“Don’t be funny.”
“From what I can see you look like her, except for the gun. May I lower my hands now?”
“No. What are you doing up here?”
“Waiting for a streetcar. What’s your explanation?”
“Your signal,” I said, brushing water from my hair. “I thought maybe you were in trouble. And I gather you are.”
Wind and rain beat at the cabin furiously.
“I’m a mountain climber,” he said, still grinning. “I mistook these for the Alps. My mistake.”
“The only mistake you made was thinking I was Tunny’s daughter. Where is she?”
“How should I know?”
“You called for Toy when I came in.”
The grin spread wider on his handsome face. “I’m just a kid at heart. Can I help it if I lost my rocking horse when I was five?”
“You’re going to lose more than that if you don’t straighten up,” I threatened.
“I’m as straight as I can get,” he said mockingly. “Damn, you look good in a wet sweater.”
“As good as the Italian Angel looked hanging from that tree?”
His thick brows lifted slightly. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb, pal, you saw the ambulance.”
He glanced toward the window. “Is—is that what that was? I thought it was some sort of special celebration. Everybody was grouped around that tree. I—”
“Angela Scali’s dead.”
His head jerked, eyes widening. “I—I don’t believe you!”
“Somebody carved her up like a Christmas turkey.” My glare was acid.
“You—you don’t think that I—?”
“You haven’t explained why you’re up here yet.”
He nodded dismally. “I am waiting for Toy Tunny. She and I brought Angela back to the camp this morning.”
My hand tightened harshly on the revolver. “So you’re the guy who broke into my apartment?”
He paused, then, “Yes. I’m sorry. I—I didn’t realize you’d be hurt.”
“What’d you expect? An ice cream party?”
“Toy told me everything would be all right. When we got inside you were lying on the floor. Angela had a gun in her hands.”
“She sure did,” I said. “How do you figure in this?” He lowered his arms half-way, head shaking “Rip’s my cousin. We played together for the Rams.”
“That doesn’t gain you much yardage with Angela Scali. You’re hiding out in a cabin above the falls where she died. You’ve admitted breaking into my place to get her.”
“I didn’t want to leave you lying there, but what could I do?”
“You could have put a knife in my ribs.”
He leaned back against the window. “I didn’t touch you, or Angela. I brought her to the camp and left her outside her apartment. And that was the end of that.”
“Far from it,” I said. “You’re here. On the mountain. You were signaling. Don’t tell me that’s how you get a streetcar in the rain.”
“I—I,” he stammered. “Toy told me to come up here.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” he said flatly. “She’s a peculiar person. She said she had some evidence that would point to Rip’s killer.”
A voice broke behind me. “And I wasn’t kidding, baby.”
I whirled. A naked woman with short brown hair stood framed in the doorway. She had a German Luger aimed at my head.
“Drop it, Miss West.”
The revolver slipped from my fingers, clattering on the wood floor. “So we finally meet, Miss Tunny.”
“You’ve been getting in our way, Miss West. I don’t like that.”
“Toy,” Spensor broke, “she says Angela’s dead.”
“She is,” Toy answered, flicking green eyes at the husky Rams football player. “Unfortunately she is, Ray. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry!” Spensor roared, moving around the table. “That’s great. How did it happen?”
“Somebody was hiding in her apartment.” Toy said, gesturing with the Luger. “Back up, Miss West. I know you’re full of tricks. So we won’t stand on formality. Okay?”
Toy Tunny was well named. She wasn’t much larger than a doll. In the storm’s muted light her round, wide eyes seemed as if they were made of glass. Her arms and legs were pudgy and dimpled. She was dripping wet from the rain and she brushed her hair as she leaned down for my revolver.
Ray Spensor crossed to the window again where rain still slashed heavily at the glass. “Toy, you shouldn’t do this,” he protested.
“Don’t be silly, baby,” she said, rubbing her round little stomach with the butt of my revolver. “It’s either her or us. I heard what she said. She could hang a noose around our necks.”
“But we didn’t do anything,” Spensor argued.
