1965 - The Way the Cookie Crumbles (6 page)

CHAPTER THREE

T
his isn’t the road to Paradise City!’

They had been driving in silence for some thirty minutes. Now, Algir had suddenly slowed down and swung the Buick off the highway and along a narrow dirt road bordered on either side by citrus shrubs.

‘This is all right,’ he said curtly, and slightly increased the speed of the car.

‘But it isn’t!’ There was a shrill note of alarm in Norena’s voice. ‘I know this road it leads to the sea! You’ve made a mistake, Mr. Tebbel.’

‘What’s the matter with the sea?’ Algir asked, staring in front of him. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the girl. ‘Don’t you like the sea?’

The previous week he had driven along highway 4A, searching for an isolated place where he could kill this girl and get rid of her body. This road they were on now led to the place he had found. He had come down this road every day for five days, always at this time and he had never seen anyone either on the road or the beach. It was a strictly Saturday and Sunday bathing and picnic spot: on weekdays, no one seemed to have the time nor the inclination to bathe there.

‘I want to see Mummy as quickly as possible,’ the girl said nervously. ‘We’re wasting time, Mr. Tebbel, coming this way. We must stop and turn back.’

‘What makes you think you won’t see her this way?’ Algir said. ‘I didn’t say she was in Paradise City, did I?’

‘Isn’t she? Then where is she?’

‘She’s in Culver Hospital,’ Algir lied. ‘This is a short cut to Culver.’

‘But it isn’t! I know this road. It leads only to the dunes and to the sea.’

‘You must leave this to me, Norena,’ Algir said, a sudden harsh note in his voice. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

She looked at him. He didn’t seem to be the same man who had met her in Dr. Graham’s study. That man had been charming, kind and sympathetic. But this man . . . Norena experienced a chill of terror. How could a man change so utterly and so quickly? It was like a face that changed in a nightmare.

A heron, startled by the approaching car, flew out of a tree and flapped heavily away. Ahead of them, Norena saw the sea.

‘There’s the sea,’ she said in despair. ‘This road leads nowhere except to the sea.’

The citrus shrubs had given way to tall pampas grass that swayed like sinister beckoning fingers in the warm gentle breeze.

‘Please stop,’ she pleaded. ‘Please.’

A hundred yards ahead of them the road came to an end in a big circular turnaround.

As Algir slowed the car, she again looked at him. His face was drawn and glistened with sweat. His eyes were staring. His lips were set in a hard vicious line. The sight of him horrified her. She had an instinctive feeling that he was going to attack her. She had often read the rape and murder cases that from time to time appeared in the newspapers. She had read them without much interest, sure that that sort of thing could never happen to her. In her opinion most of the murdered girls had only themselves to blame for their end. By the way they dressed and generally behaved themselves, they really did ask for trouble. But why should this man attack her? What had she done?

Unless, of course, he was one of those awful maniacs you read about. But he couldn’t be. He was Mummy’s lawyer. But did Mummy have a lawyer? She had never mentioned him. Again Norena looked at Algir who had stopped the car and was removing the ignition key.

He didn’t look at her. She hated that. If he had looked at her she might have seen what he was planning to do by the expression in his eyes. His movements were slow and deliberate. She noticed his hand was shaking as he withdrew the ignition key.

The beach with its lines of dunes, its yellowing clumps of dried grass and its broad wet ribbon of sand, marking the receding sea, stretched for lonely, empty miles. The breeze had stiffened, blowing the loose dry sand in little swirls that week after week, month after month, year after year formed the high sloping dunes that broke up the flatness of the beach.

She found herself slipping back the door catch. The car door swung open and she was out. Algir’s reaching fingers were too late. She felt his grip, but she tore loose and she began to run across the soft sand faster than she had ever run before.

And she could run. She hadn’t played hockey and basketball for nothing. She hadn’t won the hundred yards at the College sports against stiff opposition for nothing either. Nor had she ever had to race for her life, and as she flashed across the beach that thought that she was racing for her life urged her forward at a speed that made her winning hundred yard sprint look slow.

Taken by surprise, Algir glared after her. He was shaken by the way this girl could run.

If she escaped and talked!

