“Forget Morris.” Forbes walked to her. “The main thing now is you. You have a big decision to make. If I tell all this to the authorities, they may believe it, but on the basis of my hearsay evidence nobody’ll go to prison. It’d be different with you though. You’re an eyewitness. With your help the government may be able to convict Maxwell and the whole Giveaway swindle gang, not to mention the state’s murder charge against Claude and Louie George for killing the Major.”
“They’ll never find them guilty of that. They’ll have alibis. They—”
“Maybe. But the police might find that basement. And Giveaway Stores—hell, if you were at Maxwell’s side from the beginning and can remember any of the details—”
“Details?” She smiled. “I remember a million—names, dates, places. Who at Giveaway’s in on it, who isn’t. Crooked lawyers, accountants, financiers, the hijackers, the works. But me, tell the police?” She shook her head again. “No, thanks. Claude’s already after me. If I went to the police, he’d just know where to find me. They couldn’t protect me. I’ve got some money. A safe deposit box nobody knows about. I’ll take it and run. Hide, the way Iris Dean did. And if I’m lucky—”
“If you’re lucky, you’ll live six months. But you’re wrong about people who testify against the Syndicate. Take my word for it, the authorities can protect you before, during, and after the trials. Others have testified and lived, taken up new lives—”
“Even if that’s true, I don’t think I could do it alone. With Morris against me, denying everything.”
“You won’t be alone. There’s St. Clair, I’m turning him over to the federal attorney. And Iris Dean.”
“Iris?” Saralee’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve found Iris?”
“Not yet. But she might be holed up near a town called Wautoma. It’s where we’ll meet St. Clair, Iris’s sister, and an associate of mine.” He glanced at his watch. “About two hours from now. One other thing. Last night you said that after my secretary’s murder Claude was afraid to stake out my apartment. Someone tore up my place Wednesday night though. Claude’s people didn’t do that?”
“No,” Saralee said. “I’m quite sure they didn’t.”
* * * *
Forbes braked at a stop sign. Beyond it the highway was lined with a scattering of drive-ins and roadside stores. The rain was still coming down hard.
“We’ll be there in a minute,” he said. “Remember, St. Clair doesn’t know you’re with me. When he sees you, there’s no telling what he’ll do.”
“You’ll have quite a menagerie.” Applying lipstick, Saralee squinted into a mirror. “Me, the old man, Iris’s little sister. What’s she like?”
“Seems to be a nice kid.”
“She’s lucky Claude didn’t find her first. How’ll you handle this?”
“St. Clair might know the game’s up, but we’ll make him sweat it out. Say nothing. I’ll tell him you wanted a talk with him later, a message from Morris Maxwell.”
“And suppose we find Iris here?”
“We’ll all have a long talk. Afterward I’ll turn her in with St. Clair, of course.”
“If she was tough enough to steal a million from Claude, she may have other ideas. That took guts. But what’ll you do with me?”
Forbes didn’t answer.
“I see.” She dropped the mirror into her purse. “You’ll turn me in with them. No hard feelings, but I’ve been thinking. If I don’t talk, and St. Clair doesn’t, and Iris doesn’t, nobody’ll have a case against anyone, will they? You can be damn sure Claude won’t file a complaint charging those two with the theft of a million dollars.”
She had a point. The thought had occurred to Forbes too.
The highway became an arterial street which took them over railroad tracks, past old frame homes and into Wautoma’s two-block central business district. They were a few minutes early, so they did some shopping—sundries and an overnight case for Saralee, and heavy ponchos for both of them. In this downpour it seemed wise to be equipped with foul-weather gear.
Curley wasn’t at the courthouse yet, so they parked across the street from it and settled back to wait.
At nine-thirty Forbes said, “This isn’t like Bill. He’s always prompt.” Starting the car, he added, “I saw a drugstore on the main drag. I’d better call the hotel in Oshkosh.”
The desk clerk remembered Curley, the old man, and the girl. They’d checked out at seven-thirty.
