“How much was it supposed to be?”
“Goddamnit, don’t you try knockin’ down the price. You people know my price. I got a good place here. Lots of important folks haven’t been leery about my price. And I never had no woman here before, and I don’t like that. Women, they run off at the mouth. Say, I’m sorry about my woman takin’ that ring. She’s got an eye for pretties.”
“How much more do we owe you?”
“Two hundred and fifty dollars,” he said, with a warm smack of his lips.
We went to the doorway. I stood with my back to the road and counted out the money. Tram’s money. He took it, folded it, and stuffed it in his pants pocket.
“What’d the gal do?” he asked. “You don’t have to tell me, you don’t want to. But I kinda wondered, her being young like that. Why’re they after her?”
I reached out and took the gun out of his hand, saying, “Pardon me.” The dog growled in the darkness.
“Shut up, Mack,” he said.
“You don’t have to know what she did,” I said.
He shrugged. “Just wondered. Come on in, mister.”
The naked child gave me a wide-eyed look. Sipe examined the lantern, hoisted the mantel, relit it, and adjusted the flame. “I can git her while you bring the car up, mister.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Suit yourself. Let’s go.” I followed him back through a sour kitchen and dirt-floored woodshed. He had the soft tread of an animal. Behind the house was a narrow yard, and a path leading directly into the brush. The song of the peepers grew louder. The narrow path was winding, and branches reached out from either side. I heard the dog snuff loudly behind me. We came to an open place and directly ahead was an expanse of black stagnant water. He held the lantern high.
“Can’t beat this place, mister. Had some real big shots glad to rest up here. Safe as churches. Can get out by boat or car or trail back through to Lake Catouatche. Now, step careful. The catwalk’s about six inches underwater and narrow. Step right where I step.”
I followed him across to the small island. Oily ripples flowed away into the darkness with each step. The catwalk felt greasy underfoot, and it was about seventy feet long. My shoes squelched loudly in the night silence as we came out on the muddy shore of the island. It was barely big enough to hold the shack with dark windows. Sipe shouldered the door open and put the lantern on the table in the center of the room. There were two double bunks, a kerosene range, and an ancient ice chest.
The small figure in the bottom of the farthest double bunk looked ominously still. She was dressed in the same outfit she had worn to the party where I had first met Laura. Mexican half blouse of white lace. Hand-painted skirt. Sandals.
I went over to her and shook her. “Jill!” I said sharply. Her head lolled loosely. In the lantern light her face was oily with perspiration, and her color was sick. Her dark hair was matted and tangled, the blouse filthy, the skirt stained, a jagged angry-looking tear in the soft cheek, not deep, but obviously inflamed.
“Pretty damn short stay for this one,” Sipe said. “Fella said he gave her a shot so she’d get some rest and said it’d keep her out till tomorrow sometime. Look, now. I better carry her and you take the lantern. I’ll go ahead. I could cross that walk with my eyes closed.”
He reached into the bunk, slid one lean arm under her knees and the other under her shoulders, and lifted her out. Her head tilted back loosely and her free arm swung.
Sipe stood facing me, Jill in his arms. He gave me a wide grin that showed his mossy teeth, and held her a bit closer so that he could cup her breast with his big yellowed hand. “Like to kep’ this bit around a while,” he said, winking at me.
I turned away, my jaw shut so tightly that my teeth ached. I picked the lantern off the table and said, “Well, let’s go.”
I yanked the door shut behind me. When he got to the edge of the water he shifted her in his arms, put her face down over his right shoulder so that he could clamp her legs in his right arm and leave his left arm free for balance. I walked closely behind him. Jill’s arms hung straight down. Her head swung against his back with each step he took.
Twenty feet along the narrow path he stopped so abruptly that I ran into him. The dog, who had waited for us to come back across the catwalk, growled softly at my heels.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Git off the path,” he whispered. “Somebody coming.” He crouched and moved sideways with his burden into the brush. He lowered the girl quickly to the ground, snatched the lantern, and blew it out. I saw the dancing beam of the flashlight coming.
“Who’s that?” Sipe called.
