“Never mind,” I said. “You’ve already answered your own
question. Come on in and sit down. I’ve got something I
want you to read.”
I stepped aside and let them come through the doorway. I
was careful not to let him get too near, and he was just as
careful not to turn his back, though it was all too well
covered to be obvious. Nobody said anything for a moment,
but tension was like smoke in the room.
I’d left the letter on the coffee table intentionally. He’d
have to go there to pick it up, so the logical place to sit
down would be the handiest—the sofa or one of the chairs
facing it. I nodded in that direction. “Mrs. Cannon’s already
read the good news,” I said. “I think she missed one angle
of it, but you’ll probably catch on. If you’ll notice, it’s a
carbon copy.”
“Say, what the hell is this?” he asked roughly. “Who are
you? And what do you want?”
I waved a hand. “The letter, Tallant. Why don’t you just
pick it up and read it? It’ll explain everything.”
The Big Bite — 84
He shrugged indifferently and walked over to the coffee
table, picked up the folded yellow sheets, and sat down on
the end of the sofa where I’d been. She lit a cigarette with
studied arrogance and perched on the arm of one of the big
chairs. I watched his face as he read. The mouth grew ugly.
When he finished he looked up at me, his eyes hard.
I stood back out of reach and gave them the pitch,
straight down the middle and smoking. “All right. I told you
it was a carbon copy. You can see that for yourselves. A
friend of mine has two originals, both signed. If anything
happens to me, they go in the mail, one to the District
Attorney at Houston and the other to the D.A. here. They’ll
have three murders to work on, and you can figure out for
yourselves what the odds are that they’ll be able to burn
you for at least one. Don’t think you can hide me well
enough, either. If they don’t find me for ten years they’ll
still be able to identify what’s left with that dope on the
broken leg and the dental work.
“Everybody knows I was under my own car there at the
wreck, and if the police get this letter they’ll know I was in
the next room when Purvis was killed because there’s never
been anything in the papers about those two bottles of beer.
You haven’t got a chance in the world.
“Hold still and you won’t get hurt. All I want is a hundred
thousand dollars, which is exactly what you collected from
the insurance company. There’s plenty more, and none of it
would do you any good in Death Row. So how’s it going to
be?”
While I was talking Tallant had got hold of himself again,
and now there was only a nasty smile on his face as he
looked at me. “You mean you’ve got the guts to try to shake
Mrs. Cannon down with a pipe dream like this?”
“Come off it, Jocko,” I said. “I was standing in the next
room when you killed Purvis. You want to deny it on the
stand?”
He picked up the letter again and made a big deal of
looking for something in it. “Here it is. ‘—in the kitchen,
where I could not be seen from the living-room—’ I assume
from the way you put it that Purvis—whoever he was—was
killed in the living-room. Now, this man couldn’t see you,
but you could see him. You have X-ray eyes, or something?”
The Big Bite — 85
“I didn’t say I saw you kill him,” I replied. “I said I was in
the next room. But you were the only person in there with
him, and I don’t think he could hit himself over the head
hard enough to break his own arm and split his head open
at the same time. Little far-fetched, wouldn’t you think?”
He snorted. “So you didn’t see the man, but you say it was
me. It just came to you, like that? A revelation, or
something?”
“I saw you go out,” I said wearily.
“Oh, you saw the man go out the door? He backed out, is
that it?”
“No, he didn’t back out.”
“Then you saw him from the rear?”
“That’s right.”
“You never did see his face?”
“No,” I said. I was beginning to get a little tired of it, but
if it made him feel any better to think he was making a
monkey of me it was all right.
“Did this man have his name stenciled on his clothes
somewhere in back?”
“Oh, knock it off, Tallant. You can play Mr. District
Attorney some other time.”
He looked at Mrs. Cannon and spread his hands. He
smiled. “The defense rests.”
“Never mind the hokum,” I said. “The question is do you
want the police to have this? So far, you’re covered from
every angle. Nobody suspects you. But they get one look at
this, and everything hits the fan. They’ll come at you from a
thousand angles at once. They’ll question you separately for
thirty-six hours at a time and it’s going to be hard to
remember what the other one’s supposed to be saying and
what you’re supposed to be saying and what you did say
fourteen hours ago when you had your last cigarette, and
then they’ll tell you the other one has cracked wide open
and is trying to turn State’s evidence to get off with life. You
want to try it and see how you hold up?”
