Girl Out Back Part 11

The three pails b.u.mped gently together as they swayed to his stride, forever three feet before my eyes. I tried to look away from them. I tried not to hear the small metallic sounds they made.

"We'll make her in fine shape," he told me rea.s.suringly over his shoulder. "Sure," I said.

"When we get to the cabin, we'll use the boat."

I didn't say anything. I merely reflected it would be wonderful if we drowned. It would be such a fitting close to our brief encounter and to this perfect idyll of a day. Nothing short of committing suicide could lend it that final little brush-stroke it needed to make it complete. A truly formidable day. I thought, trying to keep my mind and attention off those pails; the great wh.o.r.e of all days. Tenderly, day that I have loved, I close your eyes, and smooth your quiet brow, and fold your thin dead hands. Tenderly, day that I have loved, I close your eyes, and smooth your quiet brow, and fold your thin dead hands.

The pails clinked companionably.

They contained one-hundred-and-one thousand dollars, and there were only two people on earth who knew it.

I wrenched my eyes away from the pails, feeling sick and very cold in my stomach. Still pools of shadow clotted and thickened under the trees as the sun went down.

n.o.body knew I was out here, or that I had even been here.

That was irrelevant. That wasn't the question at all.

The proposition as stated is that everything you buy in this antic bazaar has its individual price tag. Look at it first; don't be a fool and cry about the bill afterward. You know what it is now; and understand that it won't be any different after it's too late to return the merchandise.

He backed me into this corner. . . .

No, he didn't. You backed yourself into it. Don't wait and make that great discovery after it's too late. Accept it now. You can buy your way out in something less than a minute, but it's not going to be on a pa.s.s.

The pails swung gently behind his shoulder, three feet away. I was becoming hypnotized. I kept seeing them as they had looked when they were open on the ground. I could put out my hand and touch them. G.o.dwin's Law of Character Erosion states that the attrition of honesty. . . . Never mind that bright and soph.o.m.oric bit of wisdom. This is something else. Well, isn't murder the ultimate dishonesty?

The thing that was so terrible about it was its simplicity. I could go on and go to prison, for nothing. Or I could merely walk out of here with a fortune, and not go to prison at all.

It was twilight. I saw the edge of the clearing and the darkening bulk of the cabin ahead of us.

All right, I thought. But when you start, do it fast and very coldly, and don't think at all.

Now we were inside the cabin, from which the light was almost gone. I felt very tight, and far away, and was concentrating on details like remembering to limp as I walked. I had picked up my jacket and the paper bag that contained the $3,800. He had already put the three pails in the boat and had come back after the clothes he was going to take. He placed them in a cheap little imitation leather bag he took from under the bed.

"I reckon I can phone Mrs. Nunn to pick up the rest of my stuff," he said. "Mebbe sell it for me."

"Yes," I said.

I picked up the gun-belt from the floor. The loops were filled with cartridges and it was heavy. I held it out to him.

"I reckon I better leave that here," he said.

"You can take it," I told him. I'll turn in the gun, and maybe you can sell it to one of the deputies."

He had to have it on, but I wished we could stop talking. My voice sounded squeezed and breathless, as if it were coming off the top of my throat.

He buckled on the belt. He looked once around the cabin and went on through the door without saying anything. I was glad; that was past now. The encircling wall of trees was dark. Far overhead in the fading sky a few splashes of orange and pink were left over from the silent explosion of sunset. He looked up at them and then around at the clearing's thickening dusk.

"I . . ." he said.

Don't look at him. Don't listen.

"I liked it here," he said simply. "It was a nice place."

I clamped my jaws shut against the cold and terrible up-welling of pressure inside me and turned away. I gestured with my hand. We went down the trail toward the boat.

An old log running out into the water served as a pier. We got in. He handed me the valise, which I put forward with the pails. I shoved the folded paper bag into one of the pockets of my jacket, and dropped the jacket across the valise. He turned the boat outward and gave it a shove with an oar against the log. I sat on the midships seat, facing him. We coasted out of the cove on water that was as flat and black as oil. It was intensely still, and on both sides of the waterway night grew and deepened among the trees, pushing outward to overrun this last outpost of day. I turned a little, looking forward, and slipped the wallet from the pocket of my trousers. I put it in the jacket. He cranked the motor. It began kicking us outward, away from the sh.o.r.e, as he headed for the bend. I removed my hat.

