by Otto Penzler
But she wasn’t done yet. With me standing there holding a gun not four inches from her body, she turned and bolted off toward where a clump of trees made a jet-black blot to the north.
When I recovered from my surprise at this amateurish procedure, I stuck both her gun and mine in my pockets, and set out after her, tearing the soles of my feet at every step.
She was trying to get over a wire fence when I caught her.
“Stop playing, will you?” I said crossly, as I set the fingers of my left hand around her wrist and started to lead her back to the roadster. “This is a serious business. Don’t be so childish!”
“You are hurting my arm.”
I knew I wasn’t hurting her arm, and I knew this girl for the direct cause of four, or perhaps five, deaths; yet I loosened my grip on her wrist until it wasn’t much more than a friendly clasp. She went back willingly enough to the roadster, where, still holding her wrist, I switched on the lights. Kilcourse lay just beneath the headlight’s glare, huddled on his face, with one knee drawn up under him.
I put the girl squarely in the line of light.
“Now stand there,” I said, “and behave. The first break you make, I’m going to shoot a leg out from under you,” and I meant it.
I found Kilcourse’s gun, pocketed it, and knelt beside him.
He was dead, with a bullet-hole above his collar-bone.
“Is he—” her mouth trembled.
“Yes.”
She looked down at him, and shivered a little.
“Poor Fag,” she whispered.
I’ve gone on record as saying that this girl was beautiful, and, standing there in the dazzling white of the headlights, she was more than that. She was the thing to start crazy thoughts even in the head of an unimaginative middle-aged thief-catcher. She was—
Anyhow, I suppose that is why I scowled at her and said:
“Yes, poor Fag, and poor Hook, and poor Tai, and poor kid of a Los Angeles bank messenger, and poor Burke,” calling the roll, as far as I knew it, of men who had died loving her.
She didn’t flare up. Her big gray eyes lifted, and she looked at me with a gaze that I couldn’t fathom, and her lovely oval face under the mass of brown hair—which I knew was phony—was sad.
“I suppose you do think—” she began.
But I had had enough of this; I was uncomfortable along the spine.
“Come on,” I said. “We’ll leave Kilcourse and the roadster here for now.”
She said nothing, but went with me to Axford’s big machine, and sat in silence while I laced my shoes. I found a robe on the back seat for her.
“Better wrap this around your shoulders. The windshield is gone. It’ll be cool.”
She followed my suggestion without a word, but when I had edged our vehicle around the rear of the roadster, and had straightened out in the road again, going east, she laid a hand on my arm.
“Aren’t we going back to the White Shack?”
“No. Redwood City—the county jail.”
A mile perhaps, during which, without looking at her, I knew she was studying my rather lumpy profile. Then her hand was on my forearm again and she was leaning toward me so that her breath was warm against my cheek. “Will you stop for a minute? There’s something— some things I want to tell you.”
I brought the car to a halt in a cleared space of hard soil off to one side of the road, and screwed myself a little around in the seat to face her more directly.
“Before you start,” I told her, “I want you to understand that we stay here for just so long as you talk about the Pangburn affair. When you get off on any other line—then we finish our trip to Redwood City.”
“Aren’t you even interested in the Los Angeles affair?”
“No. That’s closed. You and Hook Riordan and Tai Choon Tau and the Quarres were equally responsible for the messenger’s death, even if Hook did the actual killing. Hook and the Quarres passed out the night we had our party in Turk Street. Tai was hanged last month. Now I’ve got you. We had enough evidence to swing the Chinese, and we’ve even more against you. That is done—finished—completed. If you want to tell me anything about Pangburn’s death, I’ll listen. Otherwise—”
I reached for the self-starter.
A pressure of her fingers on my arm stopped me.
“I do want to tell you about it,” she said earnestly. “I want you to know the truth about it. You’ll take me to Redwood City, I know. Don’t think that I expect—that I have any foolish hopes. But I’d like you to know the truth about this thing. I don’t know why I should care especially what you think, but—”
Her voice dwindled off to nothing.
