It was pulled off to the side as I had pulled James's car off. I eased up to it silently. No one was in it. I couldn't make out its color, but I could see the domed silhouette of the flasher on its roof. The car was a police cruiser. I was going to have unwelcome company at Bunny's cabin.
I placed my hand on the car's radiator. It was warm, almost hot. The metallic plinking sounds I'd heard had been the metal of the radiator cooling and contracting. I opened the cruiser's door boldly, knowing that interior lights don't come on in a police car. I was hoping to find a spare handgun, but the only thing in the front seat was a riot gun locked into its boot. Even if I could have worked it free, it was no improvement over the shotgun I already had. A dark blur on the left side of the back seat turned out to be a trooper's uniform on a wire hanger. It was enclosed in a thin plastic bag. On the back seat lay a wide-brimmed trooper's campaign hat.
I started up the road again, leaving the car door open. Two hundred yards ahead there was a break in the trees, and I knew I was at the cabin. I started to take off my shoes, then stopped. All I needed was to put my foot down on a cottonmouth. I edged in from the roadside a careful step at a time. A chill dawn breeze rustled the bushes on either side of me, reminding me that time was running out. I wanted to move faster, but I held myself down.
The blacker outline of the cabin came into view. I studied it for a moment before moving in. At my first step there was the sound of a slap from inside the cabin, 'Damn mosquitoes!' a hoarse voice muttered.
'Shut up!' Blaze Franklin's voice replied instantly.
'Don't get narky,' the first speaker replied in an injured tone. 'We'll see his headlights comin'. How 'bout a cigarette, Blaze?'
'I told you no cigarettes, Moody! This bastard is smart and dangerous!'
'At least you could tell me who this dangerous bastard is,' Moody returned sulkily. 'An' why you dragged me out here to wait for him at this God-forsaken place.'
'Because a friend put through a telephone call,' Franklin replied. 'You just stick with me an' you'll wear diamonds.'
'Like yours?' Moody said. His voice turned sly, 'The boys been wonderin' where you're gettin' your money since you resigned from the force.'
'We should be listenin' instead of talkin', Moody.'
Moody grunted but subsided. I moved stealthily away from the cabin. I didn't like what I'd overheard. If Franklin were living high as a nonworking civilian, it almost had to be on the Phoenix money. He'd had plenty of time to look for it. The thought that he might find it had somehow never occurred to me.
I looked up at the star-dotted sky and moved straight north from the cabin's front door exactly as I had that other night that seemed so long ago. Even in the dark I noticed that there was a lack of brush. Someone had cleaned it out. The ground was soft and shifting underfoot. Someone had patiently dug up the area foot by foot. Franklin had dug up the area. Franklin had found the money.
Dry paper rustled under my feet as I turned around and looked toward the cabin. I bent down and reached for as much of it as I could find without moving my feet. It felt like newspaper. I twisted it into a tight spill, put it under my arm, and crept back to the cabin. Franklin was going to tell me where the money was.
When I was a few yards away from the front door, I could hear them talking again. I couldn't make out what they were saying because this time the solid cabin wall was between me and them instead of the side containing an open window. Had Franklin bolted the front door? If the door was bolted, we were in for a prolonged shootout. If it wasn't, and I could burst inside with the element of surprise in my favor…
I moved within a yard of the door. I took the tightly rolled newspapers, found my matches, and lighted the paper. When I was sure it was going well, I positioned myself, shotgun in left hand, burning newspaper in right. I took a step backward, then slammed my heel into the cabin door with all the force in my leg muscles.
The door flew open. I tossed the flaming newspaper ahead of me into the center of the room. Startled exclamations greeted me as I darted inside and knelt down, out of line with the door. The newspaper sputtered, almost went out, then flared brightly. I recognized Blaze Franklin in a turtleneck sweater and slacks. Alongside him stood a trooper in uniform. Both were rigid in grotesque attitudes of surprise.
