“Listen, you pompous ass,” I started.
“Davie,” she pleaded. I stopped and her eyes moved over to Jim. Her throat moved. She bit her lip.
“Jim…”
“Well, what is it, Peggy?”
“Jim, Davie and I are going to be married.” She spoke quietly; half in defiance, half with the still remaining timidity.
Jim Vaughan’s body twitched. Something almost gave. Like a great wall about to topple. He stared at her, speechless for the first time I could remember since I’d met him, so many years ago. Someone had finally hit Jim Vaughan where it hurt.
And, suddenly, it came to me that Jim was in the same boat as Peggy and Audrey. And all of us to some degree. He was starving for real love and he’d never received it. And now it was tearing him apart at last because the shell he’d made to hide himself was cracking.
“It’s not true,” he said.
She nodded once. “Yes. It is.”
Something seemed to drain from his body. He pumped it back with will power. He managed a thin smile.
“Oh?” he said. “And have you told him how you murdered Albert? Is he willing to…”
“Your lies won’t work anymore,” I told him.
“Lies?” he said.
“I know who murdered Albert. And Dennis. I know about your argument with Dennis. I know that he threatened to expose your… your practice. And I know about that call Peggy made to you the night that Albert was killed.”
I didn’t know the last thing but I suspected its truth.
“I know a lot of things Jim,” I finished, “a lot of them.”
He turned and walked to the door. There he turned again. He looked at us, his face a stone mask. His eyes settled on me like the benediction of a cobra.
“Then maybe you also know,” he said, “how you’ll live long enough to marry Peggy.”
Peggy gasped.
“Jim! You wouldn’t…”
For a moment, Jim’s face was stripped of everything. The animal, the hating, frustrated animal showed for that moment. And it was ugly.
“I’ll do anything for you,” he said. “I’ve lied, I’ve cheated for you. Yes, I’ve murdered for you! And now…”
His words went on. But they were lost in the sudden explosion of joy in me.
He had confessed! Peggy was free. Sick in mind and afraid—but free. And it seemed as if breath began for the first time since I’d been struck on the head that night that seemed so long ago. That had been about two weeks before.
I put my arm around Peggy.
“Don’t argue with him,” I said. “You don’t have to argue. Look at him, Peggy. He’s beaten.”
Those were my words but my stomach was throbbing because I knew that from that moment on, my life was in danger. All possible friendship between us was kicked away for good.
His face was cold and murderous.
“I’ve despised you for a long time,” he said, “And now, by God, I’ll see to it you bother me no longer.”
I tensed myself instinctively, almost expecting him to reach into his pocket and take out a gun. Or an icepick, my imagination said.
I should have known better. That was not his way. Once I’d seen Jim refuse to sweep a floor in his fraternity house room. And he would always have someone else do his dirty work. And murder was dirty work.
He just opened the door.
“Good night,” he said as casually as his shaken system would allow.
Then he closed the door quietly and we heard him walking down the path, unhurried, carrying through to the last his pretense that the illusion of his casualness might even deceive himself. We stood there motionless and silent until the sound of his footsteps had disappeared. Then we heard a car door slam and the big Cadillac drew Jim Vaughan away into the night.
Her hands were shaking.
“I never knew he was like that,” she said, frightened. “I never even suspected he was like that.”
“I know you didn’t, Peggy.”
“What are we going to do?”
In answer, I went to the phone and dialed.
“Lieutenant Jones,” I said when they answered.
I felt her hand grow limp in mine.
“Yes?”
It was Jones. I told him what Jim had said.
“I’ll have him picked up,” Jones said, “and you’d better come by in the morning. With Miss Lister.”
“I will,” I said.
“All right. You say he just left 15th Street?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Good-bye.”
I hung up and looked at Peggy.
“All over, baby,” I said.
How wrong can a guy get?
***
I left about ten. First I stood at the door and looked through the small peephole. Then I opened it and looked up and down the path to see if there was anyone around. There wasn’t. I turned and kissed her.
