An Eye for an Eye

by Leigh Brackett

  “You know what you did last night? You damned near got your woman killed, that’s what you did.”

  “What have you done to her?”

  “Nothing much, but it’s no thanks to you. You made me plenty of trouble. Thought you were pretty damn smart, didn’t you, figuring out I was in South Flat, trying to cross me up.”

  “I didn’t think you’d find out.”

  “Sure I found out. Everybody in the bar was talking about it. That’s your trouble, Forbes, you think everybody’s dumb but you. Okay, so you found out where I was, but I’m not there any more. Or maybe you already knew that.”

  “No, I didn’t know it. I saw it was no use and gave up.”

  “I don’t believe you. I think you told the cops and put them to looking for me.”

  “No, I didn’t! I swear I didn’t.”

  “Well, if you did you’ll be sorrier than anybody, except maybe your wife. Now what about Lorene? Or didn’t you talk to her at all?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’ve talked to her. She’ll see you.”

  “She will, huh?”

  “Yes. She wants to talk things over with you. I’ll bring her wherever you—”

  Ernie leaned closer. It was about here that things had gone wrong.

  Guthrie said, in the loud overbearing tone that a stupid man mistakes for sarcasm, “That’s good. That’s real good. Now answer me one question. What made her change her mind?”

  No wonder Ben had sweated, groping for an answer.

  “I told you I talked to her—”

  “Yeah. But what did you say? I don’t trust you, Mr. Forbes. I think you’re being smart again. I think you’re lying in your teeth.”

  “No—no, listen. It was easier than I thought. She—Lorene had been thinking herself, she told me, that she’d made a mistake. She always went back to you before. Now she’s ready to again.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. I talked to her, Guthrie! I told her—I told her you’d do anything to get her back. She wants to see you.”

  “Okay,” said Guthrie on the unwinding tape. “Now you let me hear that right from Lorene herself and maybe I’ll believe it. And if I believe it maybe I’ll tell you where to bring her. But don’t try thinking up any more smart plays because they won’t work. I’ll see you and Lorene a long time before you see me, and if there’s anything I don’t like about the way you act or look you won’t have any time to explain. I ain’t taking any chances. I’ve got your wife right with me in the car now, and I’ll always have her right with me, right under my hand. You hear that?”

  Ernie felt the hair bristling on the back of his neck. The dirty son of a bitch, he thought. I hope I get him in my gun sights. Ben’s low voice answered, “I hear it.”

  “Don’t forget it. And don’t figure I’m anywhere around Sentryville because I’m not. You have Lorene there this time tomorrow night. I’ll call you then.”

  “All right. I’ll have her here.”

  “Sure you will,” Guthrie said. “You can’t beat me, Forbes. I told you that the first time. I don’t care if I live or die and I don’t care how many people I kill before I go. You can’t beat that.”

  Crap, thought Ernie. He’ll care all right when the time comes. He’ll bleed yellow. But that won’t do Carolyn any good if he bleeds too late. Christ, he thought. Jesus Christ, what do you do? That was the end of the tape. They went into the living room and sat down. Bill Drumm was still on the phone. Ernie looked around anxiously for Ben but he had not come back.

  Packer smoked and frowned. “That makes it real tough,” he said. “Good God, what a mess. If it was a regular orthodox kidnaping for money you might have a chance. But this is—”

  He couldn’t find a word to fit.

  “Yeah,” said Ernie. “I wish we could give him what he wants. His little Lorene. It seems a pity that Carolyn has to die for a moronic bitch like that.”

  Packer looked at him. “You know how impossible that is.”

  “Sure. Sure. I know. But I can’t help thinking about it.”

  Packer said angrily, “You’re too close to this case. I knew I shouldn’t have assigned you to it. Have you stopped to think what would happen to us if we shoved that dame out there as bait for Guthrie and anything happened to her? There’d be such a stink the department would never live it down. Hell, we wouldn’t even have to do it. Just suggest it to her and Kratich and see the reaction you get.”

  “All right, all right,” said Ernie, “you don’t have to lay it out for me. I know.”

