by Craig Rice
The big clock on the wall of the sheriff’s office announced that it was seven-thirty. Bingo glanced at it.
“We have a business appointment at eight o’clock,” he announced. “If you’ve got that camera packed, Handsome—”
In the car he took out the slip of paper Clancy had given him and read it aloud to Handsome.
“Turn off the concrete road at State Highway 42.”
“O. K.” Handsome said. “Forty-two. I’ll watch for it. What are you going to say to her when we find her, Bingo?”
“I’m going to say, ‘Give us back our hundred and seventy-two bucks, and all is forgiven,’” Bingo said. He leaned back against the seat cushions and said, “Don’t bother me. I’ve got a little mental arithmetic to do.”
Forty-three prints of Will Sims at twenty-five cents each. Forty-three pictures of campers at twenty-five cents each. “Twenty-one dollars and fifty cents,” he said out loud.
“Twenty-one dollars and twenty-five cents,” Handsome corrected him. “You forget that Bobbie Hartel won’t be there to have his picture taken. He’s home with the poison ivy.”
“Plus the twenty-one dollars and eleven cents we already have,” Bingo said.
“Forty-two thirty-six,” Handsome said. “And that looks like State Highway 42 ahead of us.” He slowed down, examined the road sign, and turned off to the left.
“Drive two miles, turn off to the right on County Highway H,” Bingo read from the paper. He put it back in his pocket and said, “Forty-two dollars and thirty-six cents, plus what we might make off Charlie Hodges. He ought to send a print of himself standing under that advertising sign to every prospect in Thursday.” He paused. There were 1042 people in Thursday. “Hell’s bells, he ought to send one to every prospect in Thursday County. What’s the population of Thursday County, Handsome?”
“Thirteen thousand three hundred and eight,” Handsome said. “I knew my reading those guidebooks would come in handy some time.”
“And everybody in Thursday County ought to be a prospect for him sooner or later,” Bingo mused. He glanced at Handsome and said hastily, “No, don’t try to figure it out. Let’s just see how many prints we can sell him.”
Bingo closed his eyes for a moment. A hundred prints at twenty-five cents apiece. Five hundred, maybe a thousand. He sighed happily. And on top of everything else, they might be going to get their hundred and seventy-two bucks back.
Handsome turned right on County Highway H, a well-surfaced black-top road. “Drive four miles,” Bingo said, “to—” He consulted the paper again. “County Highway S, turn right.”
County Highway S turned out to be a single-track dirt road. They drove along it slowly. Once a farm truck passed them, and Handsome swung far out into the ditch. For a moment the convertible seemed to be stuck, Handsome put it in reverse, gave the wheel a sharp turn, stepped on the gas, and they were back on the road again.
“Turn right,” Bingo read from the paper, “on first crossroad.”
The first crossroad proved to be the concrete highway. County Highway S turned into it just at the outskirts of Thursday.
“What the hell,” Bingo said, bewildered.
“We drove in a circle, that’s all,” Handsome said. “I hope she knew what she was doing when she wrote those directions.”
Handsome stopped the car beside the road. Bingo sat thinking for a moment. It must just be Henny’s way of playing coy. There were still more directions on the paper to follow.
“The worst we can get,” Bingo said, “is lost. Let’s go on and see this through.” He looked at the paper again. “Drive five miles, turn left on State Highway 14, turn left on County Highway Q, and drive one half mile to large pair of iron gates on right-hand side of road. Drive in and make yourselves at home.”
“That sounds pretty definite,” Handsome said. “Maybe she just got mixed up at first.” He started the car again.
They drove in silence through the streets of Thursday, and for a few miles on the other side, turned left on State Highway 14 and, finally, left on County Highway Q. Handsome slowed down, watching the right-hand side of the road. “There’s the gates all right,” Bingo said. He peered through the windshield. “Nice, impressive-looking place, isn’t it, Handsome?”
“Yes, Bingo,” Handsome said, turning in. He sounded a little subdued.