Seven-thirty? Despite the rain, the drive from Oshkosh should have taken no more than an hour. Hoping Curley had reported a change in plans, Forbes called the answering service in Chicago, but there were no messages.
“Something’s wrong,” he told Saralee a minute later. “Wait in the car. Keep an eye out for Bill, he’s driving a black 1963 Plymouth.”
“What’ll you be doing?”
“Looking for Iris Dean.”
From the drugstore Forbes began calling every real estate agency in the Wautoma telephone directory. He posed as a skip-tracer for a Milwaukee department store. Had they rented a property for the summer to a dark-haired girl claiming to be a librarian? Or had any inquiries about a rental from the girl?
He was nearly at the end of the list before a man said, “I think I know who you mean. She rented the old Taylor place. Taylor died a year ago. A son in Stevens Point inherited it. Had it on the market awhile but couldn’t get his price. I understand this girl went to him direct and offered to take it from June through September.”
“How do I find it?”
“If you’re a stranger, the directions are complicated. I’m told this girl wanted privacy so she could write. Believe me, she got it. But boy, she must have stiffed a lot of people in Milwaukee.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Another skip-tracer called half an hour ago. He’s looking for her too.”
“He give you his name?”
“No. But I got the impression it was an elderly gentleman.”
* * * *
Angrily Forbes drove down an arrow-straight, wet ribbon of a gravel road lined with glistening black trees and tangled underbrush. The situation was out of control, perhaps tragically so. With a million dollars the prize, there was no predicting the lengths to which a man of St. Clair’s larcenous instincts might go. Obviously he had done something to Curley. Curley would never have allowed him to call around to real estate agents asking about Iris. And Carmelle…
“A lake,” he said. “Look for a lake on the right, with camp grounds. The Taylor place is on the right too, a quarter-mile beyond the lake.”
Saralee peered out the window. “There it is. Just a few yards from the road, but you can hardly see the water.”
He glimpsed the lake, its surface mottled by the rain. Bushes and tree trunks obscured the view. There was no beach, and odd-shaped stumps and reeds marred the shoreline. Still, a barbed-wire fence had been strung along the road and at intervals signs nailed to trees said PRIVATE—KEEP OUT—NO TRESPASS.
“Nice neighborly people,” Saralee said. “Hell, who’d want to trespass in that swamp? And Iris—how could a girl like her stand this?”
“All she’d have to do is sweat out the summer, going to town as seldom as possible. Discouraging friendships because she’s supposed to be busy on a literary project. By fall the heat will be off.”
“But alone—”
“She didn’t plan to be alone. She wanted Carmelle with her.”
A heavy iron chain blocked the lane to the camp grounds. The grounds were deserted apparently. Then the road swung up and to the right. The forest gave way to scrubland, sloping surfaces dotted with stumps, bushes and free-standing trees.
Forbes braked at a mailbox marked with fading letters: TAYLOR.
“Here we are,” he said. “The house must be on the other side of that low hill.”
Pressing gently on the accelerator, he steered onto a dirt road. They slithered to the hill’s summit and then headed slowly down.
Below them a small frame dwelling nestled in a clearing under a huge oak tree. Curley’s car was parked in the front yard. At the foot of the hill and about fifteen yards behind the house was a stream, swollen by the rain, its other bank wooded bottomland on the forest’s fringe.
A figure huddled under the oak. As they neared, Forbes saw that it was Carmelle, who sat knees up, her face in her hands. St. Clair was there too, sitting dejectedly on steps to the front porch, his cane forgotten on the ground and his expression one of stunned disbelief.
Numbly St. Clair watched as Forbes parked alongside Curley’s car and turned the engine off.
“The girl,” Forbes said grimly to Saralee. With a million at stake, of course it had to end this way. “See to the girl.”
“But what—”
“Just do it.”
They got out. Forbes walked to the old man.
Hoarsely St. Clair said, “She’s in back.”
“Who is?”