“Goodnight, baby,” I said.
“Goodnight, Davie,” she said. “Please be careful.”
“Don’t worry,” I told her, “he’s probably been picked up already.”
She looked worried still.
“Do you really think so?” she asked.
I nodded. I hoped so, anyway. I hated to think of him and Steig running loose. I also didn’t care for the idea of Audrey alone, her life ended. But I didn’t let myself think about that.
“Maybe you should go down to the station and see,” Peggy said.
“That’s a good idea. Very good.”
“Be careful, Davie. If I lost you…”
“Shhh. No more now. Smile.”
She smiled.
“You will be careful,” she said.
“Honey,” I said, “I like living. You’ll find that out when we’re married.”
That angelic smile.
“Married,” she said, almost sighing the word, “to a man I can trust. Oh, I’m so… you have no idea how relieved I feel. I can forget everything that ever happened.”
I kissed her cheek.
“Breakfast at nine,” I said. “Bacon and eggs.”
“I’ll have it ready,” she said cheerfully.
I approached the car cautiously. All sorts of ideas filled my head. Steig was behind a bush or a tree with a rifle, a pistol, an axe, an… I wouldn’t let myself think the word. Or Steig was in his car waiting to run me down, to drive me to the curb, fire a gun into my brain…
I moved along the house, my heart pounding violently. I thought of going back to the house but I felt too ashamed. I’d just said good-bye. I knew she’d welcome me back. I could sleep on the couch. But I’d feel silly. And there was nothing definite to be afraid of, anyway. Just imaginations. And I was curious to know whether the police had picked up Jim and Steig. If they hadn’t, my imaginations would come to life.
No black Cadillac in sight. Only my little black Ford. I ran to it and jumped in fast after cursing at my shaking fingers that wouldn’t let me find the lock with the key.
I slid in and pulled the door shut and locked it. I looked around anxiously as I searched for the ignition with my key. No black figures dashing at the car. I would have been helpless if there had been. I swallowed and slid in the key.
Another fear. Bomb in the motor. I knew it was far-fetched but my mind would not discount it. I looked up and down the street, feeling the tug of rising fear in me. I got out and pulled up the hood, threw the flashlight beam around it. No infernal machine. I felt like an ass. Then I jumped around nervously and looked back up the street. I got back in the car.
I started the motor. Illegal U-turn before I thought. I could have gone over to Santa Monica Boulevard. I turned left at Wilshire and headed toward the ocean. At Lincoln I made another left turn and started for the police station.
I don’t know when I first became conscious of the car following me.
But when nervousness kept me looking into the rear view mirror, I saw it.
Big and black and Steig at the w
heel.
My hands clamped spasmodically on the wheel and my legs shook. There wasn’t much doubt now what he was after. He kept pulling closer, closer, gunning that big motor.
I stepped on the accelerator harder. In my mind I saw visions of him pulling alongside, a gun in his hand. My foot pushed down harder still and my small Ford spurted ahead. I forged away a little distance. Steig put on the gas and moved up on me.
I pushed harder, hit fifty, then sixty. Still he gained. I felt sweat breaking out on me. I roared past a red light, another. I kept hoping that a policeman would pick me up. There weren’t any, though. I passed a car, saw Steig pass it too, the big car sweeping out into the opposite lane and then back. He moved up on me.
Suddenly I pushed down hard on the horn, hoping that the noise would attract a police car. The shrill blasts filled the early morning stillness. Still no police. Still the Cadillac moving closer as we both sped toward Venice.
At Olympic he was almost on top of me. My heart was tearing at my chest like a crazy prisoner in his cell. The old Chicago way. Pull alongside, empty gun into driver’s head. The rub-out.
