The Big Bite by Charles Williams(6)

“Just a few minutes.”
I couldn’t see anyone else, either here on the pier or up by
her car in front of the cabin. “Where’s the moose?”
“Moose?”
“Tallant.”
“I don’t know,” she said.
It was late afternoon, and shadows were reaching out
across the clearing. She wore a dark pleated skirt and a
soft, white, long-sleeved blouse with French cuffs. I turned
my head slightly and completed the survey. She had on
nylons in that area, and sling pumps.
“Nice,” I said.
She made no reply.
“Don’t mind me,” I said. “I always wake up this way.”
She was carrying a pack of cigarettes in her hand, and a
paper book of matches, because women never have pockets
in anything. She fumbled with them now, lighting one.
I reached up a hand for it. “Thanks,” I said. She lit
another for herself.
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“Quite neat,” she said. “An entire philosophy in one
gesture.”
I propped myself on an elbow. “Don’t be an egghead,
honey. You’re stac
ked all wrong.”
She shrugged.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked.
“Nothing.” She sat down with her back against one of the
upright poles to which the pier was secured. Raising her
legs, she tucked the skirt in under them.
“What progress with the money?” I asked.
“I called the broker in Houston and gave him a list of
securities to sell. The proceeds will be deposited to my
account in the bank down there next Tuesday.”
“Nice going,” I said. “I’ll meet you Thursday morning.
Right?”
She nodded. “I’ll be at the Rice Hotel.”
“Alone?”
“Is that your concern?”
I took a drag on the cigarette. “You can bet it is. I don’t
want Tallant around when I give that tape back to you. I’ve
seen some of his work.”
“You think of everything, don’t you?”
“Take a look at the hole you’re in and you can answer
your own question. We work it this way. Tallant is to be up
here in his store on Thursday morning. Just before I meet
you with the tape, I call him long distance. If I don’t hear his
voice, I don’t show.”
She nodded coolly. “That sounds all right. You’ll have the
recorder with you? I shall want to hear the tape, naturally.”
“Of course. I’ll come to your room at the hotel. We play it
back, you put the money in my warm little hand, and I
fade.”
“Very well,” she said. She looked musingly at my face.
“Tough, aren’t you?”
“I try to get along.”
“You should go far. Is blackmail a new field for you?”
“Maiden voyage.”
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“I must say you have a masterly grasp of its intricacies,
for a beginner.”
“Thank you. I like your legs.”
“You don’t have any trouble with the moral aspects?”
“Why should I? I’m just a press agent in reverse. You’re
paying me to keep you off the front page.”
The brown eyes met mine probingly. “Never mind the
comic rationalization. It doesn’t bother you in the slightest,
does it?”
“No. I’m a bastard. I admit it.”
“Frank, to say the least.”
“Look. It’s a jungle. They throw you into it naked, and
sixty years later they carry you off in a box. You just do the
best you can.”
She smiled a little mockingly. “Ah. The beginnings of
thought. You’re a nihilist.”
“That’s out of style,” I said. “Nobody’s been one for
years.”
“You are surprising. I didn’t think you’d know what it
meant.”
“Duh,” I said. “I saw it in a comic book.”
She shrugged. “Never mind.” Her glance crawled up me
from toes to shoulders and back again. “Just don’t be an
egg-head. You’re stacked all wrong.”
I looked at her face. It was completely expressionless.
“How about a beer?” I asked. “I’ve got some on ice.”
“Love one,” she said. “How about helping me up? These
high heels—”
I stood up and reached a hand down for her. She took it
and I lifted. She came erect, teetered a little, and braced
herself with a hand on my shoulder. I took her arm as she
walked ahead of me down the pier.
“Thank you,” she said when we were on solid ground, and
pulled her arm away. I was listening for something in her
voice, and thought I heard it.
She led the way toward the car instead of the front porch
of the cabin. I stood behind her as she opened the right
The Big Bite — 107
front door. “Something I wanted to get,” she said, reaching
into the glove compartment.
There was an overnight bag on the floor in back. She
turned and saw me looking at it.
“I was—I mean, I’m going to Dallas to visit friends over
the weekend,” she said.
“Hot there, this time of year,” I said.
“Yes. Isn’t it?”
