Run, Killer, Run

by William Campbell Gault

  It was a big-shot’s world, was Bugs theme, and he voiced it all during his conscious hours. Bugs had never had a break, by his own admission. He’d been born into poverty and graduated into crime and was now taking the rap because the big boys had let him down. “You can’t lick city hall” was a chestnut he savored and “city hall,” to Bugs, was any man or group with more brains, money or influence than Bugs had. This included a lot of people.

  The sound of a step, again, and Jean was in the room, a pair of drinks in her hands. “Sleeping?”

  Tom took the drink she proffered. “Thank you. No, I was thinking of my former cell-mate. He used to claim it was a big-shot’s world.”

  “I guess it always will be. I suppose, in prehistoric times, it was the man with the biggest club or the animal with the sharpest teeth. We’ve come quite a way from that, though, haven’t we?”

  “I don’t know. This is good whiskey.”

  She sat in a chair nearby and held her glass aloft. “To success.”

  They drank to it.

  Tom wiped a bead of moisture off his glass with the ball of his thumb. “What’s the difference in your mind between a man who runs and a man who accepts a woman for a shield? I think using you in this way is just as contemptible as running.”

  “I don’t. I’m no rabbit, Tom. I worked with my dad on some nasty exposés. I’ve been threatened quite often.”

  “Sure. But you’re a woman. There shouldn’t be any doubt in anyone’s mind about that. And a woman who has a lot to lose.”

  She smiled. “Thank you.”

  He held her gaze. “And you don’t even know I’m innocent.”

  “I’m sharing my house with you. If you aren’t innocent, why did Joe butcher your case? And then die? And you grew very indignant when I suggested your wife was a tramp. So you didn’t know that. And what other reason would you have to kill her?”

  He finished his drink. “I had no reason to kill her.”

  “No. And if you had killed her, you wouldn’t be sitting there now. I wouldn’t have been able to convince you that you should stop running. If you want to book a bet, I’ll bet on you, Tom.”

  Some of his tension was gone; she’d made him a strong drink. It was quiet, here, and from the mantel, the picture of Walter Revolt seemed to smile at him.

  Jean said. “You’ve already contacted Jud Shallock. Don’t look up any more of your old friends, will you?”

  “Why not? You don’t think they could have had anything to do with it?”

  “We don’t know, do we? We can’t take the chance. You won’t, of course, tell Jud you’re staying here.”

  “Of course not. Nor anyone else. But I did want to get in touch with a man named Nannie Koronas. He’s got a lot of influence and a lot of money. He can help me.”

  Jean shook her head. “That’s the last man I want you to see. Stay very far away from him.”

  Chapter 3

  SHE’D GONE out to get him another drink. Tom sat there, staring at the picture of Walter Revolt on the mantel. She was her father’s daughter, all right; it was the local gambling she was interested in, not Tom Spears.

  When she came back, he said, “You’ve bruised my ego. It’s Nannie you’re after, isn’t it?”

  She handed him his drink. “No. It’s the killer of Joe Hubbard I’m after. I think your Mr. Koronas knows something about that.”

  “I see. And all these inspirational sermons to me about making a stand, about not running, were only a pitch to further your own ends.”

  She stood there rigidly, her eyes cold. “That was rotten, Tom.”

  “Maybe. If it was, I apologize. And I suppose it’s looking a gift horse in the mouth. I apologize again.”

  She went over to sit on the edge of a chair. She sipped her drink and said nothing.

  Tom said, “I don’t see any pictures of Joe around.”

  She didn’t look at him. “I burned them. If you want to leave, Tom, I can lend you some money.”

  “I don’t want to leave, Jean. I’m sorry for what I said, really sorry.”

  Her face was without emotion as she looked at him. “Would you like to nap, now? Or eat?”

  “I could nap, I think. This is the first time since I left the clink that I feel completely safe.”

  She came over to take his glass and he smiled up at her. Her answering smile was brief and cool. “If it’s only a nap you want, you can use that blanket that’s folded at the foot of the day bed, there.”

