She started across the room, but I grabbed her arm, jerking her around.
‘Where did you get that gun?’
She wrenched free.
‘Oh, come on! They’l be here in a moment!’
Her indifferent, glittering eyes horrified me.
Then somewhere in the outer darkness I heard a siren start up. Its moaning note chilled me.
‘Come on! Come on!’
She ran out into the darkness and I went after her.
Lights were coming on all over the Studios. Men’s voices shouted.
I felt her hand on my arm as she shoved me down a dark alley. We ran blindly as the siren continued to moan into the night.
‘Here!’
She pulled me into a dark doorway. For a brief moment her flashlight made a puddle of light, then turned off. She pulled me down behind a big wooden crate.
We heard racing, heavy footsteps go by. We heard men shouting to each other. Someone began to blow a shrill whistle that set my nerves jangling.
‘Come on!’
If it hadn’t been for her, I would never have got out of the place. She was terribly cool and controlled.
She steered me through the dark alleys. She seemed to know when we were about to run into danger and when it was clear to go ahead.
As we ran past the endless buildings and the vast Studio sheds, the whistles and the voices grew fainter, and at last, panting, we stopped in the shadow of a building to listen.
There was silence now except the still moaning siren.
‘We’ve got to get out of here before the cops arrive,’ Rima said.
‘You kil ed him!’
‘Oh, shut up! We can get over the wall at the end of this alley.’
I went with her until we came to a ten-foot wall. We paused beside it and looked up at it.
‘Help me up.’
I took her foot in both my hands and heaved her up. She swung one leg over the wall, bending low and stared down into the darkness.
‘It’s okay. Can you get up?’
I walked back, ran at the wall, jumped and grabbed at the top. I got a grip, hung for a moment, then heaved myself up. We both rolled over the wall and dropped onto the dirt road that ran alongside the Studio.
We walked quickly to the main road. Along this road was parked a line of cars belonging to people in a night club across the way.
‘There should be a bus in five minutes or so,’ Rima said.
I heard the approaching sound of police sirens.
Rima grabbed my arm and shoved me to a Skyliner Ford.
‘Get in – quick!’
I slid in and she followed.
She had just time to close the door when two police cars went storming past, heading for the main entrance to the Studio.
‘We’l wait here,’ Rima said. ‘There’l be more coming. They mustn’t see us on the street.’
This made sense although I was aching to get away.
‘Larry!’ Rima said, disgust in her voice. ‘I should have known he would get it all wrong. They must bank the money or put it in a safe when they close down.’
‘Do you realise you’ve killed a man?’ I said. ‘They can send us to the gas chamber. You mad bitch! I wish I had never had anything to do with you!’
‘It was in self-defence,’ she said hotly. ‘I had to do it!’
‘It wasn’t! You shot him down in cold blood. You shot him twice!’
‘I would have been a fool to let him shoot me, wouldn’t I? He had a gun in his hand. It was self- defence!’
‘It was murder!’
‘Oh, shut up!’
‘I’m through with you. I never want to see you again so long as I live!’
‘You’re yel ow! You wanted the money as much as I did! You wanted to make money out of me!
Now, when things turn sour…’
‘You cal kil ing a man turning sour?’
‘Oh, quiet down!’
I sat still, my hands gripping the steering wheel. I was panic stricken. I told myself I must have been out of my mind to have got mixed up with her. If I got away I would go home and I would start my studies again. I would never do a bad thing again so long as I lived.
We heard more sirens. Another police car packed with plain clothes men went past, and a few seconds later, an ambulance.
‘That’s the end of the procession,’ Rima said. ‘Let’s go.’
She got out of the car and I followed her.
We walked fast to the bus stop. After two or three minutes the bus arrived.
We sat at the back. No one paid us any attention. Rima smoked, staring out of the window. As we came down the main road to the waterfront, she began to sneeze.
CHAPTER FIVE
I
Soon after seven o’clock the next morning, I woke out of a restless sleep, and staring up at the ceiling, I thought back on the previous night. I felt pretty bad.
I had had only three or four hours’ sleep. Most of the night I had thought of the guard and how Rima had shot him.
She had gone to her room when we had got back, and I had heard her snivelling and sneezing for an hour until I thought the sound would drive me crazy. Then I heard her go out and I guessed she was going to hunt for some sucker to buy her a shot.
I was asleep when she came in. I was aware of her door shutting but I was so tired, I turned over and went off to sleep again.
Now, lying in bed, with the sun coming around the edges of the blind, I wondered what I had best do.
I had to leave town. I didn’t dare stay here any longer. I would see Rusty, borrow the fare from him, and I’d leave this morning.
There was a train out around eleven o’clock.
My bedroom door opened abruptly and Rima came in. She was dressed, wearing her red shirt and her skin tight jeans. She looked pale and her eyes were glittering unnaturally. She had had her shot all right.
She stood at the foot of the bed, looking at me.
‘What do you want?’ I said. ‘Get out of here!’
‘I’m going to the Studios. Aren’t you coming?’
‘Are you crazy? I wouldn’t go back there for al the money in the world.’
She wrinkled her nose at me, her eyes contemptuous.
