Five Star Fugitive

Chapter Four Kill-Boy’s Double-Cross

The C-47 run by the feeder line to Baker was a tired old plane. Inside, it had the smell and the flavor commonly associated with old smoking cars on marginal railroads. It had sagged and blundered its way through storm and hail, freezing cold and blistering heat. It had fishtailed into a thousand inferior runways. The original motors were five changes back. The air-frame was like the uppers of a pair of shoes resoled once too often.

The bored pilot cut the corners off the standard approach pattern and slipped into the Baker strip. The tires leaped and squealed on the cracked concrete and he cursed it for being a weary recalcitrant old lady as he yanked it around and taxied it over to the cinderblock terminal building. Attendants came trotting across the baked cement. The little line prided itself on a ninety-second turnaround. The poop sheet said two off and one on at Baker.

The pilot squatted on his haunches under the wing, a cigarette squeezed between his yellowed fingers. The co-pilot had gone into the building for the initialing of the manifest

The pilot looked at the two passengers who got off. One of them was easy. Local cattleman, right from the cream-colored Stetson down to the hand-sewn boots. The other one was harder to figure. The pilot decided he wasn’t the sort you’d want to strike up any casual conversations with. Brute shoulders on him. Stocky, bowed legs. Long arms. Damned if he wasn’t built like one of them apes.

But it wasn’t an ape’s face. Rimless glasses and that half-bald head. Some crack-pot probably. The zaney little blue eyes beamed around at the world and the mouth was wide and wet-lipped, set in the kind of smile that made you think of the time the high school psychology class went over to the state farm and got a look at the real funny ones.

Only, the pilot decided, you wouldn’t want to laugh at this one. He wasn’t dressed right for the climate in that heavy, dark, wool suit, but you wouldn’t want to laugh at him.

The two suitcases were off-loaded and the new passenger was put aboard. The pilot flipped away his cigarette and went aboard. The steps were wheeled away. The hot motors caught immediately and he goosed it a few times. He trundled old Bertha down to the end of the runway. He glanced back. The funny-looking stranger was just getting into a cab. He looked like a big dark beetle, or like a hole in the sunlight...

Inside the cab, Christy leaned back. The trip from New York had been like walking across a dark room toward one of those little tinfoil wrapped chocolate buds on the far side of the room. You wanted it and you knew it was there and you were thinking about it so you didn’t see anything in the room or think of anything except feeling it between your fingers and picking it up and peeling off the tinfoil and putting it in your mouth.

And Christy was never without chocolate buds in his side pocket. He took one out, but already the climate had gotten to it. It pulped a little between his fingers. He got a look on his face like a child about to cry. All the others were soft too. He dropped them out the window of the cab. His hands were very large, hairless and very white. The network of veins under the skin had a blue-purple tint.

He thought of Diana and he thought of George. He threw his head back and laughed. It was a high, gasping, whinnying sound. George was done. You could see that coming for a long time. So, when it looked right, you gave him a push.

And the push just happened to shake Diana loose, right into his hands — after looking at her so long, and taking her lip, and seeing that contempt in her eyes.

Without realizing it, he had grasped the handle on the inside of the cab door. When he remembered how she had looked at him, his jaw clamped shut and he gave an almost effortless twist of his big wrist. The screws tore out of the metal and the handle came out in his hand.

The driver gave a quick look back. “Hey, what the hell!”

“It was loose.”

The driver met his glance in the rear vision mirror. “Brother, that thing was on there solid and it’ll cost me at least three bucks to get it fixed.”

Christy hunched forward. He put his hand casually on the driver’s shoulder. He smiled wetly. “I said, friend, it was loose.”

“Watch whacha doin’!” the driver said shrilly.

“It was loose.”

“Okay, okay. It was loose. Leggo! Are you nuts?”

Christy leaned back and laughed again. The gutless human race. Always ready to start something and always fast to back down. The best would be George. He had decided to save that until last. Maybe at the last minute George would find out why everything was going wrong lately. It was good to think of that last minute. He knew how he’d do it.

Knock George out and take him down to the boat and wire a couple of cinderblocks to his ankles. Take the boat out and sit and eat chocolates until George came around. Then say, nice and easy, that it was time George joined a lot of his old buddies. Hoist him over the side.

Hold him there with his face above water and the cinderblocks pulling hard on his legs and listen to George talk and beg and promise and scream and slobber. Watch his eyes go mad. Hold him there until there wasn’t any man left, just a struggling animal. Hold him and think of him and then spit in his face and let go.

It would be night and the white face would be yanked down out of sight as though something from underneath had grabbed it. Maybe bubbles would come up like with the others. Then George would be down there, doing a dance in the river current, dancing right along in the chorus with all the guys who’d tried to cut a piece of the big pie and had run into Christy instead.

The cab pulled up in front of the Sage House. Christy paid him the buck and a half rate, tipped him a solemn dime, and carried his bag inside.

“You got a reservation for me,” he said. “A. Christy.”

“Yes, Mr. Christy.”

