
He turned his head and looked swiftly behind him, out across the
channel. The boat was still there. It was a desperate gamble, but if he
stayed where he was he had no chance at all. He was on the point of
land where the channel made its bend, and the man was behind him.
There was nothing left but the water.
Again, in that brief and chilling second in which he considered his
chances, he was conscious of the thing that had bothered him about
the boat. And this time he knew what it was—the boat was rocking.
Now that he understood, he heard the slup, slup of small waves
coming in against the bank. In this absolutely breathless calm? There
was nothing to cause even a ripple on the water.
But there was no time to think about it. He slid backward and eased
down the bank into the water, feeling his skin draw up tight as he
Go Home, Stranger — 89
expected the bullet to come crashing into him every second. There
was no telling where the man was now. Just before he went under
completely, he took a big breath and turned to mark the exact
position of the boat.
He swam straight out, trying to stay far enough off the bottom not
to stir the mud and give himself away to the man on the shore. If he
missed the boat, he would have to try to make the other side before
one of them could get here with their boat. They must have one up
above somewhere. He’d have to surface to get his breath, but if he did
it fast enough he might succeed. It would take a lightening fast shot
to line up a rifle and squeeze off the trigger in that brief second.
Getting out on the other side without being killed, however, would be
something else.
He turned on his side and opened his eyes. He kicked ahead three
more strokes and swung his face, searching, feeling a terrible
urgency now. His breath was almost, gone. Then he saw the skiff, ten
feet over to his left. He kicked again, and was under it.
Easy—take it easy, he thought, his lungs bursting. It would do no
good to come up on the far side. The man up the bayou would be able
to see him. And he couldn’t bump it, make it move suddenly. He had
his fingertips up, brushing the bottom. With agonizing care he felt his
way along until he found what he sought. His fingers were out of the
water, but still under the boat.
With no one aboard, it rode high forward, the prow and some two
feet of sloping flat bottom rising a little above the surface. With the
tips of his fingers he caught the thin strip of wood running lengthwise
under the center of the floor planking and slowly pulled up until his
nose was against the bottom in the air space between boat and
surface. He took two deep breaths, almost sobbing in the relief to his
lungs. Then a small wave slapped water into his nostrils, making them
sting. He choked, but remained silent.
Neither of them could see him here. They would have to be down on
the exact level of the water to see this far back under the overhang of
the prow. But how long could he fool them? They would know he had
gone back into the water.
The boat was rocking very gently now. The mysterious disturbance
on the water was dying out, the surface returning to its waxed and
glaring calm. And now for the first time, when he had an instant in
which to consider it, he knew what had caused it. Those explosions
had been set off on the water, or under it—that was obvious.
Somewhere farther up the bayou, probably around the next bend. But
Go Home, Stranger — 90
why? A demolition job on something blocking the channel? The hell,
he thought; this wasn’t a navigable waterway. Nobody ever used it.
He choked again, and pushed his nose a little farther out of the
water. It was increasingly difficult to hold his position here, painfully
clenching the tips of his fingers on the narrow batten. He tentatively
lowered his feet. Maybe he could touch bottom. . . . He felt nothing.
He wasn’t going to be able to remain here much longer. There had
been no further shot, and he wondered whether the man along the
bank had given up the chase. There was another possibility, he
thought. Maybe they knew where he was and were only keeping him
pinned down until they finished whatever they were doing. He felt a
curious but impotent anger at not being able to find out what it was.
Charges of explosive were sometimes set off like that to raise the
body when someone had been lost in a river or lake. Sure, he thought
bitterly, and with a goon squad standing guard with high-powered
rifles?
It was maddening. If he could make it to the other side and lose
himself in the timber he might be able to flank them and get a look at
the bayou beyond the next bend. Whatever it was had happened right
in that area. He was sure of it now. He turned his head slightly to the
side so one eye was above water, and critically lined up the nearest
point on the other shore. He could make it. He had to. Somehow, he
had to know what was up there. Swinging back so his nose was above
water again, he inhaled deeply, and swam down and away from the
boat.
He had reckoned without the drag of his clothing and shoes, but
that did not become apparent until too late. It was easy at first. He
kicked and pulled steadily, warning himself not to hurry or to think of
the man back there with the rifle. Then he swam head on into an
underwater snag, which confused him momentarily and threw him
disastrously off his stroke. He had to surface for air. His head came
out and he gulped raggedly. He heard no shot as he pulled himself
down again. But the man, if he were still there, hadn’t been expecting
him The next time he’d be ready.
The shoes were growing heavier; they were like anchors on his feet.
With every kick they dragged and sank a little more. He had been
near to drowning twice in his life, and he knew the sensation, the
unreasoning fear of water that begins to blot out everything and ends
in blind and threshing panic. He fought it off grimly. The shore
couldn’t be far now. He had to breathe again. His head came clear at
last, with a terrible effort, and he gasped. He floundered helplessly on
Go Home, Stranger — 91
the surface for a moment before he could force himself to submerge
again, and this time he heard the bullet’s whupp! And its lethal snarl
as it went on.
He had to get back to the surface and its life-giving air. Terror was
beginning to drive him up. Better to let the man try with his gun than
to strangle here in this endless murky water. His arms and legs were
growing weaker and trying to curl inward against him with the
cramps of utter exhaustion. He struggled, biting his teeth together
savagely to keep from gasping as his feet settled lower and lower.
Then he felt his arms and face plow into brush. He felt nothing except
the insubstantial and terrifying rake of limbs, and when he tried to
raise his head there was something across his neck. He was trapped.
He gulped, strangled, and began to black out.
In the dark mist of dying he felt himself threshing futilely against
entangling brush and against the endless water. Somehow there was
the noise of a gun mixed up in it, and splashing, and strange soft arms
about his throat, and a voice pleading.
“Don’t fall. Please, please, please, don’t fall!”
Go Home, Stranger — 92
Twelve
Somehow his feet were under him. He had no strength, and lunged
forward and fell, choking on the water he had swallowed. He felt
hands tugging at him, and heard the same imploring voice at his ear,
urging him on. He was up again, clawing at the bank. Something
came out of nowhere and slammed into the damp soil, exploding it in
a shower all about him. Then he was over the bank. He stumbled and
fell again, dimly conscious that somebody else was at his side and
falling with him.
He lay for a moment, his shoulders heaving as he sobbed for breath.
He opened his eyes and the wildness and the dark mist were going
away. His face was against cloth and warmth, and when he turned his
head wonderingly he was looking into frightened and anxious brown
eyes very close to his own. She had fallen on her side, with his head
held against her.
“Are you all right?” she gasped.
He turned and stared incredulously in the other direction. The far
shore was invisible beyond the screen of foliage protecting them, but
he could see projecting out into the water the old windfall in which he
had been entangled. Patricia Lasater had gone out there and pulled
him free while the man shot at them.
He sat up and tried to get to his feet. He was still too weak, and his
legs were rubbery.
“Are you sure you’re all right? She asked again.
Go Home, Stranger — 93
“Yes,” he said. “You haven’t got a gun, have you?” He was vaguely
conscious that this was a stupid question to ask.
“No.” She stood up. Her white blouse and the brief shorts were
soaked and there was a scratch on one of her legs just above the
knee. She caught his arm as he stood up. “This way,” she said
breathlessly, pointing down the channel. “Run. I heard a boat—up
there.”
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