Ричард Деминг - Hit and Run

“Of course it will,” she said. She glanced at her watch. “Plane time is only forty minutes off. You won’t need a bag, Harry. Lawrence’s is in the car, all packed. You can check it in a coin locker at New York and leave it there. It will add just that much more proof of Lawrence’s arrival, if they ever check that deeply. You won’t need clothes of your own because you’ll be coming back tonight. Just stuff some towels under your belt and we’ll get started.”

Rising, he said, “I’d better check these glasses. Suppose I can’t see with them on?”

Putting them on he went to look at himself in a wall mirror.

“I can see fine,” he said in a pleased voice. “Things are just barely fuzzy.”

He made a tentative trip across the room, carefully avoiding furniture. He managed it without mishap.

“Now try some towel padding,” she suggested.

By now he was caught up with the idea of disguise. He entered the bathroom almost with enthusiasm and began pulling towels from a cabinet.

Helena hoped she could maintain his enthusiasm long enough to get him on the plane. Fortunately time was too short for him to give the plan more careful consideration. If he thought about it deeply enough, it might occur to him to look up Nevada’s divorce laws in an almanac, as she had done just before she left her house.

She doubted that he would go through with the plan if he discovered that a spouse had to be proved insane for a period of two years before there was ground for divorce under Nevada law.

It also wouldn’t do for him to begin wondering why Bernard Calhoun had undertaken this additional risk at no additional fee; after all, the private detective had previously shown no tendency to perform his services gratis. Helena had taken a calculated risk. She had balanced the implausibility of her story against the certainty that Cushman would object to another fee increase. For she couldn’t risk a possible phone call by Cushman to the private detective to haggle over a new price.

Because Barney Calhoun was as yet unaware that Helena had additional duties marked out for him. Helena believed in taking things as they came. The most important factor in her plan was to get Harry Cushman in her husband’s place on the New York flight. And it didn’t bother her at all that she had been less than truthful with her lover to accomplish that.

Now she could work on Calhoun at her leisure.

Barney Calhoun spent a very quiet weekend. At noon on Friday Harry Cushman brought him two more sheafs of fifty-dollar bills. Calhoun took them and the original packet down to his bank vault, after transferring a thousand dollars to his wallet for expenses.

Then he relaxed for the remainder of the weekend, in expectation of not getting any sleep at all Monday night.

Monday morning Helena Powers disturbed his rest by phoning to make sure his plans were still in order. He was unable to get back to sleep.

At seven o’clock Monday evening she phoned again to tell him her husband had caught his plane and the way was clear for him to pick up the Buick.

“The keys in the car?” he asked.

“No. Stop at the house for them. Alice isn’t here and I’m all alone. No one will see you.”

“All right,” he said. “Expect me about an hour after it gets dark.”

In mid-July the sun didn’t set until after eight thirty, and it stayed light for another half hour after that. It didn’t get fully dark until nearly ten. Calhoun arrived at the Powers home at ten thirty P.M.

Helena Powers opened the front door to his ring. She was wearing a plain street dress and a pert little straw hat, and she carried a light jacket over her arm. Silently she locked the door behind him, then led him back to the kitchen, switching off lights as they passed through each room. On the kitchen table stood a small suitcase.

“You going somewhere?” Calhoun asked.

“With you,” she said. Her face revealed nothing.

Setting down his own bag, he looked at her in astonishment. “Why?”

“Because I want to.”

“I’ll be gone nearly a week.”

“I’ve made arrangements with Alice,” she said. “She thinks I’m driving up to my sister’s in Utica. I gave her a week off.”

“Suppose your husband tries to phone long distance and doesn’t get any answer?”

“He never phones. He just writes a card every day when he’s gone. And I never write back.”

Calhoun shrugged. “It’s your car. I guess you can ride in it if you want.”

He picked up her bag and his own, waited while she flicked out the lights and opened the back door for him. Then he waited again while she locked the door behind them.

In the garage he set down the bags and asked for her car keys. Silently she handed him a leather key case.

“Which is the trunk key?” he asked.

She pointed to one.

He slid it into the lock, but it wouldn’t turn. He tried it upside down, but it wouldn’t go in.

“The lock’s jammed,” he said.

Helena tried it with no more success. Finally she said, “I’m sure it’s the right key,” and looked puzzled.

“The devil with it,” he said. “We haven’t got that much luggage anyway.”

He tossed the two bags on the floor of the small back seat. The top of the convertible was still down, as it had been on the night of the accident. Calhoun put it up.

Apparently the only damage the car had suffered was to the body, because it drove perfectly. Calhoun noted with satisfaction that the gas tank registered three-fourths full; that should take them the two hundred miles to their destination without refueling.

The private detective didn’t anticipate much risk of their being stopped even in Buffalo by some cruising patrol car, because it was now six days since the accident and four days since John Lischer had died. A routine order would have been issued to all cars to look for a damaged green Buick, Calhoun knew, but he had ridden enough patrol back in his police days to be aware that by now this order would be filed away at the back of the minds of most cruising officers. They wouldn’t be out searching for the hit-and-run car to the extent of carefully looking over every green Buick they saw. Even if he and Helena ran into a police car and the officers noticed the damage, there was a good chance it wouldn’t register on them immediately that the car was green or that it was a Buick.

It also helped that it was now dark and that the damage was all on the right side. Simply by keeping in the righthand lane, Calhoun could prevent any cars passing in the same direction from noticing it. The only real danger was in meeting a squad car coming from the opposite direction; the front bumper was badly bent and the front right fender was crushed all out of shape.

To increase their odds, Calhoun stayed off the main streets as much as possible. His immediate destination was the Buffalo Skyway, which would spill them onto Route Five at the very southwest edge of town, and the quickest way to it was straight down Delaware from Helena’s house. Instead, Calhoun took an intricate course along the darkest sidestreets he could find.

Puzzled by the southwesterly direction of this maneuvering, Helena said, “I thought we were going to Rochester.”

“That was before I was accessory to a felony,” Calhoun said. “We’re going to Cleveland.”

“Cleveland! That’s two hundred miles!”

“Rochester garages will be looking for a bent Buick. Cleveland garages won’t. We should be there by four in the morning.”

Helena said, “You’ll need gas to drive that far. Is it safe to pull into a filling station?”

Calhoun glanced at the gauge again. “It’s nearly three-quarters full. We’ll make it.”