He had hurried all the way and now he wanted to go slow. Nice and slow. “There’s a friend of mine here, I think. Miss Saybree. Is she in?”

“I believe she’s in her room. Three-eighteen, sir. Shall I phone her?” the clerk asked.

“Skip it. I’ll surprise her.” Nice and slow and easy. The running was over. The girl was smart. She knew what was coming, but she hadn’t tried to run out on it.

He barely noticed the room they gave him. When he was alone, he stretched until the great shoulders popped and crackled. This was a hell of a long way from the carny, the garish midway, the thronging marks paying their two bits to see the Mighty Christy drive spikes with his fists, bend crowbars across his shoulders, twist horseshoes until they broke in his hands.

George had seen him in the carny and seen his possibilities and had jumped in with smart expensive lawyers when there was that trouble about the girl. Temporary insanity they called it, and cleared him, and from then on he’d done everything George said, up until a month ago.

He sat on the bed, wishing he had some chocolate, and thinking about Diana. When you want something bad enough and long enough, you get it.

When the thickness in his throat and the flame behind his eyes was too much to bear, he left the room and went up the stairs to the third floor, passing a second-floor room where a typewriter rattled busily. He rattled his fingernails on the door panel of three-eighteen.

“Who is it?”

“An old pal, sweetness.”

She opened the door. He grinned at her. He’d almost forgotten what a very classy dish she was. She was pale and she spoke without moving her lips.

“Come on in, Christy.” She walked away from him. She walked as though she were on eggs and if she stepped too hard they’d break.

He shut the door. She had gone to sit in a straight chair. She sat with her ankles and her knees together, her hands folded in her lap. Like a new girl at school.

Christy smiled placidly at her. “George is sore,” he said.

“I didn’t want to do this in the first place,” she snapped.

“George figured nobody would be looking for you. Anyway, he wanted you out of town.”

“Why?” she asked, white-lipped.

“You’ve moved. You aren’t living there any more. He had your stuff packed up and put in storage. You can get the claim check from him.”

“Is... is anyone—”

“You ever meet old Bill Duneen? The horse player? He died of a stroke last year. Now George and Bill were great pals. George feels a sort of obligation to look out for Bill’s daughter. Cute kid. Nineteen, I’d say. You could call her a kind of protégé. Did I get the right word?”

It surprised him that she smiled. “If that’s the case, then I can get out of here. If you don’t mind, I have to pack now.”

Christy picked his teeth with a blunt thumbnail. “Sweetness, it ain’t quite that easy. George said to me, he said, ‘Christy, you and Diana are two of the best friends I got. I’d be real hurt if you two didn’t team up.’ ”

“He said no such thing!”

“Sweetness, I’d take it bad if you tried to run out. If you ran out, I’d have to go up to that jerk town you come from and see how those kid sisters of yours look. What’s the name of it? Oneonta.”

“You... you dirty—”

“Ah, ah, ah! No bad words, sweetness. George just happened to mention to me where you come from. He wants us to get along.” He smiled placidly and watched the spirit slowly drain out of her. Her mouth went lax and she lowered her head.

“How come,” he said, “you let some guy take the roll?”

Her head snapped up and her eyes narrowed. “How would you know it was some guy? Why not two or three, or even a woman?”

He knew he’d said the wrong thing. It confused him. When he was confused he acquired a dull ache at the crown of his head. It made him angry.

“George told me he thought it was a guy.”

“George never guessed at anything.”

The idea was growing in her mind. He shrugged. “Maybe friend George knows.”

She smiled at him and he didn’t like her smile. “Christy, it wouldn’t be possible that you’re crossing up George? I never thought of that before. He trusts you. Maybe he’s wrong.”

“Come here, sweetness.”

The color drained out of her face. She didn’t move.

“Come here or I’ll come and get you.”

She stood up as though she were eighty years old. She came to him, one slow step after another.

“Closer, sweetness.”

“There’s something wrong in your head,” she whispered. “Something wrong and dirty and twisted and—”

He moved like a cat. He snatched her right wrist in his left hand and pulled her forward down into the smashing, open-handed blow against her jaw. He hit angrily and watched her go backward, her face going blank as she fell. She landed on her left side and rolled over twice, ending up on her face, one arm cramped under her. The fall had torn one shoe off.

Christy sat, breathing hard, waiting for the mist to clear away from his eyes. Then he began to wonder if he’d hit too hard. He watched her narrowly and sighed as he saw the lift of her breathing. He got up, took the key off the bureau and carefully locked her door behind him as he left.

The blue Texas dusk was settling over the land. A lurid and impossible sunset flamed in the west. Christy walked slowly down the main street to the nearest drugstore, warm satisfaction filling him. He bought some chocolates, looked up the tourist court number and shut himself in the phone booth.

He asked for Mr. Brown and the woman said she’d get him to the phone. In a few minutes he heard Shaymen say cautiously, “Brown speaking.”

“Drop the guard, junior. This is that man.”

“You just get in?”

“I’ve been talking to the pigeon. You did good.”

“Thanks.”

“You got it to turn over?”

