The Whip Hand
Page 5
"Suppose we go outside where we can talk, friend," I invited.
"Nothing for us to talk about. Shucks, Mister, I ain't mad about that little mistake you made. I made mistakes in my time too, I reckon. Just hand me my right key and--"
"Outside, I said." I quit smiling and put meaning into it. He pursed out his flabby lips and a thinking slit was drawn between his eyes.
"Guess there ain't no harm in talking, then," he said.
He followed me out. I walked a few doors down the street and found a storeroom with a for rent sign hung in the window. He was easy to guide and we stepped into the alcove.
He was in just about the right position. I started a low one--not too hard, but a little nasty--and sunk my fist three or four inches into his underbelly. He took it fairly well for his age. He didn't fold up, but his breathing ran into some trouble.
"Where'd you get the money?"
I pulled my fist back to bury it in the same spot as before. He held up his hand to signal he'd talk when he got his breath. I waited one more minute, and he was able to get words out.
"What money?" he croaked.
I shoved the first two fingers of my right hand into his big nostrils and pushed viciously upward. His yellow eyes were swimming in tears. He backed into the plate-glass window and could go no farther.
"Where'd you get the money?"
I jerked my fingers out of his nose and he grabbed at it with both hands. He groaned pitifully. I wiped my fingers on the lapels of his coat. His nose was bleeding nicely, now.
"It's just reward money," he said. "Don't ram your fingers in my nose no more, Mister--that hurts!"
"That's very interesting, but I know things that hurt worse. If you don't explain about the money, I'll show you what I mean."
I reached for him again and he panicked. In jerks and rushes he blurted out the wildest tale I ever heard, and I've listened to a lot of mad fairy stories in the department in L. A. But his yarn was too fantastic for invention, and it carried a ring of truth. I couldn't ignore the fact that I'd seen close to five thousand in cash. Considering this clown's general appearance, he hadn't made it in the stock market.
"Where's that little girl you're talking about, now?"
"Junior tied her up and left her out where we stayed last night. She ain't hurt ary a bit, Mister. Shucks, that kid liked it with us, with Donald buying her ice cream and her calling him uncle and everything."
"Don't tell me how sweet it all was. Just tell me the location of the motel you stayed in."
He told me, with such detailed directions that he had to be telling the truth. For a man as deep in a capital crime as he was, he was certainly free with his tongue. I wasn't overjoyed while listening, but I realized it was necessary. And fortunate. Otherwise I couldn't have known how deep into their crime I had fallen, and I might have done something foolish. The more he talked the deeper he pushed me.
He couldn't know it, of course, but everything pointed to me. Bill Brown, a fresh name on a hotel register, with a pile of ransom money found in my room. Probably marked bills, at that.
I could clear myself if I had time, but time was the commodity I couldn't afford. By the time they were ready to release me, I'd be tied into that mess in L. A. Then I'd be a free boarder of the city of Dallas until papers could be cleared to take me back to California. For trial.
My headache didn't blind me to the only way out. Troublesome, you might say, but the only way. I couldn't run and dodge with my own handwriting on that hotel register following me around the world. My only bet was to gather this band of comic-book kid-snatchers, all three of them. I'd turn them in with their confessions. Then I'd get the hell out of Dallas. Perhaps I could start by making a deal with this talkative, bloody-nosed old man in front of me.
"Listen, Pop. I'm just a nice guy, looking for nice ways to make money. Right now I have some of your money, and you'd like to get it back. In fact, you'd be very happy to get half of it back. Am I right, so far?"
"Me, I'd be a lots happier if you'd plain turn me a-loose."
"Okay, Pop; go ahead. I won't stop you. Just forget the money.'
"Would you give me half of my money back, Mister?"
"Our money, you mean? You'll get all you have coming. Just help me get my hands on the other two shares. Is that fair?"
"Naw--it ain't what I'd call fair. But I don't want to go back to Oklahoma with just a hundred dollars after having all that there money once't."