“Iris—what’s left of her—in a fifty-five-gallon drum. The stench—I lifted the lid. A black thing. Someone crammed her body into the drum and set her on fire.”
CHAPTER 15
Forbes walked out of the house, hurried down the steps past St. Clair and went to Saralee and Carmelle. The girl was sobbing, her head on Saralee’s bosom.
Wide-eyed, Saralee looked up. “She said—”
“Yes. And it isn’t pretty.” That was a vast understatement. Whoever did it had been only partially successful in destroying the remains. There wasn’t enough left to be positive the charred thing in the drum had been Iris Dean, but it had been a woman, and if not Iris, who else could it be? At any rate a postmortem would make the identification certain. Forbes guessed that the remains had been there for at least a week, maybe longer.
“The phone’s dead,” he said. “We’ll have to drive to town to report this. She in shape to travel?”
“Give her a few minutes.”
“Sure.” He went back to St. Clair. “Walter, you son of a bitch. Saralee’s told me what you and Iris did. But first, where’s Curley?”
“Curley?” The old man blinked. “I overheard him talking to you last night. Stole his gun. Hid it until we were traveling, then made him drive down a side road. He’s trussed up under a tree. He’ll be all right. The girl raised hell, but I told her we had to find Iris first, you’d turn Iris over to the police. I thought the girl’d give me leverage with Iris, but someone outsmarted us all. Iris too. Killed her and took the money himself. I searched the house, it isn’t there. Nothing’s there, not even a purse or an item of clothing—”
“Old as you are, I’m tempted to pound your head in. Stealing a million from the Syndicate. Then conning me into looking for Iris after she stole it from you.”
“Was it a million?” St. Clair seemed impressed. “I never knew. After the switch I followed her out of the hotel, but she jumped in a cab before I could catch her. My last big score, I’m glad it was that much. I risked everything for it. Had everything arranged for both of us—fake passports, transportation to South America. Setting it all up, that’s what my nine thousand went for. And Iris put up plenty of her own.”
“Whose idea was this last big score?”
“Iris’s. She’d left Powell’s then, but she mentioned it one day last January. Said that when she’d worked there, she’d overheard Maxwell, Powell, the O’Bradovitch woman and a gangster named Claude discussing the whole deal in Powell’s office. And wouldn’t it be nice if we could steal a satchel from the Major, and in such a way that he wouldn’t even know it until we had a good head start.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t want to get involved at first, but she talked me into it. And damn, what a challenge! It was easy to know when the pickups would be. The Major always stayed at the same hotel. I bribed a clerk to tip me off when he made reservations. During his stays I’d check in at the hotel myself and watch him. Even tagged along in the limousine once, followed him right up to the plane. The poor devil made just one mistake. He’d always put the bag down when he paid his hotel bill—My God!”
“What’s wrong?”
The old man gazed over Forbes’s shoulder. “My vision isn’t too good. But behind you, on that hill, I swear I just saw four men. They sort of popped up and then flopped back down.”
“St. Clair, if this—”
“Hell, Curley’s gun’s in my belt. If I wanted to, I could have shot you before this. I know I’m finished now.” Nervously he looked at Saralee. “The woman there. Any chance they—”
“Yes. I ducked them last night, but they could have picked up our trail again.”
The old man’s face blanched. “I—I didn’t think it’d be so soon.”
“Just sit there. Don’t move a muscle.”
Slowly Forbes walked to Saralee and Carmelle. Yes, there were people on the hill. He saw one too, a man with a plastic raincoat over a business suit crawling awkwardly behind a bush.
When he reached the women he said, “Saralee, I think Claude’s people are here.” She started to say something, but he cut her off quickly. “For God’s sake, keep your head. If you want to get out of this, you can’t go to pieces now. The girl’s in shock. You’ll have to get her away too.”
Saralee chewed at her lower lip. “All right. What do I do?”
“Help me get her up.” Together they hauled Carmelle to her feet. Uncomprehending, the girl stared at him.
