John D. MacDonald

Loot for the Unlucky Lady

Chapter One

Ninety-Grand Doll

She walked slowly, because walking is easier than standing, and attracts less attention. Slowly from the Astor Bar entrance up the few short blocks to Lindy’s and back. In the heart of the tourist crush. In the granular slush of December, by the corners where the lean scarecrow Santas warmed their fingers in their armpits and jangled the tired bells while the change dropped into the wire-covered pots. She was jostled and buffeted about, hearing the torn bits of conversation around her, fixing her mind on those overheard bits to keep from thinking of Al: “...So I tells him there’s holes in his head and...”

“She ought to pay more attention to...”

“It’s a lousy show and why it don’t close is more...”

“Okay, okay, so it was five drinks...”

“And this other one, the blonde, says...”

“Get off my feet, stupid...”

It was a crosstown wind and at the corners it whipped her thin, worn coat, and chilled her ankles where the taxi wheels had spattered her stockings.

There was nothing spectacular about her. She attracted little attention. She was a frail girl, almost thin, with a grave face and level eyes. She had quiet beauty, and sometimes a man in the crowd would glance at her and be faintly troubled as he walked on, because she started him thinking of the things that might have been...

Her pale hair had a soft wave, and her coat was two years old and it was the third set of heels on her black pumps.

Al had called her at the office on Monday morning, and the documents for file had been piled high and Mr. Scharry had frowned and said, “There is a personal call for you on my line, Miss Gerald.”

Al’s voice had been a tight, harsh sound, full of fear. “Bad trouble, Glory. I need you. Listen and get this the first time. I got to give you something. Quit your job and every day from now on, go to the Times Square section. Be somewhere around the Raglan Bar. Don’t speak to me when I show up.”

The line went dead. Mr. Scharry was glaring at her. She made her voice light and gay and said, “Thanks for calling, Marian.”

She had been paid on Friday. She left the office at lunch time and didn’t return. It wasn’t that she wanted to be thoughtless about not giving notice. It was just that Al Barnard was more important than anything else in her life, and the fear she had heard in his voice filled her mind so that there was no room for the common courtesies.

She walked slowly, and the crowd was such protective coloration, no one noticed that the same frail blonde girl never left those few short blocks.

In her small, dim scrupulously clean room on Eighty-eighth, there was a glossy eight by ten print of Al Bernard on her bureau. When she was in her room, she spent a great deal of her time looking at his picture. He was good looking in a conventional way. Clean lines of brow, temple, nose. But she failed to see that the mouth had an uncertain softness about it, that the eyes were perhaps a shade too small, a bit too close together.

The main thing was that Al was in trouble. She spent from eight in the morning until one the following morning on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. She ate only when she became faint with hunger, and then hurriedly. Al had asked her to be there. She would have walked those few blocks barefoot if the sidewalk had been made of crushed glass, and the pain would have been good, because it would have been for Al.

Always everything had been for Al. For the past year. Anything that happened before that time didn’t count.

In all of the great city the only reality for her was the sound of his voice, his arms around her.

He had always been evasive about his work. His hours were odd. Some weeks he didn’t work at all. She wanted to have a home and have his children, and yet she had learned that the vaguest reference to marriage brought that stubborn look onto his face, and she had learned to take the golden days as they came to her.

When he was drunk he was abusive. She had learned how to best avoid the blunt lash of his tongue, how to discount the contempt in his eyes.

Her legs ached and her feet were blistered and there were fine lines of fatigue around her mouth, puffy patches under the clear blue of her eyes. And yet she did not feel that he had asked too much of her, that what she was doing was particularly difficult. She was annoyed that it was necessary for her to eat and sleep.

On Friday the shrill alarm awakened her at seven. She dressed quickly, ate a large breakfast at the corner cafeteria, and took the subway down to the place where Al wanted her to be.

She had no idea what his trouble might be.

The crowd was slim at first, but by eleven o’clock the sidewalks were thick with people. She was rudely jostled in the crowd, and something was thrust under her arm. She recognized him as he passed her, and her cry was stifled on her lips. The parcel under her arm was a shoe box, neatly wrapped, and quite heavy.

The thud of her heart was rapid. She angled out of the crowd, crossed over to the island in the middle and went down the stairs into the chill dampness of the subway.

She sat very straight on the worn fiber seat and the shoe box, neatly tied up in brown wrapping paper rested on her lap, her hands in the worn black gloves holding it tightly.

Back at the rooming house, she walked slowly up the stairs, locked herself in her small room, curbed her impatience as she took off her coat and hat, carefully hung up the coat in the shallow closet.

Only then did she sit on the bed and untie the string, unwrap the paper and lift the lid.

It was as though she had stopped breathing and her heart had stopped beating. The shoe box was packed neatly and solidly with currency. Worn, darkened bills, fastened in inch thick wads with rubber bands.

With trembling hands she unfolded the white note on top.

Glory, baby:

I trust you. You’re the only one in the world I do trust. Here is about ninety thousand bucks. It was the Candor Club job on Long Island. The bills aren’t marked, but don’t try to pass the big ones. Now do this for me. Buy yourself some clothes and hop a plane to Florida. Get a place there in Daytona and hide out. Get the Daytona Times every day. When I get there, I’ll put an ad in the paper. ‘Help Wanted — Competent file clerk, knowledge Spanish and Portuguese. Write box—’ Get it? And be careful, baby. Write to the box number and tell me where you are. Pick a new name, baby. Hide the dough real good. Use all you need, and then some. There’s a lot of it. When I show up we’ll figure a way to go someplace where they can’t extradite me. I know a good country. Don’t be scared and remember that I love you, baby.

Yours, Al

The box slipped off her lap, fell to the floor and spilled the packets of currency across the cheap, rose-colored rug.

She sat very still and looked at the far wall. The Candor Club job! There must be a mistake. Al wouldn’t...

Yet all the little half-understood things during the past year became clear in the light of his note. She suddenly knew that she would have to find out about the Candor Club and what had happened.

She knelt on the floor and picked up the currency and put it back in the box. Then she stood in indecision, the box in her hands, staring around at the four walls of her room. The money — an incredible amount to her — was an overpowering responsibility.

She bit hard on her underlip as she considered various hiding places. She kept her own room clean and so there was no reason for anyone to enter her room. Yet the door was frail and the lock was cheap.

In the back of her closet was a pile of newspapers a good ten inches high. She took off the top inch or so of newspapers and, with a razor blade, clumsily hacked a hole deep enough for the shoebox. From the box she extracted ten five-dollar bills.

She replaced the top layer of newspapers. The pile seemed to be intact. She felt a bit more confident. Using the brown paper, she wrapped up the wad of newspaper she had cut from the middle of the pile.

