Come Easy, Go Easy Part 27

It was on the following night that I realised my warning had come too late.

Around midnight, Roy shut up the lunch room and turned off the light. I had seen Lola go to the bungalow a few minutes after eleven o'clock. The lights were out in the bungalow by the time Roy came into the cabin.

He opened my bedroom door silently and stood there, listening.

I had turned off my light some time ago. I made no sound "Are you awake, Chet?"

His whisper was so soft I scarcely heard it I stayed motionless, not saying anything. Then I heard the door shut softly.

I waited, hoping that what I knew was going to happen wouldn't happen, but of course it did For a few tense minutes I lay looking out of the window, then I saw Roy come out of the shadows. He walked quickly across to the bungalow, paused to look back at the cabin, then he opened the front door and went in.

I might have known he couldn't have resisted her for those eight days and nights when she could have worked on him uninterrupted.

I didn't blame him. I knew her technique. I had been kidding myself all along that Roy was indifferent to women, and Roy had been kidding himself too.

I felt helpless and pretty bad: jealousy didn't come into it, but fear did.

Once she had her claws in Roy, she would persuade him to open the safe. Then she would murder him. I was sure of that. I had warned her he wouldn't let her have the money once he got his hands on it. She would murder him, and then she would murder me. She would then hide the money and send for the fat sheriff. How she would explain what I was doing in pyjamas with a bullet wound in my chest I couldn't imagine, but she had had eight days to dream up a story and I was pretty sure, by now, she had one ready. I had given Roy a description of Eddy and the fat Mexican. He had certainly pa.s.sed the descriptions on to Lola. She might even claim that these two had murdered Roy and me while she was in Wentworth There were any number of angles she could use.

I lay there, enduring the nagging pain in my chest, while I watched the bungalow and schemed.

It was a little after two o'clock when I saw him come out. He closed the front door, then walked over to the cabin. He came in silently.

I reached for the light switch, and as he eased open my door I turned on the light.

He stood, startled, in the doorway, staring at me. He had on a singlet, a pair of trousers, and his feet were bare.

"I didn't mean to wake you," he said. "I just looked in to see if you were okay."

"Come in. I want to talk to you."

His eyes shifted.

"It's after two. I want to get some sleep."

"I want to talk to you."

He came in and sat down, away from me, and lit a cigarette.

"What's on your mind?"

"She's thrown a hook into you, hasn't she?"

He blew a cloud of smoke that half screened his face, then he said, his voice harsh, "You're pretty sick, Chet. You don't want to work yourself up. Suppose we talk about this tomorrow? You need your sleepa"so do I."

"I may be sick, but if you don't watch out, you're going to be a d.a.m.n sight more than sicka" you're going to be dead. You didn't answer my question."

"No woman will ever hook me," he said, his face now deadpan.

"Are you trying to kid me or yourself?"

He didn't like that "Okay, if you must know, I took what she threw at me, but there are no strings to ita"I'll take care of that."

"Did she ask you to open the safe?"

His eyes narrowed.

"Safe? What safe?"

"Jenson's safe."

He ran his fingers through his hair as he stared at me.

"What about Jenson's safe?"

"Did she ask you to open it?"

I saw by the puzzled expression on his face that she hadn't. I began to breathe more freely. At least, this time, I wasn't going to be too late to warn him.

"She's never mentioned a safe."

"She will, and she will ask you to open it."

He made an exasperated movement with his hands.

"What the h.e.l.l is this about? What are you getting at?"

"There's something in that safe she wants," I said, "and when she wants something as badly as she wants this thing in the safe she will stop at nothing to get it, and I mean nothing. She shot her husband to get it. She tried to blackmail me into getting it, and now you arrive. Someone else who can open the safe, and she's starting to soften you up so if you open it she can take you by surprise and murder you. It sounds fantastic, doesn't it? It isn't! She'll murder you as she murdered her first husband, as she murdered Jenson and very nearly murdered me. I'm telling youa"don't open that safe!"

By now the effort of talking had taken so much out of me I was sweating, and the pain in my chest was making me short of breath. I watched him in despair, for there was no change of expression, just the deadpan look, and the eyes that had gone a shade darker.

"You sound crazy in the head," he said. "What is it she wants so badly?"

I wasn't going to tell him it was over a hundred thousand dollars in hard cash. I wasn't that much of a fool.

"I told you the cops suspected she had murdered her first husband," I said. "She did murder him. Before he married her, Jenson made her sign a confession and it is in the safe. I've seen it.

Until the safe is open and she can destroy the confession, she's jail bait, and she knows it."