Shaymen hesitated. “If I feel like it.”

Christy’s throat began to swell. “Look, Shaymen. I steered you into this. You know your fee. Let’s not get coy.”

“Right now I’m in the driver’s seat. If I wanted to cross you all the way, I wouldn’t even be here. And the phone is no place to talk about it.”

“Drive in and pick me up then. In front of the theater.”

“Right away.”

It was almost dark by the time Shaymen pulled up in front of the theater. The door swung open. Christy climbed in and sat back with a sigh. “Just drive out of town aways and park, Shaymen.”

They did not speak again until Shaymen had pulled off the road. He offered Christy a cigarette, used the dash lighter.

Christy chuckled. “I know you can’t cross me on the amount, Shaymen. She had George’s twenty-eight thousand bucks. And I got the second twenty-eight thousand.”

“I don’t like those thousand dollar bills.”

“I’ll handle those. I know a guy. Now why the coy act?”

Shaymen lifted his cigarette slowly to his lips. “You tipped me a week in advance where she’d be staying so I could lift the roll. You tell me a little. But not enough. I’m not a hired man — I told you that before. You want me working, I’ve got to be on the inside. Call it a partnership.”

“You’re a greedy guy, aren’t you? It worked the way I figured. George sent me down with cash to replace what you took off Diana. The purchase has to go through because he needs the merchandise. Even paying double for it, he makes a small profit once the stuff is cut. Four kilograms. That’s a little over a hundred and forty ounces. The retailers have to make their end, you know, but even so George clears fifty-six thousand bucks at least. Plus two times twenty-eight thousand is a hundred and twelve thousand bucks.”

Shaymen started. “Are you going to try to grab the stuff without paying what you brought down?”

“Right. Those boys from across the line are supposed to be rough, but the Mexican government is cracking down on them. George has been busy lining up a new source. I got all the dope on that. So if this source is going to dry up anyway, all we got to do is freeze them out and grab the stuff without paying.”

“How about George? Won’t they let him know they didn’t get paid?”

Christy laughed his high whinnying laugh. “You kill me, Shaymen. This isn’t hit and run. They may try to tell George, but maybe he won’t be around to listen.” Shaymen whistled. “The works, eh?” Christy slapped his shoulder. “You and me are in, kid. We start in with capital of a hundred and twelve thousand, with a brand new source of stuff, with the retailers in line and with George out of the way. Now give me that dough.”

“It’s in a safe place,” Shaymen said. “Let’s just leave it there, huh?”

“I don’t like your attitude, Shaymen.”

Shaymen flipped his cigarette out the window. “I don’t care what you like and what you don’t like. So far we both got twenty-eight thousand apiece. If what you say is right, I think we’ll have fifty-six thousand apiece. That makes a partnership, doesn’t it?”

“I’ve been taking orders too long,” Christy said. “From now on I’m giving orders.”

“If that’s the way you want it, Christy, you can kiss that twenty-eight thousand good-by.”

Christy reached over and clamped his left hand on Shaymen’s closed right fist. He slowly closed his hand. Shaymen made one futile, feeble effort to slam his left fist toward Christy’s face but pain brought it to a faltering stop.

Christy eased off on the pressure and said, “Where’s the money?”

“Damn you, Christy! In my suitcase.” His tone was angry and sullen.

Christy re-applied the pressure. Again Shaymen screamed, falling forward across the wheel, half-fainting, his weight against the horn ring. Christy pushed him back and blare of the horn ceased.

“Tell me where,” he demanded softly.

Shaymen was panting as though he had run a long distance. “All right... all right. I’ll... tell you... it’s buried under... third flagstone from the front door of... the tourist court... put it there at night...”

“You tried to lie to me, Shaymen. You tried to be a partner.”

Now the mist was thick in Christy’s eyes. He ground down with all his strength. Shaymen made a damp bleating sound and slumped over against the door.

The mist receded. Christy took a chocolate out of his pocket, picked off the tinfoil and put it in his mouth. He sucked at it.

When his mind was made up, he pulled the dying Shaymen into the passenger’s seat, went around and got behind the wheel. He drove back to Baker and then over toward the river to the Mexican settlement. He found a sagging warehouse without lights, and turned out the car lights as he drove behind it.

He stood outside the car for a long time, listening. Shaymen’s breath whistled once and stopped. Again Christy listened. He turned Shaymen’s pockets inside out, emptied the wallet, threw it aside. He smudged his hands around the wheel and over the door handles.

Death of one Mr. Brown — commercial traveler.

Back in the hotel dining room Christy ate a large steak. He went to his room and napped until eleven. At half-past twelve, moving through the darkness like a shadow, he pulled up the flagstone, found the roll of bills in oilcloth under the packed dirt, dropped the stone back and melted off into the shadows. He was in the hotel a little after one.

He paused at the foot of the stairs leading up to the third floor. The damn fool nearby was still typing furiously. Christy felt a thick tiredness inside himself. He turned to his own room, lay heavy in the darkness, the last chocolate melting on his tongue as he fell asleep.