A Killer is Loose (7 page)

“Mr. Logan. I’m so glad you’ve finally come. We’ve been waiting for you. The doctors simply don’t know what to do.”

“Come on, pal,” Angers said. He caught hold of my arm and began pulling at me. I had gone sick inside. These Gray Ladies knew what went on inside a hospital, and she obviously knew something about Ruby.

“Wait, Ralph! Wait!” Lillian said.

The woman looked at us, frowning. She didn’t know what it was all about.

I tried to pull free of his grip, but he held on and looked at me. “We haven’t any time for this,” he said. “Come on, pal.”

“Mr. Logan,” the woman said, “I’m at the desk, inside. I’m just going home now. But you should hurry in there. As I said, the doctors—”

“Please go away,” Angers said to her. “Please, just go away, will you?” His voice was quite kind.

“Ralph!” Lillian said. She went up to the woman and said, “Is Mrs. Logan all right?”

“No. She’s not all right,” the Gray Lady said. “I hardly think this is any way to act. She’s been calling for her husband and Dr. Amory needs to talk to him about something.”

“Lillian,” Ralph Angers said. “Come on with us. I won’t ask you again.” His voice was soft and dead.

The older woman was trying to look over Lillian’s shoulder at me. Her glasses glinted in the sunlight. Then I felt Angers move and saw him reach beneath his coat.

“All right,” I said quickly. “All right, Ralph. Let’s go.” I was sick inside. I grinned at him, banged his shoulder. “You’re right, we haven’t got time for this. Let’s go, eh?”

He stared blankly at me, a sheen of perspiration covering his pale face. His grip slowly relaxed on my arm and we started walking along the sidewalk.

“Well!” the old woman said. “I never!”

“Come on, Lillian,” I said. “Please come on.”

But Lillian had seen Angers reach for the gun. She hurried along behind us. Back there the woman stood on the walk and slowly shook her head. Maybe eventually she would find out how very close she had come to never leaving that spot.

“I’m terribly sorry, Steve,” Lillian said, beside me.

I didn’t say anything.

We walked along. Angers’ tread was solid and he stared straight ahead. “It’s people like that,” he said. “They stand in my way. Ignorance. It’s always been that way. I should have killed her. I knew I should have. She’ll go around, spreading her ignorance, standing in the way of progress. They say it’s not the individual, but they’re wrong. You know that, pal?”

I nodded.

“Yes. It takes individuals to make a mob, remember that. And then the mob becomes the individual. With but a single thought. Destruction. They destroy whatever is good.”

Lillian took my arm. “She’ll be all right, Steve. Don’t think about it. There’s nothing you can do. In a hospital like that, she must have the very best of care. I’m sure it’s nothing serious.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks, Lil.”

Something kept telling me to make a break for it. But I knew it wouldn’t be any good. He’d drop me before I’d gone ten feet and that wouldn’t help Ruby a bit. It wouldn’t help anybody. I’d been picked for a job, all right, whether I wanted it or not. If he killed me, he’d go right on his merry way killing anybody else that crossed his path.

Only what was the matter with Ruby? Why did they want me in there? Maybe she was dying. Maybe there was some kind of operation that was needed and they were unable to go ahead without my consent. It seemed to me I had heard of such things happening.

We walked along. Angers looked cool again. The sheen of perspiration covering his face had dried, and save for that pallor, he looked quite normal. I wanted very much to get Lillian alone and talk with her. Maybe she knew something, could tell me something. But that was a laugh. It wouldn’t matter what she knew. Nothing mattered save the moment itself.

“Much farther, pal?”

“No, it’s not too far.”

I tried not to think about Ruby. It was the only way. But I couldn’t stop thinking about her. It was such a simple thing. I told myself I would promise anything to see her. I wouldn’t tell anybody about him. But I knew that was a promise I wouldn’t be able to keep. It wasn’t a question of just stopping this guy. He had to be stopped all the way.

“This is a nice town,” he said. “A good town, a clean town. I like clean towns, pal.”

Pretty soon we reached my street. We were still several blocks from the house. But far down there, out on the sidewalk, I saw a pair of blue shorts and a red sweater.

Betty Graham. Maybe there would be some way of telling her, tipping her off. She could get the cops. She would be right next door. If only I could reach her. She had seen me with Angers this morning, and something told me she hadn’t liked the guy.

