“To the St. Laurent? Why?”
“Suppose you tell me. Did you send her up here to trap us? Because if you did, what better way than that? She tells Goheen, then both of them play along—and go straight to the police before Dygert has a chance to leave Canada with his film.”
I nodded slowly. Bobby could have decided to do just that.
“Well, Dygert went after her,” Mrs. Bonner said spitefully. “Right before it started snowing. It’s two miles to the St. Laurent. If you ask me, she never got there. I looked out the window. All the horse sleds were in use. She went on skis, but she isn’t much of a skier. Dygert’s an expert, and so is Curt. She never even got there, I tell you. They stopped her. They had to stop her. She knew all our plans. They had to stop her for good.”
She was yelling after me when I reached the door. “Wait, please! We’re still in this together. Don’t you see, Judson was torn between going on the way he was and breaking with Dygert. He said he was going to fell the police in Virginia what Dygert had done. If it wasn’t criminal, at least it would get Dygert out of our hair, Then Judson had his coronary. Then—”
“Who was he going to tell, Sheriff Lonegran?”
“Wait! You’ve got to wait.”
But I slammed the door behind me and ran for the stairs. She opened the door and called me a name. I took the stairs down three at a time.
When I got outside it was really snowing. A stiff cold wind had sprung up and the sleigh driver I found told me, “From the northwest. From La Verendrye it comes. It will snow all night and bring the Arctic cold.” He puffed a big pipe complacently. He was warmly bundled in a mackinaw and a heavy wool scarf. Winter was his friend.
“Take me to the Hotel St. Laurent,” I said.
“Two miles, monsieur! My little horse is tired. I am tired.”
“Twenty dollars,” I said, “if you make it in half an hour.”
He grinned and tapped out his pipe. “For ten dollars a mile I would take you to La Verendrye itself. Allons!”
I climbed aboard. “Haya! Hey!” he shouted to the horse. The harness bells jingled.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
IT TOOK us forty minutes, the sleigh slipping and lurching up hills and down and around steep turns, to reach the St. Laurent. We drove through a blizzard of swirling snow and shrieking wind. The driver gave me a thick plaid blanket, but still I was almost numb with cold when we pulled to a stop. The horse shook itself. Despite the snow and the cold, it was lathering. I gave the driver twenty dollars and ran inside.
The Hotel St. Laurent was larger than the Hemlock, its lobby more crowded, noisier. Three groups clustered, around three different accordionists. The resulting music was a discordant confusion of sound; and because the evening was older, more drinking had been done. Everyone looked amazingly healthy and slightly high. I had to push my way through to the desk.
“Mr. Goheen,” I said. “It’s urgent.”
The clerk looked at me professionally, at the snow melting on my trenchcoat, at my gloveless hands. “You are not a guest?” he said. He had white hair and a pink face with dewlaps. He wore small rimless glasses and they perched too low on the bridge of his nose.
“I said it was urgent.”
“Two-seventeen, s’il vous plait,” he called behind him to a PBX operator. I waited. The operator shook her head. “Mr. Goheen is not in his room,” the elderly clerk told me.
“Maybe he’s in the lobby.”
“Then you do not know him, monsieur?”
“No. He here?”
The clerk looked around, adjusting the glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “Ah, ah,” he said, “the clothing they wear.” He clucked his tongue.
The lobby was a confusing sea of bright reds, blues and yellows, of plaids and overplaids, of dancing, singing, drinking vacationers. A lithe girl jumped up on a stable in her slipper socks and toasted a deerhead on the wall with a steaming mug. An accordionist played an arpeggio as she came down in a man’s arms. He kissed her, and the crowd swirled around them.
“Alouette!” someone shouted.
The accordionist played and they sang a chorus of Alouette, clapping their hands and stamping their feet.
“Every year younger,” the clerk said, shaking his head. “Or I am growing older.” He smiled, then the smile faded. “There is Mr. Goheen,” he said, pointing across the lobby a little reluctantly.
I looked where he was pointing. A tall man only a few years older than most of the others was sitting with a mug in his hand. Three very young, very happy girls were holding court around him. He wore a red and black plaid shirt and looked happy. I went over there.
