Run, Killer, Run

by William Campbell Gault

  There would be no doubt, probably, in the policeman’s mind that the room had been occupied last night. But there would be no proof the occupant had been Tom Spears. Probably. He hoped.

  And who had tipped off the police? What had brought them there? Jud didn’t know he was there. Could it have been Delavan? That seemed unlikely. The door-knob-tryer of last night? What was his name — ? Gilchrist, Ames Gilchrist.

  That wouldn’t make too much sense. If he was the kind of person Jean had suggested, wouldn’t he have tried a spot of blackmail first? Unless there was a reward.

  Any of Jean’s friends would know she’d been engaged to Joe Hubbard and any who could read would know Joe Hubbard had defended him — and then been killed. So, if Gilchrist wanted to add the possibles but improbables, he might guess that the occupant of the locked room was Tom Spears. But it was a big improbable.

  The fine sweat of pain and apprehension was soaking through his shirt, now, trickling down his legs. If this grade led to the sea, it meant opening onto the Coast Highway. And he remembered no gully in the cliff along the highway here, except for the Santa Monica Canyon.

  It couldn’t finish at the highway; it must come out somewhere along Channel Road or else cut off into lower, level ground out of sight of the highway.

  Despite the fact there had been no turning, the overhang above now concealed him from view of the house. He was out of sight.

  But it was only temporary. A chair under an open window in a room that had been locked; any person over three years old would know where to look next.

  The ache was constant in his right leg, but he limped on steadily and now there was a turn in the gully ahead and he heard the sound of motor traffic to his left.

  He came to the turn and saw ahead the rear of a two story, frame building and next to that a littered, empty, macadam parking lot. The lot wasn’t completely empty; an antiquated and deserted Buick gathered dust in the nearest corner.

  There was a chain across the entrance to the lot. There was probably not enough business to make it a going proposition during the week; it depended on the week-end beach trade.

  He stood in the ell of the gully, watching the traffic going by on Channel. He hesitated coming out into the view of all those passing, but the only other course was back the way he had come. And he had no time to waste.

  He took a deep breath and limped out boldly into the sunlight of the parking lot, his gaze missing nothing, searching for the blue of a uniform or the insignia of a Department car.

  The haven of the deserted Buick occurred to him; the rear doors were intact and the windows dark with grime. But if the canyon was searched, the Buick would not be overlooked. He forced himself to walk past its beckoning concealment.

  Slowly, he moved past the side of the two-story building and then he heard the bark of a big motor and saw a bus angling toward the curb directly ahead.

  He waved and tried to quicken his pace, biting his lower lip against the increasing pain from his swelling knee. The lone waiting passenger had entered and the door was closing by the time Tom made the sidewalk.

  The exhaust rumble rose, preparatory to departure and Tom was shouting. The bus was half out into the traffic zone and he had slowed to a walk when the bus driver looked back. He stopped the monster, and the folding doors swung open.

  Swinging his bad leg up to the level of the first step brought quick tears to his eyes and the bus driver’s curious glance rested a moment on Tom’s sweating face.

  “First time I’ve gone without the crutch,” Tom said. “I should have had more sense.”

  The driver’s eyes showed no concern; they shifted to the cash box, waiting for the fare. Tom deposited it and walked back through the mildly curious glances to a seat in the rear.

  He learned, there, he couldn’t sit down without putting his right leg awkwardly out into the aisle. The puffed knee would not bend enough to give him clearance from the seat ahead. He stood.

  He tried to look casual, to inspect the other passengers without interest, as the bus swung out onto the Coast Highway and turned left. He hadn’t been able to see the sign on front; it was just luck he’d picked one heading for Santa Monica. The other way led to the Palisades, and that was no hamlet for a stranger.

  The passengers were standard enough, shoppers and a few giggling teen-agers making a nuisance of themselves in the wide rear seat. Not a man who looked like a cop among the dozen or so passengers.

  Get out of town, he told himself. And her voice came back in his memory, “This is no time to run. This is a time to make a stand.”

