"What are you going to do with her?"
Madelon Butler lit a cigarette and watched us through the smoke. The man sat hunched over the other end of the table, holding the edges of it with his hands and saying nothing.
"We"re going to take your car and go for a little ride as soon as it"s dark. If you don"t mind."
"How much is she paying you?"
"Who said she was?" I asked.
"Of course she is. Why else would you do it?"
"I"m her mother."
"How much?"
"Never mind," I said. "I don"t think you could meet the price."
She turned her face then and looked at the man. "Didn"t you hear him, Jack? You see? The dear, sweet thing couldn"t find it. She didn"t even know what we were talking about."
"Stop it!" he said.
"She not only double-crossed you then, to get it, but she"s using it now to double-cross you again and get away and leave you holding the bag."
"Shut up!"
There was no stopping her. "Why didn"t you have sense enough to look? Just look? Did you trust her, or something? Didn"t you know what she was? Didn"t the other one teach you anything?"
His eyes were terrible. He hit her across the mouth with his open hand. She stopped then, and it became suddenly and almost breathlessly silent in the room. I could even hear the squirrel chattering again, up on the hill.
I looked at my watch. It was only a little after one. We couldn"t leave until it was dark. That meant for at least six more hours I had to sit here and keep them sorted out and untangled and away from each other"s throats. I had thought that if I got them in here I could turn the gun over to Madelon Butler and let her watch them while I got a little sleep, but I could see that was out. They"d rush her the minute I dropped off. They were crazy enough. Or if they weren"t, she"d taunt them into it with that arrogant contempt of hers.
I"d given up trying to figure it out. And there was no use asking any questions. I"d just be wasting my breath. They were all too h.e.l.l-bent on killing each other to bother with outsiders trying to make sense out of it.
I was tired. It had been thirty hours since I"d had any sleep, and we had a long afternoon and another whole night ahead of us. I wondered what our chances were of getting back to Mount Temple and into that house without being caught. In the dark, and with another car, we shouldn"t be stopped on the highway, but the house was another matter. They"d be watching it.
I stood up and motioned toward the storeroom. "In there," I said.
They went by, watching me like a couple of big cats, and walked in. They sat down on some boxes. I stood in the doorway and looked at them.
"You won"t get hurt if you stay in there," I said. "And when we leave here you"ll be turned loose. But if you try to come back through this door or jump Mrs. Butler again while we"re here, you"ve had it."
"Aren"t you brave, with a gun in your hand?" the blonde said.
"Don"t keep crowding your luck. Just because I haven"t shot you already doesn"t mean I won"t if I have to. I"m strictly a money player, and there"s a lot of it tied up in this. Too much to let a couple of hotheads like you louse it up. Keep it in mind, Blondie."
"I wouldn"t count on that money too much," she said.
"You wouldn"t? Why?"
"You"ll never get it."
"I"ll worry about that."
Her eyes had grown thoughtful, and now she actually smiled. It was a very cold smile. "Yes. You"ll worry about it, before you get through. You haven"t found out yet who you"re dealing with. I don"t know why I didn"t think of it before, but it makes me feel a lot better."
"What does?"
"The fact that even if you get away from here, it really doesn"t matter. One of you will kill the other before it"s all over. Isn"t it nice?"
"Isn"t it?" I said. "Unsaddle your broom and stay a while."
I closed the door and walked back to the table.
Madelon Butler was still sitting in the chair at the end of it. I sat down and lit another cigarette.
"You"d better go in and get some sleep," I said. "You"ll need it."
"It"s too hot," she said.
"Suit yourself," I said. "But it may be a little hot tonight, too."
She gave me that supercilious smile of hers again. "Not afraid to go back there, are you?"
"No," I said. "We"re going back."
"You"re rather fond of money, aren"t you?"
"I don"t know," I said. "I never had any."
"I hope you"ll be very happy with it."
"I like your friends," I said, nodding toward the storeroom. "Why don"t all of you rent yourselves out to curdle milk?"
"You"re not becoming squeamish, are you?" she asked mockingly. "Where"s your fine, professional att.i.tude? Surely the detached and unemotional Mr. Barton wouldn"t let a little display of petulance like that upset him." She broke off. "By the way, you never did tell me what your name really is."
"That"s right," I said. "I didn"t, did I?"
She shrugged.
Time dragged. The cabin was stifling.
I dozed off once, propped up in the chair. When my eyes flew open I saw the storeroom door being pulled gently back. The blonde was looking at me. "Back," I said. It shut again.
They"d be watching the house. They might catch us.
Or if we tried to run, it could be worse. They might kill us.
All right. Either I wanted that money, or I didn"t.
And if I wanted it, I had to have the keys.