“Mr. Goheen?” I said.
“Who’re you?” one of the girls asked me with a big grin. She had long yellow hair and flushed red cheeks and looked a little drunk. “Whoever you are, get undressed. I mean, get out of those silly clothes and into something sensible. At least come on and sing. Stop looking so serious. Do you play the accordion?”
“I’m afraid she’s had a bit too much to drink,” Goheen told me. “Yes, I’m Goheen. Why?”
The blonde took my hand and pulled me toward her chair. “At least sit down. Why—you’re freezing cold.” She patted my hand. Someone thrust a mug in my hand. It was hot and it was a good idea. I drank.
“Did a girl come looking for you this afternoon? A blonde? Pretty?”
“The place is crawling with blondes,” one of the other girls said. She was, of course, a brunette.
“What’s the matter with blondes?” the blonde girl asked indignantly, raising her voice.
“I’m afraid I can’t hear you,” Goheen said with a smile. “But no one came looking for me this afternoon. No blondes or anything.” The brunette smiled at him. He smiled back, but in an amused fatherly fashion. I decided Dygert knew his business: the only way they would have got Bobby into bed with him was if they drugged him.
“You have a friend,” I shouted over the noise. “You met him up here. Named Curt?”
Goheen frowned. He wasn’t angry, but he was puzzled. “Say, what is this?” he asked me. “Just what do you want, mister?”
“What would he need any old blonde for?” the brunette demanded. “He’s married. Happily married,” she added sulkily.
“Curt’s a blond lad,” I told Goheen. “Twenty-one or two. Maybe that isn’t the name he used.”
“I know the man. He isn’t here. What’s this all about?”
BEFORE I could answer, someone nearby dropped a mug on a cocktail table with a loud crash. I looked up. The girl who had dropped the mug seemed very embarrassed. She brushed at her slacks awkwardly. “Now look what you did!” she accused someone standing near her. About ten feet behind her, in another small group, I saw Gilbert.
“Well?” Goheen asked.
I didn’t answer him. I put my mug down and walked over to Gilbert. He had his arm around a girl’s shoulder and she was saying: “Then, on account of the fence down there, you have to Christie. I mean, have to. The snow sprays and you miss the barbed wire by inches. Just inches. There ought to be a law.”
“What’s Christie?” Gilbert asked.
“My goodness, don’t you know anything about skiing?”
Gilbert patted her arm. “In the morning, why don’t you teach me?”
I put my hand on Gilbert’s shoulder. My other hand was in the pocket of my trenchcoat, gripping the Magnum .357. I thrust it, through the coat, hard against the small of Gilbert’s back.
“Hello, Gilbert,” I said.
He turned his head slowly. He was wedged between me and the girl. He did not turn his body. His eyes widened and then narrowed.
“My, doesn’t he look solemn,” the girl said. She eased her shoulder away from Gilbert’s arm and started to move off.
“No, stick around,” Gilbert said.
But a fellow in a turtleneck sweater offered her a drink. They seemed to know each other. The fellow told a joke about a girl skier caught out in the snow an
d a logger from La Verendrye. Everyone laughed, even Gilbert. I moved my hand down from his shoulder to his biceps. While they were laughing I said softly, “It’s a gun. Don’t bet it isn’t.”
The crowd around us followed turtleneck as he went toward the fire beginning another joke. Their laughter drifted back.
“Where’s Curt? And Bobby Hayst. All of them.”
“Screw you, Drum,” Gilbert said.
“Let’s go up to Curt’s room,” I said.
“Screw you,” he said again.
“Have it your way.” I jabbed with the Magnum. “But you ought to see the statistics on people who get hurt in crowds.”
“The arm,” he said. “You’re hurting the arm.”
“Curt’s room.”
“All I have to do is holler.”
“Then holler. Which would leave you holding the bag if anything’s happening to Bobby Hayst Go on and holler.”
“What the hell,” he grumbled, I’ll take you upstairs.”
