The Bitch (8 page)

There was no sound at all.

“Here you are,” she said. “Damn you.”

She started to open her door.

“Thelma?” I said. “What’s the rush?”

She pushed the door open with a quiet curse, and began to get out.

I reached over and grabbed her arm and yanked her back across the seat toward me. I swung her around, her heavy ash-blonde hair falling across her face, and pulled her up against me, sinking my fingers into the pliant curves of her body; and her head came back, eyes wide and startled. I held her that way and kissed her on the mouth, running my hand down across her back, and she was suddenly soft and eager with strain. I let her go, turned away and got out of the car. This was not quite so easy to do as I had supposed. She was a dish, Thelma was.

Standing there, I could see her lying back against the seat, watching me, her mouth partly open, her face very white, her breasts rising and falling with a deep, fast rhythm.

“You’re a fool!”

I turned slowly and looked at Morrell. He stood just at the edge of the row of hibiscus bushes, looking at me. In the darkness, all I could make out was that he wore a white suit of some sort and that he was smoking a cigarette.

“I mean you, of course, Morgan.”

I stepped toward him. He paid no attention, moved quickly around the front of the car and opened the seat on the driver’s side. Thelma was just moving to get out.

Morrell laughed softly. “Well,” he said. “I told you, didn’t I? Did you think he’d want to waste that money on you, darling?”

She got out of the car and stood up.

“Did you work your wily ways on him?” Morrell said.

She slapped him. It was a vicious crack. She had lied about listening in on an extension. Without a word, she stalked off around the bushes. I heard her heels smack on stone, then a door opened and slammed.

Morrell laughed again. He flipped his cigarette in the direction she had taken, then sauntered around the car and motioned to me.

“Where’s the money, Morgan? I hope you have it in a safe place.”

There was an attempt at casualness in his manner and in the tone of his voice. But there was a nasty edge to the tone that belied any too obvious grace. I had expected this.

“Come along, Morgan.”

I stepped up to him, took hold of his arm, swung him around.

“What about those two men?” I said. “Don’t go into your act, Morrell. There are two men dead. Do you know anything about that?”

“Take your hands off me.”

I tightened my grip on his arm, really putting on the pressure, and enjoying it, too. It seemed suddenly as if this man was the cause of the whole thing. I knew it wasn’t so, but I desperately wanted to believe it. There was no place left for me to go, no ground left for me to stand on. It was all taken, and I was storming around in the brush—aimlessly.

“Did you hear me, Morrell?”

“The law’s after you,” he said quietly, not struggling now, and not showing any degree of pain, either, and I was holding that arm of his hard. He didn’t move at all. “Would you like me to call them in?”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

He did not answer. He turned his head down and looked at where I held his arm, and I let go. He shrugged his shoulder, and that was all, watching me. Then he turned sharply and strode along the hibiscus bushes. I followed him. He’d somehow won the first round, without my even realizing we were in the ring.

• • •

There was no sign of Thelma around the trailer. We entered a large screened-in patio projecting from one side of the trailer. Shrubs pruned in round billowing shapes grew around the lower edges of the screen, and the floor inside was tiled in a red and white design. The patio was furnished with rattan chairs, settees and tables. A man sat in one of the chairs reading a newspaper by a dim floor-lamp. Morrell went on inside the trailer and let the door slam. I pushed it open and went inside. It was immense in there, furnished modernistically, air-conditioned. We stood in the living area, and I stepped over and looked down through the dining room, on through the kitchen and saw a closed folding door.

“Thelma’s in the bedroom,” Morrell said, turning and looking at me. Then he went over to a couch and sat down. “I’m glad you phoned me,” he said. “We’d have found you, of course. But this facilitated matters.”

He looked very young, too young to be doing the things he was doing, but youth often accounts for little. Every other time I’d seen him he always wore a blue suit, and the white tropical thing changed him subtly. He wore no tie, his white shirt open across a tanned throat. He wore a crew-cut, his hair very dark, his eyes very calm, the muscles in his broad jaw twitching a little involuntarily. Now I could see that Morrell was really as nervous as a cat.

“Who’s that outside?” I said.

“A friend. Name’s Stewart.” He sat there looking up at me and he kept moving his shoulders a lot. The nervousness was all through him. “Morgan,” he said. “I’m not kidding—I don’t like to make a scene. I want to know where that money is. An awful lot depends on that money. I realize you don’t have it with you. But I want it right away so we can split and quit seeing each other. This town is going to be hot. You’ll never see a town so hot. Your brother’s really made it worse for everybody, you see?”

