“Melissa and Beverly,” Gray said.
For a moment she didn’t move. Then the plump features reddened.
“Just who are you, buster? A cop?”
“No,” Gray said. “But the police would probably like to know why you didn’t come forward. You must have known about the girls’ deaths. They made headlines.”
“You son of a bitch,” Madame Juno said. She took five one-dollar bills out of her skirt pocket and threw them on the table. “Here, take your dough back. I never—”
Gray said, “The police don’t have to know anything about this.”
She scowled at him.
Gray dropped into a chair. “Relax,” he said. “What were you, their mother? Their aunt? Let me tell you about it…”
Twenty minutes later Madame Juno, mingling tears and bourbon, leaned her plump arms and plumper bosom on the table and shoved the bottle toward Gray.
“Help yourself,” she said generously. “I wanted to talk God knows, the poor kids—I wanted to go to their funerals and tell everybody they were my own kin. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of being their aunt. I did send flowers. Under an alias.”
Gray said, “I see.”
“And it wouldn’t have helped anyone if I had. I didn’t know anything the police could use. And it would have played hell with me.”
“You’re not doing anything illegal.”
“Not here,” Madame Juno said, gulping. “But if the cops get my prints, or even start asking questions, there’ll be hell to pay in Minnesota. At least, until the statute of limitations runs out. That’s all I’m waiting for. My God, do you think I’d stay in California a minute if I could be back home in Minnesota?”
Gently Gray disengaged the bourbon bottle.
“Tell me about Beverly’s last visit to you,” he said. “She did come to get her fortune told, didn’t she?”
“Regular as clockwork she did. Ever since those kids were—just kids, I used to tell their fortunes. Melissa kind of grew out of it, but not Beverly. She used to come once a month without fail. Sometimes I gave her a palm reading, but what she really liked was the tarot pack. You know—the special cards? An old pack that’s been in the family for years and years. I don’t use it much as a rule, but the girls swore by it. Beverly loved the pretty pictures. She used to stop by for a visit, too. We were good friends.”
“When was she here last?”
The round blue eyes filled up anew with tears.
“Last Saturday,” Madame Juno said. “The day she passed over. She didn’t want a reading that day. We just sat and cut up old times. She didn’t stay more than half an hour. Probably less than that to talk to, because I had her mind the booth while I went to the john. You’d never think fortunetelling’s hell on the kidneys, would your
“Did she give you anything to keep for her?” Gray asked.
Madame Juno recaptured the bottle and drank noisily. The wind soughed through the curtains. Somewhere on the edge of his mind, Gray found himself reminded by something of Bulwer McCreery. He didn’t know why. Perhaps a sense of someone listening nearby. A gentle creak of shoes shifting position as the listener leans closer, straining to hear…
“Anything to keep?” Madame Juno repeated, wiping her mouth. “No. As far as I know she didn’t leave anything here…”
“Well,” Gray said, “what did you talk about?”
“Let me think,” Madame Juno said. Gray sat waiting. Presently Madame Juno shrugged and said, “I guess I did most of the talking. Let’s see. I asked her if she wanted me to get her pack out—the tarot cards—and when she said no, I asked how things were going. She said…pretty good. Then I started telling her my troubles, and I don’t think she said more than ten words till she left. Now you ask, I do think she had something on her mind. The thing is, I was glad of a chance to let off steam myself. Everybody tells me their troubles.”
“Did you get the impression that she—”
“Jesus Christ!” Madame Juno screamed. She tipped her big head back, looking up at the ceiling.
Flame licked hungrily up the curtains.
23
For Gray, time stood still. Madame Juno sat frozen with her head back and her mouth open, the scream still stretching her throat and the firelight suddenly crimson on her face. The wind-driven flames roared around them, turning the curtain-tent into a tent of fire. Gray felt the heat scorch his cheek and a wave of windy fumes choked him. But his mind was sharp and clear and unhurried.