Almost at the same time I cried out, "Wait!" His face was a blur under the big shadow of his hat as he looked at me inquiringly. I reached past his arm and cut the motor. Instantly, the vast silence of the forest rolled back over us, unbroken except for the faint swish of water past the hull and the roaring in my ears. I was cold now, and he was locked out and far away.

I stood up. "I thought . . ." The boat rocked under my weight. I swayed, and lunged astern and outward, grabbing frantically for him as I fell. We went over the side together. The water closed over us. He kicked against me. I lost him. I went upward, and my head broke the surface.

Water swirled behind me, and I heard him gasp. "You . . . You all right, Mr. Ward?"

I turned and found him, and pressed him down into the water. He struggled wildly for a few seconds, and then he jerked with one final convulsion and became still under my hands, settling away from them toward the bottom. I s.n.a.t.c.hed the gun from my trousers and let it drop. A last bubble of air, released from somewhere in his clothing, came upward, brushing against my throat.

It was a problem, an a.s.signment you were handed and told to work out on the spot and under pressure; my mind was ice cold and very clear, sh.o.r.ed off from everything as I concentrated on it. The boat was a deeper clot of shadow some ten feet away. I swam over to it, moving clumsily in my clothes and shoes. Catching the gunwale with one hand, I oriented myself with the dark sh.o.r.e-line, and began kicking back the way we had come. In a few minutes, just outside the cove, I could reach bottom with my feet. I waded in, pulling the boat.

Landing it beside the log, I stood alongside it while water ran out of my hair and clothing. Stripping the cuff-links from my shirt, I dropped them in the pocket of my jacket, which was still across his valise. I slipped off the tie and shirt, wrung them out, rolled them together, and tossed them on to the bank. Then I stepped out of the trousers, squeezed as much of the water from them as I could, and stepped out on the ground myself. I put the trousers down with the shirt and tie. I emptied the water out of my shoes, wrung out the socks and put them with the other clothing, and put the shoes back on. Then, going back and forth on the log, I removed the valise, my jacket and hat, and the three pails from the boat, placing them near the pale blur of the shirt which I could see fairly well in the darkness. I went up to the cabin. Just outside the door and a little to one side, where he had dropped them, I felt around for the spinning rod and the big ba.s.s on its stringer. I couldn't find either of them. I oriented myself, and tried some more. That was odd. He'd dropped them both right here. Then I understood. When he came back for the bandage and the crutch, he'd moved them. But where? I had had to have that rod. to have that rod.

Well, obviously, he would have taken it inside the cabin. I straightened and was about to go in when I stopped. How in the name of G.o.d was I going to find anything in there without a light? My cigarette lighter was down there in my trousers, soaking wet. It would be hours before it would work. Well, he had matches in there somewhere; I just had to find them. I stepped inside and groped my way toward the rear, b.u.mping into a chair. The noise it made as it fell to the floor was startling and all out of proportion in the stillness. I went on until I felt the stove, and then stopped, trying to visualize the exact layout. Nearly all the back wall was covered with shelves, as I remembered, but the matches should be on the end near the stove. I moved, holding my hands before me. I touched the edge of a shelf and began sliding my hands along it. Something fell to the floor and broke. I cursed. I knocked something else over, but it remained on the shelf. I was beginning to be nervous and apprehensive now. It might take an hour to find his box of matches. Then I grunted. I had felt them. It was a large cardboard box, slid partly open. They were the big kitchen ones.

I struck one, and the instant it flared he came flying back at me from a dozen directions at once, from the dirty, syrup-smeared dishes and the unmade bed and from the piles of cheap and pathetic magazines. The poor, lost, futile. . . .

Stop it!

I coldly sealed him out and swung around, searching for the lamp. It was on the big packing box that had the oilcloth on it. I lit it, replaced the chimney, and looked around in the dim yellow light. There was the rod. It was in the corner by the chest of drawers, where the rifle and shotgun stood. The stringer was on the floor beside it. The ba.s.s was gone. Well, naturally, he would have thrown it back in the lake so it wouldn't smell up the place.