He scrambled out of the car and tore after her. The distance between them must be at least a hundred yards, he thought, and it was increasing. Who would have thought the little bitch could run like this? Her long legs seemed to fly over the sand. Already he was panting. His only exercise was an occasional game of golf. Running like this quickly made him breathless. He kept on, aware that she was drawing further and further away from him. Finally, she disappeared from his sight behind a high dune.

`He ran on until he reached the dune. His breathing laboured, his heart hammering, he scrambled up the dune and stopped, his eyes smarting with sweat. He could see her, but now a distant figure silhouetted against the azure blue of the sky. She was still running with long, effortless strides, but she had changed her direction. She was no longer running blindly along the beach that stretched for several miles before it petered out into a vast, swampy cypress forest. She was heading inland now, her back to the sea. Ahead of her was a screen of oak and willow hummocks with the occasional maple tree forcing its way through the dense undergrowth.

Algir had explored these hummocks a few days previously. Through their tangled undergrowth there was a cleared track that ran in a crescent shaped curve and finally came out onto the dirt road they had driven up from highway 4A.

Did she know the track led to the highway? He saw at once his chance of catching her. It was his only chance. He slid back down the sand dune and raced across the sand towards the Buick. Reaching the car, he slid under the steering wheel, put the key into the ignition lock with a shaking hand, started the engine and set the car shooting back down the dirt road.

It took him only a few minutes to reach the T-joint of the dirt road and the track from the hummocks. He drove the Buick under the shade of a willow tree, then taking off his jacket and leaving it in the car, he half ran, half walked down the track until he reached the fringe of the hummocks. He paused to look back in the direction of the Buick, but the high growing pampas grass hid it from view. Nodding, satisfied, he walked into the undergrowth for a few yards. Then selecting a thick shrub, he sat down behind it. From there, he could see some twenty yards up the track.

There was nothing he could do now, but to wait.

While waiting, he thought of Ticky Edris and this girl, Ira Marsh, that Ticky seemed so pleased with. The whole success of the plan revolved around the girl. If he made a mistake then Johnnie Williams, Muriel Marsh and her daughter would have been murdered for nothing. Maybe he had been crazy to have agreed to go in with Ticky on such a plan, but Ticky had convinced him.

‘I’ve seen her, you haven’t,’ Ticky had said. ‘She’s made for the job. You don’t have to worry about her, Phil. That doll will do anything for money.’

He thought Ticky had been nuts to have promised a teenager fifty thousand dollars. Why give so much of the profit away? Surely, she would have come in on the job for as little as ten thousand?

Ticky smiled his evil smile.

‘What does it matter? Who said she would get any of the money? Relax, Philly-boy, what’s one more body, now we have three?’

Algir wiped the sweat from his forehead. He didn’t trust Ticky. He would have to watch out that Ticky hadn’t ideas about him. Ticky might be thinking, What’s one more body, now I have four?

Algir suspected that Ticky was unbalanced. He had a revenge complex. Ever since he had begun working at La Coquille restaurant, so he had told Algir, he had dreamed of getting even with the rich.

‘You know something?’ he said, one evening when the two men were in Ticky’s apartment. It had been a Thursday, Algir remembered, Ticky’s night off. They had been drinking pretty steadily and by now, Ticky was very drunk. His face was flushed, his eyes glassy and sweat beads sparkled on his forehead. ‘I couldn’t imagine how I could hit back at these rich sons of bitches. To get even with them, I had to have as much money as they had . . . more money. I couldn’t see how I could ever get the money until I went to Mrs. Forrester’s place. What chance had I? I am a misshapen dwarf against a grinning, sneering community of rich bastards who treat me like a jester with their contempt and their stinking jokes. Then one night I went to this old cow’s place and it happened! Now, I’m no longer on my own. I can talk things over with this guy and he’s a lot smarter than I am. You’ve no idea how smart he is.’

Algir, slightly drunk, had stared at the dwarf.

‘What do you mean? Who’s this guy then?’

Edris looked sly. He puffed out his cheeks and fanned his heated face with his stumpy hand.

‘I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him, but I hear him. He’s right here,’ and Edris tapped his massive forehead. ‘He talks to me, Phil. It was he who dreamed up this plan. He told me what to do. He, not me.’

Algir didn’t like any of this. He thought Ticky was either crazy or else he was kidding. Either way, Algir didn’t like it.

‘Who’s this Mrs. Forrester?’

