Luise said: “You cannot have lived here long if you did not know Kane Robson before tonight.”
“A month or so; but, of course, he was in Europe till he came back last week”-he paused-“with you.” He picked up his glass. “Matter of fact, he is my landlord.”
“Then you—” She broke off as the bedroom door opened. Evelyn stood in the doorway, hands to breast, and cried: “Father’s coming-somebody phoned him I was here.” She hurried across the room to pick up hat and coat from a chair.
Brazil said: “Wait. You’ll meet him on the road if you go now. You’ll have to wait till he gets here, then duck out back and beat him home while he’s jawing at me. I’ll stick your car down at the foot of the back road.” He drained his glass and started for the bedroom door.
“But you won’t”-her lip quivered-“won’t fight with him? Promise me you won’t.”
“I won’t.” He went into the bedroom, returned almost immediately with a soft brown hat on his head and one of his arms in a raincoat. “It’ll only take me five minutes.” He went out the front door.
Luise Fischer said: “Your father does not approve?” The girl shook her head miserably. Then suddenly she turned to the woman, holding her hands out in an appealing gesture, lips-almost colorless-moving jerkily as her words tumbled out: “You’ll be here. Don’t let them fight. They mustn’t.”
The woman took the girl’s hands and put them together between her own, saying: “I will do what I can, I promise you.”
“He mustn’t get in trouble again,” the girl moaned. “He mustn’t!”
The door opened and Brazil came in.
“That’s done,” he said cheerfully, and took off his raincoat, dropped it on a chair, and put his damp hat on it. “I left it at the end of the fence.” He picked up the woman’s empty glass and his own and went to the table. “Better slide out to the kitchen in case he pops in suddenly.” He began to pour whiskey into the glasses.
The girl wet her lips with her tongue, said, “Yes, I guess so,” indistinctly, smiled timidly, pleadingly, at Luise Fischer, hesitated, and touched his sleeve with her fingers. “You-you’ll behave?”
“Sure.” He did not stop preparing his drinks.
“I’ll call you up tomorrow.” She smiled at Luise Fischer and moved reluctantly toward the door.
Brazil gave the woman her glass, pulled a chair around to face her more directly, and sat down.
“Your little friend,” the woman said, “she loves you very much.”
He seemed doubtful. “Oh, she’s just a kid,” he said.
“But her father,” she suggested, “he is not nice-eh?”
“He’s cracked,” he replied carelessly, then became thoughtful. “Suppose Robson phoned him?”
“Would he know?”
He smiled a little. “In a place like this everybody knows all about everybody.”
“Then about me,” she began, “you—”
She was interrupted by a pounding on the door that shook it on its hinges and filled the room with thunder. The dog came in, stiff-legged on its feet.
Brazil gave the woman a brief grim smile and called: “All right. Come in.”
The door was violently opened by a medium-sized man in a glistening black rubber coat that hung to his ankles. Dark eyes set too close together burned under the down-turned brim of his grey hat. A pale bony nose jutted out above ragged, short-cut, grizzled moustache and beard. One fist gripped a heavy apple wood walking stick.
“Where is my daughter?” this man demanded. His voice was deep, powerful, resounding.
Brazil’s face was a phlegmatic mask. “Hello, Grant,” he said.
The man in the doorway took another step forward. “Where is my daughter?”
The dog growled and showed its teeth. Luise Fischer said: “Franz!” The dog looked at her and moved its tail sidewise an inch or two and back.
Brazil said: “Evelyn’s not here.”
Grant glared at him. “Where is she?”
Brazil was placid. “I don’t know.”
“That’s a lie!” Grant’s eyes darted their burning gaze around the room. The knuckles of his hand holding the stick were white. “Evelyn!” he called.
Luise Fischer, smiling as if entertained by the bearded man’s rage, said: “It is so, Mr. Grant. There is nobody else here.”
