You Never Know With Women (4 page)

“Okay, pally, you shoot off to bed. Keep your ears open. We might learn something if we’re smart.”

“Don’t you know anything? What are you here for? What’s cooking? I don’t like any of this. I want to know where I stand.”

“I’ll tell you something. This Rux frail walks in her sleep.”

He looked startled.

“You mean that?”

“That’s why I’m here. And another thing, she takes off her clothes at the drop of a hat.”

He chewed this over. He seemed to like it.

“I thought there was something crummy about her,” he said.

“Play safe and take your hat to bed with you,” I said, easing him to the door. “You might be in luck.”

CHAPTER THREE

IT WASN’T until the following afternoon that I met Veda Rux.

In the morning, Parker and I drove over in the Packard to Brett’s house. We went around the back of the foothills and up the twisting mountain road to the summit where Ocean Rise has its swaggering terminus.

Parker drove. He took the bends in the mountain road too fast for comfort, and twice the car skidded and the rear wheels came unpleasantly near to the edge of the over-hang. I didn’t say anything: if he could stand it, I could. He drove disdainfully, his finger-tips resting on the steering-wheel as if he were afraid of getting them soiled.

Long before you reached it, you could see Brett’s house. Although surrounded by twelve-foot walls, the house itself was built on high ground and you could get a good view of it from the mountain road. But when you reached the gates the screen of trees, flowering shrubs and hedges hid it from sight. Halfway up the road, Parker stopped the car so I could get an idea of the layout. We had brought the blueprint with us, and he showed me where the back door was in relation to the house and the plan. It meant scaling the wall, he told me, but as he hadn’t to do it, he didn’t seem to think that would be anything to worry about. There was a barbed-wire fence on the top of the wall, he added, but that too was something that could be taken care of. He was a lot happier than I was about the set-up. But that was natural. I was doing the job.

There was a guard standing before the big iron gates. He was nearly fifty, but looked tough, and his hard, alert eyes held us as we pulled up where the road petered out about fifty yards beyond the gates.

Parker said: “I’ll talk to him. Leave him to me.”

The guard strolled towards us as Parker made a U-turn. He was short and thickset, with shoulders on him like a prizefighter’s. He had on a brown shirt, brown corduroy breeches and a peaked cap, and his short thick legs were encased in jackboots.

“I thought this was the road to Santa Medina,” Parker said, poking his slick head out of the car window.

The guard rested one polished boot on the running-board. He stared hard at Parker, then at me. If I hadn’t been told he was an ex-cop I would have known it by the sneering toughness in his eyes.

“This is a private road,” he said with elaborate sarcasm. “It says so a half a mile back. The Santa Medina road branches to the left, and there’s a notice four yards square telling you just that little thing. What do you want up here?”

While he was shooting off his mouth I had time to study the walls. They were as smooth as glass, and on top was a three-stranded barbed-wire fence. The prickles on the wire looked sharp enough to slice meat — my meat at that.

“I thought the road to the left was the private road,” Parker was saying. He smiled emptily at the guard. “Sorry if we’re trespassing.”

I saw something else too: a dog sitting by the guard’s lodge — a wolf-hound. It was yawning in the sunlight. You could hang a hat on its fangs.

“Beat it,” the guard said. “When you’ve got the time, learn yourself to read. You’re missing a lot.”

Around the guard’s thick waist was a revolver belt. There was no flap to the holster and the butt of the .45 was shiny with use.

“You don’t have to be impertinent,” Parker returned gently. He was still very distant and polite. “We all make mistakes.”

“Yeah; your mother made a beauty,” the guard said and laughed.

Parker flushed pink.

“That’s an objectionable remark,” he said sharply. “I’ll complain to your employer.”

“Scram,” the guard said, growling. “Take this lump of iron the hell out of here or I’ll give you something to complain about.”

We drove away the way we had come. I watched the guard in the driving-mirror. He stood in the middle of the road, his hands on his hips, staring after us: a real twelve-minute egg.

“Nice fella,” I said and grinned.

“There’s another like him. They’re both on duty at night.”

“See the dog?”

“Dog?” He glanced at me. “No. What dog?”

“Just a dog. Nice teeth. If anything he looked a little tougher than the guard and sort of hungry. And the barbed wire. Good stuff. Sharp. I guess I’ll have to ask for a little more dough. I’ve got to get me insured.”

