October 14, 2010

Man on The Run by Charles Williams(10)

Fourteen
I opened my eyes. I was lying on a hospital bed in a
small white-painted room. It was daylight. Across
from me a uniformed policeman was seated in a
chair tilted back against the wall, reading a paper.
He glanced up and saw I was awake.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Eleven-thirty,” he said. He went to the door and
spoke to someone just outside it. I couldn’t hear
what he said. He came back and sat down again. I
moved my arms and legs, and everything seemed
to work except that I was sore and stiff and my side
hurt. I felt the right side of my face. It was painful.
I thought of Suzy. They might know what had
happened to her, but I couldn’t even ask. There
was a chance she was still all right, and if I even
mentioned her name it would implicate her. They
knew somebody had been helping me.
“Can I make a telephone call?” I asked the
uniformed man.

“No,” he said.
“Is Boyle dead?”
He put down the paper. “Don’t ask me any
questions. There’ll be a man here in a minute that’s
been wanting to ask you some for a week. All I’m
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here for is to see that you don’t run down the drain
in the wash basin or through the keyhole or
something and disappear again.”
I lay back on the pillow. In about twenty minutes
the door opened and a big man in a rumpled suit
came in. He had a tough, competent look about
him. There was a stubble of beard on his face, and
the rather hard eyes were red-rimmed, as if he
hadn’t slept for some time. He nodded to the
uniformed man, who got up and went out.
He lighted a cigarette, stared at me for a
moment, and sighed. “I suppose if I killed you, I’d
find out there was some stupid city ordinance
against it. But it’s a beautiful thought. Who was
hiding you?”
”What do you care now?” I asked.
He rubbed a hand across his face. “I guess I
don’t, really. I just get scared when I think there
might be two of you loose on the same continent.
What was her name?”
“What makes you think it was a girl?”
“Because you said ‘he’ when you talked to me on
the phone. You could see that was real subtle.”
“Then you’re Lt. Brannan?”
“I’m Brannan. I’ll see whether I’m a Lieutenant
when I get back to the office.” He pulled the chair
over by the side of the bed and sat down, “Brother,
it’s a lucky thing for you that Mexican guy Sanchez
ran out and called us. In about one more minute
you’d have been dead.”
“Is Boyle dead?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
I said nothing. I’d tried, but maybe it had been
hopeless from the start.
He sighed and gestured with the cigarette. “All
right. You win. I was going to make you sweat, you
pig-headed mick bastard, but I guess I haven’t got
the heart. Boyle didn’t die until about an hour ago,
and we got a statement from him.”
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The breath oozed out of me, and I seemed to
melt. I tried to say something, but nothing came
out. “Here,” he said. He stuck a cigarette in my
mouth and lighted it..
“Was he Ryan Bullard?” I asked, when I was able
to talk again.
He nodded. “He was shot through the chest, and
the medics said he didn’t have much chance. He
asked for a priest, and Father O’Shea got him to
make a complete statement. We checked his prints,
of course, after he died, and verified the identity.
He was Bullard.”
“Will the statement do any good?” I asked. “He
wasn’t even there when she killed Stedman. He
was at sea.”
“Sure,” he replied. “There’s no doubt about any
of it now. It was a death-bed confession, and it all
ties together. He admitted plotting with her to kill
Stedman, the same way they got Purcell, but she
jumped the gun when she saw the chance after that
stupid fight of yours there in his apartment. He
almost killed her then, when she told him about it,
because it was a dumb thing for her to do. If you’d
surrendered when you found out he was dead, and
made a sensible statement, there’d have been an
investigation that’d have turned the two of ‘em up.
It might have taken a little time, but you’d have
been in the clear. But you had to take off like a
ruptured duck so we spent the next seven days
chasing you all over the goddamned country.
Naturally, everybody thought you were guilty.”
“I know,” I said. “I panicked. Then it all started
with the holdup of that Shiloh Tool outfit?”
He nodded. “Frances Celaya was a niece of that
Jiminez woman Ryan Bullard knew in Tampa. When
he came over here on that fishing boat that first
trip back in November, he looked her up. That’s
when he began to think of the holdup. He and this
girl of his in Havana wanted to buy a boat. I think
they had some kind of smuggling operation in
mind; God knows what it was, but something
Man on The Run — 160
crooked, anyway, since it was Bullard. Anyway, he
approached Danny about the holdup, and
introduced him to Frances. And I guess she fell for
Danny like a ton of bricks. She gave him all the
routine on the payroll operation there at the plant,
and they planned the whole thing. They were
plenty cagey about it, too; nobody ever did know
they were even acquainted. They knew the
employees would be checked out afterward. Danny
lined up the visiting punk from Oakland. They
pulled it off. The California hoodlum was killed, but
the two Bullards got away. Danny took the money
to his apartment to hide out with it until the split.
