Girl on a Slay Ride (3 page)

M
ALLORY
watched Denise as she carefully ran lipstick over the curve of her mouth. “Ready for something to eat?’

“I’m starved,” she said. She rose and started for the door. Mallory picked up the briefcase and followed her.

She said, “Darling, you are an old maid in some ways. Who could know about those silly bonds?”

“I know about them,” Mallory said. “Let me do my job my way.” He opened the door.

She touched his hand. “Can’t I even make a little suggestion about
how
you do it?”

Mallory said, “You’re a lewd woman.”

“And you love it.”

He helped her down the two steps to the sidewalk. “And I love it,” he admitted.

The café was two blocks north of the motel. It was dose to midnight and the place was empty except for two truckdrivers who had their rigs parked in the gas station across the highway. Mallory sat opposite Denise in a booth.

“They have good steaks here,” he said.

She looked across at him with desire shining in her eyes. “Steaks take so long, darling. Can’t we get something that’s faster?”

Excitement surged through Mallory. He said, “We’ll make it two hamburgers.” He’d never felt quite this way with a woman before. Since they’d left the junction there had been no wall of any kind between them. Denise had torn it down, he thought, and let him see her desire, without pretense or coyness.

They ate quickly and started back through the thin, chill fog for the motel. Mallory could feel the electric charge of desire between them grow stronger with each step. They reached the driveway and turned toward their unit. Denise caught Mallory’s hand and pulled him along faster.

“Just a few more steps, darling….” Her voice ran out in a thin, wordless gasp. She halted abruptly. Her fingers squeezed convulsively on Mallory’s hand.

He said, “What?” Then he saw the man standing at the rear of the wagon, peering in the back window. He was holding a flashlight and shielding it from his eyes with an upraised hand. In the backwash of the light Mallory recognized the neat features, the carefully brushed graying hair.

It was the smaller man from the diner. The one who must have been driving when the sedan passed them down the road a short distance.

Mallory’s fingers clamped down on the briefcase handle. He’d been able to dismiss this man and his craggy-faced friend once. But not now. He couldn’t accept this second appearance as mere coincidence.

He felt Denise shudder and he turned to her. She was staring at him, her face fear-ridden in the dimness. “Oh God, Cliff,” she whispered, “they’ve found me!”

Mallory asked softly, “Do you recognize him?”

“I never saw him around Rick, but he was in that restaurant where we had coffee, wasn’t he?”

He could hear the hysteria threading her voice, making it shrill. They were too far away for the man to see or hear them, Mallory thought. But he said, “Take it easy. If you don’t know him, maybe he isn’t one of them.”

He put a hand on her arm. An uncontrollable shiver jerked at her muscles. “What else could it be?” she whispered.

The man turned away from the wagon suddenly. His flashlight went out. Mallory watched as he walked to the end unit and disappeared inside. The rear end of the dark sedan stuck out from the carport.

Anger surged up in Mallory. He had the sudden impulse to go to the end cabin and face the man, to batter at him until he explained his actions.

Mallory fought for control. A lot of good that would do Denise if they were syndicate men, he thought. Or do him if they were after the securities. In either case, they would have guns. They wouldn’t have any trouble handling him.

He led Denise quickly across the drive and into their own unit. He said, “Stay inside. I’m going to take a look at their car.”

“Cliff …”

He pushed her gently into the middle of the room, then he turned and went out the door, shutting it quietly behind him. He moved quickly down the driveway to the carport next to the end cabin. He bent down and examined the license plate. In the dimness, with light coming only from the red neon motel sign, he could barely make out the name of the state.

He straightened with a soft grunt. They were Oregon plates.

He went quickly back to his room and slipped inside. As he closed the door behind him, he said quickly, “It’s me.” Denise was hiding somewhere in their darkened cabin.

He locked the door and reached for the light. He heard her then as she moved from a position by the front window. She caught his arm. “Leave it dark for a while.”

She moved again, pressing herself against him. Mallory set the briefcase down and held her. He stroked her hair with one hand as he tried to quiet the trembling that shook her body.

He said, “No one followed you. Their car has Oregon plates.”

“Don’t talk about it now. Just hold me, darling. Hold me tightly.” Her hair brushed his jawline as she turned in his arms. She buried her face in his shoulder. Mallory tightened his grip, drawing her closer to him.

He should be thinking of calming her fears, he thought. But her perfume was strong and sensuous from the heat of her body. Her breasts pressed against his chest. Her fingernails were resting lightly on the flesh above his collar. He could feel the pressure of the growing ache in his loins.

He lost track of how long they stood there. But slowly he became aware that the manner of her trembling had changed. Her hair brushed him again as she lifted her head. Her mouth searched for his in the darkness. Quick, light kisses touched his chin, his cheeks. Her lips found his. Suddenly she sucked his lower lip between her teeth.

