A cop stuck his head in the front window and looked the two of them over.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“Up on the Point,” the kid said nervously.
“Uh-huh,” the cop nodded, a little out of breath. “See anyone up there?”
“We didn’t see anyone at all,” the girl put in quickly. She sounded scared, but it fitted in for a couple of kids who had been out on a parking party. “There weren’t even any cars.”
“Take a tip,” the cop said, “and clear outta here. There’s a crazy killer loose in the district. The best place for you kids is at home anyway.”
There was a moment of silence. “Sure,” the boy said quietly, “sure. That’s where we’re going.”
“Keep an eye peeled on the way down. If you see anyone suspicious find a policeman and report it.”
“Okay,” the boy said.
We moved on and I got up on the seat. The girl turned slightly, looked at me from the corner of her eye, and when she spoke her voice was almost a whisper, as though she was speaking in spite of herself.
“Are—are you the man from Las Vegas?” she asked.
“That’s me,” I said and let it go at that.
She turned away as the boy nudged her and she kept her eyes straight ahead.
The boy took the car down the hill and as he pulled up at the intersection for the light a police siren wailed not more than three blocks away.
“We’re at Sunset,” the boy said hopefully.
“Turn right,” I said, “and keep going.”
“But—”
“Get going.”
He made the turn and headed toward Woodland Hills. “Where to?” he asked.
“Just keep driving,” I snapped. “Turn right at the next corner.”
The kid nodded and, a moment later, made the turn. I let a couple of blocks pass.
“Pull up,” I said, “and stay away from the street lamp.”
He drove over to the curb, took the car out of gear, and sat still.
“Okay,” I climbed out but covered them, “this is where you get off.”
“Huh?” the kid said.
I waved the gun. “You heard me. Pile out.”
“But this car belongs to my dad,” the kid almost wept. “If anything happens to it—”
“I’m taking it for a little ride,” I said. “If the cops leave me alone, you’ll get it back good as new.”
“Come on, Jerry,” the girl pleaded with the boy. “Don’t argue with him and don’t worry about me,” she opened the door and they climbed out beside me.
“Just remember,” I said kindly, but firmly, “if you’re so worried about your dad’s wagon hold back on calling the cops. And take good care of your girl. She deserves it.”
The kid frowned, clasped the girl’s hand, but she eased off; she couldn’t get away from me fast enough.
I threw the car in gear, made a turn in the middle of the street, and headed back toward Sunset. Moving away I looked back at the kids. They stood right where I’d left them, rooted to the sidewalk.
Chapter Ten
In our set, even if you’ve been accused of breaking all the rules, it’s considered bad form to park a stolen car in your hostess’ drive, so I kept on past the Wakely beach house for another mile until I found a cut-off that led down to the beach. Below the level of the highway I cut the engine and sat there, breathing in the salt air and listening to the monotonous pounding of the surf. The stars were bright in the sky and looked very close as I got out of the car and trudged through the sand to the highway.
Several times I ducked headlights and once I dropped into the ditch at the side of the road and stayed there until a whole procession passed. By the time I arrived at the Wakely door I carried sand in every pocket.
The housekeeper looked surprised when she opened the door. “Mr. Walters!” she exclaimed as I emptied my trouser cuffs.
“I’ve been taking in the open sports,” I said.
“You certainly have,” she agreed. “Miss Wakely’s not at home. Some sort of citizen’s meeting, I think.” She swung the door open. “Come in,” she invited. “Miss Wakely asked me to call her if you returned.”
Her manner was less formal than when the mistress was at home. I grinned at her.
“What’s funny?” she asked.
“You act like you entertain fugitives every night of the week.”
The housekeeper smiled and led me through the hallway and into the living room. “With Miss Wakely’s interests you come in touch with many varieties.”
“Which one of fifty-seven am I?” I asked.
