A Touch Of Death Part 10

We were nearly there. I could see the glow of lights against the sky.

"Slowly," she said. "We pa.s.s a cemetery on the right. And just beyond it there's a road on the left. Turn there."

In a moment I could see the evergreen hedge of the cemetery. Two cars were coming up behind us. I slowed and let them go by.

"Now," she said. "On the left."

I made the turn. It was a gravel road with a field off to the left beyond a fence. We pa.s.sed a lighted house. A dog ran out and chased us, barking furiously. I cursed, feeling the tension build up inside me.

Coming back here like this with the police after her was insane, and I knew it. Suppose we ran into them? We might get away from them in the dark, but that wasn't the thing. They'd know where we were, and all the roads in this end of the state would be bottled up before we could get out.

But there was nothing else to do. We had to have the keys to get into those boxes. Maybe, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, you could have them opened without the keys if you had plenty of time and absolutely foolproof identification. In her case it was utterly impossible. She'd rented them under a phony name, she was a fugitive, and the slightest irregularity or one suspicious move would bring the whole thing down on top of us.

While I was on the subject, I thought of something else.

"Have you got any cash with you?" I asked. "Or at the house, where you can get it?"

"Yes," she said. "I have nearly a thousand dollars in my handbag."

"Good," I said. I didn't ask why she was carrying around that much. It was obvious. She'd known she might have to make a run for it someday, and she was ready.

We turned right and went up a slight grade with trees on both sides of the road. I was driving slowly, drawing a map of it in my mind. We might be in trouble when we came out. There were no houses, no lights. A cat ran across the road, its eyes s.h.i.+ning.

"In the next block, where that power line crosses the road," she said.

"Right." I swung the car sharply around, facing back the way we had come, and backed off the road under the overhanging trees. I cut the motor and lights, and we sat still for a moment, letting our eyes become accustomed to the darkness.

We got out, and I gently closed the door. I was conscious of my shallow breathing and the fluttering in my stomach, the way it always was just before the opening kickoff of a football game. The night was overcast and still, the air thick with heat and the smell of dust.

I had changed into the white s.h.i.+rt again back at the camp, but I had on the coat to cover it. I turned the collar up to hide any gleam of white. The gun and flashlight were in the pockets. I looked at her. She was all right, except for her feet. I could see the faint blur of that white trim around her slippers. It couldn't be helped.

I held her arm for another minute while we listened. There was no sound. "All right," I whispered. "Let's go."

We cut across the lot, following the dark shafts of the power-line poles. There was a path of sorts, and we made no sound. In a minute or two we came out onto the next street, the one directly behind the house. I felt a sidewalk under my feet. There were no cars in sight.

She tugged at my arm. "This way," she whispered. We hurried along the sidewalk, and then cut diagonally across the street. I knew where we were then. I could see the high, shadowy pile of the oleanders. Out the gate, cut left diagonally, half a block, I thought, writing it down in my mind in reverse, the way it would be coming back. I might be in a hurry. And I might be alone.

I eased the gate open, an inch at a time. We slipped through and stood in the dense shadow of the oleanders. I put my lips down next to her ear and whispered.

"Wait here. I want to see if there's a car around anywhere."

She nodded. I could see the faint blur of her face as it moved.

I slipped off across the lawn toward the dark ma.s.s of the house, cutting a little to the right to pa.s.s around the south side near the garage. Stopping beside the shrubs near the corner, I searched the driveway. It showed faintly white in the gloom. I could see no car.

Keeping on the gra.s.s to m.u.f.fle any sound, I eased around the side of the house until I could see the front. There was no car here. The night was empty and silent except for the faint sound of music coming from somewhere across the huge expanse of front lawn and the street beyond it. It was a radio in some house on the other side of the street.

I remained motionless for a minute, thinking. They might be parked out on the street, sitting in a car and watching the drive. Or they still might have a man inside. We just had to chance it.

I started back. I came around the rear corner and past the back porch by the kitchen, moving silently on the gra.s.s. As I neared the break in the shadowy ma.s.s of the oleander hedge where the gate was, I could just make out the little blur of white at her feet. She was moving. She was coming slowly toward the house. I turned a little to meet her, watching the small bits of white fur move across the formless darkness of the lawn. Then they disappeared. They winked off, like a light going out.

I stopped, feeling my heart pound in my throat. She had pa.s.sed behind something. But there wasn't anything there. There couldn't be. Now I could see them again. She had stopped too. I strained my eyes into the night. I could see nothing at all. Then the blur of white at her feet winked off again. Something was between us, and it was moving.

