The Golden Gizmo (15 page)

Toddy eased up on the gas a little more. He'd outsmarted himself this time. In outwitting McKinley, he'd handed Milt a setup. Now there was nothing to do but stall, postpone the inevitable as long as possible.

The air was thick with the odor of Elaine's cigarettes and whiskey. She coughed, choked, and a fine spray showered Toddy's neck. Milt cleared his throat, apologetically.

"Perhaps,
Liebling
, it might be well to..

"What?" said Elaine. "You trying to tell me when to take a drink?"

Milt hesitated. Toddy felt a faint surge of hope. If she and Milt should start fighting, if she'd only throw one of those wild tantrums of hers… But she didn't. Moreover, Toddy knew, she wasn't going to.

"If you put it that way," Milt said, coldly, "yes. Rather, I am telling you when not to drink. And I am telling you that now. There is too much at stake. Later it will be all right; I would be the last to interfere."

There was a moment of silence. Then, "All right, honey," Elaine said meekly. "You just tell li'l Elaine what to do and that's what she'll do."

"Good," said Milt complacently. "We must give our Toddy no advantage,
hein?
"

"Whatever you say, honey."

"He is a very intelligent man," Milt went on. "He tells me in substance how much time the police have given him. He informs me, indirectly, that there is no one following his movements. Finally, by a reverse process, he makes excellent suggestions for disposing of himself. Do you wonder that I fear him, this intellectual giant?"

Elaine's giggle tapered off to a troubled note. "Yeah, but honey. I don't-"

"Consider," Milt continued, enjoyably. "Everything he is told, yet nothing he sees. He knows that Alvarado has told the anonymous gold-supplier of the theft of the watch. He knows his wife detests him, and he is thoroughly familiar with her talents as an actress. But does he draw any conclusions from these things? Not at all. He is baffled by her strange death and the subsequent disappearance of her body. It does not occur to him that she had simulated death, that she followed him down the fire escape taking the watch with her."

Dolores half-turned in the seat and her eyes flashed. "He is not stupid! He trusted you! It is easy to-"

"Of stupidity," said Milt, "you are hardly a competent judge. You who revealed his release from jail to a stranger. Now if you wish to take full advantage of your remaining minutes of consciousness, you will turn around."

"You are too cowardly! I-"

"Turn around," said Toddy softly. "She called the turn on you, Milt. I trusted you. On top of that, you had a lot of luck. If I hadn't chased off after Donald, I'd have found out that Elaine was pulling a fake."

"There was no element of luck," Milt said. "I telephoned Elaine when you left the shop. There was ample time to locate the watch and prepare for your arrival."

"But if I'd examined Elaine…"

"If you had-well, it would be a prank; and later we should have tried again. But we-I-knew you would not do that. So many predicaments has your stupidity placed you in, and always you react in the same manner. You place no faith in the wisdom or mercy of constituted authority. You make no study of the factors behind your contretemps. Tricks you have, not brains; tricks and legs. So, where tricks are futile, you run."

Toddy grunted. "You're a funny guy, Milt. Very funny."

"Oh, there is no doubt about it. Everyone has always said so. There is only one person who did not."

"Me," cooed Elaine, snuggling against him. "I knew better right from the beginning."

"So you did," Milt nodded benignly. "So now, I think, you should have another drink. A very small one."

Ahead and to the right, blurred lights pushed up through the shrouds of rain. Santa Monica. It wouldn't be long now.

A car came towards them, fog-lights burning, moving rapidly. Toddy's hand tightened on the wheel… Sideswipe it?… Huh-uh. Milt had nothing to lose. An accident, any sign of trouble, would only make him kill more quickly.

Toddy forced a short ugly laugh. Elaine lowered the bottle, squinted suspiciously in the darkness.

"Something funny, prince?"

Toddy shrugged.

"Goddammit, I asked you if-"

"Quiet, my treasure." Milt drew her back against his shoulder. "And, yes, I think I will take charge of the liquor. He is trying to disturb you. Drink makes the task easy."

"But-all right, honey."

"There's one thing I don't understand," said Toddy. "Why was the room straightened up before Elaine skipped out?"

"On the night of her supposed death? Merely a precautionary measure. The police might have been notified if the condition of the room happened to be observed. I felt sure you would hold Alvarado responsible. I wished to make sure you had no interference."

"That part of your plan didn't work out very well, did it?"

"It worked out well enough," said Milt, "as your present situation proves… But you were laughing a moment ago?"

"I was just thinking." Toddy laughed again. "Wondering about you and Elaine; how long it'll be before she turns on you… when you least expect it."

"Because she turned, as you put it, on you? But there is no similarity between the two cases. You could give her nothing. I can. She never needed you. She needs me. You tried to hold her against her will. I would never do that. If parting becomes necessary, it will be arranged amicably. We will share and share alike, and each will go his own way."

"That's sound logic," said Toddy, "but you're not dealing with a logical person. Elaine gets her fun out of not getting along. It's the only entertainment, aside from drinking, that she's capable of. She's a degenerate, Milt. She's liable to go in for killing as hard as she does drinking. I wouldn't believe the doctors when-"

Something hit him a painful blow on the head, the car swerved. He swung it straight again at a sharp command from Milt. In the rear- view mirror, he saw the jeweler turn, hand raised, toward Elaine.

"
Dummkopf!"
he snapped. "I have a notion to…" Then he smiled, and his voice went suddenly gentle. "It seems we both have the temper. It is not a time to give way to it."

"I'm sorry, honey. He just made me so damned sore…"

"But now you see through his tricks, eh? You see where they might lead to?"

