The Hunter and Other Stories Part 24

She does not smile. She leans toward him and says in a low, strained voice: "I'm afraid, Gene. I'm afraid-awfully. Don't go."

He tries to soothe her: "I don't think there's anything you really need to be afraid of here. It-"

She: "I'm not afraid when you're here, but when you're gone it's awful. Even if there are a lot of people here-if you're not here I'm afraid."

"Go with me," he suggests.

"I can't-not with these people here."

"Swim, play tennis, keep on the jump," he advises her; "don't let yourself stop and think. You'll be all right."

"I'm afraid," she repeats.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," he a.s.sures her, smiling cheerfully. "Your father shouldn't've told you anything." He continues jestingly, trying to laugh her out of her fears: "And I'll bring you a bag of gumdrops and a doll and a new ribbon when I come back this-"

She is not to be turned from her point. She comes quickly around the table, puts her hands on his shoulders and whispers desperately: "Don't go. Don't leave me-dear."

He rises, upsetting his chair, takes her in his arms, and kisses her, but when she looks questioningly at him afterward, he shakes his head and says earnestly: "I've got to." His eyes brighten as he thinks of an unanswerable reason. "You were there when I told you about the man we'd have to get out of the country, or at least as far away as we can."

Ann: "Yes."

Richmond: "Well, it may be a matter of life or death for him-my going to the city today."

Ann, impulsively: "It was selfish of me. You must go, of course."

She comes into his arms again.

Richmond in his roadster riding toward the city, whistling happily.

Neely holding a spread newspaper in his hands. His cohorts hanging over his shoulders as they read a news item headed: DRUG DEALER HELD.

John ("Rags") Davis Arrested in Downtown Hotel They breathe heavily, and when they have finished they look at one another in consternation.

Richmond enters his outer office, acknowledges Tommy's and Miss Crane's greetings, and asks: "Did Pomeroy's office send anything over for me?"

Miss Crane says: "Yes, sir," and hands him a thick envelope. She is obviously holding herself tightly in hand.

He tears it open, takes out a sheaf of hundred-dollar bills and asks: "Anything else turn up?"

Miss Crane: "Barney's been phoning every hour or two since late yesterday. He seems very excited."

Richmond nods. "Get him on the phone for me." He goes into his private office, hangs up hat and coat, sits down at his desk, counts off ten of the hundred-dollar bills, folds them, and puts them in a vest pocket. The balance of the bills he stuffs into his wallet.

The telephone rings. He picks it up, says: "Gene Richmond speaking."

The other end of the wire. Barney at a wall phone in the hall of his rooming house, his eyes looking fearfully around as he speaks in a harsh whisper over the wire: "For G.o.d's sake, Gene, do something for me-get me away from here before they croak me! They're after me, Gene! I got to blow! They'll croak me sure! Give me some dough-enough to get away with-Gene! You got to! You got me into this! You got to get me out! You got to, Gene! Please! Please! For G.o.d's sake!"

Richmond: "If you'll turn off the monologue long enough to listen, I'll tell you I've got a thousand bucks for you."

Barney, hysterically relieved: "Have you, Gene? Will you-"

Richmond: "Where are you?"

Barney: "Home."

Richmond: "All right. I'm on my way over with it." He hangs up the receiver in the midst of Barney's profuse hysterical thanks.

Richmond puts on his hat and coat, says, "I'll be back in a little while," as he goes through the outer office, rides down in an elevator, and leaves the office building, going afoot. He walks along without any especial signs of haste, stopping once or twice to look in a shop-window, enters Barney's rooming-house, and goes up to his room. When he knocks on the door it swings open. Barney is lying on the floor, face up. There is a dark spot on his coat over his heart. He is dead.

Richmond, scowling thoughtfully, touches his chin with fingers and thumb, then kneels beside the dead man, feels his hand and wrist, rises, looks around the room, goes out to the telephone in the hall, drops in a coin, and says: "The police. This is an emergency call." Then: "A man is dead in room two sixteen at thirteen hundred and nine South Whitfield Street. Yes-murdered."