Steig moved the Cadillac around me. He was almost beside me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw his face, white as tallow. My hand slipped off the horn. I saw his right arm raised. He was pointing something at me…
I jammed on the brakes and almost flew through the windshield as my tires shrieked in friction on the pavement and the car skidded to a dead halt. Steig went speeding past and across the intersection. I dragged the Ford around, almost panic stricken and started down Olympic for the ocean. I didn’t know what to do. I knew the police station was down this way but I didn’t know how I was going to get to it. All I could think of was I had to get away from Steig because he wanted to kill me.
I was half-way down the block when the black car came around the corner and started after me. I was suddenly very grateful that my car had been owned by a hot-rodder. The way it sprang forward at my touch, the speed it was giving me was the only thing I had then between life and a bullet in my head.
Then I cried out loud in horror as I roared past the Fourth Street intersection without thinking. There was no way to get to the police station now. I was headed for the coast highway! And on a straightaway I could never outdistance the Cadillac.
Then, as I started down, I saw the light behind me change and saw that Steig had to stop violently as a big trailer truck started across the intersection. It gained me another half block. Then the view behind disappeared and I fled into the dark tunnel under Second Street.
I turned the dark curve and was on the Pacific Coast Highway. I shoved the accelerator all the way to the floor and the Ford almost leaped ahead. The pistons pounded crazily under the hood, it felt as if the car was going to take off. The roar of the motor was tremendous coming out of the double exhaust pipes. The black ocean flew by, the high bluffs of Santa Monica above me. I raced along at ninety and way behind I saw glaring heads as the big Cadillac pulled out of the tunnel.
As I roared past the light on the hill that led to the Santa Monica business district I saw that Steig was gaining on me. No Ford could outdistance that car, souped up or not. At least not a Ford more than a decade old. Sweat ran down over my eyebrows, along my temples. The thing seemed insane but here it was. I came to California for the weather, the phrase occurred inanely. I came for the weather and about two months later a man was chasing me in a car because he wanted to shoot me.
I couldn’t keep going on the highway. He’d catch up to me too easily. My only chance was eluding him somehow.
At Channel Road, I wheeled around the corner and bulleted up the canyon, past the Golden Bull, alongside of the flashflood channel. I’d passed the first intersection when Steig turned too. I moved up to the second intersection and made a sharp left turn.
There were two streets branching off. Without thinking I steered my speeding car into the right one, too afraid even to think that it might not be a through street. My Ford powered up a gradual hill and spurted down the grade on the other side. The bright heads of the Cadillac swung around and were boring on me.
My hands were slick on the wheel now. I had to keep taking off one at a time to rub them, almost frenziedly, on my trouser leg. I had no idea where I was going. Finding a policeman was hopelessly out of the question now.
The only thing that could possibly save me now was Henry Ford’s 1940 model. I was almost praying that it held together. If anything went now, I was dead.
My eyes were straining to see if there was anything ahead. I was too upset to think of getting my glasses from the glove compartment.
I almost turned left, then saw at the last possible second a sign reading—This Is Not a Through Street. I jerked the car around, bumped over a curb and back into the street, gasping for breath. I roared up a hill, past the silent Country Club, past the tennis court that stood empty and white in the moonlight. The headlights behind me, the throaty growl of the Cadillac’s motor. Steig with a gun.
Down a hill. Two intersections. I chose the right by dumb luck. I found myself speeding around a twisting road, over a wooden bridge and through a woods so deep it reminded me of the Hurtgen Forest, another place where I’d faced death. But then I was on foot, fighting war. Now I was in a car and a civilian and at war with no one. But a man was following me and he was going to kill me if he could because he’d been ordered to kill me and there are men who will kill on order. And the man who had ordered him had been my friend once.
A sign. Sunset Boulevard. And an arrow pointing. I jerked the wheel around and fired up the hill to Sunset. Now Steig was very close. He knew how to handle that car of his.
There was a hill on the right side I saw as I sped up Sunset toward the Pacific Palisades. I don’t know why I turned onto it. One of those snap decisions made more by reflex than by mind. I just wheeled around and went roaring up the steep incline, watching those heads behind me whip around in the dark and start after me again like blinding monster eyes.