We pushed through the crowded lobby to the stairs. I never let go of his arm. But across the lobby I saw Goheen watching us as we went upstairs.
“Who says I got a key?” Gilbert whined as we paused outside the door of room 215. He sounded like a juvenile delinquent collared by a tough police sergeant. Hell, he was young enough still to be one if he had gone around in the right circles.
“If you don’t open that door I’m going to slug you and search you,” I told him.
He fumbled in his pocket, then thrust at the lock with impotent anger. A moment later we stepped into the darkness of Curt’s room.
“The light,” I said.
THERE was a click, and a ceiling fixture went on, showing a small room with two twin beds, a wing chair and a dresser. When Gilbert turned around to face me, I hit him. He sailed back toward the nearer bed, his arms flying out, and bounced on it. I hit him again coming up. This time he huddled on the bed, covering his face with his arms. I grabbed the front of his flannel shirt and dragged him to his feet. He swung out blindly and ineffectually with his right fist. I caught it and pivoted him around, forcing his hand up between his shoulder blades.
“Go ahead and horse around,” I said.
He hunched over to minimize the strain in his arm. He began to curse me in a soft, steady voice. His selection of words was colorful and graphic, but it was cut off when I moved his arm upward an inch.
“Where’s Bobby Hayst?”
“How in hell should I know?”
“When’d you get here?”
“… Afternoon.”
“Who with?”
“Dygert. Lay off, will you please? And that guy Trowbridge.”
“Chasing Bobby Hayst?”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
“Did She reach the hotel before you?”
He tried to wrench free. I pushed the arm up. He sobbed.
“Did she reach the hotel before you?”
“No. We caught her.”
“Where?”
“About a quarter mile down the road.”
“Then what happened?”
For a moment his bluster came back. “I’m gonna kill you for this, dads.”
“Kill me tomorrow,” I said, forcing the arm again. “Now better concentrate on talking. After you caught her, what happened?”
“I don’t ski so good. They sent me ahead to get Curt I got him. He took my skis and … told me to make myself at home.”
“He went back to the others?”
“Yeah.”
“Had they talked about what they would do with Bobby Hayst?”
“I don’t know?”
“Had they talked about it yesterday? This morning?”
“You’re gonna break my arm!”
“Then answer me.”
“They talked.”
“Spill it.”
He sobbed and didn’t say anything.
“What you going to get out of this—besides a broken arm?”
“Old man Bonner pays us in peanuts.” He spat the words. “His nympho wife … in tail. Dygert showed us real bread.”
“What were they planning to do with Bobby Hayst?”
We stood between the door and the closer of the two beds. Gilbert craned his neck to look around desperately. I heard a noise behind me. The door opened and shut.
GOHEEN came into the room angrily. “What are you doing to that boy?” he said.
I let go of Gilbert, who collapsed on the bed and put on an innocent, boyish look the way other people put on a hat. “He must be nuts,” he said.
Taking out the Magnum, I stepped to the foot of the bed so I could cover Goheen and Gilbert. Goheen stood about six feet away from me. He looked at the gun and then up at my face. He took a step toward me.
“You’re making a damn-fool mistake,” I said.
“Give me the gun and we’ll talk about it.”
“I told you you’re making a mistake.”
“The gun, mister.”
“A girl was coming here to see you,” I said quickly. “She had been hired to pose in bed with you for pictures. She balked. This man and his friends, who had done the hiring, came after her. To stop her. To kill her. This one couldn’t ski very well. Your friend Curt could. They changed places.”
Goheen said nothing, but his face told me what he thought. He thought I was crazy, but that gave him new respect for the gun in my hand. He stood still, three feet in front of me. He could have reached out and touched the gun. His eyes wavered from my face to it,
“I told you he was nuts,” Gilbert said.
That must have made me take my eyes off Goheen for a split second. He lunged for the gun. Just as he grabbed it, I hooked my left hand at his jaw as hard as I could. His eyes went out of focus. He let go of the gun. He wobbled but didn’t fall. When I moved back a step he came after me. Then his knees buckled and hit the floor.
Gilbert jumped off the bed and ran for the door.