Then she began to talk very rapidly—as people talk when they fear interruptions before their stories are told—and she sat leaning slightly forward, so that her beautiful oval face was very close to mine.
“After I ran out of the Turk Street house that night—while you were struggling with Tai—my intention was to get away from San Francisco. I had a couple of thousand dollars, enough to carry me any place. Then I thought that going away would be what you people would expect me to do, and that the safest thing for me to do would be to stay right here. It isn’t hard for a woman to change her appearance. I had bobbed red hair, white skin, and wore gay clothes. I simply dyed my hair, bought these transformations to make it look long, put color on my face, and bought some dark clothes. Then I took an apartment on Ashbury Avenue under the name of Jeanne Delano, and I was an altogether different person.
“But, while I knew I was perfectly safe from recognition anywhere, I felt more comfortable staying indoors for a while, and, to pass the time, I read a good deal. That’s how I happened to run across Burke’s book. Do you read poetry?”
I shook my head. An automobile going toward Halfmoon Bay came into sight just then—the first one we’d seen since we left the White Shack. She waited until it had passed before she went on, still talking rapidly.
“Burke wasn’t a genius, of course, but there was something about some of his things that— something that got inside me. I wrote him a little note, telling him how much I had enjoyed these things, and sent it to his publishers. A few days later I had a note from Burke, and I learned that he lived in San Francisco. I hadn’t known that.
“We exchanged several notes, and then he asked if he could call, and we met. I don’t know whether I was in love with him or not, even at first. I did like him, and, between the ardor of his love for me and the flattery of having a fairly well-known poet for a suitor, I really thought that I loved him. I promised to marry him.
“I hadn’t told him anything about myself, though now I know that it wouldn’t have made any difference to him. But I was afraid to tell him the truth, and I wouldn’t lie to him, so I told him nothing.
“Then Fag Kilcourse saw me one day on the street, and knew me in spite of my new hair,
complexion and clothes. Fag hadn’t much brains, but he had eyes that could see through anything. I don’t blame Fag. He acted according to his code. He came up to my apartment, having followed me home; and I told him that I was going to marry Burke and be a respectable housewife. That was dumb of me. Fag was square. If I had told him that I was ribbing Burke up for a trimming, Fag would have let me alone, would have kept his hands off. But when I told him that I was through with the graft, had ‘gone queer,’ that made me his meat. You know how crooks are: everyone in the world is either a fellow crook or a prospective victim. So if I was no longer a crook, than Fag considered me fair game.
“He learned about Burke’s family connections, and then he put it up to me—twenty thousand dollars, or he’d turn me up. He knew about the Los Angeles job, and he knew how badly I was wanted. I was up against it then. I knew I couldn’t hide from Fag or run away from him. I told Burke I had to have twenty thousand dollars. I didn’t think he had that much, but I thought he could get it. Three days later he gave me a check for it. I didn’t know at the time how he had raised it, bu
t it wouldn’t have mattered if I had known. I had to have it.
“But that night he told me where he got the money; that he had forged his brother-in-law’s signature. He told me because, after thinking it over, he was afraid that when the forgery was discovered I would be caught with him and considered equally guilty. I’m rotten in spots, but I wasn’t rotten enough to let him put himself in the pen for me, without knowing what it was all about. I told him the whole story. He didn’t bat an eye. He insisted that the money be paid Kilcourse, so that I would be safe, and began to plan for my further safety.
“Burke was confident that his brother-in-law wouldn’t send him over for forgery, but, to be on the safe side, he insisted that I move and change my name again and lay low until we knew how Axford was going to take it. But that night, after he had gone, I made some plans of my own. I did like Burke—I liked him too much to let him be the goat without trying to save him, and I didn’t have a great deal of faith in Axford’s kindness. This was the second of the month. Barring accidents, Axford wouldn’t discover the forgery until he got his canceled checks early the following month. That gave me practically a month to work in.
