She gave me that supercilious smile of hers again. “Not afraid to go back there, are you?”
“No,” I said. “We’re going back.”
“You’re rather fond of money, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I never had any.”
“I hope you’ll be very happy with it.”
“I like your friends,” I said, nodding toward the storeroom. “Why don’t all of you rent yourselves out to curdle milk?”
“You’re not becoming squeamish, are you?” she asked mockingly. “Where’s your fine, professional attitude? Surely the detached and unemotional Mr. Barton wouldn’t let a little display of petulance like that upset him.” She broke off. “By the way, you never did tell me what your name really is.”
“That’s right,” I said. “I didn’t, did I?”
She shrugged.
Time dragged. The cabin was stifling.
I dozed off once, propped up in the chair. When my eyes flew open I saw the storeroom door being pulled gently back. The blonde was looking at me. “Back,” I said. It shut again.
They’d be watching the house. They might catch us.
Or if we tried to run, it could be worse. They might kill
us.
All right. Either I wanted that money, or I didn’t.
And if I wanted it, I had to have the keys.
Somehow, the sun went down.
It was dusk out across the clearing. I stood up. Madelon Butler killed another cigarette in the mountain of butts on the tray and looked at me. “Put on your robe,” I said. “Its time to go.”
“Very well,” she said.
I thought of something. “Would that blonde s dress fit you?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. But I’d die before I’d touch it.”
“All right,” I said. “Don’t strip your gears. It doesn’t matter. You can change into something else when we get in the house. If we do.”
I went over and opened the storeroom door. “All right,” I said.
They came out. I motioned for them to go out the front door. I followed them. Madelon Buder came out, and I handed her the key. “Lock it,” I said. She locked the door. I put the key in my pocket.
I nodded to the blonde and Jack. “Just stand right where you are. When we’re gone you can start walking. Or you can have that Cadillac if you know how to start it
without the keys and don’t mind that it’s a little hot.”
“I’ll find you someday,” Jack said. “I’ll find you.”
“I’m in the book,” I said. I motioned for Madelon Butler
to get into the car.
As we crossed the culvert at the edge of the meadow I tossed the key out at the end of it without slowing down. I looked in the rear-view mirror, but I couldn’t see them. It was already too dark under the trees.
I flicked on the headlights and we went up the hill through the timber.
The lights of the country store and filling station were ahead of us. “Here’s where we hit the highway,” I said. “We’ll see a police car once in a while, but they won’t be looking for this car. Don’t pay any attention to them. They can’t see you in here.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said.
I sailed the keys to the Cadillac into the roadside bushes, and in another minute or two we pulled onto the
pavement. In spite of what I’d told her, it was like walking into a cold shower.
I drove carefully, holding it down to forty or forty-five. Just a simple accident or being stopped for a traffic violation of some kind was all it would take to ruin us. I thought of how invisible a car was among all the hundreds of others until something happened to it, or the driver did something wrong, and then it was in the center of the stage with all the spotlights on it. When we came into the first town I turned over one street to keep out of the lights, and went through as if we were driving on eggshells.
I turned twice more, and we were back on the highway again. It was only thirty miles now.
It had been over twelve hours since she was supposed to have fled. They might not actually expect her to be stupid enough to come back, but they’d have at least one man covering the place as a matter of routine. Maybe there’d be more. The money still hadn’t been found. They wouldn’t be taking any chances.
Would he be in front? Or in back? Inside the house itself?
We had to park the car far enough away so they wouldn’t hear it or see the headlights. And still we couldn’t walk around on the streets.
“Is there another street or road in back of that one directly behind the house?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll show you where to turn. There are no street lights there, and it’s mostly vacant lots.”
She’d grown up in that house. I wondered how she felt about going back to it for the last time and knowing she’d never see it again if we got away. But whatever she felt, she kept it to herself. Then it occurred to me she had never seemed particularly bothered by the fact that her husband wasn’t around any more, either, or why he wasn’t. She wasn’t exactly the gushy type.
“Where did they find him?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” she said.
“You don’t know?” I asked unbelievingly.
“That’s right.” She appeared completely unconcerned. “You were the one who heard the news report. Remember?”
It just didn’t add up. I had to believe her. She sounded as if she were telling the truth, and she had no reason to lie about it now. And she hadn’t known that his car had been abandoned right in front of the James girl’s apartment, either. An odd thought struck me then. Had she really killed him? But that was stupid. She’d as much as admitted it. She was paying me $120,000 to get her out of there and hide her from the police. For what—a parking ticket?
“You don’t make much sense to me,” I said.
“Really?” She lit a cigarette, and for an instant the flame of the match lit up the still, intensely beautiful face.
“I wasn’t aware I was supposed to.”
“Did you kill Butler?” I asked.
“Perhaps you should read the terms of our contract
again. I recall nothing in it about submitting to an inquisition.”
“Have it your way,” I said. “I just work here.”
“An excellent appraisal of your status. Incidentally, I might say that you have done very well so far, with only one or two exceptions.”
“What exceptions?”
“In the first place, you should have killed them instead of turning them loose. They can describe you; And in the second place, you have thrown away the only key I have to the house. It was attached to the car keys.”
“We don’t need a house key,” I said. “We go in through one of the basement windows. And as far as their describing me, you know as well as I do they’re not going to the police. They can’t.”
“Yes. But has it occurred to you they might be captured
by the police?”
“Sure,” I said. “But it’s just a chance we have to take.”
“Needlessly.”
“All right. Needlessly. But I’m doing the job, and I’ll do
it my own way.”
She said nothing. We came up the grade out of the river bottom.
I’d had plenty of warning about her. But I didn’t realize it in time.