He lit a cigarette and shrugged. “If you think the police
will take the word of a blackmailing creep like you against a
The Big Bite — 86
woman of her standing, go ahead and stick your neck out.
They’ll make it plenty rough for you.”
“When you get tired of bluffing,” I said, “we’ll start to talk
business.”
“We’ve already talked it. She’s not going to pay you a
nickel for any framed-up mess of lies like this, and I’d advise
you to fade while you still can.”
“How about letting her answer for herself, chum? It’s her
neck.”
I turned and glanced at her; she was still perched on the
arm of the chair, smoking. Her eyes met mine coolly. “I
never heard anything as fantastic in my life.”
He gestured with the hand holding the cigarette. “So,
scram.”
“That’s your answer, is it?” I said, making it come up
tough.
“That’s our answer.”
It was time for a little bluster. “All right, friend, I see you
want to do it the hard way. Go ahead and stew about it for a
while. Start wondering just where Purvis got his
information. Purvis was a cop, and a good one, and he didn’t
look in a crystal ball to find out she had a boy friend and
that Cannon learned about it and that Cannon wasn’t that
drunk when he drove me off the road. You want to know
where he got this information? He got it the same way the
police’ll get it when they start checking—by talking to
people, a little bit here and a little bit there. Purvis did it
alone; so go ahead and start wondering just how much a
dozen men working on it can dig up.
“Just simmer for a while. I’ll be around, and when you
start making sense you can get in touch with me. I’m a
bargain, but you’d better hurry and make up your minds
before the price starts going up.”
I picked up the letter and let myself out the front door. As
I got in the car and pulled away from the curb I saw the
drapes over the front window twitch just slightly. They were
making sure I was gone. I went straight ahead for three
blocks and then turned downhill. At the corner I turned
right again and was on the parallel street behind the
Cannon house. I pulled to the curb and stopped. It was 8:25.
The Big Bite — 87
So far, so good, I thought. It had gone off about as I had
expected. It had hit him hard at first, until he’d had time to
recover and think a little. That friend-with-a-copy gag was
so old it had whiskers, and he knew it, but there was just
enough possibility I might be telling the truth to make him
hold off and bluff while he stalled for time. When he finally
convinced himself I was working alone he’d come out there
to the cabin and blow my head off while I was asleep. I lit a
cigarette and took a couple of puffs on it. Everything
depended on the next few minutes.
Suppose they had moved, gone into the bedroom or
somewhere? Oh, hell, I thought; quit stewing about it. You
set them up like Arruza putting a bull into position; there’s
no reason they should move. I looked at my watch again. It
was time.
I pulled away from the curb and drove straight ahead
until I hit the street going uphill past the side of the Cannon
house. I turned and went up. When I swung around the next
corner I saw Tallant’s convertible still parked at the curb. I
cut the motor and eased to a stop. There was no movement
at the front window drapes; they wouldn’t be expecting me
now. I went silently up the walk, carefully turned the knob
on the front door, pulled it open, and went in fast.
I could hear Tallant’s voice sounding angry in the livingroom.
It chopped off abruptly, and I knew they had heard
the front door open. As I came striding through the doorway
from the entry hall they whirled and stared at me. He was
lighting a cigarette by the coffee table and she was across
by the rear window as if she had been staring out into the
patio.
Tallant recovered first. His face hardened and he took a
step toward me. “We told you once, Harlan—”
I took the .45 out of my pocket and pointed it at him,
“Turn around,” I ordered. “Go to the other end of the room
and sit down on that hearth.”
He stopped, cautious but not too scared. You could almost
read his thought. I couldn’t be very sure of my ground if I
had to resort to throwing my weight around and trying to
scare them with a gun. He turned and shot a glance at her.
Get a load of this character, it seemed to say.
“Move,” I snapped at him.
The Big Bite — 88
“Knock it off, you silly bastard—”
“Move!”
He moved then. Maybe he thought I’d gone crazy and it
would be a good thing to humor me. He backed across the
room and sat down on the hearth, smiled wearily at her, and
shrugged. I shot a quick glance at her myself. She had
remained where she was, near the window. She was still
outwardly cool and arrogant, but I thought I saw the
beginnings of apprehension in her eyes. Maybe she was
quicker than he was, and was already beginning to wonder
if something hadn’t gone wrong with the script.