  That it might be — if you were clean. He wasn’t. He had been convicted of murder and he was evading what they called justice, right now. Justice is a word that means legality to the law. It meant a number of things to a number of people, but the men who made and enforced the laws had a single interpretation of it, codified in their dusty books.

  He had to take care of his own justice; he was no longer one of the upright citizens. He meant to live, even if it was on his knees. He meant to live any way he could so long as it was outside the walls.

  On Santa Monica Boulevard, in Santa Monica, he got off the bus and stood a moment in the bright sunlight, pretending to look for an address.

  Only Beverly Hills was policed better than this town; it was no city for a man on the run.

  But to the south of this Rotarian’s roosting ground sprawled Venice, a tangled waterside litter of shacks and cramped apartments housing the unwashed and the unwanted.

  He knew a few of the unwanted in Venice and here was the red bus coming down the boulevard. He swung the good left leg aboard and brought the rest of his aching body in awkwardly. The driver waited in indifferent patience; the driver wasn’t surprised at anything on the Venice run.

  “First day without the crutch,” Tom explained.

  The driver swung the door control lever and headed out into the traffic. He was paid to carry fares, not make conversation.

  It was an old bus and the noxious bite of carbon monoxide stirred the nausea in Tom as he went limping down the aisle, examining each passenger in turn.

  There were only six or seven and each of them looked innocent enough. At the back, he sat on the wide seat, his stiff leg in the aisle.

  Who would be safest in Venice? He knew a bookie there and a couple of poverty-stricken horse players. And then his memory went groping, and he remembered a girl.

  He and Joe, out on the town one night and very drunk. And Joe knew a girl who would have a friend and she was the kind of girl you could drop in on any time of the night. They’d dropped in and the girl had called a friend and it had been one hell of a night, an orgy.

  He couldn’t think of it with complete distaste; nothing had happened, he’d been too drunk to be potent. The girl, if he remembered correctly, had been a B girl Joe had represented in court. And he’d saved her from a determined district attorney with some legal shenanigans. Joe had been pleased with the case. And the girl pleased with Joe. Tom remembered the look in her eyes as she’d greeted him.

  The girl they’d got for Tom he couldn’t remember now, except that she’d been a little heavy for his taste. And the guilt he’d felt when the night was over, though he was still physically unblemished; that he remembered.

  But Joe’s girl — what had her name been? Carol — ? No, it started with a “C.” Connie — that was it. Connie, a nickname for Constance. Connie would sound better than Constance in a bar.

  He had no idea what her address had been. Nor any reason to believe she hadn’t moved. He knew that it was over a garage, and that the inside of the place had surprised him with its apparent taste and sense of warmth.

  He remembered he’d wished he and Joe could change partners; Connie had been the kind of busty, leggy blonde to which he was most vulnerable. But she’d had an awful yen for Joe. She was only one of many who lusted for Joe Hubbard, the big bastard.

  And one more thing he remembered, her apartment was clos
e to the water. He could see the beach from the bathroom window; one of the living room windows faced out onto a restaurant across the street.

  He got off at Windward, and paused a moment looking at all the bars that lined both sides of the street to the ocean. A drink might help, but he couldn’t afford to tarry.

  He walked south on the street closest to the beach, his eyes seeking the remembered restaurant. Winos dozed in the doorways he passed; a pair of teen-aged hoodlums stared at him insolently as he went by.

  What was the name of that restaurant? The ache in his right leg throbbed in unison with his swinging of it; the whole right side of his body seemed to be affected. There was even a soreness in his right eye.

  On Venice Boulevard, he paused, surveying the street ahead. What in hell had brought him here? What made him think a girl who’d met him briefly a few years back would offer him any kind of sanctuary now?

  She was probably no lover of the law, but visiting her, now, would be the brassiest kind of imposition on his part.

  Where else could he go? What other haven did he have? And he would pay, once he got hold of some money. She owed Joe enough; he’d saved her from the gray stone walls. And he had been Joe’s friend.

