Candy

“You don’t know,” she said. “I can’t believe it. You don’t know!”

“What don’t I know?”

“Caroline is dead,” she said patiently. “You killed her.”

Chapter Ten

JEFF FLANDERS.

Unemployed.

Rapist.

Philanderer.

Incipient alcoholic.

I was only thirty-four years old and the list was already on the impressive side. Those thirty-four years were by no means wasted. Hell, I’d done a lot of things.

But the list was not complete. It lacked one rather intriguing item, one little eight-letter word that would fill in the blank space.

Murderer.

I sat up on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall while Candy filled in the blank spots in my brain. I had, it seemed, a very blank brain. I felt like letting my brain get a little air by the expedient process of knocking a hole in my fat and useless head.

“She was alive when I found her,” the light of my life explained. “She was alive when I went into the apartment and she lived just long enough to tell me what you had done to her. She told me and then she died. I was holding her in my arms and her face went pale and then she just stopped talking and she was dead. She died in my arms, Jeff.”

I got up and walked over to the window. The window faced out on Broadway and I looked through it. The street was glutted with traffic. People wandered back and forth, all in a hell of a hurry to get nowhere in particular.

A heavy-set, well-dressed man with a pretty little brunette on his arm hailed a taxi. He helped the girl into the back seat and got in beside her. The cab headed downtown.

“She’s dead, Jeff. You killed her. I thought … thought you knew what you did to her. But she wasn’t dead when you left so I guess you didn’t realize it.”

The sun was still shining and it was warm outside. I felt sorry for all the office-workers who would mob together in the stinking subway for the long ride home. They were pushing and shoving each other on the street and it would be one hell of a ride on the BMT that night.

“Jeff?”

I left the window, walked back to her and sat down on the edge of the bed. I couldn’t talk or think or move. I was tense as a wire and limp as a wet rag all at once and my mind responded by shutting itself off. I knew she was speaking my name but I couldn’t answer her.

“Jeff?”

I turned and looked at her, looked at all of her. I managed to gulp some air, then managed to let it out.

“Jeff,” she was saying, “we’ll have to get out of town. We can’t stay here, not after what you did. The police’ll find the body before long and they’ll probably find out who it was that killed her. Did anybody see you going into the building?”

I thought about the clod at the door, the idiot of an elevator boy, the other people who must have noticed me. You can’t so much as spit in New York without somebody taking notice.

I nodded.

“Somebody must of,” she said. “And then the police’ll pick you up and then what’ll you do?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. “We can’t chance staying in town, Jeff. We’ll have to get out as fast as we can.”

“Where?”

“South,” she said. “We’ll get the first bus or train south and then get out and buy a car and head for the border. If we get across into Mexico everything’ll be all right. But we have to hurry or they’ll figure out and catch us and then it’ll be all over.”

It sounded as though she had it all mapped out. Maybe her plan was a good one and maybe it wasn’t. I couldn’t tell one way or the other. But I couldn’t come up with anything on my own. I was in no condition for long- range planning. I had to follow her lead.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What are we going to use in the way of money?”

She tossed her head impatiently. “I have money. Caroline always kept a lot around the apartment and I cleaned it out before I left. I’ve got a couple thousand in my purse and some jewelry we can pawn if we need more.”

I asked her how long she thought that bank would last two people on the run. She hesitated, then talked some more until it turned out that the “couple thousand” was nearer fifteen grand.

That was more like it.

“Why?” I wanted to know.

“Why what?”

“Why the sudden overwhelming concern for my health and welfare? A day or two ago you didn’t care if you never saw me again. Now you want to follow me to the ends of the earth. Hell, you want to lead me to the ends of the earth. What’s your angle?”

She gave me a pouting look that made me feel lower than the underside of a rattler’s belly for so much as asking. She held the look until I wanted to crawl under the rug, and then told me.

“I don’t have anything now,” she said. “Not a damn thing. I had Caroline but you killed her.”

Yeah.

“And I … I like you, Jeff. I told you that you were the best I ever had and I wasn’t kidding. I’d rather be with you than anybody else.”

I wasn’t sure whether or not I believed her. Maybe it made sense and maybe it didn’t.

“Besides,” she said, “you killed Caroline because of me. I didn’t … didn’t know you loved me that much. It makes me feel kind of funny.”

I nodded slowly.

“Jeff?”

I looked at her. It wasn’t hard to do—she was as beautiful as ever, more beautiful than ever, and soft and pink and naked and wonderful. And now we were together, inseparably together, lost together and on our way to hell together.

I kissed her.

“We can’t waste time,” she said. She tried to say it briskly and efficiently but a trace of sexy huskiness crept into her voice. She swept on as if she was unaware of the huskiness—or as if she was trying to deny it.

“We’ve got to hurry. We can catch a bus out right away and we’ll be out of New York before they discover the body. Carrie never had many friends and the ones she did have never came to our apartment. She had a town house, too, you know, and she only had the apartment so the two of us would have a place to be together. But there’s a maid who comes in every morning to clean up and the body’ll be discovered tomorrow morning at the very latest. We can’t afford to stay around that long.”

I fumbled for a cigarette and got a match to it. I drew on the butt and blew out a cloud of smoke. I took a second puff, then bent over and ground the cigarette out in the carpet.

“I’ve got one suitcase packed for myself,” she said. “I don’t think we should chance going back to your hotel or anything. If they discovered the body they’ll be waiting for you there and we can’t afford to take the chance. Just wear what you’ve got on and … what’s so funny?”

“I don’t have anything on. Neither do you.”

She giggled, then broke the giggle off in midstream. “You know what I mean,” she said. “When we leave the bus we’ll buy a fresh change of clothing same place we get the car. Same town, I mean.”

“I’ve got money at the hotel.”

“How much?”