He shouldn't have said it, but some people never learn. I took the hundred away from him.
"Okay, Pop. I've got to handle all our funds so I can trust you. You help me, and we'll settle for this hundred along with our other deal."
"I done told you I'd help!"
"Thanks. Here's what you're going to do. Somehow, and I don't care how, you get those partners of yours back to the bus station. I'll ask them for the rest of the ransom money when I talk to them. I'll be persuasive. That's when you'll get yours--when I get theirs. Can you do that?"
"Maybe I can. I think I can. I ain't right sure; but iff'n I do, Mister, I'm a-telling you one thing--you better have a mighty good story to tell Junior. He likes his money and he ain't likely to listen to nobody who's trying to talk him out of it."
"You get them here. I'll worry about the rest."
"You're bitin' off a big chaw of worrying."
"Get started. I'll meet you in the bus station later. You wait till I get there."
He walked around me in a wide circle and shuffled up the sidewalk.
I thought he would round up this tough boy Junior and the other one he had called Donald. Those two would be very happy to see me.
The fat farmer's wild tale hadn't helped my headache even a little. I couldn't formulate any definite plan. Maybe I could grind out some idea later about stepping out of this mess. Right now I had to get to that motel and untie the little girl and see that she got home safe and sound; if she really was sound when they left her.
Old Pop had seemed pretty sure of Junior's mean disposition, and if he was still hanging around in Dallas, I was a little doubtful he'd left the girl in any condition to talk. Why would they stay in Dallas after the payoff? How could I think with the hammering of an off-key Chinese gong in my head?
I whistled at the first taxi that passed. Another woman driver, but I got in. Might as well live it up.
"Start for Fort Worth," I told her.
She did, with a nice big lurch, and she kept up a running and dull chatter about the traffic situation in Dallas.
The motel the old man had described was not hard to spot. A row of decrepit shacks which had a seldom-occupied look. I let her go about two hundred yards beyond it before I tapped her on the shoulder.
"Let me out here."
She burned rubber all over the highway and I nearly joined her head first.
"I thought you were going to Fort Worth," she complained.
"I was. But the thought of leaving Dallas is just more than I can bear."
She gave me a dirty look. I paid her and waited at a safe distance while she slid the cab around on the gravel shoulder and gunned it into a small opening in the traffic bound for Dallas. Then I took off my coat and walked across a plowed field toward the motel. I circled in behind the row of shacks and counted down to number sixteen, which was supposed to be the right one, according to the hick.
I walked quietly along the row, stopped in back of sixteen and listened. Nothing. I tried the back door. Locked. So was the screen on the one window; but it was old and rusty. It took a second to pry it out with my fingers, enough to get a grip. I'd already made too much noise to start being careful now, so I tore it off with a quick jerk.
The window slid up with no trouble. I moved it to the top, and using both hands on the sill I threw myself up and in, head first. I don't know whether or not I ever got inside.
Chapter 6
Junior Knowles
WHEN I left Donald in the cafe, I walked around to the parking lot to gi
t the old LaSalle.
I paid the smart aleck in the white overalls for letting us park. Reckon he makes a lot of money that way. I figgered that might be a good business for me and Donald to git into, with me handling the money and Donald doing the work. But right now I had to cover up the way I'd got the money we had.
"I guess you'll drive it out yourself," this car-parker said.
"You're guessing better than you was when I come in."
I drove it out fast and kicked up as much fuss as I could going by his little office. I never liked that there feller. He give me a dirty look and I laughed in his face as I went by.
I drove back out the same way we come to town. When I come to the tourist camp I pulled in and stopped, but I left the engine running. We hadn't been gone so awful long, and I never figgered the manager would of been in the cabin yet. But I did wish I hadn't of throwed that key up on his porch. Now I was gonna have to ask him for it back. No way to git around it. I knocked on his door and kept one hand on the blackjack in my hip pocket in case anything went wrong.