At the corner, she dropped the paper into a refuse barrel. She went immediately to the Public Library to see what the papers of the past week had to say about the Candor Club. She was particularly interested in the Monday papers. Since Al had called on Monday morning, it would seem likely that whatever had happened had happened on Sunday.

Had she not been so thorough, she would have missed the item. It was not a news story. It was a sly remark by one of the evening columnists.

Many bigies are in a tizzy over the rude interruption of their fun and games on Sabbath eve at a palace of chance within earshot of the Sound. Seems that two rude boys came in without invitation and removed large amounts of cash from all and sundry, including the management. Rumor has it that the body found early Sunday morning ten miles nearer the city was that of one of the boys who did the heist. Probably the easiest way of dividing the loot. But this means that only one lonely gentleman will be haunted not only by the police, but also by any talent the Candor Club may see fit to hire. Run fast, boy.

She went away from the library with a purely mechanical walk. At the corner of 42nd a man grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back or she would have walked in front of a bus.

Al Barnard — a thief and a murderer!

Had he been merely a thief, she would have considered seriously turning the cash over to the police, knowing that no matter how long he was in prison, she would wait for him and work for him.

But a murderer!

She could not turn him in. She could not trap him. Because once they caught him they would kill him with all the careful, ponderous machinery of the courts, and then there would be no point in life itself, because she would be alone in the world.

Though she was still weary from the long hours spent waiting for him, she walked blindly, trying to make the necessary adjustments in her heart. Because he was a murderer and a thief, did that lessen her love for him? Was love the result of a character survey?

She went back to her room and fell immediately into a heavy, dreamless sleep. From the bureau the glossy photograph watched her with smiling eyes and weak mouth...

Be careful, he had said.

Saturday noon she registered at a midtown hotel, wearing the new dark gabardine suit and the new coat, the silly hat, the heels that were too high. She registered as Gloria Quinn. Gloria Gerald was dying. Quickly. She told the desk clerk that her luggage would arrive later in the day. She gave a fictitious address in Albany.

One large suitcase and one overnight case. Matching. Dark leather. G.A.Q. in small gold letters. The bellhop carried them up to her room and she smiled faintly and tipped him a dollar.

After he had gone, she locked the door, opened the new luggage. They had the smell of newness. The clothes in them were new. Sun clothes. Halters. Slacks. Print dresses. Seersucker. Linen. New cosmetics.

Her old clothes were all in the battered fiber suitcase she had checked at the railroad baggage room. She had destroyed everything bearing her name. She stood in the pleasant room on the twelfth floor and carefully disposed of the baggage check.

Three things that were not new remained with her. The glossy picture, a cheap ring he had given her, in silver with a flawed Burmese ruby, and the shoebox. Four hundred dollars had been spent. But Al had said to be careful. Part of being careful was in destroying the past. Almost completely — except for the ring, the picture and the box.

She was not the quiet, almost drab girl who had walked through the endless hours, remembering the fear in Al’s voice. The new clothes were becoming. Her color was heightened by the excitement. There was a tautness, an urgency about her that had not been there before.

In the early hours of the evening, she left her room, after taking two hundred dollars from the shoebox, and took a taxi to the airlines terminal.

The taxi dropped her off at the terminal at seven fifteen on Monday morning, fifteen minutes ahead of the appointed time. She went up on the escalator, bought several magazines, found an attendant who promised to see that her luggage arrived at the plane.

He also told her that the limousine to take her to the field along with the others would be announced over the public-address system.

She sat down on one of the long benches and began to leaf through one of the magazines. She felt that someone was watching her, and she made each gesture casual. She glanced up and saw him. She let her eyes float across him as though she was completely unconscious of his presence.

Then she looked back at the magazine. But not to read. Al had written that she was to be careful. And the man had been looking at her with frank curiosity. She knew that he was still looking at her.

He was a dark young man, with the type of pale-sallow skin which made his freshly shaven jaw look bluish. He was sitting across from her. She decided that he was probably tall. His legs looked long. He seemed to be well dressed. A small suitcase stood near his crossed legs. His expression was one of dark and sardonic good humor. Wryness. And competence. His overcoat was beside him, neatly folded. He held his cigarette so that the smoke curled up through the fingers of his brown, strong-looking hand.

She wondered if he could be the enemy. That is how she had come to think of anyone who threatened Al’s life. And the columnist had said that there would be two groups after Al. The police and the gangsters that the gambling house might hire. His constant gaze made her nervous.

At last, to her relief, it was announced that the car was in front. She stood up, slipped into her coat and went down to the front exit. The airport name was on the small neat sign on the window of the black car.

The door was held for her, and she got in, sat back in the corner. Two men got in next. They were portly, red-faced, loud, and smelled abundantly of alcohol. One of them sat much too close to her. She moved away. They gave each other meaningful looks.

One of them stuck a fat red hand toward her. “I’m Charlie Grable. No relation to Clark. Ha, ha! Guess you’re going our way, Miss. Might as well get acquainted.”

She looked down at his hand, then at his blood-shot eyes and looked cooly away.

“Guess she froze you out, Charlie,” the other one said. “Wipe those icicles off your chin, Charlie boy.”

Charlie looked sulky. He mumbled something under his breath. An old man with abundant white hair and no hat got in next, followed by a couple in their thirties with two small children. The voices of the children were shrill and excited. The last person to get in was the young man who had stared at her in the terminal.

The door slammed and the car started off through the crowded midtown traffic.

At the airport the list of passengers was checked against the manifest. Other passengers were already at the field. They were permitted to walk out across the apron and up the steps into the big ship. It was the first time Gloria had ever flown. She tried to seem nonchalant about it.

The pretty uniformed stewardess checked them off on a second list as they entered the ship. Gloria walked up toward the front of the ship and sat down. Almost immediately the second of the two red-faced men sat beside her.

“I wanna apologize for my fren, Charlie,” he said, slurring his words. “Now me, I’m a gennamun. I don’t go for none of this crude stuff. The hell with Charlie. You and I, we’ll ignore the punk, hey?”

“On your horse, friend,” a cool voice said. Gloria turned away from the circular window, looked up into the face of the young man who had watched her in the terminal.

“What d’you want?” Red-face demanded, growing even redder in the face.

“You happen to be annoying Miss Quinn. Also, you happen to be occupying my seat.”

Red-face thought it over, heaved himself to his feet. “Sorry,” he mumbled, lurching off to find Charlie.

Gloria demanded. “How did you know my name?”

“Listened when the manifest was checked. Thought he might bother you. I won’t.” He dug a paper-bound book out of his pocket and began to read.

“Thank you,” she said in a small voice.

