Charles Williams - Girl Out Back

Lifting out the suitcase, I stripped down to my shorts and changed clothes. I carefully knotted the blue tie, using the rear-view mirror to check the result. I put on the hat, slid into the jacket of the suit, and ripped open the envelope containing my credentials and the warrant. After stowing these in the pockets of the jacket, I put my old slacks and sports shirt in the suitcase and stowed it away again, under the blankets. Removing the registration holder from the steering wheel shaft, I hid it nearby in some bushes. It probably wasn’t necessary, but there was no use taking chances. There was nothing in the car that would identify me. I checked to be sure I still had the spare ignition key I always carried in my wallet, locked the station wagon, and dropped the leather key case in my pocket. I was as ready as I was ever going to be. Lean, unrelenting, deadly, Special Agent G. U. Ward was on the job with the look of far distances in his eyes. No, the look of eagles, I thought. Far distances you had in Westerns. I wondered if this interlude of goofiness meant I was nervous. No. I was all right. There was nothing to it; the whole thing was ridiculously easy.

I cut out across the bottom, taking my time. There wasn’t much chance he’d be out on the lake this early, and I had to get inside the cabin as the first move. When I reached a point in the edge of the timber where I could see the cove, I saw his boat was there. He was nowhere in sight. Probably taking a nap, I thought.

I waited, remaining well back from the clearing. Three-quarters of an hour went by. Shortly after four-fifteen he came out the door and went down to the boat. He had on his straw sombrero and gun-belt and holster, and was carrying a spinning rod. He cranked the motor and went straight across to the edge of the bed of pads on the other side of the waterway. I circled the edge of the clearing and came up directly behind the cabin. When I looked around the corner I could see him through an opening in the trees at the edge of the water, but he was almost two hundred yards away and intent on his casting. There was little chance he would see me. I slipped around the corner and entered.

The reading glasses were on top of the chest of drawers. As I picked them up I noticed they’d had a minor repair job since I’d seen them last. A narrow strip of white tape was stuck to the outer edge of the right lens, apparently to hold it in the frame. A disquieting thought struck me; maybe he had discovered the spare set was missing. Presumably he had jarred these somehow and loosened that lens; wouldn’t that cause him to dig out the other pair?

I whirled and lifted the magazines off the trunk and opened it. There were no glasses in it. I closed it and hurriedly rifled the drawers in the chest, and then started making a quick but thorough search of the entire cabin. Half-way through this, I was struck with the absurdity of it. What difference did it make if he had discovered they were gone;

He couldn’t possibly have replaced them in this length of time. And he was here, wasn’t he? This was the reason I’d sabotaged the spares rather than the set he was using—to head off any possibility he might be in town replacing them when I came back. Everything was right according to plan. I replaced my divots and returned to the pair on the chest of drawers.

Picking them up, I held them against the palm of my left hand while I hit each of the lenses a smart rap with the back of my knife. They cracked all the way through, but did not shatter. I replaced them carefully, turning them a little so they would be in profile to anyone on the other side of the room or near the door.

Now to set the stage. I stepped to the door and looked out. He was only partly visible through the screen of foliage. I went back to the shed, squatted under the bench, and lifted down the cereal carton. The two packages of tens were still in it. Hurrying back to his garbage dump, I gathered up the bits of hardware from the burned suitcase. I took everything into the cabin. Clearing the kitchen table of its accumulation of syrup-smeared dirty dishes, I moved it slightly toward the center of the room and put a chair beside it.

I set the pieces of blackened hardware on the table, spread out a little as if I had been examining them, and lifted the money from the carton. One package of the tens I left in its paper binder, but the other, which had the stain along the edge, I opened, preserving the band intact, and scattered loosely on the surface. I stood back and surveyed it. It made quite an impressive picture. There was nothing to do now but wait. I located a dirty plate to use for an ash-tray, lit a cigarette and sat down. I hoped he didn’t fish too long. Now that everything was ready, I wanted to get on with it; inactivity was going to make me nervous.

In about twenty minutes I heard the motor start. But he was only moving to a new location further along the weed bed. I cursed impatiently. Another fifteen minutes dragged by. The motor started again, and this time when I looked out I saw him headed in toward the cove. All right, I thought; here we go. Make it good, pal.

I stepped out the door and went around to the side of the cabin. I heard him cut the motor to glide into the cove, and then in a minute his footsteps as he came up the path toward the cabin. I let him draw nearer. There seemed only a remote chance he’d be silly enough to try to shoot me with that gun, but I wanted to be near enough to stop him in the event of that being an unwarranted assumption on my part. He was very near the door now. I stepped around the corner right in front of him.

“Mr. Cliffords?” I asked. “Mr. Walter E. Cliffords?”

He stopped short, holding the spinning rod in one hand and a very large bass on a stringer in the other. The guileless blue eyes went round with amazement. He looked like a startled baby.

“What’s that?” he asked blankly.

“Are you Mr. Cliffords?” I repeated.

“Sure,” he said, recovering a little. He frowned at me as if I were a trifle dense. Who else would he be? “I’m the only one that lives here,” he explained. “What you want?”

I took one more step forward and brought the black identification folder out of the pocket of my jacket.

“My name’s Ward,” I said, flipping it open briefly before bis face and then closing it again. “Federal Bureau of Investigation. You’re under arrest, Mr. Cliffords.”

”Arrest?” The baby eyes went even rounder.

His mouth fell open and he dropped the rod and the fish to the ground. I tensed up, but he was only shoving his hands into the air. He held them stiffly at arms’ length above his head.

This seemed a trifle on the dramatic side, but it was all right with me. Then, so suddenly he took me by surprise, he moved. He took a step backward, turned to face the wall of the cabin, and tilted himself forward and off balance until he was supported by bis outstretched hands against the planks.

“What . . . ?” I said.

Then I got it. You always did that with dangerous criminals. It immobilized them while you lifted their arsenals. I unbuckled bis gunbelt, caught it as it dropped, transferred the .38 to my pocket, and tossed the belt itself inside the door. They didn’t do it any better on Dragnet . He still made no move to straighten up, and I was about to order him to when I caught myself just in time.

It was his arrest, by God, and he wanted it to be carried out in the approved manner. I still hadn’t frisked him for a hidden gun. I stooped and ran my hands up both sides of his legs, one at a time, and then up his body and under his arms.

“All right,” I said curtly.

He straightened and turned to face me. The round pixie face was filled with the wonder of a child beholding old faithful for the first time “A G-man,” he said in awe. “The F.B.I. What you know about that?”