"Uh-huh." Elaine sighed. "You're so smart, darling. You see right through people."

"He doesn't see through you," said Toddy. "If he did he'd take that gun away from you. He'd know what you're thinking-that all of that dough would be better than half."

Elaine made a mocking sound with her lips. Milt chuckled fatly.

"It is useless, Toddy. In the regrettable absence of attraction, there would still be the factor of need. It was I who planned this, and there will be yet more planning, thinking, to be done. Even an Elaine as elemental as the one you portray would not destroy something necessary to survival."

"Anyway," said Elaine, "I don't want the old gun; I wouldn't know how to use it. You take it, honey."

Mitt pushed it back at her. "But you must know! It is imperative. Look, I will show you again… The safety, here. Then, only a firm, short pull on the trigger. Very short unless you wish to empty it. It is automatic, as I told you previously…"

His own gun was in his lap for the moment, and Toddy knew another surge of hope. He couldn't, of course, do anything himself. But Elaine…

But Elaine didn't. Milt picked up his gun again. Toddy turned the car off Olympic and onto Ocean Avenue. They reached Pico Street, and he turned again. Less than a mile ahead was the ocean.

"No more questions, Toddy? Nothing else you would like to inquire about?"

"Nothing."

"After all, the opportunity will not arise again."

"No, it won't," said Toddy. "Look, Milt…"

"Yes?"

"Let Miss Chavez go. She won't-"

"I will not go," said Dolores, calmly.

"You will not," agreed Milt. "I am sorry. It is a terrible penalty to pay for allying oneself with an imbecile."

He rolled down the window of the car and peered out, and the rain sounds mingled with the roar of the ocean, the breakers rolling in and out from shore. Toddy made the last turn.

"You made one mistake, Mitt. There's one thing you didn't count on."

"Interesting," murmured Milt, "but not, I am afraid, true… This is the place you had in mind, I believe? Yes. You will stop, then, and turn off your lights."

Toddy stopped. The lights went off.

There was a moment of silence, the near-absolute silence which precedes action. Before Milt could break it, Toddy spoke.

This was his last chance, his and Dolores'. And he knew it was wasted, no chance at all, even before he started to speak. What he had to say was incredible. His strained, hollow voice made it preposterous.

"Really, Toddy." Milt sounded almost embarrassed. "You do not expect us to believe that?"

"No," said Toddy. "I don't expect you to believe me. But it is true."

"Only stupidity I charged you with," Milt pointed out. "Not insanity. You did not know Elaine was alive. You were sure you would be accused of her murder. Willing though you might be to pass up a fortune, and I sincerely suspect such a willingness, you would not dare abide by your bargain. In this case, you had no choice but to run."

"I was tired of running." (
Elaine giggled
.) "I knew I hadn't killed her. I was going to fight the case."

"Without money? With all the evidence against you? With a long record of criminality? And if, by some fluke of justice, you cleared yourself, what then? You have no trade but to prey upon others. You-"

"I could get one." The words, the tone seemed ridiculously childish.

"We waste time," said Milt. "You would have me believe you pursued one futility to achieve another. You, risking your liberty- perhaps your life-by keeping a bargain? You, placing your faith, at last, in the courts? You, Toddy Kent, doing these things for a so-called good name, a job, perhaps Miss Chavez-"

"It would not have been perhaps," said Dolores.

"Even so," Milt shrugged. "I know him too well, and he knows himself too well. He does not fit the part… Now, I think…"

"Let Elaine think," Toddy persisted doggedly. "You can't pull out. You want to get her in as deep as you are. Don't let him do it, Elaine! There's a tape recorder in the car. I-"

"Elaine," Milt interrupted, "is not required to think. And, of course, there is a recorder. How else could you obtain the evidence you were supposed to get? I do not deny the existence of a bargain. Only that you had no intention of keeping it."

"I did intend to keep it! I know it looks like I didn't, but I had to make it look that way! I was supposed to meet them here-I called them just before I went to your shop. Elaine-"

"Tonight?" said Milt. "You were to meet them there tonight, or tomorrow night? Or perhaps even the next? You are transparent, Toddy. Your government men would have given you two days without surveillance as quickly as they would give you two hours. Never would they have agreed to such an arrangement."

"They didn't agree to it, but they had to take it. I'd already ducked out on 'em. It was either play it my way or-"

"Nonsense. You insult my intelligence."

"Now, wait a minute," said Elaine, worriedly. "Let me-"

"It is not necessary," said Milt. "I have already thought. Of everything… You were to meet them here, eh? Bah! Where are they, then?"

Toddy licked dry lips, helplessly. It was no use. The evidence was all against him. He couldn't make them believe something that was incredible to himself.

"I don't know," he said, almost indifferently. "It's a big beach. Maybe they don't recognize the car. I don't know where they are, but-"

Milt's curt, bored laugh cut him off. "They would not recognize the car, certainly. You would see to that. And we both know where they are-anywhere but here. Now, enough!"

"But Milt, honey…" Elaine began.

"Enough!" snapped Milt. "Must I explain everything twice? Why do you think I played with him there in the shop, found out exactly where he wished to go? Because it would be safe. It would be the last place his whilom friends would expect to find him."

"All right, honey. I was just-"

"We will proceed! And-
please!-
the bottle will remain here!"

Dolores was shoved over in the seat, squeezed against Toddy. Elaine pushed past her, and got out. She stood back in the sand a few feet, covering the door as Toddy and the girl emerged.

Milt came out last, grunting from the exertion, blinking his eyes against the rain.