I'll Get You For This (20 page)

  "I guess so. How can he?

  "How did he get in?"

  "Yeah," Clancy said, shaking his head. "I hand it to that guy. He's smart, and he's got guts."

  "How soon can we move?" I asked. "I don't want much more of this shooting."

  "You stick around. No one's allowed to leave until they've found him," Clancy told me.

  I shrugged, lit a cigarette. I wondered how long Miss Wonderly would remain out, and if she'd start to scream when she came round. I sweated to think about it.

  We sat around for ten minutes or so, then shooting began again.

  Clancy went to the door, peered out. "Sounds like they've cornered him," he said. "Trouble on B floor."

  The alarm bell began to ring.

  "Now what's up?" Clancy demanded, frowning. "What do they want to ring the bell for?"

  Mitchell appeared suddenly. "Come on, mug!" he bawled to Clancy. "We gotta jail break on our hands. The prisoners are loose."

  Clancy snatched up his rifle.

  "Who let 'em loose?" he asked, rushing to the door.

  "Cain, I guess," Mitchell said, pushing Clancy ahead of him. He looked back at me, winked. "Come on, everyone's to go to B floor. Orders."

  They went running down the passage.

I grinned at Maxison.

"Mitchell let 'em loose. I hope he'll be all right," I said. "Come on, we're going."

  Between as we hoisted the coffin on our shoulders and made for the exit. The coffin weighed a ton, and we were staggering by the time we'd reached the gate of the prison block.

  The lone guard stared at us, lifted his rifle.

  We stopped.

  "It's okay," I gasped. "I've got a permit to leave. Lemme get this coffin on board and I'll give it to you."

  He hesitated, and I went on past him into the courtyard, where the hearse was waiting. He followed us.

  Maxison and I shoved the coffin into the hearse, slammed the door.

  The guard still threatened us with his gun. His round, red face was puzzled.

  "Flaggerty said no one was to leave," he grumbled. "You can't go, so don't you think you can."

  "I tell you Flaggerty's given us a permit," I said angrily. "Give it to him," I went on to Maxison. "You got it in your pocket."

  With a dazed expression on his face, Maxison put his hand in his inside pocket. The guard swung the gun away from me, covering Maxison, suspicion in his eyes.

  I jumped, hit the guard on the jaw, snatched his rifle from him as he fell. I belted him over the head with the butt.

  "Come on," I said to Maxison, and bundled him into the hearse. I drove across the courtyard, through the first gate which was open, and stopped outside the outer gate which was closed.

  Franklin came out of the lodge. He eyed us over.

  "Getting out while the going's good?" he asked, grinning.

  "Sure," I said. "We gave the permit to the guard at the main block. They've got a prison break on their hands now."

  He shrugged. "I'm keeping out of it. I'm a man of peace." He walked to the gate and opened it. "So long, fellas."

  I nodded and drove on

  There was only one more obstacle, the barricade. I kept my gun by my side, drove steadily down the sandy track. I could see no guards. The barricade blocked my exit, but no one was there to guard it.

  The sounds of shooting and yells came to us from the jail. I guess everyone was too busy to bother about guarding a tree.

  Maxison and I got down, rolled the barricade aside; then we got back into the hearse.

  We'd done it.

Chapter Five

POINT COUNTER POINT

  THE Martello Hotel, Key West, overlooked the Atlantic Ocean. From our private balcony, shaded by a green and white awning, we could look down at the Roosevelt Boulevard, which was almost deserted; houses were shuttered and dogs slept on the sidewalks. It was noon, and the heat was fierce. Away to our right we could see low emerald islands in a shimmering, painted sea beneath high-piled lavender clouds. Steamers and other craft worked their way through the old Nor'west Channel, a chartered course taken for centuries.

  Wearing trunks, sun-glasses and sandals, I lolled in a wicker arm-chair. A highball, clinking with ice, stood on the chair arm. I relaxed in the heat, stared with narrowed, impatient eyes out to sea.

  Miss Wonderly sat by my side. She had on a white swim-suit that clung to her curves like a nervous mountaineer rounding Devil's Corner. A straw hat, the size of a cartwheel, shaded her face. A magazine lay on her lap.