  He rose and began to pace up and down.

  Bill Drumm came in from the hall. “That was the night operator on the exchange at Iberia, which serves Sentryville. The Sentryville number Guthrie called from is an outside booth at Wilson’s Truck Stop on Route 16. Do you want me to send out an alarm?”

  “No. He’s got Mrs. Forbes in the car with him. But we can ask the Sheriff’s Office to cover that booth tomorrow night in case he comes there again to phone. If we could catch him away from the car and out of reach of his hostage we’d be all right.”

  “The operator didn’t listen in,” Bill said. “I made sure.”

  “Okay. I don’t want it all over the country that there’s a kidnaper loose.” Packer looked up at Ben Forbes, who was just coming in. “Have you made any decision, Mr. Forbes?”

  Ben said, “There doesn’t seem to be any great choice of decisions, does there?” He was calm and composed now, with that stony look that Ernie was beginning to know and not like. “When he calls again I will have to admit that I was lying about Lorene and try to reason with him. Perhaps he’d let me come out alone and talk to him—I don’t know. There’s just a chance that he’s bluffing about killing Carolyn, or that he won’t really have the nerve to do it. I imagine it won’t take long to find out. After that, you and the FBI can go ahead any way you want to.”

  “I don’t think your chances are very good,” Packer said.

  “Neither do I. But they’re better than yours would be in a full-scale man hunt. He might let me get close enough at least to talk to him.”

  “Yeah,” said Ernie. “Close enough maybe to kill him yourself, and I know how that would end. No, wait. Let’s think about this.”

  Ben sat down. He watched Ernie with a kind of eerie politeness, waiting for him to speak.

  Ernie scowled and then said nervously, “He wants to talk to Lorene himself tomorrow night. Well, why not? It isn’t exposing her to any danger to talk to him over the telephone, is it? She ought to be willing to do that much.”

  “Supposing she were,” said Packer. “Supposing she says she wants to see him and makes him believe it. What then? No, I’m not being an obstructionist. I’m just asking. You heard what he said.”

  “Sure,” said Ernie. “I heard him. He’ll see Ben and Lorene a long time before they see him and if anything looks wrong he’ll start shooting.”

  “Exactly. And if Lorene says she’s coming and then doesn’t come—”

  “But suppose she does come?” said Ernie. “Not really Lorene, but someone that looks enough like her to fool him for a few minutes, long enough to get Carolyn away from him. One of our own guys dressed up—no, that wouldn’t work for a minute, she’s too small. A policewoman, a volunteer, one that’s a good shot and plenty able to take care of herself. See? The meeting’s bound to be at night, and it’s bound to be in a pretty lonely place, which means it won’t be well lighted, and in the dark—”

  “Slow down,” said Packer. “I want to think.” Ernie moved around impatiently, looking askance at Ben and trying to judge his reaction.

  Packer was muttering to himself. “—by car. He’s obviously planned some way to watch and make sure they come alone. But we could hide two men in the car, one in the trunk and one on the floor of the back seat. If the real Lorene was convincing enough on the phone, and the phony one was a close enough match—”

  He turned to Ben. “All we need is to get your wife away from him for one minute. I t
hink this might do it.”

  Ben thought it over, frowning as though he found it difficult to concentrate.

  Finally he said slowly, “There would be three of us there to kill him, then.” He was not counting the policewoman.

  “No,” said Packer. “Only two. You wouldn’t have a gun. Listen, Mr. Forbes. I know how you feel, and I would personally just as soon shoot Guthrie as I would a copperhead. But we can’t do it that way. We have two primary concerns. A, to rescue your wife. B, to arrest Guthrie and see that he’s brought to trial.”

  “I’m a lawyer,” Ben said, “The law is pretty stupid sometimes, isn’t it?” His hands opened and closed, vaguely, hungrily. “You’d kill him if you had to, though.”

  “That will depend on him, whether he puts up a fight or not.”

  Ben nodded. Again he seemed to be thinking. Then he said, “I’m willing.”