The flashlight winked out at once. “Where’s the girl?” a voice demanded thirty feet away. I recognized Straw Hat’s voice.
“This here fella come to git her.”
“Man with a shirt with fish on it?”
“Yeah. Fella you sent.”
“He’s the law, Sipe.”
I heard the sudden harsh suck of Sipe’s breath. By then I had the gun in my hand. I rammed the barrel against him and said, “One word to that dog of yours and I pull the trigger. Listen, Sipe. You’ve been suckered. You’ve been pulled into a bad rap. Why do you think this girl was brought here unconscious? This is a kidnaping pitch. This brings in the F.B.I. She’s a reporter for the New Orleans Star News. Her name is Jill Townsend.”
“Answer me, Sipe!” Straw Hat called.
“They told me she was wanted. They told me she was on the run,” Sipe whispered, his breath coming short.
“I’m not the law. Play on my side, Sipe, and I’ll see if I can get you out of this.”
“I got the girl right here,” Sipe called. “Come on down the path and we’ll talk it over.”
“Don’t cross me, Sipe,” Straw Hat called, and he was closer.
Sipe moved back into the path. I couldn’t see him in the blackness. He muttered to the dog. I heard the hard running pad of feet, the familiar sound as of water swirling down a drain. The flashlight winked on and the beam caught the running dog, caught Sipe crouched in the center of the path. It was in slow motion. The black deadly leap of the dog. There was a shrill frightened cry from Straw Hat, and it was punctuated by the full-throated blam of a shotgun as the flashlight, still lighted, dropped to the ground and pointed off at right angles to the path.
My ears were ringing. I heard a rolling and thrashing, a deep snarling, a snap and chomp of jaws. Then there was a rising scream that stopped so abruptly the back of my neck turned to ice. There was no more thrashing in the path.
“Lantern,” Sipe said in an odd, choked voice. I reached around in the darkness until I touched the hot glass. “Light it,” Sipe said.
I burned my fingers fumbling for the thing that levered up the mantel. The first match sputtered out. I touched the wick with the second match and got the mantel back down. The flame grew. As the light spread I saw Sipe sitting in the middle of the path, his knees pulled up, his thin arms laced across his stomach.
The dog came slowly down the path, tongue lolling, eyes agleam.
Sipe turned toward me and his lips pulled back away from his teeth. “Hell of it—is—my own gun.” He lowered his forehead slowly onto his knees. His shoulders hunched and tightened. Then he relaxed all at once and tipped over onto his side, toward me, uncoiling just enough so that I could see where the charge had got him, right in the pit of the stomach.
The dog stood and looked at Sipe. He lowered his head and nuzzled Sipe. He whined softly. He nuzzled him again, whining louder. Then he raised his muzzle toward the stars and gave a long, baying howl. As his head came down he fixed me with his eyes. The great shoulders tensed. I could almost feel him reasoning to a conclusion. While he had been occupied with the other stranger, this stranger had hurt his beloved master. It is odd to love a dog for his enormous loyalty, and yet hate and fear him at the same time. I couldn’t risk the muzzle waver of a double-action shot, so I softly cocked the
hammer. The click was loud in the stillness. I saw the dog gathering himself for the spring. I had no choice in the matter. After the hollow tone of the shotgun, the revolver sounded thin and sharp. The shot drove him back on his side. He turned and bit at his own flank. The second shot stilled him. His legs made a feeble running motion and then he was still. The massive head rested on Sipe’s thin shank.
I carried Jill up the path the way Sipe had carried her, the lantern in my left hand, her right hip warm against the side of my throat and my cheek. I did not want to look at Straw Hat. I tried to step over him without looking directly at him, but I couldn’t. I went on with long strides, and I gagged, and barely kept from being ill.
May stood at the end of the path in doughy immobility.
She stared at me. Then she went running down the path in the darkness, crashing through the brush. When I reached the road I could hear thin distant screams mingling with the insect song, the wail of the tree toads, the thick grunt of a tug on the river. I walked up to where the car was. Cars slowed as they saw me, then speeded up. No Samaritans. Just nice clean careful people. Stay out of jams. Avoid anything that might lead to a courtroom.