There was no way to warn her. I wanted to cry out to her to run, but I knew the stupidity of it. The man knew she was there; he could see her feet. But he didn't know I was behind him. I was tense. My mouth was dry.

I could run. I could circle them, get behind them, and make it to the gate and the car.

I didn't run. I couldn't quit now. I started moving toward them, keyed up and scarcely breathing.

Then it happened. She had seen him, or heard him, or somehow sensed that he was there, and thought I was coming back. She whispered, "Here I am." It was like a shout.

Light burst over her face and the upper part of her body. She wasn't twelve feet away, exposed in the glare of the man's flashlight like a floodlighted statue. I was coming up behind him, very fast and as silently as I could, pulling the gun from my pocket, when I heard her gasp. I could see him quite plainly, silhouetted against his own light. I raised the gun and swung.

"All right, Mrs. Butler," he said. "Stand right where you are. You're under ar-"

He grunted, and his arms jerked. The light fell out of his hand as he buckled back against me and then slid to the gra.s.s. I lunged for it and snapped it off. Night closed around us again, black as the bottom of a coal mine.

I was scared as I felt for him. Maybe I'd hit him too hard. I located an arm and fumbled at his wrist, trying to feel the pulse, but my hands were shaky and numb and I couldn't tell. I put a hand on his chest. He was breathing normally. The fright began to leave me.

She was leaning over me in the darkness. "I thought it was you," she whispered.

I didn't answer. I was too busy thinking. What did we do with him? He was merely knocked out, and might come around at any time. To go on in the house and leave him lying here would be suicide. She'd have to go alone; I could stay here and watch him. But suppose there was another one inside?

We didn't have all night. Every minute we stayed here made it more dangerous. I had to do something, and fast.

I reached down, took the gun out of his holster, and threw it over into the oleanders. As I did so I heard something rattle. It was metallic, something fastened to his belt. I had the answer then. Running a hand along the belt, I located them and took them off. They were handcuffs.

"Stay where you are," I whispered to her.

Grabbing him by the shoulders, I dragged him across the gra.s.s into the deeper shadows under the hedge. I rolled him up against the bottom of a clump of oleanders, pulled his hands behind him, and shackled them together around a couple of the big stems. Then I took his handkerchief out of his pocket, wadded it into his mouth, took off his tie, and made it fast around his head to hold the handkerchief in. He was still out, as limp as a wet s.h.i.+rt. I knelt and listened to his breathing. He was all right.

I hurried back. Leaning close to her, I whispered, "We've got to get out of here fast. You won't have time to change. So just throw some clothes in a bag when we get inside."

She nodded.

I led the way to the window where I'd gone in before. Pulling the screen back, I raised the sash and dropped in; then I helped her. We stood in darkness in the bas.e.m.e.nt, listening. There was no sound except that of our own breathing in the hot, dead air.

"Where are those keys?" I whispered.

"In the kitchen."

"All right. Let's go."

I flicked on the small flashlight and we went up the stairs. I was tense again, and wanting to get out. I felt like a wild animal reaching for the bait in a trap. We stepped into the kitchen. I cut the light, and we listened. There was dead silence. I tiptoed over to the other door and stared through the darkness of the dining room toward the front of the house. I could see only more empty blackness.

I switched on the light again. "Where?" I whispered.

She took my hand and directed the beam. It splashed against one of the white cupboards at the end of the sink, moved slightly again, and came to rest on the end of it. I saw it then. A big ring hung from a nail driven into the wood, a ring filled with a dozen or more of the old, unmarked, and useless keys that a house acc.u.mulates in its lifetime-extra car keys, cellar-door keys, trunk keys, front-door keys, and keys to nothing at all. While I stared, she lifted it down.

I held the light for her while she snapped the ring open, slid off three of the keys, and put the others back on the nail. She held the three in the palm of her hand for a moment, looked up at me in the reflected glow of the light with that cool, serene smile of hers, and dropped them into her handbag. I thought of $120,000 hanging there in plain sight among a bunch of discarded and useless junk. She was a smart baby.

The urge to hurry was getting to me again. There could have been two of them out there. One would miss the other, and start looking. Or he might work the gag out of his mouth.

I grabbed her arm and went through the dining room. In the short hallway that led to the stairs I gave her the flashlight. "Make it as fast as you can," I said. "Throw some shoes and a dress in a bag or grab 'em under your arm. Lets get out of here."