I stepped forward, still holding the gun in my right hand.
With the left I picked up the red-shaded lamp on the end
table and dropped it On the sofa. Sliding the table out of the
way, I pushed the end of the sofa away from the wall and
reached behind it. They froze dead still now and stared as if
hypnotized. I watched them as I lifted the recorder into
view.
She gasped, and I thought for a second she was going to
fall. In the sudden, taut silence that followed, he began to
get up slowly from the hearth with deadliness quite naked
in his eyes. I had them. I had them, that is, if I got out of
here alive with that tape.
I pointed the gun at him. “Sit down,” I said.
He stopped, just half erect; and hesitated. For a second it
hung in the balance, ready to go either way. I hoped he
didn’t have sense enough at the moment to realize I
couldn’t shoot without ruining it all. A bullet through the leg
would stop him without killing him, but anything that
brought the police into it now would put me right up the
creek with them.
I had sense enough myself not to keep talking and making
threats. I just held the gun and waited while the silence
stretched out. He sat back down, very slowly, his face white
and greasy with sweat. I sighed, but didn’t relax too much.
The whole situation was still explosive, and it would take
only one bad move to set it off.
“Stand over there near him,” I told her.
She moved like someone in a trance.
The Big Bite — 89
“Just stay where you are, both of you, and nobody’ll get
hurt,” I said. “What the hell, relax. It’s only money.”
I set the recorder on the end table and flipped the
controls to rewind. When I had most of the tape back on the
spool I set it for playback and adjusted the gain. They stared
while that tense silence fell over the room again.
The first voice issuing from the loudspeaker was my own.
“—wondering where Purvis got his information. Purvis was
a cop—” I’d rolled it back a little too far, but it didn’t
matter. I let it run.
The voices came through fine. I did the threatening act,
and then there was the sound of the front door opening and
closing. A moment of silence followed. They would be
watching out the front window to be sure I was gone.
I waited, holding the gun ready. It was coming now.
The Big Bite — 90
10
There was tension in the room like an electric charge.
The first voice to come out of the loudspeaker was
Tallant’s:
“He’s gone!”
MRS. CANNON: “Dan! I’m scared! What are we
going to do?”
TALLANT: “Julia, for Christ’s sake, relax! There’s
nothing to get excited about. He’s just bluffing—”
MRS. CANNON: “I told you! I told you to go back
and see if he was still unconscious under that
other car. Why didn’t you listen—?”
TALLANT: “Will you shut up for a minute? I tell
you, he was out the whole time. He’s guessing,
and making it up. He got the idea from Purvis.
Purvis must have described you, and he realized
it was you he saw out there on the road in the
swamp—”
MRS. CANNON: “And why in the name of God
didn’t you make sure there was nobody else in
the apartment before—?”
TALLANT: “Listen! He has to be lying about that
too. I tell you I looked. There wasn’t anybody in
that kitchen.”
The Big Bite — 91
MRS. CANNON: “What about those two bottles of
beer?”
TALLANT: “I didn’t see any bottles of beer.”
MRS. CANNON: “Can’t you see, you fool, he has
to be telling the truth? The police would know.
And there hasn’t been anything about them in the
paper. And where did he get that thing about the
radio inspector, if he wasn’t there?”
TALLANT: “All right! All right! Maybe he was
there. But it’s just his word against mine—”
MRS. CANNON: “Word! For the love of heaven,
can’t you see that if the police even suspect for a
minute you were there they’ll see the whole
thing?”
TALLANT: “Look, he won’t go to the police. How
can he?”
MRS. CANNON: “Of course he’s not going to the
police, because we’re going to pay him off.
There’s no other way. If there’s even a hint that it
wasn’t an accident, we haven’t a chance in the
world.”
TALLANT: “Are you crazy? Pay him off? Don’t you
know any better than to give in to a blackmailer?
Once you give him a nickel, he’ll bleed you for
the rest of your life.”
MRS. CANNON: “Maybe you have a better
suggestion.”
TALLANT: “You’re damn right I do.”
MRS. CANNON: “No! We can’t!”
TALLANT: “The hell we can’t. He’s asking for it,
the same as Purvis.”
MRS. CANNON: “But suppose he’s telling the
truth about the other copy of that letter?”