The sun was far down now, below the wall of timber
around the clearing, and there was something about the
light that played up her flamboyant coloring—warm red,
honey, deep brown, and the jet shadow of her hair. She had
taken something from the glove compartment, but at the
moment I wouldn’t have noticed if she’d been carrying a
lighted neon sign in each hand.
“You promised me a beer,” she said.
“Sure,” I replied. We went up on the porch. “Make
yourself at home. I’ll change out of these trunks and open a
couple of cans.”
I went through into the back room, took off the swim
trunks, and put on shorts and a pair of flannel slacks. Just
as I was shoving my feet into sandals she came in. She
leaned against the door frame, holding a cigarette in her
fingers, and swept an amused glance around the room at
the beds and the duck-hunting clothes hanging along the
walls.
“Very cozy,” she said. “A little crude—but masculine.”
I tossed the trunks across a chair and stepped toward her.
She didn’t move out of the doorway. I leaned an arm against
the frame above her head and stood looking down at her.
“Long drive,” I said.
She tilted her head back. “Yes. Isn’t it?”
She put a hand up on my arm. “No shirt. Characteristic.”
I said nothing.
“Like oak.”
“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it?”
She stared musingly at the gold cuff link on her wrist as
the hand slid downward, across my shoulder. The cigarette
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slipped from the fingers of her other hand and fell to the
floor. She didn’t appear to notice it.
“You dropped your cigarette,” I said.
She glanced down. “Oh. So I did.”
It was lying near her feet. She placed the toe of one of the
pumps on it and ground it slowly into the floor.
She looked back up at my face.
“I was finished with it,” she said.
The Big Bite — 109
12
It was dark in the room. She stirred languidly beside me on
the narrow bed and sat up, groping on the table for a
cigarette. The big match flared, revealing her nakedness.
She couldn’t have cared less. She was a cool devil in most
ways, but when she was after fun she took it fervently and
unbuttoned.
“Oh,” she said. The hand carrying the match stopped its
movement a little short of the end of the cigarette.
“What is it?” I asked. ?
“I almost forgot the thing I came out here for.”
“Like hell you did,” I said.
She turned her head slightly and smiled at me in the light
of the match. It was a large assortment of smile wanton and
go-to-hell at the same time, with just a trace of well-fed cat.
“No,” she said. “I brought you something.”
“Not really?”
“Shut up.” She lit the cigarette and waved the match to
put it out. “It’s on the table in the other room.”
“What is?” Then I remembered she had taken something
from the glove compartment of the car.
“The envelope. With the money in it.”
“Money?”
“Really. I’m not that distracting, am I?”
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“How much money?”
“That’s more like it. You should stay in character.”
“The hell with that. How much?”
“Eight thousand.”
“Why?”
“Partial payment. What else? I happened to have that
much available, and since I had to give it to you. Sooner or
later—”
“You’re a relaxed type.”
“Not relaxed. Realistic. Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not
soft. If you’d left yourself open anywhere, you’d never have
extorted a nickel from me. But you didn’t—so what’s the use
stalling or crying about it?”
“How about this? Not that I’m kicking, you understand,
but you did surprise me a little—”
“Women can surprise you? At your age?”
“So I’m stupid.”
“Just say you intrigued me.”
“That’s good.”
“You’re quite interesting. You have daring, imagination,
and no more moral restraint than a cobra. I don’t like dull
men.”
“So you like me. Crap.”
“I didn’t say I liked you. I said you interested me.”
“That’s nice,” I said. I got up and went into the other
room. Striking a match, I located the envelope on the table
and opened it. It was a big nine by twelve Manila type, and
inside were a lot of loose bills plus two blocks of fifties. The
match burned down and scorched my fingers while I stared.
I tried to imagine what a hundred thousand would look like.
It would be a little over twelve times as much. I struck
another match and carried it into the back room. When I put
the envelope on the table beside the bed some of the money
slid out. I looked from it to her in the flickering light.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Color scheme,” I said. “Make a great painting. Nude
brunette with eight thousand dollars.”
She smiled mockingly. “Ah, your esthetic side.”
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“I’m a sensitive type,” I said. “I live for beauty.”
“But, really, you’re more complex than that. Shouldn’t
your great painting also include a broiled T-bone steak and
a bottle of cheap bourbon?”
