Эрл Гарднер - The Adventures of Paul Pry

B F Gilvray might be a big noise in the underworld. To Paul Pry he was merely a goosie laying golden eggs.

Death awaited him in that mysterious chamber — death from three blunt-nosed guns. Yet Paul Pry only smiled as he hurried toward it. When a fellow has been put on the spot, the least he can do is to be on time for the works .

The girl emerged from the underbrush by the river road, stood where the headlights of the automobile fell full upon her white face, and screamed with stark terror.

Such clothes as she had worn had been ripped to shreds. There were bruises on her arms and chest. The white skin of her body was scratched where brush had scraped against it as she had plunged headlong in mad terror.

Her eyes were staring, dark with fear. Her face was pale to the lips. One well-formed leg protruded through a rip which ran from the hem of her skirt to the hip. Her hands were upraised, palms outward, and ostentatiously empty.

But Paul Pry did not bring his automobile to an immediate stop. “Big Front” Gilvray, arch-gangster, had decreed that Paul Pry be placed on the spot, and the decree had been overlong in execution.

The sixteen-cylinder automobile which Paul Pry was driving was no mere sedan, as its appearance would indicate. It was built of armour which would stop a rifle bullet, and the windows were of bulletproof glass.

Several slight indentations in the armour of the body bore witness to a previous attempt on the part of the gangsters to carry out the orders of their vengeful chief. But the machine gun had failed to penetrate and Paul Pry had lived to take his powerful car out for an evening drive on the river road.

And because it was more than probable that this screaming woman might well be the bait with which some trap was to be sprung, Paul Pry ran his automobile some fifty yards past her before he brought it to a stop. Then he switched off all lights, took the butt of his automatic in his hand, and opened the door.

“Do you want help?” he called.

And, as his hail was swallowed up in the dark shadows of the brush which rimmed the road, Paul Pry listened, his every sense alert.

The screams of the woman came to his ears. They were steady, high-pitched, mechanical screams. Such screams might a woman give who had gone into hysterics, then worn down her emotions through a sheer ecstasy of fear until fatigue had taken a hand and made of the screams a regular rhythm of unconscious effort.

Paul Pry called to her again, and the call was unanswered. But the screams became louder. She was running toward him.

Paul Pry left the door open. He started the purring power of the sixteen-cylinder motor, waited.

She was still screaming as she blocked the door of the automobile.

“Get in,” said Paul Pry.

The woman scrambled in the car. Paul Pry snapped in the clutch so suddenly that the forward lunge of the machine slammed the door shut. His headlights snapped on, and he also clicked on the dome light — just to make sure that those hands remained empty.

They were still empty, beseeching hands that clung to his coat with the grip of hysteria. The screams ceased, and, in their place, came sobs, heart-wrenching sobs which would eventually bring solace to the overtaxed nerves.

Paul Pry drove his machine for nearly a mile, then turned up a side road and stopped. He disengaged his left hand from the steering wheel, turned toward her.

She grabbed him, flung her slender body close to his as a drowning woman will grasp at the form of a rescuer. Paul Pry slid his right arm around her waist. She pressed a tear-stained cheek to his, sobbed out unintelligible words.

Paul Pry patted the bare shoulder, attempted to soothe her. Gradually his words impressed themselves upon her senses and the throbbing quieted. She snuggled to him as a kitten might snuggle to a warm brick, dropped her head upon his shoulder, and lapsed into a semi-conscious condition which seemed half sleep, half stupor.

Paul Pry, engine idling for a quick getaway if occasion should require, lights switched off, right hand within quick reaching distance of his automatic, maintained watchful silence.

After some ten minutes she straightened. Her muscles seemed more relaxed. Her hands ceased to claw at his garments.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“The name,” he said, “Pry. You seemed to be pretty much frightened.”

She flung herself to him as he reminded her of her fright. Then, as his hand slid along the bare skin of her back where the garments had been torn, she gasped and flung herself away, modesty asserting itself.

She explored the damage to her garments with questing fingers.

“Isn’t there a light in the car?” she asked.

“Yes,” answered Paul Pry, “there is a dome light.”

“Turn it on.”

He snapped the switch.

As the light showed her the extent of her figure which was readily visible through the torn garments, she stifled a little scream.

“Turn it off!” she cried.

Paul Pry switched off the light.

“Haven’t you a robe or something?”

“I have an overcoat in the back of the car. I’ll get it.”

“Don’t bother,” she said, and was over the back of the seat with a motion as lithe as that of a wildcat stalking from cover to cover.

Paul Pry turned on the light again.

“On the robe rail,” he said.

“O.K., big boy, keep your head turned.”

There was a rustle of garments.

“That’s better,” she said. “Lord, what a spectacle I must have been! Did you find me in the road?”

“You came to the road and stopped me.”

“Where are we now?”

“About a mile from where I picked you up.”

“Let’s get out of here — quick!”

“Do you want to tell me about it? That is, can I help?” asked Paul Pry.

She climbed back over the seat, gathered the overcoat about her legs, wrapped it around her breast, grinned.

“O.K. Gimme a cigarette. Guess I must have gone off my nut for a while.”

“You had hysterics.”

“Maybe. I ain’t the type that can’t stand the gaff, but that was too much. They were taking me for a ride.”

Paul Pry handed her the electric cigarette lighter. She inhaled a great drag from the cigarette, blew out the smoke in twin streams from appreciative nostrils, sighed.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Paul Pry nosed the car over the rough road, found a good place to turn, swung the big machine around, headed back to the highway, and purred into speed.

“Shoot,” he said.

She cocked her head on one side, regarded him with quizzical eyes. They were, he saw, blue eyes, eyes that held a sort of light in their depths, a puzzling, challenging light. Her lips were half parted, and pearly teeth glinted invitingly. Her head was tilted back and up, and the long line of her throat, stretching down to where his overcoat lapels parted, showed with the gleam of pure ivory.

“I’m not a good girl,” she said, and watched him.

Paul Pry laughed.

“What is this, a confession?”

She took another drag at the cigarette, shook her head, removed the paper cylinder and smiled frankly.

“No, but I don’t want to get you in bad, and I wanted to tell you the worst at the start. I’m a gangster’s moll — or I was. I’ve helped rum-runners load and unload, and I’ve seen a hijacking or two.”

Paul Pry did not seem greatly surprised.

“So,” she stressed, “I’m not what you’d call a ‘good’ girl.”

Paul Pry’s eyes were on the road ahead.

“The habit of classifying all women as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ went out of fashion ten or fifteen years ago — thank heavens!” he said.