He let the words trail off, out of breath now and feeling all used up inside, feeling his shoulders sag and finding nothing more to say.
Then Resnik laughed.
It was a short, abrupt sound, carrying a connotation of contempt. But Resnik did not look contemptuous. His gambler’s face was gray, the little mustache appearing now as a bizarre appendage. The eyes gave him away too, for they were no longer gambler’s eyes, they were the eyes of a man who had been stricken by some unexpected force he could not handle. Now, having heard the truth and recognized it as such, he cast it away from him.
“You tell a hell of a story,” he said, “but you can’t prove a nickel’s worth.”
Vaughn walked over to the door again and came back, his weathered face distressed and full of thought.
“Can you?” he asked finally.
“No,” Dave said. “I’m no cop. I’m not the judge, the jury, or the prosecutor. I had no idea Liza was coming here. I intended to tell you what I knew and that would be that. The rest of it’s up to you. I was worried about Betty. Now nothing’s going to bother her. That’s all I want.”
He dropped down on a chair, feeling discouraged and defeated, yet somehow reluctant to quit. That was how he thought of this final point.
“After Liza shot Gannon she kept the gun,” he said. “She couldn’t have known then that Stinson was going to see anything but she kept it. She used it again. If she carried it in her beach bag an analysis might show a trace of oil or grease, something to indicate a gun had been carried there.”
He glanced up, not hopefully but still trying. “She might still have it. You could hold her while you went over her apartment. There’s a chance—”
“You want a gun?”
It was Liza. She spoke in a voice that was leaden and without inflection. The slackness was still pulling at her mouth. She seemed not to have moved but when Dave looked at her he saw the gun in her hand, moving out from beneath the shawl.
“I’ll give you a gun,” she said, but that was not what she meant. For she was not handing anyone a gun. She was pointing it right at Dave, a Mauser, as Vaughn had guessed, small, compact, with a polished wooden grip.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
What scared Dave the most then was not the gun, or that it was pointed at him, but the expression on Liza Drake’s face, the glazed, unblinking look in her dark eyes. For it seemed now that there was no longer any intelligence or reason motivating her actions and he could not tell what she was going to do. When someone spoke he glanced up to discover it was Resnik.
Resnik, sitting two feet to one side of the woman, had turned stiffly at the hips. His face was twisted with shock. Heretofore his mind had rejected the things that were said even though he must have sensed that they were true; now he understood beyond all doubt that the woman he loved had killed because of him. He tried to help her, battling against the hopelessness that showed in his eyes.
“Liza!” He spoke quietly, his voice hoarse. “That’s not the way, baby. We can beat this thing with smart lawyers.”
Liza seemed not to hear him. She was watching Dave, her hand tight on the gun, and now Vaughn spoke up to get her attention. He stood about six feet away from her, his face impassive, his voice sounding calm and unworried.
“That’s good advice, Ma’am. Put that little gun back where it came from and take your chances in court.”
Liza looked at him. She moved the muzzle his way. “Sit down, Mr. Vaughn,” she said.
Vaughn considered the order and he was a pretty smart operator when it came to matters he understood. To Dave’s surprise he obeyed, and then Dave knew why.
“All right.” Vaughn eased down on the edge of a chair. “You want to talk about it some first?”
“Mr. Gannon was a nasty old man.”
“Don’t!” Resnik said, his voice anguished. “Liza!”
He might just as well have not been in the room. “He was going to take Sam’s business away,” she said in the same flat monotone. “Sam built it up and Mr. Gannon wouldn’t even give him a chance to keep it.”
“I guess that meant you might not be getting married,” Vaughn prompted.
She was not listening. She had some idea of her own in mind and she was going to carry on with it.
“I knew how to get him alone,” she said. “I drove him home and I went inside with him and I had this gun. I told him I was going to kill him if he ruined Sam. It scared him. He knew I meant it. He said I mustn’t shoot. He said he would fix it. There was a paper in the safe and he would sign it right then and everything would be all right.”
She wet her lips and said: “He never meant to sign anything. He thought he could trick me but he couldn’t. He opened the safe and I was behind him—”
“Liza!” Resnik tried again to get her attention but it was like arguing with a child who refuses to listen.
“He reached for those keys in his pocket,” she said, “and then he tried to turn and grab for the gun. He wasn’t quick enough and he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was—or maybe he was too smart. He staggered back and reached for the chair. He sat down in it and leaned back and then he didn’t move.”
For perhaps five seconds the room was quiet again and then Vaughn put another question in that same easy way of his.
“You ran into George Stinson when you came out?”
Resnik had given up protesting. He sat motionless and attentive, as though held by some strange fascination he could not combat. Dave shifted his weight and thereby moved a few inches closer to the gun. He had no plan, could make none because he had no way of telling what the woman might do. But even as the tension began to move up the back of his legs he wanted to be ready if the chance presented itself. He stole a glance at Betty but she sat as though transfixed, her attention on Liza.
“Yes. He hadn’t heard the shot but I knew he’d find out what had happened. I didn’t dare shoot him then, out in the open like that, but I knew he’d tell the police about me. I had to do something.”
