Alistair MacLean - Fear is the Key

"And her old man?"

"Such ignorance. Blair Ruthven. General Blair Ruthven. You've heard of the Four Hundred — well, he's the guy that keeps the register. You've heard of the Mayflower — it was old Ruthven's ancestors who gave the Pilgrims permission to land. And, excepting maybe Paul Getty, he's the richest oil man in the United States."

I made no comment, there didn't seem to be any that would meet the case. I wondered what he'd say if I told him of my pipe-dream of slippers, a fire and a multi-million heiress. Instead I said: "And you had your radio switched on in the parking-lot. I hear it. And then a news flash."

"That's it," he agreed cheerfully.

"Who are you?" It was Mary Blair speaking for the first time since he'd entered and that was what being in the top 1 per cent of the Four Hundred did for you. You didn't swoon, you didn't murmur "Thank God" in a broken voice, you didn't burst into tears and fling your arms round your rescuer's neck, you just gave him a nice friendly smile which showed he was your equal even if you know quite well he wasn't and said: "Who are you?"

"Jablonsky, miss. Herman Jablonsky."

"I suppose you came over in the Mayflower too," I said sourly. I looked consideringly at the girl. "Millions and millions of dollars, eh? That's a lot of money to be walking around. Anyway, that explains away Valentino."

"Valentino?" You could see she still thought I was crazy.

"The broken-faced gorilla behind you in the court-room If your old man shows as much judgment in picking oil-wells as he does in picking bodyguards, you're going to be on relief pretty soon."

"He's not my usual—" She bit her lip, and something like a shadow of pain touched those clear grey eyes. "Mr. Jablonsky, I owe you a great deal."

Jablonsky smiled again and said nothing. He fished out a pack of cigarettes, tapped the bottom, extracted one with his teeth, bent back a cardboard match in a paper folder, then threw cigarettes and matches across to me. That's how the high-class boys operated to-day. Civilised, courteous, observing all the little niceties, they'd have made the hoodlums of the thirties feel slightly ill. Which made a man like Jablonsky all the more dangerous: like an iceberg, seven-eighths of his lethal menace was out of sight. The old-time hoodlums couldn't even have begun to cope with him.

"I take it you are prepared to use that gun," Mary Blair went on. She wasn't as cool and composed as she appeared and sounded; I could see a pulse beating in her neck and it was going like a racing car. "I mean, this man can't do anything to me now?"

"Nary a thing," Jablonsky assured her.

"Thank you." A little sigh escaped her, as if it wasn't until that moment that she really believed her terror was over, that there was nothing more to fear. She moved across the room. "I'll phone the police."

"No," Jablonsky said quietly.

She broke step. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said 'No'," Jablonsky murmured. "No phone, no police, I think we'll leave the law out of it."

"What on earth do you mean?" Again I could see a couple of red spots burning high up in her cheeks. The last time I'd seen those it had been fear that had put them there, this time it looked like the first stirrings of anger. When your old man had lost count of the number of oil-wells he owned, people didn't cross your path very often. "We must have the police," she went on, speaking slowly and patiently like someone explaining something to a child. "This man is a criminal. A wanted criminal. And a murderer. He killed a man in London."

"And in Marble Springs," Jablonsky said quietly. "Patrolman Donnelly died at five-forty this afternoon."

"Donnelly — died?" Her voice was a whisper. "Are you sure?"

"Six o'clock news-cast. Got it just before I tailed you out of the parking-lot. Surgeons, transfusions, the lot. He died."

"How horrible!" She looked at me, but it was no more than a flickering glance, she couldn't bear the sight of me. "And — and you say, 'Don't bring the police.' What do you mean?"

"What I say," the big man said equably. "No law."

"Mr. Jablonsky has ideas of his own, Miss Ruthven," I said dryly.

"The result of your trial is a foregone conclusion," Jablonsky said to me tonelessly. "For a man with three weeks to live, you take things pretty coolly. Don't touch that phone, miss!"

"You wouldn't shoot me." She was already across the room. "You're no murderer."

"I wouldn't shoot you," he agreed. "I don't have to." He reached her in three long strides — be could move as quickly and softly as a cat — took the phone from her, caught her arm and led her back to a chair beside me. She tried to struggle free but Jablonsky didn't even notice it.

"You don't want law, eh?" I asked thoughtfully. "Kind of cramps your style a little bit, friend."

"Meaning I don't want company?" he murmured. "Meaning maybe I would be awful reluctant to fire this gun?"

"Meaning just that." "I wouldn't gamble on it," he smiled.

I gambled. I had my feet gathered under me and my hands on the arms of the chair. The back of my chair was solidly against the wall and I took off in a dive that was almost parallel to the floor, arrowing on for a spot about six inches below his breastbone.

I never got there. I'd wondered what he could do with his right hand and now I found out. With his right hand he could change his gun over to his left, whip a sap from his coat pocket and hit a diving man over the head faster than anyone I'd ever known. He'd been expecting something like that from me, sure: but it was still quite a performance.

By and by someone threw cold water over me and I sat up with a groan and tried to clutch the top of my head. With both hands tied behind your back it's impossible to clutch the top of your head. So I let my head look after itself, climbed shakily to my feet by pressing my bound hands against the wall at my back and staggered over to the nearest chair. I looked at Jablonsky, and he was busy screwing a perforated black metal cylinder on to the barrel of the Mauser. He looked at me and smiled. He was always smiling.

"I might not be so lucky a second time," he said diffidently.

I scowled.

"Miss Ruthven," he went on. "I'm going to use the phone."

"Why tell me?" She was picking up my manners and they didn't suit her at all.

"Because I'm going to phone your father. I want you to tell me his number. It won't be listed."

"Why should you phone him?"

"There's a reward out for our friend here," Jablonsky replied obliquely. "It was announced right after the newscast of Donnelly's death. The state will pay 5,000 dollars for any information leading to the arrest of John Montague Talbot." He smiled at me. "Montague, eh? Well, I believe I prefer it to Cecil."

"Get on with it," I said coldly.

"They must have declared open season on Mr. Talbot," Jablonsky said. "They want him dead or alive and don't much care which… And General Ruthven has offered to double that reward."

"Ten thousand dollars?" I asked.

"Ten thousand."

"Piker," I growled.

"At the last count old man Ruthven was worth 285 million dollars. He might," Jablonsky agreed judiciously, "have offered more. A total of fifteen thousand. What's fifteen thousand?"

"Go on," said the girl. There was a glint in those grey eyes now.

"He can have his daughter back for fifty thousand bucks," Jablonsky said coolly.

"Fifty thousand!" Her voice was almost a gasp. If she'd been as poor as me she would have gasped.

Jablonsky nodded. "Yes, of course, the fifteen thousand I'll collect for turning Talbot in as any good citizen should."

"Who are you?" the girl demanded shakily. She didn't look as if she could take much more of this. "What are you?"

"I'm a guy that wants, let me see — yes, sixty-five thousand bucks."