Тэлмидж Пауэлл: The Girl’s Number Doesn’t Answer

“Ichiro, then the parents when they arrived before she could get away.”

Short, crazy dribbles of laughter, increasing in tempo, came from Cameron’s lips. “Rachie do that?”

“Rachie do that,” I echoed.

The laughter went out of him. He wiped his hand across his lips. He glanced toward the table. He was already saturated with whisky, but he got up and gulped another drink.

“You just don’t know her, Rivers,” he said, pouring another slug. “Rachie might even find an insane pleasure in the glimpse of blood, but she’d never risk her own skin. That’s one thing about these people called beat. Their own dainty hides and unweaned egos have become so precious they cannot be exposed to the slightest of the world’s thorns. Nothing must mar the preciousness. Nothing else matters except the preciousness, even if it must hide in fantasy or oblivion.”

He threw the fresh drink down his throat. “Rivers,” he snarled suddenly, “I’m beginning to get drunk, good and stinking drunk. Why the hell don’t you leave me alone? You and your damned knife. So I didn’t like it. I’ve never liked it. I never will like the thought of a knife. You’ve made me spit her out before you. My daughter. Now why don’t you get out of here? Haven’t I had plenty on my back?”

“Yes,” I said, “I guess you have.”

“Damn right I have. My friends killed. All the details of the aftermath falling on me. Not just a funeral. Oh, no. I got to make all the arrangements for three of them. All at once. You ever do a grim job like that, Rivers?”

“I’ve been spared that kind of ordeal,” I said.

He picked up decanter and glass and poured another three ounces of whisky into his suffering blood stream.

He gagged a little on it this time. For a second his eyes crossed.

He fumbled for the table top to hold himself. “But I’ll bet you could do it, Rivers. Bury three people — never turn a hair — you damned savage...”

I’d figured to lock him in a closet when I left to keep him from phoning the police too quickly about my visit. I was spared the trouble.

His elbow collapsed. The hand on the table top, supporting him, slipped. He staggered against the table. It turned over. The expensive whisky ran out on the carpet.

I caught Cameron to keep him from falling. I helped him toward a candy-striped divan and laid him down. He made a soft, meaningless mumble in his throat. His eyes were closed. The mumble stopped.

He passed out. His shallow, rapid breathing made small spit bubbles at the corner of his loose mouth.

Rachie Cameron had entered the house the same way I had. Silently.

As I turned from Cameron, I stopped moving. Rachie was framed in the living-room archway. She was cool and lovely in white linen. Her short black hair was mussed as if she’d been riding in an open car.

“Greetings, ugly man.”

“Where’s the boy friend?”

“I haven’t had one handy,” she said, answering the question in my mind as to whether or not she was alone. “Except you.”

She took a few careless steps toward me. She was carrying a small handbag. She tossed it on a chair, raised her arms, stretched. “I’m not mad at you any longer, ugly man.”

“That’s good,” I said. “But since my age and constitution were questionable the last time we met, I could remind you that I’m a little older.”

“Not much.” She looked at her father, wrinkled her nose. “He smells. Let’s go back to the playroom and have a drink.”

“Sorry,” I said.

She tilted her head. “Why are you so hard to get acquainted?”

“I’m not,” I said. “Just working.”

“And look what all that work has got you. Swarms of policemen on the lookout for you.”

“Then you can see how limited my time is,” I said.

She stood quite close to me. Her lazy eyes searched the crevices and lumps of my face. “Will you kill if they corner you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“They don’t have to corner you at all,” she said. “You could go away.”

“I forgot to buy a plane ticket.”

“Why bother with noisy airports. I’ve got a perfectly lovely car.”

Her arms slipped about my neck. I reached up and gripped her wrists.

“Honey,” I said, “I think I’d be safer taking my chances with all those armed cops.”

“Now you’re being mean to me again!” Her voice was petulant. She couldn’t stand being denied anything. I expected her to stamp her foot in undisciplined, unbridled rage.

“Too bad some of the young swains of this town haven’t learned the combination long ago,” I said.

“What combination?”

“Skip it,” I said.

She stood on tiptoe. “Afraid to kiss me?”

“I’m afraid of everything about you.”

I jerked her arms loose.

“Oh, you damned beast!” she seethed, rubbing her wrists. Without warning, she turned suddenly and ran. I lunged after her.

She darted into the hallway, down it to a door. The slammed door almost broke my nose. She was as quick as agitated mercury, throwing the bolt inside.

I put my shoulder against the door. It held. She was very quiet in the room. Then, my ear against the door, I heard a clicking. The clicking of a telephone dial. Her muffled voice: “Operator, this is an emergency. Get me the police.”

For a second, the way I felt toward Rachie Cameron made me as cold as a dead man.

Like any islands, Davis Islands are surrounded by water. A simple matter to seal it off. Steve Ivey himself couldn’t have arranged a better setup for trapping me.

I took a step back from the door and made a pile driver of my leg. My heel struck the door at the lock. Wood splintered and metal twanged. The door was a flashing movement on its hinges. It crashed against the wall.

Rachie jerked around. “Davis Islands, operator,” she yelped. “Cameron residence—”

She tried to duck past me. I grabbed a handful of the linen dress. With the other hand I caught the phone cord and tore it out by the roots.

She fought like a savage little animal that should be caged in a pigsty, clawing, kicking, spewing shocking words from her sweet-looking face.

I heard the shoulder of the linen dress rip. I didn’t have time to be courteous. I picked her up bodily and threw her into the closet, turned the latch.

Filled with the dead heat as it was, the night air outside felt good on my face. Behind me, the house appeared serene. A rubber-necking tourist passing the estate might have envied the occupants.

As I neared the short bridge to the mainland, a police car, red light blinking, swung off the mainland boulevard. It came across the bridge fast, and like any good motorist, I pulled over and stopped until the police car was past.

I slipped back into Ybor City, parked the car in an alley, and used the rear door to the small office of the beer tavern. The round-faced, ever-cheerful owner was at his cluttered desk-table working laboriously on some bills.

“ ’Ay-lo, Ed. The car vamoose okay?”

“Fine,” I said. I dropped the keys on the desk.

“Keep,” he said, “I use car ver’ leetle. ’Ave next set.”

He took a spare set of keys out of the table drawer to show me his “next” set.

“You’ll be paid for use of the car,” I said.

“Okay. I know. You wailcome to car, but dinero nice to get. I know you pay. You know, hombre in Ybor City looking for you.”

“Who?”

“Beeg beembo. How you say — Keeng?” He made violent motions with his hands, got a headlock on an imaginary foe, and threw him.

“Prince?” I suggested. “Prince Kuriacha?”

“You so right,” he said, a pleased smile wreathing his face.