“What was that?” Vaughn asked.
“I walked over to him. I said, ‘I’ve just done you a big favor, Mr. Stinson. Please don’t tell the police you saw me here until I’ve had a chance to talk to you.’ Then I got back in the car and drove off.”
When she hesitated Dave understood the boldness and simplicity of her reasoning. Of all the things she might have said to Stinson she had picked the right one. She had done him a favor and she asked his co-operation. Stinson was the sort who would hurt no one deliberately, who would testify against a woman only with great reluctance, and even in that Liza had calculated correctly.
“I knew he hadn’t said anything when the police didn’t come for me that first night,” she said. “I knew that if he had kept quiet that long he probably would stay that way. He would have,” she said tonelessly, “if he hadn’t scared so easily. I talked to him the next day,” she said.
“I guess he suffered more than I did. I didn’t think much about Mr. Gannon. I told myself it was his own fault and he’d got what was coming to him. Mr. Stinson knew he was doing wrong but he also knew I had done him a favor. He told me about the motel he was going to buy. He said maybe he’d always have it on his conscience but he’d help me if he could.” She sighed unconsciously and lifted the muzzle of the gun which had begun to dip.
“Then today he called me and said he was afraid he was going to be arrested. I could tell he was afraid, all right, but I knew I’d have to talk to him to know for sure what he was going to do. I asked him to meet me and I took the gun in my beach bag. I liked Mr. Stinson,” she said without emotion. “But I knew if you”—she nodded to Vaughn—“started to work on him he’d tell all he knew.”
She shook her head as though to eradicate the thought but her eyes still held that glazed, remote expression.
“It didn’t seem to matter,” she said. “I didn’t want to do it but it didn’t seem to matter like the first time. I didn’t want to go to prison. I’m not g
oing to prison,” she said. “That’s why I kept the gun.”
Vaughn had been listening attentively, nodding from time to time to indicate he understood how it was. Now he leaned slightly forward, his eyes on the gun. Then, before he could do anything more, Resnik made his move.
Dave did not see it start. He was watching Liza and wondering if he could reach her in case Vaughn started toward the gun.
All he actually saw was the blur of motion out of which a hand took shape. He heard Liza’s cry of surprise. Then Resnik was twisting the gun down and away; in a continuation of the same movement he had it safely in his hand.
Vaughn’s eyes opened and a glint of satisfaction flickered in them. He said: “Ahh.” He put his hands on his knees as though to rise. “Thanks,” he said, but he did not get up.
For something had happened to Resnik. His hopelessness of manner had vanished. His attitude was alert and purposeful and now, a tight, mirthless grin warping his little mustache, he reached inside that white dinner jacket. He pulled a short-barreled revolver from a shoulder holster and pointed it at Vaughn.
“Sit still, Captain!” he said. “Just take it easy.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It was Liza Drake who gave the first audible reaction. She made a small cry of bewilderment and stared down at her bruised fingers. Resnik paid her no attention. Still intent on Vaughn, he fumbled with the small automatic until he had the clip free.
He began to thumb the shells out on the couch. There were four. He put the clip back and then spoke to Liza from the corner of his mouth.
“You understand this thing? You know how to get that other shell out of the chamber?”
She said yes and he handed it to her. She pulled back the slide and the last bullet spun to the floor. When she stooped to get it he stopped her.
“Let it lay. It don’t matter.”
“You hurt my hand,” she said. “Why did you have to—”
“Because I don’t want you shooting anybody else. Now listen to me.”
He paused and she watched him, the slackness still in her face, and it came to Dave then that there was very little left of the woman he had talked with the other afternoon. That woman had been shrewd and calculating, a possessive woman with great assurance and a highly developed protective instinct, ready and willing to do whatever she had to do to protect the man she loved. This woman seemed stunned and incapable of aggressive action. Even her body seemed to have sagged within the boned supports of the strapless dress.
Resnik spoke curtly in his effort to impress upon her mind what she was to do.
“They’ve got nothing on you except that gun,” he said. “All this talk doesn’t mean a thing. You can repudiate the whole damn business and make them prove it. Now get out of here. Take that gun with you. Go down to the beach. Walk either up or down, it doesn’t matter, and throw that gun farther into the ocean than you’ve ever thrown anything in your life. You understand?”
Liza stood up, the little automatic hanging limply in her hand. She began to move slowly toward the door. Vaughn was watching Resnik. His hands were still on his knees.
“You think I’m going to let her get away with it, Sam?” he asked quietly.
“I have to try,” Resnik said.
“It’s like this,” Vaughn said. “When I first joined the force I had to settle some things in my mind. I had to figure that if I kept at it there was a good chance that some fool would take a shot at me. I had to figure it could happen more than once and that maybe I’d get hit. In this business it’s a chance you have to take, like an occupational hazard, and what you hope is, if you get hit, you don’t get stopped for good.”
He leaned forward another inch, a glance at the woman telling him she was two steps from the door. He did not look nervous or worried and nothing showed in his voice.