I got there a step after he did. He yanked the handle and the door started to swing in. I kicked it shut so hard the wall rattled. He spun around and landed a hard right over my heart. He was no good to me dead. Maybe he was beginning to realize that. His left hand clawed at my right wrist. Pulling it free, I laid the gun barrel along his jaw. He went over sideways with the force of the blow and then down on his face.
That was when Goheen jumped me.
He wasn’t much of a fighter, but he was a big man and he had guts. I was worried about the gun. It might go off by accident and hurt someone. Goheen had a mugger’s grip on me. Staggering under his weight, I reached the bed and dropped the gun there. Then I fell to one knee and sent Goheen cartwheeling over my head. He landed on his back with a thud they must have heard halfway to Montreal.
I put the gun back in my pocket and dragged Goheen to the bed. I wrapped him in the bedspread as tight as a mummy. His eyelids were fluttering, but he was still unconscious. In the closet I found two of Curt’s belts and a pair of suspenders. I fastened the belts around Goheen’s legs and the suspenders around his torso and arms. After that I got a glass of water from the bathroom and took it over to Gilbert. He was sitting on the floor now, looking dazed and hurt. The left side of his jaw was blue. When I threw the water in his face he spluttered and gasped.
Just then someone knocked at the door.
“I say, is anything wrong in there?” It was an English voice, clipped but concerned. “Heard a dreadful noise.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Just an accident”
“You’re quite positive?”
I said I was sure. His footsteps went way.
“What were they going to do with Bobby Hayst?” I asked Gilbert. He glared up at me, water dripping from his head. But he didn’t have any fight left. He said, “The Park. Mt. Tremblant Park. It’s a wilderness. For cross-country skiing. They were going to take her in there. She can’t ski any better than me. They said they were going to leave her in there. You figure out what would happen to her in a storm.”
“This afternoon. Figure it out, Drum. The girl’s as good as dead already.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
IT WAS Goheen who called the Mounties. They had a small post at the entrance to Mt. Tremblant Park. Goheen did the calling because his name was known and, at his word, any preliminary investigation could be dispensed with. Goheen had regained consciousness while Gilbert was talking. He had asked to be untied in a very small voice. I had had Gilbert do it. After getting loose, Goheen had hit him so hard with his open hand that Gilbert fell down. He got up whimpering and Goheen hit him again.
“How can you ever forgive, me?” Goheen had asked me.
“I don’t want an apology. I want help.”
That was when Goheen called the Mounties. They came inside of fifteen minutes. I had expected scarlet tunics, breeches with a stripe down their seams, top boots and World War I style campaign hats. That must have been the picture Hollywood had given me. They came in hooded O.D. parkas and ski boots. Two of them took Gilbert into custody at once. He began to yell that he wanted a lawyer, but he was told that none of his rights were being infringed unless they placed a specific charge against him and then refused him legal council. For twenty-four hours they could hold him on an open charge, and that was what they were going to do.
The Mountie who stayed behind was a tall wiry sergeant named Moriarity. He wanted to hear my story and I gave it to him, all of it, in ten minutes. The words tumbled out almost of their own volition. The only thing I could think of was Bobby out there in the blizzard, alone, freezing, trying to thrust forward on skis she barely knew how to use. The picture in my mind became so vivid that I couldn’t keep talking. I stopped to light a cigarette. I felt all choked up inside.
“Our men are out there now,” Moriarity told us. “But don’t expect miracles. It isn’t midnight yet. We won’t really be able to do anything until dawn. Does this man Dygert know the Park?”
I shook my head.
“That’s bad. If he knew the Park, we might know the best places to look, the places a man with knowledge of the Park might leave her, the deep gullies where the snow piles in soft high drifts.” He frowned. “Or the ridges where she’d be exposed to the wind. Or …” he paced around the small room, an active outdoor man who suddenly felt constrained and helpless. “There are almost four hundred square miles of wilderness out there, Mr. Goheen. Of course, on skis in one afternoon they couldn’t get very far into it. And they haven’t returned yet that we know of. That’s a good sign, I think.”
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