'Freeze!' I demanded, leveling the shotgun halfway between them. Moody reacted first-and fast. His right hand dipped toward the gun on his hip. I shifted my aim slightly and touched off the forward trigger. In the confined space the shotgun's roar shook the cabin. Moody was still upright while half his head and all his brains were plastered on the wall behind him. Then he spun in a half turn and fell forward on what was left of his face.
'Hold it!' I ordered Franklin, swinging the sawed-off toward him. I wanted him alive, but his gun was already halfway out of his shoulder holster. There was no time for further conversation. I squeezed the second trigger and gut-shot him. He went backward in a stutter step until he smashed into the stove, rebounded, doubled up, and hit the deck. The blast had almost cut him in two, but he was still alive. He crawled in circles on the floor like a huge wingless beetle.
He was still alive, but the first look was indication enough he was never going to tell me where the money was. I crossed the cabin and put a foot on him to stop the crawling. I went through his clothes rapidly. I took his wallet, keys, and.38, wiped the blood off my hands on his trouser legs, then backed toward the door. The crawling started up again, but more slowly.
Outside, I thought of putting a match to the cabin. It didn't seem necessary. If Moody didn't know why they were there, Franklin hadn't told anyone. It would be a long time before they were found, if ever. I still had one chance left at recovering the money and no time to waste.
I walked rapidly from the cabin to the road.
Dawn was painting the eastern sky flame-red when I reached the police cruiser. I stripped off the clothing that Spider Kern had provided, took Moody's uniform from its hanger in the back of the cruiser, and tried it on. It was too big, but that was much better than having it too small. I took reefs and tucks in it to make it look as presentable as I could. The trooper's hat was far too large. I padded its sweat band with the necktie that was also on the hanger. That helped considerably.
There was less than half an hour until full sunrise. I wadded up the discarded clothing and placed it on the front seat beside me as I got under the wheel. I backed the cruiser out onto the road and headed away from town. It was the wrong direction for what I eventually had in mind, but first I had to get back to Rafe James's car.
I parked the cruiser and scrambled through the brush to James's car. I started up the engine, backed out to the road to get traction and a short run, then rammed it straight ahead with the accelerator floored. Metal scraped and brush crashed. The front end reared up as the axle scaled a low stump. For a moment I thought that was it. Then the car slithered off the obstruction and lurched ahead again. The rear end bucked as the same stump caught the housing. That did it. The rear wheels whined as they spun without traction. I got out and made my way back to the road.
I looked back toward the car from the roadway. I couldn't see anything. I threw the keys into the woods on the other side of the road. It would take the combination of an accident for someone to find it and a major effort on the part of the finder if that automobile were ever returned to civilization.
I climbed into the cruiser again. There was a flashlight in the glove compartment, and by its light I read the address on Franklin's license. Three twenty-seven Riverside, Hudson, Florida. It was the same boarding house where he had lived when he and Lucille Grimes had been shaping nooses for my neck. I rolled the cruiser down the road until I found a spot where I could turn around without dropping a wheel into the ditch, then headed toward town.
The powerful motor made the cruiser feel as though it had wings compared to James's car. I switched on the police radio when I swung onto U.S. 19 and turned toward downtown Hudson. If the cruiser were labeled missing, I needed to know it. I didn't think it would be, though. Everything overheard at the cabin indicated that Franklin had enlisted Moody during the deputy's off-duty time. Since it was a fact of life in Hudson that deputies drove home in their cruisers, this one shouldn't be missed for a while.
I drove to Franklin's address and parked in front of his boarding house. Both boarders and neighbors were used to seeing cruisers parked there. I took Franklin's keys and his flashlight and ran up the front steps. The streetlights were still on, but a dirty gray daylight was infiltrating the area.
The front door had a Yale lock. That made it easy; there was only one Yale key on Franklin's key ring. Inside, I put the flash on the mailboxes in the hallway. The beam picked up the card with its faded typing in the name slot: Franklin, 2-C. I climbed the stairs, making no effort to move quietly. The boarders were used to all-hours comings and goings.