  She went out.

  Tom winked at the picture of Walter Revolt and went over to stretch out on the day bed. The security he felt was ridiculous; what could this girl do that the police had failed to do? Granted that a man outside the law would reveal to anyone more than he would to the police, what sources of information could she have, what allies?

  If someone in the Koronas organization had killed Joe, Nannie would cover for him, automatically. A group built on the treacherous sands of illegality needed organizational loyalty; Nannie would take care of his own. It might even be why Joe had been killed; perhaps Nannie, too, could evaluate the weakness of the defense Joe had offered.

  He lay on the bed and stretched, arching his back, surrendering to the lassitude that was moving through him. Two drinks shouldn’t do that. Unless they were doctored… . No, believe in the girl, Tom Spears, or get the hell out of here.

  From somewhere, he heard the sound of water running through pipes and then it grew dimmer and he fell asleep.

  He wakened to a dusk-filled room and the distant clack of a typewriter. He was damp with sweat. He had dreamed, but he couldn’t remember it now. It must have been a restless sleep; his pillow was on the floor, the bedspread was twisted and dragging. He swung his feet to the floor and sat on the edge of the cot.

  The dream came back a little; it had been about Lois and it had involved a bed, a king-sized bed. They’d always argued about that; he had preferred twin beds.

  There was a bathroom with a stall shower serving this room. Tom locked the door to the hall and undressed. The clack of the typewriter was constant and beyond it he could hear the sound of traffic on Channel Road. It must be going-home time for the workers who lived out this way. Channel Road didn’t carry an audible volume of traffic during normal traffic hours.

  There were towels in the bathroom and new bars of soap. There was even a package of three new toothbrushes and an unopened package of razor blades. And talcum and styptic pencil and shaving lotion and Band-aids and aspirin.

  All the comforts of home for a killer on the run. Or rather, for a non-killer no longer running.

  He had finished his shower, and was shaving, when there was a knock at the den door.

  “Just a moment,” Tom called. “I’m naked.” He heard her chuckle.

  He slipped on his trousers and went to open the door. “You run a fine hotel, Miss Revolt. But where’s the tooth paste?”

  “Damn it,” she said. “And I was so proud of the way I stocked that bathroom. I did it while you were sleeping.”

  “I hope I didn’t talk in my sleep.”

  “Not that I heard. I wondered if you were hungry, now?”

  “I am. Could I help?”

  “No.” She gestured toward the bookshelves. “Curl up with a book and I’ll call you when dinner’s ready. Maybe you had better keep this door locked all the time. I do have friends who like to drop in at odd hours.”

  He locked the door, after she’d gone back down the hall. He finished his shaving and put on his other shirt and went over to scan the bookcases.

  One book was alone on the mantel, and he picked it up. GERANIUM WILDERNESS, by Jean Revolt.

  The jacket blurb read: “A penetrating and disturbing view of the fabulous city told with sympathy and wit.” The rear jacket carried a short biographical bit about “this talented daughter of America’s beloved latter day Lincoln Steffens, Walter Revolt.”

  The dedication page read simply: For Dad.

  An author, too.
Her picture on the rear jacket didn’t do her justice. Tom took the book back to the big leather chair with him. He was well into it when she knocked again at his door. It was time for dinner.

  When he unlocked the door, she was already on her way down the hall again. He followed her to the huge kitchen. The dining table had been moved from its former place near the window. It was now in an ell of the brick wall.

  Jean said, “I didn’t think it would be bright to have you seated near the window. Even if you’re not recognized, it might look a little vulgar at breakfast.”

  Tom grinned. “We could get married.”

  She said, “I hope you like lamb chops.”

  “Love ‘em.” He sat in the cove of the ell and watched her as she set the hot plates onto the table. “I’ve been reading your book.”

  She started to sit down and Tom rose hastily to help her with her chair. Standing above her for that moment, the smell of her perfume came to him and his pulse quickened.

