Fear is the Key (6 page)

I was just standing there, feeling a little sorry for
her and feeling a little sorry for myself, when I felt
a cold draught on the back of my neck. It came
from the direction of the bathroom door and ten
seconds ago that bathroom door had been closed
and locked. But it wasn't now.

It didn't require the sudden widening of the girl's
eyes to tell me that I wasn't imagining that cold
draught on the back of my neck. A cloud of steam
from the overheated bathroom drifted past my
right ear, a little bit too much to have escaped
through the keyhole of a locked door. About a
thousand times too much. I turned slowly, keeping
my hands well away from my sides. Maybe I would
try something clever later. But not now.

The first thing I noticed was the gun in his
hands, and it wasn't the sort of gun a beginner
carries around with him. A big dull black German
Mauser 7.63. One of those economical guns; the
bullet goes clear through three people at once.

The second thing I noticed was that the bathroom
doorway seemed to have shrunk since I'd
seen it last. His shoulders didn't quite touch both
sides of the doorway, but that was only because
it was a wide doorway. His hat certainly touched
the lintel.

The third thing I noticed was the kind of hat he
wore and the colour of the jacket. A panama hat, a
green jacket. It was our friend and neighbour from
the Ford that had been parked beside us earlier that
afternoon.

He reached behind him with his left hand and
softly closed the bathroom door.

‘You shouldn't leave windows open. Let me
have your gun.' His voice was quiet and deep,
but there was nothing stagy or menacing about it,
you could see it was the way he normally spoke.

‘Gun?' I tried to look baffled.

‘Look, Talbot,' he said pleasantly. ‘I suspect we're
both what you might call professionals. I suggest
we cut the unnecessary dialogue. Gun. The thing
you're carrying in your right coat pocket there.
With the finger and thumb of the left hand. So.
Now drop it on the carpet. Thank you.'

I kicked the gun across to him without being
told. I didn't want him to think I wasn't a professional
too.

‘Now sit down,' he said. He smiled at me, and I
could see now that his face wasn't chubby, unless
you could call a lump of rock chubby. It was
just broad and looked as if you could bounce a
two by four off it without achieving very much.
The narrow black moustache and the thin, almost
Grecian nose looked out of place, as incongruous,
almost, as the laughter lines round the eyes and on
either side of the mouth. I didn't place much store
on the laughter lines, maybe he only practised
smiling when he was beating someone over the
head with a gun.

‘You recognized me in the parking-lot?' I asked.

‘No.' He broke open the Colt with his left hand,

ejected the remaining shell, closed the gun and
with a careless flick of his wrist sent it spinning
ten feet to land smack in the waste-paper basket.
He looked as if he could do this sort of thing ten
times out of ten, everything this man tried would
always come off: if he was as good as this with his
left hand, what could he do with his right? ‘I'd
never seen you before this afternoon, I'd never
even heard of you when first I saw you in the
lot,' he continued. ‘But I'd seen and heard of this
young lady here a hundred times. You're a Limey,
or you'd have heard of her too. Maybe you have,
but don't know who you got there, you wouldn't
be the first person to be fooled by her. No make-up,
no accent, hair in kid's plaits. And you only look
and behave like that either if you've given up competing
– or there's no one left to compete against.'
He looked at the girl and smiled again. ‘For Mary
Blair Ruthven there's no competition left. When
you're as socially acceptable as she is, and your
old man is who he is, then you can dispense with
your Bryn Mawr accent and the Antonio hairdo.
That's for those who need them.'

‘And her old man?'

‘Such ignorance. Blair Ruthven. General Blair
Ruthven. You've heard of the Four Hundred –
well, he's the guy that keeps the register. You've
heard of the
Mayflower
– it was old Ruthven's
ancestors who gave the Pilgrims permission to
land. And, excepting maybe Paul Getty, he's the
richest oil man in the United States.'

I made no comment, there didn't seem to be any
that would meet the case. I wondered what he'd
say if I told him of my pipe-dream of slippers, a
fire and a multimillion heiress. Instead I said: ‘And
you had your radio switched on in the parking-lot.
I hear it. And then a news flash.'

‘That's it,' he agreed cheerfully.