“Ralph,” Lillian said, “don’t you think we should go someplace and eat? I haven’t eaten since yesterday. The phone didn’t work at the hotel.”

He grinned at her. “I disconnected it,” he said. “It would have been rather silly, leaving the phone connected, don’t you think?”

“There’s nothing to eat at my place,” I said. “Maybe we could go to a restaurant, Ralph. I’ve got some money.”

He just turned and looked at me.

Up ahead, Betty Graham was still standing on the sidewalk. She was watering her lawn with the hose again. We were a block and a half away, but she saw us coming. She waved and I watched her cross the lawn to shut off the hose.

“Isn’t she the woman who stopped you on the street?” Angers said. “In the car?”

“That’s right.”

“I see.”

B
ETTY
G
RAHAM
came toward us across her lawn. She was frowning. She glanced at Lillian, then looked hard at Angers, and I saw she remembered him. Then she looked at me.

“Steve, you haven’t been to the hospital yet.”

We paused on the sidewalk and Angers watched her.

“No, I’ve been busy, Betty.”

“Oh.”

“Have you heard anything?”

She shook her head. “Just that they want you at the hospital, Steve. I think you should get right over there. I thought you were on your way hours ago.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s move along,” Angers said.

“I live right there,” I told Angers. “Right next door.”

“Steve,” Betty said, “who are these folks? Couldn’t you introduce me?”

“Friends, Betty.”

We all stood there, staring at each other. I knew Lillian would have liked to talk plenty and Betty was suspicious of something. She had every right to be. She knew it wasn’t like me not to be at the hospital.

“So that’s where you live,” Angers said to me. He was watching Betty Graham. He started up the walk toward Betty Graham’s front porch. “Come on, pal. You too, Lil. I’ve changed my mind. We’re going to stay here. There might be trouble next door. But if there is—” He shrugged. “We’ll watch it, eh?” He turned and waited for us. Lillian and I looked at each other and went on up to him.

“What is this?” Betty asked. “What is all this, Steve?”

“I can’t explain,” I said. “Not now. Just do as he says, that’s all.”

“But I don’t understand, Steve.”

“Listen,” Lillian said. She spoke to Betty and her expression was very intent. “The idea is that we’re going to come into your house.”

“Come on,” Angers said. “Let’s go inside. I want to get out of this coat. It’s hot.”

Betty didn’t know what to say. She wanted to understand, but it was a little beyond understanding. She sensed something, I could see it in her face. But she didn’t know what really was up.

“Why, sure, Steve. Go ahead. Go on in. Sam’ll be home pretty soon.”

“Sam?” Angers said. He paused on the porch steps.

“My husband,” Betty told him.

“Oh.” He went on across the porch. I had a single instant where a whisper might not carry.

“Do as he says,” I told Betty. “Don’t ask questions.”

“But Steve!”

Angers turned by the door. “Come on, pal.”

Lillian and I went up the steps and over to the door. Betty stayed down on the front walk, watching us.

“You, too,” Angers said. “Come on, get inside.”

“I’m watering the lawn,” Betty said. She knew something was up now, all right. “I’ll be along soon.”

“Sure,” Angers said. “Only come now. Never mind the lawn.”

“Please, honey,” Lillian said. “Please, just come on, like Ralph says.”

Betty came up the porch steps and we all went inside her house. She kept looking at me and I knew she was bursting with questions. I hoped she’d keep her mouth shut. I didn’t want trouble and there was no telling what Angers might do.

“This looks like a good place,” Angers said. “We’ll live here.”

We walked on through a short hallway into the living room. It was a typical one-storied Florida house. Betty and Sam had been adding to it whenever they had enough money saved up, and it was quite nice. They were proud of their place. Sam Graham was a clerk in the City Power Building.

“Some friends you got,” Betty said. “How about introducing me, Steve? This guy’s a card. Live here, he says.”

“Yes, Betty. This is Lillian and that’s Ralph Angers.”

They nodded.

Ralph dropped the valise on the living-room floor and flinched out of his coat. He tossed it over a chair and Betty stood there looking at the gun stuck into the belt of his pants.