  Minutes went past. I moved slightly to reach my cigarettes. She patted my hand as I picked up my lighter. I smiled at her.

  "Pretty nice, isn't it?" I said.

  She nodded, sighed, took off her hat. Her soft, honey-coloured hair fell about her shoulders. She looked pretty nice herself.

  We had been at the hotel for five days. The jail break was a distant nightmare. We didn't talk about it. For the first two or three days, Miss Wonderly had been in a bad shape. She had bad nights, bad dreams. She was scared to leave the hotel, scared ii someone came into the room. Hetty and I hadn't left her for a moment. Hetty had been wonderful. She was with us now.

  We had taken Miss Wonderly from the jail straight to Tim's boat. Hetty, Tim and I had gone with her, and we had somehow managed to slip through the cordon Killeano had flung round the coast and reached Key West. Tim had gone back to Paradise Palms the following morning with the boat.

friendliness, was a good spot for convalescing. Miss Wonderly had picked up faster than I had hoped. Now she was almost normal.

  "All right, kid?" I asked, smiling at her.

  "Yes," she said, stretching. "And you?"

  "Sure, this is much more like the vacation I was hoping to find in Paradise Palms."

  "How long shall we stay here?" she asked, suddenly, abruptly.

  I glanced at her. "There's no hurry," I said. "I want to get you well. We can stay here as long as you like."

  She turned on her side so she could watch me.

  "What's going to happen to us?" she asked, giving me her hand.

  I frowned. "Happen? What should happen?"

  "Darling, perhaps I haven't the right to ask, but is it going on between you and me?" Her face flushed.

  "Do you want it to go on?" I asked, smiling at her. "I'm not much of a guy to go places with."

  "I could stand it if you could," she said seriously.

  "I'm crazy about you," I told her, "but I don't know how you would fit in with my kind of life. You see, I haven't learned to settle down. I can't imagine myself settling down. It wouldn't be much of a life for you."

  She looked down at our hands, joined together.

  "You're going back there, aren't you?" she said,

  "Back where?" I asked sharply.

  "Please, darling," she said, gripping my hands. "Don't be like that. You are going back there."

  "You mustn't worry," I said, smiling at her. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

"But you will, when Tim comes. You're waiting for Tim, aren't you?"

"Well, yes," I said, looking out to sea. "I'm waiting for Tim."

"And when he comes, you'll go back with him?"

"I might."

"You will."

"I might," I repeated. "I don't know. It depends what's happened."

She gripped my hand hard.

  "Darling, please don't go back. I didn't think we would get away. When I was in that awful jail I thought I should never see you again. I thought they would catch you and you'd be hurt. But we did get away, and I have you with me. It would be wicked to put all this in danger again, wouldn't it?"

  "Don't worry," I said. "I have a job to finish. I like to dot my i's and cross my t's. It's the way I'm made."

  "No, it isn't," she said. "No one's made like that." I am.

  "Darling—don't do this." Her hands trembled in mine. "Let it go—please—this time . . ."

  I shook my head slightly.

  She took her hands away. "You and your pride," she said, her voice suddenly hard, angry. "You don't care about this. You don't care about us." She drew in a deep breath, burst out, "You've seen too many gangster pictures—that's what's wrong with you."

  "It's not like that," I said.

  "Yes, it is," she said. Her voice was now elaborately controlled. "Yon want revenge. You think Killeano has crowded you, and you have to shake your reputation in his face. You can't resist doing that. You like long chances. You think it's big and smart to go back alone against that mob who stop at nothing. Just because Bogart and Cagney do it for a living, you have to do it too."

I took a pull at my highball, shook my head.

  "It wasn't as if they beat you, burnt you with cigarettes, took off your clothes and paraded you before a crowd of grinning prison guards," she went on, her voice low. "They didn't come into your cell at night, did they ? You didn't have a crazy woman whispering through the bars at you—awful, filthy whispering ..."

  "Honey . . ."