He looked at her, raising one eyebrow. “Perfectly okay.” He went back to his reading. “I’m Steve Harris,” he said, without looking up.

When the signal was given, Steve Harris groped for and found the loose ends of his seat belt, strapped it tight across his thighs. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, learning how to do it herself.

The four motors, one at a time, bucked, kicked, spat and settled into a steady roar. The steps were being rolled away across the apron. She stared out the window at the busy airport.

Steve continued to read. Her heart gave a lurch when the plane began to move, began to trundle awkwardly down the strip. She bit her lips. The ship went a great distance, then wheeled around in a sharp semicircle. It stopped and the song of the motors rose to a high roaring whine, and the great airplane trembled and vibrated.

Suddenly they were rolling, and the acceleration pushed her back in the seat. Faster and faster, and then the ground was dropping away, spinning away into the distance, and she saw roads and tiny cars and the roofs of squat buildings speed swiftly by.

She let out breath long pent up and suddenly felt very tired. She leaned her head back, turning so she could watch the ground. The big wing stretched out into the horribly empty air. She saw the tip of it bend alarmingly and caught her breath.

“It’s supposed to do that,” Steve said quietly. “It’s built to bend like that in the air.”

“Oh, I... I didn’t know.”

“First time?”

Gloria nodded.

He said: “Dullest way to travel there is. But the quickest. Can’t see anything or do anything and the vibration gives you a headache.”

She was about to answer and then she saw that he had gone back to his book. She watched the morning sky for a time and then heard his heavy breathing. The book had fallen to the floor. His mouth sagged open a fraction of an inch. She saw that his eyelashes were very long, and very black.

Chapter Two

Elusive Lady

Steve Harris, his right eye open the merest fraction of an inch, inspected her fragile and very perfect profile. He felt very content. The future would bring many challenges, but at the moment there was nothing he could do without arousing her suspicions.

She wasn’t the least bit like what he had expected. He wondered if she knew anything about what Al Barnard had pulled. He guessed that she did. She had acted pretty cozy about moving around, about changing names.

For the moment, the case was moving according to plan. Maybe a little better than that. Being able to chase away the drunk was a break.

Sure, probably Barnard had managed to slip enough dough to her for her to get dressed up and buy the transportation. She probably had a little extra to live on until Barnard showed.

It was by far the biggest thing that he had ever gotten tangled up in. He felt more than a mild distaste at putting his services at the disposal of Wesley Gibb, fat, pseudo-socialite owner of the Candor Club. But Wesley had made it worth while. “Twenty percent of whatever you can recover, Harris. In cash.” One hundred percent recovery would thus net him eighteen thousand four hundred dollars, and the expenses would be on top of that.

Not too bad for an ex-cop from Peeks-skill who had been in a dead end because of department politics, he thought. Wesley Gibb, and everyone else, knew that Steve Harris was well-trained and completely honest.

Well-trained. Groundwork at Northwestern. CIC in the Army.

He watched her carefully while she thought she wasn’t being observed. He hoped in that way to find little clues to her character which would enable him to determine, in advance, her future actions. He looked at her hands. They were well cared for. Slightly squarish. Capable hands. And quite pretty.

In the bright light he could see the pale hair springing firm from the white clean scalp. Funny about her. He had gotten on her trail by routine work. The dead man was one Samuel Burkett. Burkett had a girl friend. She responded to sympathy and kind words, gave out with the names of four of Sammy’s friends. He had dug up addresses for them. Three of them were where they should have been.

The fourth, one Albert Barnard had left his room, apparently for keeps. The landlady had broken down for a ten-dollar fee, and let him in the room. Wednesday afternoon, in Barnard’s vacated room, in the wastebasket, he had found an eight by ten glossy print of a pale, rather pretty girl. He had pieced the bits together, found the photographer’s name on the back. Goldtint Special Three Huge Pictures for Two Dollars. Choice of Six Proofs. Glamorous Pictures. Like the Movie Stars. There was a penciled number on the back of the print, just under the photographer’s name.

“Yes, sir. We keep files. If you could tell me why you want...” The eye had flicked down and seen the numeral five on the corner of the bill. “If you’ll wait just a moment, sir.” The five changed hands.

“That’s a Miss Gloria Gerald. Here, I’ll write down her address. We mailed her the proofs and then she came in and told us which one she favored.”

It cost an additional five dollars to get a new print of Miss Gerald and a new print of Mr. Barnard, using the negatives in their files.

With the name and address, it was relatively easy to find that she was a file clerk in a loan company, and that she hadn’t been on the job since Friday at lunch time. And yet she was still occupying her room.

He had a hunch that Barnard would eventually come to her room. So, to insure a constant watch, he had hired a reliable twenty-a-day man to split the shifts with him, giving him first a long look at the photograph.

But Barnard hadn’t showed. Instead, she had moved. By luck, he had been on Saturday morning, followed her in a cab to the railroad station, saw her check the battered bag. Three times he had come closed to losing her in the stores. Then, seated on the far side of the lobby of the midtown hotel, he had seen her register.

Fifteen seconds after she had left the desk, he hurried up to the same man and said, “Say, did you see a blonde girl, dark blue gabardine suit, hat with flowers on it and—”

“Miss Quinn?”

“That’s right. Did I miss her?”

“By just a few seconds. She’s got room 1221, sir. You may be able to catch her at the main entrance...”

At six o’clock she followed the bellhop past his chair in the lobby. He lowered his newspaper after she had passed, just in time to see the initials G.A.Q. on the brand new luggage.

The darkness of early evening had helped him. He had been close enough to her taxi to hear her tell the driver to take her to the airline terminal. He had arrived there a few minutes after she did.

To the ticket agent he said, “Miss Quinn asked me to see if I could get a seat on the same plane she’s taking. I believe she was here just a little while ago.”

“Oh yes. That’s Daytona, isn’t it? We couldn’t book her directly to Daytona. Jacksonville is the best we could do. Will that be all right?”

“Fine,” he had said heartily.

“Be here at seven-thirty Monday morning, or at the airfield at eight-twenty, Mr. Harris.”

“By the way, if she should come back here to check anything about her ticket, don’t tell her that I got a seat on the plane. I’m going to tell her I couldn’t make it, and then surprise her.”

“Certainly, Mr. Harris.”

Schedule time was five and a half hours. Certainly not a very long time in which to wiggle into her good graces. Particularly since she’d be cautious. She looked intelligent. No point in taking any chances at this stage of the game.

He remembered how delighted Wesley Gibb had sounded over the phone. “Good work, Harris! Excellent. Daytona, you say? And you figure that he’ll join her there? This is much better than I expected.”

One stop at Washington and one at Atlanta. Maybe there’d be a chance to get better acquainted. She’d feel bound to stick close to him just to back up the story he had handed Red-face.