I was about to go across to pick up the rod when I became conscious of something sticky under my shoe. I looked down. The thing I had knocked off the shelf and broken was a syrup pitcher, and I was tracking syrup all over the cabin. I swore, whispering harshly in the darkness. d.a.m.n the rotten luck. Well, I'd clean it up later; I had to come back, anyway. There were some torn-up comic books in the wood-box beside the stove. I ripped some pages off one, cleaned the syrup from my shoe, and stuffed the paper in the stove. Setting two matches on the floor just to one side of the door where I could find them next time, I picked up the rod, blew out the lamp, and went out.

It was two or three minutes before my eyes became accustomed to the darkness again. I went down to the boat and put the rod in. It still had a small spinner attached to the line. I felt around under the forward seat until I located his tackle box. It was a metal one, with a tray that hinged upward when the lid was raised. Opening it, I set it on the bottom grating between the midships and after seats. Placing my shoe near one end of the tray, I stepped down, putting part of my weight on it. I felt it bend a little, and then the box upset, spilling lures about the bottom of the boat and under the grating. Taking off my shoes. I set them out on the log and shoved off with the oar.

I paddled until I was headed outward, and then cranked the motor. Idling down to slow speed, I pointed the bow straight across toward the weed beds along the other sh.o.r.e. When I was nearly half-way across I stood up and dived over the side. I came up, and the boat was drawing away, a diminishing shadow on the dark surface of the water as the motor kept up its thrumming sound in the night. It was swinging to the right, I thought. It didn't matter much where it hit something and came to rest, but I hoped it wouldn't double back and run me down.

I got my bearings and started swimming back to the cove. When I waded out of the water and sat on the log to put my shoes on I tried to judge where it was now. It sounded as if it were on the other side, and it didn't appear to be moving. Probably it had already plowed into the pails. That was fine.

I stepped ash.o.r.e, picked up the valise, and returned to the cabin, hurrying now because I wanted to get away from here. Lighting the lamp again, I put the clothes back in one of the drawers of the chest, and shoved the valise under the bed where he'd got it. I located a paper bag and picked up the shattered gla.s.s of the syrup pitcher. I soused his dish towel in the water pail, wrung it out, and mopped up the syrup, dropping the towel in the bag when I had finished. What else. Oh, yes-the plate I had used for an ash-tray. I sc.r.a.ped the b.u.t.ts into the bag, wiped the plate with a handful of paper from the wood-box to remove the rest of the ashes, and put the paper in the fire-box of the stove. Better burn all that, I thought. I stuck a match to it, and then shoved in the carton the money had been in, and the waxed paper that had been used to wrap that hidden under the house. When it had all burned down and gone out, I pulverized the ashes with the poker and replaced the lid. I put the blackened pieces of hardware from Haig's suitcase in the paper bag, shoved the table back where it had been, and looked around. What else? There was nothing to indicate I had ever been here.

Of course, I had left footprints out there in a few places in the hard earth of the yard and in the trail, but it didn't matter, even though my shoes were larger than his. n.o.body would be looking for footprints. What had happened to him would be perfectly obvious. He'd stumbled over the tackle box, fallen overboard wearing that gun-belt and gun, and had drowned when the boat plowed on and left him. An autopsy would bear it out.

I picked up the paper bag, blew out the lamp, and went out. When my eyes were accustomed to the darkness again, I walked down to the lake about fifty yards above the cove, and threw the bag out into the water. The hardware and broken gla.s.s were heavy enough to make it sink. Picking my way through the dark trees, I went back down to the cove.

I rolled my shirt, trousers, and socks into a bundle and knotted the tie around it. Putting on the jacket and the hat, I picked up the crutch, the three pails and the bundle of wet clothing, and started down the lake through the timber. It was slow going and it was farther this way because I had to follow the sh.o.r.e-line to keep from being lost. Brush scratched my legs, and it required intense and constant alertness to keep from running into tree trunks. The sound of the outboard motor grew fainter behind me. I stopped once to tear the padding from the crutch and dispose of it under a log. A few hundred yards farther along I threw the forked sapling itself into the water. I was conscious that I was tiring, but had no conception of the pa.s.sage of time. It could have been twenty minutes or it might have been hours that I'd been wrapped in this furious concentration, impervious to everything except this Problem I was working on. Nothing else existed, or could exist until I was through with it.

