A Killer is Loose (15 page)

The three men halted out there and looked at the house. I reached down and squeezed Lillian, and she began to sit up. She was tense as a board, sitting there. She saw them and looked at me. Maybe we could make a noise, but that’s about all you had to do. Just
think
and he was on you.

“Now, look,” he said. “Both of you. I don’t know what these fools are up to, but be quiet, understand? I honestly will kill you. I honestly will. I don’t want to, but I promise you, I will. Everything depends on what I’m going to do.”

Lillian shrank against me.

Outside the three cops came on again and you could hear their feet on the ground. They still weren’t talking.

“You understand?” Angers said. He was pumping the gun again.

“I was a cop once,” I said. “Up in Jacksonville.”

“I never want to be a cop,” he said.

Then we couldn’t see them any more. They were approaching the porch and this window overlooked the porch roof. We heard them on the porch, then.

One of them spoke:

“Hell, they ain’t around here. They’re in Georgia by now.”

“Just the same, we’re going in. That’s orders.”

Angers moved in close by us. You could hear him breathe. It was raspy, as if he couldn’t get enough air, and you could smell that gun. He was that close. My heart began going. If there were only some way to let them know! Lillian sat tight up against me and she was hot, her hands were all sweaty when she touched mine.

“Remember,” Angers said. “Please remember.”

“Yes, Ralph,” Lillian said. “Yes, Ralph, honey, yes.”

A new voice said, “I’d kind of hate to meet up with that guy, the way he shot Bud Lyttle.”

“He’s just a guy, like anybody else.”

Their feet scraped.

“The door’s locked. Here, I’ll try them keys…. No good.”

“Let me try. You ain’t got the touch.”

“Hell, they’re in Georgia.”

“I know it. There.”

We all tensed. The door came open down there and the voices were much clearer. Their feet came into the downstairs hall.

“You figure this Logan is in with him?”

“What you mean, in with him?”

“I’d blast him, by God!”

They walked into a room and their voices changed to an indistinguishable muttering. They returned to the hall again. For a moment they stood in the hall and you could see they were using a flashlight.

“Hell, you can’t tell,” one said. “You can’t tell anything about this. The girl wasn’t with them at the house over there.”

“Wasn’t that hell, though?”

“Wonder where the girl is.”

“They probably knocked her off.”

“That Mrs. Graham says Logan wasn’t with him, anything like that.”

“What did she know?”

“It’s plain hell.”

They went down the hall toward the rear of the house. I heard them rattle the door in the kitchen.

Angers hadn’t moved. He stood right in front of us, holding the gun, and we didn’t move, either. If there only were some way to let those men know. If they came upstairs, Angers would shoot his way out. I knew he would.

He leaned down close, with his head by our faces.

“Remember,” he whispered. “I meant what I said.” Then he straightened again, and stood like that.

“I was in bed,” one of them said. “Right there in bed.”

“They got me up, too. Whole force is on this.”

“Wonder if she’s nice.”

“The girl?”

“Nice and dead, I reckon.”

“A shame.”

They laughed. The laughter echoed all through the house and for a moment it was quiet. They were in the hall, by the foot of the stairs.

“This Graham dame, she can’t talk much yet?”

“She’s alive and that’s all.”

“Town never had anything like this.”

“The Chief’s got ants.”

“Who wouldn’t? He’s responsible. Everybody looks at it that way, anyways. Well, they ain’t down here.”

“They’re in Georgia.”

“He’s a good shot with that gun, all right.”

“Wonder what’s the idea.”

“You heard them say he’s nuts.”

I looked up at Angers. He didn’t move. The gun didn’t move from right there by our heads. He was watching us, listening to them down there.

“What would you do if you saw him right now?”

“Orders are shoot on sight.”

“What about the guy with him?”

“Come on, let’s go back. Hell with this.”

“We better look upstairs. Suppose they’re right upstairs?”

“Orders are to shoot on sight. The Chief says to hell with this trying to take him alive. Nobody really knows this guy Logan. I’ll shoot on sight, man, let me tell you. Fast.”

“You and your fast.”

“A shame. A doctor, too. Would you think it? They traced him. An eye surgeon from Seattle. You hear about it?”