It taken him so long to git to the door. I got nervous, but he finally showed up.
"Where's my key?" I asked him.
"I don't know you, Mister."
I reckon my new suit throwed him.
"I stayed in number sixteen last night, and I forgot something. I got to git it."
"Oh. You the feller left that key on the porch?"
"I never seen no use of stopping the car and bothering you. We was all paid up. Hurry up and git my key. Won't take me but two shakes to git what I want."
"I think I rented that cabin already. Wait a minute--"
"Never mind, iff'n it's rented. I wouldn't want to bother nobody."
I was trying to figger out what I'd do if there was people in that there cabin. It would shore make taking the body out of there a hard nut to crack.
"No, it ain't rented now," the man said. "They left. Get some pretty regular couples from the honky-tonks. Shift workers, night and day. They don't stay very long, as a rule."
"Them people give you anything they found in the cabin?"
"Nope. If something's stole it ain't my fault, neither. You can look for yourself. Here's the key. But bring it right back, you hear?"
"Don't worry none. What would I do with yore key?"
I drove down in front of the cabin, got out and went inside. I felt a lot better now. If them people had of found that there kid stuffed in the closet, they would of been hollering yet.
But she was still in there. I drug her out and was fixing to wrap her in a blanket when a rattling noise at the back door scairt me. I put the gal on the bed, easy and quiet, and tiptoed towards the back. I stood still in the little kitchen.
Somebody tore the screen off of the window, and I knowed whoever it was must be figgering to pay me a call. I taken my blackjack out and moved over to one side of the window. The blackjack was solid and hard in my hand.
The window slid up and a big black-haired feller dove in head first. The top half of him was sticking through the window when I dough-popped him behind his ear with my blackjack. Surprised me when it never knocked him plumb out, but he shook his head a time or two and hung on. So I hit him once't more and that done for him. Knocked him colder than a panhandle blizzard.
Seeing as how he wanted in so bad, I drug the rest of him over the window sill and dumped him in a big pile on the floor. I run my hands over him and he never had no gun. Wouldn't be no cop, coming in the back window and without no gun. Wouldn't be no hired hand, neither. Who in tarnation was he and what was he after? Maybe breaking in to see what he could steal? Well, he shore picked a pore time. He was just what I needed.
Idees hit me so fast sometimes I don't know how I keep up with all of them. Here he was, cold turkey, without no invite. When he woke up he'd have a kidnapping and killing hung around him so tight one wiggle would cut him right in two.
To make shore he'd stay put I bashed him over the head again. Then I went outside and walked back to the office to see the manager. Couldn't take no chance of somebody coming into that cabin before I was done. I banged on the door and he poked his head out. I told him what I was wanting.
"Reckon I'll stay another night," and I shoved some money at him.
"Find what you lost?"
"It wasn't lost. It was right in the closet where I left it."
"Another night'll be two dollars apiece more; that is, if your friends are staying too."
"You don't see no friends, do you? Just me. They got some sense and went on home."
"Nobody forcing you to stay here, Mister. If you don't like--"
"Shut up and gimme the change. I shore ain't come here to gab with you."
He seen I meant business.
Back at my cabin I looked my caller over to see if he was still out. It was fun hitting him, but I never wanted to kill him or he would miss out on his fun with them Dallas cops.
I moved the car around to the back door. Then I picked up the kid to dump her in the blanket. She was a little stiff, except for her neck. Her head rolled around like the crank on a Model T Ford. But she wasn't much to handle, and when I had her all wrapped up I throwed her in the back seat of the car.
It wasn't so easy with the big feller. He was harder to handle than a loose bale of alfalfa. I got him in the car, though, without nobody seeing nothing, far as I could tell. I locked the cabin door and climb in under the wheel. I drove the old LaSalle out to the road and turned towards Dallas again.
Finding the house where the kid's old man lived taken me longer than I figgered on, and I got to worrying about Donald back in that there cafe waiting on me. I wasn't sure I should of left him by hisself, but it would of tore him up to see the little gal, dead like she was.