Ryan couldn’t very well take it aboard the Marilyn.
But then Stedman and Purcell came along the next
afternoon to question Danny about the liquor store
job.”
I nodded. “So when they found out Stedman and
Purcell had killed him and filed a report saying he
resisted arrest, with no mention of the Shiloh job or
the fourteen-thousand they figured it was just coldblooded
murder, for the money?”
“Sure.”
“Do you think it was?” I asked.
He stared moodily at the end of his cigarette.
“No. At least, I hope not. They went sour, all right,
but not that sour. He probably did pull a gun, so
they had to shoot, and then they stumbled onto the
money afterward while searching the apartment.”
”Have you found the money yet?”
“Yeah. They put it in safe deposit boxes. We
located them this morning.”
“Do you suppose the Celaya girl and Ryan
Bullard expected to find it in their rooms?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “With the girl, I think
it was revenge, pure and simple. Apparently she
was completely gone on this Danny Bullard, and
she thought he’d been gunned down by two
crooked cops in cold blood. Ryan Bullard probably
just figured he’d been gypped. He was a coldblooded
killer by instinct.”
Man on The Run — 161
I thought of Suzy Patton again, and I could feel
my nerves jumping. “Did he confess to any other
killings?” I asked, looking down at my cigarette.
“A couple,” he said. “Didn’t have anything to do
with this, though.”
I tried to keep my voice casual. “What were
they?”
“That seaman, during the strike here several
years ago. And one of the witnesses to it. Why?”
It wasn’t a matter of her being in danger—not
now. She was either already dead or all right, and
telling him wouldn’t help or change anything. It
would just drag her name into it. “Oh, nothing,” I
said. “How did they get Purcell?”
“He left that gate open for her and she left it
open for Bullard. They killed him, and then she
went back out and he locked the gate and climbed
over the fence. Neither of them ever showed in
front at all. He says she was the one who actually
shot him. So in the end, she got both of them.”
“Are there any charges against me?” I asked.
He sighed. “Not a thing, aside from assault and
battery, resisting arrest, trespass, breaking and
entering, purse-snatching, and illegal entry. Oh,
and piracy, except that Sanchez took that boat
back to whoever you borrowed it from. I don’t
know where you clouted that lion-strangler’s coat
you had on when we brought you in, but I’m not
going to look into it.”
“I got it from an astronomer,” I said. “We
traded.”
“It figures, I guess.”
“Are you going to hold me?” I asked.
“No,” he said wearily. “We had a conference
about it in the Skipper’s office awhile ago, and
somebody came up with a good idea. Maybe if the
City Council would vote Southlands Oil a tax
reduction of some kind they might give you back
your job and ship you the hell out of here. That way
we could put the Department back on a forty-eight
Man on The Run — 162
hour week, and some of us could go home and see
if we’re still married. That is, if it’s all right with
you.”
“Thanks,” I said.
He stood up. “Incidentally, the medics say they
can’t find anything wrong with you except for
bruises and lumps and lacerations. Anybody else, of
course, would be dead. They took some pictures of
your belly, but there’s apparently nothing wrong
inside. I’m going to turn those reporters loose on
you now, and as soon as they get through with you
I’ll drop you back at your apartment house.”
He went, out. Six or eight reporters and
photographers surged in and began snapping
pictures and firing questions. It was about twenty
minutes before they left. I dressed. Brannan and I
went out and got in the patrol car in front of the
hospital. While we were crawling through the
midday traffic of downtown, headed for Forest
Avenue, he turned to me with a hard grin, and said,
“We could run this on the siren, if you’d like to
hear one up real close.”
“If I never hear one again, anywhere, it’ll be
close enough,” I said.
He let me out in front of the Wakefield. We shook
hands, and he drove off. It felt strange to be
standing there in the open, perfectly free, in broad
daylight, without cringing or looking behind me. I
wondered if I’d ever get used to it again. I let
myself in the front door and hurried up the stairs to
the apartment. Nothing had changed in it, but it
was like coming back to a place you hadn’t seen in
years. I closed the door and reached for the phone.