“Leave out the bourbon,” I said. “I don’t drink.” The
match went out and I dropped it on the floor. I sat on the
side of the bed and struck another to light a cigarette.
“You see now why you interest me?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“You’re an odd mixture. All your tastes are elemental; you
operate right at the instinctive level. And yet you
demonstrate great imagination and some intelligence in
your campaigns to satisfy these primitive urges.”
“Sure, sure,” I said. “Why don’t you write a book?”
“You’re a magnificent brute.”
The match went out and I tried to remember in the dark
what the money looked like.
“You just take what you want.”
“Sure, sure,” I said.
Her voice went on. “I think we’re a lot more alike in some
ways than either of us would care to admit.”
Women, I thought. They yakked all the time except when
they were being laid or asleep. They could make a federal
case out of as simple a thing as a jump in the hay, and then
afterward they had to analyze it like a bridge hand. Well,
what the hell, maybe she wasn’t as bad as a lot of them, at
that. At least she didn’t require three days’ conversation to
get into bed; all she had to do was see one handy and have
room to throw her clothes. She had talent, too, once she got
there. I began to think about that again, stretched out
beside her, and shut her up with the old classic method of
turning off the yak. It was all right with her.
* * *
We stooged around the cabin all the next day, and late in
the afternoon we went for a swim. She didn’t have a suit in
her overnight bag, but that didn’t bother her to any extent.
Afterward she dressed in white shorts and a knit pullover
thing with short sleeves and we sat on the front porch
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drinking beer. She was something to see, even after nearly
twenty-four hours of her.
“You’re a good-looking dish,” I said.
She smiled lazily and stretched out a leg, looking at her
red toenails. “Why, thank you, Cyrano. You overwhelm me.”
“What about Tallant?” I asked.
“Very well. What about Tallant?”
“Does he think you’re in Dallas?”
“I suppose so. But does it matter?”
“No. Except he might blow his stack if he found put where
you really were.”
“Well,, he can’t do anything.”
I lit a cigarette. “No. Of course not—as long as he’s in his
right mind. But I don’t think he’s as tough as you are, and
he might flip. He’s close enough to the edge now; why push
him over the line?”
She smiled mockingly. “Ah, there speaks the ardent lover
—”
“Nuts. This thing is tricky enough now without getting it
loused up with a lot of personal angles. If you want to put
the harpoon in Tallant, do it after I get out of the country.”
“He doesn’t own me.”
“Well, he’s tried hard enough,” I said, thinking of Cannon
and Purvis. “Aren’t you going to get married?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wasn’t that the idea?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. You were running around with
him but Cannon got wise to it. He’d have divorced you, but
the property settlement wouldn’t have been very big, with
the evidence he had. So when he came uncorked and tried
to drive you off the road and left himself set up like a duck
in a shooting gallery, you blew the whistle on him.”
“I see no point in discussing it. Emotion of any kind would
be beyond your comprehension.”
“Hell, it’s nothing to me. But what’d you do—get tired of
him? Tallant, I mean.”
The Big Bite — 113
She leaned back on her elbows and regarded me
thoughtfully. “He does tend to get a little intense and
possessive. And maybe I could like you better.”
“Sure, sure,” I said. “Have all the fun you want, but let’s
don’t get too careless, shall we? Not till I get mine and get
out of here. This is a big deal, and I don’t want it screwed
up by some jealous type going off his rocker. One false
move and we’ll have cops around here like cats at a fish
fry.”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” she asked coldly.
“Of course not. I’m just trying to use common sense.”
“Use all you want. But I’m going to stay.”
“Sure, sure. Stick around. What the hell.”
She smiled. “After all, I’m supposed to have gone
somewhere for the weekend. And I like it here.”
“That’s an old gag,” I said.
She laughed.
I gave up. Women never made any sense, anyway. And
there really wasn’t any reason Tallant would come out here
and find her; I was just jittery because there was so much at
stake. Relax, I thought; quit worrying and join the party.
That was Friday afternoon. Saturday morning at ten,
while we were drinking coffee in the front room, he walked
in on us. He was carrying a gun in his right hand, and he
was wired and set to go off.
