Дональд Уэстлейк - Forever and a Death

Everybody moved at once. The killer shouted something to the other two, pointed at Kim, and the three leaped forward, at the same instant that Kim jumped to her feet, knocked over her chair behind her, turned to her right, and ran.

Through the tables, through the tables, breathlessly apologizing to the people seated there, afraid to look back. Hedged planters marked the boundary of the cafe, with a narrow space between two. Too narrow; something plucked at the wraparound skirt, tried to pull it off her. She clutched at bunches of skirt at both hips and kept running.

Now she looked back and they were farther away, but still chasing her. They’d had to go around the planters, but they were moving fast, and they were big enough to simply knock people out of their way, while Kim had to duck and dodge around the strollers.

The Myer Centre. She ran in, snaking around shoppers laden with bags, nearly bowling over a girl trying to offer a perfume sample, dodging to the left only because the aisle ahead was too clogged.

She wanted to call for help, but who would understand? What would she say? She didn’t have time to think, only to run.

They were back there, behind her, two in the same aisle as her, one coming faster along a more open aisle to the right. One of them was shouting; the killer, straight behind her, he was waving his fist and shouting.

“Stop! Stop! Stop, thief! She stole my wallet! Stop her!”

No, no, that’s ridiculous, that isn’t real. But it is real. And if somebody were to stop her, hold her for them, they’d finish her off before she could explain. And already people were reaching for her, wide-eyed and astonished but with clutching hands to stop the running girl.

An exit. She had to get out of here, outside, away from confinement, narrow aisles, too many bodies. Brushing aside the hands that tried to hold her, she hurtled out the exit onto some different street, not the Mall at all, but a regular street with traffic through which she ran heedless, while astonished drivers slammed on their brakes and blared their horns.

An alley. It was Elizabeth Arcade, running between Elizabeth and Charlotte Streets, though she didn’t know that. She ran into it, past a hamburger restaurant called Parrot’s on her right and a sign for an upstairs vegetarian restaurant called Govinda’s on her left, and straight down the arcade.

Another look over her shoulder. They were still back there, still running hard, the killer still shouting his horrible absurd demand.

The end of the arcade. She veered left, because that way there were fewer people in her path. She ran, leaving a sea of startled faces in her wake, and at the next corner there was a crowded bus just taking on passengers, the last man pressing in, pushing himself on, the door about to close.

Kim ran full tilt into the bus, slamming into the last man’s back, shoving a whole phalanx of people deeper into the bus ahead of her, as the door snicked shut behind her, and the bus moved away from the curb. She ignored the comments and the dirty looks, ignored the crush, and managed to twist around just enough to look over her shoulder, out the window. They had stopped back there, panting, holding their sides, moving together to confer.

The bus was so crowded she had no opportunity to pay before it stopped again, not far enough along this street.

She jumped backward to the curb the instant the door opened, spun around, looked only straight ahead, and ran.

Two blocks later, out of breath, she slowed to a walk, and looked back, and they were gone. She stopped. She’d lost them.

And herself. Slowly catching her breath, she looked around at this new street. She hadn’t the slightest idea where she was.

She wasn’t there.

Manville double-checked, walked both ways along the Mall, frowning at the people at the tables in other open-air cafes, and she was at none of them. He’d been right the first time; there was where he’d left her, at that table in the middle of that particular cafe, where the young couple now giggled together like the newlyweds they no doubt were.

Where was she? She wouldn’t just leave. That didn’t seem right. Did something spook her?

Whatever had happened, there was nothing for Manville to do but wait here. Wherever Kim had gone, she would certainly come back to this spot to find him.

There was an empty table in the second row. He took it, waited a couple of minutes for the waiter to arrive, ordered a cappuccino, then looked off to the right, the long way down the Mall. All those bobbing heads, all those people, in random movement, no rhythm, no pattern. Would Kim suddenly appear among them?

Movement made him turn his head, and there was now somebody seated next to him. He was in his forties, heavyset, a bruiser with a large round head, thick bone above his eyebrows, a broken nose. Manville had never seen him before, but he knew at once that this man was connected to the killers on the ship. And that something bad had happened to Kim.

The man leaned forward, as though he wanted to deliver a secret. “George Manville,” he said.

Manville looked carefully at him. The man’s large bony hands rested on the table, empty. He didn’t act threatening, he was just there. “Yes,” Manville said.

The man nodded. “If you look out there,” he said, his voice raspy but soft, his accent showing him to be a local, “you’ll see a fella that isn’t walking. He’s looking at you. He’s got his hands in the pockets of kind of a big raincoat.”

Manville looked. “I see him.” It was another stranger, cut from the same cloth as this one.

The man said, “If I stand up and walk away from this table, and you don’t stand up and follow me, that bloke’s gonna take a machine pistol out of his pocket and blow your head off. And probably a few other heads around here, too. He’s got rotten aim.”

Manville said, “Where’s Kim?”

The man smiled. “You wanna talk to her? Come along.”

“She’s all right?”

“Sure,” the man said. “Just a little out of breath, that’s all.”

Manville had no idea what he meant by that, except that Kim must still alive. “I’ll go with you,” he said.

“I thought that’s what you were gonna decide,” the man said, and patted the table. “Leave some loot for the waiter, there’s a good chap.”

Manville did as he was told, and the man stood and walked away, without a backward glance. Manville got to his feet and followed, aware of the other man trailing along behind.

Down at the end of the Mall, on the corner with George Street, stopped illegally at the curb was a large black Daimler limousine. The man ahead of Manville walked directly to it and opened the curbside rear door. “Get in,” he said.

Manville did, and the man followed him, as Manville saw, seated in the rear of the limo, the leader of the killers from the ship. From the corner of his eye, he saw the man with the machine pistol get in the front, next to a liveried chauffeur.

Manville was in the middle of the rear seat, the leader to his left, the other man to his right. Kim wasn’t here.

The chauffeur started the Daimler purring away from the curb, and the leader smiled at Manville’s profile, not in a friendly way. “And now,” he said, “the rematch.”

Morgan Pallifer liked the way things were going. He was closer to Richard Curtis, more important to Curtis, than he had ever been. He had the use of this nice Daimler belonging to Curtis, that even came with a chauffeur hired by Curtis, who knew to do what he was told and keep his mouth shut. He had a nice wad of cash from Curtis, enough to keep him going for months, with more to come, a lot more. And now, three or four days ahead of schedule, he had his hands on George Manville.