The pressure inside Mallory grew unbearable. He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. Her breathing quickened, but she lay quietly as he bent in the darkness and began to undo her clothing.

She spoke only once. She said, “Slowly this time, darling. Very slowly.”

He found that she only wore her skirt and jacket. He slipped them off and tossed them to the floor. He ran his hands gently over the long, smooth curves of her body. He got up abruptly and pulled off his own clothes. He sat on the edge of the bed and let his lips follow the pattern he was tracing with his hands.

She caught his head and drew it slowly down to her breast. The darkness swam around Mallory with slow, dreamlike languor. The womanness of her rose and swallowed him into herself.

Without warning she twisted under his caress. Her body arched up in wild spasm. Her teeth clamped into his shoulder. The dreaming darkness exploded. Mallory found soft flesh with his hands and squeezed down cruelly. She made a wordless cry of pleasure.

He fought to hold her still. She made no sound except to gasp spasmodically. He pinned her legs with his knees.

She arched her hips, twisting to reach him. Mallory crushed her with his weight.

She cried out again, still without words.

Mallory’s brain burst into a thousand shining slivers. He felt them pierce his body. Then they were gone and there was only Denise, softly whimpering against his flesh.

• • •

She stretched luxuriantly on the rumpled bed. She ran her hands up Mallory’s body until they reached his face. She plucked his cigarette from his lips and took a deep, satisfied puff.

“We do very well together, don’t we, darling?” she murmured. “Do you know, for a while I could forget what I was frightened about. Help me keep on forgetting it.”

The bedside lamp was on. Mallory watched the soft pinkish light as it caressed her body. He rose on one elbow and bent his head toward her. He stopped abruptly. He sat up and frowned toward the window.

“Darling?” Panic edged her voice again.

Mallory said, “Probably nothing. I thought I heard a footstep outside.”

He heard the sound again. He rose and padded quickly across the rug. He signaled for Denise to turn out the lamp. The room went dark. He drew the draperies apart far enough to see out.

The slender man was back, looking in the rear window of the wagon again. The huge man with the craggy, rough face was with him. He spoke to the smaller man.

Denise said, “Darling, what is it?”

Mallory didn’t answer. She slipped off the bed and padded across the floor. She stood with her breasts pressed against his back as she rose on tiptoe to peer over his shoulder.

“Oh God, Cliff, there they are again!” Her voice was shrill with fear.

Mallory said harshly, “Damn them!”

He twisted away from her suddenly. He let the draperies fall together. He put on his bathrobe and belted it tightly. He went to the door. He jerked it open and stepped into the chill night air.

The two men were still peering into the rear of the wagon. Mallory said harshly, “Looking for something?”

The slender man came forward into light from the windows of the cabin to the right of Mallory. He was smiling. It was too empty a smile to mean anything. Mallory disliked it. And he disliked the man. His features were too neatly regular. And there was a peculiar dark and muddy quality to his eyes.

“Good evening,” he said pleasantly. His voice was as smooth and empty as his smile.

The bigger man had not moved.

The slender man said, “Sorry I bothered you. We were just curious. You camp, I see.”

Mallory’s fear was swallowed by anger. This man was either a fool or took him for one. He said, “You’ve looked in my car enough to tell that.”

Mallory stayed on the small porch of the cabin, his fists clenched. Take it easy, he cautioned himself. Don’t push them. Make them explain themselves.

The smaller man had stopped a few feet from the porch step. Neither he nor the bigger man made any move to leave.

The man said, “Do much camping in this part of the country?”

Mallory drew a deep breath. “When I can find the time,” he said. He forced his voice to sound more civil.

But the man’s quiet gall was stretching Mallory’s nerves as if they were tightened violin strings. He wanted to blurt out, “All right. So she’s with me. Or is it the securities you’re after? Start something, damn it, and get it over with.”

But he said only, “Any more questions?”

If the man noticed the tautness in Mallory’s voice he gave no indication. He said, “You know the country well, then?”

“Yes,” Mallory said. “I was raised here.”

The man nodded. He said, “Good night,” quietly, gave Mallory another of his meaningless smiles, and turned away. The bigger man followed him slowly. Mallory watched them go to the end cabin and disappear inside.

He went back into his own unit and shut the door. Denise was standing by the window. She let the draperies fall back as he came in. He switched on the light.

The soft glow enveloped her, outlining the long lines of her legs, the curve of her hip and waist, the boldness of her breasts. Her mouth was moist, her face still puffy from their love-making. But there was no longer desire in her eyes. There was only fear. She said with dull hopelessness, “They’re going to kill me, aren’t they?”