* * *
For some reason—probably just dumb luck—she was
dressed, for a change. For the best part of two days she’d
been lying around like an oyster on the half shell, but this
morning when she climbed out of the sack she’d put the
pleated skirt and the blouse back on. Maybe that helped; I
didn’t know. On the face of it, it wouldn’t seem to make a
great deal of difference; there couldn’t be much chance
she’d been out here two days and nights just to give me her
recipe for pineapple fritters, but you can never tell for sure
about a joker who’s beginning to lose his marbles. If he’d
happened to walk in on us in the sack or while she was lying
around in nothing but her nail polish he might have killed us
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both before we could open our mouths. As it was, it was bad
enough.
She was sitting at the table facing the open front door and
I was at the stove pouring another cup of coffee when I
heard her say, “Well!” I wheeled, and he was standing in
the door. He was so big it looked as if it had been stretched
around him. His mouth twitched, he hadn’t shaved for two
or three days, and his eyes had the wild, staring look of a
man who was going to swing at the next cockroach that
laughed at him.
My gun was in the back room in a duffle bag and I was ten
feet from him, at least, with nothing in my hand but a coffee
pot. Gooseflesh prickled across my shoulders. She was all
right, though. He didn’t scare her a nickel’s worth, and she
was just the girl to show him. She smiled at him with
exactly the right shade of contempt to push him over the
line, and said, “My, aren’t we dramatic?” I couldn’t think of
anything helpful except to pray he’d use the whole clip on
her before he remembered me.
He took a slow step into the room and turned just enough
to watch us both. He was wearing dark slacks and a white
shirt with the cuffs rolled halfway up his rope-muscled
forearms. The shirt was stained down the front with
something he’d spilled on it, and he looked like a man on
the wrong end of a two-day binge. If he’d been drunk,
though, he wasn’t now. He was just unstable and dangerous
as hell.
“So you went to Dallas,” he said harshly.
She rested her chin in one cupped palm and regarded him
with faint amusement. “Are you asking me, dear?”
“Why did you even bother to lie about it, you lousy little
chippy?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t. I started to Dallas, but you might
say I changed my mind. It looked as if it might be more fun
to stay here.” She smiled sweetly. “And do you know, it was.
I’ve been having a wonderful time.”
I took a chance and breathed, hoping he wouldn’t notice I
was still alive. Maybe he’d just kill her and go away. I
wanted to kill her myself.
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He walked slowly over to the table and stood looking
down at her with the veins standing out on his temples. The
gun lined up with her face. “Look up here,” he said. “Look
up at me, you roundheeled bitch—”
She glanced up calmly. “Yes, dear? And what are you
going to do?”
If she’d only shut up— He was still talking, so maybe
there was a chance. But, oh, for the love of God, couldn’t
she keep her stupid mouth shut for a minute?
I was careful not to move. “Tallant,” I said softly.
He didn’t even hear me. His face twitched. “I wish to God
I’d never seen you. Or even heard of you. Why couldn’t you
have died when you were born? Look at you! You’re what I
went through it for—”
”Tallant,” I said again, a little louder this time.
He turned then. “Don’t get in a hurry,” he said. “I’m
coming to you.”
“Listen,” I said. “Don’t be a fool, Tallant. You haven’t got a
chance in the world. If you kill us the police will get that
tape. You want to commit suicide?”
“Shut up!” he shouted. “I don’t care! It’ll be worth it—”
“Cut it out,” I went on, trying to keep my voice calm. “Use
your head. Go on and get out of here, and you’re in the
clear. Nobody’ll ever know, and she’s the one who has to
pick up the tab. She’s paying off for you. Stop acting like, a
kid.”
“I’ll kill both of you!”
Gently, I thought. Don’t move. Don’t set him off . He was
making threats, having to prime himself to keep going. He
was beginning to waver, and the moment to use the gun
was slipping away. We might make it—if she didn’t open her
fat mouth again.
She did. And she put both feet in it this time. “You haven’t
been following me, have you, dear? You know I don’t like
that.”
He started to turn. Throw the coffee pot, I thought
bitterly; that always works fine in the movies. Then, without
any warning, he cracked. He looked around helplessly, like
some big, tortured kid, and said, “Why? Why did you do it?”
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“Get out,” she said contemptuously.
“Julia—” He dropped the gun to the floor and stood with
his chin on his chest. “Julia—” Turning, he ran out the door.
