"You two will stay in your car and not interfere in this," he said.
"We're helping you," Kay said. I didn't say anything, but I noticed the red flush wasn't quite faded from his face.
The lieutenant held a conference with the cops and the girl. She talked a blue streak, and he was being mighty kind and polite to her. He went so far as to pat her gently on the head once.
He got into his car, with the girl sitting in the front seat beside him, and used the radio.
"Kay, you'd better have him tell you what he's up to," I said.
She went over and talked to him a minute and came back.
"You'd never guess. It's Junior's girl friend. She's turned him in and agreed to lead the lieutenant to his hiding place. Nice girl friend!"
"I'll be damned! He's even managed to work in a love affair! He gets around."
"Let's follow along," she replied.
Lieutenant Campbell pulled out, without the siren this time, and we trailed him. Three-quarters of a mile down the highway toward town they turned into a dirt crossroad, followed it a short distance, and stopped near a clump of trees. Kay drifted to a stop behind his car.
Campbell took his driver with him into the trees, with their guns ready. We could see them stalking from tree to tree, covering the ground thoroughly.
"Wait here," I said to Kay. I climbed out of the midget with some difficulty and joined the lieutenant, who was then sneaking up to an old green car parked in the middle of a grassy patch among the trees. Nothing happened.
"Did he skip?" I asked.
"Yeah." He was disappointed. "Couldn't have been gone long. But he is gone."
"Sirens are strange that way. They urge some people to move rather swiftly."
He threw me a disgusted, unfriendly look.
"He probably hitched a ride back towards town on the highway. Then again, he could've gone on down that way." He pointed down the sandy lane.
One of the other prowl cars from the airport drove up and stopped.
"Marvin!" the Lieutenant called. "You and Harry drive down this road and check each house. And the ditches on both sides. No use going over three or four miles. He can't be far."
"Yes, sir," said Marvin.
"I'll check the other way and keep the radio hot to get a real hunt organized. We'll comb this whole end of the county if we have to. You contact me if you hit on something. And Marvin, be alert--all the way."
"We will, Lieutenant."
"Bob, call in and get more men out to the airport. Get the whole damn field surrounded."
Bob got busy on the radio. My respect for the Dallas homicide officer took another upward curve.
"Lieutenant," I said, "do you mind if Miss Dixon and I follow along behind Marvin there?"
"Does it make any difference whether I do or not?"
"I just thought I'd ask--"
"Go ahead. Get out of my hair. It's probably safe. I think Junior went the other way."
I went back to the Jaguar and Kay, telling myself he could be right. But if my hunch about the siren-scare had scored, he probably was heading away from town. He wouldn't run toward a siren, no matter how unpredictable he was. I squeezed back in beside Kay.
"Let's go down this road, Kay."
"Do you think he went that way? That he'll walk clear out of Texas?"
"That's my guess, considering police cars, sirens and other probabilities. Let's go, but take it easy for my headache's sake. Follow Marvin in the car up ahead, but don't get too close."
As we pulled away, I caught a glimpse of the girl who had tattled on Junior hunched forward in Campbell's car, sobbing away as if all the world's burdens were on her shoulders. Kay tromped on it until we almost caught Marvin's car, then trailed it at about fifty yards.
Marvin and Harry stopped at the first house, but they didn't get in to do any looking. The farmer wouldn't let them in because they didn't have a warrant, so they took his word that Junior wasn't inside. I guess they figured Junior would have needed a warrant himself, or would have had to kill the cantankerous old man who came to the door. The cops got back in their car and started easing down the road again.
We went at a slow crawl. Those cops were being dutifully alert. I knew they wanted the credit for trapping Junior, but I had a hunch they weren't anxious to tangle with him. They watched the ditches as the lieutenant had instructed them, and checked several more houses with no luck, or with good luck--depending on how they felt about finding Junior.
They came to one house that looked like a natural to me. Set back from the road with a large yard to cross before reaching the porch, it had the look of a good place for a man to hide and be able to see all the moves of his pursuers.
"Stop the car here, Kay. Now, back up a bit. Good. We'll watch from here on this one."
It didn't take long for my hunch to be substantiated. Harry was about halfway across the yard when a shot boomed out from the house shattering the afternoon silence. Harry hesitated a moment, then fell face down on the grass to lie very, very still. Sand and gravel spewed from under the rear wheels of their car as Marvin vacated the scene in a hurry, rounding a slight bend in the road to go out of sight.
"Mark up one more for Junior," I said. "Nice to be back here out of range, isn't it?"
I got out of the car. Kay stepped down into the road, too.
"What now, Bill? Do we go in after him?"
"Do we think that would be wise? We do not."
"Are you afraid of him?"
"Let's say I'm prudent. We can wait. Marvin'll radio for help, and the taxpayers' boys can take the chances. Besides, we don't have a search warrant. Remember the argument at the first house?"
She snorted, but we waited. I swore at the heat and the pain in my broken head.
We stood around a few minutes watching and seeing nothing, and I got restless. I walked over to the edge of the ditch and went a few steps in the direction of the house. I wanted to get closer and still stay out of pistol range, and see if I could catch any movement at the windows to keep our boy located for the hired help. I knew they would show up any minute. I wasn't close enough yet, so I jumped down in the ditch to crawl nearer.
