The Hunter and Other Stories Part 23

Joe King rides in an elevator to the fifth floor of a better cla.s.s hotel, goes to room 511, takes a key from his pocket, unlocks the door, and enters.

Pete is sitting tilted back against the wall in a chair close to the door. A dandified slim man of medium height, perhaps thirty years old, is sprawled, cross legs straight out, in an arm-chair smoking a cigarette. The room shows signs of the narcotic agents' intensive searching. Both men look at King with calmly inquisitive eyes.

King speaks to the dandified man with the cigarette: "Come on, Rags, we're going visiting."

Rags smiles mockingly, says, "Don't care if I do," gets up, takes his hat from the bed.

Pete brings his chair down on all fours and gets up. He leaves the room first, then Rags, then King. They walk toward the elevator with Rags between the two narcotic agents. Neither of them touches him.

Richmond's private office. He is seated at his desk. Rags sits as before in a wooden arm-chair. King is half sitting on, half leaning against Richmond's desk, facing Rags. Pete is lounging against the wall beside the outer-office door.

Rags, gesturing lazily with a cigarette, is saying: "I've been nice to you boys, but you can't expect me to sit around like this forever. What are we waiting for; what are we going to do?"

King says: "You're more comfortable here than in a cell, aren't you?"

Rags: "Uh-huh-only my lawyer and a bond-broker can get me out of a cell before I begin to get tired of it. If that's where we're going, let's go."

King looks at Richmond. Richmond looks at his watch, opens his mouth to speak, but stops when Tommy opens the outer-office door for Barney.

Barney takes a step inside the office, sees Rags, blanches, and starts to turn back. Pete puts his left hand on Barney's left forearm, steps behind him, and pushes him a little farther into the room. Tommy, wide-eyed, shuts the door slowly, staring through the narrowing opening.

Barney turns his terror-stricken face from Rags to Richmond and begins to babble despairingly: "You promised you'd keep me covered, Gene! You told me you'd-"

Rags laughs mockingly. "Ever know a copper that'd give his stool-pigeons anything but the worst of it?" he asks Barney. His voice, like his face, is calm, but when he glances down at his hands he sees they are tightly gripping the arms of his chair, and the backs of his hands are dotted with sweat. Casually, to avoid the attention of the others, he forces his hands to relax and moves them slowly to his thighs, turning them backs-down so his trousers mop up the moisture.

Richmond, coldly: "Sorry, Barney. You'll have to talk. We'll protect you."

Barney: "But you promised you'd-"

Richmond: "I know, but it can't be helped. Tell these gentlemen how you know Neely took the stuff to Rags."

Barney puts both hands out pleadingly to Richmond and seems about to fall on his knees. "I don't know nothing, Gene," he cries. "Honest to G.o.d, I don't! I was just guessing!" His voice rises in a wail: "He'll kill me! He'll kill me, Gene! You can't make me-"

Rags smiles evilly and says: "It doesn't look like you're going to live forever, and that's a fact."

Barney cringes.

King addresses Rags curtly: "Shut up!" He leaves the desk, takes Barney by the lapels, pulls him close, and growls: "Come through. He's not going to be anywhere where he can hurt you-if you talk enough to let us put him and keep him out of your way."

Richmond: "You've got to go through with it now, Barney. He knows you've squealed. Make a clean job of it and we'll give you all the protection you need. If you don't-we'll have to turn Rags loose. You know what kind of a spot you'll be in then."

Barney stares past King at Richmond for a long moment, then at King, at Pete. The last trace of hopefulness goes out of his face, leaving it dumbly defeated. His body becomes limp. "All right," he says lifelessly, "he's got another room on the same floor of his hotel under another name where he keeps the stuff-in sample trunks. He's. . . ."

Pete has moved around behind Rags' chair, watching the dealer sharply. Richmond and King listen attentively to Barney.

Half an hour later. Barney, standing in the center of the floor, has just finished answering the last question. Rags, sitting as before, is staring thoughtfully at his feet. Pete is leaning on the back of Rags' chair. King is half sitting on, half leaning against the desk again. Richmond is smoking a cigarette.

King and Richmond look at each other. The narcotic agent says: "That does it, doesn't it?" His voice is faintly tinged with satisfaction.

Richmond nods gravely.

King, jerking a thumb at Barney, addresses Pete: "Take him down and book him as a witness."

Pete leaves the back of the chair, taps Barney on the arm, and says: "Come on."

Barney looks pleadingly at King and Richmond, begins: "You'll take care of me? You won't let-"

King nods curtly. "We'll take care of you. Go ahead."

Pete takes Barney out.

King turns to Rags, asking quietly: "How do you like it now?"

Rags raises his gaze from his feet, smiles bitterly, replies in a voice just as quiet, though rueful: "It's not so hot." He stops smiling. "Well, you've got it all. What are you waiting for?"

King: "Got any suggestions?"

Rags looks thoughtfully at King, at his feet, then up at King again, and asks evenly: "You don't think I had anything to do with b.u.mping off that guy at the beach, do you?"