The shack and its curtained interior would be a solid mass of fire within minutes in this half-gale from the sea. The shack and everything in it. The man and woman, if they stayed. The contents of the place whether they stayed or not. And with the contents—something that a murderer had to destroy, even at the cost of further murders? Something that would destroy the killer himself, unless he destroyed it first?
Gray looked frantically around the little room. It billowed with curtains and flame. Somewhere—anywhere—the thing he had come to find might be hidden. Anywhere or nowhere. Or already on fire in the licking blaze around him.
It might not even be here at all. With a surge of sudden anger Gray realized that. To the killer, it didn’t matter. If it was here, the fire would destroy it. If it wasn’t, it didn’t matter. The killer couldn’t lose, either way.
From outside, someone belatedly began to shout. Madame Juno, galvanized out of her shock, seized the bourbon bottle by the neck and heaved violently to her feet. The table crashed over and Madame Juno fell crashing with it, tripped by the upturned legs. Gray stumbled forward and got her by the arm, pulled her heavily to her feet. Smoke stung in their eyes now and the room was full of floating ash and heat and a deafening roar.
Madame Juno lumbered to her feet and surged toward the door. Gray let her drag him a step or two with her. Then he tightened his grip on her big, soft arm and jolted her to a standstill. She lurched against his grip, giving him an unbelieving stare.
“Let go, damn you! Let go! We’ll be burned alive!”
Gray knew it. But he knew, too, that in a matter of seconds his last chance to find the evidence he needed would be gone with the flaming shack.
Above the roar of wind and flame and the yelling from outside he shouted in her ear, “Where did Beverly sit that day? What did she handle? Where—” But it wasn’t any good.
Madame Juno screamed, “Let go! Let go!” and fought him furiously.
Gray looked wildly around the burning room. One whole side was rippling with solid fire now. He saw beyond the burned curtains burning shelves with boxes and books on them beginning to scorch and burn, too. Whatever it was he wanted, it could be anywhere at all.
“Beverly!” he shouted at Madame Juno. “Answer me! Where did she sit? What did she touch?”
She screamed hysterically at him, her mouth an open square, her eyes shut tight. His fingers were sunk in the flesh of her big arm, but he felt it slide through his grasp as she fought him frantically.
As his grip failed and he felt all hope sliding away from him like the slippery arm, one last thought flashed through his mind. The one thing Madame Juno had mentioned more than once…
“The tarot pack!” he shouted in her ear. “Where’s the tarot pack?”
She was deaf and blind with panic.
“Let go! Let go!” was all she said, yelling it thinly above the roar of the fire.
“Get me the tarots!” Gray shouted, shaking her. “The tarots! Then I’ll let you go!”
She opened her eyes. This time it had penetrated. She gave him a glare of unbelieving hatred. Then she swung around, dragging Gray with her, and heaved the fallen table over on one end. Under it was a footstool-sized box with a hinged lid. As ashes and fire swirled over their heads, Madame Juno kicked the box lid open and plunged her free hand into the chaos of miscellany inside. She came out with a big, flat card pack in her hand.
“There!” she shrieked at Gray. “There, God damn you! Now let go!”
The crowd in t
he narrow street yelled as the two came stumbling out, coughing and beating embers from their clothing. Gray clutched the tarot pack, Madame Juno hugged her bottle. Somebody hurried forward with a canvas chair and she collapsed gratefully, the chair staggering under her weight
Fire extinguishers were hissing into the flames futilely now, played by volunteers from up and down the street. A uniformed policeman greeted Gray thankfully, shouting above the noise.
“You Mr. Gray? The call’s been out to find you. Captain Zucker—”
Gray said, “Wait a minute.” He turned and scanned the faces of the crowd, quickly and intently. Someone had set fire to the booth. Someone had certainly been listening outside the window and had heard enough to take no further chances with what Gray might find. Someone—
“Do you know Neil Pollard by sight?” he asked the officer.
