Brill stepped inside Scanlon’s private office, leaving
the door open. The three of us remained where we
were, staring at the telephone on the desk between
us.
Scanlon looked at Barbara, the gray eyes flinty. “I
never thought I’d use the sheriff’s office for a routine
like this. If I didn’t have a dirty hunch you could be
right, I’d lock you up.”
The Long Saturday Night — 135
She made no reply. She glanced at me and tried to
smile, but it didn’t quite come off. A minute went by.
At this hour on Sunday morning you could drive
anywhere in town in less than three minutes. It had to
be before then. Two minutes. The silence began to
roar in my ears. The room was swollen and bulging
with it, like some dark and suffocating pressure.
Three minutes. I stared at the telephone, and then
away, and back at it again. Barbara had lowered her
head, and I saw her eyes were closed. Her elbows
rested on the desk, and she was raising and lowering
her fists, so tightly clenched the knuckles were white,
bumping the heels of them gently against the wood in
some rhythmic and supplicant cadence she apparently
wasn’t aware of or didn’t know how to stop. The
telephone rang. I saw her gulp. Her shoulders shook,
and she groped for her handkerchief and pressed it
against her mouth.
Scanlon picked it up. He listened for a moment,
said, “Thank you, operator,” and called out to Brill,
“Phone booth at Millard’s Texaco Station, corner of
Clebourne and Mason.” She slid slowly down onto the
desk with her head on her arms.
I heard Brill repeat the location into the other line
for the radio dispatcher. Scanlon went on listening.
Brill came back, picked up the phone on the adjoining
desk, and listened also. In a moment Scanlon gestured
toward the instrument, and pointed to me. Brill moved
it over and gave me the receiver, motioning for me to
keep quiet.
A man was speaking. “. . . don’t really believe it’s
there, do you?” It was George’s voice.
“Well, I’m not sure,” another man’s voice replied.
“As I say, I was just leaving now to go down to the
office and look.”
“I’m almost certain it wouldn’t be there after all this
time. Are you by any chance a betting man, Mr.
Denman?”
“Well, I’ve been known to take a little flyer now and
then, when the odds are right. Why?”
The Long Saturday Night — 136
“I’d be willing to make a pretty substantial wager
that when you get down there you won’t find it.”
“Hmmm. And what’s your definition of substantial,
on an average Sunday?”
“Say two thousand dollars?”
“Now, wait a minute, Mr. Randall. I understand
that’s a pretty heavy situation up there, and
destroying evidence—”
“Who said anything about destroying evidence?
You’re just going down there to look for something
the chances are you threw away five days ago.
Suppose we make it four thousand you don’t find it?”
“Five.”
“All right. But understand, I’ll never pay any more
—”
There was something sounding like a scuffle then,
and another voice came on the line. “I’ve got him.” It
was Mulholland.
“Good. Bring him in,” Scanlon said. Then he added,
“Thanks, Denman.”
Denman chuckled. “Oh, you can tell Mrs. Ryan she’ll
get a bill. And Academy Award performances like that
come high.”
Scanlon hung up. Brill took the receiver out of my
hand, put it down, and unlocked the handcuffs. I
couldn’t say anything. I reached over and put a hand
on Barbara’s shoulder.
She pushed herself erect, and looked at me. Her
chin quivered, and tears were running down her face.
“You nuh—nun—nuh—you nun—need a shave,” she
said. “You look awful.” Then she was up, and gone out
the door.
* * *
She came back in a minute or two, apparently from
the washroom down the corridor, with the tearstains
erased and her lipstick on straight. She smiled and
shook her head. “Sorry I went hysterical on you. But I
guess I’m not built for that kind of pressure.”
The Long Saturday Night — 137
“Well, I’d had about all I could take, myself,” I said.
“But it’s all over?”
Scanlon reached wearily for another cigar. “It’s all
over for you two, but just starting for me. You don’t
think that nut’s going to be an easy one to crack, do
you?”
We were going down the courthouse steps when he
came up, handcuffed to Mulholland’s wrist. He
seemed as erect and controlled as ever, but his eyes
wavered and he turned away as we went past. I
started to turn and look after him, but checked
myself, and didn’t.