I shifted her so that I held her across my two arms. A truck was coming. I stepped out into the lane when it was still two hundred yards away. I faced the oncoming lights, standing still with Jill in my arms.
The air brakes chuffed and heavy tires screamed. As he neared me he swung into the other lane, still braking. He stopped fifty feet beyond me. I walked up to the high door of the cab. It swung open and a wizened monkey face stared down at me.
“You crazy? What’s the matter with her?”
“An accident.”
“Swing her up here.” I did so. He reached down and grabbed her slack arms and pulled her up into the seat. I climbed up, supporting her between us. A man in the narrow bunk behind the seat was snoring loudly.
I waited until he had worked his way up through the gears to cruising speed. I said, “I don’t want cops in on this. It might be embarrassing to the lady.”
“She’s hurt, isn’t she? You got to report accidents, guy!”
“Not hurt. Tight.”
“How about her face there?”
“Just a scratch. Look, I’ll give some money for your trouble. Are you heading across the bridge?”
“Uh-huh.”
Jill had slumped over against my left shoulder. I got the wallet out. There was one more fifty, and a pack of smaller bills. I took the fifty out and held it down to where the dash lights showed the denomination.
“How about taking me far enough into town so that I can get a cab?”
“I ought to take you to the highway patrol.”
“This is a fast fifty dollars. You won’t be in any trouble over it.”
“I got to make miles. This load is for Houston.”
“I’ll add a twenty and make it seventy. That’s the top.”
He looked at me. The wizened face cracked into a grin. “You know something? You just about convinced me.”
The truck pulled away from us. Fortunately Jill was small enough so that I could support her against my side, her feet just clearing the sidewalk. I reached across my chest with my left hand and put my fingertips under her chin to keep her head from sagging onto her chest. In the darkness we could be mistaken for a slightly tipsy couple. Tipsy and amorous.
The problem was where to take her. I had three keys on the chain. The apartment Laura had found with Jill’s help, the apartment where Talya had died, and Jill’s apartment. My place would probably be watched. There might still be a police guard at the Harrigan apartment. And I felt very uneasy about going back to Jill’s place.
Suddenly I remembered the disagreeable woman who had charged me Mardi Gras rates for the motor-court room out on Gentilly. I sweated as I walked Jill across the street to the cab stand. The driver swung the back door open.
“Upsy-daisy!” I said, swinging her in and onto the seat. I got in, pushed her over on the leather-covered seat, and pulled the door shut.
The driver gave me a wise look. “Where to?”
“Now, you look like a man of the world,” I said.
“Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You lost your luggage and you and your wife want to find a nice room someplace.” His voice was acid.
“A motor court or a nice little hotel, friend.”
“And the lady is tired, eh?”
“Hell, she’s passed out,” I said.
“That makes it tough, and expensive.”
“You’re driving the car, friend.”
He shrugged and put it in gear. The truck had brought us into the Broadmoor section. He drove over to Broad Street, headed up Broad to Bayou Road, and got onto Gentilly at the circle. I had half expected him to head that way. He didn’t go as far out Gentilly as I had. He turned right into the arched entrance drive of a walled court.
“Give me twenty bucks and stay right there,” he said. “I know this guy.”
He left the motor running and went into the office. He leaned on the counter and talked to a broad, bald-headed man. Beyond the bald head I could see the wall clock. It was a shock to me that it should say only twenty to twelve, that it was still Monday, that it was still the same day I had spent so restlessly at Tram’s house.
He came back out, whistling softly to himself, and drove into the court, looking for numbers on the small brown cottages. The place was planted with stubby palms. The fronds whispered against the side of the cab.
“Here it is. Number eighteen. Need any help with her?”
“Just go and unlock the door, friend.”
I took a five out of my billfold before picking up Jill and edging out of the cab with her. He had turned on an overhead light, inside. I handed him the bill. He went whistling down the steps and drove off.