He made the sounds and movements of a man waking up. She responded faintly to his smile.

“Going all the way to Miami?” he asked, making it sound like polite conversation.

“Just to Jacksonville.”

“I get off there too.”

He saw her eyes narrow a bit. Was that pushing it too fast? He said, “This is the best time to go down. Before the mob hits Florida. Lots of people stay up north for Christmas. Last year I flew down in late January. Had a bad time finding a place to live. Are you all set for a place?”

“No.”

“Well, don’t fret about it, Miss Quinn. You’ll find a place without any trouble this time of year. Of course, you’ll pay through the nose for it. Prices don’t collapse down there until April when the season is about all over. Or have you been there before?”

“This is the first time,” she said. And he saw the mistrust fading.

“I get down every year. Have to. Sinus kills me if I stay in New York. Of course, Jax itself is no resort town. You have to go down the line to find that. Daytona isn’t too bad.”

“I’ve always wanted to see Florida!” she said.

He saw the eagerness on her face, the light in her blue eyes, and she was like a grave child, suddenly pleased by an unexpected gift. He decided suddenly that he liked her very much indeed, and that annoyed him, because it is not healthy to like what you must destroy. A surgeon does not operate on his own. And Steve’s business was, in essence, an operation. To remove the cash and turn the criminal over to the police. In that order.

He told himself that she was as crooked and dangerous as Al Barnard. He wondered what she would do if he got his small bag, opened it up and handed her the two glossy prints. Probably the serenity of her face would be distorted into feline rage, and her nails would reach for his eyes.

“What sort of work do you do, Mr. Harris?” she asked.

He had that all set, and answered quickly, “Commercial art. That’s how I’m able to follow the weather around. Of course, I’m closer to my markets in New York, but a little sunshine is worth the trouble.”

He saw her glance at his hands. He guessed that she was trying to visualize him sitting at a drawing board. He flexed his fingers, said, “I’d like to sketch you some time, Miss Quinn. Maybe we can get together in Florida.”

“That would be nice,” she said, smiling, “but I’m not exactly a cover girl.”

“Turn your head a little. There. Now look up a little more. Fine. I’d want to get that line of brow and cheekbone. When an artist sees that sort of bone formation, he knows he’s looking at a woman who will merely get lovelier as the years go by.”

She flushed.

“I bet your mother is a nice looking woman.”

Gloria’s mouth twisted. “She... she was, before she died.”

“Sorry, Miss Quinn. Always have my foot in my mouth.”

She frowned. “My ears feel funny,” she said.

“Sure. Hear how the sound of the motors has changed? We’re coming into Washington. Better fasten that belt again.”

The stewardess, standing at the door, announced that there would be a delay of an hour before take-off. The scheduled stop was only a half hour. That meant that they would arrive at Jacksonville at three instead of two-thirty, provided there were no more delays.

Gloria walked slowly toward the administration building. It was much warmer in Washington than it had been in New York, but the air was thick and damp. She glanced up and saw that Steve Harris had fallen in step with her.

“Coffee?” he said, smiling. She found that she liked his smile. Yet it was hard to know what he was thinking. He had a... well, a masked looked about his eyes. If she refused, the two drunks might give her more trouble.

“Good idea,” she said.

They sat at the long bar in the coffee shop. Her coat was uncomfortably warm. She threw it back off her shoulders, and he took it and hung it up for her.

He was very polite and very nice, she thought. And he certainly looked more muscular than she had imagined any commercial artist would look. She had a vague idea of men with thick glasses and hair worn a little too long, and high nervous voices.

Funny, she thought, how a person’s mind can be split into two parts. One part of her mind was dark and miserable with thoughts of Al, and what danger he must be in. With another part of her mind she was enjoying the excitement of the trip, enjoying Steve’s warm smile and his quiet courtesy. She half decided that she was merely shallow.

Steve said, “This delay is just the wrong length. If it had been two hours, we could have taken a run into town. An hour is just long enough to stand around and fidget.”

At that moment a heavy hand landed on Steve’s shoulder, and a booming voice said, “Steve Harris! What the hell are you doing in town?”

She saw the faint annoyance flicker across Steve’s face, but he got up and pumped the big hand of a tall man in army uniform, silver eagles on his shoulders.

“Nice to see you, Bill,” Steve said. “Miss Quinn, may I present Colonel Grydon, the guy who made my military career miserable.”

Colonel Grydon was a tall, balding man with a wide mouth and small eyes. “Glad to meet you, Miss Quinn. We professionals had to keep amateurs like Steve in line. I got him so he was almost earning his pay.” He turned to Steve. “I heard from one of my New York friends, boy, that as a private gumshoe, you’re doing okay.”

Gloria felt cold all over as she grasped the implications of his words. Steve laughed heartily. “No gumshoe, Bill. Art gum eraser. Have you been watching the famous Harris touch on you-know-what-cigarette ads?”

She was watching Colonel Grydon’s face, saw the almost imperceptible narrowing of his eyes. “Hell, yes, Steve,” he said quickly. “They’re good, too. And don’t forget, you got your training in the army. I ought to take a cut on the dough you must be getting.

“I’ll mail you a dime tomorrow.”

The colonel glanced at his watch. “Got to run, Steve. Nice to have met you, Miss Quinn. When you’re in training, Steve, drop in at my office at the Pentagon and look me up.”

He went off through the wide door into the waiting room.

Steve sat down on the stool, chuckled and said, “He was in charge of one of the propaganda outfits. I did poster work for him.”

“It must have been very interesting,” she said. Her lips felt numb. She felt as though she had been running blindly toward a vast pit and had slid to a stop on the very brink. Now she was cautiously picking her way back from the edge. It was important to smile, to be natural. “I’d like more coffee,” she said...

As they walked back to the plane, Steve Harris spent a long thirty seconds mentally cursing Bill Grydon. Such an incredibly stupid break. And he couldn’t tell whether or not Gloria Gerald had caught on.

He sat beside her once more, pulled an envelope out of his pocket and, with a soft pencil, quickly drew a caricature of Bill Grydon. His anger at Grydon was such that it was even more biting than his usual efforts. It was a knack he had developed many years before, and it was all tied up with his ability to remember a face forever after having only seen it once. With that knack, he had amused countless people at parties, infuriating some, and sending others into spasms of helpless laughter.

He showed Gloria the drawing. She giggled. That was a good sign. Maybe the drawing would dispell any doubts Grydon might have given her.

“You did it so quickly!” she said. “I’d hate to have you do that to me. You’ve made him look like — I don’t know what. Just awful!”

He began to relax a little. He smiled to himself as he realized that part of his horror at being found out was based on a childish desire to have her think well of him.

