Nothing In Her Way (11 page)

We stared at each other for a full ten seconds. There didn’t seem to be anything to say.

“Do you rumba?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “But I sing better. Or maybe you’d rather have a little talk first.”

The car stopped in the middle of California Street and he stepped down and nodded at me. I got down and we both walked over to the sidewalk. I still hadn’t thought of anything. I’d know all the time this was going to happen, but maybe I just hadn’t expected it so soon.

“How about the Top of the Mark?” he asked.

“All right.”

It wasn’t crowded, and we got seats by a window with empty booths on both sides of us. We ordered Scotch, and while we were waiting for the drinks I studied his face. The cuts were healed now. You couldn’t see anything in the eyes; they were as noncommittal and hard and gray as ever. He was smooth and tough as they come, but somehow in a civilized sort of way—which made it worse, because there was no way on earth to guess what he was capable of.

Suddenly I was conscious of an odd sort of flashback to that night in the bar in New Orleans and the way he had cringed before Donnelly. It still puzzled me. The evidence didn’t add up right.

The drinks came. “Salud,” I said. And then, as soon as the waiter was gone, I went on quickly, trying to beat him to the punch. “Well, don’t keep me guessing all day. I want to hear about it. How’d you get away? And what about Charlie? Did he—”

“Cut it out, Belen,” he interrupted impatiently. “Let’s dispense with the fairy tales and get down to business. Where’s Cathy?”

I could see that routine was out. As she’d said, they’d known they were sold as soon as they took a look at the car. I had to try something else.

“Cathy?” I asked in surprise. “How would I know?”

“Oh, I see. She’s not with you?” he murmured politely.

“No,” I said. “I went off and left her in El Paso. She’s lucky I didn’t strangle her. Leaving me there in Wyecross to get away the best way I could.”

“Two down,” he said boredly. “Now, if you’re sure you’re finished with that one, we’ll get on with it. You left Reno together just a week ago, if that’s any help to you, so where is she?”

He had me. He knew all the answers. I lit a cigarette to stall for time. “You don’t think I’m going to tell you, do you?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I think so. As a matter of fact, you probably won’t have to. If you’ll just tell her you saw me and give her a message, she’ll probably call me.”

“She won’t,” I said. “But let’s have the message.”

“Tell her if I don’t get my share of that money, I’m going to call Lachlan.”

He had us. He had us right over the barrel. One word to Lachlan and the whole thing would blow up and drift away in a cloud of smoke before it even got started. I sat there looking at the wreckage of all our plans with a sort of numb helplessness, and it was a long minute before the full implication of it hit me.

“What do you mean, Lachlan?” I snapped. “What do you know about him?”

“Why, practically all there is to know,” he said calmly. “After all, she and I were planning the deal together until she picked you up in New Orleans.”

I felt the anger burning inside me. So nobody knew about it except us! Lachlan was ours.

“And just in case you think I don’t know where he is now,” Bolton went on smugly, “I’ll dispel that little illusion. He’s back at his apartment in the Montlake. He came in yesterday.”

“All right,” I said helplessly. “I’ll tell her.”

I’d tell her plenty, I thought.

“Just ask her to call me at the Sir Francis Drake.”

“And you think she’s going to split that money with you? After the way you and Charlie double-crossed us?”

It didn’t bother him at all. “That was Charlie’s idea,” he said with urbane composure. “And as far as splitting the money’s concerned, I don’t see that she has much choice in the matter.” He smiled. “Do you?”

I didn’t. There was no use arguing about it. He held the cards. I wondered what she’d do. Nobody could make her give up that much money, and nobody could make her give up Lachlan. It was a variation of the irresistible force and the immovable object. Either way it was unthinkable. I looked out across the Bay Bridge with its cables shining in the sun. There was no use searching for a way out. There wasn’t any. Suddenly I thought of something else, a question I’d never been able to get her to answer.

“By the way,” I said, “since you seem to know everything, there’s something I wish you’d clear up for me. Who is Donnelly?”

He glanced at me, slightly puzzled. “Don’t you know?”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t ask if I did.”

“He’s a hophead, for one thing. Used to peddle the stuff, till he got to using it himself, or maybe it’s the other way around. Kind of a handyman for a gang around Chicago, and later in New York.”