It seemed strange to be on the street in daylight,
with people around me. We went over and got in
Barbara’s car, and just sat there for a moment. She
reached over, flipped open the door to the glove
compartment, and wordlessly pulled out the bottle of
whiskey. I nodded. She unscrewed the cap of the
thermos bottle, poured it half full, and held it out.
“That’s yours,” I said, and took the bottle.
She sloshed the whiskey around in the cup. “Fine
way to greet the brave new Sabbath.”
“Isn’t it? Look, there’s no point in my even
mentioning anything as futile as trying to thank you.”
“Well, you could take me to Fuller’s and buy me
some breakfast. And give me Monday off; I’d like to
send my nerves out and have them re-strung.”
“Right. As soon as we have our drink. But I wonder
if you’d answer a question for me? Why did you do it?”
She hesitated. Then the old cynical grin overran the
tiredness on her face. “Well, it was Saturday night.
And I’d seen the movie.” She raised the cup.
“Cheers.”
We made it to a booth at the rear of Fuller’s and
ordered ham and eggs, and after awhile the crowd
thinned out enough so we could talk.
“I’m sorry about throwing you that change-up
pitch,” she said. “I mean, over the phone, there in
Roberts’ apartment.”
The Long Saturday Night — 138
“What happened?” I asked.
“Well, the first idea didn’t work out so well. I
thought, in my simple girlish way, that if I just went to
Scanlon and told him I knew where you were, I’d be in
a bargaining position—that is, I’d tell him, if he’d
promise to go along with this thing about Denman and
the envelope. But it seems that when you have
information as to the whereabouts of a dangerous
criminal Scanlon’s looking for, you don’t sell it to him
—you give it to him, or they, run up and start sticking
bars in front of your face. So I had to come up real
fast with this old routine from the prison-break
movies; if he’d let me call you, maybe I could talk you
into giving up—think of the lives it would save.
Actually, I’m not too sure he bought that either, but
maybe by this time he was more than half convinced I
could be right about Clement, so he agreed.”
“What did you tell him to account for the fact you
knew where I was? You didn’t tell him we’d been
together?”
“No, I said you’d called me from there to ask me
some questions about Clement, because I used to
work for him. You’d told me everything you suspected,
and then after you’d hung up I’d decided the only
thing to do was tell them where you were before
somebody got hurt.”
I looked at her admiringly, and shook my head. “All
I can say is I’m glad you were on my side. But what
gave you this idea of trying to bluff George with the
envelope?”
“It was something you said. That he was too clever
to leave anything to chance. The odds were, of course,
that the envelope had gone into the New Orleans
incinerator four or five days ago, but why settle for
even a 100-to-l probability when you could make it a
certainty? And Denman could take the bribe without
any risk, because there’d be no question as to his
having destroyed the envelope; he just found he’d
already thrown it away. The door was wide open.”
I nodded. “You really baited it, all right. But I think
the thing that finally broke his nerve was the wording.
The Long Saturday Night — 139
That indefinite deadline—the next half hour or so. He
couldn’t walk out right after you’d tossed this bomb
on the table—that might look suspicious—so he had to
sit there waiting for that phone to ring. Then, to top it
all, it did ring. That did it. It was just Mrs. Scanlon,
trying to get Scanlon to come home for breakfast.”
She shook her head. “That was me.”
“What?”
“It was part of it. As salesmen say, the clincher. I
thought if he could just hear the phone once—”
I sighed. “Will you do me one more favor? If you
ever decide to turn criminal, give me two or three
hours’ notice. I’ll be out of the country,”
She grinned. “You know, Scanlon said the same
thing.”
* * *
Scanlon was right; Clement didn’t crack easily. They
had to do it the hard way, with long hours of plodding
police work, putting the case together bit by bit. They
had to go all the way back to Florida, armed with
photographs, and run down the Miami Beach hotel
where the two of them had spent a week together
when George met her while on that fishing trip. They
sifted a mountain of checks and bank statements and
other financial details to run down the money he’d
given her to open the dress shop and the sums he’d
been paying Roberts, through her. It was over three
weeks before he broke.
