I
I stepped away from the door as knuckles rapped again. Lydia asked in a voice no louder than the rustle of leaves, ‘Who is it?’
‘I don’t know. A short, thickset guy.’ My voice matched hers.
Her eyes dilated.
‘It’s Borg. He won’t be alone.’ She looked around the room wildly. ‘Don’t let him in.’
I saw the door handle turn, and a weight leaned against the door, making it creak.
I grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the bedroom, shut and locked the door.
‘You’ll have to leave your cases,’ I said, going over to the window. I raised it and looked out on to a strip of garden of dark shadows and shrubs. ‘We’ll go this way.’
She joined me. I picked her up and swung her through the window into the garden, then scrambled out after her.
‘My car’s at the corner. Can we get around to it?’
‘Yes. I’ll show you.’
She ran down the strip of lawn to a gate.
‘Let me go first,’ I said, pulling out Juan’s gun.
I opened the gate and stepped into a deserted alley that stretched away into darkness.
I started down the alley, moving quietly. Lydia followed, almost treading on my heels. I could hear her quick, frightened breathing. The end of the alley led out into a side street. At the top of the street I could see the gleam of my parking lights. The street seemed empty. Taking Lydia’s arm and keeping in the shadows, I started towards the car.
‘Who’s this guy Borg?’ I asked her.
‘One of Royce’s men,’ she said. ‘They won’t let me get away.’
‘They haven’t got you yet.’
We reached within twenty feet of the Lincoln, then I stopped.
‘I’ll go first. You wait here. Be ready to move fast.’
I stepped away from her and cautiously moved to the street corner. I looked up Lennox Drive. A big car stood outside Lydia’s apartment house. A man stood by it, looking towards the house. I crossed the sidewalk to the Lincoln, opened the door and slid into the driving seat.
‘Come on!’ I called softly.
I had the engine running as she darted into the car, and the car moving as she slammed the door.
Maybe Benn had looked after the Lincoln, but as soon as I started to feed gas into the engine, I knew I wasn’t going to get much of a performance from it. This wasn’t a car to be in to shake off a fast pursuit.
The driving mirror remained dark: no telltale headlights showed behind me, and I hoped that our getaway hadn’t been spotted.
I swung the car on to the main road leading out of Tampa City and gradually built up the Lincoln’s speed to fifty-five. At that speed the car began to rock.
I took out a pack of cigarettes from my pocket and dropped it into her lap.
‘Light me one and have one yourself,’ I said, my eyes shifting to the driving mirror again to make sure no car was following us.
‘Can’t you go faster?’ she asked.
Her hands were shaking so badly she had trouble getting the cigarettes out of the pack.
‘I might at a pinch, but this is fast enough so long as they’re not following us.’
She lit the cigarettes and gave me one.
‘Let’s talk,’ I said. I didn’t want to scare her, but I wasn’t too sure how much time we had before they came after us. What do you know about Frances Bennett?’
‘What has happened to her? Where is she?’
I gave it to her without gloves.
‘She’s dead. She was fished out of a pond in Welden. Royce stayed with her at a hotel in Welden. She was working at a club there. The night she disappeared, Royce left the town.’
I saw Lydia clench her fists tightly in her lap.
‘So she’s dead. Well, I warned her, the little fool. She wouldn’t listen. I told her Royce was using her for his own convenience. He wouldn’t fall for a stupid little fool like her.’
‘Don’t cut the corners,’ I said. ‘Let me have it from the beginning. What was Royce to you?’
She hunched her shoulders and leaned forward to stare at the two pools of light thrown by the Lincoln’s headlamps as they raced ahead of us.
‘What was he to me? Everything. We were fixed to be married,’ she said in a cold, flat voice, and I didn’t believe her.
‘We were happy; he was crazy about me. Then suddenly it blew up in my face. He started to cool. He wasn’t subtle about it either. I thought at first it was the Van Blake woman. She was always coming to the club. You know the club belonged to her husband?’
I said I knew.
‘But I found out it wasn’t her. It was the Bennett girl. She and Royce were meeting secretly. I had them watched. When he was supposed to be at the club in the morning, he was driving her around. When he told me to go back to the apartment as he had things to do at the club, he was taking her to dinner at Lodoni’s where no one knew either of them.’
‘Was this before Van Blake’s death?’
She turned her head to stare at me. In the dim light from the dashboard I could see her eyes were glittering with unshed tears.
‘What’s Van Blake’s murder to do with her?’
‘I don’t know; nothing perhaps. I was trying to fix the time.’
‘It was just before; two weeks.’
‘You said they were meeting secretly. How secretly? Did anyone know what was going on?’
‘No. I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t hired an investigator to watch her.’
‘But why should Royce bother to keep it quiet? Was he scared you’d make trouble?’
She laughed; it wasn’t a pretty sound.
‘With the thugs he has to look after him, he didn’t have to be scared of anyone.’
‘Then why keep it secret?’
‘I don’t know. I tried to find out, but I didn’t get anywhere. I talked to the girl. She was crazy about him. I could see that by the way her silly face lit up when I mentioned his name, but she denied ever going out with him. I was fool enough to tell her I had had her watched. That was the worst mistake I’ve ever made.’ Again her fists closed into tight, white knuckled fists. ‘She told Royce. He came back to the apartment, and I could tell by his face it was my finish with him. I thought he was going to kill me. He told me to pack up and get out. I was too frightened even to speak. I think that’s why he didn’t kill me. He stood in the bedroom doorway and watched me while I packed. When I was ready to go, he got hold of my arms and held me while he talked. I had bruises from his fingers on my arms for weeks. He said I was not to leave town. I was to work at the Hey-Day club and I was never to talk about his affairs. He said Juan was going to be my jailer. If I ever talked about him, tried to leave town or came near him, Juan would take care of me. I could see he meant it. That’s how I’ve been living for the past eighteen months. I haven’t seen him to talk to for all that time. He never gave me a thing: not a nickel. And now look what I’ve done. If they catch up with me, they’ll kill me.’
‘They won’t catch up with you,’ I said, urging the car up to fifty-seven. I still had a little in reserve, but not much. The engine was so noisy we were practically shouting at each other now. I drove for a minute or so while I brooded over what she had told me. It hadn’t taken me far. At least, I had a witness now to prove Royce and Rutland were one and the same, and that put Royce in the middle of Fay’s disappearance. That was something, but I knew there must be a lot more to this than I knew. ‘Ever heard of a guy who called himself Hank Flemming?’ I asked abruptly.
She shook her head.
‘No. Why?’
‘He’s hooked up in this. Maybe you’ve seen him. He’s short, thickset with a round, heavy face. The last time I
