Лестер Дент: Honey in His Mouth

Suddenly he bent over so he could clamp the hand protruding from the cast to his left ear and his other hand to his right ear. That stopped the ringing, shut it out. The ringing was not in his ears. It was a bell somewhere in the house. A burglar alarm, he thought, and he looked in the safe and saw a little switch which closed a circuit when the safe’s inner door was opened. A goddamn burglar alarm.

He wheeled and ran out of his room, down the stairs, out of the house into the shrubbery. He tried to be silent in the shrubbery shadows. Back of him the house was huge and silent except for the alarm sounding. A breeze rustled the palm fronds and rubbed the leaves against the glass-crusted wall like insects running.

Harsh ran to the gate. Still unlocked, it swung open silently as he shoved at it.

Now another bell jangled. Louder, nearer. The bastards got everything wired with alarms, he thought, and he lunged into the shadows and began running toward the carport. Breathing hard made his nose hurt. The gate alarm was jangling, while the other had a muffled sound as though it was being swallowed. He brushed a palm tree, hurting his arm.

The sports car engine coughed and moaned and the gears made a noise like screen wire tearing. Its headlights thrust out white funnels of light, and these raced along the driveway pursued by the powerful snarl of the engine. The sports car shot past him and on through the gate. Gravel torn up by the tires and thrown in the air fell back on the driveway, grass, shrubbery.

Harsh reached the house. He saw Doctor Englaster, Brother, Miss Muirz, and Mr. Hassam all running toward him from the beach. Miss Muirz was well in the rear, although she ran easily with a long loping stride. Must’ve gotten a slower start.

Harsh cupped his hands to his mouth. “Hey, somebody! Vera Sue’s beat it!” He ran toward the four coming from the beach. “That was Vera Sue in the sports car. Who the hell told her she could clear out?”

Brother ran toward the limousine. “Come! We must catch her.”

Doctor Englaster piled into the limousine’s passenger seat, next to Brother, who’d pulled the pistol out of his shirt and was gripping it tightly it in one hand.

Harsh gripped Mr. Hassam’s arm. “Hold it!” He kept his voice low. “Don’t go with them, for Christ’s sake.”

For a moment, Mr. Hassam pulled against Harsh’s hand, turning to give Harsh a strange look. Suddenly he grunted in comprehension.

“You two go on!” Mr. Hassam waved at the pair in the limousine. “We’ll follow in the station wagon. We can search more roads with two cars.”

Miss Muirz arrived, and Harsh had the sudden feeling that she’d hung back on purpose, that she could have outrun any of them from the beach if she had wanted to but had held back out of caution. She was moving swiftly now toward the limousine’s rear door as it began pulling away. Moving even more swiftly, Mr. Hassam tripped her. She went down on the grass.

“Go on! Hurry!” Mr. Hassam’s bellow was directed at Brother and Doctor Englaster in the limousine.

The limousine had twin exhaust pipes. Blue smoke coughed out of both of these along with a powerful sound. The tires spun and shoveled gravel backward, and the limousine raced out of view through the gate.

Harsh watched the limousine vanish and inhaled with relief. Now if the Highway Patrol was on the job, the matter of the cop’s murder would be up to Brother and Doctor Englaster to explain. Brother was carrying the gun with which the cop had been killed and driving the man’s body down the highway at top speed. Even if Doctor Englaster was only mildly tipsy rather than out-and-out drunk, giving him better control of his faculties and his tongue, he wouldn’t have an easy time explaining the situation to the police, Harsh thought.

Miss Muirz, sitting on the grass, looked at Mr. Hassam, who was still eyeing Harsh curiously. “You tripped me.”

“Yes.” Mr. Hassam did not deny it. A thin line of blood was coming from his lower lip where a piece of driveway gravel must have hit it when the limousine was departing.

“Why?” Miss Muirz’s voice was bell clear.

Mr. Hassam started toward the carport. “If we are going to follow, we had better get going.”

Miss Muirz moved swiftly. She was the first one to the station wagon. “I’ll drive.” She started the engine. “Meanwhile, you can answer my question.”

She was a sharp one, Harsh thought, and a fast one when the chips began to fall. She knew something had gone wrong, and she was moving right to the front to find out what it was. Better stay close to this babe, he told himself, or she may manage to gum up the works.

He got into the station wagon and Mr. Hassam slid into the rear seat beside him, fell back with him against the cushion and struggled to get the door closed as the car got underway.

Miss Muirz was through all three forward gears before the station wagon reached the gate. “So. Why.” Her voice was even more calm, more bell-like. “Why did you stop me from going with Brother and Doctor Englaster?”

Mr. Hassam winced as they grazed the gate. “I was afraid to ride with Brother. I thought you would be also, if you had time to stop and think. Do you blame me?”

“You lie at the wrong times, Achmed.” Some distance ahead on the blacktop beach road there was a fast-moving bloom of light with two red taillights embedded in the lower center. “That was not why you tripped me, Achmed.”

The blob of light ahead suddenly skated right and left as the road made an S curve. “That was not why you tripped me, Achmed. Right?”

The ribbon of blood from Mr. Hassam’s lip reached his chin, a drop fell on his hand, and he looked down at it in amazement.

“Well, I had some advice.” He reached for his handkerchief and applied it to his mouth. “It aroused a cooperative feeling toward you, Miss Muirz. I hope I did not act in error.”

“Advice? Indeed?”

“Yes.” Mr. Hassam’s handkerchief muffled his voice somewhat. “It came from Mr. Harsh here. I presume you’d want to know that.”

“What?” Miss Muirz had not understood.

“Mr. Harsh told me to stay out of the limousine, and I included you.” Mr. Hassam lowered the handkerchief.

The station wagon negotiated the S curve and they were thrown to one side and then the other. “What are you pulling on us, Harsh?” Miss Muirz’s voice rang loudly.

“Jesus, slow down, will you!” Harsh had been weighing the quality of Miss Muirz’s driving, and he was sure they would hold their own with the limousine, if not overtake it. “You don’t want to catch that limousine.” If they came up with the limousine as the police stopped it, there might be complications. He shouted over the roar of motor and wind, “Slow down! For Christ’s sake.”

“Why?” Miss Muirz did not turn her head.

“I got a damn good reason.”

Ahead of them the limousine lights suddenly disappeared around a turn. Miss Muirz did not slacken their headlong speed. Harsh held his breath. He felt Miss Muirz would go into the turn wide open. Mr. Hassam thought so too, and he grabbed onto the door handle. “A turn! Watch it!”

Miss Muirz’s voice was too high-pitched, too composed. “I will do the driving.” She braked and went into the turn with all tires shrieking; in a moment they were straightened out, headed for the causeway and bridge.

“Oh, God.” Mr. Hassam had clamped his handkerchief over his forehead.

Harsh saw there was no question they were gaining on the limousine. Desperation made his mouth dry. He took out Brother’s automatic pistol and brandished it over the back of Miss Muirz’s seat. “Slow down, goddamn it, I don’t want to have to shoot anybody.”