“I don’t believe he did that.”

“He did. You think I have any reason for lying about that? Why didn’t you contact me sooner?”

“I couldn’t.”

“We have a man we can count on at headquarters. He called in just before you phoned. Your brother walked into headquarters and spilled everything. He said he’d been with you, Morgan—how about that?”

“Go on, tell me about it.”

“He said he hadn’t been going to turn you in, but his conscience finally got the better of him. People and their consciences. It’s enough to make me puke.”

“Sure.”

“His story was he wanted to try and save his detective agency, but he realized it was a selfish motive in view of the circumstances.”

Morrell’s voice was soft, even—but anxious.

“What about those two men, Morrell?”

I didn’t want to hear anything more about Sam. I couldn’t believe he’d do a thing like that, even if it did sound something the way he might do it. I didn’t want to believe. Yet, it was the right thing, and Sam always tried to do the right thing.

“What about them?”

“You tell me, Morrell.”

“All right.” He looked down at his hands and slowly clenched them. “It was a goof, Morgan. Everybody goofed.” He looked up at me. “I sent two men down there to check and see that everything went on schedule. Gunnison was supposed to come out and take your car after he got the money.” He spread his hands, let them drop to his knees loosely. “We figured you double-crossed us, Morgan.”

“What? Why in hell would you figure that?”

“We figured you crossed us. The car was parked outside at the far end of the alley. There was a man at the wheel, another waiting to call to Gunnison, or you, or whoever he saw. Then he saw this Hornell come out of the back entrance and start using the telephone just outside the door.”

“Christ, he must have come back inside and seen us.”

“Sure. But we didn’t know that. My man had to think fast. He thought too damned fast, all around, but the first part—he did what he had to do. He shot Hornell. It was wrong, and it was too late—but even so, Hornell didn’t get a chance to spill your name. You should be thankful for that.”

“I’m not thankful about a damned thing, Morrell. I’m not proud of what’s happened, not a damned bit. Maybe that sounds corny to you, eh?”

He shrugged. “Live and let live.”

“I don’t enjoy being stuck in a class with a guy like you.”

“Tough, Morgan—really tough.”

“Finish your story.”

“Well. So right away we hear sirens. We knew then—they’d made radio contact. Then Gunnison comes running out of the back door into the alley. My man goofed, right there—he didn’t know Gunnison well. He didn’t recognize him. I don’t know what in hell he thought—I suppose he got scared, something, what with the cops a couple blocks away already, so he shot him and then he saw you, and he about flipped. There was Gunnison. My man had taken a crack at you and he figured he missed. The money was still with Gunnison, ‘way down the alley. My man was going to try and get it, only here comes the law. So he does the only thing he knows. The alarm’s in. He figured he could maybe lead the cops away, and you’d get the money. It didn’t work. He jumped in the car, and they took off right in front of the police cruiser practically—only the cops didn’t bite. They stopped and went into the alley. My men told me it was all up with you, and I nearly croaked, Morgan.”

“You killed two men, Morrell.”

He stared at me. There was feeling about this action someplace far behind those eyes. He shook his head, lifted his hands, dropped them again. “What were they supposed to do?”

“They didn’t have to kill anybody!” I yelled at him.

Somebody ran across the patio and the door flipped open. The man with the newspaper stood there.

“It’s
all right,”
Morrell said.

The man went away.

“Christ, Morrell,” I said. “Don’t you even know what murder is? Don’t you?”

“Calm down,” Morrell said. He put his head in his hand and massaged his forehead, hunched over on the couch. He kept massaging his forehead that way. Then his head snapped up and he said, “Where’s that money?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Morgan—I want to know where that money is,” he said softly. “We know you got away with it—everybody knows that now.”

“So then you sic her on me,” I said, thumbing toward the rear of the trailer. “That was fine.”

“All right. We figured you’d pull this clamming stunt. She said she thought she had a chance with you. She was wrong. So what can you do about that? I want to know about the money, and that’s all. We agreed on the split. Are you going to back down?”

“You killed two men,” I said.

“Will you forget that?”

“I can’t forget that.”

He groaned and rubbed his head some more.

