Free Live Free

He slammed down the phone and gasped for breath. Would they come? When you called people, they didn’t, not always. Sometimes not even the Fire Department came, he had heard. One of his customers had told him once that sometimes she could not even get salesmen to come, and he knew that not all the salesmen he had called to Free’s had come. He toyed with the idea of telling Proudy again that he would shoot him if he came out, but that might only make Proudy come out sooner.

The notebook by the telephone showed half a page of scribbled comments: “ … after going in. Kidnap? Dead? How disp bdy? Cart? Later maybe. Still there, 2:50. Listened at door. Sleeping and talking. Rtnd stkt cald # grl. Ans dvc. Sd where you? Call when come in.”

Barnes closed the notebook, picked up his order book, and dropped both into his pocket. As he left the room, he toyed with the idea of taking the tape from the door, but that would not, of course, keep Proudy in, only delay the men from the hospital, if men from the hospital ever came. For an instant he visualized thorny-winged green beings in robes of red, one carrying a net, the other a straitjacket. No, Belmont. Madmen, then. Belmont was psycho. Better get away before they came.

A siren howled outside, and he realized with a start that he was still holding Proudy’s revolver. He looked up and down the corridor to make sure no one had seen him and thrust it into the waistband of his trousers. As he was buttoning his coat, a bellman pushing a serving cart emerged from the nearest elevator.

“How disp bdy? Cart?” That was what Proudy had been worried about, the waiter last night. Stubb had told the waiter to go the other way to reach the elevators, and he had done it. Proudy thought he was dead in seven seventy-seven. “Grl” must mean Sandy Duck, who had talked to him on her way out. She hadn’t come home then, or had come home late, or just had not taken her phone off the answering machine while she slept.

The cart held an assortment of covered dishes, two carafes of coffee, silver, and a stack of cups and saucers. Barnes watched the bellman push it into the witch’s room and waited until he left, then went in himself. “Ahoy!” he said.

Partnership

“Where the hell have you been?” Stubb came half out of his chair.

“Down the hall talking to Sergeant Proudy,” Barnes told him. “You’re a detective, you must know something about guns.”

Candy’s now-scarlet mouth formed a little O at the mention of guns; the witch, who had smiled slightly when Barnes entered, continued to smile.

“Yeah,” Stubb said. “Yeah, I know something. I’m no crack shot, my eyes aren’t that good. But I know one end from the other.”

“That’s great.” Barnes pulled Proudy’s revolver from his waistband and laid it on the table. “You take this. I don’t want it, and I’m liable to shoot myself with it.”

Stubb stared at the gun for a moment, then picked it up with a napkin. The cylinder popped open, and when Stubb pushed the cylinder pin six bright brass cartridges rattled onto the table. He flipped his wrist, but the cylinder would not snap back into place, and he had to push it back with his left hand. After wiping and wrapping the entire gun, he lifted the mattress of the unused bed and pushed the gun far under it. He carried the cartridges into the bathroom and flushed the toilet.

“They go down?” Barnes called. He did not think they would.

“Yeah, probably no farther than the trap, though.”

Candy said, “It’ll plug up now.” She sounded bitter.

Stubb stepped back into the room. “I doubt it. A sewer line like that’s pretty big.”

“He knows everything, Jim does. I haven’t found one single, solitary, God-damned thing he doesn’t know more about than any other dude on earth.”

“All right, it’ll plug up. Madame S. can ask for another room.”

The witch said, “We have been negotiating, Ozzie. We wish to forge an alliance.” She sounded amused.

Stubb asked, “How’d you get it away from him, anyhow? Take it while he was asleep?”

Candy passed Barnes a cup of coffee. “Don’t tell the bastard, Ozzie. If we’re partners, we’re partners. If we’re not, we’re not.”

“I thought we were going to be partners,” Barnes said.

“Partners means share and share alike. Jim wants to give us a lousy ten percent. That for both of us, Jim? Five percent each?”

Stubb said, “Our last offer was fifteen. Fifteen for each of you.”

“Bullshit!” Candy heaved to her feet. “I’m splitting. Thanks for the coffee, lady. Sorry I’ve messed up the eggs, but somebody can still eat them—I’m not poison. Thank you so very much for letting me sleep on your floor. It was comfy.”

Stubb said, “For God’s sake, sit down. Nobody wants your eggs. You might as well finish them.”

“No, what nobody wants is me.” Candy looked for her white raincoat and found it in a corner. She picked it up, keeping her legs straight and grunting at the compression of her belly.

“I want you.” Barnes stood up too. “If you go, I go.”

Candy straightened, her face pink. “Thanks, Ozzie. You’re a decent guy. I go. Come on.”

“Damn it,” Stubb said, “we want you too. Twenty-five percent.”

Candy stared at him. “Ozzie and me each get twenty-five.”