He rubbed the back of his neck, frowning.

"Are you dreaming all this or is it true?"

"She shot Jenson and she would have shot me only I got the safe door shut before she could pull the trigger. She knew I was the only one here who could open the safe and that saved my life. Now she has you in her sights. Don't open that safe, Roy."

"This doesn't add up," he said. "If she was going to murder you, how come you went to bed with her?"

I was ready for that one. It was the obvious question he was bound to ask.

"She couldn't do a thing to me so long as that safe remained shut. We lived here together and alone for five weeks before I touched her. I did it only because, like with you, she threw herself at me. She came into this room one night, and that was it."

I felt cold sweat on my face now and I was having trouble in breathing.

Roy, seeing the state I was in, came over to me.

"Hey! You've got to quiet down. Don't you understand how bad you are? Quit getting yourself exciteda"relax!"

I caught hold of his wrist.

"If you open that safe, Roy, she'll kill both of us! I'm warning you! If you open that safe we're both sunk!"

"Take it easy, fella. She hasn't even asked me to open the safe."

I had shot my bolt. I dropped back on the pillow. I couldn't make any more effort. I had warned him. I could only hope I had beaten her this time.

He stayed with me until I had drifted off into a heavy sleep.

When I woke the next morning the clock by the bed told me it was twenty to ten. I had had a long sleep and I felt better, a little stronger, but not strong enough to get up.

Later, Roy came in and shaved me. He was quiet, and neither of us mentioned the safe, but I knew it was big in both our minds.

The day dragged by. I was content to lie by the window and watch the activity going on outside. Both Lola and Roy slaved. The lunch room was busy during the lunch hour and again at night.

Finally, around ten o'clock, the traffic died away and Roy found time to bring me a bowl of soup.

"It's been some day," he said, leaning against the wall. "I'll be glad when you are up and about again."

"I'll be about," I said.

"Yeah." He stroked his nose, his black eyes watching me. "While we were having supper, she asked me if I could open a Lawrence safe."

I slopped a little of the soup. "She did?"

"Yeah. I said I couldn't say until I had seen it."

My heart was thumping now. "What did she say?"

"A trucker came in and broke it up. We didn't get around to it again."

"So long as that safe remains shut, you're okay and so am I. I'm not kidding, Roy."

"Okay, so you're not kidding. If it's all this bad, how about lending me Jensen's guna"the one he shot hawks with?"

"She's got it."

That jolted him. His eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened.

"She took it," I went on. "She told me she had got rid of it, but I know different."

"Well, she hasn't asked me to open the safe yet."

"She will." We left it like that.

Nothing happened for four days. According to Roy, Lola didn't mention the safe to him again. I made slow progress, but I still wasn't strong enough to get out of bed. I was more easy in my mind for Roy didn't go to the bungalow. At least, I seemed to have thrown a scare into him.

But on the fifth night, I woke around three o'clock in the morning and, looking out of the window, I saw a light on in the sitting room of the bungalow. That gave me a h.e.l.l of a jolt. I called out to Roy, but got no answer. He was over there with her and with the safe!

I was tempted to get out of bed and go over there, but I knew I would never have made it, so I lay there, my heart hammering, waiting and watching.

It wasn't until after four o'clock that the light snapped off and I saw Roy come out of the bungalow and cross to the cabin.

As I heard him come in, I called to him.

"Don't put on the light," he said at the door. "She'll see it."

I peered in the direction of his voice. It was too dark to see him.

"What happened?"

"She showed me the safe, and she asked me to open it," he said. "I told her it was an old type and I couldn't open it."

I drew in a deep breath of relief.

"Then what happened?"

"She said there must be a way of opening it. She wanted me to blast it open. I said it was too dangerous. I told her dynamite wasn't in my line."

"Did she believe you?"

"Why not? I made it sound pretty convincing."

"Did she say why she wanted it open?"

"Yeah." There was a pause, then he went on, "She said there was money in the safe. If I opened it, we would share it" Another long pause, then he asked, "Is there any money in the safe, Chet?"

I knew it would be fatal to tell him the truth.

"Three hundred dollars," I lied. "Jenson kept it there against an emergency. She's not after that; she's after the confession."

"She said there was a lot of money there."

"She's lying. It was a bait to make you open the safe."

"Yeah... well, she'll be disappointed."

The following morning, while Roy was supervising the unloading of gas into our tanks, and I was watching him through the window, I heard my bedroom door creak open Lola came in. She closed the door and leaned against it It jolted me to see how she had changed.

She had lost weight. Her face was drawn and granite hard. There were dark smudges under her eyes, and she looked ten years older.