Now I was headed into the hills. I hadn’t a chance in the world of finding anyone to help me. It would deserted up here, probably not a house for miles.
And, for the first time since I’d started being chased, I began to realize how afraid I was. So afraid my body was starting to go numb. A person goes through life and never sees violence except in a war. But this was personal violence. I couldn’t understand it and it frightened me. Steig didn’t even know me but he hated me. And because another man had told him to kill me, he was going at it as if his life depended on it.
A winding road, up and up. I kept the car in second and the pedal on the floor. The phrase occurred to me out of nowhere. I hoped that man had been telling the truth. The creeping indicator indicated that he might have. The motor roared under the dark sky as it kept pulling me up the hill rapidly and I kept spinning the wheel wildly to keep on the road.
A gate across the road!
I jerked the wheel instinctively and the Ford climbed up a small embankment beside the gate. The wheels ground through soft earth and came down again on the other side of the gate, back on the road. I threw the car into second again and picked up speed; then into high. It was a lucky break. Steig couldn’t get the heavier Cadillac through the soft ground easily. I saw his lights spin around behind me as the car skidded, dug into earth.
I moved on through an open gateway into a wide concrete stretch. There was a dark house looming out of the ground on my left. And, suddenly, I realized that I was back in Will Rogers State Park where Peggy and I had hiked that time. The house was that of the late humorist. The park was closed, there wouldn’t be a soul anywhere close by. My heart jolted as Steig came powering through the gateway after having regained the road.
There were two ways to go. I remembered that the one ahead led to the park entrance. I had come in by the road that is used for the exit. If I went straight ahead, I’d go down that road and come to a closed gate. But there was no way around that one.
All in the space of seconds I knew that and I spun the Ford left and headed for a narrow bridge that led to the other road. My fender raked across the wooden railing as I crossed the bridge. I jammed my accelerator to the floor as I gunned up the tree-lined road. That led to… I didn’t know.
Stables. Bleak and dark and deathly still under the moonlight. I sped up the road passing training yards, dark buildings. I kept going, praying that there was an exit, my eyes straining ahead to see if there was an exit. There wasn’t. I left the paving and the car ploughed over the grass through low bushes, around a flimsy fence. My speed kept going down as the soft earth impeded the wheels.
And, finally, the wheels dug in too far and the whole car spun around crazily, almost tipping over. The wheels started grinding away at the earth.
Without a thought or a plan, I flung open the door and plunged out into the night and started racing across the ground, headed for the thickly overgrown hill on my left.
I jumped out of the Cadillac’s bright headbeams. I ran and heard the big car stop and grind itself into the earth. I heard a door slam and other feet running. I reached the foot of the hill and started up.
Steig moved fast for a big man. He was close behind and there was no way I could be quiet. I made a loud noise as I thrashed through bushes and tore through thick undergrowth, slashing my skin, ripping my trousers and shirt sleeves on the brittle twigs.
Not a sound from Steig. He might have been a brainless robot built for only one purpose. He came running up after me, his big feet thudding on the ground, his big body ploughing through all the shrubbery that blocked his way.
Something scurried away under my feet and I leapt to the side, running. My heart jolted harder still as I remembered the mountain lion tracks Peggy and I had seen that day.
Now my breath was going. A stitch started knifing my side. My face and body ran with sweat. But I couldn’t stop. I thought of falling to the dark ground and hugging it, hoping that Steig would bypass me. But it was too much of a chance. He’d hear the sound of my running stop. And he might even stumble right over me. He wasn’t fooling. He’d just fill my body with bullets.
I kept going. But the going was tough. And getting tougher. The shrubbery was getting so thick I kept banging into branches and being knocked aside. It’s a wonder I didn’t put out my eyes on the sharp sabers of branches. One needle-pointed twig raked across my forehead as I plunged on and the laceration drove lances of pain into my head.
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