Somehow, the sun went down.
It was dusk out across the clearing. I stood up. Madelon Butler killed another cigarette in the mountain of b.u.t.ts on the tray and looked at me. "Put on your robe," I said. "Its time to go."
"Very well," she said.
I thought of something. "Would that blonde s dress fit you?"
"I haven"t the faintest idea. But I"d die before I"d touch it."
"All right," I said. "Don"t strip your gears. It doesn"t matter. You can change into something else when we get in the house. If we do."
I went over and opened the storeroom door. "All right," I said.
They came out. I motioned for them to go out the front door. I followed them. Madelon Buder came out, and I handed her the key. "Lock it," I said. She locked the door. I put the key in my pocket.
I nodded to the blonde and Jack. "Just stand right where you are. When we"re gone you can start walking. Or you can have that Cadillac if you know how to start it without the keys and don"t mind that it"s a little hot."
"I"ll find you someday," Jack said. "I"ll find you."
"I"m in the book," I said. I motioned for Madelon Butler to get into the car.
As we crossed the culvert at the edge of the meadow I tossed the key out at the end of it without slowing down. I looked in the rear-view mirror, but I couldn"t see them. It was already too dark under the trees.
I flicked on the headlights and we went up the hill through the timber.
The lights of the country store and filling station were ahead of us. "Here"s where we hit the highway," I said. "We"ll see a police car once in a while, but they won"t be looking for this car. Don"t pay any attention to them. They can"t see you in here."
"Don"t worry about me," she said.
I sailed the keys to the Cadillac into the roadside bushes, and in another minute or two we pulled onto the pavement. In spite of what I"d told her, it was like walking into a cold shower.
I drove carefully, holding it down to forty or forty-five. Just a simple accident or being stopped for a traffic violation of some kind was all it would take to ruin us. I thought of how invisible a car was among all the hundreds of others until something happened to it, or the driver did something wrong, and then it was in the center of the stage with all the spotlights on it. When we came into the first town I turned over one street to keep out of the lights, and went through as if we were driving on eggsh.e.l.ls.
I turned twice more, and we were back on the highway again. It was only thirty miles now.
It had been over twelve hours since she was supposed to have fled. They might not actually expect her to be stupid enough to come back, but they"d have at least one man covering the place as a matter of routine. Maybe there"d be more. The money still hadn"t been found. They wouldn"t be taking any chances.
Would he be in front? Or in back? Inside the house itself?
We had to park the car far enough away so they wouldn"t hear it or see the headlights. And still we couldn"t walk around on the streets.
"Is there another street or road in back of that one directly behind the house?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "I"ll show you where to turn. There are no street lights there, and it"s mostly vacant lots."
She"d grown up in that house. I wondered how she felt about going back to it for the last time and knowing she"d never see it again if we got away. But whatever she felt, she kept it to herself. Then it occurred to me she had never seemed particularly bothered by the fact that her husband wasn"t around any more, either, or why he wasn"t. She wasn"t exactly the gushy type.
"Where did they find him?" I asked.
"I have no idea," she said.
"You don"t know?" I asked unbelievingly.
"That"s right." She appeared completely unconcerned. "You were the one who heard the news report. Remember?"
It just didn"t add up. I had to believe her. She sounded as if she were telling the truth, and she had no reason to lie about it now. And she hadn"t known that his car had been abandoned right in front of the James girl"s apartment, either. An odd thought struck me then. Had she really killed him? But that was stupid. She"d as much as admitted it. She was paying me $120,000 to get her out of there and hide her from the police. For what-a parking ticket?
"You don"t make much sense to me," I said.
"Really?" She lit a cigarette, and for an instant the flame of the match lit up the still, intensely beautiful face. "I wasn"t aware I was supposed to."
"Did you kill Butler?" I asked.
"Perhaps you should read the terms of our contract again. I recall nothing in it about submitting to an inquisition."
"Have it your way," I said. "I just work here."
"An excellent appraisal of your status. Incidentally, I might say that you have done very well so far, with only one or two exceptions."
"What exceptions?"
"In the first place, you should have killed them instead of turning them loose. They can describe you; And in the second place, you have thrown away the only key I have to the house. It was attached to the car keys."
"We don"t need a house key," I said. "We go in through one of the bas.e.m.e.nt windows. And as far as their describing me, you know as well as I do they"re not going to the police. They can"t."
"Yes. But has it occurred to you they might be captured by the police?"
"Sure," I said. "But it"s just a chance we have to take."
"Needlessly."
"All right. Needlessly. But I"m doing the job, and I"ll do it my own way."
She said nothing. We came up the grade out of the river bottom.
I"d had plenty of warning about her. But I didn"t realize it in time.
Ten