  But perhaps Joe had been paid again and again. Joe alive had been a king-size Galahad in Tom’s mind. Joe dead was being revealed as a big bastard constantly at stud.

  Where else to go, though? He walked on, past 23rd and 24th. He could offer to pay for haven and accept her answer. He could make it clear he was buying only a few day’s rest until he could get to Nannie for some money.

  No other street in the area would have a restaurant and still be close to the water. It would have to be on this street. Ahead, he saw a protruding restaurant sign, swinging over the narrow walk.

  He tried to move faster but the pain seeped up from his knee and gagged him. He slowed down, apprehension growing in him. To his right, a narrow, alley-like street led to the beach, and here was an apartment, over a three-car garage. Directly across the street, now, was the restaurant.

  The front of the apartment faced on a small, beaten-earth court, he remembered. He walked past the edge of the garage, and there was the gray dust of the court.

  There were no taller buildings between here and the sea; the calm water blinked at him in the afternoon’s brilliance. He hesitated only a moment before turning and heading for the wooden steps that ran to the small porch above.

  There was a pail on the porch, up here, and a string mop. There was a folded, throw-away advertising sheet. There was a card under the bell button.

  The card read: Connie Garrity.

  He took a deep breath and reached for the button.

  Chapter 5

  HE HEARD the chime sound within, and nothing more. He tried it again and still there was no indication of a response from inside. He stood there quietly, something close to despair welling in his aching body.

  And then he turned and saw her coming across the wooden walk through the court, a bag of groceries in the crook of one arm.

  She was tanned to a mahogany brown and the bleached hair seemed white against the darkness of her skin. She walked erectly, her long legs moving with a springy vitality. She was dressed in a faded denim sunsuit and doing very well by it.

  Just before she got to the foot of the wooden stairs, she looked up. She saw him, there, and paused, a hand on the railing.

  “Remember me?” he asked quietly.

  Her tan, unlined face went slack in shock. “My God,” she said hoarsely. “What — ?” She shook her head. “My God.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’ll go. You’ve read the papers, of course. I’ll — ” He started down the steps.

  “Stay where you are,” she said. “I’m coming up.”

  She came up steadily, her eyes on his, surprise on her face but no fear.

  When she had reached the porch, Tom said, “I remembered you as a friend of Joe’s. I’m hotter than hell, I guess you know.”

  “I guess I do.” She had her key in her hand now, and was opening the door. “You’d better get in here, and quick.”

  She shoved the door open and stood aside for him to enter first. “Hurry.”

  He came into a fairly large kitchen he dimly remembered, of blue with an upholstered breakfast nook in the corner nearest the door.

  Tom sat on the edge of the upholstered bench, his bad leg out stiffly in front of him. She put the bag of groceries on the table and considered him gravely.

  Tom said, “This was awful damned brassie, but — ” He shrugged.

  She said, “Any port in a storm, sailor. Did you kill her, Tom Spears?”

  He looked at her dully, shaking his head. “No, and I don’t know who killed her. Nor who killed Joe Hubbard, but that they couldn’t pin on me; I was in jail at the time.”

  “I know.” She looked at his stiff leg. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “I bruised my knee — getting away from a — a place I was hiding. You must think I’m some bastard, running to you, a girl I don’t even know. You can throw me out, any time.”

  She came around the end of the table. “We discussed that. Take your pants off. I want to see that knee.”

  He must have colored, for she laughed. “Lord, what a time for modesty. Get ‘em off, impotent; I’ve had some nurse’s training.” She bent, to pull at his cuffs.

  He said stiffly. “If your friend told you I was impotent, she lied. I was drunk, is all.”

  She laughed, and Tom smiled, realizing the absurdity of it. He loosened his belt and opened his fly and she pulled his trousers gently from the bottom, sliding them along the floor.

  The knee was big as a sugar melon, the skin taut and discolored.

  “Football knee,” she said. “Ripped cartilage, I’d bet a nickel.” She looked up. “How far did you come on it?”