“These private dicks don’t care about evidence, baby.” She lifted the Luger into my face. “Strip down, Miss West.”
“What?”
“I said take off your clothes. And be quick about it. You’re going to spend some time up here. At least, until we can get away.”
“Now look, Miss Tunny, I already went through this routine with your father and besides—”
Her finger tightened on the trigger. “She doesn’t want to cooperate, baby. I guess you’ll have to do the honors. It won’t be the first time.”
“Toy!” Spensor erupted.
“Do you want to hang for the Angel?” Toy demanded, harshly.
“Well, no, but—”
“Then get busy.”
Spensor advanced toward me, an apologetic look on his handsome face. “Please, Honey.”
“No please about it, baby,” Toy blurted. “My car’s parked on the South Mountain Road. Even with her stripped and tied we’re going to be lucky if we get through the Sheriff’s barricade below Arrowhead. I’ll wear her skirt and sweater.”
“They won’t fit you, Toy,” Spensor said, reaching around my waist.
Toy laughed, her pudgy frame shaking. “The cops shouldn’t notice if the rain keeps up. I’ll be hunched in the seat.”
“You’re making a mistake, Miss Tunny,” I said, as Spensor peeled my wet sweater up over my bra. “If you’re innocent I could help you.”
“It isn’t a question of innocence,” Toy answered, rubbing at her freckled cheeks. “It’s a question of guilt. Now with Angela dead, I know who the murderer is.” Spensor ripped off my sweater and glowered at the other woman. “You talk too much, Toy.”
“Just trying to be helpful, baby,” she said, smiling. “Maybe Miss West means what she says. If that’s true she ought to look up Sol Wetzel, Angela’s agent.”
“Why?” I demanded.
“Because he was in love with the Angel. Madly. He hated any rivals.”
Spensor’s fingers dug impatiently at the hooks on my brassiere, “Toy, that’s enough!”
“Okay,” she said, tossing him a length of rope from one of the boxes. “Get her skirt and let’s blow this joint.”
He jerked down on my skirt zipper and I stepped out slowly, trying to figure a way I could stop them from leaving me behind in the cabin. There seemed to be only one avenue, and that was through Ray Spensor. I whirled on him, crushing against his thick chest.
“Hey!” he blurted.
“I need you,” I whispered in his ear. “Don’t leave me!”
The storm was so loud outside the cabin I was sure Toy Tunny hadn’t heard what I’d said. She pressed the gun against my spine hard.
“No nonsense, Miss West. Lover is a sensitive guy. You’re liable to shake up his molecules. Down, girl.”
I clung for an instant, my face buried in his neck. “Come back for me,” I whispered, as a clap of thunder rattled the cabin. “You won’t be sorry.”
Spensor pushed me away from him, his eyes narrowed in the semi-darkness, mouth twisted.
I knew I’d made progress. His mouth opened over straight white teeth a
nd he took a deep breath, eyes still fixed on me, a hungry, searching look that said, “I want you!”
“The rope, lover,” Toy said. “She’s only a woman. You’ve seen dozens of them in the Playground.”
“I know,” he said mechanically. “She—”
Toy placed both guns in his hands and grabbed the rope. She tied my hands behind my back, then pulled me to the floor.
“You’ll thank me for this someday, Miss West,” she said, looping the rope around my feet and knotting it harshly.
“Maybe I’ll return the favor,” I said. “Only mine’ll be around your fat little neck.”
Her eyes lighted angrily. “Don’t be sour, lambie. Somebody’ll rescue you before tomorrow. Maybe a forest ranger. They love coming up here and peeking down at the naked girlies.”
“You don’t go much for your father’s religion, do you, Miss Tunny?” I said, writhing from the rope burns on my wrists.
“Are you kidding?” Toy wrinkled her freckly nose, taking Spensor’s hand. “Dad is the original con man. He started in carnivals years ago. He was the ventriloquist, the mystic, the hypnotist. For money he’ll do anything. Molest teen-age girls. Dance on graves. Watch out for him, Honey! He’s no good.”
“Toy!” Spensor protested again, glaring down at me.