King leans forward a little and says persuasively: "Maybe we won't think so if you don't fight us too much."

Rags grins ruefully: "I'm pleading guilty to the rest of it," he says. "You got me cold."

"That's sensible," King says, rising. "Let's go."

King and Rags go out.

Downstairs, in the office building lobby, an inconspicuous looking man is loitering. He and King exchange significant glances as King and his prisoner pa.s.s.

The inconspicuous looking man is still in the lobby when Richmond leaves the building a few minutes later, and follows Richmond out.

Richmond gets into his roadster. The man following him gets into a black coupe farther down the street, and follows the roadster.

Richmond turns two corners, runs through a parking lot from one street to another, tilting the car's mirror to watch the coupe following him, drives half a dozen blocks and then down into the rear entrance of a garage under a large apartment house, out the front, through an alley, and away swiftly up a broad boulevard.

The man in the coupe waits awhile in the rear of the apartment building, then goes into the garage, looks around, questions one of the attendants, makes a gesture of chagrin, and goes away.

The dining room in the house at Green Lake. The Pomeroys and their guests are rising from the table. There are seven guests besides Kavanaugh-three men and four women-all young and gay and fashionably dressed. As they leave the dining-room, laughing and talking, the sound of an automobile comes from out of doors. It is dark outdoors.

Ann Pomeroy makes vague, somewhat incoherent, excuses and goes to the front door. Richmond is getting out of his roadster. She runs down the steps to him. "Oh, I'm glad you're back!" she says impulsively.

He looks curiously at her, asks: "Why? Has anything happened?"

She is suddenly embarra.s.sed. "N-no," she stammers. Then she puts a hand on his arm, says earnestly: "I am glad you're back. Father-I made Father tell me the-everything. You can help him, can't you?"

He pats her hand. "Certainly," he says. "There's nothing to worry about. Nothing's happened today?"

Ann: "No-except the youngest one of those four horrible men-wherever I go I either see him or have the feeling that he's watching me." She shivers, moves close to Richmond. "I'm not-I don't think I'm very brave. I'm afraid, Gene!"

Richmond puts an arm around her. "Sh-h-h," he says soothingly, "it's coming out all right. I wish your father hadn't told you."

"I made him," she says. "Are you sure it's going to come out all right?"

"Absolutely," he replies as they ascend the stairs.

The Kid steps out from behind a bush and scowls sullenly at their backs.

The bedroom where Neely and the others were seen before. Happy is lying in his usual position on the bed. Neely is sitting on the foot of the bed, wearing his hat. Buck is at the table, pouring himself a drink.

The Kid comes in, shuts the door, and says: "Richmond's back."

Buck suddenly slams his full gla.s.s into a corner of the room and wheels on Neely. Happy swings his legs over the side of the bed and sits bending tensely forward, a hand behind him: his face remains as usual. The Kid crouches with his back to the door, his right hand swinging near his hip.

Buck is speaking in a hoa.r.s.e, strained voice: "Listen, Cheaters, I got enough of this hanging around waiting for somebody to pull the ground from under our feet. What I say is let's go down and put a rod against this Pomeroy's belly and either collect or leave him looking at the ceiling. And I say let's do it right now."

Richmond opens the door, but does not enter the room. He looks mockingly from one to another of them. They maintain their positions, turning only their heads toward him. While selecting a cigarette from a package in his hand, he tells them casually: "There'll be news for you in the morning paper. Don't let it excite you too much. Just sit tight and Uncle Gene will pull you through."

He shuts the door and goes down to the room where the Pomeroys and their guests are. All except Ann and a slim dark-haired boy in dinner clothes are playing bridge at two tables. The boy and Ann are sitting on a sofa by the fireplace. When she sees Richmond she makes a place for him beside her, patting it and smiling at him. He goes over to her and sits down. The dark-haired boy's smile is polite rather than cordial. The three of them laugh and talk, though nothing they say can be heard above the chatter at the tables. Gradually, as they talk, Ann turns on the sofa to face Richmond more directly, until her back is almost squarely turned on the dark-haired boy, and by then he has almost been excluded from the conversation, neither Ann nor Richmond seeming to remember he is there. He pouts, then gets up somewhat angrily, and moves off to watch one of the bridge games. They do not seem to notice his going. Several of the card-players look at them with politely moderated curiosity.

A closer shot of them as she stops laughing, glances around to see they cannot be overheard, and says very seriously: "You weren't just trying to keep me from worrying when you said everything would come out all right?"

Richmond: "I honestly wasn't, Miss Pomeroy. I-" He stops, looking questioningly at her, as she frowns. "I called you Gene out there," she says severely.

He smiles apologetically, says: "I wasn't just trying to keep you from worrying, Ann."

She laughs.

He continues, seriously now: "A lot happened in town today-in our favor. It-"

"What happened?" she asks.

He smiles and shakes his head. "Nothing I can tell you. This is nasty business. I'm having to do things I don't like to talk about-especially not to you."