  "Well, did you? I'm the one who suffered, not you. I don't want revenge. I want you. I don't want anything or anyone but you. I'm out of it. I'm glad to be out of it. God! I'm glad to be out of it. But you want to go back. You want to fight them. You want to avenge me. But I don't want to be avenged." Her voice broke suddenly. "Darling—can't you think of me a little—can't you let this one thing go—for me? For us?"

  I patted her arm, stood up.

  There was a long silence, then I heard her get up. She came and stood by my side, slipped her arm through mine.

  "Was that what you meant when you said I wouldn't fit in with your kind of life?" she asked.

  I looked down at her, put my arm round her, pulled her to me. "Yeah," I said. "I'm not made to be pushed around. I'm sorry, kid, but I'm going back. I said I'd fix Killeano, and I'm going to fix him. I feel a heel doing this to you, but I have to five with myself, and I'd never forgive myself if I let that rat slip through my hands."

  "All right, darling," she said. "I see how it is. I'm sorry I didn't understand before. Forgive me?"

  I kissed her.

  "Darling," she said after a while, "do you want me to wait for you?"

  I stared at her. "You're certainly going to wait for me," I said.

  She shook her head. "Not certainly," she said. "I'll wait, on one condition. Otherwise I won't be here when you come back. I mean it."

  "And the condition?"

  "You're not to kill Killeano. Up to now you have defended yourself. If you kill Killeano it will be murder. That mustn't be. Will you promise?"

  "Now, I can't promise that," I said "He might get me in spot—–"

  "That's different. I mean you're not to go gunning for him. If he attacks you, then that's different. But you're not to hunt him down and shoot him as you have been planning to do."

  "Okay," I said. "I promise."

  I held her close, then suddenly I felt her back stiffen. I looked over my shoulder.

  Tim's boat was not more than a mile out to sea. He was coming fast.

  Davis, Tim and I sat around the table in Tim's sitting-room, a bottle of Scotch within reach, full glasses in our hands.

  Davis had just come in. It was early evening, and Tim and I hadn't been back long from Key West.

  "I've been busy," Davis said, grinning at me, "but before I sound off, how's the kid?"

  "She's all right," I said. "They gave her hell in that jail, but she didn't lie down under it. She's fine now."

  Davis looked across at Tim, who shrugged.

  "Of course, she didn't want me to come back," I said, rubbing my jaw, "but she'll get over that too."

  "Well, so long as she's okay," Davis said, combing his hair and looking puzzled, "that's swell."

  Tim said, "The trouble with this guy is he won't leave trouble alone. There was a sweet scene when Hetty heard he was coming back—–"

  "All right," I interrupted curtly. "Let's skip the domestic details. What's new?"

  "Plenty," Davis said, lighting a cigarette. "Flaggerty's dead for a start. Howja like that? He was killed by one of the convicts: cracked his skull with an axe."

  "That's one less for me to bother about," I said.

  "Yeah. And here's a juicy morsel. Killeano's taken over Flaggerty's job. He won't release the jail break to the press. I guess it's too close to the election for bad news to be told to the trusting public."

  "What happened to Mitchell?"

  "He skipped out. I saw him before he went, and he gave me the whole story. I hand it to you, pal. It was a pretty smooth effort. I wrote it up, but the editor killed it after consulting Killeano. The public doesn't know a thing about it."

  "And Maxison?"

  "He managed to keep his nose clean, but only just. Laura supported his story, and after sweating him, Killeano turned him loose. He's back at work now, but, I must say, he looks like a fugitive from the Lost Horizon. There's one thing you ought to know. They've turned up Brodey's body."

  "He's dead?" I said sharply.

  "Yeah. He was found at Dayden Beach. Your Luger by his side. Guess who killed him?"

  "I know," I said, clenching my fists. "So I'm wanted for three murders now?"

  "You sure are," Davis said, looking smug.

  "Too bad," I said, took a drink and eyed him over. "What else?"

  "That's all the topical news," he said, reached inside his pocket and took out a five-dollar bill. He tossed it over to me. "Picked that up at the Casino a couple of nights back."

  I turned the note over, held it up to the light. It looked all right to me.