“Careless. I can’t believe it of Sol.”
“Careless, nothing. Where would he be most likely to tip his hand that he was coming into Stoneville? Why, when he bought his lot. So he was saving that until the last, until he was ready to jump.”
“I still say it was careless. Suppose someone jumped in ahead of him—like, I gather, you’ve done?”
“No one could. What he wanted was the Bower lot, and I had the place leased. I was playing shutout with it. As soon as I went broke, of course, I’d give up my lease and Sol could buy.”
Hap shook his head. “Marvelous, laddie. Positively brilliant. And that’s the only place in town that Sol could move in on?”
“The only one. That’s the only block without an alley; the lots run straight on through. The Bower lot is kind of bottle-shaped. It squares off and spreads out after a few feet.”
“And there’s no other lot in that block?”
“Two—but the bank and the hotel are sitting on them.”
“Terrific! One more question, old bean. How did you happen to acquire this juicy bit of real estate?”
“You know, Hap. I traded something for it that’s going to be worthless.”
“Uh-hah, your show. That’s what I supposed. But there’s one little point I’m not quite clear on. Our friend Taylor doesn’t know that your house is going to be worthless. He regards it as a little gold mine. Why wasn’t he suspicious when you swapped it for his prize white elephant?”
I’d stepped into one again; he knew now that I was walking a pretty ragged rope.
He laughed softly.
“This is much better than I thought, laddie—or worse. Y’know, I think I’ll raise my sights on you. I really think I shall.”
“What’s the Taylor deal got to do with you?” I said. “You don’t know anything, Hap.”
“Haven’t I said so all along? I know enough to sound the alarm. The firemen, speaking metaphorically, will do the rest.” He tapped a yawn back with his hand. “Odd how this subject of fires keeps cropping up, isn’t it?”
“What do you want?”
“Well, what kind of holdup are you pulling on little Solly? Honor bright, now. I’d be very hurt to catch you in a falsehood.”
“I’ve got a check for fifty grand in my pocket.”
“Uh-hah. A very neat evasion. Perhaps I’d better ask Sol about it and explain my interest in the matter.”
“I get a hundred and fifty more,” I said, “when he moves in.”
“You see?” Hap shrugged. “You can tell the truth when you have to.” He sat up and reached for the whisky bottle. “Shall we drink on it—partner?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Partner?”
“Partner,” I said.
He poured us a drink and we touched glasses; and I couldn’t help thinking how nice it would be to drop a little arsenic in his. Then, I saw a shadow in the hall and I knew Carol was listening, and I thought— Well, never mind. Sometimes you get an idea in your head, and it’s pretty hard to get it out.
Hap swished the liquor around in his glass, studying me. “Y’know,” he said, “you’re really a very lucky man, Joe.”
“Sure,” I said. “Sure, I am.”
“Oh, but you are. If I hadn’t become interested in the success of your little plan—which necessarily involves your own safety—I probably would have stood aside and let Fate take her course with you. A very unpleasant course.”
“Now what?” I said. “What are you trying to pull now?”
“Take yourself back to the morn of the tragedy, old man. You stop by the show and visit the projection booth, and, lo and behold, you discover that your supply of photoelectric cells is exhausted. It comes as a complete surprise to you. You hadn’t planned on going to the city, but now you must. Ergo, you provide yourself with an alibi for being out of town.”
“Well?”
“But you had your suitcase in your car. Jimmie Nedry saw it when he passed by on his way to work. So you must have planned on going to the city before you ever noticed the alleged absence of those cells.”
“So what?” I said. “Maybe I was—”
“—taking some clothes to the cleaners? Not good enough, laddie. That could be checked on. And that isn’t the clincher, at any rate. It wasn’t the first time you’d hopped Jimmie about missing equipment; and he’d taken certain precautions. He’s ready to swear that the cells you supposedly bought in town bore the same serial numbers as those that were missing from the show. In other words, old chap, your alibi is a phony.”
“He—he told you all this?”
“Mmm. Got quite fond of me, did Nedry. And in the morning, when Blair swings his transfer, he’s going to tell him.”
He grinned at me over his glass, and I began to see red. What the hell! This was my deal. I’d taken the risk and done all the thinking, and here was another guy with his hand out!
“Let the little bastard talk,” I said. “Let him go to hell. He’s lying! He got the numbers of those cells wrong. He—”
“Huh-ah. But even if he had it wouldn’t make any difference. You still couldn’t afford to have him tell that story.”
“He can tell anything he pleases! By God, I’m—”
Hap’s hand shot out. He caught his fingers in my collar and jerked and twisted.
For a minute I thought my neck was broken.
“That’s how a rope feels, laddie. Just a little like that. But don’t fret. If you crumb this deal, I’ll settle with you myself.”
My throat felt like I’d swallowed a cantaloupe. “How—h-how much do you think—”
“Nothing. Not a red.”
“Nothing?”
“No money. It wouldn’t do any good. Your projectionist has one of the most alarming cases of honesty I’ve ever seen. He’s even conscience-stricken at having used his information to pry a better job out of Blair.”