  He’d been away from women for too long. She wasn’t anything more to him than another woman. He told himself.

  When he sat down, again, he said, “I like the way you write.”

  “Thank you. And do you like what I say?”

  “You’re your father’s daughter, I’d say. I always enjoyed what I read of him. Are you writing another now?”

  She nodded. “I sent that first one out under another name. After it had been accepted, my agent revealed my true identity. I didn’t want to ride on Dad’s reputation.”

  “Take it from a minor writer, you’re not.”

  She frowned. “A minor writer? You?”

  “Mmmm-hmmm. Used to have a handicapping column in the Blade.”

  She chuckled. “You amaze me. Joe used to talk about you a lot.” She looked at her plate. “He said you belonged in a better business.”

  “Better than four hundred dollars a week?”

  “You made that much money?”

  “I did, for four years.”

  “Are you going back to it?”

  He shook his head. “They frown on that sort of thing in the clink. These are mighty fine chops, lady.”

  “Don’t talk that way.” Her voice was sharp.

  Startled, he looked up. “About the chops, you mean? Or about the clink?”

  “About going back to jail. You’re not. And you’re not going to run. You’re going to be free and clean, when we’ve finished.”

  He lifted his water tumbler. “All right, Champ. I’ll drink to that.”

  They drank. They ate in silence for a while. Finally, she asked, “Do the others make four hundred dollars a week, too? The other — lower echelon bookies?”

  He shook his head. “I was an upper class agent, remember. My wife had a lot of wealthy friends.” He studied her. “And as long as this is the question hour, I’ve a few, myself.”

  She said nothing, waiting.

  He said quietly, “How did you know about Chuck, in St. Louis? And about Jud Shallock? What are your sources of information?”

  “One source,” she said, “a man I don’t care to name, a private investigator who did a lot of work for Dad.”

  He shook his head sadly. “A shamus, Lordy! So he knows you were interested in me. And he knows the police are looking for me. There isn’t a private investigator in town who won’t sell out if he gets his price. Didn’t you know that?”

  “No. And it’s not true. It’s one of the beliefs, one of the fallacies all — well — ”

  He smiled. “All criminals believe?”

  She faced him candidly. “All people outside of the law.”

  “Do you? You’re outside of the law, right now?”

  She made a face. “I’m on the side of the angels.” She poured him another cup of coffee. “This man has been offered all kinds of bribes when he worked with Dad. And never succumbed. We won’t have to worry about him. It’s your friends I’m afraid of.”

  “Shallock?” He shook his head. “Nor Chuck, either. They’re solid organization men.”

  “That’s what I mean. They work for Koronas.”

  That, again. Tom sipped his coffee and said nothing. She was too pretty to qualify as a female crusader; what grudge did she bear Nannie?

  “I baked a pie,” she said. “Could you eat a piece?”

  “Not now. That was a fine meal, and filling. I wonder what’s happened to Jud? I wonder if the Sheriff’s Department is still holding him.”

  “Why don’t you phone him?”

  “The call could be traced. They’ll be waiting for me to get in touch with Jud.”

  “You could call him from a phone booth. Or no, I’ll have my investigator find out for you. Until we get those records of Joe’s, we aren’t going to make any moves.”

  Outside, it was now dark and the traffic on Channel had diminished. Across the table from him, Jean looked quietly pensive.

  Tom said, “I am a problem, aren’t I?”

  Her smile was dim. “A problem but not a burden. Do you like Stan Kenton?”

  “I don’t understand him, but I’ll listen, with a drink in my hand. I’m more for Dixie.”

  “I’ve some of that, too. I’ve a player that will go all day. And the drinks are in the living room.”

  Simple enough, clean enough. A pair of betrayed lambs in the dim living room, nursing their drinks and perhaps nursing their private thoughts while the player went from Kenton to Gillespie and then back through time to the boys Tom loved. Fats and Satchmo and Bunny, sentimental communication at his level.