“The next day I drew all my money out of the bank, and sent Burke a letter, saying that I had been called to Baltimore, and I laid a clear trail to Baltimore, with baggage and letters and all, which a pal there took care of for me. Then I went down to Joplin’s and got him to put me up. I let Fag know I was there, and when he came down I told him I expected to have the money for him in a day or two.
“He came down nearly every day after that, and I stalled him from day to day, and each time it got easier. But my time was getting short. Pretty soon Burke’s letters would be coming back from the phony address I had given him, and I wanted to be on hand to keep him from doing anything foolish. And I didn’t want to get in touch with him until I could give him the twenty thousand, so he could square the forgery before Axford learned of it from his canceled checks.
“Fag was getting easier and easier to handle, but I still didn’t have him where I wanted him. He wasn’t willing to give up the twenty thousand dollars—which I was, of course, holding all this time—unless I’d promise to stick with him for good. And I still thought I was in love with Burke, and I didn’t want to tie myself up with Fag, even for a little while.
“Then Burke saw me on the street one Sunday night. I was careless, and drove into the city in Joplin’s roadster—the one back there. And, as luck would have it, Burke saw me. I told him the truth, the whole truth. And he told me that he had just hired a private detective to find me. He was like a child in some ways: it hadn’t occurred to him that the sleuth would dig up anything about the money. But I knew the forged check would be found in a day or two at the most. I knew it!
“When I told Burke that, he went to pieces. All his faith in his brother-in-law’s forgiveness went. I couldn’t leave him the way he was. He’d have babbled the whole thing to the first person he met. So I brought him back to Joplin’s with me. My idea was to hold him there for a few days, until we could see how things were going. If nothing appeared in the papers about the check, then we could take it for granted that Axford had hushed the matter up, and Burke could go home and try to square himself. On the other hand, if the papers got the whole story, then Burke would have to look for a permanent hiding-place, and so would I.
“Tuesday evening’s and Wednesday morning’s papers were full of the news of his disappearance, but nothing was said about the check. That looked good, but we waited another day for good measure. Fag Kilcourse was in on the game by this time, of course, and I had had to pass over the twenty thousand dollars, but I still had hopes of getting it—or most of it—back, so I continued to string him along. I had a hard time keeping off Burke, though, because he had begun to think he had some sort of right to me, and jealousy made him wicked. But I got Tin-Star to throw a scare into him, and I thought Burke was safe.
“Tonight one of Tin-Star’s men came up and told us that a man named Porky Grout, who had been hanging around the place for a couple of nights, had made a couple of cracks that might mean he was interested in us. Grout was pointed out to me, and I took a chance on showing myself in the public part of the place, and sat at a table close to his. He was plain rat—as I guess you know—and in less than five minutes I had him at my table, and half an hour later I knew that he had tipped you off that Burke and I were in the White Shack. He didn’t tell me all this right out, but he told me more than enough for me to guess the rest.
“I went up and told the others. Fag was for killing both Grout and Burke right away. But I talked him out of it. That wouldn’t help us any, and I had Grout where he would jump in the ocean for me. I thought I had Fag convinced, but— We finally decided that Burke and I would take the roadster and leave, and that when you got here Porky Grout was to pretend he was hopped up, and point out a man and a woman—any who happened to be handy—as the ones he had taken for us. I stopped to get a cloak and gloves, and Burke went on out to the car alone—and Fag shot him. I didn’t know he was going to! I wouldn’t have let him! Please believe that! I wasn’t as much in love with Burke as I had thought, but please believe that after all he had done for me I wouldn’t have let them hurt him!
“After that it was a case of stick with the others whether I liked it or not, and I stuck. We ribbed Grout to tell you that all three of us were on the back porch when Burke was killed, and we had any number of others primed with the same story. Then you came up and recognized me. Just my luck that it had to be you—the only detective in San Francisco who knew me!