“I been out since before supper. I ain’t ate yet, even.”

“Doctor from Seattle. He cracked up, from what they say. Worked too hard or something. He cracked up once before, over in Korea. He’s a veteran.”

“I’m going to look around upstairs.”

“He’s a veteran now, all right. How about the dame?”

We heard the man beginning to come up the stairs. He came slowly and the flashlight began to brighten even the walls of this front bedroom. Angers didn’t move at all. The gun just lifted a little. It was pointed straight between my eyes. Lillian was so stiff with fright I don’t believe she could have moved. I wondered if this might set Angers off. He might shoot just for the hell of it. That’s usually the way he did do it. It looked that way, always.

“They don’t know, isn’t much on her,” one said as the man kept coming up the stairs. “Just she was a dancer in Seattle. Nobody ever saw her with him, so the report says. She had an act in a joint in Seattle. A dancer.”

“See anything?”

“It’s quiet up here.”

“Go ahead, look around.”

The man was at the head of the stairs. He took a couple of steps and now Angers changed. You could feel it, not even touching him—like a charge of electricity. The light swept our doorway, banged into the room and out again.

“The hell with it. Nothing up here.”

Lillian began sobbing quietly and Angers reached out and touched her forehead with the muzzle of the gun. She ceased, holding her breath. She was vibrating with pent-up fear and hope.

The man pounded down the stairs. The door slammed. They scraped and clumped off the porch and pretty soon I saw them walking back across the lawn. They paused out front and Angers crouched quickly. The flashlight came on, flashing around on the house. Once the light whisked brilliantly across the window. Then it blinked off and they turned, walking over to the cars by the curb.

“That’s it,” Angers said. “They’ve done their duty. They won’t be back again.”

He stood there taking big breaths, blowing them out.

I felt let down. It was as if a big chunk of hope had been gnawed out of me, leaving only a writhing black despair. The despair was mixed with the fear and I knew Lillian must feel the same. Both of us had done a lot of hoping and praying during the past few moments. It had all gone to nothing. Yet, if they had found us, it would have been hell. It would have been war and Lillian and I would have been in the middle.

Maybe it was a good thing they didn’t find us.

I sat there watching him, with Lillian sort of trembling inside her skin beside me.

“You heard what they said, pal?”

“Yes.”

“It was mostly right, pal. Only I haven’t cracked up or anything like that—not by a long shot.”

Lillian made a small noise. He didn’t seem to hear her.

“That was just—well, part of the plan,” he said.

“I understand.”

“It was a secret at first, you see?”

“Sure.”

Lillian pressed close against me.

His voice went flat. “They criticized me,” he said. “They criticized me for the way I went about things, my dreams.” His voice became like still water, like a nest of sleeping snakes, and you could feel the mad wrath contained within that voice. “They always criticized me, even when I did big things. I’m doing a big thing now. They won’t criticize me. If they do, I’ll kill them. Ignorance. There’s no room for it in my plans. No room.”

He stood there, breathing deep and slow, and I saw something. That’s what got him, it must have been. Criticism. He couldn’t take it. He blew his top over it. Of course, it wasn’t that alone, but that was the trigger.

God help anybody who said the wrong thing to this guy.

“They don’t know the half of it, how you can dance, do they, Lil?”

She didn’t answer.

“They’re going away out there,” he said, glancing out the window. “See?”

He was right. They were going away. Only one car remained. It was parked in front of the other house, where the little girl lived.

“Now we can get moving,” he said. “We’ve got clean clothes, everything. I’m going to phone a real-estate man.”

“Oh?”

Lillian glanced at me in the pale dark, her eyes wide.

“Sure, pal. That’s right. You know a good one? It doesn’t matter, though. I know right where we’ll build the hospital.”

Lillian sat very still, looking at him. We both watched him.

“Saw the spot when we were driving by that park down there,” he told us. His eyes shone bright and flat in the dimly lit room. “A good five-block stretch, without a building on it. Across from the park. There was a ‘For Sale’ sign on it, too.”

Right then something hit me. So far I hadn’t let him see how scared I was. I’d talked along with him about things, and sometimes I’d even come back at him, differed with him. And since I hadn’t thought about it, maybe the fear hadn’t shown in me.