He goes back to the dead man's room, goes in, and shuts the door. Standing there, looking at the dead man, waiting for the police, he slowly takes the ten hundred-dollar bills from his vest pocket, straightens them out, and stuffs them into his wallet with the others.

Joe King's office in the Federal Building. He, Pete, and Richmond are there. They silently wait until two men bring in Rags Davis.

Rags smiles at them, saying: "Afternoon, gents."

King nods at a comfortable chair. "Sit down, Rags," he says.

Rags sits down.

King asks: "Got cigarettes?"

Rags, amused: "Yes, thanks." He takes out a package of cigarettes and puts one in his mouth, feeling in his pockets for matches. One of the men who brought him in holds a light to the cigarette. Rags blows smoke out, says: "Thanks."

King smiles at Rags, says in a friendly voice: "Tell us who killed Barney, Rags."

Rags laughs. "Somebody finally cut that rat down? That's just swell!"

King, in the same friendly voice: "Who did it, Rags?"

Rags: "I wish I knew, King. I'd like to send him a little present."

Pete takes a slow step toward Rags, says good-naturedly: "Aw, stop kidding. Who did it?"

Richmond hunches his chair a little nearer Rags. . . .

The clock on the wall moves from four o'clock to nine o'clock.

Rags is now sitting under a strong electric light. His collar is loosened, his necktie askew, and there is perspiration on his face. His faint grin has more weariness than mockery in it. He shakes his head wearily from side to side.

"That's a lie!" King says hoa.r.s.ely. He wipes his neck and cheeks with a damp handkerchief. "There's a dozen ways you could get word out."

Pete, in shirt sleeves, puts out a hand and raises Rags' face roughly. "You got word to Slim and he turned the trick." His voice is hoa.r.s.e as King's.

Rags: "No."

All the men in the room except Richmond are disheveled, but he seems tired as the others. One of the other men begins firing questions at Rags.

King looks questioningly at Richmond, who looks significantly at the clock and makes a hopeless gesture with his hands.

King interrupts the questioning. "Take him away," he orders.

Two men take Rags out. The others clump wearily in their chairs. n.o.body speaks.

Richmond in his bathroom, shaving while carrying on a conversation with Babe Holliday, who is sitting crosswise in an easy chair in his living room, leaning against one arm, legs dangling over the other. She is asking: "And is this Ann Pomeroy really as beautiful as she looks in her pictures?"

He goes to the bathroom door, razor in hand, and looks at Babe under wrinkled forehead. "You been looking her up?" he asks incredulously.

She swings her legs and laughs. "Yep-back-number newspaper society pages. I'm a gal that does things about her curiosity. Is she that good-looking?"

He shrugs and goes back to his shaving. "She's not bad to look at," he says after he has removed most of the lather from his chin. He sc.r.a.pes the other side of his face and then goes to the door again. "Can you keep a secret?" he asks, and then without waiting for her to answer, "I think she's the big one."

Babe laughs. "It's probably her old man's dough that's the big one."

He grins good-naturedly, says: "Maybe-but I find myself forgetting that sometimes."

She pretends amazement. "Then it is serious!" She looks at her watch. "Are we going to dinner or breakfast? It's after ten o'clock."

As she starts back toward the bathroom the telephone bell rings. He answers it: "Gene Richmond speaking."

The other end of the wire. Kavanaugh, disheveled, frantic, crying: "They've taken Ann with them! We didn't know she was gone till we found the note! They left an hour ago, but we didn't know they had her. We thought-"

Richmond drops his razor: "Shut up and answer questions! Did they go in their car?"

Kavanaugh: "Yes!"

Richmond: "What did the note say?"

Kavanaugh: "That since Pomeroy wouldn't give them money- They had made a final demand just-"

Richmond: "Shut up! Took her as a hostage?"

Kavanaugh: "Yes, they-"

Richmond: "Which way did they go?"

Kavanaugh: "Toward the city. We-"

Richmond: "Did you phone sheriffs along the way?"