“Come on, lover,” the pudgy girl said, grabbing my clothes. “We’ve got a rendezvous with Sol Wetzel. See you in the funny papers, Honey.”
She jerked Ray Spensor through the door. For an instant, I could hear them running across the fire break toward the path down the mountain, then a surge of thunder drowned their movements and rain began to pelt hard on the roof. I wriggled around for fully five minutes trying to reach the knots Toy had tied, but they were impossible. It got darker. And bitterly cold. Through the window above my head rain splattered in on my face, cooling my anger, but not helping my predicament.
I couldn’t understand why Toy had tied me up. It didn’t make sense unless she was involved in either Rip Spensor’s death or Angela Scali’s. I thought back to the night before when I’d found tarantulas in my car. This was the kind of country where spiders of that variety thrived. They lived in holes in the side of the hills.
The door banged, swung open and banged again. I was hoping Ray Spensor would come back. I didn’t relish spending a night in this cabin. And then there was the possibility no one would find me even tomorrow. Thor Tunny had said this cabin had been abandoned by the forest rangers. If I couldn’t escape the rope, I might be here for days, even weeks. Maybe that was what Toy had in mind.
Suddenly I heard footsteps outside.
“Hey!” I cried. “In here!”
They drew nearer, muted by the thunder and rain.
Then the door opened again and I saw the outline of a man standing there, a hat slouched on his head, his shoulders bent against the storm.
“Here!” I yelled loudly. “I’m tied on the floor! Help me!”
The figure moved forward slowly, his face hidden by the darkness. One leg dragging under him, a cane thudding on the wood floor.
“Fred?” I demanded. “Is that you?”
The man didn’t answer. He moved around the table, cane clopping, leg dragging, head bent.
“Fred?” I repeated.
Thunder rolled harshly in the sky, shaking the cabin. He stood above me, a seemingly huge figure. His cane lifted.
“Honey?” The voice sounded like Fred’s, but I wasn’t certain.
“Here,” I pleaded. “Here, Fred!”
The cane swung in an angry arc, thudding on my shoulder. I screamed from the pain.
“Fred!”
Thunder crashed wildly. So did the voice.
“I’m going to kill you, Honey!”
SEVEN
The cane smashed against my ribs.
“Fred!”
I spun forward, the rope tearing at my flesh, and crashed against the table. Wood splintered as it toppled over on the floor.
“Honey!” the figure cried, as he stepped around the broken piece of furniture, face hidden in the darkness.
His cane swung again, grazing my leg, bringing another cry from my lips. I rolled on my shoulder, kicking up my heels frantically, pushing myself toward the door. The wood surface burned my back and arms as I moved.
He came after me, his cane rattling on the floor. He brought it down again on my shoulder, the shaft cutting into my flesh.
I kicked at him. One ankle struck his right hip and he lost his balance. He fell hard, groaning from the impact.
Thunder rattled above the mountaintop.
Gritting my teeth for all I was worth, I shoved myself toward the door. I could manage to wriggle caterpillar-fashion. He got to his feet slowly, bracing himself with the cane, his shadow huge along the cabin’s ceiling.
I reached the door and tumbled out into the rain and mud. He came after me, cane lifted again, leg dragging behind.
“Fred, you idiot, it’s me!” I screamed.
The late afternoon sky was pitch black and failed to cast any light on the advancing man’s face as he staggered out onto the ridge.
His cane flicked again, slamming down on my head. I kicked, reeled, my senses spinning from the blow, the sky turning wildly over me.
Suddenly I found myself on the crest of the mountain where the fire break slanted down to a grove of trees hundreds of feet below. I teetered on the edge, looked back at the advancing figure, and pitched myself over.
The first few yards were easy. Then it seemed as if the rope was tearing me to pieces. I screamed. Blackness came up and smacked me in the face and I stopped screaming and just relaxed. I felt mud in my mouth and rain drilling on my flesh. And suddenly I wasn’t rolling any more. And even with the rain and thunder I could hear the steady crunch crunch of someone coming down the mountain after me.