She puts a hand on one of his, says softly, earnestly: "You're doing them for me-for Father and me. I ought to be forced to hear what you're having to do."

He says drily: "I'm getting paid for it. I'm a hired man doing his job."

She puts both hands on his and corrects him tenderly: "You are a friend-savior."

He looks around in embarra.s.sment, sees that the bridge games have broken up and some of the players are coming toward them. He rises with evident relief.

Later that night. The guests are saying goodnight and going up to their rooms. Pomeroy and Ann are left alone in the room. He sits on the sofa facing the fireplace and stares at the fire while finishing his cigar. Ann goes over to him and sits on the arm of the sofa beside him, putting an arm around him, leaning her cheek on his head.

Presently she asks: "Do you like Gene Richmond, Father?"

Pomeroy takes the cigar from his mouth, frowning a little, and says slowly: "I don't know, honey. I don't think I do."

Ann: "Why?"

Pomeroy, still speaking thoughtfully: "I've a feeling that he's not too scrupulous, that perhaps some of the things he does in his work are-"

Ann, quickly: "But he's doing them for us, Father!"

Pomeroy turns his head and looks at her. "Yes, that's so," he says slowly.

As he continues to look at her, her face flushes and she averts her eyes.

He asks: "Do you like Gene Richmond, Ann?"

She looks at him and says: "Yes."

Outside. Richmond, smoking a cigarette, is strolling along a dark path toward the house. On the gra.s.s beside the path, twenty feet behind, the Kid is following him silently. The Kid's right hand is in his bulging jacket pocket. As they approach a part of the path made especially dark by sheltering bushes, the Kid quickens his pace, closing in, and when Richmond reaches the dark spot, the Kid jumps him. Nothing can be seen but two indistinguishable moving figures in the light of Richmond's cigarette. There is a distinct sound of a fist hitting flesh, once-then footsteps running away. Richmond's face can be seen as his cigarette burns brighter with an inhalation, and he resumes his stroll toward the house. He opens the front door, light flooding him, turns to look at the dark grounds, snaps the b.u.t.t of his cigarette into the darkness in a long arc, glances at the knuckles of his right hand with a faint smile, and goes indoors, shutting the door.

The Dis-and-Dat Kid leaves a sheltering tree, scowling toward the door, putting a hand tenderly to a side of his jaw. Then he looks around. A lighted kitchen window catches his eye. He goes down and looks in. Happy is seated at a table eating a piece of pie, drinking milk. Across the table, the buxom cook is seated, her face broad and smiling, talking coquettishly, though the Kid cannot hear what she is saying.

He starts to grin crookedly, stops grinning and puts his hand to his face again, and leaves the window, vanishing in the darkness.

A cheaply furnished, but very clean and orderly, bedroom. Helen Crane is sitting at a dressing-table mirror brushing her hair. Her eyes are wide, moist, and frightened. Her lips are moving. She is saying: "I don't want to go to prison again," over and over to her reflection in the gla.s.s as she brushes her hair.

Pomeroy's house. Richmond is standing with his back to the fire talking to Pomeroy and Ann, who sits as before. He is addressing Pomeroy: "It's better for you not to know what I'm doing. As I told Miss Pomeroy-"

"Ann," Ann says.

Richmond chuckles. "As I told Ann," he goes on, "a lot I've had to do hasn't been nice, wouldn't be nice to listen to. You can take my word for it that things are shaping up much better than I expected. A few more days should see you in the clear. But it's enough for me to have the dirty details on my conscience-that's my job-without having you worried with them.

Pomeroy: "You really feel you're making satisfactory progress?"

Richmond: "Oh, yes."

Pomeroy looks at his daughter. She snuggles closer to him and says impulsively: "I'm sure Gene's right-about our leaving everything to him-trusting him." She looks up somewhat proudly at the detective, then asks: "You don't have to go to the city again tomorrow, do you?"

He nods. "Yes-it all centers there."

She makes a face at him.

He speaks to Pomeroy: "I'll need some money, cash, five thousand. A man who gave us some valuable information will have to be shipped abroad. His life isn't worth a cigarette if he stays here, and his killing might drag the whole story out in the open. Will you have your office send the money over to mine in the morning?"

Pomeroy says: "Yes. Is there anything else?"

Richmond says: "No."

Pomeroy rises, says, "Well, I'm off to bed, then," kisses his daughter, says, "Good night, Richmond," and goes out, leaving Richmond and Ann together.

The corridor outside the girl's bedroom door. The Kid stands with his ear against the door, listening. A clock somewhere in the house strikes four faintly. The Kid opens the door, goes in, shuts the door, crosses to the bed, looks down at the sleeping girl, moves cautiously around the room, looking into bathroom and dressing room, then goes out.

Next morning. Richmond alone at table eating breakfast. He rises hastily as Ann comes in. They exchange good-mornings, sit down, and she asks earnestly: "Must you go to the city today?"

He smiles, says: "Must."