The jump saved my life.
A shot cracked out as I jumped, and a slug tugged at my shirt where it billowed out a bit in the back from my sudden movement. I dived face forward in the ditch, chewing dirt with my teeth. My head spun dizzily as I waited for another report from that gun. That shot had come from behind me!
I was quiet as a mouse while I worked up enough nerve to get my gun out. It took guts to get it and raise my head to the level of the ditch for a look to the rear. Junior had shot at me--though how he got back there I couldn't guess. I'd hit the ditch so fast and nestled so close to the dirt he must have thought he'd nailed me good.
He was under the steering wheel of the Jaguar now, fumbling with the controls and trying to start the engine. I couldn't see Kay, and I was afraid Junior had beat her head in and thrown her off in the ditch on the other side of the road. But just then she came out of a ditch about a dozen yards behind the car.
She was holding that little pearl-handled .25 toy in front of her. She walked deliberately up behind the car and came around to Junior's side. I saw generations of vengeful, hating Texans alive in her set features. She was almost abreast of Junior and he hadn't noticed her. I was too fascinated to move or speak as I watched her.
"Junior!" Kay screamed sharply.
Things happened fast.
The midget car's engine roared to life, and at the same time Junior twisted his head around with a startled look at Kay. He was fascinated, too, but not enough not to go for the gun he'd laid on the seat. He made a quick grab for it as Kay pulled the trigger.
The car lurched forward after the shot, but the engine stalled because there was nothing to feed it fuel. It stopped with one wheel over the edge of the ditch. Junior had stopped with a small hole spreading red dye around itself a little off center in his forehead. I came out
of my trance and stood up.
Kay walked to the car. She held the gun at four-inch range and carefully spaced four more holes in Junior's head, working as if by a mental pattern she had prepared long ago.
She stood looking down at him, her face a mold of stark, fiendish glee as she gazed hungrily at his butchered face, drinking it all in like a slightly insane but jubilant female demon, etching her work permanently in her memory.
I experienced an odd feeling. An ice-cold hand was inside my back and around my spine, running up and down and giving each separate vertebra a clammy squeeze as it passed. I wished for something to halt that endless minute, and something did.
The siren was coming down the road. Lieutenant Campbell's car, with a dust cloud attached behind, pulled up to us and stopped. He got out, gun in hand, and looked at Junior. Seeing his gun, I realized mine had fallen from my hand back in the ditch, but I didn't bother to go after it. I wouldn't need it any more.
"Three down, none to go," the lieutenant remarked.
Kay looked at him. Her face was perfectly composed now, natural and beautiful.
"Get that body out of my car, Lieutenant," she said.
Campbell and his driver obliged and I pushed the car back onto the gravel shoulder. Kay took off her light jacket, wiped the blood from the leather upholstery of her car, and threw the jacket into the ditch. Then she got into the car.
"Come on, Bill. Let's go back to the house for a drink. It's hot out here in the sun."
"Where'd the girl go, Lieutenant?" I asked him.
"I sent her to town for medical care. She went all to pieces listening to the radio calls."
"You know Harry has to be picked up there at the house?" I said.
He nodded somberly.
"Well, I guess it's all over. Be seeing you, Lieutenant."
"That's truer than you think, Brown. You probably will be seeing me--soon. I'm not entirely satisfied with your story of how you learned so much about the mess in such a short time. Maybe I'll have time to finish checking you out, now."
Ungrateful fellow, that Lieutenant Campbell. I got into the car and Kay turned around and started back to Dallas.
"I want you, Bill," she said. "If you're feeling better when we get home, you're going to help me erase this last week. After a few days we'll see about making it permanent, on a more socially acceptable basis. It's time I got married anyhow, and you're the boy."
I was set. Her I was, riding with the richest and probably the most beautiful girl in Texas. She was alone in the world and I held the inside track. From the brink of an emotional breakdown, I would nurse her back to normalcy. Then we'd get married while cash registers played the wedding march.
Ranches with meat and riches on the hoof. Oil wells with cash in every barrel. I'd have a house on the Riviera, another in Honolulu, and a large beach cottage at Malibu. Luxury. Once a year I could bring her back to Dallas and we'd spend a week or so in the bank vault--clipping coupons. I had it all figured out. It was so easy.
Then the look on her face when she fired the last four shots into Junior intruded into my pleasant dream. I shuddered as the vision chased all the pretty pictures right out of my mind.
"Kay," I said. "Would you mind turning back and take me to the airport?"
"Why the airport, Bill? Did you lose something out there?"
"You don't have to--let me off here. I can hitch a ride."
"No. I'll take you."
The rest of the ride was silent. She didn't look at me and I didn't look at her. I was afraid to, afraid I'd change my mind. When she pulled up in front of the terminal building I did take a long look at her, and found it was easy.
"Thanks, Kay, for trusting me like you did. And thanks for the offer, anyhow."
"Where are you going?"
"Away from Dallas. I don't know, yet."
"Would you mind kissing me good-by, Bill?"
"No, Kay, I don't mind."
I did, and without looking back I walked into the terminal. As I approached a ticket window, I realized something momentous.
My headache was gone! Disappeared. Just like that.
THE END
The Whip Hand Page 18