I stumbled into an open s.p.a.ce and realized I had reached the camp-ground. I swung left, located the road, and in another minute was standing beside the station wagon. The moves remaining in the Problem were dwindling rapidly now, being checked off one by one. I fished the keys from the pocket of my jacket and unlocked the door. Grabbing a flashlight from the glove compartment, I hurried out to where I had hidden the can of gasoline and refueled the car. I replaced the registration certificate. Lifting out the suitcase, stripped off the jacket and wet shorts, and dressed in the slacks and sports shirt I'd had on before.

Like an operating team making a sponge count, I spread out the wet clothes and checked to be sure I hadn't lost anything. It was all there-shirt, tie, socks, trousers, cuff-links, lighter, pocket-knife, wallet, bogus credentials, the sodden remains of the warrant, the brown paper bag containing the ten dollar bills, and even the drowned and mushy package of cigarettes in my shirt. I tossed the paper bag in the suitcase, and put the wallet, knife, and lighter in the pockets of my slacks. Rolling everything else back up in the shirt, I stowed the bundle in the rear of the car.

I took out the knife and pried the lids off the three pails. So oblivious was I to everything but the closing moves of the Problem I scarcely even recognized the paper bundles as money as I hurriedly transferred them to the suitcase. When the pails were empty I put the jacket in the bag on top of the bundles, closed the bag, and stowed it in the car alongside the wet clothes, pulling the blankets and the kapok life-belts over it. Picking up the flashlight and the three pails, I walked back to the edge of the water. I sailed the lids out into it. Then I filled the three pails with water so they would sink, and threw them as far as I could out into the lake. I turned the light on my watch. It was waterproof, and still running after its two immersions in the lake.

It was eight seventeen. The Problem was solved, and all I had to do was go home. I switched off the light and stood there for a moment as the tenseness uncoiled along my nerves. It had been a rough a.s.signment with tremendous pressure and no margin for error, but I hadn't missed a move. I knew that. It was perfect.

Then, suddenly, I became conscious that something had changed. I turned my head with a puzzled frown, wondering what it was. I hadn't heard anything; all about me was the vast silence of the swamp.

Wait. That was it! It was the silence itself. All this time I had been listening to the thin, faraway drone of the outboard motor without consciously hearing it, and now it had stopped. The motor had run out of fuel at last.

I fought it, but the concentration was all gone now and it was too terrible and too graphic to be denied. It was as if he hadn't died an hour ago, but right now-at this exact instant as the motor made its final revolution and became quiet at last and all movement and life and sound were gone forever from that dark and brooding channel before his cabin.

"Are you all right, Mr. Ward?"

It all came up then. I whirled and fell to my knees with my hands in the edge of the water and made a horrible retching sound as I heaved and suffocated with the sting of vomit in my nostrils. When I was wrung out and weak I moved a little and washed my face, and then lay back on the ground, still shaking.

Don't be so d.a.m.ned dramatic, I told myself coldly. You knew beforehand it wasn't going to be any picnic, didn't you? You're not that stupid.

But there wasn't any way I could have known he was going to say that. He just didn't know whether I could swim or not, and he wanted to help me.

After a while, when some of my strength returned, I went back to the station wagon and drove out of the bottom.

Thirteen

I had only two gallons of gasoline. Trying to get all the way home on that would be too risky, and there probably wouldn't be anything open at Hampstead, so I drove back to Exeter and filled up. It was a few minutes past ten when I got home, fervently glad I had the place all to myself.

People were still up in several nearby houses. I drove on into the garage and closed the overhead door. There was a smaller side door that faced the kitchen porch. I went around to the front of the house and let myself in. I turned on a light in the kitchen, drew the curtains, and brought the suitcase and bundle of clothes in through the back.