‘Who are you?' It was Mary Blair speaking for
the first time since he'd entered and that was what
being in the top 1 per cent of the Four Hundred
did for you. You didn't swoon, you didn't murmur
‘Thank God' in a broken voice, you didn't burst
into tears and fling your arms round your rescuer's
neck, you just gave him a nice friendly smile which
showed he was your equal even if you know quite
well he wasn't and said: ‘Who are you?'

‘Jablonsky, miss. Herman Jablonsky.'

‘I suppose you came over in the
Mayflower
too,'
I said sourly. I looked consideringly at the girl.
‘Millions and millions of dollars, eh? That's a lot
of money to be walking around. Anyway, that
explains away Valentino.'

‘Valentino?' You could see she still thought I
was crazy.

‘The broken-faced gorilla behind you in the
court-room. If your old man shows as much judgement
in picking oil wells as he does in picking
bodyguards, you're going to be on relief pretty
soon.'

‘He's not my usual––' She bit her lip, and something
like a shadow of pain touched those clear
grey eyes. ‘Mr Jablonsky, I owe you a great deal.'

Jablonsky smiled again and said nothing. He
fished out a pack of cigarettes, tapped the bottom,
extracted one with his teeth, bent back a
cardboard match in a paper folder, then threw
cigarettes and matches across to me. That's how
the high-class boys operated today. Civilized, courteous,
observing all the little niceties, they'd have
made the hoodlums of the thirties feel slightly
ill. Which made a man like Jablonsky all the
more dangerous: like an iceberg, seven-eighths
of his lethal menace was out of sight. The old-
time hoodlums couldn't even have begun to cope
with him.

‘I take it you are prepared to use that gun,' Mary
Blair went on. She wasn't as cool and composed
as she appeared and sounded; I could see a pulse
beating in her neck and it was going like a racing
car. ‘I mean, this man can't do anything to me
now?'

‘Nary a thing,' Jablonsky assured her.

‘Thank you.' A little sigh escaped her, as if it
wasn't until that moment that she really believed
her terror was over, that there was nothing more
to fear. She moved across the room. ‘I'll phone the
police.'

‘No,' Jablonsky said quietly.

She broke step. ‘I beg your pardon?'

‘I said “No”,' Jablonsky murmured. ‘No phone,
no police, I think we'll leave the law out of it.'

‘What on earth do you mean?' Again I could
see a couple of red spots burning high up in
her cheeks. The last time I'd seen those it had
been fear that had put them there, this time it
looked like the first stirrings of anger. When your
old man had lost count of the number of oil
wells he owned, people didn't cross your path
very often. ‘We must have the police,' she went
on, speaking slowly and patiently like someone
explaining something to a child. This man is a
criminal. A wanted criminal. And a murderer. He
killed a man in London.'

‘And in Marble Springs,' Jablonsky said quietly.
‘Patrolman Donnelly died at five-forty this afternoon.'

‘Donnelly – died?' Her voice was a whisper. ‘Are
you sure?'

‘Six o'clock news-cast. Got it just before I tailed
you out of the parking-lot. Surgeons, transfusion,
the lot. He died.'

‘How horrible!' She looked at me, but it was no
more than a flickering glance, she couldn't bear
the sight of me. ‘And – and you say, “Don't bring
the police.” What do you mean?'

‘What I say,' the big man said equably. ‘No
law.'

‘Mr Jablonsky has ideas of his own, Miss Ruthven,'
I said dryly.

‘The result of your trial is a foregone conclusion,'
Jablonsky said to me tonelessly. ‘For a man with
three weeks to live, you take things pretty coolly.
Don't touch that phone, miss!'

‘You wouldn't shoot me.' She was already across
the room. ‘
You're
no murderer.'

‘I wouldn't shoot you,' he agreed. ‘I don't have
to.' He reached her in three long strides – he could
move as quickly and softly as a cat – took the
phone from her, caught her arm and led her back
to the chair beside me. She tried to struggle free
but Jablonsky didn't even notice it.

‘You don't want law, eh?' I asked thoughtfully.
‘Kind of cramps your style a little bit, friend.'

‘Meaning I don't want company?' he murmured.
‘Meaning maybe I would be awful reluctant to fire
this gun?'

‘Meaning just that.'

‘I wouldn't gamble on it,' he smiled.