I caught the door with my heel and kicked it shut. I carried her to a dusty couch and put her down. It was a long narrow room with a draw curtain so that it could be changed into two rooms. The couch I had placed her on was of the kind that opens up to make a double bed. There was a double bed in the far end of the long room, and a bath that opened to the right near the bed.
It was an old place, stained with innumerable transients. It smelled of dust and damp rot. The walls were city-hall buff. I opened the door again, put the key on the inside of the lock, and locked the door. The place was hot and airless. But it was precious because it was refuge.
There was a bed lamp on the double bed. I carried her in and put her on the bed and turned on the bed lamp. I went back and turned out the overhead light, opened the two front windows, and pulled the draw curtain.
I went back and sat on the edge of the bed. The springs creaked loudly. I took her hand in mine. I didn’t like her color, and I didn’t like the way she breathed. Her pulse rate was an even fifty. Her hand felt as boneless as putty.
The sensible thing to do was get hold of that doctor she had called Jack. But she had never mentioned his last name.
Another choice was to let her sleep it off. That didn’t sound good either. I decided that maybe I could get her back to life enough so that she could give me the doctor’s name and number.
I unstrapped the sandals from her bare feet and set them on the floor. I took a look in the bathroom. There was a tub but no shower. I put the stopper in the tub and turned on the cold water. It ran out in a discouraged trickle, rusty against the stained porcelain. There were two discouraged towels, terry cloth with most of the little nubs worn off, gray rather than white.
The half blouse had three buttons at the side. When I had unbuttoned them, I pulled it off over her head. Her bra was so tight it cut into her back. I unhooked it and pulled it down over her limp, boneless arms. It left a depressed red line where it had encircled her. The Mexican skirt had one button at the left side and a concealed zipper. I went to the foot of the bed and got the hem and pulled it down off her slim legs. The panties were pale blue, like the bra, with an elastic around the waist
and a thin border of gay yellow lace around the legs.
I put her clothes neatly on the chair. Her body was quite astonishingly lovely, with no roughness or coarseness of skin, no flesh sag. Her skin was like cream and her breasts were tipped with delicate coral pink. I looked upon her, and felt no desire, no guilt for looking at her as I did, only a sick fear that too much drug had been given her. To many minds the mere thought of a “nekkid woman” is erotic. There was nothing erotic about my thoughts as I looked down on her and tried to decide whether the shock of the cool water would help her or harm her. I compromised by going in and getting one of the towels and dipping it in cool water, wringing it out, and bringing it back to the bed. With it I rubbed away the dirt, the dried oil of perspiration. I turned her face down gently, half smiling as I saw the small raspberry mark, the mark shaped like a half-moon, like a tiny scimitar.
As the towel became soiled, I kept refolding it to disclose clean surfaces. I used hot water on the gash in her cheek. Once the crust of dried blood was gone, it looked a good deal less important.
I picked her up in my arms and carried her into the bathroom, clumsily rapping her bare ankle against the doorframe. I knelt with her beside the tub, lowered her into the cool water and raised her out quickly, lowered her again so that the water covered her, then raised her out. Too late, I remembered my wrist watch. The damage was done, anyhow. I watched her face and kept repeating the process until my arms felt as though they were going to drop off. I let her rest in the water for a time, and then started again. When her fingernails and lips began to have a faintly blue tinge, I carried her back to the bed, got the dry towel, and rubbed her down so briskly that her skin began to glow pink. Just when I was about to give up, her slack lips stirred. She made a complaining groan and tried to turn her face away from the light. I slapped the undamaged side of her face sharply. My fingers left red marks. She groaned again. She sounded like a cross child being awakened to catch the school bus.
No matter how I tried, I couldn’t bring her out of it any further. I left her there, walked a quarter mile to a bean wagon, and came back with a quart of hot black coffee in a container. I held her head up and got some of the coffee down her throat. She choked weakly. I set the coffee aside, pulled her onto her feet, and supported her there. When I tried to walk her, her feet merely dragged. After several more slappings, several more sips of coffee, I tried again. Her feet worked weakly. She was taking steps. She made groaning complaints constantly, her chin on her chest, head lolling. But I was persistent and I was merciless.
Murder for the Bride Page 16