“You’re not going to get any more money from us, if that’s what you mean,” Parker snapped.

“That’s what I do mean. Pity you missed the dog. It should be a lot of fun having that cutie roaming around in the dark. Yeah, I guess you’ll have to dip into your sock again, brother.”

“A thousand or nothing,” Parker said, his face hardening. “Please yourself.”

“You’ll have to revise your ideas. I’m in a buyer’s market. You know, Brett might pay me for information. Don’t tell me to please myself unless you want me to.” I glanced at him, saw his eyes narrow. That hit him where it hurt.

“Don’t try that stuff with me, Jackson.”

“Talk it over with Fatso. I want another five hundred or I don’t go ahead. Fatso didn’t tell me about the guards or the dog or the alarms or the wire. He made out it was a soft job: a job you could do in your sleep.”

“I’m warning you, Jackson,” Parker said between his teeth. “You can’t monkey with us. You made a deal and you’ve accepted part payment. You’re going through with it.”

“That’s right. But the fee’s jacked up to fifteen centuries. My Union don’t let me fool around with dogs.”

“You’ll take your thousand or you’ll be sorry,” he said, and his hands gripped the steering-wheel until his knuckles turned white. “I’m not going to be blackmailed by you, you cheap crook.”

“Don’t blame me. Blame Fatso. I’m not a sucker.”

He began to drive fast and we got back to the house in half the time it took us to leave it.

“We’ll see Gorman,” he said.

We saw Gorman.

Fatso sat in a chair and stroked his hard pink face and listened.

“I told him he couldn’t make a monkey out of us,” Parker said. He was white and his eyes had a feverish look.

Gorman stared at me.

“You’d better not try any tricks, Mr. Jackson.”

“No tricks,” I said, smiling at him. “Just another five hundred to take care of the insurance. You want to see the guard and you want to take a gander at the dog. When you’ve seen them, you’ve seen plenty.”

He brooded for a long minute.

“All right,” he said suddenly. “I didn’t know about the guards or the dog myself. I’ll make it another five hundred, but it’s the last you’ll get.”

Parker let out a little explosion of sound.

“Don’t get excited, Dominic,” Gorman said, frowning at him. “If you knew about the guards you should have told me.”

“He’s blackmailing us!” Parker stormed. “You’re crazy to pay him. Where’s it going to stop?”

“Leave this to me,” Gorman said, cool as a cucumber. Parker stood glaring at me, then he went out.

“I’ll have the dough now,” I said. “It wouldn’t be much use to me if I run into that dog.”

We argued back and forth. After a while we agreed to split it and Gorman handed over two hundred and fifty.

I borrowed an envelope and a sheet of notepaper and prepared another surprise for my bank manager. There was a mailbox just outside the house. I went down the drive and mailed the letter while Gorman watched me from the window.

Well, I was coming along. I had collected four hundred and fifty iron men for nothing so far, and they were where neither of these guys could reach them.

All the same I didn’t like the easy way Gorman had parted with the money. I knew I wouldn’t have screwed it out of Parker. But Gorman was a lot trickier than Parker. When he had parted with the money, his face had been expressionless. But that didn’t fool me. I began to think it was going to be a lot harder to collect the balance of the money when I had handed over the compact. I was all right now, but the moment I had handed it over I had a feeling Gorman would go into action. I felt it the way you feel a hunch, and it kept growing. I remembered what Max had said about Parker’s gun. Right now they wanted me to do a job Gorman was too fat to do and Parker hadn’t the guts to do. But when I’d done it, I’d be of no further use to them. I’d be a danger to them. That’s when I should have to watch out. And I told myself I’d watch out all right.

Later, Max came to tell me lunch was ready. I was sitting on the terrace overlooking the lawn, and when I was going to speak to him he frowned a warning.

I glanced over my shoulder and there was my pal Parker standing in the French windows watching us. He came over, a little stiff, but controlled.

“I have everything you need for tonight,” he said when Max had gone away. “I’ll come with you as far as the wall and I’ll wait there in the car.”

“Come in with me. You can take care of the dog.”

He ignored this, and we went into the dining room. The lunch was nothing to rave about. While we toyed with the food, Parker told me what he had got together for me.