TALLANT: “He’s not. It’s an old dodge.””
MRS. CANNON: “But Dan! We don’t know. We
can’t take the chance.”
TALLANT: “There’s no other way, I tell you! The
thing to do is bluff him and stall for time until
we’re sure. Then get rid of him. We’re in this too
The Big Bite — 92
deep to be squeamish or turn chicken now. Jesus
Christ, I wish we’d never been out there that day!
If only— Oh, hell, there’s no use crying about it
now. We’ve got to go ahead.”
MRS. CANNON: “Purvis. And now this one. Will
we ever be able to stop?”
TALLANT: “We’ll never be safe as long as he’s
alive. You know that.”
MRS. CANNON: “Yes. You’re right. But we’ve got
to be sure, first. I mean, that he’s the only one.
And we’ve got to be careful. We can’t let
anything go wrong this time.”
TALLANT: “Don’t worry. If he’s stupid enough to
think we’d fall for an old gag like that, he’s too
stupid to worry us. Let him think we believe it.”
MRS. CANNON: “But suppose he is telling the
truth?”
TALLANT: “He’s not! Good God, can’t you see
that? Do you think a pig like Harlan would divide
anything with anybody? He’s in it alone. He
wouldn’t trust anybody else.”
MRS. CANNON: “It’s so dangerous. If we guess
wrong—”
TALLANT: “Stop it! Stop it! Leave it to me. I can
outguess a thug like that— Shhhhhh!”
There was the sound of the front door opening and
closing, and then Tallant’s voice saying, “We told you once,
Harlan—”
That was all of it.
Brother, I thought, it’s enough. Once that was out of their
reach I could write my own ticket.
Tallant had started to get up. He stared at her, his eyes
hard. “How did he get that in here? Don’t you even know
what goes on in your own house?”
“Sit down,” I said. “I planted it last night after she’d gone
to bed. Now. Both of you stay right where you are. This is
not going to cost you anything but money, and you’ve got
plenty of that, so play it safe, and don’t take any chances.”
“I’ll get you, Harlan,” he said.
The Big Bite — 93
I nodded toward the machine. “I heard you the first time.”
He remained crouched, estimating his chances.
“Sit down,” I said again. He slowly settled back on the
hearth.
The room fell silent again. I flipped the machine onto
rewind and put all the tape back on one spool. Lifting it off,
I backed across to the opposite end of the room, near the
doorway to the entrance hall. There was a big chair here,
with a table beside it. I slid the table around a little so I
could sit on the arm of the chair, facing them, with its
surface in front of me. They were twenty-five feet away, at
least. I put the gun down on the table, still watching them,
and pulled the empty cardboard box from my pocket.
Slipping the roll of tape inside it, I took out the wrapping
paper and what was left of the ball of twine and made a
shipping parcel of it. They continued to watch me like two
big cats. I stuck on an address label, but left it blank. Finally
I put on some stamps and shoved it into the breast pocket of
my jacket alongside the other package containing the bass
bugs. They were identical except for weight I stood up with
the gun in my hand again. “Toss me your car keys,” I said to
Tallant.
He shook his head. “You’ll have to. Take ‘em away from
me.”
I wondered if he thought I was that stupid. “Doesn’t
matter,” I said. “I’ll just rip the ignition wiring out of your
car.”
He slowly drew the keys from his pocket and threw them
across the room near my feet. I picked them up.
I switched my gaze to her. “Where are yours?”
She made no answer.
“Come on,” I said. “A little co-operation.”
“They’re in the dining-room. On the sideboard.”
“Get ‘em,” I ordered.
“Get them yourself, if you want them. They’re behind
you.”
I motioned with the gun like somebody in a western
movie. “The keys, honey. You’re driving me to town.”
The Big Bite — 94
Her face was white as chalk, but she defied me. “Do you
think I’d go out of the house dressed this way?”
Women, I thought. “Never mind the way you’re dressed.
You won’t have to get out of the car. Is there a door from
the kitchen into the garage?”
She nodded.
“All right. Lead the way.”
She hesitated. I stared at her without saying anything. In
a moment the defiance wilted and she came toward me. I
stepped aside to let her go through the doorway. They
ganged me then, but I had been expecting it and was ready.