I gambled on it. I had my feet gathered under me
and my hands on the arms of the chair. The back
of my chair was solidly against the wall and I took
off in a dive that was almost parallel to the floor,
arrowing on for a spot about six inches below his
breastbone.

I never got there. I'd wondered what he could
do with his right hand and now I found out. With
his right hand he could change his gun over to
his left, whip a sap from his coat pocket and hit
a diving man over the head faster than anyone
I'd ever known. He'd been expecting something
like that from me, sure: but it was still quite a
performance.

By and by someone threw cold water over me
and I sat up with a groan and tried to clutch the top
of my head. With both hands tied behind your back
it's impossible to clutch the top of your head. So I
let my head look after itself, climbed shakily to my
feet by pressing my bound hands against the wall
at my back and staggered over to the nearest chair.
I looked at Jablonsky, and he was busy screwing a
perforated black metal cylinder on to the barrel of
the Mauser. He looked at me and smiled. He was
always smiling.

‘I might not be so lucky a second time,' he said
diffidently.

I scowled.

‘Miss Ruthven,' he went on.
‘I'm
going to use
the phone.'

‘Why tell me?' She was picking up my manners
and they didn't suit her at all.

‘Because I'm going to phone your father. I want
you to tell me his number. It won't be listed.'

‘Why should you phone him?'

‘There's a reward out for our friend here,'
Jablonsky replied obliquely. ‘It was announced
right after the news-cast of Donnelly's death. The
state will pay five thousand dollars for any information
leading to the arrest of John Montague
Talbot.' He smiled at me. ‘Montague, eh? Well, I
believe I prefer it to Cecil.'

‘Get on with it,' I said coldly.

‘They must have declared open season on Mr
Talbot,' Jablonsky said. ‘They want him dead or
alive and don't much care which … And General
Ruthven has offered to double that reward.'

‘Ten thousand dollars?' I asked.

‘Ten thousand.'

‘Piker,' I growled.

‘At the last count old man Ruthven was worth
285 million dollars. He might,' Jablonsky agreed
judiciously, ‘have offered more. A total of fifteen
thousand. What's fifteen thousand?'

‘Go on,' said the girl. There was a glint in those
grey eyes now.

‘He can have his daughter back for fifty thousand
bucks,' Jablonsky said coolly.

‘Fifty thousand!' Her voice was almost a gasp. If
she'd been as poor as me she would have gasped.

Jablonsky nodded. ‘Plus, of course, the fifteen
thousand I'll collect for turning Talbot in as any
good citizen should.'

‘Who are you?' the girl demanded shakily. She
didn't look as if she could take much more of this.
‘What are you?'

‘I'm a guy that wants, let me see – yes, sixty-five
thousand bucks.'

‘But this is blackmail!'

‘Blackmail?' Jablonsky lifted an eyebrow. ‘You
want to read up on some law, girlie. In its strict
legal sense, blackmail is hush-money – a tribute
paid to buy immunity, money extorted by
the threat of telling everyone what a heel the
blackmailee is. Had General Ruthven anything to
hide? I doubt it. Or you might just say that blackmail
is demanding money with menaces. Where's
the menace? I'm not menacing you. If your old
man doesn't pay up I'll just walk away and leave
you to Talbot here. Who can blame me? I'm scared
of Talbot. He's a dangerous man. He's a killer.'

‘But – but then you would get nothing.'

‘I'd get it,' Jablonsky said comfortably. I tried
to imagine this character flustered or unsure of
himself: it was impossible. ‘Only a threat. Your
old man wouldn't dare gamble I wouldn't do it.
He'll pay, all right.'

‘Kidnapping is a federal offence––' the girl began
slowly.

‘So it is,' Jablonsky agreed cheerfully. ‘The hot
chair or the gas chamber. That's for Talbot. He kidnapped
you. All I'm doing is talking about leaving
you. No kidnapping there.' His voice hardened.
‘What hotel is your father staying at?'

‘He'snot at any hotel.' Her voice was flat
and toneless and she'd given up. ‘He's out on the
X 13.'

‘Talk sense,' Jablonsky said curtly.

‘X 13 is one of his oil rigs. It's out in the gulf,
twelve, maybe fifteen miles from here. I don't
know.'