“I can’t ever forget that,” I said. “My forgetting maybe works a lot of ways, but not that way. You’ll never find where that money is, Morrell. And the hell with you. Do you hear that? I’m going to let the police know who killed those two men—and I’m going to figure out what to do with that money. I haven’t quite come to it yet, but by Christ, I’m coming to something. I’ve messed up my life, and it’s going to stop. You hear that, Morrell? How’s it sound to you?”

He just looked at me with his mouth open a little, his face going paler all the time. Looking at me, he blinked twice with this foolish expression on his face. “Morgan,” he said softly.

“I mean it,” I said. “I’m not just blatting my mouth off. I mean what I said. Ever since it happened, I’ve been going in circles. I haven’t been able to think right. Now I’m thinking and I know it’s bad—it’s real bad. You didn’t tell me anything about murder, Morrell. There wasn’t anything like that in the bargain.”

He spoke evenly. “With—that—much—money—you’ve—got—to—count—on—
a killing.”

“Not me. I don’t have to. I didn’t.”

“Where’s the money, Morgan?”

“That phrase is getting me down. I’m hearing it every damned place I go. I haven’t got the money.”

He just kept looking at me, kind of holding his breath.

“Throw him to the dogs!” Thelma called from the kitchen area of the trailer.

I turned and looked at her and she stood there watching me, her hair hanging over her face. She’d been at the sauce again.

“Get back in the bedroom,” Morrell said.

“Pooh on you,” Thelma said.

Morrell stood up and walked over to her and leaned close and said something and patted her on the fanny.

“Well, all right,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She turned and went back into the bedroom and closed the folding door.

Morrell looked at me and I looked at him and I hated the guy. I had never hated anybody so much in my life, and there wasn’t an awful lot I could do about it, either

“You’re not going to do anything foolish, are you, Morgan. I mean, with that money?”

“I don’t know. I might.”

“And you won’t tell me where it is?”

“I wouldn’t give you the sweat off my—”

“Stewart!” Morrell called, walking over to the door and opening it. “Stewart—and you, too, Bill. You come in here a minute?”

I didn’t move. There was no point to that. And now I kept remembering Janet at the apartment, all alone, waiting.

I wanted to find her and take the money and go to the police. I knew then that that was all I wanted. It was that simple. I wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing, and it was a lousy time to realize it. Where was Sam? I’d busted him up. And Janet?

And two men were dead. One of those men an honest man who had tried damned hard to do what was right, and failed, the hard way.

• • •

“I’d like you to take Mr. Morgan out to the laundry shed, boys,” Morrell said when Stewart and the one called Bill stood at the door. “It’s like I figured. Okay?”

Stewart nodded. He was a tall, heavy-set man, young, eager in the eyes, but not exactly a plug. At least he didn’t look like a plug. He was wearing a thin sweater, dark trousers, and when his gaze met mine, he frowned. He still held the newspaper in his hands and as Morrell talked, he folded it into a small square and dropped it at his feet. I couldn’t get a good look at the one called Bill, because Stewart stood in the way.

Morrell said, “When Morgan’s ready, bring him back here. You want me to walk out there with you?”

“No. That’s all right, Johnny.”

“Well, maybe I’d better. No roughhouse anyplace but in the laundry shed, hear?”

“Listen,” I said, turning to Morrell. “This is crazy. Are you out of your head?”

“Sure, sure. Now, Morgan—just run along with the boys, will you?”

Stewart waited by the door.

I heard the folding door by the bedroom open, and glanced down there. Thelma stuck her head out. She was lushed up for proper, hair hanging down, her eyes like a turtle’s. “I got no sympathy for you, Tate, darling—” she said. “No sympathy at all. I offered you the most precious thing a woman can offer a man, and you refused with no thought to what might be happening later on; so where will you, Johnny? I think you better had better had see to that right down to the last straw, you see how it is? I don’t care what you think you think, ‘cause my opinion is I’m decidedly indifferent about the entire matter.”

She closed the door.

She opened the door and stuck her head out again.

“So there you are,” she said. “And here I am. And that’s the show!” She laughed solemnly and belched. “That Gobel guy, he kills me!”

She closed the door again.

“All right, boys,” Morrell said. “What do you say we go?” He turned to me. “Unless Morgan’s changed his mind?”

“All right, Morrell,” I said. “Let’s have a look at your laundry shed.”