“Now look,” he told Carmelle. “You’re going with Saralee. Into that house.”
“No, I—”
“Into that house,” he repeated, “out the back, across the stream and into the woods on the other side. The men who beat Wojac—they’re here, they’ll kill you if they find you.” He looked at Saralee. “Keep low, keep the house between yourselves and the hill. If you’re lucky, you’ll make it into the woods without being seen. No matter what happens back here, when you reach the woods don’t stop. Stick to cover. Don’t cross fields, don’t run out on a road to flag a car down. Don’t approach a farmhouse unless you can do it without being seen from the road. Even then be damn sure who’s in the house before you knock on the door.”
Eyes on Forbes, Saralee put her arm around the girl. “Julian, I only wish we had time to—”
“There’s no more time.”
Saralee and Carmelle started for the house.
Forbes unlocked the trunk of his car, opened his suitcase and groped for the box holding extra cartridges for the .38. Damn, he should have bought more. These cartridges were so old, they were unreliable anyway. How many were in the box?
Only twelve. Six more were in the pistol. That gave them eighteen rounds, plus whatever was in Curley’s gun.
Cursing, Forbes slipped the box into a poncho pocket. His insides churned, and despite the cold rain he’d begun to sweat. Hell’s fire, how had this come to pass? There’d been at least three cars tailing him, three cars could hold a lot of men. They might try to cut him down right now, although they were still too far to shoot accurately with handguns. He prayed that they hadn’t brought a rifle. And hopefully, they’d be reluctant to unleash an attention-getting barrage. But of course the rain would deaden much of the sound and also keep people who might otherwise hear it indoors.
He closed the trunk and strolled toward St. Clair. The women had already gone inside. At the steps he stopped, his foot on the first one.
“See anything?”
“No.” The old man cleared his throat. “Damn it, we can’t just sit here. They’ll—”
“The women,” Forbes said, “are making a break out the back.”
“But what about me?”
“You couldn’t keep up with them. You’re stuck here. Part of the rear guard. How ma
ny cartridges in Curley’s forty-five?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think you can fire it?”
“I—I suppose so. If I had to. To arm it you just pull the slide, don’t you? It’s been years since—”
“Get up now. Go into the house and take a position under one of the front windows.”
Unsteadily St. Clair rose and climbed to the porch.
Then, behind Forbes, someone yelled, “They’re in the stream!”
A smattering of shots rang out as Forbes hurtled up the steps and shoved St. Clair inside. Slamming the door, he hit the deck, crawled to a window and opened it. Eighty yards up the hill four or five men were hurrying toward them.
He raised the .38 and emptied it quickly. At this range he didn’t expect to hit anyone, but the shots had the desired effect. The men scrambled for cover.
Forbes lowered his head, ejected the spent shells and began to reload. He was breathing hard; his heart pounded, as much from the unaccustomed physical exertion as from fear. More shots were fired and some bullets hit windows, spraying the room with glass.
St. Clair lay on his belly under a table.
“Come on, damn it!” Forbes told him. “We’ve got to raise hell, make ’em think we’ve got an arsenal. If we hold them another minute, I think the girls can get away.”
Reluctantly the old man crawled to another window while Forbes snapped the .38’s cylinder back into place and peeked out again. Claude’s men were moving closer, scooting from cover to cover. Once they reached the edge of the clearing, they could launch an overpowering rush.
“All right,” Forbes said. “Just poke the barrel out, you don’t even have to look. When I tell you to, fire four times. And hold the gun with both hands, it’ll kick like hell. That’s right. Now!”
St. Clair began blasting away. In the little parlor the blams from the big .45 were deafening. Forbes opened fire again too, but this time he also held the pistol with both hands, steadying his wrists against the sill and taking careful aim. He emptied the revolver once more and actually hit someone—Louie George himself. Racing for a tree, Hawk Face dropped, rolled over holding his left leg, and then crawled behind a stump.
The James Michael Ullman Crime Novel Page 73