Лестер Дент: Honey in His Mouth

It was then that Miss Muirz shot him exactly in the heart.

The two Highway Patrolmen had stumbled backward when the flame spurted and had turned and were running to get clear. They halted at the sound of the shot.

Harsh also heard the shot with which Miss Muirz killed Mr. Hassam. But he thought at first it was something exploding in the flaming wreck. Perhaps the bullets in the gun carried by Brother had started letting go in the heat. In a corner of his mind he wondered whether the heat would damage the gun barrel so the ballistics men could not verify that it had fired the bullet that had killed the body in the back seat.

He was rather proud of himself, being able to think out the matter of heat damage to Brother’s gun while flames were seething in his clothes. Didn’t they say a man always lost his head when he caught fire? Well, he wasn’t losing his.

The flames were not yet actually charring his clothing. They still fed on the gasoline vapor that came from the cloth, blue devils darting here and there. The heat, though, was almost unbearable. He kept beating at the flames, and he tried to brush off individual tongues of flame, but without much success.

He turned in the direction the sound of the gunshot had come from. He saw Miss Muirz, the revolver in her hand. She’d had a gun in that purse of hers, he remembered. She was coming toward him. She stumbled over something on the ground, but did not fall. She did not look down to see what had impeded her progress, although it was Mr. Hassam. In a moment flame and noise came Harsh’s direction from Miss Muirz’s gun. She had not aimed the gun, merely pulled the trigger. But the bullet barely missed him; he could feel it fan the side of his face. She held her gun out before her with both hands, still not aiming, but pointing more accurately. From the muzzle, flame, noise. Harsh stumbled back, not hit, dodging wildly. Half mad with pain he went for the automatic in his pocket. Miss Muirz came on. She measured her steps like a farmer pacing a field. He got the automatic out of his pocket. He shot her. Luck was with him. He got her almost exactly between the eyes, almost as precisely as a moment before she had placed her own bullet in Mr. Hassam’s heart.

Both of the patrolmen had by now circled the burning limousine and they rushed Harsh. One knocked Harsh down with a fist. The other kicked the little gun away. They tore off Harsh’s burning clothing in strips, cooling their scorched hands by slapping them against their thighs. They got the charred shirt off. Each officer seized a trouser leg. They pulled. Harsh was dragged a short distance, then the trousers came off. The moment the trousers were off, they blazed up furiously. The officer tossed them aside.

“Jesus Christ, save the pants!” Harsh struggled to reach the burning trousers. “My money’s in them pants, Jesus Christ!”

An officer kicked Harsh backwards and he fell to the ground. The officer put his foot on Harsh’s throat and leaned on it with most of his weight. He had his own gun drawn now and he aimed it down at Harsh. “You’re under arrest.”

After Harsh had been in the hospital nine days, he was removed from the hospital and placed in jail. The inquest had been held while he was in the hospital, and they had taken him somewhere on a litter for his share of that, but he did not remember much about it. Just some stuff about five people dead, an automobile crash and some shooting. Then some words he did not know, such as extradition. Harsh lay on the litter swathed in burn dressings. His mind was relaxed from the dope they had shot into him to ease the pain of the burns. He had not cared much what happened.

When he had been in jail three days, Vera Sue Crosby paid him a visit. With Vera Sue was a solidly built man with a heavy face and foxy eyes. He sat near Vera Sue back of the glass window in the interview room. There was no opening in the glass panel between Harsh and Vera Sue, only a mechanical diaphragm that passed their voices back and forth.

“Who’s this bird?” Harsh did not like the looks of the heavy-bodied man.

“This is Mr. Arnick, my attorney.” Vera Sue was wearing new clothes, a crisp grey tropical suit and she had a fresh permanent.

Harsh swallowed nervously. “Is he going to represent me, too?”

Lawyer Arnick shook his head. “I think not. Miss Crosby happens to be my client, and your interests and her interests are not exactly identical.”

“What does that mean, shyster?”

Vera Sue leaned toward the diaphragm in the glass panel which separated them. “You listen to me. I waited in that hotel in Miami. But you didn’t show up. Then I heard about Mr. Arnick being a good attorney from a fellow I had a few drinks with, and I went to see Mr. Arnick. We had a nice talk and I hired him.”

Harsh looked at her bitterly. “You split the jewelry with him to pay him for keeping you out of it. That right?”

Lawyer Arnick cleared his throat. “There was no jewelry.” His eyes glittered over a faint smile. “We never heard of any jewelry.”

Vera Sue nodded. “That’s right.”

“God almighty.” Harsh felt the life draining out of him. “You can’t do that, you got to help me, Vera Sue.”

She smoothed the new tropical suit with her hands. “From what I hear tell, nobody can help you. Not where you’re going.

“What do you mean?”

Arnick leaned forward. “Surely you must have heard. They’re going to extradite you to South America to stand trial in your own country.”

“My own—”

Arnick smiled smugly. “For crimes against the state and against your people.”

“My people! What are you talking about? Who do you think I am?” The answer dawned on him as he shouted the question. “No. No—I’m Walter Harsh. I’m Walter Harsh! Vera Sue, tell him. Tell him who I am!”

“Everyone knows who you are,” Vera Sue said. “It’s been on all the television stations the past two weeks. I don’t see how you could expect anyone to believe you’re someone else—your Excellency.” There was the faintest hint of a smile on her lips before she spoke the last two words, but she erased it as quickly as it had come.

“No, you can’t do this, Vera Sue. El Presidente’s body, it was in the car—”

Arnick cut him off. “Maybe you should ask them to bring you the newspapers for the last few days. Then you would know that all the bodies in the car were burned beyond recovery or recognition. Your own burns were quite serious, too, I understand—but not to a comparable degree, and they didn’t prevent your identity from being conclusively established. Your facial scar, fingerprint records, dental records, the passport you were carrying, the monogrammed gun. Even down to your blood type, O-negative—not exactly common, you know.”

Harsh felt his throat closing up.

“Don’t do this, Vera Sue. Don’t let them do this. You know who I am.”

She stood up. Her voice when she spoke was low and vicious. “Sure, I know who you are. You’re a nasty son of a bitch. How could I forget that?”

Harsh watched Lawyer Arnick take her arm and they walked away together. He was sure he would never see her again.

The cell window through which the intense South American sun poured in had four bars on it. But the figure four did not fit in with anything else. Harsh lay on the bunk and tried to associate the figure four with something, with anything, but without success. The digit did not fit in with anything, it did not fit in with fifty thousand dollars which had burned, nor with sixty-five million, nor did it fit with seven, the number of people involved, Mr. Hassam and Doctor Englaster and Brother and Miss Muirz and El Presidente and Vera Sue and himself. Ten persons if you counted D. C. Roebuck and the two house servants at Brother’s place, or twelve if you included the two Highway Patrolmen who had arrested him, thirteen if you threw in the judge down here who had sentenced him to hang. Thirteen was a hot number. He guessed he would have to throw in Attorney Arnick and make it fourteen. There, he finally had something with four in it.