I picked up the gun and went out on the porch. He was
stumbling along the road and in a moment he entered the
wall of timber at the edge of the clearing and was out of
sight. His car would be back up there somewhere.
She came up beside me and put an arm across my
shoulders. I turned, caught the front of her blouse, and
slapped her across the face with the back of my hand. It
made a sharp sound in the stillness. She cried out and
stepped back.
I wiped the sweat off my face with a hand that was still
shaking, and walked past her into the back room. Throwing
the big suitcase on the bed, I began tossing clothes into it.
She came back and stood in the doorway. Her face was
white except for the angry red splotch on her cheek, and
she stared at me with amazement.
“What did you do that for?” she asked.
“For being an idiot.”
“What do you mean?”
I straightened with a shirt in my hand. “Go ahead. Get
yourself killed. But you can leave me out of it.”
She shrugged. “He’s harmless.”
“Sure, sure,” I said. He was harmless. He’d only killed two
men so far.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, with just a shade of the
same contempt she’d used on him. “Are you afraid of him?”
“Don’t try to ride me,” I said. “I’ll slap your face around
under your ear.”
She sniffed. “What’s wrong with you, anyway? He can’t do
anything to you, and you know it.”
I walked over and stood looking down at her. “Try to get
this through your fat head. Maybe you can’t, but try it,
anyway. He can’t do anything to me as long as he cares
what happens to him. That’s what the whole thing was
based on. The minute he quits caring, threatening him with
that tape is about as bright as trying to put out hell with a
water pistol. He’s half nuts, and you’re pushing him over
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the line. He’s already killed two men because of you—God
knows why, when he could have laid you for a bar of soap—
but he did, and now that he’s got himself into a jam that can
put him in the electric chair, you start giving him the
treatment. You don’t think he’ll be back. I do. And the next
time he probably won’t do so much talking first; he’ll be
smoking up the place when he comes through the door—”
“You have his gun.”
“I’ve got news for you,” I said. “They made two guns last
year.”
“Well, what are you going to do?” she asked, leaning
against the door frame.
“I’m going to get the hell out of here while I’m in one
piece. I don’t want any punchy maniac blowing my head off
from behind, or while I’m asleep.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Well! And what about me?”
“The hell with what about you. You meet me in Houston
Thursday at noon with that money, the way you’re supposed
to. In the meantime, try the Marine Corps.”
She flared up. “Don’t talk to me that way!”
“Beat it,” I said. I turned back to my packing.
“Why, you arrogant muscle-brain—”
I collected my shacking gear off a shelf and dropped it in
the bag.
“John—”
There was something plaintive about it. I turned. She
leaned her head back against the door frame and the big
eyes were contrite. “I’m sorry,” she said.
It was a smooth routine, from blazing hellcat to appealing
little girl in one breath, and I was about to tell her what she
could do with it when something else occurred to me.
Tallant might flip his lid and kill her, even after she’d gone
back home. What was I thinking about, going off and
leaving her? That was stupid; the thing to do was take her
with me so I’d know damn well she would still be alive
Thursday morning.
I walked over to her. “I’m sorry, too,” I said. “I guess he
scared me a little.”
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She looked up at me with an eager smile. “Why don’t we
go away somewhere, if you don’t want to stay here?”
You’re reading my mail, I thought. I put my hand under
her chin, tilted her face up, and kissed her.
“That’s the ticket. Just the two of us, like a honeymoon.”
Her eyes were shining. “Wonderful. Where shall we go?”
“Anywhere, baby.”
“Houston?”
“We’ll go there Thursday.” I didn’t want to be around
Houston any longer than I had to. There was always a
chance that taxi driver had spilled my description to the
cops.
She laughed. “Well, what does it matter? Who cares
where he is, on a honeymoon?”
“Sure,” I said. I put the envelope with the eight thousand
on top of the other stuff in the bag, and after she’d packed
hers I carried the two of them outside and locked the cabin.
“There’s no use taking both cars,” she said. “Why don’t
we go in mine?”
“No,” I said. “You go ahead. Turn right when you get out
on the highway. I’ll follow you and leave my car in Breward.
I can pick it up again when we start down to Houston.”
She frowned slightly. “But why not just leave it here?
Nobody’ll bother it.”
“Save having to come back in and get it,” I replied.