Lillian sighed and sat in a chair by the front windows. There were some throw rugs, a large rattan couch, a large coffee table, chairs, lamps, and a television set over by the fireplace.

“Anybody been over by my place, Betty?” I asked.

She shook her head.

Angers looked at Betty. “What’s your name?”

“Betty. Betty Graham.”

“Well, Mrs. Graham, I don’t know how long we’ll be here, but it may be quite a while. Suppose you fix us something to eat. All right?”

All the smiling was gone out of her now. She looked at Lillian and Lillian looked at me.

“I hate to put you to all this trouble, Mrs. Graham,” Angers said. “But you’ll see it’s for a good cause. Let’s have a look at the kitchen, all right?”

Betty dismissed the whole thing. It was too fantastic. She just grabbed hold of that thing that women have in their minds and closed the whole matter out. She crossed it off the books.

“Steve,” she said, “are you going right over to the hospital? I could run you over in the car.”

“Sit down, Betty,” I said.

“But I don’t want to sit down.”

The room was very quiet. Angers walked around, pulled the Luger from his belt, laid it on the television set. Betty watched him.

“Please sit down, Betty,” I said. I took her arm and led her over to the couch. We sat down. Angers paced the room. Finally he went over to the valise, picked it up, and flopped it on a chair. He opened it, took out the roll of paper and the bottle of whisky, and placed them on the floor. Then he shut the valise and took it out into the hall.

“Do as he says,” I told Betty quickly. I couldn’t tell her any more because he returned to the room.

The house was very still. Lillian sat over there with her legs crossed and stared at the purse she held in her lap. Angers picked up the roll of blueprints and placed them on the mantel over the fireplace, then he went back and sat down in the chair. He reached for the bottle of whisky, uncapped it, and drank. Then he capped it and set it on the floor again.

Betty and I sat there on the couch.

She said, “But Steve!”

“Yes.”

“All right. I’ll go get something to eat.”

“Not yet,” Angers said. “Sit still a minute. I want to tell you something, Mrs. Graham. I forgot.”

His face was as expressionless as ever. His white shirt was soaked with sweat. The Luger was within reach of his arm on top of the television set.

“When will your husband be home, Mrs. Graham?”

“Oh, God, I don’t know! In an hour or so.”

“I see. Well, Mrs. Graham, I don’t think you’d better fix us anything to eat.”

“But I thought you said—”

“We’ll wait for your husband.”

“Steve!” She turned to me. “What is this?”

“I don’t want to have to kill you, Mrs. Graham,” Angers said. “But please, keep an even temper, will you?”

“Steve!” Betty said. She was getting a little harried now, wild. “If this is a joke, you’ve worn it thin. I can laugh at anything, but this is getting to be too much, Steve. What is this?”

“Try to listen,” I told her. “And believe. Mr. Angers has already killed two people today, Betty. Please relax and do as he says.” I didn’t look at Angers. I didn’t know how he’d take it. Lillian kept right on staring at her purse.

“Killed? Killed?” Betty said. Her eyes were big and round, and the fright that was in Lillian was beginning to show in Betty now. It was a peculiar thing, how you could tell when they began to see the truth. The fear wormed its way slowly into their eyes, and you knew they began to get it. Betty wasn’t the type of person to sit down and take things as they came. She had to have her finger in the pie. And if the pie wasn’t just right, she’d want to bake another one. So she’d want to change this. But the fear was there and she kept trying to push it back, not to believe in what she couldn’t help believing. These things didn’t happen to you! You read about them in the newspapers, or you maybe heard it over the radio. But they never happened to you. They weren’t real. They never happened.

“You mean this man hasn’t let you go see Ruby at the hospital?” Betty asked.

“He doesn’t think it’s necessary,” I told her. “It’s not the important thing, right now.”

Betty ran a hand across her forehead. Her tone was beginning to change now. I had been quite serious in everything I said and she was slowly, very slowly, beginning to get it.

Her hand dropped and she stared across the room at nothing.

“Steve,” Angers said, “we’ll wait for Mrs. Graham’s husband before I show you the blueprints. I don’t like interruptions.”

“Sure.”

Betty rose slowly. She looked at me, then started walking across the room.

“Where are you going, Mrs. Graham?” Angers said.

“Just out here,” she said. “It’s my house. If I want to walk around in my own house, I guess I will.”