He glanced briefly at her, with loathing in his mad eyes. “Bah! The strumpet’s word confirms the convict’s!” He strode to the bedroom door and disappeared inside.
Brazil grinned. “See? He’s cracked. He always talks like that-like a guy in a bum book.”
She smiled at him and said: “Be patient.”
“I’m being,” he said dryly.
Grant came out of the bedroom and stamped across to the rear door, opened it, and disappeared through it.
Brazil emptied his glass and put it on the floor beside his chair. “There’ll be more fireworks when he comes back.”
When the bearded man returned to the room, he stalked in silence to the front door, pulled it open, and, holding the latch with one hand, banging the ferrule of his walking stick on the floor with the other, roared at Brazil: “For the last time, I’m telling you not to have anything to do with my daughter! I shan’t tell you again.” He went out, slamming the door.
Brazil exhaled heavily and shook his head. “Cracked,” he sighed. “Absolutely cracked.”
Luise Fischer said: “He called me a strumpet. Do people here—”
He was not listening to her. He had left his chair and was picking up his hat and coat. “I want to slip down and see if she got away all right. If she gets home first she’ll be O.K. Nora-that’s her stepmother-will take care of her. But if she doesn’t-I won’t be long.” He went out the back way.
Luise Fischer kicked off her remaining slipper and stood up, experimenting with her weight on her injured leg. Three tentative steps proved her leg stiff but serviceable. She saw then that her hands and arms were still dirty from the road and, exploring, presently found a bathroom opening off the bedroom. She hummed a tune to herself while she washed and, in the bedroom again, while she combed her hair and brushed her clothes-but broke off impatiently when she failed to find powder or lipstick. She was studying her reflection in a tall looking-glass when she heard the outer door opening.
Her face brightened. “I am here,” she called, and went into the other room.
Robson and Conroy were standing inside the door.
“So you are, my dear,” Robson said, smiling at her start of surprise. He was paler than before and his eyes were glassier, but he seemed otherwise unchanged. Conroy, however, was somewhat dishevelled; his face was flushed and he was obviously rather drunk.
The woman had recovered composure. “What do you want?” she demanded bluntly.
Robson looked around. “Where’s Brazil?”
“What do you want?” she repeated.
He looked past her at the open bedroom door, grinned, and crossed to it. When he turned from the empty room she sneered at him. Conroy had gone to the fireplace, where the Great Dane was lying, and was standing with his back to the fire, watching them.
Robson said: “Well, it’s like this, Luise: you’re going back home with me.”
She said: “No.”
He wagged his head up and down, grinning.
“I haven’t got my money’s worth out of you yet.” He took a step toward her.
She retreated to the table, caught up the whiskey bottle by its neck. “Do not touch me!” Her voice, like her face, was cold with fury.
The dog rose, growling.
Robson’s dark eyes jerked sidewise to focus on the dog, then on Conroy-and one eyelid twitched-then on the woman again.
Conroy-with neither tenseness nor furtiveness to alarm woman or dog-put his right hand into his overcoat pocket, brought out a black pistol, put its muzzle close behind one of the dog’s ears, and shot the dog through the head. The dog tried to leap, fell on its side; its legs stirre
d feebly. Conroy, smiling foolishly, returned the pistol to his pocket.
Luise Fischer spun around at the sound of the shot. Screaming at Conroy, she raised the bottle to hurl it. But Robson caught her wrist with one hand, wrenched the bottle away with the other. He was grinning, saying, “No, no, my sweet,” in a bantering voice.
He put the bottle on the table again, but kept his grip on her wrist.
The dog’s legs stopped moving.
Robson said: “All right. Now, are you ready to go?”
She made no attempt to free her wrist. She drew herself up straight and said very seriously: “My friend, you do not know me yet if you think I am going with you.”
Robson chuckled. “You don’t know me if you think you’re not,” he told her.
The front door opened and Brazil came in. His sallow face was phlegmatic, though there was a shade of annoyance in his eyes. He shut the door carefully behind him, then addressed his guests. His voice was that of one who complains without anger. “What the hell is this?” he asked. “Visitors’ day? Am I supposed to be running a roadhouse?”