Naturally, I couldn’t tell her I wanted her to go out first so I
could stop and dig up that tape. I’d leave it in the car, of
course, and she’d never know. When we came back through
Breward and I drove it on down to Houston I could leave it
on a lot and while she was at the bank I’d go get the tape
out of it, still carrying out the illusion somebody else had it
all the time.
She shrugged. “All right.”
I put the bags in her Buick and got in my car. When I
stepped on the starter, nothing happened. I tried again. The
battery was dead.
That was odd. The generator had been charging all right.
Maybe it was just a bad connection. I tried the lights. They
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came on dimly, and then died. Well, so you buy an old clunk
—
She got out of the Buick. “What’s the matter?”
“Dead battery,” I said.
“Why do you suppose that is? Did you leave the radio on?”
“It hasn’t got a radio. Well, you can push me to get it
started.”
“Oh, let’s go,” she said impatiently. “Leave it here.”
“Push it,” I said. I climbed back in. She maneuvered up
behind me and came up against the bumper. I managed to
swing around and we started out the road. After a quarter
of a mile there still hadn’t been a cough out of the motor.
She stopped and got out. “What do you suppose is the
matter?”
“Maybe the battery’s shorted out inside; not enough juice
even for the ignition.”
“Well, leave the silly thing here, John. Let’s go.”
“I can’t leave it here in the road.”
“Oh, all right.”
She got back in the Buick, went past me, and turned
around. We maneuvered the Chevy back to the cabin and
left it in the yard. I started to lift the hood to have a look
under it, but shrugged. All it needed was another battery.
We could bring one in when we came back. I didn’t like the
idea of coming back in here, but it would be safe enough.
All I’d have to do would be call Tallant’s shop beforehand
and make sure he was there instead of down here looking
for us.
I got in the car with her and we drove out of the bottom.
Before we came out on the highway it occurred to me it was
damned strange the car hadn’t started.
With her pushing it, there should have been enough spark
from the generator to fire it.
Oh, well, I thought, and dropped it. It was a mistake, but I
was making them one after another by that time.
The Big Bite — 120
13
We drove to Shreveport. When we checked in at the hotel,
she waited impatiently until the bellhop got his tip and left;
then she came close to me, put her hands up behind my
neck, smiled delightfully, and said, “Isn’t this nice?”
“Sure, sure,” I said. I’d intended to ask the desk to send
up the Houston papers, but I’d forgotten.
She leaned against me a little, “Riding in a car always
does something funny to me. Maybe it’s the vibration.”
“Could be,” I said.
“Being on a ship does the same thing.”
So does breathing, I thought.
She brushed her hand through my hair, whirled away I
from me, and spun herself onto the bed. She doubled up her
legs and lit a cigarette, smiling roguishly at me above the
match. “Air-conditioning, no mosquitoes, tiled bath, clean
sheets—this is much better, don’t you I think?”
“Who’s got a one-track mind?” I asked.
She made a face. “All right. But is that so bad?”
“It’s fine with me,” I said.
“Well! Couldn’t you be just a little more ardent?”
I lit a cigarette and sat down on the other bed, facing her.
“I don’t always get your message,” I said. “Seems to me you
should be sore as a boil.”
The Big Bite — 121
“So I should.”
“But you’re not?”
She shrugged. “What good would it do?”
“I see what you mean. If you can’t whip ‘em, join ‘em.’
“That’s part of it. But maybe I like you.”
“Sure, sure.”
She looked at me thoughtfully. “It’s odd, I know. But
there’s something fascinating about you. You’re exciting.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know, really. It’s a lot of things, I guess. You’re
big, and hard, and utterly ruthless. You’re so completely a
male animal from every angle—”
“And you like ‘em male?”
She glanced up at me from under those long lashes.
“Haven’t you formed any opinion about that yet?”
* * *
We didn’t leave the room for twenty-four hours. We had our
meals sent up, and I got hold of all the Houston papers.
There was nothing in them about Purvis, which could mean
anything. The police would still be actively working on it,
even if it didn’t rate any space. There was no love-nest
angle and no way they could work in some pictures of a
half-dressed babe; he was just another sleazy character
with his roof shoved in. They’re a dime a dozen in any large
city and have to have a real homey angle somewhere to stay
in the papers more than a couple of days. That taxi driver
could have come forward and given my description to the
cops without anyone’s bothering to get out an extra about
it. That was the scary part of it; I wouldn’t know, and I had
to go back down there.