“But he hasn’t told him yet?”
“He hasn’t. And he won’t.”
“I see,” I said. And he nodded and looked at his wrist watch.
“Well, I really must be shoving along. I told them at the hotel that I’d be checking out tonight. Told several people, in fact. Must be getting back to the city.”
“I hate to see you leave,” I said.
“It’s trying, isn’t it? But the best of friends, you know, and all that rot— Oh yes—”
“Yeah?”
“It’s terribly lonely when friend Nedry gets off work. Been thinking it might be awfully awkward for you if he should be slugged by footpads or some such thing. Perhaps you’d best be at home here around eleven-thirty. Miss Farmer can alibi for you.”
“Okay, Hap,” I said.
“On second thought, I incline to the belief that some doubt might be cast on the Farmer veracity. Call your telephone operator at eleven-thirty. Ask her the time. They still give it here, don’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Cheerio, then.”
“Cheer—so long,” I said.
26
There was a chocolate cake in the refrigerator and part of a baked ham. But I passed them up and opened a can of soup. I wasn’t particularly hungry, and I’d been eating too much recently. Just this morning I’d noticed that I was getting a little paunchy.
I heard Carol come through the door, and I could feel her standing behind me. I went on eating and pretty soon she walked around into my line of vision. And it was all I could do not to burst out laughing.
She had a new kind of hairdo, and a plain black dress, and she was trying to stick her nose in the air and hold her chin down at the same time. Sure, Elizabeth. Or Carol’s idea of Elizabeth.
I ducked my head over my soup.
“You look mighty pretty, Carol,” I said, as soon as I could say anything.
“Do you like me better this way?”
I wasn’t sure of the answer to that one. “You always look good to me. How about some soup?”
“I’ve already at
e—eaten.”
“Coffee?”
“No. You go ahead.”
I went ahead, taking my time about it, doing some thinking. This was the second or third time she’d listened in on my conversations. She was nervous and scared, of course, but, hell, I was a little uneasy myself, and I didn’t pop out at her every time she opened a door.
I wondered if it was always going to be like this. I wondered if I could never go an place or do anything without having her breathing down my neck.
Without worrying about her getting worried.
I shoved my plate back and lighted a cigarette. “I guess you know,” I said, “that there’s been some trouble.”
She nodded. “Yes. I know now.”
“I’m glad you heard,” I said. “I intended to tell you as soon as I could see my way out. Didn’t want to worry you unless I had to.”
“You—you weren’t afraid to tell me, Joe?”
“Now, why do you say a thing like that?”
“I—I couldn’t stand it if you were afraid of me, Joe! I know how you feel—how you got to feel. I’m different, now! When you kill someone it changes you. But—”
“I was afraid,” I said, “but not that way. You’d stuck your neck out. It looked like it might not get you anything. You might have thought that we—I—had known it wouldn’t get you anything. That I’d put you on a spot, and was going to walk off and leave you.”
“And try to go to Elizabeth?” she snapped.
“You see?” I said. “Now get that idea out of your head, Carol. I had Elizabeth and I didn’t want her. She had me, and she didn’t want me. I figure she brought you here with the idea that I’d fall for you.”
“Oh, no, she didn’t!”
“She had some reason for doing it, and it sure wasn’t charity.”
“She wanted me around to make herself look good! I’m a woman myself and I know. That’s why I hated her so much! Don’t you suppose if she’d wanted to get rid of you she’d have got someone that didn’t look like—like—”
“Carol,” I said, and I got up and put my arm around her and gave her a hug.
The dame was nuts if she thought that about Elizabeth. Elizabeth didn’t need anyone around to make her look good.
“Well, it’s the truth,” Carol said.
“No, it’s not,” I said, leading her into the living-room. “And you’re getting yourself all upset over nothing. All that matters is that we’ll be in the clear after tonight, and we’ll have plenty of money. Let’s not spoil it.”
“Promise you won’t try to see her, Joe.”
“Of course, I won’t,” I said. “Do you think I’d run a risk like that?”
“You’ll give me her—the money and let me send it to her?”
“I told you I would. Now forget it.”
She wiped her eyes and smiled, sort of trembly; and I fixed us a drink. I thought for a minute the arguments and explanations were over, but of course they weren’t.
I was beginning to see that they weren’t ever going to be over. I wondered how Elizabeth felt about it all now.
“How long will it be before everything is settled, Joe?”
“Two or three months, anyway.”
“Can I stay here until—”
“No,” I said. “You know you can’t, Carol.”
“Just until that insurance man leaves, Joe! Just let me stay that long. He—he scares me. I don’t want to be away from you as long as he’s around.”
“Well,” I said, “we’ll see.”
I meant to get her out of the house in the next day or two if I had to pitch her out a window.
Rain began to patter on the roof. It started in easy, and got harder and harder. Inside of a half hour it was a regular downpour. There was a hell of a crash of lightning somewhere near by, and Carol shuddered and snuggled close to me. I reached back to the wall and turned on the furnace.