As she passed me she swayed slightly and then fell, as if
she had fainted. She came over against me and tried to get
her arms around my neck. I peeled her off with one arm and
dropped her across the chair, turning at the same time to
meet him. He had come too far and was moving too fast to
stop or change direction by the time he saw I’d got rid of
her. I sidestepped and gave him the stiff-arm with the flat
side of the gun just above his ear. He plowed on into the
table and chair and came to rest with the wreckage of the
table settling down on top of him.
She opened her eyes and began pushing herself out of the
chair. “You ape—”
“Sure, sure,” I said.
“You’ve killed him!”
“He’s all right,” I said. “Just take your feet out of his face
and he’ll get up.”
He climbed unsteadily to his knees with a trickle of blood
running down the side of his neck, too groggy to stand yet.
All the fight was gone out of both of them for the moment. I
jerked my head for her to go ahead into the dining-room.
She went through the doorway. “We’ll be back in a few
minutes,” I said to Tallant. “Make yourself at home. Go
ahead and call the police if you want me to be picked up
with this roll of tape on me.”
He put a hand up to the side of his head and stared at the
blood on his fingers as he brought it away. “Someday,” he
said softly.
I said nothing. I went on into the dining-room and
motioned for her to pick up the keys. She led the way. The
The Big Bite — 95
kitchen door opened into a two-car garage. The stall next to
the kitchen was vacant; a new Buick sedan stood in the
other. I stepped out and stood where I could watch her and
the doorway at the same time.
“Open the garage door and get in the car,” I told her.
She pressed a button on the wall and there was a whirring
sound of an electric motor. The door behind the Buick came
up. She got in behind the wheel. I crossed over and climbed
into the rear seat.
“Postoffice,” I said.
There was no sign of Tallant. We backed out into the
street. I put the gun on safety and shoved it into the righthand
pocket of my jacket, breathing softly in relief now that
the pressure was off. We rolled down the hill, saying
nothing. I looked at her face in the mirror. It was white and
still, the brown eyes enormous but devoid of any expression
at all, as if she were beyond caring.
We were several blocks from the house now. “Pull to the
curb for a minute,” I said.
We stopped. I took out the box containing the bass bugs.
It was much lighter than the other, so there was no chance
of mixing them up. When I’d packed it I had put wadded
paper inside so they wouldn’t rattle around. Taking out my
pen, I printed George Gray’s address on the sticker. She
could see what I was doing by glancing into the mirror, but
she couldn’t see the address. I placed it upside down in my
lap and recapped the pen.
“All right,” I said.
We went on. I leaned back in the seat and lit a cigarette.
Traffic was fairly heavy this time of the morning. “There’s a
drive-in box in front,” I said. “Just pull up at that and we
won’t have to go inside.”
We came into the square and across the west side, past
the Cannon Motors showroom. I could see the new models
shining beyond the glass. “Nice,” I said.
She made no reply.
We turned right at the next corner. When we got to the
postoffice there was another car in front of the drive-in box
and we had to wait a minute. I held the parcel so she
couldn’t see the address. The other car pulled away and she
The Big Bite — 96
moved up. She turned her head a little and watched without
expression as I reached out and dropped it into the slot
sticking out over the curb.
“There it goes, honey,” I said. “You’ve had it.”
She said nothing. We pulled away from the curb and went
on. When we came up the hill and made the turn into the
street before the house, I told her, “Pull back into the
garage.” Tallant’s car was still standing at the curb.
Apparently he hadn’t felt up to bridging the ignition switch
and taking it on the lam. Or maybe he’d wanted to hear just
what had become of the tape. It would be understandable, I
thought.
She closed the garage door and we went in through the
kitchen. Tallant was on the sofa in the living-room holding a
towel to the cut place over his ear. His face was savage as
he looked up at us. I left the gun in my pocket and leaned
against the doorway.
“Tell him, honey,” I said.
“He mailed it,” she said woodenly. She walked across to
one of the big chairs by the coffee table, sat down, and
reached wearily for a cigarette.
“You see?” I asked.
He stared and said nothing.
I lit a cigarette and waved the match at them. “Anybody
want me to draw him a picture? If not, let’s get on with the
business.”
He started to open his mouth, but was interrupted by the
sound of the door chime. I motioned for them to remain
where they were, and went to the front door. No one was
there. When I came back she nodded coldly in the direction
of the dining-room. I went through and opened the rear
door, which opened on the patio. It was the colored girl. She
was chewing gum.
