Honey in His Mouth

Brother ran toward the limousine. “Come! We must catch her.”

Doctor Englaster piled into the limousine’s passenger seat, next to Brother, who’d pulled the pistol out of his shirt and was gripping it tightly it in one hand.

Harsh gripped Mr. Hassam’s arm. “Hold it!” He kept his voice low. “Don’t go with them, for Christ’s sake.”

For a moment, Mr. Hassam pulled against Harsh’s hand, turning to give Harsh a strange look. Suddenly he grunted in comprehension.

“You two go on!” Mr. Hassam waved at the pair in the limousine. “We’ll follow in the station wagon. We can search more roads with two cars.”

Miss Muirz arrived, and Harsh had the sudden feeling that she’d hung back on purpose, that she could have outrun any of them from the beach if she had wanted to but had held back out of caution. She was moving swiftly now toward the limousine’s rear door as it began pulling away. Moving even more swiftly, Mr. Hassam tripped her. She went down on the grass.

“Go on! Hurry!” Mr. Hassam’s bellow was directed at Brother and Doctor Englaster in the limousine.

The limousine had twin exhaust pipes. Blue smoke coughed out of both of these along with a powerful sound. The tires spun and shoveled gravel backward, and the limousine raced out of view through the gate.

TWENTY-ONE

Harsh watched the limousine vanish and inhaled with relief. Now if the Highway Patrol was on the job, the matter of the cop’s murder would be up to Brother and Doctor Englaster to explain. Brother was carrying the gun with which the cop had been killed and driving the man’s body down the highway at top speed. Even if Doctor Englaster was only mildly tipsy rather than out-and-out drunk, giving him better control of his faculties and his tongue, he wouldn’t have an easy time explaining the situation to the police, Harsh thought.

Miss Muirz, sitting on the grass, looked at Mr. Hassam, who was still eyeing Harsh curiously. “You tripped me.”

“Yes.” Mr. Hassam did not deny it. A thin line of blood was coming from his lower lip where a piece of driveway gravel must have hit it when the limousine was departing.

“Why?” Miss Muirz’s voice was bell clear.

Mr. Hassam started toward the carport. “If we are going to follow, we had better get going.”

Miss Muirz moved swiftly. She was the first one to the station wagon. “I’ll drive.” She started the engine. “Meanwhile, you can answer my question.”

She was a sharp one, Harsh thought, and a fast one when the chips began to fall. She knew something had gone wrong, and she was moving right to the front to find out what it was. Better stay close to this babe, he told himself, or she may manage to gum up the works.

He got into the station wagon and Mr. Hassam slid into the rear seat beside him, fell back with him against the cushion and struggled to get the door closed as the car got underway.

Miss Muirz was through all three forward gears before the station wagon reached the gate. “So. Why.” Her voice was even more calm, more bell-like. “Why did you stop me from going with Brother and Doctor Englaster?”

Mr. Hassam winced as they grazed the gate. “I was afraid to ride with Brother. I thought you would be also, if you had time to stop and think. Do you blame me?”

“You lie at the wrong times, Achmed.” Some distance ahead on the blacktop beach road there was a fast- moving bloom of light with two red taillights embedded in the lower center. “That was not why you tripped me, Achmed.”

The blob of light ahead suddenly skated right and left as the road made an S curve. “That was not why you tripped me, Achmed. Right?”

The ribbon of blood from Mr. Hassam’s lip reached his chin, a drop fell on his hand, and he looked down at it in amazement.

“Well, I had some advice.” He reached for his handkerchief and applied it to his mouth. “It aroused a cooperative feeling toward you, Miss Muirz. I hope I did not act in error.”

“Advice? Indeed?”

“Yes.” Mr. Hassam’s handkerchief muffled his voice somewhat. “It came from Mr. Harsh here. I presume you’d want to know that.”

“What?” Miss Muirz had not understood.

“Mr. Harsh told me to stay out of the limousine, and I included you.” Mr. Hassam lowered the handkerchief.

The station wagon negotiated the S curve and they were thrown to one side and then the other. “What are you pulling on us, Harsh?” Miss Muirz’s voice rang loudly.

“Jesus, slow down, will you!” Harsh had been weighing the quality of Miss Muirz’s driving, and he was sure they would hold their own with the limousine, if not overtake it. “You don’t want to catch that limousine.” If they came up with the limousine as the police stopped it, there might be complications. He shouted over the roar of motor and wind, “Slow down! For Christ’s sake.”

“Why?” Miss Muirz did not turn her head.

“I got a damn good reason.”

Ahead of them the limousine lights suddenly disappeared around a turn. Miss Muirz did not slacken their headlong speed. Harsh held his breath. He felt Miss Muirz would go into the turn wide open. Mr. Hassam thought so too, and he grabbed onto the door handle. “A turn! Watch it!”

Miss Muirz’s voice was too high-pitched, too composed. “I will do the driving.” She braked and went into the turn with all tires shrieking; in a moment they were straightened out, headed for the causeway and bridge.

“Oh, God.” Mr. Hassam had clamped his handkerchief over his forehead.

Harsh saw there was no question they were gaining on the limousine. Desperation made his mouth dry. He took out Brother’s automatic pistol and brandished it over the back of Miss Muirz’s seat. “Slow down, goddamn it, I don’t want to have to shoot anybody.”

Miss Muirz ignored the gun. “At this speed, shoot the driver? You are a fool, but not that big a fool.” She apparently had no concern about the gun.

Mr. Hassam, however, had plenty. His eyes flew wide and he clutched the door handle again. “Harsh! That gun! Where did you get Brother’s gun?”

Miss Muirz was crowding the centerline of the road. “Relax, Achmed. At this speed, he will not shoot anyone.”

“That’s not the point.” Mr. Hassam did not take his eyes off the little automatic. “That can’t be Brother’s gun. He had his gun in his hand when he got in the limousine.” Mr. Hassam’s voice rose. “But it looks exactly like Brother’s gun. How in God’s name, Harsh? What’s going on?”

“I took a gun off a guy who got killed.” Harsh’s voice shook. He was frightened by the insane driving. “I got the guy’s gun out of his pocket, swapped it for Brother’s on the beach.”

They were well out on the dike-like causeway leading to the bridge, with the moon-bathed water of the Indian River rushing past on either side. The limousine lights were still well ahead and beyond the bridge. As yet there was no sign of Vera Sue in the pearl-colored sports car.

“What guy, Harsh?” Hassam’s voice was frantic. “What are you talking about?”

And still Miss Muirz had not slowed down at all.

“You want to know what I’m talking about? There’s a corpse in that limousine. Do you hear me?” Harsh pounded desperately on the back of the driver’s seat. “This guy I killed, his body’s in the back of the limousine. The Highway Patrol has been tipped off to stop the limousine. Now, goddamn it, will you slow down? You want us all in jail?”

The bridge rushed at them like a mouth of steel girders preparing to snap them up. It was an old-fashioned bridge with a tall black mesh of ironwork and a slight rise in the pavement at the entrance. The station wagon took off from this rise with a jerk downward at their bellies, then a long sensation of flying in space, and the shock of landing. The bridge passed them with a coughing sound, spat them out on the other side.