“Joe.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“It’s kind of nice being this way, ain’t—isn’t it? Being able to do just what we please around the house.”
“I’ll say.”
“Elizabeth would say it was too early for the furnace.”
“Yeah, she sure would.” It sounded pretty halfhearted, so I had to say something else. “If you wanted to see someone that was really tight you should have seen her old lady. We cleaned out her room after she died, and she had darned near a whole closet full of dry bread—just scraps, you know.”
Carol snickered. “She must have been crazy.”
“I guess she was along toward the last. You could hardly blame her, though, with a husband that spent all his life writing a history of the county.”
“What’d he do that for?”
“God knows,” I said.
Carol snuggled closer. The room began to get warm. The wind rose and fell, throwing the rain against the roof in long steady swishes; and she seemed to breathe in time with it.
My knees began to ache from her weight, but I didn’t move. I didn’t want to talk any more about Elizabeth or her folks or anything. Everything was all right now. I’d told her about a hundred times that I loved her and didn’t love Elizabeth. A man can’t spend his life hashing over the past.
I dozed for a few minutes, what seemed like a few minutes. When I woke up, the clock had just finished striking.
I jerked out my watch. Eleven-thirty. I shoved Carol off of me, waking her up, and stumbled out to the hall. My legs had gone to sleep and I could hardly walk.
The phone rang just as I was gripping the receiver.
I answered it automatically.
“Joe?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve got to talk with you, Joe. How soon can you come down?”
“Why,” I said, “what’s wrong?”
“I’m at my office. You’ll be right down?”
“Well— It’s kind of a bad night.”
No answer.
“Well, sure,” I said. “I’ll be right down.”
I hung up.
Carol was still sitting on the lounge, her face whiter than anything I ever hope or want to see. Her lips moved, but no sound came out of them.
“Web Clay,” I said; and, as if she didn’t know: “Our county attorney.”
27
She swallowed a couple of times and finally found her voice.
“W-What does he want?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mr. Chance?”
“Goddamnit,” I said. “I told you I didn’t know!”
Hap wasn’t supposed to call; he was going right on into the city. But I didn’t think it could be about him. Hap was too smooth an operator to be taken in by any of the Stoneville clowns. If there’d been a chance of being caught he wouldn’t have taken it.
But even if they had got him, what could he say? What could Jimmie Nedry say, for that matter? Enough to start the ball rolling, sure, but the ball hadn’t had time to roll yet. Even Web Clay wasn’t dumb enough to tip his hand to me until he had a lot more to go on than he would have.
I went over to the hall tree and took down my hat and coat. And…
And she didn’t say anything and I didn’t hear her move. But her hand went past mine and grabbed her coat.
I jumped, startled. Before I knew what I was doing, I whirled and slammed her against the wall. It hurt her. It hurt and I was damned glad of it.
She bounced forward, trying to dodge around me; and I caught her by the wrists and we struggled. And then we stopped, posed like a couple of wrestlers in a picture. Ashamed. Scared stiff.
“Sorry if I hurt you, baby,” I said. “You kind of startled me.”
“It’s all right, Joe.” She tried to smile back at me. “I just want to go with you.”
“You know you can’t. How would it look, Carol?”
“I’ve got to, Joe!”
“You can’t!”
“No one knows there’s anything between—”
“You’re damned ri
ght they don’t,” I said, “and they’re not going to, either. What would you be doing up at this time of night? Why would you be traipsing along with me?”
“You don’t understand, Joe. I—I—”
“I understand all right,” I said. “You’re afraid I’ll spill something. You want to get in on the ground floor when the talking starts.”
It was a bad break but I couldn’t hold it back. I’d held myself in as long as I could. Anyway, she might as well know that I was onto her. We knew where we stood now.
“Do—do you really think that, Joe?”
“What do you expect me to think? You’re certainly not worried about me chasing off after Elizabeth.”
“No. I’m not worried about that.”
“Spit it out, then, if you’ve got anything to say.”
“You’d better go on, Joe.”
“You’ll stay here?”
“Where else would I go? Yes, I’ll stay here.”
I shrugged on my coat and pushed past her. She spoke again, just as I was opening the door.
“Joe—”
“Now what?”
“I just wanted to tell you, Joe. Everything’s going to be all right. You don’t have anything to be afraid of.”
“Not any more than you have,” I said. “Not as much. Don’t forget it.”
I got the car started, and went slipping and skidding down the lane to the highway. At the intersection I jerked the wheel toward the right, toward town. I had to jerk it. Something had almost made me turn the other way.
People in Stoneville go to bed pretty early, even when there isn’t a storm to keep them off the streets. I toured around a dozen blocks without passing anyone or without seeing any lights except those in the courthouse. There were a few cars parked out, but none of them was Hap’s. I began to breathe easier. He must have done the job and got away.
There was just one way to make sure, of course. That was to drive by Jimmie Nedry’s house and see if he was there. But I didn’t have any reason for doing that, any excuse I mean, and there wasn’t time.
It was almost a half hour, now, since Web had called me. Regardless of what had happened, he’d start wondering if I didn’t show up soon.