“So far I’ve been lucky,” he said, “and if this is the time I have to buck the odds, why that’s what I’m getting paid for. Now I’m going to get out of this chair and I’m either coming for you or I’m going after the woman. I haven’t made up my mind yet which it will be. I just want to tell you now that this is a sucker play, Sam, because you can’t win.”
“You can’t win ’em all anyway.” Resnik’s face was a flat, hard mask but his voice was steady. “But when somebody goes to bat for me I like to do the same for him. Liza made a mistake but she did it for me. It ain’t a question of right or wrong. I have to play it the way I see it. I have to give her the chance. If I have to pay, okay.”
“With your life?” Vaughn asked. “Because that’s how it will be if you pull the trigger, and you know it.”
“No.” Resnik shook his head. “When you kill a man you’re betting with your life. I’ve never done that yet and I’m not going to start now. But I’m pretty handy with this thing and if you reach for your gun I think I can wing you. Come for me and you’ll have to take it in the leg. Five minutes,” he said. “That’s all I want.”
“Just long enough for the sand to cover the gun so we’ll never find it.”
Vaughn stood up slowly as the screen door banged. He looked at it a moment, still not too concerned. He looked at Resnik and took his first step.
“I have to call you, Sam. You’re going to jail any way you look at it.”
“I have to give her the chance. Maybe I’ll have to take a few years but I can do that much standing on my head.”
Resnik swallowed visibly. He lowered the muzzle of the gun slightly, the perspiration glistening on his face. Vaughn stopped, head slightly cocked, as though listening for something and then, with all that pressure building up, Dave opened his mouth to speak. He did not know what he was going to say but he had to say something. He had to make a move of some kind, to attract Resnik’s attention in some way so that Vaughn would have a chance. In that same instant Vaughn turned his back on the gambler.
What happened then took Dave a moment to understand. For the sound came from outside and close by the bungalow windows. He heard the man’s voice first, followed by the woman’s startled cry, not loud but abrupt and as quickly still. He thought he could hear the sound of a brief scuffle and then there was silence.
Vaughn smiled slowly and did not bother to turn round.
“You’re lucky, Sam,” he said over his shoulder. “In my business you learn never to operate alone if you can help it. I’ve had a man outside ever since I came here. I thought he could handle it but I couldn’t have waited much longer.”
Resnik examined the gun in his hand and the expression that crossed his face was hard to define. Relief came as the stiffness slid away but with it there came a look that was forlorn and miserable and utterly defeated. He lifted his shoulders and took a deep breath. He tossed the gun six inches in the air and caught it in his palm, the butt reversed.
“She had a break coming,” he said. “After what she did for me I had to give her her chance if I could.”
He swung his arm down and up, tossing the gun in an easy arc to Vaughn who caught it neatly. Then he sat down on the couch and buried his face in his hands.
* * * *
It was after two o’clock when Dave and Betty left the bungalow and it was nearly six when the police car brought them back. They got out at the office and walked across the lawn in the early morning light, exhausted physically and emotionally from the ordeal they had been through, first in Vaughn’s office and later answering questions and making statements for the state’s attorney. They did not see Liza or Resnik after they left Vaughn’s office and they saw nothing at all of Carl Workman. Now, silently and as if by mutual consent, they sat down on Betty’s steps, their shoulders touching.
He offered a cigarette, and she took it and a light. At that moment there seemed to be nothing that either could say and Dave’s glance moved idly along the rows of units. In the apartment next to Betty’s, Mrs. Craft would be getting ready to wake up for another day of observation on the frailties of others. Next to her Frank Tyler, the catalyst who had started
things even though he had no part in the murder, would be sleeping. The next apartment, Workman’s, was empty and would presently be vacant.
The cars parked beside the two bungalows flanking Gannon’s were ready and waiting to go and light showed in one of the windows, indicating that at least one tenant was making preparations for the day’s journey. The three units diagonally opposite were still quiet and the fourth, the one next to Stinson’s, was Thelma Colby’s—Workman’s Widow Collins. Dave wondered if her sleep had been troubled by thoughts of the estate she had wanted so badly, and if she realized how narrowly she had missed being an accessory, at least technically, to murder….
“I’m sorry,” he said, aware that Betty had spoken.
“I said, what will they do to her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will—will they—”
“It depends on what her lawyers think of her chances. I think the least she’ll get is a long term in jail.”
“She deserves it,” she said without vindication. “I can’t feel too sorry for her. I think I feel sorriest for—”
“Stinson?”
“Well—yes. But I guess I was thinking of Mr. Resnik. She did it for him and now—”
She did not finish the thought but Dave knew what she meant: that it was the dead you mourned but the living you felt sorry for. He glanced away and now he saw through the trees the sunlight dancing on the water. He looked over at the light burning in the Coffee Shop and knew it would soon open for business. That gave him the idea.
“What time does it open?” he asked.
“At seven,” she said, following his glance.
“What time is the coffee ready?”
“About a quarter of.” She sighed. “Which means it’s almost time for me to go to work.”
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