The Long escape

by Dodge, David, 1910-1974

  Irene Taylor said, "I'm afraid you've made a mistake, Miss STorth."

  The quiet, completely indifterent way she said it straightened the blonde up like a left hook. "What does that mean?" she said harshly.

  "I don't have the manuscript now,"

  The gun jerked a little and I felt the muscles of my legs tense to spring. "Don't lie to me!"

  "I'm not lying." If Irene Taylor was frightened by that gun, better eyes than mine would have to see it. "Would you recognize the manuscript, Miss North?"

  The blonde, hard lines in her face, took a slow step toward the other woman. "I certainly would! And if you're trying "

  "Then if you'll look in the fireplace you'll find what little is left of it. When I learned Raymond Wirtz was dead, 1 made up my mind his murderer would never get what he was after. I burned that manuscript not more than twenty minutes before you came in."

  I thought Lola North was going to faint where she stood Then she was across the room and sweeping the fire screer aside. She bent, keeping the gun barrel and one eye more oi less on us, and poked at the small blaze there, mostly ashe; now, with a brass poker.

  When she straightened again, the poker clattered to th( bricks and all color was gone from her face. "You fool!' she cried. "Do you realize what you've done? Didn't yoi know what it was ?"

  Nothing changed in Irene Taylor's face and her voice wa as indifterent as before. "Raymond told me it was some thing very old and very valuable. I didn't ask any quei tions and that was all he said about it."

  "Valuable?" The blonde's voice cracked in the middle c the word. "It was worth millions, you—you "

  Irene Taylor seemed not to be listening. I was watchin

  the younger one, waiting for the reaction to set in—a reaction that might mean bullets for Mrs. Taylor and me.

  The blonde turned, scooped up her bag, went quickly along the hall and out the front door.

  I slumped back on the couch, talking to myself. Irene Taylor sat across from me and listened, a blank look on her face. When I ran down, she said, "Are you going to let her get away, Mr. Pine ?"

  "I couldn't do anything else if I wanted to. She hasn't done anything to be nabbed for."

  "But she tried to get the manuscript!"

  "She didn't get it. All she did was worm her way into my confidence and they don't go to jail for that. . . . Uh— you really burned it, Mrs. Taylor? All of it?"

  "Yes, Mr. Pine."

  It was impossible not to believe her. "This," I said, "is the damnedest thing. And yet it couldn't hardly have turned out any other way. Well, good-by, Mrs. Taylor, You are a wonderful woman."

  All the way back to the Loop my thoughts were on Louie A.ntuni and how he was going to take the news. Take all lope of Heaven away from a man like that, a man who all lis life has had but one answer for people who let him down, lind you know what to expect,

  I saw myself walking into that small brick bungalow out ;)n the West Side and facing him across the desk of that iteam-heated room. I heard myself saying, "It was a great siream while it lasted, Louie. Only it's over now and there'll :'e no golden streets for you."

  It could earn me a barrel of cement for my legs and the Drainage Canal for a tomb. At best it would cost me my fifty :rand. It seemed a trifling amount.

  At one-forty-five I was downtown and turning the Plymouth over to an attendant at the parking lot. He looked at my expression, grunted and drove the car up the ramp and away. I went on down Wabash to Jackson Boulevard and stopped at the corner newsstand for the latest edition of the Daily News.

  For a long time I stood there staring at the headline while the man held out my change. He said, "You want your money, mister?"

  I shook my head and moved over to the curb. While waiting for the light to change, I looked at the headline again.

  FORMER GANG LORD DIES IN SLEEP

  I folded the paper and stuck it under my arm. Off to the east the clouds were breaking up. No more rain for a while. I stood there looking at that patch of blue. Up there somewhere was the place Louis Antuni had tried to buy a ticket for.

  Maybe they had let him in without one.