  “Good. We’ll go talk to the Chief. MacGrath, you too, this was your idea.” He went into the bedroom and came back with the tape in a box, which he put in his pocket. “Drumm, you stick around here. And will you call the Kratich house now and have whoever’s on duty there bring Mrs. Guthrie downtown? You can tell her why. Have her bring some extra clothes with her, a complete outfit.”

  Ernie saw that Ben got his hat and coat and got into Packer’s car. He himself drove Ben’s and left it in the police garage, where the necessary modifications of the deck lid would be made. He went upstairs, obsessed now with doubts and seeing a million things wrong with his bright idea.

  But Packer had already outlined it to Harbacher, and Harbacher was adding some ideas of his own.

  “We can install a radio in that back seat, so the man we have there can keep us informed. That way we’ll know exactly when and where contact is made and when to throw in more men. This will very likely be in county territory, so we’ll have to work with the Sheriff’s Office.”

  He turned to the map of the county that was pulled down on one wall of his office.

  “Here’s Sentryville. Now, Guthrie says he isn’t anywhere around Sentryville, but it stands to reason he can’t be hundreds of miles away from it, either. I’d say he’s probably holed up somewhere in here.”

  Harbacher traced a big lopsided circle on the map with his forefinger. The circle included most of the northeastern corner of the county, which was away from the industrial complexes of the Mahoning and Shenango valleys and consisted of farmland, creek bottom, swamps, hills, and woods. The two main roads, one north and south and one east and west, had villages strung along them. There were dirt roads straggling off to other villages, but not many and not large. Most of them, Ernie knew, had only a couple of houses and a gas pump. In between was nothing but country, full of deer and small game. Guthrie could be anywhere in any one of thousands of potential hiding places. Even a full-scale effort might take days to rout him out.

  They were not going to try one yet. Not until after tomorrow night, if it was still necessary.

  “But,” said Harbacher, “we can have men all around the point of meeting ready to move in. We can have Guthrie sealed in so tight he’ll need wings to get away.” He picked up the phone and said, “Get me Sheriff Magnusson.”

  Ben Forbes said sharply, “They mustn’t do anything to frighten him.”

  “They won’t. They’ll just be within call to see that he doesn’t get away.” He spoke into the intercom, asking to have Mrs. Guthrie sent in.

  She came promptly, and Ernie thought she looked awful. Her face was puffy and her eyes were all swollen up and there was something crushed and subdued about her. She did not seem to want to meet Ben’s gaze. Packer took her over and showed her the map while Harbacher talked to the Sheriff. “Can you remember any place in this general area where your husband used to go? Did he hunt? Did you ever go on picnics? Did he ever mention knowing anyone who lived here? Did you ever drive around these country roads?”

  She seemed to be thinking earnestly and hard, but her answer was always no.

  “All right,” said Packer. “Let’s go down and see how you’re doing about a double. Mr. Forbes—”

  Ben went with him, and Ernie came too. “They’re all too tall,” Lorene said. “And they don’t look like me.”

  “Perhaps we can fix that,” Packer said. Kratich was sitting in the corner of the room when they went in. He looked grim, and Ernie noticed that Lorene kept giving him uneasy glances and placating little smiles. He thought he could just about figure out what had happened. Nobody had told Lorene yet about talking to Al Guthrie tomorrow night. He wondered what she would do when they did. He kept looking at her and thinking, Christ, the whole thing hangs on her now.

  The department had come up with three possible policewomen, all volunteers, all smart and capable and excellent shots, and all, as Lorene had said, too tall.

  “Maybe we can take care of that with flat heels,” Packer said.

  “But I never wear flat heels. Al would notice that.”

  One of the policewomen, a nice-looking brown-haired girl named Virginia Dalby, suggested overshoes. “They hide the heels. And if it’s in muddy country there wouldn’t be anything strange about wearing them.”

  Lorene supposed that would be possible. She had brought some clothes in an overnight bag. One by one the policewomen went elsewhere and changed and then came back to stand and walk beside her while Forbes and Packer studied them. Finally they settled on Virginia Dalby. Ernie knew that this was not the first time she had been set out for bait. She had worked for two muggers and a gang that had specialized in robbing women. He hoped she would work for Al Guthrie.