“How bad is he?”

He shook his head slightly. “It’s always hard to say. You have to know how much of the stuff he has in him at the time, and a number of other variable factors. Unloaded, so to speak, and without a gun, he’s about as harmful as the Easter bunny. He may be a little cracked at times, I think, and seems to hate women. Probably his hormones are out of kilter. I don’t know. All you have to do is guess all these factors at any precise moment.”

I felt a little sick. “But where does he get this dream that Cathy owes him some money? Out of the pipe?”

Bolton picked up the glass and looked at it, frowning a little. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t know for sure, of course, but it looks to me as if for the first time in his life he might be on the right side of something. It all depends on the way you look at the ethics of gambling debts.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, legally, they have no status, of course. Gamblers, I understand, look at the matter differently.”

“They do,” I said curtly. “But get to the point.”

“All right. It’s a simple thing. You knew Lane was a bookie, I guess, and that he was killed by a holdup man? Well, the day he was killed he accepted a bet from Donnelly for four hundred dollars on some horse named—I don’t remember now. Silver Stream or Slip Stream or something like that. Donnelly’s a terrific plunger and all the money he doesn’t spend for dope goes to the ponies. But once in a while he gets hold of a good tip and makes a killing. This horse was one of them. He was a long shot, and maybe Lane took it and laid it off somewhere and maybe he didn’t. Nobody knows, because that night Lane was killed right in front of his house in Connecticut as he and Cathy were getting out of the car. The horse had come in and paid a little better than twenty to one. She says Lane didn’t accept any such bet as that. Donnelly says he did. Take your choice.”

“Do you think Donnelly had anything to do with killing him?”

Bolton shook his head. “No. They caught the man who did it. Donnelly couldn’t have had anything to do with it, anyway. He was in jail.”

“In jail? Well, how’d he make the bet?”

“Earlier. The police picked him up on suspicion of something around noon that day, and it was several weeks before he was in circulation again. And that’s the reason he didn’t have the betting slip to back up his claim. He says the police lost it when they took all his stuff away from him at the jail.”

“It sounds fishy to me,” I said.

He shrugged. “As I say, I wouldn’t know. The only thing I’m sure of is that I’m glad it’s not me he’s after.”

I felt a little cold, thinking about it. “So Donnelly wants eight thousand. And how much is it you’re after?”

“Thirty-two thousand, five hundred. I’m presenting Charlie’s bill, too.”

I stood up. “I wish you both luck,” I said. “You’ll need it.”

“You think so?” He smiled coolly. “Just give her my message.”

I went off and left him sitting there. Everything was ruined. And on top of that, she had lied to me. I was burning with anger as I stalked over to the Montlake.

She wasn’t in the apartment. I waited, walking up and down the living room, smoking one cigarette after another. I don’t know how long it was. It was the sound of bumpers clashing that finally took me to the window. I looked down and I could see her. She was trying to park the Cadillac. If it had been anyone else I’d have said she was drunk, but I knew she couldn’t be because she never drank that much. She was trying to put the car in a parking space at least two cars long and she was as clumsy at it as a rhinoceros in a tearoom. She would bang into the car in front and then go slamming back to crash into the one behind, and she never did get close to the curb. I watched her coldly, wondering what it was this time. She could put that Cadillac anywhere a parking-lot attendant could, and in half the time.

Then I saw what it was. Another car had apparently just pulled up a minute or two before, nearly up at the end of the block. It was a foreign car of some kind, and I could see the man getting out. Even nine floors up I recognized the Texas hat and the arrogant walk. It was Lachlan. He looked toward the bumper-crashing and walked back to her instead of going in the doorway. I could see them talking, and then she slid over in the seat while he walked around and got in behind the wheel. He eased it into the parking place and they both got out. They were directly below me and I could see the white blur of her face, tipped up a little, thanking him and smiling. Then they came on inside the doorway.

In a few minutes I heard her key in the apartment door. I sat down on the arm of a big chair. She came in smiling, her eyes shining with excitement, and ran over to kiss me.

“Mike, darling. I was hoping you’d be back. I did it.”

I said nothing.