I thought about it. Why go down there at all? She could go
draw out the money and meet me in San Antonio or Dallas
or somewhere else. No. That wasn’t so hot. She’d be
wandering around over the state alone with over ninety
thousand in cash, and there was no telling what’d happen.
The way she was bothered, she was just as likely to take off
up an alley after a telephone lineman. I wasn’t so sure now
but what she might be a little whacky, at least when she
The Big Bite — 122
was troubled with ants in the pants, which seemed to be
most of the time. There was no doubt she was one of the
smoothest-looking dishes I’d ever seen, but she was
beginning to strike me as a character. They both were, as a
matter of fact, and they didn’t look half as dangerous as
they had at first. It was just dumb luck they’d fooled the
police the way they had, and Purvis had been merely stupid.
Hell, I’d made them look silly, right from the start.
We went to a movie Sunday afternoon and out to dinner
afterward. Men turned and looked at her everywhere she
went. She was in a good mood when we came back, and
didn’t seem to mind whether I listened to her yakking or
not. When you’ve reached the saturation point in lovemaking,
there’s nothing you can get as sick of as being shut
up for any length of time in a hotel room with a woman, but
I had to hand it to her. She was good-natured all the time,
and if I just grunted occasionally when she was beating her
gums fourteen to the dozen while brushing her hair or
washing out her stockings with the bathroom door open it
was all right with her. She just didn’t want me to be out of
reach for a minute.
On Monday she wanted to go shopping, and nothing
would do but that I go with her. She had three or four
hundred dollars beside what she’d given me, and I
wandered through shops and sat around bored stiff while
she bought stockings and another nightgown and some
perfume and looked at ten times as much more she didn’t
buy.
“You don’t mind, do you, John?” she said, smiling happily
at me. “After all, I’m doing it for you.”
“Sure, go ahead,” I said. What the hell, I had to keep her
pacified and contented until Thursday morning, and
wandering around in stores was as easy a way to do it as
any. She was beginning to wear me out.
She kept me up most of the night, yakking and being very
sweet and chummy and giving me the old buildup, so it was
late when I awoke on Tuesday morning, some time after ten
o’clock. She was still asleep beside me, wearing the new
shortie nightgown she’d bought. I raised up on one elbow
and looked at her, and all sorts of bells began to go off in
my mind. She was beautiful as hell, and even asleep she
The Big Bite — 123
didn’t look stupid. What kind of an act was she putting on,
and why was she doing it?
So maybe she did need men the way an alcoholic needs
booze—she still had too much in the way of equipment to
have to knock herself out chasing them. They’d be falling all
over her. Why break a leg trying to scramble into the sack
with a guy who was putting the bite on her for a hundred
grand? I wasn’t that good. I’d never had any illusions about
anything since I was eleven, and that included myself. I was
no particular great-lover type. In two hours on any public
beach she could pick up a half dozen big hard-shouldered
jokers who’d give her just as good a run for her money in
the hay and even throw in the old moonlight-and-roses pitch
at no extra charge. So what was the gag?
Was it a stall? But why? What did she hope to gain by it?
It didn’t make any sense. I had the goods on them, and
there was no way on earth they could squirm out of it. But
this whole thing was too easy; it didn’t ring true. My first
impression of the two of them was that they were sharp,
brainy, and dangerous as hell. Then he’d acted like some
punchy adolescent out there at the cabin. And now she was
a happy-go-lucky round-heel with nothing on her mind but a
place to fall. Was the whole thing an act for my benefit? Did
they think they could con me, string me along with a measly
eight thousand and a lot of empty promises? Well, we’d see
about that. I reached over and shook her.
Her eyes opened. She looked at me rather coldly for an
instant until she was fully awake, and then she smiled.
“What is it, John?”
“I just wanted some information,” I said shortly. “What’s
the name of that brokerage firm in Houston? The one that’s
selling the stocks for you?”
With no hesitation at all, she replied, “Harley and Bryson.
Why?”
“And who handles your account?”
“George Harley, Jr.” She looked puzzled. “But why, John?”