The man shook his head. “All we got was word to look for your car. They thought you might be out here. We spotted the car, but nobody of your description was—”
“Pollard!” Gray said urgently. “A man about five feet six, curly hair, well-dressed, say thirty-five years old. Seen anybody like him?”
The policeman in turn scanned the crowd. “Not so far,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye out. Have to ask you to stick around, Mr. Gray. Captain Zucker’s on his way here now. Know how the fire started?”
There was a splintering crash and a heavier roaring of flames as the roof of the shack collapsed. The heat drove the crowd back, Gray and the officer moving with them.
“Pollard may be dangerous,” Gray told the man. “I think he set the fire. He probably has a gun. Better look after Madame Juno, too. There’s no telling what Pollard may try.”
Madame Juno, hearing her name, removed the bottle from her Ups and glared at Gray.
“You crazy son of a bitch!” she shouted.
Gray grinned at her.
The flat box of tarot cards was heavy in his hand. He couldn’t wait any longer to test his theory. Maybe he ought to wait for Zucker, but temptation was too strong. He stepped back away from the heat and the turmoil of the crowd, turned his back to the wind, and tipped the battered cardboard container so the tarot cards glided into his hand.
They were old and slick with much handling, and once they had been beautiful in a garish way, brilliant with gilt and bright colors. They were big cards and there were a lot of them, a full tarot pack. He watched them glide—the Fool, the Hanged Man, Death on a white horse, the Empress crowned with gilt stars. Between Death and the Empress something flat and small slid out. The wind almost caught it and Gray made a frantic grab just in time.
He stood holding the thing between thumb and finger. A small negative. A little dark rectangle of celluloid. A photograph of—what?
He held it up to the light, his hand shaking with excitement
Whatever he had expected, it wasn’t this. The picture was nothing but a printed page of—something. The photograph of a document much too small to read with the naked eye. Gray swore with impatience. He would have to get to a microfilm reader before he could see whether, after all, he had anything here or not. In his own mind he didn’t doubt it. But he couldn’t be certain yet.
He slipped the film back into the tarot pack for safekeeping and lifted his arm to wave to the officer, drew in his breath to call.
Something hard and round jolted into his ribs from the back. Gray’s breath went out in a surprised grunt.
“Just shut up,” a voice said from behind his shoulder. “Keep your mouth shut. Put your arm down. Now walk.”
Gray said, “Wait a minute. I—”
The gun nudged him hard. “I said shut up!”
The policeman was looking straight at Gray. He made a frantic grimace. The officer grinned and waved.
“Stick around,” he called “Be with you in a minute.”
The gun prodded Gray toward the edge of the crowd.
“Walk,” the voice said in his ear. “Easy. Just drift sidewise like this…That’s right. Keep going.”
Pollard was a small man. The policeman couldn’t see him behind Gray’s back. Gray clutched the tarot deck and did as he was told. His mind raced futilely.
The policeman glanced back at Gray. Pollard’s voice said, “Hold still. Wait.” The policeman turned back to Madame Juno, bending to hear something she said.
“Now!” Pollard said. “Back up—three steps—hold it” The gun nudged Gray sidewise again. “This way—easy.”
They were in the outer fringe of the crowd now. From the corner of his eye Gray saw that they were approaching a narrow alleyway between two shacks. The sea wind whistled through it eerily.
“Back a little more,” Pollard said. “Okay, that’s it Now hand me those cards.”
Gray stood for a moment without moving. The cold wind whipped his face and made his eyes sting. He heard the flames roar and he felt the hard, small muzzle of Pollard’s gun firm against his ribs as he breathed. For an instant it seemed to him he could see again Eileen Herrick’s tear-streaked face as she beat her fist upon her knee in an agony of indecision, crying desperately, “I don’t know what to do! I don’t know what to do!”
He thought of the dead Beverly who had held these tarot cards as he held them now, and of the dead Melissa. And Eileen might well have to die, too—if he handed over the pack.
But if he didn’t…
The gun jabbed him hard in the ribs.