“My God, you’re lucky,” a voice said. “You could have been killed.”
I felt strong arms under me and I writhed, anticipating more blows from a cane.
I opened my eyes. Ray Spensor’s handsome face loomed over me, mouth taut. Beyond I saw the cabin’s worn wood beams. He carried me into it and set me down gently.
“You—you came back,” I stammered.
“Of course, I did,” he said, bending over me. “You were halfway down the mountain. I thought you were dead.”
“Did—did you see him?”
“Who?”
‘The man with the cane.”
“No. You weren’t in the cabin, so I looked along the fire break. You were lying between the ridge and some trees. Lucky the ground was soft from the rain. What happened?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed, trying to sit up. “Someone came after me. With a cane. I thought—”
“You thought what?” Spensor demanded.
“That it was somebody I knew.” I shook my head. It ached again. Bad. There was a cut on my shoulder oozing red through a layer of mud. The rest of me was pretty well caked with the brown slime.
Ray Spensor found some old rags in one of the cartons, and wiped my face and shoulders. “We ought to get you to a doctor,” he said. “You’re bleeding.” He put a clean piece of cloth around the cut and under my arm, then slipped his sweater around my shoulders.
“Where’s Toy?” I asked, trying not to squirm as he wiped more mud from my stomach and legs.
“Gone down the mountain. She threatened me with that Luger, but I knew she wasn’t serious. I just couldn’t leave you here.”
“Thanks, Ray. What do we do now?”
“I’m going to carry you to the camp,” he said, lifting me again. “They’ve got a doctor there.”
Outside, the rain had faded into a fine mist in the late afternoon sky. He took a trail north of the cabin which zig-zagged down the face of the mountain. Mark Storm met us outside the temple. The big deputy took one look at me wrapped in Ray Spensor’s letterman sweater, and he grimaced bitterly.
“Now what?” he boomed.
“I fe
ll down the mountain,” I said.
Mark glowered at the husky, pro football player who held me tight in his arms. “And I suppose he was waiting at the bottom to catch you.”
“No, but I wish he had been.” I decided to make the best of an awkward situation. “This is Rip’s cousin, Lieutenant. All right, so I don’t dig up suspects in a conventional manner. So put me in jail.”
The deputy moaned. “Oh, how I wish I could. Come on, Spensor, I want to talk to you.”
While I showered and had my shoulder wound bandaged, Mark questioned Ray Spensor in the hall outside the medical office. Apparently the Rams fullback told the deputy nothing about Toy Tunny’s escapade because Mark asked about my missing clothes when he came inside.
“I gave everything else away,” I said chidingly. “So why not those, too. I’m a benevolent gal.”
He leaned against a wall, shooting a side glance at the skinny, unclothed doctor who sat at his desk filling out a report of my accident. “If I thought you were serious,” Mark said, “I’d give a donation to this dump just to keep you out of my county’s hair for a while. What’s the tab, Doc?”
“Flesh wound,” the medical man said, not looking up. “Nothing serious.”
“How about my injured vanity?” I asked, trying to hide myself in the letterman’s sweater.
“It’ll heal,” the deputy countered. “Now what were you doing up on the mountain?”
The doctor left the room at Mark’s nod.
“I was raising cane,” I said, noticing a welt on the side of my right leg. I shoved myself off the examination table and stood up, smoothing the bulky sweater down over my hips. “Where’s Fred Sims?”
“I dunno. Filing his story, I suppose.” Mark tucked a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. “How many times must I repeat my question?”
“Oh, Mark,” I snapped. “Stop trying to play big strong detective with me. What’d you dig out of Tunny?”
“A game of Scrabble.”
“Don’t pull the wool over my eyes, Lieutenant.”
He glanced at my bare legs and grinned. “Right now you could use a little wool, but not over your eyes, sweetheart.” He exhaled some smoke. “Your hypnotic theory was a flop. We questioned at least thirty different members. We even brought up a specialist from San Berdoo. He says they may look like Barney Google, but they’re happy as clams. Not one of them was in a trance or spell.”
Honey West: A Kiss for a Killer Page 6