Turning on the oven in the kitchen range, I spread the wet trousers and the the on the back of a chair before it. The shirt was hopelessly stained with the mushy cigarettes. It would never do to put it in the laundry; according to the best traditions of the mystery story, employees of laundries spent ninety per cent of their time searching for evidence of crimes. Well, I knew several ways to circ.u.mvent these sterling but over zealous citizens. I dumped the cigarettes into the sink, rinsed out as much of the stain as possible, and tore off the b.u.t.tons, which I threw in the refuse can, the one in the house. Then I tore the shirt into handy-sized polishing cloths, saturated them with some of Reba's floor wax, and threw them in the garbage can behind the house.

I went upstairs to the bathroom. With a pair of kitchen shears I cut the black identification folder into sc.r.a.ps and flushed it down the john. The soggy warrant followed it, and then the drowned cigarettes. I took off my shoes and put them on shoe trees to dry naturally in the closet. I put the hat away. Donning a pair of slippers and combing my hair, I went back downstairs and turned the trousers and tie before the oven. When they began to feel merely damp, I broke out Reba's ironing board and electric iron and pressed them carefully. I slid the trousers neatly on to a hanger, added the jacket, and went back to the bedroom. I put the suit away where it had been and hung the tie back on the rack. I was the only living person who knew Special Agent Ward had ever existed, and now the last trace of him was gone.

I'd saved the best part until last. Taking the suitcase, I went downstairs to the den, drew the curtains over the small windows, and switched on the reading lamp beside the big chair. I dragged over my trunk and emptied it of the acc.u.mulation of books and papers and old clothes I'd never quite got around to throwing away. Then I hunted up a pad and pencil and opened the suitcase.

I piled it on the floor first, separated into individual stacks of hundreds, fifties, twenties, tens, and fives, writing down the amounts printed on the bands and hoping Cliffords had been correct in his count. He hadn't, but it was even better. The total when I added it came to $103,500. I added the $2,800 still in the paper bag.

That made a grand total of $107,300. I stared at it and whistled softly. It was all mine, and n.o.body on earth knew I had it. and n.o.body on earth knew I had it. I wondered if anybody else in all history had ever pulled off a coup this size entirely alone and without even the suspicion of one other human being. When you stopped to examine it, the thing must be without parallel. It wasn't solely that there was no reason anyone should suspect I had it; there wasn't even anybody to I wondered if anybody else in all history had ever pulled off a coup this size entirely alone and without even the suspicion of one other human being. When you stopped to examine it, the thing must be without parallel. It wasn't solely that there was no reason anyone should suspect I had it; there wasn't even anybody to miss miss it. That was what made it fantastic. There was absolutely no link between Haig and Cliffords, and none between Cliffords and me, and both Haig and Cliffords were dead. . . . it. That was what made it fantastic. There was absolutely no link between Haig and Cliffords, and none between Cliffords and me, and both Haig and Cliffords were dead. . . .

If only he had run. I wanted him to! That's the way I meant it. I wanted him to! That's the way I meant it.

I fought down the sick spasm. It pa.s.sed in a moment. There would be others, plenty of them, but they would pa.s.s too. Time didn't wound all heels; it was still the other way around. The only saving grace of cliches was that they were true. It would never go away, of course, but you could live with it if you were being paid enough according to your individual sense of values. Mine, perhaps, would raise more than one eyebrow among the Good Housekeeping crowd, but then I wasn't asking them to live by them; I was merely doing so myself.

I got up to find cigarettes and came back to stare at the pile of money again, excitedly making plans. I'd hold on here for another six months. By that time they would have given up in this area and stopped watching it. Let's see, that would be in February. I'd take it to Florida and put it in several safe deposit boxes. Cash-that is, currency-was always unusual in any kind of business transaction and likely to attract attention, so I would open several scattered checking accounts, add to them gradually, and eventually consolidate them. I'd lie low until mid-summer, at the very bottom of the season, studying the west coast and the Keys for a good location to buy into a marina in a small way or start one of my own. And once I had a business established it would be easy to convert increasing amounts of currency into investments or use it to enlarge the operation. It was just a matter of going slowly.

I put it into the bottom of the trunk and covered it with the old clothing I'd taken out-ski things I hadn't used for years, a dinner jacket, a uniform, and a couple of double-breasted suits. It would be safe here. They never went into my things, and I had the only key, anyway. I replaced the books and papers, locked the trunk and moved it back against the wall. The key I put into my wallet.

