Charles Williams - Girl Out Back

After I made the turn on to the road to Javier I met no other cars. That was good, anyway. I hoped she hadn’t given up and left. It had been nearer an hour and a half. I swung into the ruts going off through the pines. Her car was parked under one of the big trees by the little stream. The door was open and she was sitting behind the wheel dressed in something crisp and blue, facing outward with her knees crossed. For one of the few times in my life I was too tense and too hurried to give a well-made leg the critical approval it deserved.

She smiled a little shyly and stood up. She was really nice-looking, and it always helps when you’ve got good material. I took both her hands in mine and said, “I don’t know how you do it. You’re always even lovelier than I remembered.”

“Now, Barney. Remember. . . .”

I smiled gently. “All right. I’ll try harder this time.”

“It is nice to see you again.”

“You’re not making it any easier,” I said chidingly. I wanted to shout at her. When in hell was she going to get to Cliffords?

She sat back down on the seat and slid over. I got under the wheel and started to move toward her but she shook her head, not too severely. Well, there always had to be a certain amount of that. Oh, the devil with that. Who cared a damn? How soon could I bring up the subject of Cliffords myself, if I had to?

“We can just talk, can’t we?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “As long as I can look at you.” I put a finger under her chin and turned her face toward me. “I bet you’ve had a lot of experience doing that.”

“No.”

“Yes.” She smiled. “You do it too well.”

“Tell me what you’ve been doing since I saw you last.”

“Not anything very interesting. ...” She stopped abruptly, and then went on. “Mr. Cliffords! I almost forgot about him.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s right. What about him?”

She glanced down at her hands, a little abashed. “Barney . . . I hope you won’t think I just used that for an excuse to . . . to . . .”

I smiled at her. “Of course not, you lovely little goose. But what about Cliffords?”

“It’s the craziest thing you ever heard of,” she said. “He’s been arrested by the F.B.I.”

Fourteen

Say something, I thought. Do something. Don’t just sit here; she’s staring at you. Look, maybe she’s the one who’s crazy. Maybe she dreams up things like that, and you’re supposed to make some remark like, ”Well, I never. . . .” We were in nine feet of water. At least nine feet, and he lost consciousness, and was sinking to the bottom. . . .

“Arrested him:” I asked stupidly, “Why?”

“I told you it was crazy,” she said calmly. “You’ll never believe it. You remember a man named Haig that held up a bank, a year or so ago? He got away with a lot of money, and then they lost him.”

A flight of jet planes roared around inside me, and any moment they would fly out through the top of my head. Maybe they would light up and spell out something.

“I think I read about it.” I could hear myself going on with the conversation, and I sounded all right. “But what did Cliffords have to do with that?”

“He had the money,” she explained with the serene logic of the utter lunatic. “How he got it is kind of a long story, but anyway they found it out and arrested him.”

“Let me get this straight,” I interrupted. “You mean the F.B.I, told you they’d arrested . . .”

“No,” she said calmly. “Mr. Cliffords told me.”

They tapped the frame then. All the little pieces turned over and the picture was there entire, complete down to the last brush stroke. Even as I felt myself going numb. I had to admit there was a terrible sort of beauty about it that was fascinating. Cliffords had sent me to the electric chair, and the way he had done it was consistent and utterly predictable if you knew him. He was proud of being arrested by the F.B.I.

So I had heard a motor start.

“Tell me about it,” I said. It didn’t seem to make much difference now, but it would be interesting to learn what she was doing up there. I didn’t have anywhere to go, anyway. Even thinking about trying to run was farcical.

“Could I have a cigarette?” she asked.

“Sure.”

We each took one, and I lit them.

She smiled at me with a kind of shy delight above the flame of the lighter and said, “This is the funniest thing, actually. I mean . . . I never really thought I’d ever get to know you.”

“Know me?”

“Umh-umh. The first time you ever saw me was when I came in to get those motors, I guess. But I’ve seen you lots. Around Wardlow, I mean. I spend the night there once in a while with this friend of mine—she’s really my second cousin. And a friend of hers used to work for you. Barbara Renfrew. She’s the prettiest thing, isn’t she?”

“I guess so,” I said. I was going back to being crazy again. Nothing made any difference, really. Somehow Barbara Renfrew had wandered into this chase sequence and we were all going around like a clip out of a Laurel and Hardy movie—Haig, the F.B.I., Cliffords, and somebody’s second cousin. No, it was really two different stories. This taffy-maned screwball had a girlish crush on me or something, and wanted to get in line if I was no longer laying Barbara Renfrew. No wonder the poor girl had quit, I thought. Maybe they even thought Otis was sleeping with me. Well, why not? He thought I was with her. This one, I meant.

“And I think your wife is absolutely gorgeous,” she went on,

“When will she be back?”

I gave up then. The only thing to do was go back and start over. Then, suddenly, my mind began to clear again and I saw something I had overlooked before. At best, it was the most tenuous wisp of hope imaginable, but I reached out for it desperately. She had said she thought Cliffords was a little off his trolley.

”Oh,” I said. “She’s supposed to be back some time this week. But about Cliffords. When did he tell you all this?”

“Yesterday evening, up at his cabin.”

“And he’d already been arrested?”

“Yes. That’s right. And that’s when he told me why. I mean, about the money.”

I stared at her unbelievingly. “You mean he was under arrest at the time? And these F.B.I, men just stood there and let him tell you all about it? I thought a prisoner wasn’t allowed to talk to anybody but his lawyer. . . .” Here was old Barney Blackstone again.

“No,” she replied. “There was only one F.B.I, man, and he wasn’t really there. He’d hurt his leg when they were out there digging up the money, and Mr. Cliffords was making him a crutch.”

“Then you didn’t see him at all?”

“No. I was only there a few minutes.”

“Oh,” I said. “Cliffords just told you he was under arrest? But he was wandering around alone.”

“That’s right, Barney. You see, he had to take the crutch and some bandages out there where the F.B.I, man was hurt. He couldn’t walk.”

“Oh,” I said again, frowning. “Well, I suppose. . . . Aw, I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was thinking of what you told me about him. That he was a little—you know. He might have just dreamed it up. Or got it from one of those comic books.”

“No,” she said. “He was telling the truth, all right.”

“How do you know he was?

“I saw the man’s coat there on the bed, when we went in to wrap up the fish. And Mr. Cliffords showed me some of the money, in a paper bag.”

Well, it was a good try, I thought. But it wouldn’t have worked, anyway; she didn’t have to be able to prove it. Just whisper it down a well. Roughly half the F.B.I, agents in the State would be down there looking for Cliffords in another few hours. The other half would be looking for me. If they weren’t already.