Robson said: “We are going now. Fraulein Fischer’s going with us.”
Brazil was looking at the dead dog, annoyance deepening in his copperish eyes. “That’s all right if she wants to,” he said indifferently.
The woman said: “I am not going.”
Brazil was still looking at the dog. “That’s all right too,” he muttered, and with more interest: “But who did this?” He walked over to the dog and prodded its head with his foot. “Blood all over the floor,” he grumbled.
Then, without raising his head, without the slightest shifting of balance or stiffening of his body, he drove his right fist up into Conroy’s handsome, drunken face.
Conroy fell away from the fist rigidly, with upbent knees, turning a little as he fell. His head and one shoulder struck the stone fireplace, and he tumbled forward, rolling completely over, face upward, on the floor.
Brazil whirled to face Robson.
Robson had dropped the woman’s wrist and was trying to get a pistol out of his overcoat pocket. But she had flung herself on his arm, hugging it to her body, hanging with her full weight on it, and he could not free it, though he tore her hair with his other hand.
Brazil went around behind Robson, struck his chin up with a fist so he could slide his forearm under it across the taller man’s throat. When he had tightened the forearm there and had his other hand wrapped around Robson’s wrist, he said: “All right. I’ve got him.”
Luise Fischer released the man’s arm and fell back on her haunches. Except for the triumph in it, her face was as businesslike as Brazil’s.
Brazil pulled Robson’s arm up sharply behind his back. The pistol came up with it, and when the pistol was horizontal Robson pulled the trigger. The bullet went between his back and Brazil’s chest, to splinter the corner of a bookcase in the far end of the room.
Brazil said: “Try that again, baby, and I’ll break your arms. Drop it!”
Robson hesitated, let the pistol clatter down on the floor. Luise Fischer scrambled forward on hands and knees to pick it up. She sat on a corner of the table, holding the pistol in her hand.
Brazil pushed Robson away from him and crossed the room to kneel beside the man on the floor, feeling his pulse, running hands over his body, and rising with Conroy’s pistol, which he thrust into a hip pocket.
Conroy moved one leg, his eyelids fluttered sleepily, and he groaned.
Brazil jerked a thumb at him and addressed Robson curtly: “Take him and get out.”
Robson went over to Conroy, stooped to lift his head and shoulders a little, shook him, and said irritably: “Come on, Dick, wake up. We’re going.”
Conroy mumbled, “I’m a’ ri’,” and tried to lie down again.
“Get up, get up,” Robson snarled, and slapped his cheeks.
Conroy shook his head and mumbled: “Do’ wan’a.”
Robson slapped the blond face again. “Come on, get up, you louse.”
Conroy groaned and mumbled something unintelligible.
Brazil said impatiently: “Get him out anyway. The rain’ll bring him around.”
Robson started to speak, changed his mind, picked up his hat from the floor, put it on, and bent over the blond man again. He pulled him up into something approaching a sitting position, drew one limp arm over his shoulder, got a hand around Conroy’s back and under his armpit, and rose, slowly lifting the other on unsteady legs beside him.
Brazil held the front door open. Half dragging, half carrying Conroy, Robson went out.
Brazil shut the door, leaned his back against it, and shook his head in mock resignation.
Luise Fischer put Robson’s pistol down on the table and stood up. “I am sorry,” she said gravely. “I did not mean to bring to you all this—”
He interrupted her carelessly: “That’s all right.” There was some bitterness in his grin, though his tone remained careless. “I go on like this all the time. God! I need a drink.”
She turned swiftly to the table and began to fill glasses.
He looked her up and down reflectively, sipped, and asked: “You walked out just like that?”
She looked down at her clothes and nodded yes.
He seemed amused. “What are you going to do?”
“When I go to the city? I shall sell these things”-she moved her hands to indicate her rings-“and then-I do not know.”