I ignored her. Picking up the phone from the table beside
the bed, I told the operator, “I want to put in a long-distance
call to Houston. Person-to-person to Mr. George Harley, Jr.,
at the brokerage firm of Harley and Bryson. Got it?”
The Big Bite — 124
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “Just a moment, please.”
I passed the phone over to her. She stared. “Ask Harley
how he’s coming along unloading your stocks. Hold the
receiver out a little from your ear, and pray you’ve been
telling me the truth.”
She took it and held it as I told her. I slid over, holding
her tightly with my cheek against her head and my own ear
touching the outer rim of the receiver. I could hear the longlines
operators talking:
The receptionist answered. “Just a moment, please.”
After a short pause, a man came on. “Harley speaking.”
I squeezed her arm. If she’d been lying, she was in a bad
spot.”
“Oh, Mr. Harley,” she said calmly. “Julia Cannon.
“Oh, good morning, Mrs. Cannon.”
“I just called to ask if you had executed the order I
phoned in the other day—”
“Oh, yes. I was just about to send through a statement.
Let’s see. . . . Have It right here somewhere, I think . . . Just
a moment . . . Yes . . . Here it is. . . . Hmmmmmm. General
Motors.. . . Boeing . . . Anaconda . . . Hmmmmmm . . .
yesterday’s market . . . check . . . be deposited your account
bank here as instructed . . . total proceeds, less commission,
ninety-seven thousand, six hundred, forty-four dollars,
eighty-one cents . . . apparently all in order . . . hmmm . . .”
I sat up on the bed and reached for a cigarette. She
looked at me. I nodded and waved a hand. She said, “Thank
you, Mr. Harley. Good-by.” She hung up.
I handed her a lighted cigarette.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“Just checking, honey. Just checking.”
“You thought I was lying?”
“It just occurred to me I didn’t have anybody’s word for it
but yours.”
“You think I’d dare? Under the circumstances?”
“Relax,” I said. I felt like a million.
Of course she hadn’t been trying anything funny. How
could she? They were absolutely helpless, and their staying
The Big Bite — 125
alive depended on their doing exactly what I told them. Of
course she was knocking herself out to be nice to me. If
anybody had me where the wool was that short I’d be an
eager beaver myself. I thought about it. The stocks were
already sold; I’d heard the man say so myself. All I had to do
now was go down there Thursday and pick up that big, fat
bundle of folding money.
“You must think I’m insane,” she said petulantly.
“Honey, I think you’re terrific.”
“Do you like me? Just a little?”
“Sure, sure,” I said. Like her? She was Fort Knox, with
legs. I was just reaching for a cigarette when the bells
began to ring again.
My hand hung there halfway to the cigarette pack while
the whole thing raced through my mind at once. Was that
it? Was that the angle? Sure. It figured from every direction.
Look at it, you fool. You underestimated them and got
yourself sucked out of position, but good. They almost had
you.
I grinned coldly. Almost. But not quite. There was still
time.
It had been close, though, if I were right. This was
Tuesday. I had been with her since Thursday afternoon,
been with her every minute. She’d seen to that. She knew
every move I’d made and she knew definitely I hadn’t been
in contact with anybody. So suppose they were feeling me
out, stretching out the time I was incommunicado, testing
me a little at a time? That would account for the fact the car
wouldn’t start—he’d butched it some way that first night to
make sure that if I went anywhere it would only be with her
—and it would explain this whole lovey-dovey routine on her
part. They simply didn’t believe there was anybody else in
this thing with me, and when they had finally proved it to
their own satisfaction they’d knock me off. Like that.
I hadn’t quite sold them with that piece of razzle-dazzle
that morning. They weren’t sure I had mailed the tape, or if
I had, that I had mailed it to an accomplice. And every hour
that went by without my getting in contact with somebody
to assure him I was still alive was making my position more
dangerous. The deadly efficiency of it made me shiver.
The Big Bite — 126
Well, we’ll see about it, I thought. Thank God I’d caught it
in time.
She gave me a provocative, sidelong glance and then
made a face at me. “Well, if that’s all you woke me up for—”
She sat up in bed, stripped off the nightgown with casual
unconcern and strode naked into the bathroom. She left the
door just partly open, as she always did, and started
yakking as she turned on the shower.
I lit the cigarette.
“—don’t you think so, John?”
Smart baby, I thought. I didn’t say anything.
“John?”