River Girl by Charles Williams(2)

“Yes. Do you want me to cut the shirt away?”
I nodded. “That’d be best. Then we can see what
we’re doing.”
She got a small pair of manicure scissors out of the
dresser and slit the shirt around the hook. I
unbuttoned it and slid it off, and turned my back to
the mirror to look over my shoulder. I was deeply
tanned from the waist up and wore no undershirt.
The streamer fly was a vivid slash of white and silver
tinsel against the sun-blackened hide, and as well as
I could tell, the barb was deeply embedded. I caught
a glimpse of my face in the mirror and for the first
time remembered I hadn’t shaved since yesterday,
and wondered what kind of thug I must look like to
her, big, with the flat, sun-darkened face rasping
with black stubble.
I motioned with a hand and passed her the
diagonal pliers. “Pinch the muscle and skin up with
your fingers and run it on through as if you were
baiting a hook,” I instructed.
“It’ll hurt,” she said quietly.
“Some,” I said.
River Girl — 23

River Girl by Charles Williams(1)

One
It was three in the afternoon and hot. Tar was
boiling out of the black-top paving around the square
and heat waves shimmered above the sidewalks. I
drove on through town and down the street to the
jail with the Negro boy. He was about nineteen and
looked scared to death.
“I ain’t done nothing, Cap’n,” he kept saying.
“O.K.,” I said. “Relax. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
My head still ached from last night and his talking
got on my nerves.
I turned him over to Cassieres at the jail. “Stick
him in the county tank. Did Buford call you?”
“No,” he said. “What’s he booked for?”

Nothing In Her Way by Charles Williams(9)

Nothing in Her Way — 181
Pain was still pounding at my skull, but my mind was
clearing a little so I could think. We had to keep our
heads. If we let the sounds on the other side of the door
push us over the edge and started going wild, we’d all
be dead. She would break after a while and tell them
where the money was, but maybe Brock wasn’t
interested primarily in the money alone. You could see
he got his fun in other ways.
I moved shakily to the window and looked out. It was
totally dark now, and fog pressed in on the building like
saturated gauze. Nine floors down the street lamp was
faintly visible, while below and to the left the neon sign
over the cocktail lounge was a diffused and watery
splash of orange. I reached for the light switch and cut
it and looked again. Beyond me to the left one of the
big casement windows in the living room was partly
open. The drapes were drawn but a little light escaped
to seep futilely into the fog and lose itself. I strained my
eyes downward and could just faintly see what I was
looking for, a narrow ledge perhaps five inches wide
running across the front of the building just below the
windows.

Nothing In Her Way by Charles Williams(8)

“Nice try,” he said, with something like approval in
the sharp gray eyes. “But to get on—I’ll be as brief as
possible. To put it in four words, Reichert, the jig is up.
My uncle, as you’ve probably already guessed, is a Mr.
Howard C. Goodwin, of Wyecross. It might interest you
to know that he suffered a nervous breakdown as a
result of that expensive bit of hocus-pocus you and your
friends sold him. Incidentally, it was a brilliant piece of
work, and I believe you’d have got away with it entirely
except for the thing that so often happens when a
number of persons—some of them with police records—
are involved. Around three weeks ago Mr. Wolford
Charles fell afoul of the police in Florida on an old
charge, and in the course of the investigation he let
drop a few revelations concerning this particular bit of
moonshine.”
I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t even move. I
wanted to get up and run, but my legs wouldn’t work.
Charlie had been caught, and because she had beaten
him and the double cross and taken all the money, he’d
spilled it to get revenge. All I could do was sit there and
listen while this remorselessly efficient machine
dictated the bill of indictment.