M
ALLORY
said, “I don’t know what they want. But let’s get out of here.”

“Rick hired them to kill me! I know he did!”

He realized she was close to hysteria. He said quietly, carefully, “I thought so at first, but then I saw their Oregon license plates. Then I thought they were after the securities. Now I’m not so sure. They only seemed interested in camping.”

Hope flared in her eyes and then drained away. “They’re trying to trick us, Cliff. How could they know about your securities? And their license plates don’t mean anything, don’t you see that? The syndicate has men everywhere. Rick could have traced my plane to Portland and called his contact there.”

She went to the bed. She sagged suddenly as if her knees could no longer hold her up. She made an effort and sat up straight. “They asked about camping because they want to know where you’re taking me. So they can follow us. So they can kill me when no one is around.”

If she was right, they’d kill him too, Mallory thought. But he still couldn’t accept the idea. This kind of violence, the kind Denise feared, had no meaning for him. It belonged only to war in his experience. He knew it must exist. He read about it in the newspapers every day. But knowing about it and believing in it were not the same thing.

He said, “If they’d wanted to kill you, they could have done it before now. Back at the junction. When they passed us on the road before we got here. When we came from the café.”

She said with soft incredulity, “You still don’t believe me, do you? Not really?” She was on her feet, clawing at his arm, shaking him. “But you don’t know Rick! You don’t know his kind!”

Mallory knew her fear was genuine. At the same time he remembered the muddy, cold eyes of the slender man, the emptiness of his smile. His disbelief began to give way.

He said harshly, “I believe you. Now let’s get dressed.”

She clung to him. “What good will running do, Cliff? They’ll find me again.”

He said, “You came to me in the first place. You asked for my help. I’m trying to do what I can.”

She stepped away from him. A hysterical giggle burst like a hiccup from her throat. “And you said you’d help. You didn’t believe me. You thought I was upset and imagining things. But now you have to believe me, don’t you? Don’t you?” she screamed.

“I believe you,” Mallory said.

She sucked air through her slack lips. “And now you’re stuck with me. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it, Cliff? I’m your responsibility. And you wouldn’t dodge a responsibility. Not Cliff Mallory.” She began to giggle again.

Mallory brought the flat of his hand stingingly across her cheek. The hysteria began to leave her eyes. Her giggling hiccuped off to nothing. Her shoulders slumped. Soft sobs began to shake her body.

Mallory took her quietly in his arms. He was scarcely aware of her nakedness pressed to his. He said, “You must have had it rough with this Rick.”

She lifted her head, and he could see the hurt on her face. “He never even touched me, Cliff. I thought it was because he, well, wanted to marry me. But I was wrong. Marriage was only his way of protecting himself.”

Mallory could imagine how rejection from a man could wound a woman as used to admiration as Denise. But her feelings and her fears seemed to have deeper roots than just that, he thought.

She said, “And when he—he didn’t do anything, I started thinking and remembering little things that had happened since I started working for him. That’s when it was really horrible, Cliff. To have to be in the same house with a man who’d sell dope and women. Even if he hadn’t threatened me, I couldn’t have stood it. Not after I knew the truth.”

She pressed herself tighter to him. Mallory looked down into her face. Her eyes widened in surprise. She said wonderingly, “Cliff, I …” She broke off and reached for his mouth with hers.

Mallory pushed her back gently. He said, “We haven’t got time now.”

She flushed. “I’m sorry, Cliff. I can’t seem to help myself with you.”

Mallory turned away and started dressing. He could hear Denise rustling her clothes. After a moment, she said, “Are you angry with me, Cliff?”

He said, “For what—being beautiful?”

“For being so—so wanton,” she said. “But I never have been before. It was never like this with anyone else.”

Mallory said, “I’m not interested in hearing about anyone else.”

He began to pack his bag. He was jealous, he thought wryly. Jealous over a woman who’d been his wife for only a few brief hours. Jealous of eight empty years. The hell of it was, Mallory thought grimly, that he wouldn’t have liked her. There might even have been times, like in San Francisco four years ago, when he would have hated her. But never so much that he’d have stopped wanting her like he wanted her now.

But she did seem different now, more grown-up. Through the fear that she carried he was almost sure he sensed a maturity which made her more desirable to him than she had even been before—if that were possible. Suddenly he was conscious of the men in the end cabin, conscious that he might lose her to them. And her fear was his fear.

He said, “Hurry up. If we start now, we can be almost to Port Angeles before those two ever wake up.”

Denise said nothing. She finished packing her bags and carried them to the door. Mallory picked up his suitcase and the briefcase.

“Turn out the light before you open the door,” he said. “And keep it quiet.”

