“What is it?” Out of the corner of my eye I could see his white and brown shoes and his
gaudy yellow socks. I hurriedly looked away.
“We have to trust each other, Johnny,” she said, as still as a statue. “Don’t lose your nerve
and run away. You might be tempted, but don’t do it. If you did I couldn’t cover this up. I
must have your help. So don’t run away.”
“I’m not going to run away.”
“You might be tempted. A nine-hours’ start is tempting, but if you did bolt I’d have to tell
Hame it was you who killed him, and Hame would believe it.”
“I’m not going to run away,” I said, and my voice was a croak.
131
She came to me and put her arms around my neck, and I felt a shudder run through me at
her touch.
“You still love me, don’t you, Johnny? It’s going to be all right. It’s going to work out the
way we planned. We’re set up for life now.”
All I could think of was that her fingers, stained with his blood, were touching the back of
my neck. I wanted to shove her away from me, but I didn’t because I knew she was as
dangerous as a rattlesnake, and there was nothing to stop her going to Hame and pinning the
murder on me. So I kissed her, and the touch of her hot, yielding lips made me feel sick, and
the sight of him lying there with his head wrapped in the towel made me feel even sicker.
“I’ll be waiting for you,” she said, her face against mine. “Keep your nerve, Johnny. It’s
going to be all right.”
Then I was outside, with the hot afternoon sun on my face and nine hours of hell in front of
me. I had a frantic urge to run and keep running until I’d put miles between me and that cabin
where she was keeping watch over his dead body, but I knew I wasn’t going to run away
because she had me in a trap from which, as far as I could see, there was no way out.
II
The bar-room with its sun awnings and lavish fitments, its mahogany, horseshoe-shaped
bar, and its pink-tinted mirrors was empty when I walked stiff-legged across its expanse of
parquet flooring. The square-shaped clock above the rows of bottles told me it was twenty-five minutes past three: not the hour to start drinking, but that wasn’t going to stop me. If I
didn’t get a drink inside me quick I’d flip my lid.
The barman appeared from behind a jazz-patterned curtain and looked at me with polite
enquiry. He was a tall, thin bird with a high, bald dome, shaggy eyebrows and a long, beaky
nose. His white coat was as clean as soap and water could make it, and as stiff with starch as
a bishop watching a muscle dance.
“Yes, Mr. Ricca?”
I wasn’t expecting to be recognized, and I flinched.
“Scotch,” I said. My voice sounded like a gramophone record with a crack in it. “Set up the
bottle.”
“Yes, Mr. Ricca.”
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He reached up to a shelf and took down a bottle still wrapped in tissue paper. His long,
bony fingers ripped off the paper, and he put the bottle in front of me.
“Four Roses, sir,” he said, “or would you prefer Lord Calvert?”
I picked up the bottle and poured myself a slug. My hand was shaking and I slopped the
stuff on the polished counter, I felt him watching me.
“Get the hell out of here,” I said.
“Yes, Mr. Ricca.”
He went away behind the jazz-patterned curtain.
I knew I shouldn’t have snarled at him, but I wanted that drink so badly I couldn’t control