The plane rumbled and lifted off the runway and made a long swing and headed south once more.

His fears were sufficiently allayed so that when, at Atlanta, she went off by herself, he did not worry. The early afternoon sun was pleasantly warm. The stop-over was short and he looked for Gloria in the crowd as, piecemeal, they strolled back to the ship. Her folded coat was on the seat. He saw her luggage stacked and tied with the others.

She still did not arrive. The stewardess was at the open door, looking worriedly across the apron. He could hear the metallic voice of the P. A. system in the terminal proper paging, “Miss Quinn, please! Miss Quinn! Your flight is ready for takeoff. Miss Quinn!”

He knew, then, that she wouldn’t return. The stewardess said, “She had us untie the load so that she could get at one of her bags. I wonder what could have happened to her.”

Steve didn’t answer. He was wondering whether or not to get off himself and take a chance on tracking her down in Atlanta. The odds on missing her were too great. Besides, he knew her ultimate destination. She had not mentioned Daytona in her conversation, had not given herself away when he had mentioned it.

He felt chagrin, and yet a certain admiration for her. Grydon’s words had tipped her off, and she had not shown her suspicion. Leaving the bags and coat on the plane had been a good touch.

The big door was swung shut, the steps pushed away. He went back to the seat and fastened his safety belt. At Jax he could check the different modes of transportation from Atlanta to Daytona and arrange to intercept her...

From her vantage point Gloria watched the big plane, and when at last it took off, taking Steve Harris with it, she heaved a great sigh. Carefully she searched her memory, decided that she had given him no indication that Daytona was her destination.

Harris would undoubtedly wait at Jacksonville, expecting her to arrive there by some other means. She went into the terminal and inspected the huge map on the wall. She carried her purse in one hand, and under her arm was the shoe box of currency.

She thought for a moment with despair of the pretty clothes and nice luggage winging their way south. No matter. The Atlanta shops were open and she had plenty of money.

Steve Harris had come so close to deceiving her. He had seemed so nice. It was faintly disloyal to Al to have found Steve so attractive. Maybe, under different circumstances, if she had met Steve...

Chapter Three

That Killer Man

Steve Harris spent three fruitless days in Jacksonville, made a discouraged phone call to New York, and went down to Daytona. His jaw was set in a grim line, because he saw eighteen thousand dollars slipping away.

At Daytona he got a room in a relatively inexpensive hotel. He set about finding Gloria Gerald-Quinn. After three days in Daytona, he began to wonder if Gloria had ever arrived there. No rental office claimed any knowledge of renting a cottage or apartment or even a room to anyone answering her description.

Yet he had a hunch that she was there. He sat in his room on the edge of his bed and slammed his fist into his palm, trying to think of some better way of tracking her down.

Gloria liked the high wooden windbreak that jutted from the corner of the cottage toward the blue ocean. Behind it she could sun bathe with no fear of being seen by the people that seemed to spend so much time walking aimlessly up and down the broad expanse of Daytona Beach.

She had been exhausted when she had arrived, her mind filled with cluttered memories of winding narrow roads, the drone of bus motors, the midnight streets of Tampa.

By all odds, Harris should still be up in Jacksonville. And yet she knew that she had to proceed on the basis that Harris knew that she would be in Daytona. She had checked the new suitcase in the Daytona bus terminal, had walked out into the morning sunshine.

Three hours later she had walked out of the beauty shop, her pale face achieving a new fragility under the blue-black of her hair. As she walked back to the bus station, she kept repeating the new name she had selected. Glenna Quarles.

The ad in the paper for the beach cottage had been the easiest part. She had found the right sort of man in the bus station. She approached him, saying:

“Could I talk to you for a moment?”

The man had looked startled and cautious. “What do you want?”

She had selected him because he looked clean and decent, but not flush. He followed her over to the bench and sat cautiously beside her.

In a quick, flat tone she said, “A man is trying to make trouble for me. He will follow me here. I want you to go and rent this cottage and pay three months’ rent in advance. Rent it under the name of Mr. and Mrs. Quarles. Charles Quarles. I’ll give you a hundred dollars for your trouble.”

He had hesitated and she had looked directly into his uneasy eyes, and, with lips parted, had said, “Please help me!”

“I won’t get in any trouble?”

“No trouble at all.”

Two hours later he returned with the receipt, the door key and the address. She gave him five worn twenties and he had put them away quickly as though it shamed him to take money for helping her.

Yes, the cottage was perfect. She had found a store which would deliver groceries, and the delivery boy was willing to pick up magazines and books for her. There was a small radio in the cottage, and she had had it repaired.

Each evening the Times was delivered, and each evening, pulses thudding, she opened it and looked eagerly at the help-wanted column.

The shoe box, sewed in oilcloth, was buried in the sand near the windbreak. The money she had allotted herself she kept on her person. The sun gradually tanned her delicate skin, and, except for the constant, biting worry, she was almost content.

Wesley Gibb, his tiny brown eyes set into the pads of gray sweating flesh like currants in an unbaked cookie, sat alone on one side of the booth. On the other side, Steve Harris was against the wall. Gibb’s ‘assistant’ was sitting on the outside edge.

The waitress had brought a wicker basket of large pieces of greasy chicken, wrapped in a starched napkin. Wesley’s fingers were shiny with grease, as were his ripe lips. The ‘assistant’ was a completely bald young man named Harry. His melting blue eyes stared upward in a half trance and he beat his knuckles against the edge of the table in time to the music, ignoring the conversation between Steve and Wesley Gibb.

Steve took a deep drag at his cigarette, mashed it out in the chipped glass ashtray. “So this is a checkup on me?” he said.

“Don’t be difficult, Stevie,” Wesley said in a gentle and oily manner. “You know how these things are. Fourteen days and no report and I guaranteed your expenses. You can’t blame me for thinking maybe you have cleaned it up down here and you’re letting the expenses ride.”

“I don’t operate that way,” Steve said.

“Don’t be annoyed, Stevie. Lots of people would. Everybody tries to take advantage of me because I’m generous. Besides, I own a piece of property in Miami and I always check on it this time of year and get them set for the big season.”

“You’re generous. Is that why you brought Muscles, here along to see me?”

Harry stopped drumming on the table, half turned and gave Steve a long look. “Watch your mouth, Harris.”

Steve turned back to Gibb. “Do I have to listen to your cheap imitations of a Hollywood-type hood?”

“Go for a walk, Harry,” Gibb said.

Harry snorted, stood up and wandered off.

Gibb said, “If it isn’t asking too much, Stevie, could you let me in on what I’m paying for?”