She gave this flip throw-away line a lot more weight than I had intended for she looked soberly at me. “You’re different from the others. I’d know that by Miss Wakely’s attitude—if no other way. Though don’t say I said so.” Her smile was gentle and even something of a wish.
“Miss Wakely’s attitude?”
She nodded solemnly. “She’s usually standoffish with men. But she accepts you.” She took in my clothes. “Miss Wakely wouldn’t mind, I know, if I offered you some beach things while I spruce up your suit a bit.”
I shook my head. “No, thanks. I can’t afford to get caught without standard attire,” I laughed and she giggled.
“Very well.” She started to leave the room but turned at the door. “You’re hungry?” she asked.
I loved her for being the motherly type. “Starved,” I admitted.
She nodded her understanding, left me, and I strolled to the window and stared out toward the black beach and the ocean while my nerves kicked up. I couldn’t sit still. In about a minute the housekeeper was back.
“I called Miss Wakely,” she said. “She’ll be here as soon as she can break away.” She had an apron on now, a plain white, businesslike affair. “Do you like stew? You’d better,” she said before I could reply. “Because that’s what we’re eating—and in the kitchen.” She led the way.
The kitchen was a big, gleaming, white affair that could have served for a small hospital. While she busied herself again at the stove I perched myself on a tall metal stool.
“Every once in a while the Irish in me asserts itself,” the housekeeper said. “Sometimes I need an old-fashioned Mulligan like a drunkard needs a drink.”
“And what could be better?” I said. “Liz Wakely is a lucky girl to have you around.”
“Not because of my stew,” she said. “She stays away from most solid foods because of her figure.” She shrugged. “But with a figure like hers—who can blame her?”
I flicked a stalk of celery from a bowl on the enamel table in the center of the room. “That stew is beginning to smell rood,” I said as I returned to the stool.
She turned to grin at me. “My name isn’t Maggie Feeney for nothing,” she said.
She was an attractive woman, in a healthy straightforward sort of way, and, as a girl, probably had been very pretty. “How long’ve you been with Liz, Maggie?” I asked.
“Nearly ten years.” She smiled in reminiscence. “It doesn’t seem that long.”
“Fond of her, aren’t you?”
“She’s really a wonderful girl, Liz is,” she began to cut a loaf of French bread into man-sized chunks. “People misunderstand Liz.” She shook her head. “I only wish she’d give up his thing about her father.”
Maggie stood motionless, holding the knife against the bread. “We’ve a lot in common, Liz and I,” she confided. “We’re a sort of club, you might say. My husband was killed through Talmadge too.”
“That’s a bad habit of his,” I said. “I’m sorry, Maggie.”
“Feeney was a pier night watchman and was shot one black night because he discovered hijackers in a warehouse. The same man killed him as killed Wakely. He made an identification before he died, but nothing was ever done about it.” She looked up at me. “I think Liz gave me the job here to sort of make up for it.”
“She’s done a lot to make up for her fath
er,” I said.
“I used to hate Talmadge too,” she continued, “but when came here to live with Liz and I saw how her hatred was eating her alive—I gave it up. I don’t care what happens to Talmadge. He’ll get his judgment. It’s Liz that matters now.”
“Does she talk about it much?”
“Sometimes, some.” She finished cutting the bread. “Sometimes not.” She crossed to the cupboard and took out a tray and plates. “You don’t mind eating here?”
“Here’s okay.” I moved to the table.
Maggie dished out the stew and produced a salad from the refrigerator. As I started to eat ravenously she brought a pot of coffee from the stove and poured cups for both of us. Then she sat down opposite me and under the kitchen light her hair hone with silver.
“The man who killed your husband and Wakely?” I asked.
She looked up at me. “Haggart. At least it’s certain that Haggart killed Feeney. It couldn’t be proved about Wakely.” She put her hands on the table and laced her fingers. “Liz never talks about it, so I don’t know that I should either. It’s just that she saw Haggart’s car on the street earlier, before the accident, and a few days later he was driving a new car. There isn’t much doubt about it.”