Denise nodded. She snapped out the light and opened the door. Thin damp fog rolled over Mallory as he carried their bags quickly into the carport. He put them in the wagon. He motioned for Denise to get into her seat and turned and walked out to the driveway.

The end cabin was dark. There was no sign of anyone stirring in the motel. Satisfied, Mallory returned to the wagon. He started the motor and let it warm at idle. He kept the lights off, put the car into gear, and they rolled north.

It was about three by the dashboard clock. Mallory figured they could be in Port Angeles by midmorning even at the slow speed he made himself hold. The fog and the age of the wagon made any more speed dangerous.

He kept watching the rear-view mirror. After ten miles, he was satisfied they weren’t being followed. The road was empty except for themselves.

He let himself relax. He reached for his cigarettes. Denise got them for him and lit two. She slipped one between his lips. Then she said suddenly, “What happens when we get to Port Angeles?”

“I deliver the securities to my boss,” Mallory said. “And we go to the police.”

“I can’t go to the police,” she shouted at him. “Can’t you understand that?”

Mallory said, “If it’s a case of dope, you can talk to the federal men.”

She twisted in the seat and hammered her fist on his arm. “Damn you, Cliff, listen to me!”

Mallory caught her wrist and pushed it downward. “Stop that. I’m driving a car. Now get hold of yourself. I’ll listen, but let’s talk sensibly.”

She jerked her wrist free and slid to the far side of the seat. She sat quietly for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was sullen. “You want to get me off your hands, don’t you?”

“No,” Mallory said. “I just want to keep you safe. I don’t want you to be on the run for the rest of your life.”

“Do you think my going to the police will change that? What if I do help get some of those men arrested? There’ll be others to find me—to kill me.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I came to you for help. I could have gone to the police by myself.”

Mallory said with cold anger, “I’m trying to help. What did you expect of me? I’m not Superman. I can’t stand in front of you and catch bullets in my teeth.”

She began to sob quietly. Mallory said more gently, “Maybe the smart thing is for you to leave the country. I have some money. I’ll give it to you. Take the ferry across the Strait to Canada. Lose youself there until they forget you.”

“You just don’t want me around, do you?” she burst out. “You’re afraid of what those men will do to you if they catch us together.”

Suddenly, Mallory felt very tired. Not because of his sleepless day and passionate night, but because he had been wrong about Denise. She wasn’t mature. Oh, there’d been some improvement, but she still thought of practically everything and everyone in terms of herself and in terms of the immediate present.

He said, “Back at the motel I was thinking how it would be if we could stay together. But I’d rather have you alive and away from me than with me and dead.”

“You’d rather have me a long way away!” she screamed at him. “With just a few crummy dollars in my pocket, what could I do? What can I do without money?”

That was a good question, Mallory thought. She had never been without as much money as she wanted—until six months ago. She had never worked. She wasn’t trained to work at anything. Shilling for a society gambler was hardly adequate job training.

He said, “What could you do with money?”

“Run,” she said. “With a lot of money I could go far enough and fast enough so they’d never find me. I’d be able to buy protection from them.”

Mallory said, “Even if you had that kind of money, you wouldn’t want to run forever. And you can get all the protection you need from the police and the federal men for nothing.” He paused. “And from your father.”

“I told you what he said!”

Mallory said, “I don’t care what he said. He wasn’t a fool eight years ago; he won’t be one now. I’ll telephone him from Port Angeles. I’ll lay it on the line, and he’ll listen. And then I’ll put you on a plane. He’ll have you met by so many cops this Rick and his friends won’t be able to get within a mile of you.”

She said dully, “You’re so sure that everyone is as logical and responsible as you, aren’t you, Cliff?” Her voice sharpened. “And what if he won’t listen to you?”

“Then,” Mallory said, “since you won’t go to the authorities, I’ll do my best. “We’ll buy some extra camping equipment. You come up in the mountains with me. We can go where nobody can find us. We’ll have two weeks to figure out what to do. Does that suit you?”

She said perversely, “I don’t want any favors. I won’t saddle you with me unless you really want me.”

Mallory opened his mouth to answer her. He held back the words as he saw the first traffic since they’d left the motel. Gray daylight had come and the car behind them showed no headlights. It swirled out of the thin mist, almost on them, before Mallory was aware of it.

A large sedan, he thought. He felt the uneasiness ripple through him. The car was coming fast. He pulled to his right to let it pass in the other lane.

It swung out and came even. It stayed there, parallel with him. Mallory turned his head. He felt the hard jolt of fear run up his legs and into his groin. The big man with the craggy face was behind the wheel. The smaller man was sitting on the right-hand side. He was looking over at Mallory and smiling his empty smile.