I watched her go up the stairs. She turned at the top, and the light was gone. I tried to stand still in the darkness so I could listen, but my feet kept moving. I had the cop's flashlight in my pocket, but didn't take it out. I didn't need a light; all I wanted to do was get out of there.

Why didn't she hurry? She'd been gone a week. What was she doing? Standing in front of a closet full of clothes trying to make up her mind what to wear? Did she think she was going to a dance? I cut it off coldly, forcing myself to realize she'd hardly had time to walk down the hall to her bedroom yet. I waited, s.h.i.+fting from one foot to the other.

Minutes dragged by. At last I saw the beam of light cut through the darkness above me and turn at the head of the stairs. She was coming down. She had a small overnight bag in her hand and had on shoes instead of the fur-trimmed slippers. I grabbed the bag and fell in behind her, hustling her along.

We hurried back through the kitchen and down the stairs. The heels of her shoes clicked on the concrete floor of the bas.e.m.e.nt. We turned and started toward the window. In another minute we'd be in the open and on our way.

I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and went p.r.i.c.kling cold all over. In one motion I grabbed her arm, s.n.a.t.c.hed the flashlight out of her hand, and shut it off. I jammed it in my pocket and put my hand over her mouth before she could even cry out or gasp at the suddenness of it. We remained locked together and suspended in the darkness and I felt her turn her head and look toward the windows. She saw it too. She stiffened.

It was another flashlight, outside. The beam hit the first window. It probed through dirty gla.s.s and screen and cobwebs to spatter weakly against the bas.e.m.e.nt wall behind us. She moved a little, and I realized I still had my hand over her mouth. I took it away. The light dropped a little. It hit the floor not five feet away. Then it went out.

I breathed again. Pulling her by the arm, I began backing up. After two or three steps I turned and cut toward where the furnace should be. We had to get behind something. I felt the solid metal of it against my side just as the light snapped on again in front of the second window, the one I had broken. I pulled her quickly after me and we were behind the furnace.

I looked around the edge. Light splashed against the window, steadying up on the place where I had broken the gla.s.s. I was squeezing her arm. If it was another cop, he might come in. He'd see the tape and broken gla.s.s and realize someone had forced a way in there.

The screen was being drawn back. The window rose.

We couldn't get out. The light was swinging across the bas.e.m.e.nt now, and if we tried to run back he'd see us. Our only chance was to sweat it out, trying to keep the furnace between us and him. The light was pointed down. He dropped in on the concrete floor. He lost his balance and fell. The light dropped and rolled, coming to rest with its beam reflected off the whitewashed wall. I stared. I was looking at high-heeled shoes and a pair of nylon-clad legs that had never belonged to any cop in the world.

She reached for the light and for an instant I saw her face. It was Diana James.

I felt Mrs. Butler start beside me. Then, strangely, she pushed up against me, as if she were scared. She clung to me, gripping my arm. I was too busy to think about it. I didn't know what it was until it was too late.

Diana James was straightening up, reaching for the flashlight. Then, abruptly, Madelon Butler pushed away from me and walked out into the open. I tried to grab her, but it was too unexpected. She picked up the light and shot it right into the other's face.

"Really, Cynthia," she said, "I would have thought you'd have better sense than to come here yourself."

Cynthia? But there wasn't time to wonder about that. The whole thing was like trying to watch the separate stages of an explosion and knowing all you were ever going to see was the end result and that all in one piece. Diana James straightened in the merciless glare of the light, her eyes going bigger and bigger in terror. Her mouth tried to form something, but just opened and stayed there. But there wasn't time to wonder about that. The whole thing was like trying to watch the separate stages of an explosion and knowing all you were ever going to see was the end result and that all in one piece. Diana James straightened in the merciless glare of the light, her eyes going bigger and bigger in terror. Her mouth tried to form something, but just opened and stayed there.

It was at exactly this moment that I felt the lightened weight of my coat and knew why she had pressed up against me in the dark. I lunged for her, still knowing there was nothing I could do, that I was just trying to catch pieces of something that was happening all at once.