“Haggart’s had himself quite a career.”
“He must be a sick man,” she said. “I don’t like to think about him.” She closed her eyes. “I saw him only once and the sight almost turned my stomach.”
I dropped the subject.
By the time I’d finished eating and had smoked a couple of cigarettes it was nearly ten o’clock. Time was getting on and Liz Wakely still hadn’t shown up. At the sink, washing the dishes, Maggie caught my glance at the clock.
“Miss Wakely will be back any minute now.” She had become more formal. “Why don’t you go on out to the living room?”
“Okay,” I nodded.
I returned to my ocean-gazing but my thoughts traveled backward in time, returned to the beginning of the thing before the girl sprawled on the bed in the cheap hotel room before Mike French’s ruined face. I saw a path of moonlight and a quick brilliance flashing briefly in the dimness. My memory teetered on the brink of a discovery, but whatever it was it dimmed before I quite reached it. I turned away and began to pace restlessly, for time moved on lead feet. It got to be eleven o’clock, then a quarter after. Maggie came into the room, straightened up, and reassured me again that Liz would be back, then excused herself to go to bed. She left me pacing. At last I heard a sound in the hall, whirled with the gun in my hand and saw Liz walking into the room.
“On your guard.” She smiled. “Good.”
“I was beginning to wonder about you,” I said.
“Among other things,” she said, “I was having dinner with a man who is about to become important. I couldn’t walk out too soon.”
“Maggie said you were at a citizen’s meeting.”
“It’s always a citizen’s meeting where Maggie’s concerned. She’s most discreet.”
“And she makes good stew.”
I told her about the day’s activities, the affair downtown, the meeting with Talmadge and my hijacking the youngsters.
“You were identified downtown,” she said. “I’ve been hearing about you on the car radio driving home. Where did you leave the car?”
“On a side road, beyond here. It probably won’t be discovered until tomorrow—maybe even the weekend.”
She nodded, with her controlled, intelligent eyes leveled to mine. “I haven’t dawdled the evening away entirely. I have Bernie Haggart’s hideout address.” Her voice rang with a note of triumph. “Now I’m wondering if I ought to give it to you.’
I shot her a quick glance. “What do you mean?”
“Haggart’s a killer. It’s his profession. By reputation he’s smooth, fast and deadly.”
“He hasn’t been any of those things so far.” I suddenly felt on the defensive.
Liz crossed to the sofa and sat down. “You caught him off base, and he likes to pick spots,” she said distinctly. “And lately he’s been rumored to be Talmadge’s top man.” She ran her hand over the upholstered sofa arm. “That still means something, you know.”
“You shouldn’t object if I go after him.”
“I don’t.” She gave me that cool, direct look of hers. “I just don’t want him to get you. I’ve seen you twice, now, and in my circle that makes us old friends. I like you, Steve—like what you’re trying to do.”
“Many thanks.”
“Just don’t stand on ceremony with Haggart. I know you want him alive and talking, but you may not get him that way. You’d better be ready to kill or get killed. Do I sound too melodramatic?”
I shrugged. “I’ve never fainted at the sight of blood.”
“I just wanted to impress it on you.”
“Thanks. Can you get me a car that won’t be identified? I’m on foot again.”
She nodded. “I know a man who can have a car here in half an hour.”
“Make it twenty minutes.”
Liz nodded and got to her feet. “I’ll make the call.” She took a cigarette from the box on the table and lit it with the heavy silver lighter, all the while looking at me until she left the room.
According to the fireplace clock it was a quarter to midnight. I had already spotted the radio at the far end of the room I crossed to it and dialed around to a news broadcast. I took second billing to the national stories and had to wait through the latest on the corruption in Washington high places before I got the latest on myself. It was worth waiting for because the newscaster didn’t disappoint his listening public. I had “terrorized” Sam Talmadge, a “financier” who admitted to certain club interests in Vegas, but they were entirely legitimate. He felt that I, probably in a state of homicidal dementia, harbored a grudge against him for some imagined wrong.