“You mean you haven’t any money at all?” he demanded.
“That is it,” she replied coolly.
“Not even enough for your ticket?”
She shook her head no, raised her eyebrows a little, and her calmness was almost insolence. “Surely that is a small amount you can afford to lend me.”
“Sure,” he said, and laughed. “But you’re a pip.”
She did not seem to understand him.
He drank again, then leaned forward. “Listen, you’re going to look funny riding the train like that.” He flicked two fingers at her gown. “Suppose I drive you in and I’ve got some friends that’ll put you up till you get hold of some clothes you can go out in?”
She studied his face carefully before replying: “If it is not too much trouble for you.”
“That’s settled, then,” he said. “Want to catch a nap first?”
He emptied his glass and went to the front door, where he made a pretence of looking out at the night.
As he turned from the door he caught her expression, though she hastily put the frown off her face. His smile, voice were mockingly apologetic: “I can’t help it. They had me away for a while-in prison, I mean-and it did that to me. I’ve got to keep making sure I’m not locked in.” His smile became more twisted. “There’s a name for it-claustrophobia-and that doesn’t make it any better.”
“I am sorry,” she said. “Was it-very long ago?”
“Plenty long ago when I went in,” he said dryly, “but only a few weeks ago that I got out. That’s what I came up here for-to try to get myself straightened out, see how I stood, what I wanted to do.”
“And?” she said softly.
“And what? Have I found out where I stand, what I want to do? I don’t know.” He was standing in front of her, hands in pockets, glowering down at her. “I suppose I’ve just been waiting for something to turn up, something I could take as a sign which way I was to go. Well, what turned up was you. That’s good enough. I’ll go along with you.”
He took his hands from his pockets, leaned down, lifted her to her feet, and kissed her savagely.
For a moment she was motionless. Then she squirmed out of his arms and struck at his face with curved fingers. She was white with anger.
He caught her hand, pushed it down carelessly, and growled: “Stop it. If you don’t want to play you don’t want to play, that’s all.”
“That is exactly all,” she said furiously.
“Fair enough.” There was no change in his face, none in his v
oice.
Presently she said: “That man-your little friend’s father-called me a strumpet. Do people here talk very much about me?”
He made a deprecatory mouth. “You know how it is. The Robson’s have been the big landowners, the local gentry, for generations, and anything they do is big news. Everybody knows everything they do, and so—”
“And what do they say about me?”
He grinned. “The worst, of course. What do you expect? They know him.”
“And what do you think?”
“About you?”
She nodded. Her eyes were intent on his.
“I can’t very well go around panning people,” he said, “only I wonder why you ever took up with him. You must’ve seen him for the rat he is.”
“I did not altogether,” she said simply. “And I was stranded in a little Swiss village.”
“Actress?”
She nodded. “Singer.”
The telephone bell rang.
He went unhurriedly into the bedroom. His unemotional voice came out: “Hello? . . . Yes, Evelyn . . . Yes.” There was a long pause. “Yes; all right, and thanks.”
He returned to the other room as unhurriedly as he had left, but at the sight of him Luise Fischer half rose from the table. His face was pasty, yellow, glistening with sweat on forehead and temples, and the cigarette between the fingers of his right hand was mashed and broken.
“That was Evelyn. Her father’s justice of the peace. Conroy’s got a fractured skull-dying. Robson just phoned he’s going down to swear out a warrant. That damned fireplace. I can’t live in a cell again!”
Two
The Police Close In
Luise came to him with her hands out. “But you are not to blame. They can’t—”
“You don’t get it,” his monotonous voice went on. He turned away from her toward the front door, walked mechanically. “This is what they sent me up for the other time. It was a drunken free-for-all in a roadhouse, with bottles and everything, and a guy died. I couldn’t say they were wrong in tying it on me.” He opened the door, made his automatic pretence of looking out, shut the door, and moved back toward her.
Crime Stories Page 89