  “You’ll need a little padding here and there,” Packer said. “And a dye job or a wig or something. The hair has got to match perfectly. That’s the first thing he’ll notice. And if you could do something about your face to make it look fuller through here and around the mouth.”

  Policewoman Dalby thought she could manage it.

  “As long as you’re ready by tomorrow evening,” Packer said. “I want you to go home with Mrs. Guthrie. Study her carefully. Remember this man is a potential killer and we can’t give you one hundred per cent protection. You’ll have to fool him well enough that he doesn’t shoot you and Mr. Forbes both on sight.”

  “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  “Go change your clothes, then. And, Mrs. Guthrie, come over here. I want to talk to you a minute. No, Mr. Kratich, I want you to hear this too.”

  Oh, oh, thought Ernie. Now it comes.

  He leaned against the opposite wall, smoking and watching Lorene’s face. It was already pale. Now it turned a sickly gray. Her mouth opened and then closed again, and then she darted a quick frightened glance at Kratich and then at Ben and managed to say something that sounded like yes. Packer went on talking to her for several minutes, trying to impress upon her the importance of what she would say to Al Guthrie, but Ernie doubted if she heard anything after the first announcement.

  The phone rang and Ernie answered it. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay, I’ll tell him.” He hung up and looked at Packer. “It’s about the old man who rented the house to Guthrie. He’s downstairs pretty mad.”

  “Yes?” said Packer. “What about?”

  “He says Guthrie stole fifteen dollars’ worth of blankets when he left. He wants us to arrest him right away.”

  twenty-one

  It was daylight again.

  For a while Carolyn thought she was still in the little bedroom in the house where she had been for such a terribly long time. But the bed was too hard and she was tied up differently. There was something she ought to remember.

  She stared in the direction her head happened to be turned, a deep line forming between her eyes.

  The window was different. He had taken the quilt away. There was a shutter closed on the outside and little thin strips of light leaked like water through the cracks.

  She was cold. Her body ached with a dull anguish. She turned on the hard, hard bed.

  She was not on
a bed. She was on the floor. The boards were wide and warped. Their edges curled up and made ridges, and their square ends had pulled loose. They were worn down deep so you could see the long stringy grain. They were thick in dust. She could smell the dust and taste it.

  There was another window. In the room there had only been one. She frowned miserably, trying to remember, frightened because she could not.

  Another window. Six windows in all, three on each side, tight shuttered. A door at the front of the room, closed. A red rusty iron stove with no stovepipe and an empty woodbox. Pillowcases and cartons with things in them dumped in a heap in the corner beside Al’s battered suitcase.

  Herself on the floor.

  And Al Guthrie on the floor too, sitting on it with his back against the wall. He was wrapped up in blankets. He was drinking from a can of beer and talking.

  “—all my life,” he was saying. “Making it tough for me. Everybody making it tough.”

  His face was sullen. His lower lip stuck out, moist with beer. He talked.

  “I never made any trouble. I wouldn’t let people walk over me, that’s all. A man’s got his rights. But they were all the time making it tough, making it tough.”

  He was not talking to Carolyn. She lay still, watching him with her eyes half closed.

  He drank more beer and lighted a cigarette and muttered.

  “—tough for them now. I’m just about through. Tonight I’ll see what I feel like doing. Goddamn bastards—”

  It’s funny, Carolyn thought, I’m not afraid of him any more. I’m too tired. I’m not even hungry. I’m not anything except tired.

  She began slowly to remember.

  She had been here before. When? Yesterday perhaps. The last time she was awake she had seen the room and Al had told her it was an old one-room country schoolhouse that hadn’t been used for years. That was after they left the other house. After that middle of a night—

  No. No, don’t remember that part.

  So close. Ben, dear Ben, how happy we used to be and you were so close to me. And I ran and I almost got away. I could see the street. If I could have shouted and screamed, but I couldn’t, and he beat me and hurt me and the ground was cold.