I dialed Suzy Patton’s number. It rang and went on
ringing. There was no answer.
I hung up, waited two minutes, and tried again.
Maybe she’d been in the bath. Or asleep. I listened
to the futile ringing with a cold lump of fear in my
stomach. Everything had turned out fine for me,
but she’d got killed for helping me. I could see her
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lying there on the living room rug— Breaking the
connection, I dialed for a cab and hurried out front.
It seemed to take forever to get there. When it
came at last and I gave the driver the address, it
occurred to me that Brannan might be having me
followed so he could find out who’d hidden me. I
watched out the rear window as we jockeyed
through the downtown traffic and out the arterial
going north. There were dozens of cars around us
all the time, but I couldn’t see any that appeared to
be following us.
It was shortly after noon now, and warm and
sunny. When we pulled to the curb in front of the
apartment house, I tossed the driver two dollars
and hurried up the walk. I pushed the button of
703, and waited. There was no answering buzz at
the door. I leaned on it again. Nothing happened.
Turning, I hurried down into the garage. The blue
Olds was there in its stall. I was badly scared now.
I ran back to the front door, found the manager’s
number, and buzzed it.
He answered. I went in and ran up the stairs to
the second floor. The apartment was 203. I rang
the bell. He opened and looked out. He was a big,
relaxed guy holding a can of beer. “What can I do
for you?” he asked.
“It’s Miss Patton, in 703,” I said. “She doesn’t
answer the phone or the buzzer. I wondered—”
He took a sip of the beer. “Maybe she’s not
home. That happens.”
“Her car’s in the garage. And she didn’t answer
last night, either. Look, I’m a friend of hers, and
I’m worried. How about going up with me and
having a look?”
“All right.” Then he regarded me doubtfully. “Are
you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Come on,” I said impatiently.
He got a key and we took the elevator. The
morning paper was still lying in front of her door. I
didn’t like the looks of that, either. I waited,
Man on The Run — 164
dreading what we might see, while he inserted the
key and pushed the door open. He cocked his head
as if he were listening for something. Then I heard
it too. It was a typewriter. It sounded like a kid
tearing past a picket fence with a stick.
“Friend,” he said, “take my advice and duck—”I
paid no attention. I shoved past him and ran across
the living room to the door of her study. It was
thick with drifting layers of cigarette smoke, and
she was sitting before the typewriter dressed in the
Capri pants and not much of anything else except a
white shirt that wasn’t even buttoned. The white
hair was rumpled and her face looked tired, but her
eyes were blazingly alive. There were sheets of
paper all around her on the rug and in the
wastebasket and on the stand on both sides of the
typewriter.
“Suzy!” I said. “Thank God, you’re all right.”
She made an erasure and started banging the
machine again. “What the hell do you want?” she
asked, without even looking up.
I stared at her. “I’ve been worried sick about
you.”
“Oh?” she said. She picked up one of the pages,
read something she had written and studied it,
frowning.
“Miss Patton,” the manager called uncertainly
from the front door. “Do you know this man?”
She looked up then, for the first time. “Oh, it’s
you.” She waved an arm at the manager. “Yes, I
know him. But what the hell is this, the middle of
US 1? Or Times Square on New Year’s Eve? You’d
think on the seventh floor of an apartment building
with the door locked—”
He left.
“You didn’t answer the phone,” I said. “Or the
door.”
“Answer the phone?” She looked at me as if I’d
gone completely crazy. “I never answer the stupid
telephone when I’m working. I don’t even hear it.
Man on The Run — 165
What do you want, anyway? I thought the radio
news this morning said you’d been cleared of that
murder charge.”
“I was,” I said. “But I wanted to see you again.
And tell you that you were right about every bit of
it.”
“All right, all right.” She tore the sheet from the
machine and rolled in a new one. “Now you’ve told
me.”
“And thank you.”
“Ummmmhh?” she said, and the stick-against-apicket-
fence started again.
She had forgotten I was there.
I picked up a blank sheet of her paper, sat down
at the coffee table in the living room, and wrote out
a short note.
”Dear Suzy:
This is for the hat and coat. Thanks a
million for everything. And I hope the
Southern girl who hides the injured
Union soldier is just half as nice as you.
Irish.”
I took a hundred dollars from my wallet, dropped
it on the note, weighted it with the ashtray, and
went out. She didn’t even look up.
THE END
Man on The Run — 166

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