“I don’t know why I should, but here it is. I think she came here and got undercover fast. I think she’s sitting tight somewhere in this town waiting for word from Barnard. I think Barnard is somewhere between here and New York, working his way down here, being very, very cautious about throwing people off the trail. When he gets here, I figure they’ll leave the country by private plane or boat. I’ve spread a little dough around so that I can find out quick when they try to hire something. In the meantime, I keep my eyes open.”

“And suppose you’re wrong? Suppose they’ve already gotten out of the country?”

“Then you toss a little more money after bad money. Remember, you’re not paying for my time. This is on spec. You’re only paying my expenses, Gibb.”

“Maybe I’ll leave Harry here to help you.”

Steve smiled tightly. “I could stand him for maybe twenty minutes, and then I’d float him out with the tide.”

“Harry’s a good boy.”

“He’s maybe okay handling drunks at the Candor Club. Maybe.”

Gibb finished the last piece of chicken, wiped his mouth and his hands on the empty napkin. He smiled. “I guess, Stevie, I meet too many angle boys. I keep thinking you are one.”

Steve looked steadily at him. “Gibb, it makes me feel dirty to have you as a client. Twenty minutes after I accepted the case, I began to regret it. But I’ll follow through and play square. But I wouldn’t have anything more to do with you after this is over for five times the potential profit on this one. Understand?”

Gibb’s smile was undisturbed. “Perfectly, Stevie. As long as we’re being personal, I might add that I don’t believe I’d hire you again anyway, not after the way you let a simple girl slip through your fingers.”

Steve glanced at his watch. “Two buses and a train due. I’ve got to cover them.” He stood up, walked out of the place. The night was warm. At the corner he turned sharply and looked back, caught a glimpse of someone melting into the shadows. He smiled tightly. That much was obvious. Gibb was anything but a trusting soul. It wasn’t worth the trouble to shake Harry.

The man who looked like Al Barnard hurried diagonally away from the bus terminal. Steve got one quick glance at his face. All of the uncertainty faded away. The face of Al Barnard was engraved on the surface of his mind. The man who had passed under the street light matched that image — and the new mustache, the rimless glasses were a feeble smokescreen for Barnard’s real identity.

The man carried a small brown suitcase. Steve glanced at the suitcase and his smile was tight. There goes eighteen thousand bucks for Harris! Hosanna!

Barnard was difficult to tail. He walked quickly, selected the quieter streets. Steve kept a good block behind him, cursing himself for not having shaken off Harry.

Barnard made a left turn and, as Steve got to the entrance to the block, he looked up and saw Barnard making another left. That made it a lot simpler to figure. Steve doubled back on his own tracks, grinning as he saw Harry pause, turn and scurry away. Steve hurried to the next street, looked up the block and waited.

In a few minutes Barnard went by. Stretching his long legs into what was almost a run, Steve went back to the brighter section of town, passing the familiar bus terminal. The street Barnard was on joined the street he was on just beyond the terminal. At the junction there were two cheap hotels.

A drugstore was opposite. Steve found a stool at the counter where he could watch the entrance to both hotels. Barnard went into the first one, pausing to give a long look back up the quiet street. He had walked ten blocks to get to a point only a hundred yards from the bus terminal. Twenty minutes later Steve had moved over to the same hotel. Fortunately the management made it simple by using a register book rather than cards.

The previous arrival was a Mr. Stanley Webster of Providence, Rhode Island, assigned to Room 412.

The desk clerk was an old man with the sallow bleary look of the backwoods native.

“Something on the fourth,” Steve said to the old man.

He obtained Room 417. He carried his own bag up, marked the location of Room 412, diagonally across the hall and three doors nearer the elevator.

With the room light out, he sat in a chair and looked through the inch-wide gap of his open door down toward Barnard’s room. At last the thin line of light under Barnard’s door clicked out. On shoeless feet Steve tiptoed down the hall, listened with his ear against Barnard’s door. The man was breathing heavily. He was evidently sound asleep.

Steve went back to his room, went to sleep quickly, telling himself that he should awaken at six, knowing that some unknown factor in his mind would awaken him within a few minutes of that hour...

At nine o’clock, Barnard left his room, locking the door behind him. At nine five, the cheap lock responded to the lock pick, and Steve let himself in. The brown suitcase was in the corner by the window. A long ash from a cigarette significantly rested on the top surface of the suitcase. Steve squatted, memorized the general countour of the cigarette ash, blew it away and quickly searched the bag. Except for clothes, it was empty. He shut it, lit a cigarette, waited until the ash was the right length and then carefully placed it on the suitcase where the other one had been, touching it gently with his finger to move it into the exact position of the former one.

It took another five minutes for him to determine to his own satisfaction that the money was not hidden in the room. He fixed the inside lock, held the latch back with a thin strip of celluloid, pulled the door shut and pulled out the celluloid, letting the latch snap into place, locking the door.

At nine-twelve he rode down to the lobby, glanced into the grimy dining room, walked across the street, saw Barnard at the counter of the drugstore, lifting a coffee cup to his lips. Knowing that Barnard had no way of knowing him, he went into the drugstore, stood at the rack of postcards a mere six feet from Barnard’s back, and began to carefully select cards. He turned slightly sideways so that, out of the corner of his eye, he could watch Barnard’s movements.

In a few minutes, Barnard wiped his mouth, slid off the stool and turned toward the cash register at the front of the store. At the same instant, Steve turned sharply, blundering into him.

“Watch where you’re going!” Barnard snapped.

“Sorry, friend,” Steve said.

Barnard grunted and walked up to the counter, reaching into his pocket for change to pay the check. Steve stooped and picked up the scattered cards, a scowl on his face. In the instant of collision, he had determined that, no where on his person, did Al Barnard carry a bulk which would represent the money he had stolen.

He saw Barnard cross the street and go into the hotel. He sat on the stool at the end of the counter where he could watch the hotel entrance. Of all the damn fools, he thought. That girl had had the money all the time.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the bald and sunburned head of Harry. He turned and smiled peacefully at him.

Harry turned away quickly.

Once again Steve scowled. If Harry had seen him blunder into Barnard, then Harry would know the score. If he got eager to take over and cut Steve out, he might upset the applecart, but good. He paid for his breakfast, went up to his room and pulled a chair over where he could once more sit and watch Barnard’s door.

Within twenty minutes a pimply young boy with cornsilk hair knocked on Barnard’s door. When it opened, the kid said, “You wanted an errand run, mister?”

“Come on in.” The door slammed shut. Steve hurried down to the lobby. Five minutes later the kid came whistling out of the elevator, an envelope in his hand. Steve tailed him to the office of the Daytona Times.

Fifteen minutes after the kid had emerged from the office, Steve went in and smiled at the very pretty girl behind the desk.

“Say, I’m Mr. Webster. I sent an ad over here a while ago and I think I made a mistake on it. Mind if I check your copy?”