They weren’t actually gates, Bingo saw, just an enormous ornamental iron archway. He looked out the side of the car into inky darkness.
“No sign of a house,” he said.
“There’s something,” Handsome said, slamming on the brakes. “But it ain’t a house, Bingo. It’s a tomb.”
Bingo reached for the flashlight in the dashboard compartment, opened the convertible door, and looked to see where they were. He saw trees, decorative bushes, and a lot of tombstones.
What had the last line of her note said? “Drive right in and make yourselves at home.”
“Bingo,” Handsome said anxiously, “do you think it’s a gag?”
Bingo did not answer for a moment. He thought it was, but in view of the hundred and seventy-two bucks he had to make sure. “There’s one way to find out,” he said. “We’ll wait and see if she shows up. That is, if you don’t mind the surroundings.”
“I don’t,” Handsome said.
“Me neither,” Bingo said. “But keep the lights on.”
At nine o’clock they decided it had been a gag. Handsome backed the convertible carefully out of the cemetery. Bingo got one more look at the iron archway and saw that the lettering on it read: AT REST AT LAST. Well, at least, he thought, it hadn’t read: COME BACK TO THURSDAY.
“All I hope,” he said, “is that we can find our way home.”
“A half mile on County Highway Q,” Handsome said, “Turn right on State Highway 14—”
“Handsome,” Bingo said sternly, “shut up.” He closed his eyes and let Handsome worry about the highway number. When he opened them again, Handsome was bringing the convertible to a stop behind the shanty. Bingo thought he’d never been so glad to see a place in his life.
Handsome led the way in with his flashlight, and stopped suddenly just inside the door. “Somebody’s been here,” he said. He found the oil lamp and lighted it.
Someone had been there. Even Chris Halvorsen’s house hadn’t been searched with such thorough and deadly efficiency. The mattresses on the bunks had not only been pulled off, they had been ripped apart. Every container on the shelves had been emptied out. Even the floorboards had been loosened, as though someone had looked under every one of them. And on the table was a handful of currency and a note.
Bingo counted the money first. A hundred and seventy-two dollars. The same hundred and seventy-two dollars. He recognized the way the bills had been folded. The note read, “Thanks, boys. You’ll never know what a help this was.”
Bingo stared at Handsome, for once completely at a loss. “What do you make of this?” he asked.
“I don’t make anything of it,” Handsome said. He looked around the room, sighed, shook his head, and said sadly: “I guess I better start cleaning up.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
There’s nothing to be afraid of, Bingo told himself resolutely and for the hundredth time. They won’t come back. And even if they did, they’d be easy to handle.
Furthermore, he wasn’t really sleepy. After all, he’d had a long nap this afternoon. Just because it was after three in the morning—
Besides, at four o’clock Handsome would wake and take over the watching job. Bingo yawned, braced himself, and resolved that under no circumstances would he (a) wake up Handsome, (b) fall asleep.
Was that a sound outside the shanty? Footsteps? A car?
Nonsense. Purely his imagination. Or one of the turkeys having a bad dream.
He’d read somewhere that deep breathing would wake a person up. Feeling tired and drowsy was nothing but a lack of oxygen in the system, or something like that. He began taking long, slow breaths.
<
br /> Maybe the whole idea of staying awake, and on guard, had been unnecessary. If they—whoever “they” were—had searched the shanty, the way they’d searched Chris Halvorsen’s house, and found nothing, they certainly wouldn’t come back.
He glanced reproachfully at the sleeping Handsome and murmured, “Sticking around here was your idea.”
After the discovery that the shanty had been practically torn apart by a searching party, Bingo had been all for leaving Thursday County, without any unnecessary delay. Handsome had objected. They’d taken a number of pictures, for which they’d accepted payment in advance. The souvenir pictures, taken outside the shanty, weren’t dry enough to mail yet and wouldn’t be for several hours. The forty-three prints of Will Sims, to be given to forty-two campers and Bobbie Hartel, had to be made and dried. And there were forty-two campers to be photographed in the morning at Triple-Oaks Camp.