She went on, babbling with amusement. “It was easy. Just a slight variation on an old theme.” She began to notice something was wrong. She looked at me questioningly. “Darling, what’s the matter?”

I reached out and caught her arm and pulled her toward me. “Nobody knows about Lachlan except us,” I said roughly. “He’s ours, our own private project.”

“Darling,” she protested, “of course nobody knows.” She took another look at my face then, and I didn’t have to spell it out for her.

“So Bolton is in town?”

“Why’d you lie to me?”

I let her hand go and she sat down, looking at the floor. At last she glanced pleadingly up at me. “Please try to understand, Mike. Don’t you see? I’d found Lachlan at last, after all those years. And I didn’t even know where to start looking for you, to help me. I had to have somebody, because I couldn’t do it alone, so I got Bolton.”

What difference did it make? I thought wearily. The whole thing was washed up anyway. “Well, for your information,” I said, “you’ve got Bolton. Right around your neck. Unless you want to hand him thirty-two thousand dollars.”

“What!”

“He says if you don’t call him, he’s going to call Lachlan and tip him off.”

She raised her head and stared at me. “Oh, he is?” she asked. She was getting that thoughtful look in her eyes again. “And just where is Mr. Bolton?”

“At the Sir Francis Drake.”

“And he wants me to call him? Well, isn’t that nice?” She stood up.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

She smiled. “Why, I’m going to call him, Mike. That’s what he wanted.”

I just sat there and watched her. She picked up the telephone and asked for the hotel.

“Mr. Bolton,” she said sweetly. “Mr. Judd Bolton. Would you ring him, please?” Then she looked at me, completely deadpan, and winked.

“Hello, Judd. How are you? This is Cathy,” she said. What now? I thought. It was old college chum greeting old college chum after an absence of five years. “Mike just now told me you were in town and said you wanted to see me. Of course, dear. Come on over. Dr. and Mrs. Rogers. We’re in Nine-A at the Montlake. Hurry over and we’ll pour you a drink.”

After she had hung up she called the desk and asked the clerk to send a boy up with some Western Union blanks. When they came she sat down at the coffee table and wrote out three or four telegrams. I merely shook the ice in my drink and waited. There was no use even trying to guess what was going to happen.

He came up about twenty minutes later. I let him in, we nodded coolly to each other, and I went out in the kitchen to fix him a drink. When I came back Cathy was still sitting at the coffee table with her telegrams and he was smoking a cigarette and smiling complacently from a big chair across from her.

“Lovely place you have here,” he said. “Nice view.”

“Yes, isn’t it?”

“Nice of you to ask me over.”

“Not at all,” she said sweetly. “We’re just sorry we didn’t know sooner you were in town. I understand you were thinking of trying to get in touch with us through Mr. Lachlan.”

I sat down at the other end of the sofa, stretched out my legs, and watched them. Bolton held all the cards. You could see that in the complacent and almost patronizing way he was beginning to put the pressure on. He had us, and he knew it. He’d sweat us for a few minutes first, though, just for laughs.

“Oh, I didn’t really think that would be necessary,” he said smoothly. “I was sure you’d agree to my proposition as soon as you had a chance to examine it.”

“Why, certainly, Judd,” she said. “But how can I agree to it if I don’t know what it is?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it.” He gazed thoughtfully at the end of his cigarette like a banker getting ready to grant a two-million-dollar loan. “It would be a shame to give up this Lachlan deal, now that you’ve got so much invested in it. So why don’t we work out a deal along these lines? You turn over the thirty-two thousand, five hundred you owe me and Charlie, and then cut me in for half of this Lachlan negotiation.”

I whistled softly. There was nothing bashful about Bolton when he started tightening the screws.

“Oh, I meant to ask you,” she said smoothly, “do you know where Charlie is?”

He shook his head and smiled. “In the East somewhere, I believe. I’m not sure.”

“Well, if you’re collecting for him, how do you expect to deliver the money if you don’t know his address?”

He smiled again. “That does raise an interesting question, doesn’t it? But we needn’t go into that. I’ll be glad to accept full responsibility for delivering it, and relieve you of the worry. I know it’s been bothering you.”

“That’s very nice of you, Judd. But what if we can’t agree to your terms?”