I dug a dollar out of my pocket. “How’s to duck over to
the store and buy a dozen eggs? Mrs. Cannon needs them
for breakfast.”
She dropped the gum into neutral and considered this.
“Long way to the sto’.”
The Big Bite — 97
“Well, be sure they’re fresh, then,” I said, and closed the
door. I started back into the living-room, but heard it open
again behind me. She stuck her head inside.
“Miz Cannon all right?” she asked. “She don’t nevah eat
eggs.”
“She does now,” I said. “She’s on a diet.”
Her eyes grew big. “You a doctah?”
“Yes,” I said.
“She ain’t got nothin’ bad, is she?”
“No. Just a touch of caisson disease,” I said. “All she
needs is rest. And eggs, if she ever gets any.”
“Oh.” She pulled her head back out of the door.
I went back into the living-room. They hadn’t moved.
Tallant looked up at me. “You don’t think you’re going to
get away with this?”
I sighed, and went over by them to crush out the
cigarette. “You’re a hard man to convince, pal. But if you
insist, I’ll make the spiel. Here goes.
“You’re dead, both of you. You had two ways out; you
could pay me off, or if you were sure there wasn’t anybody
else with another copy of that letter you could kill me. That
last has just been answered for you. The whole thing is on
the tape, in your own words, and she just now saw me put it
in the mail. If anything happens to me, it goes to the- police,
along with a copy of the letter. There’s no way you can get
it back except by buying it. The man I sent it to has orders
to pay no attention to a telephone call from me asking to
have it mailed back or given to some other person. He’ll
give it to me only, in person, and he names the place and
time. So you can see jumping up and down in my face isn’t
going to do you any good. If you did force me to call him,
he’d only tell me where to meet him. And if I didn’t show up
alone and in one piece he wouldn’t show at all. So you can
scratch that.
“Which just leaves the easy way. I can’t see what the hell
you’re crying about. He left over a quarter of a million, plus
the insurance. What do you want, anyway? Give me mine, I
kiss you both for luck, and fade. Nobody else knows about
it, so you settle down, join the PTA, and spend the rest of
The Big Bite — 98
your lives bitching about what the younger generation’s
coming to. Looks simple to me. How about it?”
She was recovering faster than he was. “And what
guarantee do we have you’ll keep your word?” she asked
coldly.
“None,” I said. “But what else can you do?”
“I see what you mean. We’re completely at the mercy of a
conscienceless thug who’d betray his own mother.”
“Sure, sure,” I said.
“And you wouldn’t even return the tape—”
“Of course I’d return it. What the hell, you think I want it
for a souvenir? Look, use your head. This is a simple
business proposition. I don’t give a damn what you do or
what becomes of you, or whether you kill everybody in this
end of the state, as long as I get paid for being run over out
there that night. Why get hot under the collar like a bunch
of emotional types? You’re a couple of tough cookies looking
out for yourselves; I’m another cookie looking out for John
Harlan. What’s to blow your stack about? It’s just
merchandise—”
Tallant leaned forward with his fingers gripping the edge
of the coffee table so tightly the knuckles were white. “You
dirty bastard—”
I walked over and dropped his car keys on the table. “Why
don’t you get lost? I’m talking to the chairman of the board,
and we can probably work out a deal without any static
from you. You’re getting a free ride, so what are you kicking
about anyway?”
He stared up at me. “You think I’m going to hold still for
this?”
“You kidding? What the hell are you holding still for?
She’s paying the freight, isn’t she?”
“Who said she was?”
“She did, as I recall. But we can ask her again.” I turned
and looked at her. “How about it, baby?”
She stared coldly for an instant, but then she nodded She
was a realist, that girl
“You’ll get it,” she said.
It was as easy as that.
The Big Bite — 99
11
“That’s using the old head,” I told her. I sat down on the
chair at the end of the coffee table, between them. “You and
I are going to get along fine, honey.”
“I am flattered,” she said.
“Now, let’s work it out.”
“What do you mean?” ,
“Julia, I tell you—” Tallant interrupted.
I waved a hand at him. “Shut up. I’m talking to one of the
men.”