Bingo had thought, with what seemed to him like perfect logic, that since they’d collected in advance for all the pictures involved, they might as well push on to Nebraska. It would not only save time, trouble, and possible danger, but it would save photographic material, as well. He’d known better, though, than to voice such a suggestion to Handsome.
Handsome had developed the pictures they’d just made, while Bingo had watched. Then, on Bingo’s insistence, Handsome had taken the, first sleep.
There had been two reasons for that. First, Bingo knew that if he took the first sleep, when the shift was due Handsome wouldn’t wake him. Handsome would stay right on awake, all night. Second, he could see Handsome was tired.
As usual, Handsome pretended that he wasn’t tired, that he didn’t mind sitting up for six more hours. Bingo knew better. After all, Handsome had lost sleep the night before too, and had spent the afternoon developing and printing pictures while he—Bingo—took a nap.
Now, at some time past three in the morning, Bingo was beginning to regret the whole thing.
He’d started out worrying about being bored. For the first hour, he sat adding up the day’s take and the cash on hand, and re-adding them to make sure he’d been right the first time. Twenty-one dollars and twenty-five cents. Plus twenty-one dollars and eleven cents. Plus the one hundred and seventy-two bucks.
After he’d come to a total of $214.46 by a variety of types of arithmetic, mental, written, counting cash, and counting on his fingers, he’d decided that the figure must be correct. $214.46, plus an unguessed sum that might be made off Charlie Hodges and the rest of Thursday County.
It was a tidy little sum, but not large enough for him to start planning ways to spend it.
There was a pile of old, tattered, and dusty magazines in the corner. He pawed through them. Confession magazines, Westerns, detective stories, and comic books.
He read confession magazines until illegitimate babies, secret sins, and high-school parties grew dull. He read steadily through the Westerns and the detective stories until they began to get mixed up in his mind to the point where he wasn’t sure whether the hard-boiled cops were shooting at the heroes, or vice versa. Then he switched to the comic books, and they scared him.
He read to the point where a lovely, innocent-appearing little blonde suddenly donned the wings of a bat and flew through the air with a dagger in each hand. Then he decided he didn’t really want to read, anyway.
Anyway, it would be time for Handsome to wake up pretty soon.
Besides, there was no reason to feel nervous. There wasn’t any possible danger.
Was that a car stopping outside?
No, just a car slowing down at the curve.
The searching party had already been there. It wouldn’t come back.
The murderer, who was still running around loose, couldn’t have any possible interest in Riggs and Kusak, of the International Foto, Motion Picture, and Television Corporation of America.
There was nothing to worry about.
And it would be Handsome’s turn to watch the door in—Bingo consulted his watch—ten more minutes.
Bingo relaxed again.
Country air at night smells funny. Different from city air. Sort of green, and wet. He wasn’t sure that he liked it. It didn’t smell like anything he was used to.
And it was so quiet. Too quiet. No cars and taxis and buses. No loud and boisterous people going home at nearly four o’clock. No fights going on in the next building.
There was a sound, though. He couldn’t identify it, and he didn’t like it. A curious, rhythmic, clicking, almost purring sound.
It couldn’t be a person breathing just outside the door: it was too loud, and fast, and rasping.
Maybe it was some kind of animal, crouched out in the yard, ready to spring.
Maybe he ought to wake up Handsome. It was almost time, anyway.
Bingo sat motionless, every nerve end tingling, listening hard.
Was it getting louder?
A twig snapped outside.
Bingo let out a yell.
“Hey!” Handsome yelped, jumping off the bunk with his eyes still half closed, but both fists clenched and ready for action. “Where are they?” He woke up the rest of the way and stared at Bingo.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Bingo said apologetically. “I heard a noise and it startled me.”
Handsome listened. “What noise?”
“That noise,” Bingo said.
“That’s crickets,” Handsome said. “Just plain crickets.” He yawned, stretched, and said, “It was time for me to wake up. Now, you go to sleep.”