Clement had searched Roberts’ apartment, but he
hadn’t found the clippings either. They were in a safedeposit
box at the bank, and the key was in Roberts’
wallet when he was killed. The wallet, of course, had
been held in the Sheriff’s office for Roberts’ next of
kin, so George was as much in the dark as I was as to
where the clippings could be. They got a court order
to open the box, and discovered close to $3,000 in
cash in addition to the news items his Los Angeles girl
friend had scissored from old newspapers, apparently
in some library. The clippings contained her picture
and the story of her disappearance after the Las
The Long Saturday Night — 140
Vegas episode. They never were certain what had
made Roberts suspicious of her in the first place, but
they did learn he’d been on the Coast himself at that
time, October, 1958, on his vacation, just before he’d
been suspended from the Houston police force.
Probably he’d seen the story and the picture and
remembered them—or at least, the picture. She was
beautiful enough to stick in the mind.
It was Clement, of course, who’d tried to call her at
the hotel in New Orleans the afternoon she checked
out and came home. He had Denman’s report, and
was afraid she was going to be identified and picked
up by the police before she could lose all her money
and have to come home. He must have been scared
blue.
* * *
It’s been ten months now, and the memory of it is
beginning to fade. Ernie took over the Sport Shop and
is making a success of it. We threw out the
furnishings of the apartment in the rear, and he’s
fitted it out as a first-class gunsmith’s shop. Barbara
is still out there in the office, but not for long. We’re
going to be married in January.
I sold the house and moved into an apartment, but
about three months ago I bought a new building site,
and a New Orleans architect is working on the plans
now for the house. The lot—it’s close to two acres—is
up there on the brow of that hill overlooking the town
just north of the city limits, the spot where Barbara
and I parked that night—that long Saturday night
neither of us will ever forget. It’s a good location, with
a fine view.
Barbara agrees; she said I couldn’t have made a
better choice.
This afternoon we were in a back booth at Fuller’s
having coffee, with a tentative landscaping plan
spread out on the table when Scanlon came in. He
saw us and came back, and pulled a chair over to the
end of the table. He ordered coffee too, took out a
cigar, bit the end off it, and said thoughtfully, “You
The Long Saturday Night — 141
know, I always wanted to be a best man at a wedding,
but somehow I never did make it. Now, unless you’ve
got somebody else in mind—”
Barbara’s eyes lighted up. “I think that’d be
wonderful, don’t you, Duke?”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s great.”
“Well, that was easy.” He struck a match, and held
it in front of his cigar. “Here I was all prepared for a
lot of maneuvering, and maybe having to bring a little
pressure to bear.”
“Pressure?” Barbara asked innocently.
“On the bride.” He blew out the match, studied it
for a moment, and dropped it in the ashtray. “I was
just looking up the statute of limitations on a few
minor peccadillos like harboring a fugitive,
obstructing justice, and blackmailing a peace officer,
not that I’d even dream of using anything like that if I
didn’t have to, you understand.”
Barbara grinned. “No, of course not.”
“Especially after the way you talked Duke into
throwing down his guns and coming out of there that
night. I’ll always look back on that as one of the great
inspirational moments of my career. I mean, when a
peace officer can command that type of support and
cooperation from the citizens, well, it gives you a
warm feeling about the whole thing.”
“Well,” she said modestly, “I thought it was worth a
try.”
He nodded. “Yes, I gathered that.”
He drank his coffee, and looked at the plan, which
was almost unrecognizable now with penciled
alterations. “What’s all this?”
“The landscaping,” I told him. “We’ve got it all just
about settled except for this area here in back of the
bedroom wing. I’m in favor of a swimming pool, with
the rest of it in flagstone, but Barbara thinks the pool
will be more trouble than it’s worth, and that a simple
expanse of lawn looks better anyway.”
“I see.” He looked at his watch, and stood up. “I’ve
got to get back to work; you go ahead and thresh it
The Long Saturday Night — 142
out. But at least I’ve got an idea for the wedding
present.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A lawn mower,” he said.
The Long Saturday Night — 143