She shot. The gun crashed. It roared and reverberated back and forth across the concrete-walled sound chamber of a bas.e.m.e.nt where I'd been afraid of the tapping of her heels against the floor. Before I could grab her, she shot again, the sound swelling and exploding against my eardrums with almost physical pain. In all this madness of noise I saw Diana James jerk around, one hand going up to her chest, and then spill forward onto the floor like a collapsing column of children's blocks. Just as I reached Madelon Butler and got my hands on her, the light tilted downward and splashed across the fallen dark head and the grotesque swirl of skirt and long legs and arms already still.

Silence rolled back and fell in on us. It was like a vacuum. I could hear it roaring in my ears. I grabbed her. "You-" I said. But there were no words. Nothing would come out. I had an odd feeling I was merely standing there to one side watching myself go crazy. I tried to shove her toward the window.

"Here's your gun," she said calmly.

I didn't even know why I took it. I threw it, and heard the clatter as it hit a wall and fell to the floor.

"Get out that window!"

But she was gone. The flashlight snapped off and I was in total darkness, alone. I swept my arms around madly and felt nothing. Somehow I remembered the other flashlights in my pocket. I clawed one out and started to switch it on, but some remnant of sanity stopped me just in time. We had less than one chance in a thousand of getting out of there now before the whole town fell in on us, and we wouldn't have that if we showed any light.

I started groping toward where the window should be. Maybe she was already there. Light flared behind me. I whirled. "Turn that out!" I lashed at her. Then I saw what she was doing. It was the ultimate madness.

It wasn't the flashlight. She had struck a match and was setting fire to the mountainous pile of old papers and magazines beside the coal bin. An unfolded paper burst into flame. I leaped toward her. She grabbed up another and spread it open with a swing of her arm, dropping it on the first. I slammed into her and beat at the flames. It was hopeless.

Another caught. The fire mounted, throwing flickering light back into the corners of the bas.e.m.e.nt and beginning to curl around the wooden beams above us. I fell back from it.

"Run!" I shouted.

She went toward the window. I pounded after her. I stumbled over something. It was the small traveling case I had set down. Without knowing why, I grabbed it up as I bounced back to my feet and lunged after her. I boosted her out the window. I threw the bag out. Then I knelt beside Diana James. I touched her throat, and knew it made no difference now whether we left her there or not. She was dead.

We ran across the black gulf of the lawn. The night was still silent, as if the peace of it had never been broken by the sound of shots. At the gate I looked back once. The bas.e.m.e.nt windows were beginning to glow In a few minutes the house would be a red mountain of flame.

Eleven

We shot out the gate and across the pavement. As we plunged into the path by the power line I heard a siren behind us, somewhere in town. Somebody had reported the shots.

I could hear her laboring for breath, trying to keep up. She stumbled in the dark and I yanked her up savagely by her arm. I wished she were dead. I wished she'd never been born, or that I had never heard of her. She had wrecked it all. I didn't even know any more why I was dragging her with me. Maybe it was pure reflex.

I had the keys out of my pocket before we reached the dense shadow under the trees where we'd left the car. I threw the bag in and began to punch the starter while she was running around to the other side and climbing in. The ceiling light flicked on and then off again as both doors closed, and in that short instant of time and in all the madness some part of my mind was still clear enough to grasp the awful thing I hadn't noticed until now, until it was too late.

She didn't have her purse.

Her hands were empty. She had left the purse back there in the house. Tires screamed as we shot ahead down the hill. I ground on the throttle, peering ahead into the lights for the turn that would come flying back at us. She didn't have the purse. I saw the turn just in time. We slammed into it and threw gravel over into the field as we skidded around, and then we were straightened out again.

The highway was coming up now. No cars were in sight. We hurtled onto it, headed south. I was raging.

She'd killed Diana James and brought the cops down on us. All the roads would be blocked inside of an hour. And the big, final, most horrible joke of all was that the thing I had been after all the time, the thing that had got me into this, was gone. I thought of those three keys fire-blackened and lost forever in the ashes of the house. Even the thousand dollars in cash was gone. We had nothing. We were wanted by all the police in the country, and didn't have enough money to hide ourselves for a week.

She took a cigarette out of the breast pocket of the robe and lit it, and leaned back in the seat. "You appear to be unhappy about something," she said.

"You little fool!"

"Didn't you appreciate the funeral pyre for your charming friend?" she asked calmly. "I thought it rather a nice touch. Something Wagnerian about it."

"You stupid-"

I choked. It was no use. It was beyond me. I could only watch the highway flying back at us in the night. And watch the rear-view mirror for cars behind us. Where would they try to block us? Beyond that next town? Or before?

"You are provoked, aren't you?"