Charles Williams - Hell Hath No Fury

“How about getting to it?” I said. “It wouldn’t take much to finish that face for you.”

He lighted a cigarette and shook his head. The simpleton act was gone now. “I wouldn’t advise it, pal. You know how the monkey was caught in the lawn-mower. The best thing to do in a case like that is to hold still.”

“Hold still for what?” I asked, feeling the sweat gathering on my face.

“Well, let’s say about five thousand, plus the Buick. They say you tapped the bank for ten, which probably means about fifteen grand, so I figure around half will do for me. The way I see it, why be a hog? People wouldn’t like you.”

“I think I’m beginning to get it,” I said. “You’ve got a goofy idea I had something to do with that bank business, and so—“

“Let’s just skip all that part, pal,” he said. I could see I was boring him. “Let’s just talk about the geetus. It’s more fun that way. As far as thinking you clouted the bank, you’re talking about the Sheriff and that deputy, Tate. They think you did it. Me, I’m another guy altogether. I just happen to be the only one who can prove it. But we wouldn’t want to make it that easy for ‘em, would we, pal? As I see it, let ‘em earn their money. So that being the case—“

“You keep talking, but you haven’t said anything,” I broke in. “What do you mean, you can prove a crazy pipe dream like that?”

“Just like I said. I saw you drive up here in a hell of a hurry thirty minutes after the fire broke out and everybody who wasn’t staying for the second show had started home—“

“What does that prove?” I said angrily. “Maybe I was supposed to punch a time-clock, or something?”

“Please, pal. Keep your stories straight. I can see you’re just breaking in. You tell them you got there with the fire-wagon, and now you tell me you can come dragging in any time you want. You got to tell everybody the same story, see. I get in more trouble with girls that way. Of course, I run around with more the female type of girl myself.”

I went for him, but he saw it in my face before I got started. His hand slipped inside the shirt, under his right armpit, and came out with it. It was a woman’s gun, a little pearl-handled automatic, not as big as his hand as he let it rest in his lap, but there’s no difference between being killed with one of them and with a .45 unless it’s prestige you’re after.

I slid back and left him alone.

17

“Now,” he said, “let’s talk about the geetus.”

He’d deliberately needled me into lunging for him so he could flash that gun. It made him feel better—that and the way he had sucked me out of position with that simpleton act of his.

“Let’s get this straight,” I said. “You really expect me to give you five thousand dollars I haven’t got and a Buick that doesn’t belong to me?”

He shook his head. “Let’s cut out the horsing around. You go dig up that dough from wherever you hid it and slice me five grand off the little end, nothing bigger than twenties. Then you make out the papers on this car, take mine in on the down payment, and you can take care of the notes any way you want.

“You see, pal,” he went on, “you’re in a worse spot than it looks like at first. Remember what you told me? If I didn’t quit touching Goldilocks for a sawbuck now and then for beer money you’d slap me around till I started shuffling my feet and talking back to the bedbugs. Because you’d be around here to do it. But the catch is, you won’t. You’ll be up the river trying to think up a spiel to give the parole board in 1971, and wondering how Sweetie-pie is making out in the sawbuck department.

“You catch on? I can’t lose either way. But you sure as hell can if you don’t go along with me. So just shell out, like I told you, and I’ll take off for the Coast. You’ll still have half of it left, so you can settle down and join the Chamber of Commerce and talk about the dirty crooks in Washington.”

And I’d thought he was stupid. I sat there feeling the sick emptiness inside me and listening to him drive the nails in it one at a time. He had me any way I could turn, and he wasn’t bluffing. As he said, he won either way. There wasn’t any way out. They still might not prove it when they picked me up again, but all the odds were on their side. They’d know now for sure and without any doubt at all, and there wouldn’t be anybody to spring me this time before the questions drove me crazy. Harshaw would fire me, and Dolores Harshaw might have to get on the stand and admit she’d lied. All that business would come out, and it’d settle me with Gloria. He was right. There not only wasn’t any way he could lose; there wasn’t any way I could win.

“Look,” I said at last, “how do I know you’ll go?”

“You don’t, pal.” He tried to grin with that messed-up face. “You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

“Well, geez,” I said. “I’ve got to have a little time. I’ve got to think it over. You’re pulling all this stuff on me, and I can’t figure out whether I’m up or down—“

“There’s nothing to think over. Just take my word for it, pal. You’re down.”

“Yeah, but—Look. I’m not admitting a thing, understand, but even if I had that kind of money it’d take me a while to get hold of it. And the car—It’s almost noon Saturday, and we can’t get the paper-work done on it today.”

“That’s all right. I notice there’s a dent in the right rear fender, anyway, and I want that fixed. I’m not in that big a hurry; I can pick it up from you on Monday. You’re not going anywhere; you know what’ll happen if you try to run.”

He stopped talking and turned to look at me out of eyes sunk back in that scrambled and puffed-up face. “A real neat package,” he said. “Isn’t it, pal?”

* * *

The long, hot Saturday afternoon was an endless hell of sitting at the desk looking at papers I didn’t even see while everything tumbled around me. The finishing touch had come at noon, when I picked Gloria up to take her to lunch. One glance at her face was all it took. He’d been to see her too. We sat in a booth in the crowded restaurant, unable to talk about it for fear of being overheard, while we looked at the ruin of everything we had planned. She couldn’t know what he’d told me, and I didn’t say anything about it, but she didn’t have to to understand the spot we were in. All that mattered was that he was back again for more and all our bright ideas for getting the books straightened out by November or any other time were shot to hell. I tried to cheer her up, but it was useless.

I’d see her that night, but what was the use? What could I say? That he’d promised to leave, and go to California? That was too stupid to repeat. There was a fat chance he’d go off and leave a gravy-train like this. This was just the opening wedge. He’d stick around until he got it all, and then he’d stay right on, milking both of us for what we made or what we had to steal to keep his big mouth shut.

Why had he waited all this time? I couldn’t even figure that out. I shuffled unseen papers in the heat, thinking, going around and around in the same smooth rut from which there was no escape. I hadn’t even got to the worst part of it yet. Suppose he got the money. Suppose he got all of it. That still wasn’t it. It was what was going to happen the minute he got his hands on it. He’d start throwing it around, making a big show around the beer joints and pool halls, and that was exactly what that cold-eyed Sheriff was waiting for, some citizen with too much sudden prosperity. They’d pick him up, and to get out from under he’d tell ‘em where he got it. So in paying him off to keep out of jail, I’d just be buying a one-way ticket right into the place.