After that they got around to the “harrowing” experience of the two youngsters who had been “hailed and forced at gunpoint to relinquish their car to the insane killer.” The public, prompted to be on the lookout for me, was given a complete and detailed description of my appearance and dress.
The announcer went into a gasoline commercial and I switched it off as Liz came toward me.
“The car’ll be here right away,” she said. “A drink while we’re waiting?”
I nodded. “I may need it.”
Liz crossed to a section of bookshelves, pressed a concealed button, and the shelves rotated to reveal a bar. She turned to me and smiled as if she had pulled a plum out of a pie.
“On these special occasions I drink scotch,” I said. “Double.”
“Right.”
Liz mixed the drinks and handed me mine. “To the future,” she toasted, “may there be one.”
“Thanks for the thought.”
“I mean it sincerely,” she said and we drank.
Her gaze went beyond me, toward the terrace and sea. “I don’t know,” she said. “Sometimes I think Maggie’s right. It’s foolish the way we all struggle and plot.” She turned to me. “Wouldn’t you like to just forget it, Steve, and go away somewhere?”
“Where is there to go?” I asked bitterly. “I keep thinking about Ann Gunther. I wonder how often she wanted to forget it and go away.”
“I know,” Liz said quietly. “It must have been terrible for her.” She smiled. “I wonder what Talmadge would say if he knew you were here with me?”
“It would probably make his day for him—in reverse.”
For a moment her eyes searched my face. “I could get you out of the country,” she said suddenly. “You wouldn’t have to worry as long as you live quietly.”
“Thanks,” I said. “The suggestion’s already been made. But don’t think I’m not grateful.”
“I just thought I’d mention it,” Liz stared into her drink. “You could do all right with the Latins,” she laughed. “I’ll bet there’ve been women who’ve thrown themselves at you.”
“If
you stand around wearing a catcher’s mitt somebody’s going to start pitching to you sooner or later.” I shrugged. “It’s all a part of my line of business.”
“Did you play it straight with them? You don’t have to answer that,” she added.
“What do you think?”
“I think you probably did,” she said.
“As far as business practice would allow, anyway.”
The look of challenge came into her eyes. “I think you’re probably the first straight player I’ve ever known, Steve,” she said.
I looked at her for a long silent moment. She was beautiful. The light from the lamp picked out the obscured silver in her white evening dress.
“Straight enough,” I said, “not to take you up on that.”
There was a beat of silence. “Easy come, easy go,” she said. “I guess I’ll always be the casual type.”
The sound of the buzzer saved us from another silence. She smiled at me, a little stiffly, then left the room. A moment later I heard a door open and a snatch of conversation which I couldn’t get, then she returned to hand me a set of car keys and a scrap of paper.
“Haggart’s address.” She pointed to the paper slip. “It’s on Rampart Terrace in the Hollywood hills. The car’s out in the drive.”
My lips and hands trembled as I slipped the paper into my pocket. “Here’s where I hit the road,” I said.
“I’ll let you out,” Liz said.
She went past me toward the kitchen and I followed her out, through the kitchen to the back door which she unlocked.
“Remember, Steve.” She turned to me. “Haggart isn’t really human. So don’t expect him to act it.”
“I won’t.”
“The walk takes you out to the drive.”
“Thanks, lady,” I said.
“Will I see you again?” Her voice was low.
Suddenly she looked very small against the night and I saw the other Liz Wakely, the one behind the sleek, guarded exterior; Maggie Feeney had told me about her. I felt a faint twinge of regret that I hadn’t taken her up on that cautious half-stated invitation back in the living room. On an impulse I leaned down and kissed her, just a light buss on the cheek and her hand caressed my sleeve, lightly.
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