“I said let’s have them!” Pollard’s voice sounded muffled now. He had stepped into the alley between the buildings.
Gray said quietly, “All right. Here.”
With his thumb he made sure the top flap of the box was open. He turned the box upside down and gave it a little shake.
“Here,” he said again.
With a whoop the wind swirled at the falling cards.
Gray heard Pollard catch his breath. In the same instant while Pollard stood stricken with his split second of indecision, Gray hurled himself sidewise against the building.
The cards went streaming away across the street, bright-colored, flashing with gilt. The negative blew with them, turning over and over in mid-air.
Pollard fired.
The flat slamming sound of the gunshot made thunder between the walls of the alley. The bullet splintered a corner of the building and sang shrilly past Gray’s shoulder. He seemed to feel it pluck at his arm as it went.
He knew he was hit. And he knew he was lucky.
But he didn’t dare take his eyes away from that flying negative. No matter what happened, he couldn’t let it get away.
He heard Pollard swear wildly and catch his bream in a sound like a sob. He heard the gun fire once more. The bullet smacked into wood across the street somewhere.
Then the crowd was shouting and screaming, and the police officer was calling, “Gray? Gray!” and his feet were thudding toward Gray. The negative sailed high and swooped toward the street.
Between Gray and its flight the policeman came running, gun in hand.
“In the alley,” Gray said, not looking at the man. “Careful!”
The wind whipped his red hair in his eyes and he lost sight of the negative for an instant. He heard another shot and the heavy roar of the officer’s forty-five. More feet were running. Another blue uniform passed briefly between Gray and the negative. The snowstorm of tarot cards was fluttering to the street now, but the lighter negative soared again, turned edgewise, nearly vanishing from sight
Gray couldn’t wait any longer.
He heard Pollard’s gun bark again from far down the alley. He sprinted forward before its echoes died, bending double, crossing the line of fire. There seemed to be a good many blue uniforms in the street now. Gray shoved his way among them blindly, paying no attention to shouted warnings, fighting off hands that tried to hold him.
Then he was through the crowd and the negative sailed before him down the street.
Twice he nearly caught it. Once it lay flat and fluttering a little on the pav
ement until the instant before his foot came down on it Then the wind puffed and it took off like a bird. The second time an eddy reversed its flight and it sailed almost into his outstretched hand, grazing his fingers and soaring out of reach.
On the third try the wind flattened it for a moment against the wall, and Gray found himself creeping up on it stealthily, as if it were a live thing that could be frightened by a sudden move. He gave a grunt and a sudden dive, and caught it like a butterfly against the bricks.
The gunfire had stopped. Gray came back slowly, his knees a little unsteady under him, the negative in his coat pocket. His shoulder and arm were burning now and he could feel blood trickling inside his shirt.
The street outside the alley was full of officers, ranged in a semicircle outside the line of fire from the alley-mouth. They stood tense, watching.
Gray stopped at the outer edge of the group. A policeman glanced at his torn sleeve and bloodstained coat and asked in a low voice, “You okay?”
Gray nodded. “I guess so. What’s happening?”
“He’s bottled up in there. Can’t get out the back. Must be reloading now. You know his name?”
Gray told him. The officer cleared his throat and called.
“Pollard! Pollard, you hear me? Come out with your hands up!”
There was silence in the alley. To Gray it seemed like a considering silence, as if Pollard were making up his mind.
The officer shouted again.
This time slow footsteps sounded. Pollard was coming deliberately down the alley. Once the footsteps paused. Then with a sound of sudden resolution they came on faster than before.
Pollard looked very small in the mouth of the alley, facing them. His hands were not over his head. He held his left arm stiffly at his side, and his right hand was out of sight behind him. His face was white, his eyes burned, and there was determination in every line of him.
Gray thought, “What is it? What’s the matter?” For Pollard didn’t walk or stand like a man who had been hit.
“Get those hands up!” somebody barked.
Pollard laughed.
Michael Gray Novels Page 51