“You’ll want a knotted rope for the wall. I have that with a hook at one end. I have a good pair of cutters for the wire. You’ll need a flashlight. Anything else?”

“How about the dog?”

“A leaded cane will take care of the dog,” Gorman put in. “I’ll tell Max to get one.”

“And the combination of the safe?”

“I’ve written that down for you,” Parker said. “You’ll find a wire running along the side of the safe. Before you touch the safe, cut the wire. That’ll put the alarm out of action. Don’t touch any of the windows?”

“Sounds simple, doesn’t it?” I said.

“For a man of your experience it is simple,” Gorman said smoothly. “But don’t take any chances, Mr. Jackson. I don’t want any trouble.”

“That makes two of us,” I said.

After lunch I told them I’d take a nap in the garden, and that’s when I met Veda Rux. I went down to the lily pond hoping I’d run into her and that’s where I found her. She was sitting on the low wall surrounding the pond the way she had been sitting the previous night. Her feet in sandals hung a few inches above the water. She wore a pair of canary-colored corduroy slacks and a thin silk shirt of the same color. Her almost black hair hung loose to her shoulders in a kind of Dutch bob, only she had waves in it. She was small and compact and curved, and there was strength in her. It wasn’t that she was muscular; it was something you guessed at rather than saw. You had the impression her wrists had steel in them and the curve of her thighs would be as hard as granite if you touched them.

Her face was pale and small and serious. Her lapis-lazuli eyes were alert and watchful. Plenty of girls have pretty faces and curves you can’t improve upon. You look them over, get ideas about them, and forget them as soon as they’re out of sight. But this girl you wouldn’t forget. Don’t ask me why. She had something. She was as different as gin is to water. And the difference, as you know, is there’s a kick in one of them. Veda Rux carried a kick like a mule.

As soon as I saw her I knew there was going to be trouble. If I’d had any sense I’d have quit there and then. I should have told Gorman I’d changed my mind, given him back his money and got out of this house like a bat out of hell. That would have been the sensible thing to have done. I should have known from the way this girl made me feel that from now on I was going to have only half my mind on my job. And when a guy gets that way he’s leaving himself wide open for a sucker punch. I knew it, and I didn’t even care.

“Hello,” I said. “I’ve heard about you. You walk in your sleep.”

She studied me thoughtfully. No welcome. No smile.

“I’ve heard about you, too,” she said.

That seemed to take care of that. There was a long blank pause, while we looked at each other. She didn’t move. It was uncanny how still she could sit: not a blink to show she was alive. You couldn’t even see she was breathing.

“You know why I’m here?” I asked. “You know what I’m going to do?”

“Yes, I know that, too,” she said.

Well, that also took care of that. There didn’t seem much else to say. I looked down into the lily pond. I could see her reflection in the water. She looked good that way, too.

I had the idea I was having the same effect on her as she was having on me. I wasn’t sure, but I had a hunch I had touched off a spark in her, and it wouldn’t need a lot of work to fan it into a flame.

I’ve been around and I’ve known a lot of women in my time. They’ve given me a lot of fun and a lot of grief. Now women are funny animals. You never know where you are with them—they don’t often know where they are with themselves. It’s no good trying to find out what makes them tick. It just can’t be done. They have more moods than an army of cats have lives, and all you can hope for is to spot the mood you’re after when it turns up and step in quick. Hesitate, and you’re a dead duck, unless you’re one of those guys who likes a slow approach that might get you somewhere in a week or a month or even a year. But that’s not the way I like it. I like it quick and sudden: like a shot in the back.

I had come around the pool and was close to her now. She sat like a statue, her hands folded in her lap, and I could smell her perfume; nothing you could put a name to, but nice—heady and elusive.

And all of a sudden my heart was slamming against my ribs and my mouth was dry. I stood close behind her and waited. It was as if I’d got hold of a live wire in my hands and it was pulling me to pieces and I couldn’t let go. Then she turned her head slowly and raised her face. I caught her in my arms and my mouth covered hers. She was in the mood all right. Her mouth was half-open and hard against mine. I felt her breath at the back of my throat. Five seconds—long enough to find out how good she was, with her firm young other hand gripping my arm; then she pushed me away. She had steel in her wrists all right.