I went back up to the kitchen, made a sandwich, and opened a can of beer. Carrying them into the living-room, I loaded the gramophone with arias from Eugene Onegin Eugene Onegin and and Boris G.o.dunov. Boris G.o.dunov. The house was too quiet. After a while I switched it off and went upstairs. I took a shower and lay down naked on the bed. Her note was still pinned to the pillow. I crumpled it and threw it on the dresser, wishing she would come back. A fight would be better than this intense silence. I switched off the light. The moon had come up now and its soft light was slanting in under the honeysuckle about the window. The house was too quiet. After a while I switched it off and went upstairs. I took a shower and lay down naked on the bed. Her note was still pinned to the pillow. I crumpled it and threw it on the dresser, wishing she would come back. A fight would be better than this intense silence. I switched off the light. The moon had come up now and its soft light was slanting in under the honeysuckle about the window.

It hit me without warning. I rolled my face down into the pillow and locked my arms around it, shaking and sick and trying not to make any sound. The picture was a long time going away. There was something stark and forever lost and terrible about it, the boat lying motionless there in the moonlight between the dark walls of the trees as if it were waiting for him to come back and get it.

I sat up and lit a cigarette. It was all right. Conscience was no avenging lion; it was a jackal. It circled you like any other carrion-eating vermin, knowing it had no chance when you were on guard and waiting for the precise moment you were waking up or going to sleep. A couple of bad moments a day were no exorbitant price to pay tor a hundred thousand dollars. Fade, brother. We've done this routine before, and I always outlasted you. Remember?

I awoke once during the night, drenched with sweat and tangled in the sheet as if I had been threshing wildly about. In the morning, when my eyes first opened to the gray coolness of dawn, it was a minute or two before it came back, and when it did it was with a rush of freezing and overwhelming terror. They would catch me; I'd go to the electric chair. Then reason took hold again and it disappeared.

Catch me? There wasn't a chance in the world. How could they? It was absolutely impregnable from every angle. In the first place, Cliffords had merely drowned. An autopsy would prove that, and an examination of his boat would tell them how it happened. And, secondly, I didn't even know him, and had never been to his place.

I shaved and dressed and drove downtown for some breakfast. While I was sitting at the counter in Joey's eating half a melon, Ramsey came in and sat down two stools away.

He nodded and smiled. "How are you tins morning, Mr. G.o.dwin?"

"Fine, thanks," I said. "are you having any luck?" It was a waste of rime, I knew, even if I weren't already aware he wasn't having any luck. None of them would tell you what day it was.

Hmmmm, not much," he replied. He gave his order to the waitress. Then he looked around at me again. "How is the fishing in this area? I understand you're quite an authority."

"I know it pretty well," I said. "It's part of the job, and then I fish a lot myself. You thinking of trying it?"

"I thought I might, when my vacation comes up. What do you think of Sumner Lake?"

I took a sip of my coffee. "Well, it's usually a good bet."

"Have you been up there recently?"

"Yes," I said. "Just a few days ago, in fact. For once, though, it let me down. August is a bad month."

"Oh? Well, I was thinking of early October. Thanks a lot. If I do make it, I'll stop by and talk to you."

"Sure," I said. "Any time. Be glad to help."

The canteloup tasted like asbestos pipe-insulation, but I went ahead and forced it down. I paid the bill and drove over to the store. What was he after, anyway? Was he checking on me? For some reason I couldn't determine, I suddenly thought of that Russian policeman-what was his name?- who haunted Raskolnikov at every turn.

Nuts, it was merely a coincidence. He just happened to want to go fishing; that's all.

Otis had already opened up and was sweeping down the showroom. He came over and leaned the broom against the showcase to light a cigarette.

"Little trick I picked up in the army," he said. "You watch till you see some bra.s.s coming and then grab a broom and sweep like h.e.l.l."

"Anything happen yesterday?" I asked. "Anybody force his way in and buy something before you could stop him?"

"Oh, sure. Matter of fact, I kept the place open till you were clear out of sight. Sold a five-horse motor. For cash. It's in the safe."

"Good," I said. My heart wasn't in it this morning.

Otis was silent for a moment. He started to turn away, but then appeared to change his mind about it. He balanced the broom on his foot, watching it moodily.