She smiled nicely. “Not at all, Mr. Webster.” She took the pink duplicate out of a wooden tray and handed it to him. Help Wanted. Competent file clerk. Knowledge Spanish and Portugese. Write Box 81.

He thought fast. It would appear in the evening paper. Gloria would write at once and mail it the same evening. It would be delivered in the morning to the newspaper. It was worth a gamble.

“Good!” he said. “Guess I didn’t make a mistake after all. I’ll be in tomorrow to pick up the answers, if any. What time will they be ready?”

“Didn’t that messenger boy tell you? Quarter after nine.”

“That’s right. I forgot.”

The next morning the girl handed him four letters. He took them over to a table in the corner of the room, trying to guess which one was from Gloria Gerald. The handwriting on all the envelopes was feminine. He held them up to the light. One seemed lighter than the others, and there seemed to be hardly any of the dark blur showing through to indicate a lengthy letter. He took out his pocket knife and, using the dull edge of the blade, ran it under the gummed flap.

The folded slip of paper inside said, Phone 3831.

Quickly he resealed the envelope, walked to the street door. He had five minutes to wait before the messenger came walking toward the building.

He stood in the doorway, gave the boy an official looking smile and said, “I guess you want the Box 81 replies?”

“That’s right.” The boy took the letters without suspicion, turned and headed back toward the hotel...

The girl at the telephone company said doubtfully, “Now if you had the name, or the street address, we could give out the number, but the rules say that...”

“Ever see one of these before?” Steve asked. He showed her his license.

Her eyes widened. “Gosh, are you a private eye?”

He grinned. “Lady, I know who you’ve been reading. The only slang term I’ve ever heard is op, and I haven’t heard that often. I could call on the local cops for help, but it would take too long. This is rush business. How would you like a twenty-dollar hat? Just a present from me to you.”

She came back in five minutes, a conspiratorial whisper in her voice. “Two ten, Beechbreeze Road. About two miles from here. A Mrs. Charles Quarles is using the phone temporarily. It’s actually listed in the name of a Mr. Baker Henrich.”

“I’m lousy at picking out hats. Here. You buy one.”

“Oh, I couldn’t!”

He turned away, left the bill on the desk. When he looked back from the doorway the bill had disappeared and she was smiling after him.

Chapter Four

Gal With a Gun

Beachbreeze ran parallel to the beach. The taxi took him by the cottage and he paid the driver off a block away. It was a little after ten. He went through a vacant lot down to the beach itself and located the cottage again. A wooden windbreak cut diagonally out from one corner of it. He suddenly realized that if he could get on the far side of that high windbreak, he couldn’t be seen from the cottage. That meant risking a walk down the beach, passing in the sun’s glare a mere hundred feet from the windows.

It seemed worth the risk, as it was probably that Barnard had already phoned her, and even if she saw him and recognized him, she could do nothing to prevent Barnard’s arrival.

The cottages were a good hundred yards apart. He kept his face turned toward the sea as he walked by. When he estimated that he was far enough, he looked back and saw that the windbreak masked all of the beach-side windows.

He walked back up across the beach, keeping the windbreak between him and the windows. Once up to it, he sat on the sand and leaned his back against it. From that vantage point, he could see enough of the road itself to determine when Barnard arrived, or when Gloria left.

With his right hand he loosened the flat .32 automatic in his shoulder holster. It was a trim gun, Belgian manufacture, Browning patent, and though it packed nowhere near the wallop of the Positive, the lesser bulk he felt compensated for that shortcoming.

A steel spring inside the leather clasped the gun firmly, held it with the grip in handy position. He never carried it unloaded.

He tightened as he heard a movement on the other side of the windbreak. Had she seen him? He rolled up onto one knee, waiting.

At first he couldn’t identify the sound. A soft chucking sound. Then he smiled grimly. A spade being driven down into the sand in rapid strokes. Let her continue. He was confident that he had beaten Barnard to the cottage. Let her do the labor.

The shoveling ceased. He heard the slam of a screen door. At that moment a car moved slowly down Beachbreeze, as though someone were looking for numbers on the cottages. He moved back behind the angle of the cottage wall, heard it stop outside, heard the chunk of the car door shutting, the motor starting up again.

The taxi made a U-turn and headed back toward the bridge.

She would meet him at the front door. He walked quickly around the edge of the windbreak, walked silently up to the screen door, eased it open and stepped inside, the automatic in his hand.

Her voice, coming from the front room, was almost a sob. He heard the harsher murmur of Barnard’s voice.

He stood in the middle of the small kitchen and let the voices come closer to the doorway. Then, with a swift sure movement, he took two quick steps to the doorway, covering them with the gun, his hand steady and unwavering.

“Right over there against the wall!” he snapped. “Both of you!”

Barnard backed against the wall slowly, his eyes venomous.

Gloria stood and looked at him with wide eyes, her face whiter than death. “Steve!” she gasped.

“Over against the wall,” he ordered.

“So you know him!” Al said in a thin voice. “Very nice. How are you two going to split the cash?”

“Shut up!” Steve said.

Gloria turned to Al. “Do you think that I—”

“He was here waiting for me, wasn’t he?”

She gasped. She whispered, “I’ll show you, Al. I’ll show you.”

She turned and walked directly toward Steve’s gun, shielding Barnard. Steve tried to move to one side, but she rushed toward the gun, reaching for his wrist. She caught his wrist just as Barnard said, “Okay. Drop it, guy!”

He was covering Steve with a heavy revolver, a belly gun with a short barrel and no trigger guard and no front sight.

Steve let his automatic thud onto the rug. Gloria picked it up and backed away. She laughed nervously. “Now what do you think?”

“You’re okay, Glory. I’m sorry. If he’d been smart he’d have clubbed you and taken a pot shot at me. Who are you, guy?”

“He’s Steve Harris, Al. He’s a private detective from New York.”

“Private, eh? That smells like Gibb and that makes it easier.”

Steve had been unable to cope with the way she had walked into his gun. Everything had been so carefully planned and executed, except this last move — the move which lost everything for him.

“What’s easier, Al?” she asked.

“Honey, they can only burn you once. You seen the New York papers?”

“No.”

“They know it’s me, honey. They know I did it. Now that they know, I don’t have to hold off on our friend here. Where do you want it, guy. Through the head?”

“Al!” she said, her voice almost a scream.

“Don’t soften on me,” he snarled. “This joker is probably working alone. We got to think he’s alone. We’ve got an investment to protect. If you don’t want to watch it, go on out in the kitchen and shut the door. Hey, maybe you got a towel I can wrap around this thing. We don’t want publicity.”

“You can’t, Al! You can’t!” she said.