‘She’s a table-rapper. Every Thursday evening she holds a séance. Ten people turn up. They each give her a dollar. That’s all she has to live on. I went along one Thursday for the kicks. I hadn’t anything better to do. So I went along and paid my dollar.’ His face now had a dreamy expression. ‘The best and most profitable dollar I’ve ever spent.’

‘What happened then?’ Algir asked, helping himself to Ticky’s whisky.

‘We all sat around an enormous table with a dim red light in the centre. There was some hymn playing on a beat-up record player. We had our hands on the table, our fingers touching. The old girl went off into a trance and then people began asking questions. It was all pretty crummy. They wanted to know about their goddamn relations who were dead. The table moved once for ‘yes’ and twice for ‘no’. Strictly for the kids. If I hadn’t paid my dollar, I would have cleared off. Anyway, my turn came around, and I asked if I was going to make big money pretty soon. Everyone around the table seemed shocked. According to them, you didn’t ask questions like that. Even the goddamn table went into a sulk. It didn’t move. The old girl had some kind of a fit. She fell off her chair. People got up and crowded around her. I was fed up with the whole crummy thing. I went out into the hall to collect my hat. I was putting it on when I heard a man’s voice, as distinctly as I hear your voice, saying, ‘Ticky, you’re going to make big money, but you’ll have to be patient. It may take years, but you’ll get it.’ I was surprised because I couldn’t see anyone in the hall. There was no one in the hall. I thought I had imagined the voice, but when I got home, it started talking to me again, and this time I knew it was real.’ Ticky broke off and squinted at Algir. ‘You think I’m nuts, don’t you?’

‘I think you’re drunk,’ Algir said.

Since then, Ticky had never mentioned the voice again, but Algir was sure the dwarf imagined he still heard it. It worried Algir, but there was nothing he could do about it. A mosquito buzzing suddenly in Algir’s ear disturbed his thoughts. He was lifting his hand to swat the insect when he saw Norena. She was coming silently down the track, like a ghost, her big frightened eyes moving from right to left, from left to right.

Tense, Algir remained motionless, watching her, his suntanned hands turning into fists.

She must have felt she was no longer alone because she stopped abruptly, her hands going to her face. She stared down the track towards the pampas grass, catching her breath in a frightened sob.

Algir could see the panic rising in her face. She was about to turn and run back to the sea as he lifted himself up on his haunches and sprang out of the bush towards her. At the sight of him, she gave a wailing scream of terror. She tried to run, but he grabbed her arm, jerking her against him. He had imagined she would have been easy to handle. He had tremendous confidence in his immense strength, but he found he could scarcely hold her.

Desperate with terror, she kicked, clawed and bit. She didn’t scream anymore. They fought silently and horribly. He kept hitting her across her nose and mouth. Her face now was a mask of blood. She was weakening. Grinning savagely, his breath coming in laboured gasps, he shifted his right hand to her throat, his fingers sinking into her windpipe. As if she realized this was her end, she seemed to go mad. Jerking and twisting in violent convulsions, she nearly broke his hold, but he managed to hang on. He fell forward, bringing her down with him and now he was on top of her, flattening her and his left hand joined his right.

She was still struggling, but life was draining out of her. He increased the pressure on her throat. Her long legs began to thrash, then her heels drummed in the sand. It was her final, feeble effort. Then abruptly she went limp. Her eyes rolled back in the sightless stare of death.

Shuddering, Algir got to his feet. A trickle of blood ran down the side of his neck where she had clawed him. His heart was thumping so violently, he felt suffocated.

Unsteadily, he moved away and sat down abruptly, his back against a tree. He remained still, his head in his hands for some minutes.

Well, it was done, he thought, fear like a cold coil inside him. If he had known it was going to be like that, he wouldn’t have done it. He wouldn’t have repeated those last awful moments for all the money in the world. He looked at his strap watch. The time was 08.40 hours. He was behind schedule. With an effort, he got to his feet and walked to where he had left the Buick. He stopped by the car, listening and looking down the dirt road. Only the sound of the sea and the plaintive cries of the gulls came to him. He reached into the glove compartment, took out half a bottle of whisky and gulped down a stiff drink. Then he unlocked the trunk of the car and leaving it half-open, he returned to where he had left the dead girl.