I finally found the place. Like El had said, it was in a rich-folks section, almost like a big park. It was a great big house, setting way back from the street with about two acres of trees, bushes and green grass and flower beds in the yard. It had one of them curving driveways where you pull up in front of a porch, and big tall posts holding up another porch above. It shore was a rich-folks house, and I was sorry I never asked for a bigger reward than what I did.
I never used that there driveway, though. I just pulled over and parked next to the curb out at the street. My window-buster from the tourist camp was snoring away on the floor boards behind me. I wanted to put him under the wheel but I was scairt to make any fuss. He wouldn't never be able to explain anyways, cause he never knowed what happened hisself. Iff'n a guy cain't prove to the cops what he's been doing, then they just know he's the guy they're hunting. Any fool knows cops is like that.
I got out and raised the hood of the car like somebody was working on it. Then I found a pair of pliers and taken off the license plates and stuck them inside my shirt. I throwed the pliers back in the car and put the hood down. When I couldn't see no cars coming, nor nobody else in sight, I just walked off down the sidewalk. I wasn't wishing that feller no luck in gifting out of the mess he'd stuck his neck into. The cops likely wanted him for a hundred other things anyways. I was doing them cops a favor...
A couple of blocks down the street I got to thinking about him trying to answer questions at one of them third degrees. It was all so funny I got to laughing out loud, like a dang fool. I reckoned he'd think twice't before he tried robbing a tourist cabin again.
I waited a little while at a bus stop and got on the first one what come along. All I had to do now was go git Donald and call Leonie and we'd all be in high cotton. My troubles was over. When the bus went over a viaduct, I throwed them license plates out and seen them land in a empty gravel car down below on the tracks.
When the bus got to town I got off and found the cafe where Donald was supposed to be waiting on me. But the dang fool wasn't nowhere inside. Neither was his bag of money. I was throwed for a minute, and I seen red. Mister Donald Knowles was gonna learn I was boss and what I said went. I bought a beer and while I was drinking it I cooled
off some. Donald wanted to stay as close to me as he could, I knowed that. He wouldn't be mad enough about the little gal to start out by hisself. Probably he wasn't very far away. I'd set a while and he'd be back after a bit.
The bartender kept looking at me and at my bag. I never liked that none.
"What's the matter with you?" I asked him. "Ain't you never saw a suitcase before?"
"Oh, it's not that. But a young guy in here a while ago left a message for his brother. You kind of look like him; and he had a bag like that one."
"What did he look like?"
"Well--sort of thin, not as tall as you, and hair nearly the same color."
"What did he tell you?"
"Well, he left here with Madge. She's a girl that works around here. Got a room in the hotel next door. She said his brother could come on up there."
"Much obliged."
Just like my fool brother. But I had to laugh. Stinking rich, and he just couldn't wait to spend some of his money on the first splittail what come along.
"My brother do much drinking before he left?"
"Naw. Nothing hardly. They had a beer together. He wasn't drunk, but he was a little dizzy about Madge, looked like."
"I reckon he would be, yeah."
"Well, it's no disgrace. That gal's a pretty smooth dish, and she's a smart operator."
When he said operator, I got a mite uneasy. Supposing she operated a lot of talk out of Donald, or seen the money in his bag? That could cause me a lot of trouble. I never figgered Donald would talk too much if he wasn't drunk.
Then it hit me. Donald had plenty of whisky with him to stay drunk for a couple of days! And feeling sad like he was and not too much sense working on his side neither, he might do it. If he did git drunk and start talk-in front of that gal--
"What's that there gal's room number, bartender?"
"Three-o-three. If you go up, tell her I sent you."
"Tell her yoreself!"
I was hoping Donald hadn't told her nothing a-tall. And I hoped she hadn't acted smart and learnt nothing by herself. I really hoped it, cause if she had found out anything, it was just too wet to plow.