He started to rise, his face ugly. For an instant I was
afraid I’d pushed him too far; after all, I still had that tape
on me, even if they didn’t suspect it. If he went crazy and
lost his head enough to jump me they might find it. I had to
be more careful.
But I couldn’t let him know he had me worried. “Why
don’t you scram, Tallant? You’re just getting in the way.”
“And leave her here alone with you?”
“Cut it out, will you? I’m not going to hurt her. We’re just
talking business, and we need you like we need a fourth for
bridge.”
“You might as well go, Dan,” she said. “There’s no use
starting a fight.”
“But, damn it, Julia—”
The Big Bite — 100
“Let me handle it, please.”
“Don’t you understand? Listen, if you give in to him, you’ll
never get him off your back—”
“Do you have any other suggestion?” she asked coldly. “It
would seem to me you’ve bungled enough already.”
“Bungled! Listen, who let him plant that recorder in
here?”
“Will you go?” she asked.
“Make up your minds, will you?” I said. “That maid will be
back here in a few minutes.”
“All right! All right!” Tallant stood up, his face dark with
rage. “If you’re going to let yourself be pushed around by
this thug—”
“You don’t catch on very fast, do you?” I asked. “There’s
nothing else you can do.”
“He’s right,” she said wearily. “Can’t you see it?”
“I’d never pay blackmail—”
“Who’s asking you to?” I said. “Hell, you couldn’t pay for a
drink. Beat it.”
He stared down at me for an instant, and then turned
silently and went out. The front door slammed. I breathed a
little easier. He’d been on the ragged edge of losing his
head.
She picked up a cigarette from the box on the table. I held
a match across to her, and then lit one for myself. She stood
up, walked slowly across to the rear window, and then came
back to perch on the arm of the sofa, diagonally across the
table from me. She was a smooth-looking dish.
I leaned back in the chair. “With your looks you could
have done better.”
She raised her eyebrows and said coldly, “I beg your
pardon?”
“You’re a tough number, and a smooth one. A realist, and
you’ve got a head on you. But why’d you go for that
character? He’s acting like an overgrown kid.”
She regarded me coolly. “I believe you wanted to discuss
something with me. Would you mind coming to the point?”
“Sure,” I said. “Money.”
The Big Bite — 101
“Precisely. And what about it?”
“Just this. We’ve been tossing a lot of big words around,
but let’s take a closer look. A hundred thousand dollars in
cash makes a nice musical sound when you say it, but when
you start to break it down it gets complicated. First, nobody
keeps anything like that in a checking account, no matter
how much he has. Second, even if he did he’d still cause a
hell of a lot of talk when he started drawing it out in cash.
So let’s hear something specific. How, where, when, and so
on.”
She leaned forward and knocked ash into a tray. “I can
raise it.”
“Fill me in.”
“Is it any of your business, as long as I do it?”
“Sure. Take a look. I can get in the wringer, too, if we’re
not careful. I’ve been here to see you a couple of times.
Then you go to your bank and say you want to raise a
hundred grand in cash. What for? To pay the light bill, you
say. This is a small town. Talk gets started.”
The brown eyes regarded me with level speculation.
“Well, perhaps if you named some more reasonable figure,
say ten thousand, it might be easier—”
I shook my head. “Unh-unh.”
“Twenty?”
“Come off it, baby. I’ve been around, too. We understand
each other better than that.”
She shrugged. “I was afraid we did.”
“Well, nice try, anyway. But now, let’s get on. How are
you going to raise it, and how long will it take?”
She thought for a moment. Then she said, “It’ll take about
a week, and it can all be handled in Houston, which should
be safe enough as far as gossip is concerned. I have
securities—mostly common stocks and railroad bonds—
sufficient to cover it. They can be converted easily. I’ll place
a sell order with the brokerage firm down there, and they’ll
give me a check for the proceeds. I deposit the check in a
Houston bank, and when it clears, draw out the cash and
give it to you. They may wonder at it, but not seriously.
Banks deal with eccentrics all the time.”
The Big Bite — 102
I had to admire her coolness. She could have been merely
figuring out her share of a luncheon tab. “You’re an
unflustered tomato,” I said.
She shrugged again. “What would you like? Hysterics? I
learned to face facts very early in life. If there were any way
out I’d fight you right down to the ground, but when there
isn’t, why not accept it?”
“Good for you.” I stood up. “It’s a pleasure doing business
with you.”