“Well,” Bingo said, “I guess I might as well.” He looked longingly at his bunk. “Not that I’m the least bit tired. I’d just as soon stay up the rest of the night.”
“Go to sleep,” Handsome repeated. “I got to finish up these pictures, anyway.”
Bingo yawned and said, “In that case—”
He stretched out on the bunk. Funny this country air made a person sleepy. Or maybe it was just because everything was so quiet and peaceful. The little shanty seemed so pleasant, so secure, so homelike. Handsome at the table, working on the prints. The oil lamp turned low. The crickets singing outside. He yawned a second time, and closed his eyes.
“Bingo,” Handsome said suddenly. “I hear a noise.”
“Crickets,” Bingo said sleepily.
“No. A real noise.”
Bingo sat up. He heard it, too.
Someone moving very cautiously and quietly outside the shanty. Someone pausing at the door. Then someone knocking, softly and almost timidly.
Bingo and Handsome looked at each other.
“Come in,” Bingo called.
The man who came into the shanty was a stranger to Bingo and Handsome. He had on a cheap blue-serge suit that didn’t fit very well, and was badly rumpled and dusty. He had mousy brown hair, cut very short, and little gray eyes that looked quickly and furtively around the room before he entered it. His face was very pale. He had a sawed-off shotgun in the crook of his arm.
“Were you looking for someone?” Handsome asked politely.
“Which of you guys is Siller?” the stranger said.
“Siller?” Bingo said. “No one of that name here. You must have the wrong address.”
“This is the right address,” the stranger said. “Cut out the hop talk. Hoist ’em!”
Bingo and Handsome obeyed, fast.
“All solid,” he called. “Move in, Monk.”
Another man came into the shanty. He was small and bandy-legged and frightened. He had on a dirty sweater and a pair of overalls much too large for him.
“Sound ’em,” the stranger said.
Monk searched Bingo and Handsome quickly, efficiently, and rather apologetically. Then he shrugged his shoulders, and held out his hands, indicating that Bingo and Handsome weren’t armed.
The stranger gave a long, low whistle.
Three more men entered. One was tall and thin, and looked tubercular. One had a completely bald head, and a sly, oily expression.
The third was a big, sullen lummox, with shoulders like the eaves on a barn. All of them were pale, all of them were dirty and unshaven, all of them wore wrinkled, dusty, badly fitting clothes. The big lummox also carried a sawed-off shotgun.
“No fakealoo now,” the first man said sharply. “Where’s Siller?”
“He’s in Charlie Hodges’ Undertaking Parlor, in Thursday,” Bingo said. “The finest establishment of its kind in Thursday County. And he looks very handsome, the way Charlie Hodges laid him out.”
The stranger stared. “Dead?”
“He was the last I saw him,” Bingo said.
The bald-headed man said, “Well, Terrier? What now?”
“We know where the ace is, Professor,” Terrier said. He said to Bingo, “Where’s Clancy?”
“I don’t know,” Bingo said.
“Where’s Gus?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“Where’s the girl?”
“I wish I knew,” Bingo said. That turned out to be a serious error.
“Oh, you do,” Terrier said. “Why?”
He had to think of a good reason, fast. “Because I’m crazy about her.”
Terrier winked at the other four men. The big lug giggled. The bald-headed man winked back.
“Delightful little establishment you have here,” the tall, thin man said. “I think we’ll be very comfortable. How is the cuisine and the service.”
“We’re very particular,” the bald-headed man added. “Nothing but the best hotels and flophouses.”
“And barns,” the big lug said. He had a deep voice and a slight speech impediment. He giggled again.
“Shut up, Loogan,” Terrier snapped.
Bingo decided it was time to take the offensive, shotguns or no shotguns. He said, “What the hell’s the idea, busting in here this hour of the night.”
“We’re going to stay here,” the tall, thin man said. “We’re tired of the barn we’ve been sleeping in. It’s a horse barn, and the Professor here has an allergy.”
“Is there any food in this flopperie?” Terrier added.
“Eggs and bacon,” Handsome said. “How did you crush out?”