I wondered then what he would do if he ever saw how really scared I was. Suppose he saw it in my eyes?

A
LL RIGHT
, what was I supposed to do now? There wasn’t anything to do. Go along with him until you faced the muzzle of your own Luger and felt the sock of lead and heard the roar with his pale expressionless face up there looking at you. It was a nice feeling. It was fine. And now he was going to phone a real-estate man.

“We’ll go downstairs while I phone,” he said.

I stood beside the bed and Lillian sat there, staring across at the window. I got her hand and pulled and she stood up.

“You have some money, haven’t you, pal?”

I reminded him about the twenty-six dollars Jake Halloran had paid me for the Luger.

“Good. We’ll need that.”

“How you going to look at land without any dough?”

“Oh, money’s no object,” he said. “I’ve got all the money I’ll ever need. My God, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Millions.”

“I see. Well, in that case, it’s all right, then.” I stood there remembering Harvey Aldercook, and the next minute I was blabbing it out about him, about how I’d needed money and he’d owed me that two-seventy and all.

“A bum, pal. Strictly no good.” He shot a burst of that crazy laughter of his at the ceiling. “Money,” he said. “Money. You never saw so much money. We’ll build that hospital, all right. The fund is big, pal. I drove myself getting it. I’ve got all the money I’ll ever need.”

Lillian was staring at him. She looked at me.

“What’s the matter, Lil?” he said.

“You’ve been broke ever since I knew you,” she said. “We spent all my money getting here and now I’m broke.”

“Let’s go downstairs,” he said. “They’ll send me the money,” he said. “Soon as I tell them what I’ve been doing.” He glanced out the window and we all stood there and watched the last police car gun away from the curb and hiss swiftly away down the street.

“I’d saved it,” Lillian said. “I’d saved that money up, and I worked hard for it, too.”

“You’re a good girl,” Angers said. “You understand.”

“Yes,” she said. “Sure. I understand.” She watched the floor.

“You’ll never have to work again,” he said. “You’ll have all the money you’ll ever need, like I told you. It’s my dream, and when a man realizes a dream like this— well.”

“Sure,” Lillian said. “Sure, I know.”

He phoned a real-estate man. The guy’s name was Tom Bourney. Before he called we checked on the address of this house, and Angers told him to meet us here, right away. We’d be waiting out front.

“Make it as quick as you can,” Angers said. “It’s something that can’t wait.” He hung up and looked at us with that flat, mirror-like gaze.

He picked up his roll of paper and stood there.

I stepped toward the phone. “Guess I’ll just give the hospital a buzz,” I said. “See how Ruby is.”

“Pal.”

“Won’t take a minute,” I said. “That guy won’t be here that quick.”

“That’s not what I mean, pal. You know what I mean.”

I had my hand on the phone. He just stood there with his damned roll of paper and the gun and looked at me. There wasn’t any happiness in Lillian’s face, either.

“Hell,” I said. I kind of looked past his shoulder now, because I kept thinking he might see how scared I was by my eyes. I didn’t want him to see that.

I said, “I’ve got to see how she is.”

“It wouldn’t be smart.”

Well, we stood like that for a minute.

“We’ll go outside and wait by the curb for Mr. Bourney.”

We went outside.

We waited out there by the curb and I couldn’t help hoping some of the cops had stuck around. They apparently hadn’t. It was about ten o’clock in the evening and there were still some lights lit in the house next door, where we’d listened to the piano.

“He wanted to make it tomorrow,” Angers said. “I told him to bring a flashlight.”

“Ralph,” Lillian said, “why couldn’t we just call it off till tomorrow? We could—we could go to a hotel or something. Couldn’t we, Ralph, honey?”

“No, Lil. We’ve really started now. Like I been telling you all along, when we found the place, we’d get at it right away.”

“Yes, Ralph.” She paused for a moment. It was much lighter out here and I was glad in a way. I could see Angers better. “Ralph,” she said, “I’m hungry. We haven’t eaten since I don’t know when.”

I knew she wasn’t hungry.

“Sure, Lil. I could eat a bear myself. We’ll get something to eat.”