“I can assure you it’s no pleasure as far as I’m concerned.
I wish you’d never been born.”
“It’s just the breaks, Brown Eyes. Some days you can’t
murder a soul without getting caught at it.” I yanked the
microphone cord out of the back of the sofa and pulled out
the power plug. She watched me.
“You unlatched one of the doors when you were here
yesterday?” It was more a statement than a question.
I nodded toward the door in back of the drape. “That
one.”
“Clever. And I thought you were an utter idiot.”
“Well, better luck next time, honey.” I closed the recorder.
“Just so we don’t start anybody thinking, I won’t come
around here any more, but I’ll be in touch with you by
phone to see how you’re coming along raising the geetus.”
“Where will you be? Here in town?”
“No. Out there at the fishing camp. It’ll look better that
way. Now, let’s see. This is Thursday, right?”
She nodded.
“Well, how about a week from today, in Houston? Think
you can do it by then?”
“Yes. And can you have the tape back from your fellow
thug by that time?”
“I think so.” I started for the door, and then turned.
“Anyway, we’ll be in touch. And just one more thing. Better
caution Tallant about flipping his lid and trying something
silly. Remember, if anything happens to me you’ll both land
in Death Row.”
She said nothing. I went on out and got in the car. On the
way out of town I stopped at a small grocery and bought a
The Big Bite — 103
dozen cans of beer and some more supplies for the kitchen.
I picked up a roll of the plastic film they use to wrap things
in a refrigerator with, and two rolls of Scotch tape. I bought
fifty pounds of ice, wrapped it in an old blanket, and shoved
off for the lake.
It was a little before ten when I swung off onto the road
going into the swamp. I met no one. About four miles in,
where the road wound through a heavy stand of pine on a
hillside dropping away to the bottom, I slowed. In a moment
I found it, a faint trace of an old logging road leading off to
the left. It had been unused for years and the ruts were
sifted over with dead pine needles. I pulled off onto it and
went ahead until the car was out of sight of anyone going
by. When I stopped and cut the engine there was dead
silence except for a faint whisper of breeze through the tops
of the pines. I took the roll of tape out of my pocket and
began wrapping it in the plastic, stretching the film tightly
for a good waterproof seal. I used the whole roll, and then
bound it solidly with the Scotch tape. When I had finished I
got out, took the jack handle from the trunk, and looked
about for a likely spot. Off to the left some fifteen or twenty
yards, vines grew around an old stump. I parted them,
scooped out a hole with the jack handle, and buried the
package, tamping the soil down neatly and carefully
rearranging the pine needles and leaves over it. Nobody
would ever find it. I turned the car about and drove back on
the road. After I was back in the ruts, I backed up and then
came forward again to erase the tracks leading in.
The cabin lay in mottled shade from the big oaks around it
as I drove into the clearing. I unlocked the front door and
went inside. Starting a fire in the cook-stove, I burned the
carbon copy of the letter and the rest of the typing paper,
along with the carton the plastic wrap had come in. Then I
took the typewriter outside and locked it in the trunk of the
car with the recorder.
I brought in the ice and put it in the box, and piled the
beer cans on it. After I had arranged the groceries on the
shelves, I opened some pork and beans and ate them out of
the can to save dishwashing. Punching one of the cans of
beer, I took it out on the porch and lit a cigarette. I was
tired from being up all night, but too excited to be sleepy. It
was wonderful. I had it made; in one stroke I’d tied them up
The Big Bite — 104
and left them with no way out except to pay me. A week
from today I’d meet her in Houston, she’d hand me a
fortune in good, hard cash, and I’d be on my way. Nobody
would ever know.
After I had finished the beer I put on swim trunks and
went down to the pier. The skiff, moored to it with a padlock
and chain, was half full of rainwater. I bailed it out and then
went for a swim. The water was warm and fairly clear now
in late summer. I climbed out and lay down on the pier in
the shade of the big oaks overhanging it, conscious of the
drowsy hush of midday. Four days’ tension unwound inside
me like a breaking clock spring, and I went to sleep.
* * *
I didn’t know what waked me. I opened my eyes and Julia
Cannon was standing beside my legs looking down at me.
“Hello,” I said.
She nodded. “Hello.”
I rubbed a hand across my face. “How long have you been
here?”
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