  Perhaps nursing their private thoughts but no situation is static. In Tom, the awareness grew. He’d been behind the walls and he was a whole man. And his wife was dead. And Jean’s lover was dead and she was all woman, and wasn’t writing a sublimation of the sexual drive? She wrote.

  The clean full tone of Benny’s clarinet rode triumphantly through the room.

  Jean said, “This we can both share. What are you thinking of?”

  “You.” He looked at her. “You’re attractive and I’m human, and if that sounds vulgar, forget it.”

  She smiled. “Christopher Isherwood said what he liked about this canyon was its odor of decay. Perhaps it’s that. You’re attractive, and I’m human, too. And with another drink, I’d match your vulgarity. This much we have, it isn’t infidelity, not with both of them dead.”

  His body was tight, the hammering of his heart heavy. He tried to keep his face composed. “But you’d need another drink?”

  “I’d need another drink. To drown the memory of a man.” She looked at him challengingly. “Another drink would do it. Will you mix it?”

  Lois had been good, but Jean was better. Lois’ body had been beautiful, Jean’s was firmer, stronger, more challenging. At the flesh level, it was perfect communication.

  And it must have had some significance beyond the flesh level. For the ice he’d lived with since Lois’ death was now melted. He cried for five minutes.

  In the big dim room, in the quiet night air lightly touched with her fragrance, peace came to him. He reached over to take her hand.

  “Sentimentalist,” she said. “I suspected it. I’m glad. We were good together. But that’s not enough and you’re also enough of a realist to appreciate that.” A pause. “I hope.”

  “Don’t talk,” he said. “You’re trained to think words will do anything. But don’t talk, now.”

  Quiet; the sound of an occasional car going by on Channel or Entrada, her hand quiescent in his. If this had been a transient urge, he could not feel tenderness for her now. But he did.

  Watch it, Tom Spears, he told himself. You are a hunted man, a convicted killer. Don’t drag her into the dust with you.

  “Maybe,” she said quietly, “it was a thing we both needed. Therapeutic, you know? No significance. I’m sorry — you told me not to talk.”

  “We can talk. What amazes me is that we hadn’t met oftener. I knew Joe very well. We spent a lot of time together. And you were hi
s fiancée — ”

  “He lived in two worlds. Despite your wealthy wife, you were in his other world. Do you doubt me, Tom?” She withdrew her hand.

  “No. Are you hungry? I could use a sandwich.”

  She chuckled. “Beast.” She rose to a sitting position, and the fine, firm silhouette of the upper half of her body was revealed by the dim light from the hall. “Ham, corned beef, salami?”

  “Surprise me. You’re an ace, Jean Revolt.”

  “Quit talking like Zane Gray. And get up; you’ll get no meals in bed in this house.”

  He rose, to fumble for his trousers, as she slipped into a robe and left the room. When he came out to the kitchen, she was preparing a sandwich by the dim illumination of the stove light.

  She said, “This room has too many windows and it faces on the driveway. Perhaps you’d better wait in the living room.”

  He was just leaving the kitchen, when the headlights flashed in the drive.

  “Your room, quickly,” Jean said. “It’s probably some of my whimsical friends. They drop in at all hours. Hurry!”

  Tom was already racing down the hall, the momentary illusion of security gone, the urge to flight again in full command. In the paneled room, he closed and bolted the door. Then he stood with his back pressed to it, trembling.

  He heard the sound of the door chime and then the clack of Jean’s mules on the kitchen linoleum. He couldn’t hear the front door open, but he heard the voices, festive voices, unnecessarily loud, tinged with alcoholic overtones.

  Just friends, drunken friends, cruising the night and looking for a friendly light. Tom took a deep breath and relaxed against the door.

  And then he remembered that most of the clothes he’d worn were still in Jean’s bedroom. And one of the bathrooms led off that room. He stood quietly by the door trying to hear the conversation that was now going on in the entrance hall.

  Jean was saying, “I don’t like to be rude, but I am tired. It’s been a horrible day.”

  A male voice said, “Just a night cap is all, just a touch of warmth for the road.”