Her lips quivered and Steve saw that her hands were tightly clenched.

“You don’t understand these things, Glory.”

“I won’t let you!” she said.

“You soft on this fella? Smarten up.” Barnard looked carefully at her for a moment and then said, “Honey, there’s other girls, you know. Lots of them. All I’ve got to have is dough. If you try to foul me up, I can leave you here right beside him.”

Steve looked at her, saw her shoulders slowly slump, saw the bitterness around her mouth, saw some of her youth leave her eyes, and knew that it would never return.

“I’ll get a towel,” she said.

“Now you make sense, Glory.”

She went into the kitchen. Steve heard her dull steps on the linoleum. She came back with a heavy beach towel. She carried it toward Al. The shape of it didn’t seem quite right.

Steve didn’t catch on until she jammed it against Al’s ribs. Al, his revolver still steady on Steve, slowly turned his head and looked down into the white face of Gloria Gerald. Steve guessed what would happen. He would spin away from the pressure of the gun, Steve’s gun that she had picked up. Al would slam her over the ear with the revolver he held.

She must have suddenly sensed her danger, as she started to move back. The sudden flat jar of a shot slammed against Steve’s ears. Even as his body quivered in anticipation of the brutal thud of lead, his mind told him that the sound had been too thin and brittle to have come from the revolver Al Barnard held.

Al Barnard’s upper lip was a bloody ruin, the flesh smashed away from the broken teeth. He moved back one step, his pale eyes blank and bewildered. The second shot cracked and a small black hole appeared in the middle of his forehead.

Bald-headed Harry, the smoking automatic in his hand, stepped from the kitchen into the small living room. Wesley Gibb, a full head shorter, waddled along behind him, a beaming smile on his suety face.

Gloria, the towel still clasped in her hands, stared down at the broken face of Al Barnard.

“Al!” she said. “Al!” And it was the tone of voice that a woman would use to an obstinate, yet well-loved child who has fallen and who stubbornly refuses to get up.

Steve sagged with reaction. Wesley Gibb pushed by Harry, walked over to the small table at the end of the couch and picked up the box, sewed into gay oilcloth in a checked pattern. “Come home to daddy,” he said.

“For once I’m glad to see you, Harry,” Steve said, trying to smile. He walked over to pick up the heavy revolver.

“Ah-ah!” Harry said. “Mustn’t touch.”

Steve turned and glared at him.

A glance he couldn’t decipher passed between Harry and Wesley Gibb. Harry moved in close, slapped his left armpit, his jacket pockets.

Gloria still stood and looked down at the dead face of Al Barnard. Gibb stepped to the front door, strolled out onto the shallow porch and looked up and down the street.

He came back in and said, “This lovely neighborhood is undisturbed, Harry.”

Steve said, his voice sounding curiously hollow: “Gibb, you’ve got your dough. There it is. Count it and take out my slice and I’ll be on my way.”

“How did it happen, Harry?” Gibb asked. Harry still held the automatic.

Harry frowned. “The big rod belongs to Barnard. I guess his prints are on it pretty good. Use a handkerchief and they won’t smear too bad. I guess Barnard knocks off the girl and Stevie and we come in just in time to gun him down. Okay?”

“She might scream if I give it to him first, Mr. Gibb. And shooting women is worth a little bonus. I’m saving you some money, Mr. Gibb. Say a five-thousand bonus?”

Gibb shrugged. “Okay, Harry.”

Gloria turned and looked at Harry and at Wesley Gibb, actually seeing them for the first time. An odd little frown appeared between her eyebrows. “Are you going to kill me?” she asked. There was no hysteria in her voice. Only bewilderment at something she couldn’t understand. “You killed Al. Are you going to kill me too?” The towel was still clutched in her right hand.

Her answer was the way Harry licked his lips and coughed nervously. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket with his left hand, glanced toward the revolver which still lay ten inches from Barnard’s dead hand.

Her mouth opened and she gasped. She put the back of her hand to her head, reeled helplessly a few steps toward Steve and then fainted against him. Instinctively he caught her, and though her body was limp, her eyes closed, her right hand, shielded by her body, thrust the towel at Steve.

He comprehended immediately and gently lowered her to the floor. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Harry make two quick strides, snatch up the revolver, the handkerchief between his hand and the metal.

As he lowered her to the floor, his hand flashed up under the folds of the beach towel, grasped the butt of the Belgian automatic, his thumb pushing the safety down. He swiveled it toward Harry, and pulled the trigger back and held it there for a moment.

The five shots were an almost continual roar, the automatic bucking in his hand. Harry coughed, a high shallow cough.

Steve twitched the towel off the gun, stepped across Harry’s body and said, “I still don’t like your methods, Gibb.”

Gibb put his fat hands up, palms toward Steve as though, with pudgy fingers, he could halt death. “No, Stevie.”

Steve cut the minute pressure on the trigger. “Why not?”

“It... it was bad judgment. I would have stopped him.”

“What’s the story?”

Gibb licked his suddenly pale lips. “Like this,” he said eagerly, “Harry got big ideas. He saw the money here. He was going to kill all of us and get the cash.”

“There’s some paper and I see a pen in your pocket. Sit down and write what I tell you to write: I, Wesley Gibb, do hereby confess that on the seventh day of January I gave my employee, Harry Something-or-other, orders to kill both Stephen Harris, licensed investigator, and Gloria Gerald, friend of Albert Barnard, who would have been a witness to the killing of Harris. It was my intention to thus avoid paying Harris his promised portion of monies recovered by him from the said Albert Barnard, who stole the money from my crooked gambling house, The Candor Club, Long Island. Harris killed my employee a few seconds before he was to have been shot. Now sign your name.”

Gibb humbly signed, held out the note to Harris.

Steve looked at her and saw that in Al Barnard’s last few words, he had killed her love for him. Steve saw that she was essentially decent, and he remembered what she had been willing to do to prevent Al from killing him, remembered how she had gotten his gun back to him.

He said, “Will you witness this, Miss Gerald? It goes into my safety deposit box as soon as I take you back to New York. I think we can keep the law off you.”

When he looked back, Gibb was greedily ripping the oilcloth off the shoe box. He said, “I’ll take my half now, Gibb.”

“Half!” Gibb said in shocked surprise.

“Sure. I always raise the fee when clients try to cross me.” He turned and smiled at Gloria and there was something in her eyes that he knew he had wanted badly to see there.

“Besides,” he said, turning back to Gibbs, “my personal expenses are about to be doubled, I think. Glory, call the police.”

Content

John D. MacDonald
Loot for the Unlucky Lady

Chapter One Ninety-Grand Doll

Chapter Two Elusive Lady

Chapter Three That Killer Man

Chapter Four Gal With a Gun