“You know the rest: how Porky Grout came up behind you and turned off the lights, and Joplin held you while we ran for the car; and then, when you closed in on us, Grout offered to stand you off while we got clear, and now …”
Her voice died, and she shivered a little. The robe I had given her had fallen away from her white shoulders. Whether or not it was because she was so close against my shoulder, I shivered, too. And my fingers, fumbling in my pocket for a cigarette, brought it out twisted and mashed.
“That’s all there is to the part you promised to listen to,” she said softly, her face turned half away. “I wanted you to know. You’re a hard man, but somehow I—”
I cleared my throat, and the hand that held the mangled cigarette was suddenly steady.
“Now don’t be crude, sister,” I said. “Your work has been too smooth so far to be spoiled by rough stuff now.”
She laughed—a brief laugh that was bitter and reckless and just a little weary, and she thrust her face still closer to mine, and the gray eyes were soft and placid.
“Little fat detective whose name I don’t know"—her voice had a tired huskiness in it, and a tired mockery— ”you think I am playing a part, don’t you? You think I am playing for liberty. Perhaps I am. I certainly would take it if it were offered me. But— Men have thought me beautiful, and I have played with them. Women are like that. Men have loved me and, doing what I liked with them, I have found men contemptible. And then comes this little fat detective whose name I don’t know, and he acts as if I were a hag—an old squaw. Can I help then being piqued into some sort of feeling for him? Women are like that. Am I so homely that any man has a right to look at me without even interest? Am I ugly?”
I shook my head. “You’re quite pretty,” I said, struggling to keep my voice as casual as the words.
“You beast!” she spat, and then her smile grew gentle again. “And yet it is because of that attitude that I sit here and turn myself inside out for you. If you were to take me in your arms and hold me close to the chest that I am already leaning against, and if you were to tell me that there is no jail ahead for me just now, I would be glad, of course. But, though for a while you might hold me, you would then be only one of the men with which I am familiar: men who love and are used and are succeeded by other men. But because you do none of these things, because you are a wooden block of a man, I find myself wanting you. Wo
uld I tell you this, little fat detective, if I were playing a game?”
I grunted non-committally, and forcibly restrained my tongue from running out to moisten my dry lips.
“I’m going to this jail tonight if you are the same hard man who has goaded me into whining love into his uncaring ears, but before that, can’t I have one whole-hearted assurance that you think me a little more than ‘quite pretty’? Or at least a hint that if I were not a prisoner your pulse might beat a little faster when I touch you? I’m going to this jail for a long while—perhaps to the gallows. Can’t I take my vanity there not quite in tatters to keep me company? Can’t you do some slight thing to keep me from the afterthought of having bleated all this out to a man who was simply bored?”
Her lids had come down half over the silver-gray eyes, her head had tilted back so far that a little pulse showed throbbing in her white throat; her lips were motionless over slightly parted teeth, as the last word had left them. My fingers went deep into the soft white flesh of her shoulders. Her head went further back, her eyes closed, one hand came up to my shoulder.
“You’re beautiful as all hell!” I shouted crazily into her face, and flung her against the door.
It seemed an hour that I fumbled with starter and gears before I had the car back in the road and thundering toward the San Mateo County jail. The girl had straightened herself up in the seat again, and sat huddled within the robe I had given her. I squinted straight ahead into the wind that tore at my hair and face, and the absence of the windshield took my thoughts back to Porky Grout.
Porky Grout, whose yellowness was notorious from Seattle to San Diego, standing rigidly in the path of a charging metal monster, with an inadequate pistol in each hand. She had done that to Porky Grout—this woman beside me! She had done that to Porky Grout, and he hadn’t even been human! A slimy reptile whose highest thought had been a skinful of dope had gone grimly to death that she might get away—she— this woman whose shoulders I had gripped, whose mouth had been close under mine!