wall.
'Blaze did it!' she screamed when she saw my face. 'Blaze did it! I wanted to let him go-'
I shot her in the throat, three times.
'Tell your story in hell, if you can get anyone to listen,' I rasped. She collapsed in a heap and thrashed on the floor, blood pulsing between the fingers of both hands clasped to her neck. 'If they can patch up your lying voice.'
I stepped over her.
I had work to do.
I went outside into the clean darkness. First I looked up at the stars to orient myself. I knew where the cache would be. For a hideout in the country, Bunny and I always followed a pattern. From the front door of the cabin I stepped out due north as accurately as I could reckon it. I knew the sack wouldn't be more than thirty or forty feet from the cabin well.
In daylight it would have been a cinch. Even in the dark and in the thick brush it wasn't too hard. My feet told me when I hit softer earth. Bunny had planted something green over the sack. I ripped up the bush, pulled the chisel that was the only tool I had from my pocket, and tore into the loose ground. A foot below the surface I ran into the sack.
By the light of the flash I made certain that the bulk of the Phoenix swag was still in the canvas container. Then I reburied it, stamping down the earth around the replaced bush. There was no sense in lugging the sack around with me. I'd be back for it after I brought Blaze Franklin out here and roped him to Bunny's body to die the same way Bunny had.
I went back inside for a last look around. Lucille was unconscious, bubbles of blood oozing instead of jetting with each shallow, ragged breath. She wouldn't last long. Not long enough, actually. She was lucky. If I hadn't been so angry that I hadn't stopped to think, I could have figured a different end for her. A slower end. She was just as guilty as Franklin.
And where would Deputy Sheriff Blaze Franklin be now? After the motor froze up in his police cruiser from the sugar I'd dumped into his gas tank, he'd have to make his way back to my motel, the Lazy Susan, and hope that I returned there. That's where Blaze Franklin would be, and he'd get his wish about my return in a way he never expected.
I went down the path to the Ford and got out of there.
I drove straight to the Dixie Pig, Hazel's place. I wanted Franklin, but I had another errand first. En route, I shook a box of bullets loose in my jacket pocket. I drove with my left hand and reloaded with my right. I've spent a lot of hours practicing reloading one-handed.
At the Dixie Pig, I scouted the back parking lot in case Franklin had outguessed me. There was no two-tone police cruiser on the parking lot. I parked alongside Hazel's car and went in the back door. She was behind the bar, her six-foot figure towering above the half-dozen seated customers.
Her face lighted up when she saw me, but I thought her expression looked strained. She held up the hinged flap at the far end of the bar. She was wearing her usual Levi's, cowboy boots, and short vest that emphasized her big breasts and the smooth skin of her bare arms. She was far and away the most woman I'd ever had. And the best.
I followed her along the duckboards and out through the hanging curtain in the center of the backbar. The room behind the curtain was set up as a lounge, with a couch and a couple of chairs, a Primus stove, and a coffeepot. 'Get a bag packed,' I said to her. 'I'll be back for you in half an hour.'
Her large hand caught mine and squeezed it hard. 'Listen to me, Chet. Please.' Her voice was low. 'Franklin has everyone in the county looking for you. There's half a dozen of them waiting in the motel yard. They never dreamed you'd come back here.'
So. End of the line for Chet Arnold in Hudson, Florida. And I couldn't get to Blaze Franklin. I couldn't? The hell I couldn't. I held out my hand to Hazel. 'Forget what I said about a bag. Give me your car keys.'
She turned to her handbag on a chair. 'Chet, please let me come with-'
'Tell them I took the keys away from you,' I cut her off. I knew I couldn't take her with me now. I was less than even money to make it. Hazel handed me the keys, and I punched her in the eye. Big as she was, she still went over backward, landing on the couch. The eye would be her alibi when the sheriff came asking questions. 'So long, baby,' I said from the curtained opening. I didn't look back. I didn't want to see the expression on her face.
I drove down to the Lazy Susan in her car. I thought they'd be watching for my souped-up Ford. It turned out they were watching for anything. I'd no more than rolled into the motel yard and opened the car door when some eager beaver tapped his headlights. Three more sets came on instantly. I was semicircled by cruisers. The yard looked bright as day.
Blaze Franklin came roaring out of the nearest cruiser, waving his gun. He had to get me fast, since he couldn't afford to let me talk about some of his recent activities. At ten yards I put five in a row from the.38 into his groin. A playing card would have covered them all. He went down in the dust, bellowing like a castrated bull. He
I put the last bullet into his jaw as he flopped on the ground. If I made good on the getaway, I didn't want him talking until I'd gone back for the sack. Firecrackers were going off all around me, but they couldn't shoot worth a damn. I dived back under the wheel and aimed Hazel's car through the largest gap in the encircling headlights. Gravel spurted beneath my wheels.
Someone shot out my windshield as I got moving. Prickling splinters of glass laced into my face. I bumped across the lawn, through the flower bed, around the swimming pool, and over a white picket fence. I jounced out onto the highway and floored the accelerator. For the first five hundred yards part of the fence kept banging against the front wheels of the car. Then it fell away.
I reloaded. Practice almost makes perfect. I dropped only one oil-slick bullet while making ready the warm- barreled.38. Behind me were lights and sirens. No shortage of either. I busted right through the town's square and set sail for the Dixie Pig. In Hazel's car, I could just about smell the overheated engines behind me. With the Ford's high-powered mill, I at least had a chance of outrunning them.
A thousand yards from the Dixie Pig I cut the headlights, moved over onto the shoulder, and drove in darkness. If anything had been parked on the edge of the highway, it would have been all she wrote. I whirled the steering wheel when I saw the lighter surface of the Dixie Pig's crushed-stone driveway. I took out a section of hedge, but I made the turn. Out on the highway the cruisers screamed by.
I yanked up the emergency and lit running. The door on the driver's side of the Ford stood open. I didn't remember leaving it open. I slid to a stop with my hand on the butt of the.38. I came within a tick of blasting the dark figure on the passenger side of the Ford's front seat before I recognized Hazel. 'Get the hell out!' I ordered, trying to listen for sounds on the highway.
'Take me with you, Chet,' she pleaded. 'Give me a gun.'
'Don't make me do it, baby,' I said. 'Get out of the car.'
She climbed out. I could see that she was crying. 'Please, Chet, I don't care what-'
'Get yourself a winning horse, woman.' I got in under the wheel and slammed the door. 'Get back inside and keep your mouth shut.' I backed up, swung around, and rammed the Ford down the driveway. The last glimpse I had of Hazel was the glitter of the silver conches on her cowboy boots in the swing of the headlights.
I doubled back toward town. On Route 19 there'd be road blocks north and south. I'd head east from the square. The added power of the Ford felt good under my foot. I blasted it down the road, then slowed approaching the traffic light. I'd just started my left-hand turn when a siren went off practically in my ear. Somebody in the posse had had the brains to leave a trailer.
He was headed the wrong way, but I saw the shine of his lights as he corkscrewed around after me. My 45- mph turn carried me onto the sidewalk before I straightened out, headed east. I really rolled it away from there. I was doing eighty-five on a road built for forty. The Ford was all over the highway. I watched the thin, dark ribbon of macadam unroll in the headlights while behind me the wailing shriek of the siren pierced the night. I was outrunning him, but then I burst out of a curve onto a long straightaway, and far up the road were the_ blinking red lights of trouble.