  “I came by bus, most of the way. If it is a football knee, I guess it’s a good thing I kept working it, right? How sure are you?”

  “Fairly sure. Your face is filthy; did you know that? You look like a refugee from Windward Avenue. Well, you’re in the area for it. What happened to Joe, Tom?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. A — a friend of mine and — I mean a friend of Joe’s and I were going to work on it, but then the law came, and I had to run. I don’t know why I thought of you, except I wanted to get out of Santa Monica, and — ”

  “Take it easy,” she interrupted. “And stop being so damned apologetic. If you’re a killer, you’re the first killer lamb I’ve ever met. You don’t even make a good adulterer.”

  He leaned back against the padding of the bench. “I could use a tall, cold glass of water. You’re wonderful, Connie.”

  “Mmmm-hmmm.” She went to the refrigerator and brought out a bottle of spring water. She filled a glass and brought it to him. “Joe used to say I was wonderful. But he probably told all his girls that. Including that bleeding heart who liked to think she was engaged to him.”

  Tom frowned. “You mean that — what was her name — Revolt, wasn’t it?”

  “Mmmm-hmmm. Jean Revolt. Her daddy was the big newspaper guy. Remember?”

  “Oh, yes. Walter Revolt. I think I met Jean once, in Joe’s office.”

  Connie refilled his glass. “That was Joe’s canyon cutie. Then he had one in Hollywood and one in Studio City and down here in lowly Venice, he had Connie Garrity. Joe was quite an operator. Covered this town like a blanket. Or a sheet, I should say. Well, I’m not bitter. I’m still alive.”

  Tom said quietly, “I guess he had another one, too. In Beverly Hills.”

  “No doubt.” She paused, staring at him. “Wait — you lived in Beverly Hills.”

  He nodded. “So did my wife.”

  She was silent for seconds. Then, “No. Oh, Tom, no — ! How many times did he tell me you were his best friend? Oh, this I can’t buy, Tom Spears. This is — Oh, that miserable bastard!”

  “Great personality,” Tom said. “Cha
rm coming out of his ears. Great fighter for the rights of man, great shining-haired crusader, a super-charged Don Quixote.”

  She sat down on the bench opposite, staring at him. “Take it easy, he’s dead. He wasn’t the only one of his kind, we have to remember. He could have had plenty of integrity away from bed.”

  “Maybe. But I’ve been told, since, that he mishandled the trial. I’ve been assured by experts that for a lawyer of his ability, he must have mishandled it intentionally.”

  Silence, for seconds, in the blue kitchen, and then she said, “I’ve heard that rumor, myself. A girl hears all kinds of things in bars, though.” Tom said nothing.

  Connie reached over to get a glass from the drainboard behind her. Slowly, she poured herself a glass of water. Her hand shook a little.

  She said softly, “One of the men who told me Joe had butchered the case should know. He’s a top criminal lawyer. I guess that wouldn’t qualify as ordinary bar talk.” She sipped her water. “You don’t think Joe killed your wife, do you?”

  Tom shrugged.

  Connie’s voice was quiet. “He didn’t. We read about the murder, over the breakfast table, here. Joe was horribly shocked.”

  Tom’s gaze went from the bleached hair of Connie Garrity to the soft brown eyes, looking strangely vulnerable in that taut face. He said, “Joe’s dead and I’m sorry I’ve learned all I have. I’d rather remember him the way I knew him.”

  She looked at the table top. “To hell with him. But what about you? You’re not dead. You’ll need money, I suppose?” She looked up.

  “I think I can get some. I wonder if the police will think of looking for me here.”

  “Not unless they can trace your movements. Nobody knows about me and Joe, nobody but us.”

  “And that girl who was here, that night?”

  “She went back to Milwaukee.”

  Tom rubbed his knee tenderly, staring at the floor.

  “You’d better get into a hot tub,” she said. “I’m not working tonight. We’ll think of something after your bath. Soak that knee in water as hot as you can stand.”