Стюарт Стерлинг - Collection of Stories

He waited until she’d driven up by the porch, then went out, swinging the big double-doors shut, hiding his car completely. Either she would be ringing the doorbell and, finding no one at home, would go away, or else she would be letting herself into the house with a key Clem had given her. Maybe she was Mrs. Jerome Clement Ayerell.

He walked without haste back toward the garage. For a considerable part of the distance to the farmhouse he would be shielded from anyone looking out the rear windows. Even if she did see him, she’d assume he was someone who lived nearby — unless she’d noticed the marks of his tires.

Her car didn’t come into view again. She couldn’t have waited all this time; she must be inside the house.

Cautiously he walked around the garage to the porch, keeping on the grass as much as he could to prevent his shoes from making a squashing in the muddy gravel. There was no one in the car. The front door was closed.

He moved quietly to the porch, opened the front door as noiselessly as he could manage. She was talking to someone. After listening a moment it became apparent to him she was speaking over the phone.

“—I got two on the Clipper out of Miami for Rio, but there wasn’t anything open for Miami until day after tomorrow... Well, I didn’t ask about a charter job, Clem. I didn’t think you’d want to go to that expense.”

Don edged in silently. He could see part way into a large Colonial living room with white woodwork, bright chintz-covered rocking chairs, rag rugs, a rose-brick fireplace.

“—well, all right, darling. But aren’t you coming up here at all?.. Yes, I’ll do the best I can about packing, but—”

Don closed the door behind him. It made a tiny click as it shut.

“Clem, listen! There’s someone here in the house! I just heard the front door — Oh!”

Don leaned negligently against the lintel of the living room door. “Go right on. Don’t mind me.”

She let the receiver clatter back on the handset, started to get up out of the antique ladder-back chair.

“What do you want?”

Her voice was low and husky like that of a blues singer. The voice matched her sultry beauty. She was a redhead with a short snub nose and a wide, full-lipped sensuous mouth. She wore a tight-fitting black sweater and a gray suede leather skirt. Her long-lashed eyes were so heavily shadowed with mascara that she gave an impression of voluptuous dissipation.

“You Mrs. Ayerell?” He made no effort to hide the gun.

“Yes.” She took the trouble to adjust her small, fur-trimmed cloche hat and pull the sweater down tightly enough to outline the full breasts. “Who are you?”

“I’m a life-saver, far as you’re concerned.” He guessed this would be the redhead Maxie had mentioned as having executed the Red Bank swindle for seventy-eight hundred bucks worth of Oriental rugs. “The gentleman you were just talking to has a habit of knocking off his female accomplices. Chances are you’d be next on his list if I don’t save you.”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

“He just killed a blonde he’d been keeping down on Seventy-fourth Street in New York. Cops’re after him. That’s why he wants to scram to South America.”

“I don’t believe it!” She was shocked and he didn’t think it was pretense.

“I was there when he shot her and tried to frame me for it. He murdered another babe down in Maryland a few weeks ago. Wouldn’t surprise me to find a few more dead dames in Bluebeard’s closet before we’re through. Idea is, he needs sexy-looking dolls to put over his con games, but he wouldn’t trust any of you not to give him away in a pinch. So after he uses a babe for a little while, he pushes the button on her. I wouldn’t know whether you’re really his lawful wedded partner or not, but I’ll give long odds you haven’t been twoing around with him very long. Right?”

“Th-three m-months,” she stammered. “You’re a detective. You’re just making this up to frighten me so I’ll tell you about him!”

“I know enough about him to put him in that famous antique chair across the river. I’ll give you an idea what I know about him. Sit right there. Don’t get up. Better fold your hands in your lap like a good little girl.”

He lifted the receiver, asked for Long Distance, and got through to Nimbletts in Manhattan. “Mr. Harrison. This is Marko.”

“Gee, he’s been calling you often enough, Mr. Marko! Here he is.”

“Bob? Don.”

“How you making out?”

“I’ve found some of that Deshla stuff and a good deal of the other merchandise that we were gypped out of — maybe most of it.”

“Where is it?”

“At Congers, up the Hudson on Route Nine-W. Farm belonging to a Fancy Dan interior decorator named Clem Ayerell. Stuff is stored in a big Quonset. Better get some state troopers out here to stand guard over it until we can get the warrants for seizure.”

“I hate to bring the authorities into this, Don! But I suppose it’s the only way. Why can’t you handle it, if you’re up there?”

“I have another problem on my hands, Bob.”

“That murder business?!”

“Indirectly. I wouldn’t worry about too many other people getting the idea this was a sure-fire swindle method. Way it was worked with Nimbletts rates it as being fatal to two out of three.”

“You damn well better get back here before something happens to make you Number Three, fellow.”

“I’m on my way, Boss.”

The redhead frowned as he set the receiver back on the base. “Thank you.” she said.

“For what?”

“Not mentioning me.” She smiled twistedly. “You see, I lied to you. I’m not married to Clem. I’m Evaline Hurley. My family have been customers of Nimbletts for two generations, at least. I know they’ll be glad to pay nearly anything to keep my name out of this.” She ran the tip of her tongue across her upper lip. “And so would I — if you know what I mean.”

“You’re the second girl today who’s offered to illustrate a bedtime story for me,” Don said solemnly. “One of these times I’m going to quit being a Galahad and go for it. But not this time.”

In her convertible, Don sat beside Evaline Hurley as she tooled the fast car out to the house gate and pulled the swing rope to open it.

“When you don’t call him back,” he told her, “he’ll know you’re with someone who’s on the side of the law. He may suspect I was the party who made you hang up on him, but it won’t make any difference because he won’t trust you now, anyhow. If he gets close to you, you’re a gone goose.”

“But where can I be safe?” she wailed. “You don’t know how daring and resourceful Clem is. He has nerve enough to try anything, no matter how risky.”

“I’ll take you to a place where he can’t get at you.”

“Oh! You’re underestimating him. Everybody does, at first, on account of that pleasant manner of his. I did, God knows. But if you think arresting me and putting me in jail would keep him from getting at me, if he wanted to, you’re terribly mistaken.”

“That isn’t what you’re afraid of, if they book you into the Tombs.”

“Of course it is! What else!”

He put his left hand on her right knee, pulled her skirt up to show pink flesh and raspberry embroidery on the edge of gauzy nylon. “That.” He touched the inside of her thigh about six inches above her knee. A dotting of tiny purple-blue scars freckled the skin.

Her nostrils flared with quick resentment. “He must have told you! The dirty rat!”

“That you are an addict? No, he didn’t. Strictly a guess. Partly on account of your eyes. Partly because the kid he shot down on Seventy-fourth had been buying cocaine. Struck me maybe that might be how this louse kept a hold on his women, by getting them addicted to H or C and threatening to turn them in if they didn’t play ball.”