Kavanaugh: "Yes, and Pomeroy and the others have gone after them. They may-"

Richmond: "They got away about an hour ago?"

Kavanaugh: "Around nine o'clock, I'd say. We saw-"

Richmond: "Anything else I ought to know?"

Kavanaugh: "No, except maybe-"

Richmond slams the receiver on the hook, whirls into his bedroom and begins getting into the rest of his clothes while shouting, "Come here," to Babe.

She is already there.

"Get pencil and paper," he snaps.

She gets them. While putting on his clothes he dictates a description of the three men and the girl, and a description and the license number of the Packard car. "Phone King of the federal narcotic department, the police-they abducted her-left Green Lake around nine o'clock-headed this way," and he dashes out, leaving the door open behind him.

He goes downstairs half a flight to a leap to the bas.e.m.e.nt garage, gets into his car, heedlessly bangs fenders of other cars getting out of the garage, and roars up the street with pedestrians and other cars hurriedly getting out of his way.

Various shots of him leaving the city, dashing madly along country roads.

Then he rounds a bend and comes upon half a dozen cars standing in the road, blocking it, with men moving among their lights. He slams on his brakes barely in time to keep from running into the nearest car, and is out of his roadster before it has quite come to a halt.

In the light of one of the cars Ann is standing with her father. She leaves him immediately to run to Richmond, panting: "Oh, it was horrible! I thought you'd never come." She clings to him, weeping softly.

Richmond soothes her with his hands while looking around.

Neely, the Kid, Buck, and Happy are standing in a row, guarded by half a dozen hard-faced deputy sheriffs.

King and Pete are standing together, looking speculatively at Richmond, but before he can express his surprise at finding them there ahead of him, Pomeroy comes up and says: "I'm going to make a clean breast of it, Richmond, and take the consequences. When I think of the danger my cowardice put Ann in"-he swallows, puts his lips hard together, then says-"I'd rather be tried for a dozen murders."

"Sh-h-h," Richmond says pleasantly. "You're in the clear on that now."

King and Pete quietly move nearer, listening to Richmond.

Richmond is explaining to Pomeroy: "The man they killed was a narcotic agent. They were running dope. You hadn't anything to do with the dope-no jury could be convinced you had and the killing is tied up with that end-not with the liquor end. You're all right."

Ann raises a suddenly happy face to him, crying: "Oh, Gene," kissing him and then going to kiss her father.

King nudges Pete and they approach Richmond. He says: "h.e.l.lo! How'd you boys get here ahead of me?"

King, drily: "We were on our way to Green Lake and happened to run into this party. A crazy dame that says she works for you came in right after you left tonight and told us the boys were up at Pomeroy's. She told us a lot of interesting things in between telling us she didn't want to go to prison again. That got to be kind of tiresome, but the rest of it was all right-about you knowing all along Pomeroy was in the clear and just stringing him along getting all the money you could. She said some things about some of your other jobs, too, and as soon as the doctors get her mind cleared a little we're going to have-"

Ann, her eyes cold, her head high and imperious, steps between King and Richmond, facing Richmond. He looks levelly at her.

"You did that?" she demands in a pitifully strained voice. "You left us at the mercy of those men for days; you kept Father in fear of disgrace, prison, the gallows; you let this"- shuddering-"happen to me-all so you could get more money out of him?"

Richmond's eyes fall. "I wasn't sure enough," he begins to mumble. Then he raises his head again and his voice becomes coldly composed. "I'm in business for money," he says evenly, "just as your father is and-"

She turns and walks away from him. He looks at Pomeroy, who stares back at him with bleak contemptuous eyes. He looks at King.

King shakes his head with an a.s.sumption of regret. "Always on the make, aren't you, Gene?"

Richmond has recovered all his composure. He grins cynically and replies: "Maybe you boys like working for your lousy little salaries. I'm in the game for money. Sure, I'm always on the make."

King shrugs. "Lousy little salaries is what we get, but we can sleep at night."